India since its independence in 1947 has been a secular state. The secular values were enshrined in the constitution of India. India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru is credited with the formation of the secular republic in the modern history of the country.[1][2] With the Forty-second Amendment of the Constitution of India enacted in 1976,[3] the Preamble to the Constitution asserted that India is a secular nation.[4][5] However, the Supreme Court of India in the 1994 case S. R. Bommai v. Union of India established the fact that India was secular since the formation of the republic.[6] The judgement established that there is separation of state and religion. It stated "In matters of State, religion has no place. Any State government which pursues nonsecular on policies or nonsecular course of action acts contrary to the constitutional mandate and renders itself amenable to action under Article 356".[6][7][8] Furthermore, constitutionally, state-owned educational institutions are prohibited from imparting religious instructions, and Article 27 of the constitution prohibits using tax-payers money for the promotion of any religion.[9]
Officially, secularism has always inspired modern India.[4] However, India's secularism does not completely separate religion and state.[4] The Indian Constitution has allowed extensive interference of the state in religious affair.[10] The degree of separation between the state and religion has varied with several court and executive orders in place since the establishment of the Republic.[11] In matters of law in modern India, personal laws – on matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, alimony – varies if one is a Muslim or not (Muslims have an option to marry under secular law if they wish).[12][13] The Indian Constitution permits partial financial support for religious schools as well as the financing of religious buildings and infrastructure by the state.[14] The Islamic Central Wakf Council and many Hindu temples of great religious significance are administered and managed (through funding) by the federal and the state governments in accordance with the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, and the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958, which mandates state maintenance of religious buildings that were created before August 15, 1947 (the date of Indian independence), while also retaining their religious character.[13][15][16] The attempt to respect religious law has created a number of issues in India, such as acceptability of polygamy, unequal inheritance rights, extra judicial unilateral divorce rights favorable to some males, and conflicting interpretations of religious books.[17][18]
Secularism as practiced in India, with its marked differences with Western practice of secularism, is a controversial topic in India. Supporters of the Indian concept of secularism claim it respects "minorities and pluralism". Critics claim the Indian form of secularism as "pseudo-secularism".[4][19] Supporters state that any attempt to introduce a uniform civil code, that is equal laws for every citizen irrespective of his or her religion, would not impose majoritarian Hindu sensibilities and ideals.[20][13] Critics state that India's acceptance of some religious laws violates the principle of Equality before the law.[21][22]
History
Ellora Caves, a world heritage site, are in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The 35 caves were carved into the vertical face of the Charanandri hills between the 5th and 10th centuries. The 12 Buddhist caves, 17 Hindu caves and 5 Jain caves, built in proximity, suggest religious co-existence and secular sentiments for diversity prevalent during pre-Islamic period of Indian history.
Ashoka about 2200 years ago, Harsha about 1400 years ago accepted and patronised different religions.[5] The people in ancient India had freedom of religion, and the state granted citizenship to each individual regardless of whether someone's religion was Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism or any other.[25]Ellora cave temples built next to each other between 5th and 10th centuries, for example, shows a coexistence of religions and a spirit of acceptance of different faiths.[26][27]
There should not be honour of one's own (religious) sect and condemnation of others without any grounds.
This approach to interfaith relations changed with the arrival of Islam and establishment of Delhi Sultanate in North India by the 12th century, but it was not the only cause the enmity in minds of Hindu lower caste had risen to the top because of the discimination by Brahmins followed by Deccan Sultanate in Central India.[25] The political doctrines of Islam, as well as its religious views were at odds with doctrines of Hinduism, Christianity and other Indian religions.[5][29] New temples and monasteries were not allowed. As with Levant, Southeast Europe and Spain, Islamic rulers in India treated Hindus as dhimmis in exchange of annual payment of jizya taxes, in a sharia-based state jurisprudence. With the arrival of Mughal era, Sharia was imposed with continued zeal, with Akbar – the Mughal Emperor – as the first significant exception.[25] Akbar sought to fuse ideas, professed equality between Islam and other religions of India, forbade forced conversions to Islam, abolished religion-based discriminatory jizya taxes, and welcomed building of Hindu temples.[30][31] However, the descendants of Akbar, particularly Aurangzeb, reverted to treating Islam as the primary state religion, destruction of temples, and reimposed religion-based discriminatory jizya taxes.[5]
Akbar's tomb at Sikandra, near Agra India. Akbar's instruction for his mausoleum was that it incorporate elements from different religions including Islam and Hinduism.
After Aurangzeb, India came into control of East India Company and the British Raj. The colonial administrators did not separate religion from state, but marked the end of equal hierarchy between Islam and Hinduism, and reintroduced the notion of equality before the law for Hindus, Christians and Muslims.[17] The British Empire sought commerce and trade, with a policy of neutrality to all of India's diverse religions.[25] Before 1858, the Britishers followed the policy of patronizing and supporting the native religions as the earlier rulers had done.[32] By the mid-19th century, the British Raj administered India, in matters related to marriage, inheritance of property and divorces, according to personal laws based on each Indian subject's religion, according to interpretations of respective religious documents by Islamic jurists, Hindu pundits and other religious scholars. In 1864, the Raj eliminated all religious jurists, pandits and scholars because the interpretations of the same verse or religious document varied, the scholars and jurists disagreed with each other, and the process of justice had become inconsistent and suspiciously corrupt.[17] The late 19th century marked the arrival of Anglo-Hindu and Anglo-Muslim personal laws to divide adjacent communities by British, where the governance did not separate the state and religion, but continued to differentiate and administer people based on their personal religion.[17][33] The British Raj provided the Indian Christians, Indian Zoroastrians and others with their own personal laws, such as the Indian Succession Act of 1850, Special Marriage Act of 1872 and other laws that were similar to Common Laws in Europe.[34]
For several years past it has been the cherished desire of the Muslims of British India that Customary Law should in no case take the place of Muslim Personal Law. The matter has been repeatedly agitated in the press as well as on the platform. The Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Hind, the greatest Moslem religious body has supported the demand and invited the attention of all concerned to the urgent necessity of introducing a measure to this effect.
—Preamble to Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, [35][36]
Although the British administration provided India with a common law, its divide and rule policy contributed to promoting discord between communities.[37] The Morley-Minto reforms provided separate electorate to Muslims, justifying the demands of the Muslim league.
In the first half of 20th century, the British Raj faced increasing amounts of social activism for self-rule by a disparate groups such as those led by Hindu Gandhi and Muslim Jinnah; the colonial administration, under pressure, enacted a number of laws before India's independence in 1947, that continue to be the laws of India in 2013. One such law enacted during the colonial era was the 1937 Indian Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, which instead of separating state and religion for Western secularism, did the reverse.[38]
It, along with additional laws such as Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act of 1939 that followed, established the principle that religious laws of Indian Muslims can be their personal laws. It also set the precedent that religious law, such as sharia, can overlap and supersede common and civil laws, that elected legislators may not revise or enact laws that supersede religious laws, that people of one nation need not live under the same laws, and that law enforcement process for different individuals shall depend on their religion.[38][17] The Indian Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act of 1937 continues to be the law of land of modern India for Indian Muslims, while parliament-based, non-religious uniform civil code passed in mid-1950s applies to Indians who are Hindus (which includes Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Parsees), as well as to Indian Christians and Jews.[17][39]
Current status
The 7th schedule of Indian constitution places religious institutions, charities and trusts into so-called Concurrent List, which means that both the central government of India, and various state governments in India can make their own laws about religious institutions, charities and trusts. If there is a conflict between central government enacted law and state government law, then the central government law prevails. This principle of overlap, rather than separation of religion and state in India was further recognised in a series of constitutional amendments starting with Article 290 in 1956, to the addition of word 'secular' to the Preamble of Indian Constitution in 1975.[17][5]
The central and state governments of India finance and manage religious buildings and infrastructure. Above, the inauguration of National Waqf Development Corporation Limited in 2014 for Waqf properties.
The overlap of religion and state, through Concurrent List structure, has given various religions in India, state support to religious schools and personal laws. This state intervention while resonant with the dictates of each religion, are unequal and conflicting. For example, a 1951 Religious and Charitable Endowment Indian law allows state governments to forcibly take over, own and operate Hindu temples,[41] and collect revenue from offerings and redistribute that revenue to any non-temple purposes including maintenance of religious institutions opposed to the temple;[42] Indian law also allows Islamic and other minority religious schools to receive partial financial support from state and central government of India, to offer religious indoctrination, if the school agrees that the student has an option to opt out from religious indoctrination if he or she so asks, and that the school will not discriminate any student based on religion, race or any other grounds. Educational institutions wholly owned and operated by government are prohibited from imparting religious indoctrination, but religious sects and endowments may open their own school, impart religious indoctrination and have a right to partial state financial assistance.[5]
In terms of religions of India with significant populations, only Islam has religious laws in form of Sharia which India allows as Muslim Personal Law.[43] These differences have led a number of scholars[13][44] to declare that India is not a secular state, as the word secularism is widely understood in the West and elsewhere. The attempt to have a Uniform Civil Code has long been discussed as a means to realize a secular Indian state.[13][44]
In the West, the word secular implies three things: freedom of religion, equal citizenship to each citizen regardless of their religion, and the separation of religion and state (polity).[57] One of the core principles in the constitution of Western democracies has been this separation, with the state asserting its political authority in matters of law, while accepting every individual's right to pursue his or her own religion and the right of religion to shape its own concepts of spirituality. Everyone is equal under law, and subject to the same laws irrespective of his or her religion, in the West.[57]
In contrast, in India, the word secular means thorough-going separation of religion and state.[58] According to the Constitution of India, states Smith, there is no official state religion in India, schools that are wholly owned by the state can not mandate religious instruction (Article 28), and tax-payers money cannot be used to support any religion (Article 27).[9] Overlap is permitted, whereby institutions that are not entirely financed by the state can mandate religious instruction, and state can provide financial aid to maintain religious buildings or infrastructure in accordance with law.[59] Furthermore, India's constitutional framework allows "extensive state interference in religious affairs".[10]
According to R.A. Jahagirdar, in the Indian context, secularism has been interpreted as the equality before law, including of all religions, while the state is neutral.[60] Article 44 of the Directive Principles of State Policy adds, "the state shall endeavor to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India."[12] This intent for secular personal laws has been unsettling especially to Indian Muslims, states Smith, in part because they view the alteration of Muslim personal law to be a "grave violation of their freedom of religion".[61]
The term secularism in India also differs from the French concept for secularity, namely laïcité.[4][62] While the French concept demands absence of governmental institutions in religion, as well as absence of religion in governmental institutions and schools; the Indian concept, in contrast, provides financial support to religious schools. The Indian structure has created incentives for various religious denominations to start and maintain schools, impart religious education (optionally), and receive partial but significant financial support from the Indian government. Similarly, the Indian government has established statutory institutions to regulate and financially administer the historic Islamic Central Wakf Council, historic Hindu temples, Buddhist monasteries, and certain Christian religious institutions.[13][63]
Law
Indian concept of secularism, where religious laws are applicable to certain minorities and the state is expected to even-handedly involve itself in religion, is a controversial subject.[17][20][44] Any attempts and demand by the Indian populace to a uniform civil code is considered a threat to right to religious personal laws by Indian Muslims.[5][64] According to a Pew Research report in 2021, three-quarters of Muslims (74%) support having access to the existing system of Islamic courts, but followers of other religions are far less likely to support Muslim access to this separate court system.[45]
In 1978, the Shah Bano case brought the secularism debate along with a demand for uniform civil code in India to the forefront.[20][21]
Shah Bano was a 62-year-old Muslim Indian who was divorced from her husband of 44 years in 1978. Indian Muslim Personal Law required her husband to pay no alimony. Shah Bano sued for regular maintenance payments under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1978.[21] Shah Bano won her case, as well as appeals to the highest court. Along with alimony, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India wrote in his opinion just how unfairly Islamic personal laws treated women and thus how necessary it was for the nation to adopt a Uniform Civil Code. The Chief Justice further ruled that no authoritative text of Islam forbade the payment of regular maintenance to ex-wives.[20][43]
The Shah Bano ruling immediately triggered controversy and mass demonstrations by Muslim men. The Islamic Clergy and the Muslim Personal Law Board of India argued against the ruling.[43] Shortly after the Supreme Court's ruling, the Indian government with Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister,[65] enacted a new law which deprived all Muslim women, and only Muslim women, of the right of maintenance guaranteed to women of Hindu, Christian, Parsees, Jews and other religions. Indian Muslims consider the new 1986 law, which selectively exempts them from maintenance payment to ex-wife because of their religion, as secular because it respects Muslim men's religious rights and recognises that they are culturally different from Indian men and women of other religions. Muslim opponents argue that any attempt to introduce Uniform Civil Code, that is equal laws for every human being independent of his or her religion, would reflect majoritarian Hindu sensibilities and ideals.[20][66]
Islamic feminists
The controversy is not limited to Hindu versus Muslim populations in India. The Islamic feminists movement in India, for example, claim[67] that the issue with Muslim Personal Law in India is a historic and ongoing misinterpretation of the Quran. The feminists claim that the Quran grants Muslim women rights that in practice are routinely denied to them by male Muslim ulema in India. They claim that the 'patriarchal' interpretations of the Quran on the illiterate Muslim Indian masses is abusive, and they demand that they have a right to read the Quran for themselves and interpret it in a woman-friendly way. [citation needed]India has no legal mechanism to accept or enforce the demands of these Islamic feminists over religious law.[citation needed]
Women's rights in India
Some religious rights granted by Indian concept of secularism, which are claimed as abusive against Indian women, include child marriage,[64] polygamy, unequal inheritance rights of women and men, extrajudicial unilateral divorce rights of Muslim man that are not allowed to a Muslim woman, and subjective nature of shariat courts, jamaats, dar-ul quzat and religious qazis who preside over Islamic family law matters.[17][18] Triple Talaq was banned in India, following a historic bill being passed on 30 July 2019.[68]
State subsidy for religious pilgrimage
India continued offering liberal subsidies for religious pilgrimage after 1950, under its polymorphous interpretation of secularism.[69] The largest and most controversial has been the Haj subsidy program for the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, which was criticized as benefitting affluent Muslims and discriminatory against Hindus and Christians who did not get similar subsidy for trips to their own holy places.[69] The central government spent about $120 million in Haj subsidies in 2011.[70] In 2012, the Supreme Court of India ordered an end to the religious subsidies program within 10 years.[71] According to a Wall Street Journal article, Indian Muslim leaders supported an end to the Hajj subsidies, because "hajj must be performed with money righteously earned by a Muslim, and not on money from charity or borrowings. ."[70]
Goa
Goa is the only state in India which has Uniform Civil Code.[72] This system is derived from Portuguese colonization and is maintained until today.[73] The Goa Civil Code, also called the Goa Family Law, is the set of civil laws that governs the residents of the Indian state of Goa. In India, as a whole, there are religion-specific civil codes that separately govern adherents of different religions. Goa is an exception to that rule, in that a single secular code/law governs all Goans, irrespective of religion, ethnicity or linguistic affiliation. It suggests the possibility to establish uniform civil code within a country having rich religious diversity like India.[73] There are still problems in terms of actual implementation in everyday life.[74]
Views
A Hindu temple in Jaipur, India, merging the traditional tiered tower of Hinduism, the pyramid stupa of Buddhism and the dome of Islam. The marble sides are carved with figures of Hindu deities, as well as Christian Saints and Jesus Christ.
Nehru's India was supposed to be committed to 'secularism'. The idea here in its weaker publicly reiterated form was that the government would not interfere in 'personal' religious matters and would create circumstances in which people of all religions could live in harmony. The idea in its stronger, unofficially stated form was that in order to modernise, India would have to set aside centuries of traditional religious ignorance and superstition and eventually eliminate Hinduism and Islam from people's lives altogether. After Independence, governments implemented secularism mostly by refusing to recognise the religious pasts of Indian nationalism, whether Hindu or Muslim, and at the same time (inconsistently) by retaining Muslim 'personal law' .[75]
Amartya Sen, the Indian Nobel Laureate, suggests[76] that secularism in the political – as opposed to ecclesiastical – sense requires the separation of the state from any particular religious order. This, claims Sen, can be interpreted in at least two different ways: "The first view argues the state be equidistant from all religions – refusing to take sides and having a neutral attitude towards them. The second view insists that the state must not have any relation at all with any religion," quotes Minhaz Merchant.[77] In both interpretations, secularism goes against giving any religion a privileged position in the activities of the state. Sen argues that the first form is more suited to India, where there is no demand that the state stay clear of any association with any religious matter whatsoever. Rather what is needed is to make sure that in so far as the state has to deal with different religions and members of different religious communities, there must be a basic symmetry of treatment.[77] Sen does not claim that modern India is symmetric in its treatment or offer any views of whether acceptance of sharia in matters such as child marriage is equivalent to having a neutral attitude towards a religion. Critics of Sen claim that secularism, as practised in India, is not the secularism of first or second variety Sen enumerates.[77]
Pakistani columnist Farman Nawaz in his article "Why Indian Muslim Ullema are not popular in Pakistan?" states "Maulana Arshad Madani stated that seventy years ago the cause of division of India was sectarianism and if today again the same temptation will raise its head then results will be the same. Maulana Arshad Madani considers secularism inevitable for the unity of India." Maulana Arshad Madani is a staunch critic of sectarianism in India. He is of the opinion that India was divided in 1947 because of sectarianism. He suggests secularism inevitable for the solidarity and integrity of India.[78]
Professor of Medieval History at Jawaharlal Nehru University and The Hindu columnist Harbans Mukhia suggests that there was a dichotomy between secularism and communalism that took centerstage during India's freedom struggle. In Mukhia's view, while secularism and communalism were each other’s negation historically, with the Congress embodying the former and the Muslim League the latter, conceptually they both shared the category of community. To him, the Congress' conception of secularism was "just about half a step ahead of communalism".[79]
Over the decades since Independence, the Congress practised its secularism by largely ignoring minority communalism as well as succumbing to majority communalism without ever positing that the two are inseparable. Matters came to a head when the locks on the Babri Masjid were opened and the very humane judgment of the Supreme Court in the Shah Bano case was overthrown through a regressive legislation. It is this dual surrender that gave a spurt to the BJP’s challenge to the Congress’s secularism and to the recentring of communal antagonism in the polity. Secularism, pseudo-secularism, communalism, etc in India are essentially political constructs.[79]
Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on naturalistic considerations, uninvolved with religion. It is most commonly thought of as the separation of religion from civil affairs and the state and may be broadened to a similar position seeking to remove or to minimize the role of religion in any public sphere. Secularism may encapsulate anti-clericalism, atheism, naturalism, non-sectarianism, neutrality on topics of religion, or antireligion. As a philosophy, secularism seeks to interpret life based on principles derived solely from the material world, without recourse to religion. It shifts the focus from religion towards "temporal" and material concerns.
The Uniform Civil Code is a proposal in India to formulate and implement personal laws of citizens which apply on all citizens equally regardless of their religion. Currently, personal laws of various communities are governed by their religious scriptures. Personal laws cover marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption and maintenance. While articles 25-28 of the Indian Constitution guarantee religious freedom to Indian citizens and allow religious groups to maintain their own affairs, article 44 expects the Indian state to apply directive principles and common law for all Indian citizens while formulating national policies.
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.
Mohd. Ahmad Khan v. Shah Bano Begum [1985], commonly referred to as the Shah Bano case, was a controversial maintenance lawsuit in India, in which the Supreme Court delivered a judgment favouring maintenance given to an aggrieved divorced Muslim woman. Then the Congress government enacted a law with its most controversial aspect being the right to maintenance for the period of iddat after the divorce, and shifting the onus of maintaining her to her relatives or the Waqf Board. It was seen as discriminatory as it denied right to basic maintenance available to Muslim women under secular law.
Islam is the largest and the state religion of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. According to the 2022 census, Bangladesh had a population of about 150 million Muslims, or 91.04% of its total population of 165 million. Muslims of Bangladesh are predominant native Bengali Muslims. The majority of Bangladeshis are Sunni, and follow the Hanafi school of Fiqh. Bangladesh is a de facto secular country.
Freedom of religion in India is a fundamental right guaranteed by Article 25–28 of the Constitution of India. Modern India came into existence in 1947 and the Indian constitution's preamble was amended in 1976, to explicitly declare India a secular state. Supreme Court of India ruled that India was already a secular state from the time it adopted its constitution, what actually was done through this amendment is to state explicitly what was earlier contained implicitly under article 25 to 28. Every citizen of India has a right to practice and promote their religion peacefully. However, there have been numerous instances of religious intolerance that resulted in riots and mob violences; notably, the 1984 Sikh Massacre in and around Delhi, 1990 Exile of Kashmiri Pandits (Brahmins) from Kashmir (Cashmere), the 1992–93 Bombay Riots in Mumbai (Bombay), the 2008 Anti-Christian riots in Odisha (Orissa) and other anti-Christian violence in India. Some perpetrators of the 1984 Sikh Massacre have not been brought to justice despite widespread condemnation.
Hindu law, as a historical term, refers to the code of laws applied to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs in British India. Hindu law, in modern scholarship, also refers to the legal theory, jurisprudence and philosophical reflections on the nature of law discovered in ancient and medieval era Indian texts. It is one of the oldest known jurisprudence theories in the world and began three thousand years ago whose original sources were the Hindu texts.
Islamization or Shariazation, has a long history in Pakistan since the 1950s, but it became the primary policy, or "centerpiece" of the government of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the ruler of Pakistan from 1977 until his death in 1988.
Religion in India is characterised by a diversity of religious beliefs and practices. Throughout India's history, religion has been an important part of the country's culture and the Indian subcontinent is the birthplace of four of the world's major religions, namely, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, which are collectively known as native Indian religions or Dharmic religions and represent approx. 83% of the total population of India.
Islam is the state religion of Malaysia, as per Article 3 of the Constitution. Meanwhile, other religions can be practised by non-Malay citizens of the country. In addition, per Article 160, one must be Muslim to be considered Malay. As of the 2020 Population and Housing Census, 63.5 percent of the population practices Islam; 18.7 percent Buddhism; 9.1 percent Christianity; 6.1 percent Hinduism; and 2.7 percent other religion or gave no information. The remainder is accounted for by other faiths, including Animism, Folk religion, Sikhism, Baháʼí Faith and other belief systems. The states of Sarawak and Penang and the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur have non-Muslim majorities. Numbers of self-described atheists in Malaysia are few as renouncing Islam is prohibited for Muslims in Malaysia. As such, the actual number of atheists or converts in the country is hard to ascertain out of fear from being ostracised or prosecution. The state has come under criticism from human rights organisations for the government's discrimination against atheists, with some cabinet members saying that "the freedom of religion is not the freedom from religion".
The United Nations categorizes Bangladesh as a moderate democratic Muslim country. Sunni Islam is the largest religion in the country and in all of its districts, except Rangamati. The Constitution of Bangladesh refers to Islam twice: the document begins with the Islamic phrase Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem and article (2A), added later, declares that: "Islam is the state religion of the republic".
The Constitution of Bangladesh includes secularism as one of the four fundamental principles, despite having Islam as the state religion by 2A. Islam is referred to twice in the introduction and Part I of the constitution and the document begins with the Islamic phrase Basmala which in English is translated as “In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful” and article (2A) declares that :"Islam is the state religion of the republic". Bangladesh is mostly governed by secular laws, set up during the times when the region was ruled by the British Crown.
Secularism—that is, the separation of religion from civic affairs and the state—has been a controversial concept in Islamic political thought, owing in part to historical factors and in part to the ambiguity of the concept itself. In the Muslim world, the notion has acquired strong negative connotations due to its association with removal of Islamic influences from the legal and political spheres under foreign colonial domination, as well as attempts to restrict public religious expression by some secularist nation states. Thus, secularism has often been perceived as a foreign ideology imposed by invaders and perpetuated by post-colonial ruling elites, and is frequently understood to be equivalent to irreligion or anti-religion.
Modern Hindu law is one of the personal law systems of India along with similar systems for Muslims, Sikhs, Parsis, and Christians. This Hindu Personal Law or modern Hindu law is an extension of the Anglo-Hindu Law developed during the British colonial period in India, which is in turn related to the less well-defined tradition of Classical Hindu Law. The time frame of this period of Hindu law begins with the formal independence of India from Great Britain on August 14, 1947, and extends up until the present. While modern Hindu law is heralded for its inherent respect for religious doctrines, many still complain that discrimination still pervades the legal system, though efforts to modernize and increase the legal rights of the marginalized have been made.
The concept of the Two-Nation Theory on which Pakistan was founded, was largely based on Muslim nationalism. Secularism in Pakistan went from being a matter of practice in law by the Government of Pakistan to a political movement opposing the Islamization policies of the military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s. The supporters of Islamisation on the other hand assert that Pakistan was founded as a Muslim state and that in its status as an Islamic republic, it must thereby implement Islamic laws, known as Sharia. Secularists feel that Mohammad Ali Jinnah wanted a state where religious oligarchy will be absent and all Muslims will be liberal, he envisioned for a progressive and liberal Muslim state of Pakistan.
Secularism in Bangladesh is known as "neutrality of religion" under Bangladeshi law. In the Constitution of Bangladesh, secularism is mentioned in the preamble as one of the fundamental principles of Bangladeshi law. Article 8 enshrines secularism as one of the fundamental principles of state policy. And yet, after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975, Bangladesh went to military rule, and in 1979 removed the term secular from their constitution. Article 12 elaborates further on secularism and freedom of religion.
Sharia means Islamic law based on Islamic concepts based from Quran and Hadith. Since the early Islamic states of the eighth and ninth centuries, Sharia always existed alongside other normative systems.
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.
Triple talaq and talaq-e-mughallazah are now-banned means of Islamic divorce previously available to Muslims in India, especially adherents of Hanafi Sunni Islamic schools of jurisprudence. A Muslim man could legally divorce his wife by proclaiming three times consecutively the word talaq.
All the Muslims in India are governed by the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937. This law deals with marriage, succession, inheritance and charities among Muslims. The Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939 deals with the circumstances in which Muslim women can obtain divorce and rights of Muslim women who have been divorced by their husbands and to provide for related matters. These laws are not applicable in the states of Goa, where Goa civil code is applicable for all persons irrespective of religion and state of Uttarakhand. These laws are not applicable to Indians, including Muslims, who married under the Special Marriage Act, 1954.
↑ Kohli, Atul (2014). India's Democracy: An Analysis of Changing State-Society Relations. Princeton Legacy Library. Princeton University Press. p.148. ISBN978-1-4008-5951-1. Indian secularism after independence was mostly articulated by leaders like Nehru, who used the formal instruments of the central government to impress an ideology of secular rationalization.
1 2 Zoya Hasan and Ritu Menon (2005), The Diversity of Muslim Women's Lives in India, Rutgers University Press, ISBN978-0-8135-3703-0, pp. 26–45, 59–64, 92–119
1 2 Pantham, Thomas (1997). "Indian Secularism and Its Critics: Some Reflections". The Review of Politics. 59 (3). Cambridge University Press: 523–540. doi:10.1017/s0034670500027704. S2CID146188919.
1 2 3 John H. Mansfield, "The Personal Laws or a Uniform Civil Code?" in Robert D. Baird, ed., Religion and Law in Independent India (Manohar Press, 1993), pp. 139–177
↑ A. L. Basham, The Wonder that was India, Grove Press, New York (1959); page 53-132
↑ Makarand Paranjape (2009), Altered Destinations: Self, Society, and Nation in India, London, Anthem Press South Asian Studies, ISBN978-1-84331-797-5, pp 150-152
↑ See "Mughal Empire". Gale Encyclopedia of World History: Governments. Vol. 1. Detroit; Gale, 2008
↑ Richards, John F. The Mughal Empire. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993
↑ Domenic Marbaniang, Secularism in India, 2005 as cited by Shiv Shankar Das in "Buddha Dharma, Secular Laws and Bahujan Politics in Uttar Pradesh", Madhya Pradesh Journal of Social Sciences, Vol.19. No.1, June 2014, p. 121
↑ Ganguly, Sumit (2002). "India's Multiple Revolutions". Journal of Democracy. 13 (1). Johns Hopkins University Press: 38–51. doi:10.1353/jod.2002.0007. S2CID145715953., Quote: "they contend that secularism, as practiced in India, has amounted to little more than the pampering of minorities and is therefore pseudo-secularism."
↑ Thomas R. Metcalf (2002). A concise history of India. Cambridge University Press. p.257. ISBN978-0-521-63974-3. Rajiv Gandhi cared little about the Shah Bano case himself, and no doubt would have preferred a common civil code; nevertheless he saw in the opposition to this supreme court decision a heaven-sent opportunity to draw Minority voters to the Congress cause.
↑ Kirti Singh, "Obstacles to Women's Rights in India" in Rebecca J. Cook, ed. Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), pp. 375–396
↑ Sylvia Vatuk, "Islamic Feminism in India: Indian Muslim Women Activists and the Reform of Muslim Personal Law", Modern Asian Studies, Volume 42, Issue 2–3, March 2008, pp. 489–518
1 2 Rao, B. (2006). "The Variant Meanings of Secularism in India: Notes Toward Conceptual Clarifications". Journal of Church and State. 48 (1). Oxford University Press: 59–60, 47–81. doi:10.1093/jcs/48.1.47.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
