"The word ‘secularism’ in India has no bearing on the attitude and conduct of individuals nor of religious groups. However, it has been used as a slogan of varying significance. In its name, anti-religious forces, sponsored by secular humanism or Communism, condemn religious piety, particularly in the majority community. In its name, minorities are immune from such attention and have succeeded in getting their demands, however unreasonable, accepted. In its name, again, politicians in power adopt a strange attitude which, while it condones the susceptibilities, religious and social, of the minority communities, is too ready to brand similar susceptibilities in the majority community as communalistic and reactionary. How secularism sometimes become allergic to Hinduism will be apparent from certain episodes relating to the reconstruction of Somanath temple. These unfortunate postures have been creating a sense of frustration in the majority community."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
in a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian Constitutional Documents: Pilgrimage to freedom (1967), pp. 311-12, as quoted in "The great secular confusion", The New Indian Express, 19th March 2018.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Secularism_in_India
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Secularism in India
62 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Secularism in India →
Related Quotes
"I believe that the word secular is the biggest lie since Independence. Those that have given birth to this lie and th…"
"Secular, as I understand, means that religion should not play any role in governance. If it’s true, then why were you…"
"The secular state assumes that the Semitic religions and the Hindu traditions are instances of the same kind."
"“When Indian intellectuals use existing theories about religion and its history – for example, to analyse ‘Hindu-Musl…"
"‘Christianity spreads in two ways,’ an Indian historian has written: ‘through conversion and through secularisation.’"
"No matter how much tyranny, how much injustice is heaped on Hindus anywhere in the world, the State of India is not b…"
"Since ‘Enlightenment Secularism’, with its core principle of separation, founded on the Protestant conception of reli…"
"The recent import of secularism from the West is based on substituting 'religion' for 'dharma' and adopting Western s…"
"The general enthusiasm for "secularism" in itself should indicate that the meaning of the term has undergone a drasti…"
"As far as I know, Nehru never defined secularism in its proper European and historical context."