What secularism opposes: inter- and intra-religious domination

Detail

1. Why secularism still matters

• Religious discrimination still exists in many countries:
• Israel: Arab minorities, both Christian and Muslim, do not get benefits that Jewish citizens get.
• Europe: non-Christians face quiet, hidden discrimination.

• Pakistan and Bangladesh: religious minorities live in difficult and unsafe conditions.

• India's promise: the Constitution promises every citizen freedom and dignity in every part of the country. Religious violence breaks this promise.

• Constitutional anchors:
• The words 'secular' and 'socialist', and the word 'integrity', were added to the Preamble (the opening statement of the Constitution's aims) by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976 [6].
• The Supreme Court has said this amendment only stated openly what the Constitution already meant [6].
• S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994): a nine-judge bench held that secularism is a basic feature of the Constitution. A basic feature is a core part that Parliament cannot destroy, even by amendment (basic structure) [6].
• Under Bommai, the State must not mix religion with its secular activities. Religion must not enter the State's non-religious work [6].

2. Inter-religious domination

• Inter-religious domination means one religious community oppresses another. It denies the other community's members their basic freedoms. People are attacked only because of their religious identity.

(a) 1984 anti-Sikh massacre

• More than 2,700 Sikhs were killed in Delhi and other places in 1984. Their families felt that the guilty went unpunished.
• Nanavati Commission (a judicial inquiry led by a retired judge):
• The government appointed it on 8 May 2000 [2].
• It looked into the violence against Sikhs in Delhi and other parts of India from 31 October 1984 onwards [2].

• It submitted its report on 9 February 2005 [2].

• Deaths recorded: 2,146 Sikhs were killed in Delhi and 586 people elsewhere in India, a total of about 2,732 [2].

• Role of the police: the Commission found the police were indifferent or careless. At times, they also helped or joined the attackers [2].
• Late justice: Sajjan Kumar was convicted only in 2018, 34 years after the killings.

(b) Flight of Kashmiri Pandits (from 1990)

• Hindu Kashmiri Pandits were forced to leave the Kashmir Valley from 1990.
• They have stayed away from their homes for more than three decades. (NCERT: "more than two decades".)

(c) Post-Godhra Gujarat riots (2002)

• More than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in the riots that followed the Godhra train burning in Gujarat in 2002.

3. Religion as the "opium of the masses": NCERT's answer

• "Religion as the opium of the masses" is Karl Marx's view (1844). He said religion dulls people's pain like a drug. He believed it would disappear once people's material needs were met.
• NCERT rejects this view:
• Humans can never fully control disease, accidents, separation from loved ones or death.
• Religion, art and philosophy all help people cope with this suffering.

• So religion will not simply disappear.

• Result: secularism is not anti-religious. It opposes religious domination, not religion itself.

4. Intra-religious domination

• Intra-religious domination means oppression inside one religion. One group within a faith dominates other members of the same faith.
• Forms it takes:
• Gender inequality: very few religions treat men and women equally.
• Caste exclusion: dalits have long been barred from Hindu temples. In some places, Hindu women have been barred too.
• Capture by conservatives: organised religion is often controlled by its most conservative group, which allows no dissent.

• Sects and persecution: religions split into sects (smaller groups within a religion), which often persecute members who disagree.

  • Example: in 1974, Pakistan declared Ahmadis non-Muslims.

• Indian legal remedies against caste-based exclusion:

• Article 17 abolishes "untouchability" (the practice of treating dalits as "impure") and forbids it in any form. Enforcing any disability that comes from untouchability is an offence punishable by law [3].
• Article 25(1) gives all persons equal freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practise and propagate religion. This right is subject to public order, morality, health and the other Fundamental Rights [4].
• Article 25(2)(b) lets the State make laws for social welfare and reform. It also lets the State open Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus (the legal basis for temple-entry laws) [4].

• Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955: stopping a person, on grounds of untouchability, from entering a public place of worship open to others of the same religion is a punishable offence [5].

• Key point: the Indian State can step inside a religion to end its internal inequality. This is a clear departure from strict Western-style separation of State and religion.

5. Religious fundamentalism

• Religious fundamentalism is a rigid form of religion that allows no dissent. It is usually led by the most conservative group within the faith.
• NCERT gives parts of the USA as an example.
• Threat: it endangers peace inside a country and between countries.

6. Defining secularism

• Secularism is a normative doctrine: a theory about how society ought to be, not a description of how it is.
• Negative goal: a society free of both inter-religious and intra-religious domination.
• Positive goal: it promotes:
• freedom within religions;
• equality between religions;

• equality within religions.

• It opposes all institutionalised religious domination, meaning domination built into laws, customs or organisations.

• Origin of the word:
• "Secular" comes from the Latin saeculum, meaning "age" or "this world".
• George Jacob Holyoake first used the word "secularism" in 1851. He meant a non-religious civic and ethical philosophy without the negative image that "atheism" had at the time [7].

7. Three terms students often confuse

Term	What it means	Type
Secularism	A theory of how society ought to be: free of inter- and intra-religious domination	Normative doctrine
Secularisation	The decline of religion's role in society over time	Sociological process
Secular state	A government that is not tied to any religion	Institutional arrangement

• Link to Class 10: communalism means using religion to divide society and to dominate others in politics. It feeds inter-religious domination. The secular state is India's constitutional answer to it.

Prelims Hooks

• 'Secular', 'socialist' and 'integrity' were added to the Preamble by the 42nd Amendment, 1976 [6].
• S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994): a nine-judge bench held that secularism is part of the basic structure [6].
• Nanavati Commission: appointed 2000, reported 2005, inquiry into the 1984 anti-Sikh riots [2].
• Nanavati figures: 2,146 killed in Delhi plus 586 elsewhere [2].
• Article 25(2)(b) allows Hindu religious institutions of a public character to be opened to all sections of Hindus. Trap: this is in Article 25, not Article 26 [4].
• Article 17 abolishes untouchability. It is enforced through the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, which punishes blocking entry to places of worship [3][5].
• Holyoake (1851) coined "secularism". "Opium of the masses" is Marx (1844) [7].
• Pakistan, 1974: Ahmadis declared non-Muslims. This is an example of intra-religious domination, not inter-religious.
• Trap: secularisation is a social process, secularism is a normative doctrine, and the secular state is an institution. They are not the same thing.

Mains Points

• Indian secularism fights two kinds of domination.
• Western separation mainly guards against the State favouring one religion over others.
• India's model also allows the State to reform religions from inside, through Articles 17 and 25(2)(b).

• Debate: does this fit "principled distance" (the State keeps away from religion or steps in, depending on what equality needs), or does it go too far into religious autonomy?

• Justice delayed weakens secularism.

• The 1984 conviction came only in 2018.
• The Nanavati Commission found police indifference and, at times, police involvement [2].

• Reform ideas: accountability for police, fast-track courts for communal violence, and a law on communal violence.

• Secularism is not anti-religion.

• Rejecting Marx's thesis lets Indian secularism respect people's faith while still opposing fundamentalism and caste or gender inequality within religions.

• This answers the common charge of "pseudo-secularism".

• Secularism protects national unity.

• Bommai (1994) made secularism part of the basic structure [6].
• Under Bommai, a state government that acts against secularism can face President's rule (central rule over a state under Article 356) [6].