Social Science VERY SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS

Many holidays on a school’s annual calendar pertain to different religions. This indicates that India is a secular country where religious freedom is granted to its citizens and all religions are equally respected.

It is important to separate religion from the State because of the following reasons:

1. To prevent the domination of one religion over another.
2. To protect the freedom of individuals to exit from their religion, embrace another religion or have the freedom to interpret religious teachings differently.

The strategies followed by the Indian government to establish secularism are:

1. Strategy of non-interference.
2. Strategy of distancing itself from religion
3. Strategy of intervention

The government will surely intervene if some religious group says that their religion allows them to practice infanticide. Needless to say that the practice of infanticide is a crime. Under this practice the life of a newly-born child is killed. The law does not allow anyone to kill a life.

In India, government spaces like law courts, police stations, government schools and offices are not supposed to display or promote any one religion. Government schools cannot promote any one religion either in their morning prayers or through religious celebrations.

There is one significant way in which Indian secularism differs from the dominant understanding of secularism as practised in the United States of America. This is because unlike the strict separation between religion and the State in American secularism, in Indian secularism the State can intervene in religious affairs.

Secularism is the belief that no one should be discriminated on the basis of the religion he or she practises. Every citizen, irrespective of which religion he or she follows, is equal in the eyes of the laws and policies that govern the Nation.

The objectives of the Indian constitution that advocates secularism are…
One religious community should not dominate another.
Some members of a religious community should not dominate other members of the same religious community.
The State should not enforce any particular religion nor take away the religious freedom of individuals.

Article 17 in the Right to Equality is related to the ‘Abolition of Untouchability.’
It states: “Untouchability” is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. The enforcement of any disability rising out of “Untouchability” shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law.”

In February 2004, France passed a law banning students from wearing any conspicuous religious or political signs or symbols such as the Islamic headscarf, the Jewish skullcap, or large Christian crosses. This law has encountered a lot of resistance from immigrants who are mainly from the former French colonies of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.

Unlike the strict separation between religion and the state in American secularism, in Indian secularism, the state can intervene in religious affairs.

According to the U.S. Constitution the legislature cannot declare any religion as the official religion. The legislature cannot give preference to one religion and neither the State nor religion can interfere in the affairs of one another.

Discrimination occurs when members of one religious community either persecute or discriminate against members of other religious communities. These acts of discrimination take place more easily when one religion is given official recognition by the State at the expense of other religions.

According to the Indian constitution, India is a secular country which means there is no official religion. One religious community does not dominate another, nor the state enforces its people to follow any particular religion.

People should have the freedom to leave the religion they have been practicing and join another religion. They should also have the freedom to interpret religious teachings differently. It is for these reasons that it is important to separate the power of the state from religion.

According to the US constitution, the legislature cannot declare any religion as the official religion. The legislature cannot give preference to one religion and neither the state nor religion can interfere in the affairs of one another.