What is ‘Secularism’? The word ‘Secular’ in its etymological sense can simply be understood to mean ‘anything that isn’t religious’. In the course of its development in the medieval ages, it came to be known as ‘anything that is not ‘the Church’’. Eventually it has come to mean, in the modern politico- legal sense ‘no unnecessitated interference in the religious affairs within the State’.
Invoking the distinction between the Indian and Western (particularly in the USA) conception of ‘Secularism’ as State policy, it is important to emphasise its function, in both these societies, ‘Western’ (ie so in the USA) and Indian. In Western societies, ‘Secularism’ refers to the State’s attitude (in terms of its legal framework and policies) as a measure of ‘non- interference in religious affairs within the State’. More particularly, ‘indifference in so far as the conduction of religious affairs’ is concerned. Thus, in such Western politico- legal societies/ cultures, Secularism is characterised by the existence of two mutually exclusive spheres of action and thought – one of the State, the other of religion. It would not be incorrect to say that here, Secularism is conceived as ‘the sterilised knife which severes the mass of religion from the flesh and body of the State’.
But in so far as the Indian subcontinent is concerned, we have before us a plethora of varied compositions before us. Varied in terms of religion, in terms of colour, creed, culture, language, mores and beliefs. In such an eclectically constituted aggregatum, it was thought essential that some underlying principle of ‘common identity’ and ‘recognisability’ should have been introduced.
Secularism in the Indian politico- legal sense means ‘Autonomy in the conduction of religious affairs in so far as such conduction does not preclude such identical right of persons practicing other religions.’ Secularism in India, therefore ‘is not a tool of indiscriminate sterilisation and separation between the State and ‘the Church’ but rather is ‘the string of adhesion of the multi- coloured Indian social fabric’.
Secularism is not the same as ‘mere toleration of differences’. It is much more than that. For toleration is a non-positive aspect of human living. The collective celebration which necessarily involves respecting differences between oneself and the other is a positive aspect which the principle of Secularism definitely bases itself on.
To draw a comparison between the conception of ‘Secularism’ (as understood by me) and the idea of ‘Poetry’(by the great poet S.T. Coleridge) which according to him “…reveals itself in the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness, with difference; of the general, with the concrete; the idea, with the image; the individual, with the old and familiar objects; a more than usual state of emotion with more than usual order; judgement ever awake and steady self-possession, with enthusiasm and feeling profound or vehement.” It could be said that Secularism too, as a legal-constitutional apparatus, performs much similar functions, in modern democratic societies.
