"Their [the British Raj] determination not to risk the promotion of Christianity in India was left even more rock-solid. Nevertheless, they had no hesitation in fostering assumptions bred of Christian theology. That there existed a religion called Hinduism, and that it functioned in a dimension distinct from entire spheres of human activity – spheres called ‘secular’ in English – was not a conviction native to the subcontinent. Instead, it was distinctively Protestant. That, though, would not prevent it from proving perhaps the most successful of all British imports to India. In time, indeed – when, after two centuries, Britain’s rule was brought at last to an end, and India emerged to independence – it would do so as a self-proclaimed secular nation. A country did not need to become Christian, it turned out, to start seeing itself through Christian eyes."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Tom Holland - Dominion_ The Making of the Western Mind-Little, Brown (2019)
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."