The Western model: mutual exclusion, laïcité and Kemalism

Detail

1. What "Western secularism" means: mutual exclusion

• Western model of secularism: the state and religion are kept apart. Each has its own area and its own power, and neither enters the other's area. The USA shows this model best.
• Mutual exclusion works in two directions:
• The state keeps out of religion. It does not run, reform or manage religious bodies.

• Religion keeps out of the state. It does not shape laws or public policy.

• Rules that follow from this:

• No state policy may rest only on a religious reason.
• No religious category (such as "Hindu", "Muslim" or "Catholic") may be the basis of a public policy.
• The state may not aid religious institutions. For example, it gives no money to schools run by religious communities.

• The state may not hinder religious activity either, as long as that activity stays within the law.

• The state as a "silent witness". The state does not step in when a religion:

• bars women from becoming priests;
• excommunicates dissenters (throws them out of the faith);
• stops some members from entering the sanctum (the holiest inner part of a place of worship).
• Reason: religion is a private matter, not a matter of state policy or law.

2. The legal basis in the USA

• First Amendment (1791): the first of the ten amendments in the US Bill of Rights. It opens with: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" [3].
• Establishment Clause: the government may not set up an official religion or favour one religion over another [3].
• Free Exercise Clause: the government may not stop people from practising their religion [3].

• The two clauses guard against different dangers. A law that sets up an official religion breaks the Establishment Clause even if it forces no one to take part [3].

• "Wall of separation" (1802): in an 1802 letter, Thomas Jefferson said the First Amendment built a "wall of separation between Church and State". US courts later used this phrase to describe strict separation.

• Key cases on the wall:

Case	Year	What the court held
Everson v. Board of Education	1947	A school board could pay parents back for bus fares to parochial (church-run) schools. This did not break the Establishment Clause [3]. The case also applied the wall idea to the US states.
Engel v. Vitale	25 June 1962	Public schools cannot hold official prayer, even if taking part is voluntary. New York's "Regents' prayer" was "wholly inconsistent with the Establishment Clause" [2].
Lemon v. Kurtzman	1971	State money for religious schools was unconstitutional because it caused "excessive entanglement between government and religion". This produced the Lemon test, a three-part check for Establishment Clause cases [3].
Carson v. Makin	2022	The wall was lowered for state funding linked to religious schools.
Kennedy v. Bremerton School District	2022	A school could not stop a football coach from praying after games. Stopping him broke his Free Exercise and free speech rights. The court expressly abandoned the Lemon test [3].

• Trend: after 2022, the US is moving away from strict "no aid" separation and towards a wider view of free exercise.

3. Why the Western model is individualist

• Individualist: rights such as liberty and equality belong to individuals, not to groups.

• So the model leaves little room for community or minority rights, such as the right of a community to run its own schools.

• The historical reason:

• Western societies were mostly of one religion (Christian), with Jews as the main minority.
• So the main conflicts were inside one religion: the Church against dissenters.

• The model therefore paid little attention to equality between religions and to the protection of minorities.

• No state-led religious reform:

• Because state and religion are kept fully apart, the state cannot step in to reform a religion. For example, it cannot end caste exclusion or gender discrimination inside a faith.

• Contrast with India: Article 17 abolishes untouchability, and Article 25(2)(b) lets the state throw open Hindu temples to all classes. The Indian state does intervene in religion.

• Exercise table (NCERT, Q2): how to tell the two models apart

Feature	Western model	Indian model
Relationship of state and religion	Strict separation; mutual exclusion	Principled distance: the state engages with religion or stays away, depending on what liberty and equality need
State interference in religion	Strict non-interference	Interference allowed (e.g. reform, ending untouchability)
Whose rights	Focus on individuals	Individuals and communities
Minority or community rights	Less attention	Protected (Articles 29–30)
State aid to religious schools	None	Allowed on a non-discriminatory basis (Article 30(2))

4. France: laïcité, the "assertive" model

• Laïcité: France's form of secularism. The state is strictly neutral, and religion is pushed out of public institutions.
• Legal base: Law of 9 December 1905 on the Separation of the Churches and the State. It was passed under the Third Republic [3].
• Article 1 of the law: "The Republic ensures freedom of conscience. It guarantees the free exercise of religions", limited only in the interest of public order [3].
• The Republic recognises, pays and funds no religion. From 1905, churches had to support themselves [3].

• The law ended the Concordat of 1801, Napoleon's agreement with the Pope that had let the state pay clergy.

• Later measures (all aimed at keeping public spaces neutral):

Year	Measure
2004	Ban in public schools on "signs or outfits by which students ostensibly demonstrate religious affiliation" (conspicuous religious symbols). It covered large crosses and yarmulkes (Jewish skull caps) too, but was widely seen as aimed at Muslim headscarves [3][5]
2010	Ban on covering the face in public places
2021	Law reinforcing "respect for the principles of the Republic"
2023	Ban on the abaya (a long, loose robe) in state schools

• Assertive vs passive secularism (scholar Ahmet Kuru):
• Passive secularism (USA): the state is neutral but allows religion to be visible in public life.
• Assertive secularism (France, Turkey): the state actively removes religion from public life.

5. Turkey: Kemalist secularism

• Kemalist secularism: the forced, top-down secularisation of Turkey by Mustafa Kemal. It actively suppressed religion so that the country would modernise.
• Background: Mustafa Kemal came to power after World War I. He took the name Atatürk, meaning "Father of the Turks".
• His measures, in order:

Year	Measure
3 March 1924	Caliphate abolished. Ottoman sultans had claimed to be caliph (leader of all Muslims) since the early 16th century. Religious schools were closed at the same time [4]
8 April 1924	Religious courts abolished [4]
20 April 1924	Republican constitution adopted, still keeping Islam as the state religion [4]
1925	Hat Law: the fez (the red Ottoman cap) was banned and Western-style hats were required [4]
1925–26	Western dress encouraged. The Gregorian calendar adopted (1926)
April 1928	Clause naming Islam as the state religion removed. Turkey became a purely secular republic [4]
1928	Latin-based alphabet replaced the Arabic script for Turkish [4]
1937	Laiklik (secularism) written into the constitution as one of the "Six Arrows": republicanism, nationalism, populism, statism, secularism and revolution [4]

• NCERT's question: if a secularism tells you what to call yourself, what to wear and which script to write in, is it compatible with freedom? This is secularism against religion, not freedom of religion.
• Contrast with India: Nehru was not hostile to religion. Indian secularism protects religious freedom while opposing domination by any one religion.
• Later reversals in Turkey:
• 2013: the headscarf ban in public service was eased.
• 2020: Hagia Sophia, a museum since 1934, was turned back into a mosque.
• These show that secularism imposed from above can be undone when politics changes.

Prelims Hooks

• First Amendment (1791): the Establishment Clause means no official religion; the Free Exercise Clause means no ban on practising religion.
• "Wall of separation between Church and State" comes from Thomas Jefferson's 1802 letter. It is not a phrase in the US Constitution.
• Engel v. Vitale (1962): official prayer in public schools is unconstitutional even if voluntary [2].
• Everson (1947): paying back bus fares to parochial schools was upheld as constitutional [3]. It is a trap if paired with "struck down".
• Kennedy v. Bremerton (2022) abandoned the Lemon test of 1971 [3].
• France: Law of 9 December 1905 separated Churches and State. The 2004 law banned conspicuous religious symbols in public schools [3].
• Turkey: Caliphate abolished in 1924, fez banned by the Hat Law in 1925, Latin alphabet in 1928, secularism in the constitution in 1937 as one of the "Six Arrows" [4].
• Trap: "Western secularism allows state-supported religious reform." This is false. Mutual exclusion rules out reform by the state. Indian secularism allows it.
• Trap: the Indian Preamble got the word "secular" only through the 42nd Amendment (1976). The Western-style "wall" is not the Indian model.

Mains Points

• Mutual exclusion vs principled distance. The Western model protects the individual from the state but leaves the state as a "silent witness" to unfairness inside a religion, such as bars on women priests or exclusion from the sanctum. India's model lets the state intervene for equality: Article 17, Article 25(2)(b), and temple-entry laws.
• Individualism vs community rights. A model built for societies with mostly one religion fits poorly with deep religious diversity. India therefore adds minority rights (Articles 29–30) and non-discriminatory aid to minority institutions.
• Assertive secularism and freedom. French laïcité (bans in 2004, 2010 and 2023) and Kemalism (rules on dress, script and calendar) show that a secularism hostile to religion can limit personal liberty and alienate minorities. Turkey's reversals (2013, 2020) show such secularism has weak roots when imposed from above.
• The wall is not fixed. After Carson and Kennedy (2022), even the US model is bending towards accommodating religion [3]. Secularism is a political choice that changes over time, which helps when defending India's flexible, context-based model.