Roots of Indian secularism: tolerance, Nehru and the Constituent Assembly

Detail

1. The Indian setting: diversity came first

• India had deep religious diversity long before modern Western ideas or nationalism arrived.
• Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis and many sects lived side by side for centuries.
• Western secularism grew mainly in one-religion societies, where many sects of Christianity existed. India's secularism had to manage many different religions. This is why the two models differ.

2. The tradition of tolerance

• Religious tolerance means putting up with faiths and practices that are different from your own, even ones you dislike, without trying to wipe them out.
• Ashoka's Rock Edict XII (3rd century BCE):
• It asks people to respect all sects (pasandas).

• It warns that a person who praises their own sect and runs down others actually harms their own sect.

• Akbar's sulh-i-kul ("peace with all", 16th century):

• The Mughal state would not take sides between religions.

• It went with the debates at the Ibadat Khana (house of worship) and with abolishing the jizya (a tax on non-Muslims).

• Bhakti and Sufi saints (e.g. Kabir, Nanak, Nizamuddin Auliya):

• They stressed personal devotion over ritual.
• They spoke against barriers of caste and creed.

3. NCERT's warning: tolerance is not enough

• Tolerance can coexist with domination. A dominant group may "tolerate" others while keeping them below itself.
• It gives only limited freedom. The minority lives on the goodwill of the majority, not by right.
• It means putting up with people one finds repugnant (unpleasant). It does not mean respecting them.
• When it helps: tolerance is a virtue after a civil war or long religious violence, when stopping the killing is the first goal.
• When it falls short: in peacetime, people struggle for equal dignity and respect. Being merely "put up with" is not enough for them.

4. What Western modernity added

• Western modernity means the ideas of the European Enlightenment: reason, individual rights, equality and the nation-state.
• It brought forward ideas of equality within communities that had been neglected. Example: challenges to caste and to gender hierarchy inside Hinduism.
• It also promoted equality between communities, in place of a ranking of religions where some were above others.
• Result: Indian secularism focuses equally on two kinds of domination:
• Intra-religious domination: domination inside a religion, e.g. upper castes over Dalits, or men over women.

• Inter-religious domination: domination of one religion over another, e.g. majority over minorities.

• This double focus is one key way Indian secularism differs from the Western model, which mainly worries about the state and the church staying apart.

5. Gandhi: religion and politics cannot be separated

• Sarva dharma sama bhava means "equal respect for all religions".
• Gandhi said religion cannot be separated from politics (Class 10, Ch 3).
• By "religion" he meant the moral values that all religions share (truth, non-violence, compassion), not Hinduism, Islam or any one faith.
• His point: politics must be guided by ethics taken from religion. It must not be run by any one religious community.

6. Nehru: the "philosopher of Indian secularism"

• Nehru's idea of secularism was "equal protection by the State to all religions".
• The state protects all religions.
• It favours none.

• It adopts no state religion (no official religion).

• Not religious, but not anti-religion:

• Nehru personally followed no religion.

• Unlike Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Turkey, he was not hostile to religion. Ataturk pushed religion out of public life by force, for example by banning the fez and changing the script.

• Supported state action for reform:

• laws against caste discrimination, dowry and sati

• the Hindu Code Bills (1955-56), which gave legal rights to Hindu women. They became the Hindu Marriage Act 1955, the Hindu Succession Act 1956, the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act 1956, and the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act 1956.

• Against all communalism. Communalism means using religion to divide people and to claim political power for one community against others.

• Nehru opposed every form of communalism.

• He opposed majority communalism most strongly, because it could threaten the nation itself.

• He saw secularism as the guarantee of India's unity and integrity.

7. The Constituent Assembly: secular design, without the word

• K.T. Shah's attempt to add the word:
• On 15 November 1948, Prof. K.T. Shah moved Amendment No. 98 to draft Article 1. He wanted it to read: "India shall be a Secular, Federal, Socialist Union of States" [3].

• The Assembly rejected it [3]. (NCERT: Shah's 1948 amendments to add "secular" failed.)

• Why the Assembly held back: in 1949 the word "secular" was seen as imprecise, because some scholars read it as opposed to religion [2].

• A secular design anyway. The Constitution built secularism into these rights:

Article	What it does
14	Equality before the law and equal protection of the laws
15	No discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth
16	Equal opportunity in public employment; no religious bar [2]
25	Freedom of conscience; right to profess, practise and propagate religion, subject to public order, morality, health and other fundamental rights; the state may regulate secular activities linked to religion [2]
26	Each religious denomination may run religious and charitable institutions and manage its own affairs [2]
27-28	No tax to promote a particular religion; no religious instruction in fully state-funded schools
29	Protects the distinct culture of any section of citizens [2]
30	Religious and linguistic minorities may set up and run their own educational institutions [2]
44 (DPSP)	The state shall try to secure a Uniform Civil Code (one set of personal laws for all citizens) [2]

• The debate over "propagate":
• Draft Article 19 (now Article 25) was debated on 3 and 6 December 1948 [4].
• Some members wanted to drop "propagate". They feared it would allow forced conversions [4].
• Supporters replied that propagation means spreading a faith by "exposition, illustration and persuasion", not by force [4].

• The word was kept [4].

• The debate over minority rights: members argued over how far cultural and educational rights for minorities (Arts. 29-30) should go. The Assembly protected them as fundamental rights.

8. The 42nd Amendment, 1976: the word arrives

• The Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976 inserted "socialist", "secular" and "integrity" into the Preamble [2].
• "Sovereign Democratic Republic" became "Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic".

• "unity of the Nation" became "unity and integrity of the Nation".

• It was passed during the Emergency. The petitioners in Balram Singh pointed out that this was after the Lok Sabha's normal term had ended on 18 March 1976 [2].

• How the Preamble is amended (Article 368): the Supreme Court has said the amending power covers the Preamble [2]. 1. An amendment bill is introduced in either House of Parliament. 2. Each House passes it separately by a special majority. This means a majority of its total membership and two-thirds of the members present and voting. 3. There is no joint sitting if the Houses disagree. 4. The President must give assent (made compulsory by the 24th Amendment, 1971). 5. The bill does not need approval by half the states, because the Preamble is not one of the federal provisions listed in Article 368(2).

9. 1978: the failed attempt to define "secular"

• The Constitution (Forty-fifth Amendment) Bill, 1978 was later renumbered as the 44th Amendment Act, 1978. It tried to add definitions to Article 366 [2]:
• "secular" = a republic that upholds equal respect for all religions

• "socialist" = a republic committed to ending all forms of exploitation, whether social, political or economic

• The Rajya Sabha (Council of States) did not accept this change. So "secular" is still undefined in the text [2].

10. Courts on secularism: S.R. Bommai to Balram Singh

• Secularism is part of the basic structure. Basic structure means the core features of the Constitution that Parliament cannot destroy, even by amendment. The Court has said secularism is one of them in:
• Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala (1973, 13 judges) [2]

• S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994, 9 judges) [2]

• R.C. Poudyal v. Union of India (1994): even before 1976, secularism meant the nation's commitment to treat all faiths equally and without discrimination [2].

• M. Ismail Faruqui v. Union of India (1994) [2]:
• Indian secularism has the widest possible scope.
• The state has no religion of its own.

• Secularism does not stop the state from removing religious practices that block development and equality. This fits Nehru's reform agenda.

• Dr Balram Singh v. Union of India (25 November 2024, 2024 INSC 893). The bench was CJI Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar. It dismissed the challenge to "socialist" and "secular" [2]. Its key holdings:

• Parliament's amending power under Article 368 extends to the Preamble.
• The adoption date (26 November 1949) does not limit that power. The argument against "retrospective" insertion fails.
• The Constitution is a living document. Parliament could add words the Constituent Assembly had not adopted.
• India has built its own meaning of secularism: the state neither supports any religion nor penalises any faith.
• Secularism is one facet of the right to equality.
• The challenge came 44 years late (filed in 2020). The words are widely accepted by "We, the people of India".

Prelims Hooks

• K.T. Shah: moved Amendment No. 98 on 15 November 1948 to make draft Article 1 read "Secular, Federal, Socialist Union of States". It was rejected.
• 42nd Amendment, 1976: added socialist, secular, integrity to the Preamble. "Integrity" is the one most often missed in MCQs.
• Trap: the 44th Amendment Bill, 1978 tried to define "secular" as "equal respect for all religions" in Article 366. The Rajya Sabha rejected it, so "secular" has no definition in the Constitution.
• The word "propagate" in Article 25 was debated on 3 and 6 December 1948 over fears of conversion, and it was kept.
• Nehru's definition: "equal protection by the State to all religions". Gandhi's: sarva dharma sama bhava, with religion meaning the moral values common to all faiths.
• S.R. Bommai (1994, 9 judges): secularism is a basic feature. Balram Singh (25 November 2024): amending power under Article 368 covers the Preamble.
• Akbar's sulh-i-kul means "peace with all". Ashoka's Rock Edict XII asks people to respect all sects.
• Ataturk vs Nehru: both were personally non-religious. Ataturk was hostile to religion; Nehru was not.

Mains Points

• Tolerance vs equal respect:
• Ashoka, Akbar and the Bhakti-Sufi saints gave India a culture of tolerance.
• But tolerance can sit alongside domination and gives only limited freedom.

• Indian secularism goes further and demands equal dignity. It fights both intra-religious domination (caste, gender) and inter-religious domination (majority over minority).

• Principled distance, not strict separation:

• Nehru's model (state protects all and favours none, but steps in to reform, e.g. the Hindu Code Bills 1955-56) differs from the Western wall between church and state.
• It also differs from Ataturk's hostility to religion.

• Debate: is reform aimed at only one community "selective"? This leads to the question of the UCC under Article 44.

• Absence of the word vs presence of the principle:

• The Constituent Assembly rejected the word (1948) but built secularism into Arts. 14-16 and 25-30.
• The 42nd Amendment (1976) only made it explicit.

• Balram Singh (2024) confirmed that the word is valid and called secularism a facet of equality. Argue that the meaning still comes from courts (Bommai, Ismail Faruqui), not from a text definition, because the 1978 attempt to define it failed.

• Majority communalism as the main threat: Nehru warned that the communalism of the majority is the most dangerous kind, because it can pass itself off as nationalism. Use this for GS-I answers on communalism and post-1947 nation-building.