“When the PM starred in the ceremonies around the temple consecration, the line between the State and religion was obliterated,” writes Ronojoy Sen, Professor at National University of Singapore, in the following article.

[Excerpts of article published on the Hindustan Times website on 29 January 2024.]

Mandir turns the spotlight on Constitutional secularism

By Ronojoy Sen

India’s State apparatus was mobilized in unprecedented ways for the consecration of the Ram temple at Ayodhya. Post the 75th Republic Day, what does this say about India’s constitutional secularism?

There is no straightforward answer. Contrary to early works on Indian secularism, such as Donald Smith’s 1963 book, which forecast a progressive “secularization of both private and public life,” the reverse has happened. Large parts of the world, including India, are, in the words of a sociologist, as “furiously religious as it ever was and in some places more so than ever”.

In the Indian case, one of the planks of a liberal conception of secularism – the wall of separation between State and religion – is constitutionally absent.

India’s constitutional secularism – as mandated by the Constitution and interpreted by the courts — is notoriously difficult to classify. One influential typology proposes two kinds of secularism: Assertive, which excludes religion from the public sphere; and passive, which allows for public visibility of religion. Few countries such as France fall in the former category while many, including India and the United States, fall in the latter category which represents a broad spectrum

While most typologies regard India as a secular State, the framers decided to eschew the use of the word “secular” in the Indian Constitution, which was inserted much later, despite fervent pleas by some members of the Constituent Assembly.

Indian secularism has tried to oscillate between sarvadharmasamabhava (goodwill towards all religions) and dharma nirapekshata (religious neutrality). Jawaharlal Nehru’s position on the secular State was one that was not “irreligious”, but respected and honored “all religions giving them freedom to function”.

In the Indian case, one of the planks of a liberal conception of secularism – the wall of separation between State and religion – is constitutionally absent. Though Articles 25 and 26 guarantee the right to individual and collective freedom of religion, they along with other articles also empower the State to intervene in Hindu religious institutions and practices. Scholars have tried to capture the essence of Indian secularism in different ways. One of the more well-known formulations is Rajeev Bhargava’s idea of “principled distance”, where the State “neither mindlessly excludes all religions nor is merely neutral towards them”. While this captures some elements of Indian secularism, they run up against the reality of Indian secularism.

The dispute over Ayodhya has represented one of the most potent challenges to Indian secularism. The political and legal battles over the temple site in independent India beginning in 1949, when an idol of Lord Ram was found inside the existing Babri Masjid, to the 1992 demolition of the mosque to the 2019 Supreme Court (SC) paving the way for the construction of a temple have been marked by duplicity and double standards. …

A historical parallel to the opening of the Ram temple can be found in 1951 when the rebuilt Somnath temple was inaugurated. The then Prime Minister (PM) Nehru did not attend the function and was unhappy with President Rajendra Prasad for “associating” himself with and attending the “spectacular opening”. Times have changed dramatically and a party, whose rise in the 1990s from a marginal entity was predicated on Ayodhya, is expectedly, extracting maximum mileage from the temple. When the PM starred in the ceremonies around the temple consecration, the line between the State and religion was obliterated.

Ronojoy Sen is with the National University of Singapore and author of Articles of Faith: Religion, Secularism, and the Indian Supreme Court.