Secularism Notes | Class 11 Political Science
This chapter introduces secularism and its different models, including the Indian and the Western models. It looks closely at what makes a state secular, and it also covers Kemal Atatürk's secularism in Turkey and the role of religious denominations. These notes work through every part of the topic for Class 11 Political Science.
What is Secularism?
Secularism is about how a state relates to religion. In its fullest sense it stands against every form of institutionalised religious domination and works for freedom and equality both between religions and within them. To understand it, we first need two ideas: inter-religious domination and intra-religious domination.
Inter-religious domination
Inter-religious domination is a situation where one community or religion dominates another. Suppressing religious minorities is the main form it takes.
Example: The Constitution of India gives every citizen the right to equality and the right to live freely and with dignity, yet some forms of discrimination still 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 thousand Kashmiri Pandits were forced to leave their homes in the Kashmir valley, and many have not been able to return for more than two decades.
- More than 1,000 persons, mostly Muslims, were killed during the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat in 2002. Many surviving families could not go back to the villages in which they had lived.
In each of these examples one community is targeted and victimised because of its religious identity.
Intra-religious domination
Religious domination is not only about one religion dominating another. It takes another clear form, namely intra-religious domination: a situation where a community or religion dominates its own members.
For example, Dalits have often been placed at the bottom of the caste hierarchy and treated inhumanely by so-called upper castes. In some places Dalits have been barred from entering Hindu temples, and in some parts of the country women too cannot enter certain temples.
When a religion becomes organised, it is frequently taken over by its most conservative faction, which does not tolerate any dissent. Many religions split into sects, and this can lead to sectarian violence and the persecution of minorities who disagree.
Secular State
What is a secular state?
A secular state claims to treat all its citizens equally regardless of religion. It does not give preferential treatment to any citizen on the basis of their religious belief, their affiliation, or the lack of either.
A state should not be run by the heads of any particular religion. We need a state that can prevent religious conflict and promote religious harmony.
How can a state avoid being dominated by any religious group?
To answer this, it helps to compare a secular state with states that are tied closely to religion.
Theocratic states
A theocratic state is one that is governed directly by a priestly order. Theocratic states, such as the Papal States of medieval Europe or the Taliban-controlled state today, keep no separation between religious and political institutions. They are known for hierarchy, oppression, and an unwillingness to let members of other religious groups practise their religion freely.
If we value peace, freedom, and equality, religious institutions and state institutions must be kept separate. There are also states that are not theocratic but keep a close relationship with one religion.
Example: In sixteenth-century England the state was not run by a priestly class, but it clearly favoured the Anglican Church and its members. England had an established Anglican religion, which was the official religion of the state.
Today Pakistan has an official state religion, namely Sunni Islam. Such regimes may leave little room for internal dissent or religious equality.
Way forward
A secular state must not only refuse to be theocratic but also keep no formal alliance with any religion. Even so, separating religion and state is a necessary but not sufficient feature of a secular state.
A secular state must also follow principles and goals that are drawn, at least in part, from non-religious sources. Peace, religious freedom, freedom from religiously based oppression, discrimination, and exclusion, and both inter-religious and intra-religious equality are all principles that a secular state must uphold.
Western Model of Secularism
All secular states share a common feature: they are neither theocratic nor supporters of any one religion. The best way to describe the Western model is mutual exclusion. The state will not interfere in religious affairs, and religion will not interfere in the affairs of the state.
Each has its own sphere with its own set of rules and jurisdiction. No state policy can be based only on religious principles, and no public policy can be based on religious classification. If it were, there would be an illegitimate religious intrusion into the state.
The state cannot aid any religious institution. It cannot give financial help to religiously run educational institutions. At the same time it cannot stop religious communities from doing what they wish, as long as they stay within the law of the land.
This popular viewpoint takes an individualist approach to freedom and equality. The idea that a community has the freedom to follow practices of its own choosing carries little weight, so community-based or minority rights have little room to grow.
State-supported religious reform has no place in this version of mainstream secularism, because it treats the separation of state and religion as a strict, mutually exclusive relationship.
The Indian Model of Secularism
Indian secularism is fundamentally different from Western secularism. India already had a tradition of inter-religious tolerance and, as a diverse country, made some space for every religion.
Western modernity brought forward ideas of equality that had earlier been neglected in Indian thought. It sharpened these ideas and helped us focus on equality within a community, and it introduced the idea of inter-community equality to replace the older notion of hierarchy.
The Indian model of secularism opposes both inter-religious and intra-religious domination equally. It opposes the oppression of Dalits and women within Hinduism, discrimination against women within Indian Islam or Christianity, and the threat that a majority community might pose to the rights of minority religious communities. Its main features are:
- Indian secularism deals not only with the religious freedom of individuals but also with the religious freedom of minority communities.
- It makes room for, and is compatible with, state-supported religious reform. The Indian Constitution bans untouchability, and the Indian state has passed several laws abolishing child marriage and lifting the taboo on inter-caste marriage.
- The secular character of the Indian state comes from the fact that it is neither theocratic nor has it established any one or several religions. It follows a very sophisticated policy in pursuit of religious equality.
This allows the state either to keep its distance from religion, in the American style, or to engage with it when required. The Indian Constitution grants all religious minorities the right to establish and run their own educational institutions, which may receive assistance from the state. These strategies are meant to promote the values of peace, freedom, and equality.
Criticism of Indian Secularism
Because India is such a diverse country, home to many religions, its model of secularism is often the subject of fierce criticism. There are several grounds on which it is challenged.
Anti-religious
It is often argued that the Indian Constitution is anti-religious. But standing against institutionalised religious domination is not the same as being anti-religious. The Constitution clearly protects religious identity rather than threatening it. It only undermines those forms of religious identity that are dogmatic, violent, fanatical, exclusivist, or that foster hatred of other religions.
Western import
Secularism is often linked to Christianity and considered unsuited to Indian tradition. But a secular state may keep a principled distance from religion in order to promote peace between communities, and it may also step in to protect the rights of specific communities. India evolved a variant of secularism that is not simply an implant from the West on Indian soil. In fact, secularism has both Western and non-Western origins. In the West the Church-state separation was central, while in countries such as India the peaceful coexistence of different religious communities has been important.
Minorities
A third accusation is that Indian secularism favours minorities. It is true that Indian secularism defends minority rights, but these should not be seen as a special privilege for some. Minority rights are justified as long as they protect people's fundamental interests and treat them with the same respect and dignity as everyone else. The lesson is that minority rights need not, and should not, be viewed as special privileges.
Interventionist
A fourth criticism claims that secularism is coercive and interferes too much with the religious freedom of communities. By rejecting the idea of separation as mutual exclusion, Indian secularism does reject strict non-interference in religion. But it does not follow that it is excessively interventionist. Indian secularism follows the idea of principled distance, which also allows for non-interference when that is the better course. It permits state-supported religious reform too. Personal laws can be reformed in such a way that they continue to protect both minority rights and equality between men and women. Such reform should not be forced by the state or by group coercion, nor should the state adopt a policy of total distance from it. The state should act as a facilitator by supporting liberal and democratic voices within every religion.
Vote-bank politics
There is also a criticism that Indian secularism promotes vote-bank politics. The real question is what precisely the vote is being sought for. If the group that voted for a politician gains nothing from doing so, then surely the politician is to blame. But if secular politicians who seek the votes of minorities also manage to give them what they genuinely need, that is a success of the secular project, which aims, after all, to protect the interests of minorities. The mere fact that secular parties appeal to particular groups is not troubling, because all parties do this in relation to some social group.
Impossible project
A final, cynical criticism is that secularism fails because it tries to do too much and to solve an impossible problem. It is said that people of such diverse religious beliefs will not be able to coexist peacefully. The history of Indian civilisation shows that such coexistence is possible. As globalisation deepens, people from former colonies are migrating to the West, and people from many parts of the world are moving to Europe, America, and parts of the Middle East. In terms of the mix of cultures and religions in their societies, many of these countries are beginning to resemble India, and they are watching the future of the Indian experiment closely.
Atatürk's Secularism
What is Kemal Atatürk's secularism?
A very different form of secularism was practised in Turkey during the early years of the twentieth century. This secularism was not about keeping a principled distance from organised religion. Instead it involved active intervention in, and suppression of, religion. It was championed and practised by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who came to power after the First World War and was determined to put an end to the institution of the Khalifa in the public life of Turkey.
Atatürk acted in an aggressive manner to modernise and secularise Turkey. The Fez, a traditional cap worn by many Muslim men, was banned by the Hat Law. Western clothing was encouraged for men and women. The Western, or Gregorian, calendar replaced the traditional Turkish calendar. In 1928 a new Turkish alphabet, in a modified Latin form, was adopted.
The word secular means being separate from religion, or having no religious basis. Secularism means the separation of religion from the political, economic, social, and cultural aspects of life, so that religion is treated as a purely personal matter. It promotes freedom and equality within and between religions. Because it is opposed to all forms of institutionalised religious domination, it challenges not only inter-religious but also intra-religious domination.
What do we mean by religious denominations?
A religious denomination refers to a subgroup within a single religion that operates under a common identity, name, or tradition. The term is used for the various denominations found in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and other religions.
Why it still matters
Secularism can feel like a purely textbook idea until you notice how often it is argued about in today's news. Two recent examples from India show the very debates in this chapter playing out in real life.
Personal laws and state-supported reform. This chapter explains that Indian secularism allows the state to reform religious personal laws. On 27 January 2025, Uttarakhand became the first state in independent India to bring a Uniform Civil Code into force. It sets one common set of rules on marriage, divorce, inheritance, and succession for most residents, regardless of religion, although Scheduled Tribes are kept outside its scope. Supporters say it advances equality, especially for women, which is exactly the kind of intra-religious reform the chapter describes. Critics worry that it interferes with minority communities. That is the tension between reform and religious freedom that the chapter calls the interventionist debate.
Peaceful coexistence and places of worship. The chapter says a secular state must prevent religious conflict and promote harmony. The Places of Worship Act, 1991 tries to do exactly that by freezing the religious character of most places of worship as it stood on 15 August 1947, so that old disputes are not reopened. In late 2024, after fresh cases and violence over surveys of mosques, the Supreme Court stepped in. On 12 December 2024, a special bench led by the Chief Justice of India ordered that no new suits could be registered, and no new surveys ordered, while the court reviews the law. It is a live reminder that keeping the peace between communities is still contested, decades after Independence.
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