What is secularism?

When different cultures and communities live in one country, how can a democratic state ensure equality for all of them? Secularism is one answer. In India almost every party says it is secular, yet secularism is also questioned and debated. This chapter asks: What does it mean? Is it a Western import? Does it favour minorities? Is it anti-religious?

Inter-religious domination. Discrimination on grounds of religion continues in many parts of the world, and the book notes concern about the treatment of religious minorities in several countries.

• India's Constitution gives every citizen the right to live with freedom and dignity anywhere in the country, yet exclusion and discrimination persist.
• The book cites three stark examples: the violence against Sikhs in 1984, the forced departure of Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir valley, and the riots in Gujarat in 2002. In each, members of one community were targeted because of their religious identity, and basic freedoms were denied.
• Secularism is first of all a doctrine that opposes all such inter-religious domination: the domination of one religious community by another.

Intra-religious domination. Some believe religion is merely 'the opium of the masses' and will disappear once everyone's needs are met. That view overrates human power: we will never fully control the world, end all disease or avoid separation and loss. Religion, art and philosophy are responses to such suffering. Secularism accepts this, and so it is not anti-religious.

• But religions have deep-rooted problems of their own. Hardly any religion treats men and women equally. Some sections face persistent discrimination: dalits have been barred from entering temples, and in some places women cannot enter temples.
• Organised religion is often taken over by its most conservative faction, which does not tolerate dissent; many religions split into sects, leading to sectarian violence and persecution of dissenters.
• So secularism opposes intra-religious domination (domination within a religion) as well as inter-religious domination.

Secularism, in sum, is a doctrine that seeks a society free of both inter-religious and intra-religious domination. Put positively, it promotes freedom within religions and equality between, as well as within, religions.

Example (new): if a religious trust running a school refuses to let girls of its own faith study science, that is domination within a religion; if one community stops another from buying homes in a neighbourhood, that is domination between religions. Secularism opposes both.