It is a standardising belief that seeks to realise a secular society – a society without inter-religious or intra-religious domination. It establishes freedom and equality within as well as between religions. A state committed to the ideal of secularism needs to maintain specific policies related to religion and religious communities.

Concepts and Perceptions of Secularism

In India, two distinct but related conceptions of secularism emerged: the Negative secularism attributed to Mahatma Gandhi and the Positive secularism.

In India, secularism means the state that treats all religions equally. Religion continues to assert its political authority in matters of personal law in India. The principled distance model, which, on the one hand, respects diversity (Articles 25 to 28, guaranteeing the fundamental right to freedom of religion) while also empowering the state to intervene in cases of religious discrimination. Articles 29 and 30 of the Indian Constitution seek to create a principled distance between minorities and the majority in order to protect, preserve, and propagate their cultural, linguistic, and religious identities  by establishing cultural and educational institutions.

Communal Harmony Model

It is based on Gandhi’s idea that there are many paths to the same God, but the goal is the same because God is the same. In fact, there are as many roads on the planet as there are people. The various religions were like the leaves of a tree; they may appear different, but are all the same at the trunk. It rejects the idea of the world ever having a single religion, a uniform religious code for all humanity.

What is required is proper recognition of various religious communities, as well as the assurance of comfort and trust among their members. This is possible because all humans have a fundamental desire for what could be described as deep sociability. They value human relations as a means to an end. They want to have a positive relationship with others. The world’s religious diversity, as well as the impossibility of there ever being a single religion for all of humanity, necessitates mutual respect, equal regard, and communal harmony.

However, it is the responsibility of communities to maintain communal harmony. But there were times when this communally sustained harmony was disrupted, if not broken down. When this occurs, the state must intervene. And for this to be possible, it cannot already be aligned with a single religion but must be distant from all.

Inter-religious Domination

The Indian Constitution states that every Indian citizen has the right to live freely and dignifiedly in any part of the country.

  • Several prohibitions and discrimination continue to persevere even until now. For example, more than 2,700 Sikhs were massacred in the 1984 riots.
  • Many members of a particular community pray on account of their religious recognition. Some incidents are instances of religious oppression.
  • Secularism is the foremost belief that contradicts all such forms of inte-rreligious sovereignty. 

Intra-religious Domination

  • The feeling of separation and loss are aboriginal to the human condition. 
  • Religion, art, and philosophy are responses to some sufferings. Secularism is not anti-religious.
  • Deep-rooted problems of religion: 
  • When religion is put in order, it is often taken over by its most conservative caucus, which does not permit any dissent.
  • Religious fundamentalism has created a big problem in parts of the US. 
  • Many religions break up into small pieces, leading to periodic sectarian violence and maltreatment of dissenting minorities.

Religious dominance cannot be identified solely through inter-religious dominance. It takes another prominent arrangement, notably, intra-religious oppression. Since secularism is in opposition to all the structures of institutionalised religious dominion, it questions both interreligious and intra-religious dominion. 

Need of Secular State

  • Religious discrimination can be prevented by working together for mutual enlightenment and education.

Lone examples of distribution and reciprocated help shall also contribute towards decreasing suspicion and prejudice among communities, but these aren’t enough.

  • In modern societies, states have enormous public power and their functioning is bound to make huge differences to the outcome of any struggle to make a society inter-community conflict and religious discrimination free. 
  • For the same reason, we need to discuss what sort of state is required to prevent religious conflict and disputes and to promote religious harmony.

Preventing domination of any religious group by state:

  • The head of any particular religion must not run the State: Religious institutions and state institutions must be separated to maintain peace, freedom, and equality. 

In medieval times, theocratic states such as the Papal States of Europe, lacking separation between religious and political institutions, were known for their oppressions and reluctance to allow freedom of religion to members of other religious groups. 

  • Many non-theocratic states continue to have a close alliance with a particular religion. A pastoral class did not govern the State in England in the 16th century but favoured the Anglican Church and its members.

To be Truly Secular

A state must have no legal or formal alliance with any religion. 

  • A secular state shall be carried out by the goals and principles, which are in part taken from non-religious sources.
  • These ends must comprise religious freedom, peace, freedom from religiously grounded persecution,  exclusion and discrimination.
  • To encourage these arrangements, the state must be isolated from the arrangement of religion and its institutions for some of these values’ sake.
  • The nature and extent of separation may take different forms, depending upon the specific values and the way in which these values are spelt out.

Theocratic: A state is directly governed by a pastoral order.

 Conclusion 

A state must be truly secular by refusing to be theocratic and by having no formal, legal ties to any religion. On the other hand, religion and state separation are a necessary but not sufficient component of a secular state. A secular state must be committed to non-religious principles and goals.