educational centres, propagating religious ideas, and converting people into different religions, providing autonomy to people over their religious beliefs.
We generally don’t realise the importance of something until it’s gone. There have been times when people weren’t allowed to openly practise their religion or the rulers used to demolish religious places and asked themselves to be worshipped instead. We have a come a long way, far from that dreadful history but we must learn to value this blessing of living in a ‘secular’ state where no one holds an authority to devoid us of our religious rights, and we are free to worship Allah, Ram, Guru sahib, Jesus, Buddha or just no God, all at our own will.
India as a Secular Nation
Seeing the diverse religions that thrive within the domain of Indian national boundaries, the framers of the Indian constitution found it fitting to declare India as a ‘Secular State’. The word was added to the Indian constitution with the 42nd Amendment of 1975 and was reflected in the preamble to the constitution, which shows it’s importance in defining the nation’s governance. However, the Indian idea of secularism is pretty much different than what is globally accepted.
Unlike the western definition of separation of state from religion, India sticks to a completely modified version that defines it as ‘neutrality of state to all the religious groups’. The Indian Government is not separated from the religion but rather is unbiased towards them all. It does take part in religious hustle-bustle going on within the country premises though never tries to establish it’s dominion over any of them.
The religious institutions, charities, and trusts fall under the concurrent list, giving both state and central governments the right to frame laws regarding them. India’s diversity allows the flourishing of many religious groups in the country, including Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, and many other minorities.
Secularism is a significant notion that needs to be sustained in today’s society, and that could be done only when we learn to respect individual choices regarding faith and rise above narrow mindedness believing in the universal religion of ‘HUMANITY’. Today, each country of the world should ensure ‘unity in diversity’ amongst its people because secularism is something we all should have supreme faith on; otherwise, it will just remain written in books as an ideology even the whole world together could not act upon.