The return of the secular
5 years, 3 months ago

The return of the secular

The Hindu  

It was both touching and comforting to hear the reply of Nikhil, a young student from Jamia Millia Islamia, to an unexpected question put to him last week by a TV anchor — “What does Jamia mean to you?” After a long pause, he said, “It has given me tehzeeb, an understanding of the samvidhaan and taught me to read, write and think. Second, the more legal and philosophical, constitutional secularism of India, one that is immensely complex, nuanced and comprehensive, cognisant of deep diversity as well as oppression within communities. Besides, the whole idea of proving one’s citizenship by producing documents before government officials is abhorrent — anyone born in India must be presumed to be an Indian citizen and should not be compelled to demonstrate this. No one within the territory of India, Indian citizen or foreign national, must be treated differently. The reappearance of secularism in Indian public discourse, initiated by young Indian students, is surely a matter of relief and joy to those who aspire to protect India’s diverse cultural heritage, defend India’s Constitution and wish every Indian to have a better standard of living.

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History of this topic

Head-on | India’s innate secularism demolishes majoritarian myth
4 months, 3 weeks ago

Head-on | India’s innate secularism demolishes majoritarian myth

Firstpost  

Despite provocations, the majority of India’s 80 per cent Hindu population has not succumbed to majoritarianism. Jews fleeing persecution in Europe and the Middle East too found refuge in India’s southern states, living in peace with Muslims and Christians amid a Hindu majority. The communalisation of Goa’s social fabric was caused not by India’s innate secular ethos but by Portugal’s …

SC's Ruling on Preamble: Secularism a Cornerstone of Constitution
Top News
5 months, 1 week ago

SC's Ruling on Preamble: Secularism a Cornerstone of Constitution

News 18  

The Supreme Court has ruled that secularism is an essential part of the Indian Constitution. The court held that the words 'socialist' and 'secular' were part of the original Preamble and that their inclusion was consistent with the Constitution's basic structure. The court also noted that the Preamble was adopted in 1949, and that any changes to the Preamble after …

Why We Need to Redefine Our Secularism
1 year, 1 month ago

Why We Need to Redefine Our Secularism

News 18  

We are living in a time when the very idea of ‘Bharat’ as a modern nation-state has come under intense scrutiny. There is no gainsaying the fact that India, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has seen a marked departure from the Nehruvian idea of secularism, demonstrating a palpable desire to embrace its ancient roots which Nehru once disparagingly referred to …

Secularism does not mean non-religious but equal respect to all faiths, says EAM Jaishankar
1 year, 4 months ago

Secularism does not mean non-religious but equal respect to all faiths, says EAM Jaishankar

Firstpost  

The senior BJP leader said the political and social changes seen in India in the last few years have partly been a reaction “at an intellectual and political level” to this sense of unfairness. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar emphasized that secularism in India entails equal respect for all faiths, dispelling the notion that it implies non-religiosity. Speaking during an …

‘Secularism is also to protect Hindus from their own orthodoxies’
1 year, 6 months ago

‘Secularism is also to protect Hindus from their own orthodoxies’

The Hindu  

Multi-religious India’s founding ideals are fast being reshaped by a majoritarian formulation of the relationship between the state and religion. Rajeev Bhargava, political theorist and author of Reimagining Indian Secularism, analyses the strengths and failings of India’s sui generis secularism. On the other hand, Indian secularism was born in response to India’s phenomenal diversity. Borrowing from the title of your …

Indian Secularism Has Evolved Beyond the Pale, Icy Definition Imposed by the British - News18
1 year, 9 months ago

Indian Secularism Has Evolved Beyond the Pale, Icy Definition Imposed by the British - News18

News 18  

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, during his visit to the United States last week, termed the Indian Union Muslim League a ‘secular’ party. Political secularism would deny the history of destruction and selectively celebrate the unique cultural identity of India. Without going into too many examples, let’s turn to the case of the Supreme Court of India which has fiercely guarded …

The Great Indian Secularism: Why We Need an Indigenous Model That Recognises Bharat - News18
2 years, 8 months ago

The Great Indian Secularism: Why We Need an Indigenous Model That Recognises Bharat - News18

News 18  

The Muslim clergy, representing the gargantuan chunk of one among the six notified minorities on TV debates, claim to believe in the neologism of Ganga-Jamni Tehzeeb. With the backing of the Nehruvian establishment, academics, ideologues and activists with political agendas and communist proclivities have cleverly advertised secularism and reduced it to having odious and pejorative opinions about the majority — …

Dharma Files | This is how secularism has failed India
2 years, 8 months ago

Dharma Files | This is how secularism has failed India

Firstpost  

The government should immediately get out of the business of running Hindu temples, as by not doing so it violates one of the basic tenets of secularism This question can no longer be dodged. Is it a tenet of Indian secularism, that it is only the Central government which will stay out of religion, and not the state governments? According …

Strengthen secularism, save the republic
2 years, 11 months ago

Strengthen secularism, save the republic

The Hindu  

The High Court of Karnataka has not been able to settle the hijab issue. Another crucial factor which makes a theocratic state impossible in India is the complex, inegalitarian, hierarchical and oppressive social structure of the majority religion. A theocratic state functions on the basis of religious laws, which in India means the Dharma Shastras according to which only a …

The two Indias when it comes to secularism
3 years, 3 months ago

The two Indias when it comes to secularism

Op India  

This week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Kashi Vishwanath corridor, built at a cost of around Rs 339 crore. What is the relationship between the Hindu religion and the modern Indian state? In this version, what is the relationship between the Hindu religion and the Indian state? But then, why do liberals complain when the government promotes the state …

Gandhi, Secularism, And Cultural Democracy
4 years, 6 months ago

Gandhi, Secularism, And Cultural Democracy

ABP News  

One might put it differently: any serious discussion of ideas in the public sphere is becoming increasingly difficult, and in this respect it is not Gandhi alone who has suffered—and similarly it is not in India alone that a frightening ethno-nationalism is now unabashedly on display. Some days ago, I was pleasantly surprised to read that India’s Minister of External …

Indians, how they get ‘secularism’ so horribly wrong and how the atmosphere changed after Islam and Christianity entered India
4 years, 7 months ago

Indians, how they get ‘secularism’ so horribly wrong and how the atmosphere changed after Islam and Christianity entered India

Op India  

Indians are generally highly intelligent. Now the idea that reason, and not blind belief in one ‘revealed truth’, should guide society, took root in Europe and this lead to the demand for separation between State and Church. Though Hindu Dharma survived and never dictated terms to its followers nor to the state, ‘secular’ was added to the Constitution of India …

Should Gandhi’s Idea of Secularism be Reshaped for Today’s India?
5 years, 2 months ago

Should Gandhi’s Idea of Secularism be Reshaped for Today’s India?

The Quint  

There is a bustling temple down the road, just a stone’s throw away from where my parents live. Every morning, the temple’s pandit turns on the microphone and sings bhajans for an hour. It would have been fine, even enjoyable, if the pandit could sing well. The complicity of the local police, the patronage of the unemployed youth, and the …

The unique goals and challenges of Indian secularism
5 years, 2 months ago

The unique goals and challenges of Indian secularism

Hindustan Times  

Dr Jaime Torres Bodet Director General of UNESCO Jawaharlal Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad arriving at Parliament House for the session of the Indian National Commission for Cooperation with UNESCO. Most commonly, “Indian secularism” is understood to mean something like the equal treatment of all religions. However, virtually all commentators agree that India is secular—which seems unarguable given the word’s …

Secularism is a western concept, India must reconsider its inclusion in preamble: RSS ideologue
5 years, 2 months ago

Secularism is a western concept, India must reconsider its inclusion in preamble: RSS ideologue

India TV News  

"Sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic" is how India is referred to in the preamble of the Constitution. However, J. Nandakumar, a key RSS leader and All India Convenor Prajna Pravah, a Sangh offshoot, wants India to reconsider the inclusion of the word "secular", claiming secularism is a "western, Semitic concept". He argued that India does not need a secular ethos …

Is Narendra Modi undermining secularism in India?
5 years, 3 months ago

Is Narendra Modi undermining secularism in India?

Al Jazeera  

Indian prime minister has defended his controversial citizenship law as protests sweep the country. Hindu nationalism has been emboldened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi since he was elected in 2014 and his government has taken measures that have raised fears among Muslims in particular. A new citizenship law offers migrants of religious minorities from three neighbouring countries the right to …

CAA, NRC, Article 370 protests have called into question idea of India's secularism; answers lie beyond the Constitution
5 years, 3 months ago

CAA, NRC, Article 370 protests have called into question idea of India's secularism; answers lie beyond the Constitution

Firstpost  

Saying India is secular because the Constitution says so is an appeal to authority. The people of India deserve the dignity of an argument for secularism When the government abrogated Article 370 this year, there was a lot of conversation around the fact that the people of Jammu and Kashmir should only join India with their consent. The re-election of …

Are the foundations of India’s secular democracy crumbling?
5 years, 3 months ago

Are the foundations of India’s secular democracy crumbling?

Al Jazeera  

Gov’t says the controversial citizenship bill will protect minorities, critics say it discriminates against Muslims. The lower house of India’s parliament has approved a controversial law that the government says offers a home for people fleeing religious persecution but which opponents say undermines the country’s secular identity. The bill, which still must be approved by Parliament’s upper house, would bring …

Opinion | A reasonable reconciliation is necessary
5 years, 4 months ago

Opinion | A reasonable reconciliation is necessary

Live Mint  

The Ayodhya verdict unanimously pronounced by the five-judge bench of India’s honourable Supreme Court on the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid disputed site’s title suit on 9 November 2019 has been considered historic, though one is not certain whether this will help wind up various political movements associated with it or nudge them towards the spirit and letter of India’s Constitution. It …

Congress’ biggest mistake was its insistence on secularism: Mark Tully
5 years, 6 months ago

Congress’ biggest mistake was its insistence on secularism: Mark Tully

Hindustan Times  

Veteran journalist and writer Mark Tully said insisting upon ‘secularism’ while neglecting the country’s devotional religions was a ‘mistake’ made by the Congress and which helped the Bharatiya Janata Party. Addressing a gathering during an event in Goa, Tully said on Thursday evening that Congress’ ‘mistake’ allowed the BJP to rise and impose its version of Hinduism in the country. …

Congress weakened secularism, says Asaduddin Owaisi
6 years, 6 months ago

Congress weakened secularism, says Asaduddin Owaisi

Deccan Chronicle  

Hyderabad: Citing the arrogance, politics of entitlement and arm-twisting tactics of the Congress as the reasons for the weakening of the spirit of secularism, MIM president Asaduddin Owaisi said, “Muslims have high representation only in prisons, just as Dalits are represented adequately only in manual scavenging. In every institution and on all crucial criteria, they are lagging so far behind, …

‘New secularism’ of Indian liberals is a scary kind of fundamentalism
6 years, 10 months ago

‘New secularism’ of Indian liberals is a scary kind of fundamentalism

Op India  

A few years ago, Al-Shabab, the radical Islamist group in Somalia, made a decision to put a ban on samosas. How different is Al-Shabab’s 2011 war on samosas from what I call the “new secularism” that is practised by Indian liberals of today? This mutant form, which I call “new secularism” is much more aggressive than anything seen in the …

Debating secularism
7 years, 8 months ago

Debating secularism

The Hindu  

JUSTICE VIKRAMJIT SEN, A RETIRED JUDGE of the Supreme Court, once observed during the hearing of a case in 2015: “India is a secular country, but I don’t know how long it will remain so.” A sense of exasperation might have been behind his observation, but events since then could make one wonder whether the judge’s remark was meant to …

A Saturday : One Bengali renounces Indian secularism
7 years, 9 months ago

A Saturday : One Bengali renounces Indian secularism

Op India  

Here’s a wish from Rabindranath Thakur : Chitta jetha bhoyshunyo, uchcho jetha sheer… Bharatere sei sarge koro jagorito Words from Gitanjali. No, as a matter of fact, this whole joke called “idea of India” was built on the bones of millions of Hindus of East Bengal. Why did Indian secularism throw away the lives of Hindus of East Bengal? The …

UP election results will herald a funeral of 'counterfeit' secularism in India
8 years ago

UP election results will herald a funeral of 'counterfeit' secularism in India

Firstpost  

The counter-secularism forces have registered a decisive victory in UP and this trend is likely to continue through the 2019 elections and beyond. On Saturday, when the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election results were announced, I had argued in Firstpost Decode – the website’s live election day coverage – that BJP’s landslide victory will herald in the “funeral of secularism”, whose …

Why India is not a secular state
9 years, 3 months ago

Why India is not a secular state

Op India  

The 42nd amendment to the Constitution of India inserted the word “secular” into the preamble thus making India a “secular” Republic. Here is why I assert that the Indian state is NOT secular : Different laws for Hindus, Muslims and Christians In a truly secular country, all citizens irrespective of religion would be covered by a single set of laws. …

The need for a new agenda
9 years, 8 months ago

The need for a new agenda

The Hindu  

Secularism is often understood in the narrow confines of religious tolerance. However, inter-religious harmony and tolerance are an important element of the larger concept, which concerns us today, of the “idea of India”. Indeed, for this very reason, given the Left’s visionary commitments to the long struggle for freedom, its role is absolutely central to the realisation of the idea …

Rewriting the nation state
10 years ago

Rewriting the nation state

The Hindu  

Days after Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament Sakshi Maharaj >called Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse, a “patriot,” the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha, an ideological affiliate of the Sangh Parivar p >etitioned the government to provide space for installing busts of Godse at public places across India. Describing him as ‘an irreplaceable asset to the intellectual discourse of Hinduism’, the …

Saving secularism from the ‘secularists’
11 years ago

Saving secularism from the ‘secularists’

Live Mint  

In 2005, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appointed the Sachar committee to study the social and economic condition of India’s Muslim community. In January 2014, in an astounding display of New Delhi’s executive interference in the functioning of states’ police and judiciary, Shinde wrote to all chief ministers asking them to set up special screening committees to look at cases where …

Believe in secularism based on insaaf, insaniyat: Rajnath on Muslim apology
11 years, 1 month ago

Believe in secularism based on insaaf, insaniyat: Rajnath on Muslim apology

Firstpost  

We have always taken all communities along. BJP President Rajnath singh talking exclusively to Firstpost, has blasted the UPA government’s purported move to bring nine laws via ordinance including four corruption bills that Congress Rahul Gandhi has been pushing for. They let corruption flow freely and now when they have no face to explain their conduct before the people, Rahul …

India First - Who is afraid of Narendra Modi's definition of secularism?
12 years ago

India First - Who is afraid of Narendra Modi's definition of secularism?

India TV News  

‘Secularism' basically is a western concept that separates government institutions and functionaries from religious institutions and dignitaries.It basically means that the state has no religion of its own and that it will neither influence religious institutions nor will get influenced by them.The constitution that India adopted post independence did not include ‘secularism' in its Preamble. After the country was partitioned …

For me, secularism means India First, Modi tells Indian disaspora in the US
12 years ago

For me, secularism means India First, Modi tells Indian disaspora in the US

India TV News  

Washington, March 10: Denied a visa to visit US, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today took to video conferencing to address Indian-American community, saying his idea of secularism is "India First". And if this happens, secularism will automatically run in our blood," the Gujarat Chief Minister said.Modi was denied US visa on the issue of human rights violation.Last week, the …

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