Why India Needs To Relook At The Concept Of ‘Secularism'

News18

17-07-2025

It is important to take a relook at the concept of 'secularism' as originated in the West and is being applied to India
In the wake of the 50th anniversary of Emergency (1975-77), which was commemorated on June 25 this year, a debate has been reignited on the inclusion of the words 'secular" and 'socialist" in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution. This inclusion was done through the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution in 1976. Several clauses of this amendment were struck down by the Supreme Court in 1980 (Minerva Mills vs Union of India case). The amendment's constitutional morality has also been questioned, as it was passed when the opposition was put in jail by the Indira Gandhi government.
A look at the historical evolution of the concept of 'secularism" indicates that it is largely a Christian construct suitable for the West. Its suitability to India's civilisational construct needs to be debated in this regard.
Origin and evolution
According to Britannica, 'The word secular is derived from the Latin term saeculum, meaning 'a generation", 'a human lifetime", 'an era of time", or 'a century". In its original Christian sense, the word indicated the finite temporal world of mundane daily or political affairs as opposed to Christian religious time and practices filled with the sense of eternity and laden with spiritual significance. The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1768-71) defined secular as 'something that is temporal; in which sense, the word stands opposed to ecclesiastical".
'The English thinker and writer George Holyoake in 1851 was the first to use the term secularism to refer to a particular nonreligious civic and ethical philosophy that he intended to lack the negative ethical connotation that atheism carried at the time."
Holyoake's explanation in 'The Principles of Secularism" (third edition; 1870) is typically rooted in the concept of Christian morality. He said, 'Secularism relates to the present existence of man, and to action, the issues of which can be tested by the experience of this life—having for its objects the development of the physical, moral, and intellectual nature of man to the highest perceivable point, as the immediate duty of society: inculcating the practical sufficiency of natural morality apart from Atheism, Theism, or Christianity: engaging its adherents in the promotion of human improvement by material means, and making these agreements the ground of common unity for all who would regulate life by reason and ennoble it by service."
Interestingly, after Holyoake's first edition of 'The Principles of Secularism" had come out in the early 1850s, a group inspired by his work started a Secular Institute on Fleet Street in London in 1854. Their goal was to set up secular societies. Later they also set up a 'Secular Guild" and published a magazine, 'Reasoner".
Secularism: Christian construct
The concept of 'secularism" as it is applied today was a typical Christian response to intra-Christianity wars and the dominance of the Church in Europe. The Christian wars in the 16th and 17th centuries had ravaged Europe, as the Church was intertwined with the State in such a manner that one couldn't segregate the two.
The Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which ended the 'Thirty Years War" in Europe, was the first significant step by the Western polity to curb the authority of the Church by introducing the principle of cuius regio, eius religio (the ruler's religion would be the religion of the people). Prominent thinkers and intellectuals like John Locke (1632-1704), who is often called the 'father of Western liberalism", pushed for greater religious tolerance to reduce the dominance of the Church in public life.
The French Revolution
One of the key milestones in the development of this Christian framework of secularism was the 'French Revolution" in 1789. It was a violent revolution against the dominance of the Church in France.
According to Stewart J Brown and Timothy Tackett (Christianity: Enlightenment, Reawakening and Revolution 1660-1815; Cambridge University Press; 2008), 'By 1794, the radical revolutionaries had literally attempted to 'de-Christianise' France by closing down churches, forcing priests to resign or emigrate, and inventing new republican cults to replace Christianity. Over the next twenty years, as Catholics struggled to restore religious practice, France's leaders worked to define a new relationship between nation and religion. In the later years of the Revolution, the Directory (1795-99) experimented with separating church and state yet continued to view Christianity as potentially subversive and to pursue anticlerical or de-Christianising policies. When Napoleon came to power, he negotiated a new settlement that re-established Catholicism as the 'religion of the majority of the French' and sought to make it dependent upon the state."
Most importantly, the French Revolution laid down the foundation for the principle of laïcité—the separation of religion and the state. In 1905, France formally codified it as a law.
The rest of Europe broadly followed this principle. Indian intellectuals and politicians who were in awe of 'Western liberalism" or 'Marxism" picked up this idea and thrust it upon India.
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In the Indian civilisational construct dating back several millennia, religion never dominated the state because we were ruled by the concept of 'dharma"—a set of eternal values that has nothing to do with any particular way of worship. In this context, it is important to take a relook at the concept of 'secularism" as originated in the West and is being applied to India.
The writer is an author and a columnist. His X handle is @ArunAnandLive. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views.
tags :
constitution emergency secular
First Published:
July 08, 2025, 19:55 IST