This chapter introduces the students to the idea of secularism and its different models like the Indian and the Western models. The chapter enlists the in-depth discussion about the secular nature of the state. We also highlight Kemal Atatürk's Secularism and the role of religious denominations.
What is Secularism?
Inter-Religious Denominations
Inter-religious Domination is a situation where a Community, religion dominates the other. Suppressing religious minorities happens to be the major cause of the Inter-Religious Denominations.
Example: The Constitution of India facilitates its citizens by the right to equality and the right to live freely and with dignity but there are some forms of discrimination that continue in reality:
● More than 2,700 Sikhs were massacred in Delhi and many other parts of the country in 1984. The families of the victims feel that the guilty were not punished.
● Several thousands of Hindu Kashmiri Pandits have been forced to leave their homes in the Kashmir valley; they have not been able to return to their homes for more than two decades.
● More than 1,000 persons, mostly Muslims, were massacred during the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat in 2002. The surviving members of many of these families could not go back to the villages in which they lived.
In all the above-mentioned examples we saw religious discrimination in one form or the other. Here, one community is targeted and victimized on the account of their religious identity.
Intra-religious Denominations
Thus religious domination cannot be identified only with inter religious domination. It takes another conspicuous form, namely, intra-religious domination.
Intra religious domination: situations where a community/religion dominates its own members. For example, Dalits are at a very low hierarchy and they are treated inhumanely and like slaves by upper castes.
In religions such as Hinduism, some sections have faced persistent discrimination. For example, Dalits have been barred from entering Hindu temples. In some parts of the country, Hindu women cannot enter temples.
When religion is organised, it is frequently taken over by its most conservative faction, which does not tolerate any dissent. Religious fundamentalism in parts of the US has become a big problem and endangers peace both within the country and outside. Many religions fragment into sects which leads to frequent sectarian violence and persecution of dissenting minorities.