The Obscure case of Secularism in India

Priyansh Priyadarshi
Chanakya National Law University, Patna, India.

Volume IV, Issue I, 2021

It has been long debated whether or not India is a secular country. Secularism is one of the most debated topics in India and there exists a plethora of debate about India’s secular nature. Many claim that India is not a secular country as it lacks the wall of separation between the state and the religion and state does not follow the non-interventionist approach in the matters concerning religion as the western countries do but there’s another school of thought which claims that India indeed is secular state and we don’t need to view India’s secularism from rigid-western lens, India has its own version of secularism and the concept of secularism has been deeply imbedded in the Indian society and its dates back to ancient India.

This socio-legal paper is an attempt to analyse the debates about secularism India, by tracing the history of secularism in India by examining the various sociological as well as legal aspect. In an attempt to encapsulate the secularism discourse, the paper also traces the constitutional as well as judicial history by focusing on the intent of the drafters of the constitution and the various judicial interpretation about the secular aspect of the India constitution.

Keywords: Constitution, History, Indian, Intervention, Separation, Secularism, Western.

DOI: http://doi.one/10.1732/IJLMH.25755