Secularism India
Secularism in Indian context is different from the the sense in which it has been used in Western countries i.e. in the sense of atheism or purely this worldly approach, rejecting the other-worldly beliefs.
India is a country where religion is very central to the life of people. India’s age-old philosophy as expounded in Hindu scriptures called Upanishad is sarva dharma samabhava, which means equal respect for all religions. The reason behind this approach is the fact that India has never been a mono-religious country.
India is one country where caste rigidity and concept of untouchability evolved and still plays a major role in religious, social and cultural matters. Caste dynamics in Indian life, even in Christian and Islamic societies, plays larger than life role. Since most of the conversions to Christianity and Islam took place from lower caste Hindus[citation needed], these two world religions also developed caste structure. There are lower caste churches and mosques in several places.
Under feudal system there was no competition between different religious traditions as authority resided in sword and generally there were no inter-religious tensions among the people of different religions. They co-existed in peace and harmony though at times inter-religious controversies did arise. However, there never took place bloodshed in the name of religion.
There was also tradition of tolerance between religions due to state policies of various kings since times of Gupta Kings to Ashoka and Akbar. Many religious sects and practices kept away from rigid intolerant forms.
The Indian National Congress at the time of independence from British Raj adopted secularism, not as this worldly philosophy but more as a political arrangement. As power-sharing arrangement could not be satisfactorily worked out between the Hindu and Muslim elite the country was divided into two independent states of India and Pakistan, Muslim majority areas of North-West going to Pakistan.
After independence and partition a large body of Muslims were left in India and hence the leaders like Gandhi and Nehru preferred to keep India secular in the sense that Indian state will have no religion though people of India will be free both in individual and corporate sense to follow any religion of their birth or adoption. Thus India remained politically secular but otherwise its people continued to be deeply religious.
In India right from the British period main contradiction was not between religious and secular but it was between secular and communal. In the western world main struggle was between church and state and church and civil society but in India neither Hinduism nor Islam had any church-like structure and hence there never was any such struggle between secular and religious power structure.
The main struggle was between secularism and communalism. The communal forces from among Hindus and Muslims mainly fought for share in power though they used their respective religions for their struggle for power.
It can now be asked how many Indian people are secular and how many unsecular? Since secularism does not mean being this worldly in India, one cannot say how many are believers and how many unbelievers? On the contrary in Indian context what it means how many people are against people of minority religions like Islam and Christianity and how many people respect them.
The fact is that in India an overwhelming majority of people are religious but tolerant and respect other religions and are thus ‘secular’ in Indian context. Even Sufis and Bhakti Saints are considered quite secular in that sense.