Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on naturalistic considerations, uninvolved with religion.
The term pseudo-secularism is used to describe individuals who claim to be secular but may display biases towards a particular religion, whether consciously or unconsciously. This term has gained popularity in recent Indian politics, where it is often used to criticize individuals who identify as secular and advocate for minority rights while remaining silent or opposing concerns faced by the majority religion. Some Hindu nationalist parties employ this term as a counter-accusation against their critics, alleging that the secularism followed by the Indian National Congress and other self-declared secular parties are flawed or distorted.
Bhikhu Chotalal Parekh is a British political theorist, academic, and life peer. He is a Labour Party member of the House of Lords. He was Professor of Political Theory at the University of Hull from 1982 to 2001, and Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Westminster from 2001 to 2009. He served as president of the Academy of Social Sciences from 2003 to 2008.
Romila Thapar is an Indian historian. Her principal area of study is ancient India, a field in which she is pre-eminent. Thapar is a Professor of Ancient History, Emerita, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in South West Delhi.
Ashis Nandy is an Indian political psychologist, social theorist, futurist and critic. A trained clinical psychologist, Nandy has provided theoretical critiques of European colonialism, development, modernity, secularism, Hindutva, science, technology, nuclearism, cosmopolitanism, and utopia. He has also offered alternative conceptions relating to cosmopolitanism and critical traditionalism. In addition to the above, Nandy has offered an original historical profile of India's commercial cinema as well as critiques of state and violence.
B. S. Chimni is a legal scholar and academic who is presently distinguished professor of international law member at Jindal Global Law School. His areas of expertise include international law, international trade law and international refugee law. He has been chairperson of the Centre for International Legal Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He had a 2+1⁄2-year stint as vice chancellor of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences. He has been a visiting professor at the International Center for Comparative Law and Politics, Tokyo University, a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School, visiting fellow at Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg, and a visiting scholar at the Refugee Studies Center, York University, Canada.
Amiya Kumar Bagchi is an Indian political economist.
Sudhir Kakar was an Indian psychoanalyst, novelist and author in the fields of cultural psychology and the psychology of religion.
Balmiki Prasad Singh was the 14th Governor of Sikkim, India. He is a retired IAS officer and has written books and articles relating to Indian culture, in particular the culture of North-East India. Among his prominent books are Bahudha and the post 9/11 World and The problem of change: a study of North East India.
Deepak Nayyar is an Indian economist and academician. He is a professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Chairperson of the Board of Governors of Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) New Delhi. He has taught at the University of Oxford, the University of Sussex, the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM-C), and the New School for Social Research, New York City. He was Vice Chancellor of the University of Delhi from 2000 to 2005.
Shiv Visvanathan is an Indian academic best known for his contributions to developing the field of science and technology studies (STS), and for the concept of cognitive justice, a term he coined. He is currently Professor at O P Jindal Global University, Sonepat. He was Professor, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DA-IICT), Gandhinagar, India and has held the position of Senior fellow Center for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in Delhi He has also taught at the Delhi School of Economics. He has held visiting professorships at Smith College, Stanford, Goldsmiths, Arizona State University and Maastricht University, Harvard University & Oxford University. He is author of Organizing for Science, A Carnival for Science and has co-edited Foulplay: Chronicles of Corruption. He has been consultant to the National Council of Churches and Business India.
Yogendra Yadav is an Indian activist, psephologist and politician whose primary interests are in the political and social sciences. He was a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi from 2004 to 2016. He is a former member of University Grants Commission (UGC) and National Advisory Council on the Right to Education Act (NAC-RTE) constituted by Ministry of Human Resources and Development, Govt of India, in 2010. He was a member of the National Executive of the Aam Aadmi Party until 2015.
Susan Visvanathan is an Indian sociologist, social anthropologist and a fiction writer. She is well known for her writings on religious dialogue and sociology of religion. Her first book Christians of Kerala: History, Belief and Ritual among the Yakoba is a pathbreaking work in the field of sociology of religion.
Rajni Kothari was an Indian political scientist, political theorist, academic and writer. He was the founder of Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in 1963, a social sciences and humanities research institute, based in Delhi and Lokayan, started in 1980 as a forum for interaction between activists and intellectuals. He was also associated with Indian Council of Social Science Research, International Foundation for Development Alternatives, and People's Union for Civil Liberties.
Tista Bagchi, Professor of Linguistics in the University of Delhi, is a distinguished Indian linguist and ethicist. Bagchi trained in Sanskrit College, Kolkata, the University of Delhi, and the University of Chicago, from where she obtained her PhD in Linguistics, her work spans issues of semantics and syntax in languages in general and South Asian languages in particular, questions of ethics in the application of medical technology and social interaction, and translations of iconic texts in Bangla literature and comparative philology. Bagchi has also been active in the area of cognitive sciences with special interests in the relationships amongst sentence structure, computation, linguistic meaning, and human cognition. Bagchi was the Robert F. & Margaret S. Goheen Fellow for the academic year 2001–2002 at the National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and a scientist under the CSIR Mobility Scheme at the National Institute of Science, Technology, and Development Studies, New Delhi, for two years during 2010–2012.
Principled Distance is a new model of secularism given by Rajeev Bhargava. The separation of government institutions and persons mandated to represent the state from religious institutions and religious dignitaries. He says that Indian secularism did not erect a strict wall of separation, but proposed a 'principled distance' between religion and state. Moreover, by balancing the claims of individuals and religious communities, it never intended a bludgeoning privatization of religion. In India, secularism means equal treatment of all religions. Religion in India continues to assert its political authority in matters of personal law. The western model of secularism is criticized in India for being an outdated concept as Rajeev argued that since Western model was developed when society was more homogeneous but since in the era of globalization, society is becoming more heterogeneous therefore a new concept, suitable for the present situation, is needed. He even argued that since Europe itself is no more homogeneous hence West should also follow the principled distance model which on one hand respects the diversity and at the same time empowers the state to interfere in case of any discrimination in the name of religion.
Valerian Rodrigues is an Indian political scientist. He is known for his influential work on Babasaheb Ambedkar, and for his formulations of themes in Modern Indian Political Thought. Rodrigues has made substantial contributions to the debate on the working of the Indian Parliament, constitutionalism in India, and agrarian politics in India. As a Professor at the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, he was popular for his lectures on Indian Political Thought and Intellectual History, and critically reading the same through political concepts of modernity, secularism and nationalism. Before joining JNU, Rodrigues taught at the Department of Political Science at Mangalore University, Karnataka, India.
Ananya Vajpeyi is an Indian academic and writer. She is Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. She is the author of the book "Righteous Republic: The Political foundations of Modern India" published by the Harvard University Press. Born in 1972.
Sanjay Kumar is an Indian political analyst and psephologist. He served as the director of Centre for the Study of Developing Societies from January 2014 to January 2020. His primarily areas of interest lies are electoral politics, political mobilization, Indian youth and Indian democracy. He has conducted research on a wide range of themes, including state of democracy in South Asia, state of Indian farmers, electoral violence and slums of Delhi.
Gopal Guru is an Indian political scientist. He is the editor of the journal Economic and Political Weekly. He is a retired professor in political science at Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He was a visiting professor at Columbia University, Oxford University and University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Earlier, he taught at the University of Delhi and the University of Pune.
