The Crisis of Secularism in India

8. Secularism in India: A “Gandhian” Approach

“…54 Other thinkers in this range of the spectrum argue that secularism is in fact "an empty category devoid of any stable meaning, " which has meant different things in different circumstances of its contestation. 55 In her excellent history of Indian secularism, Shabnum Tejani lists a variety of Indian thinkers who have addressed the profound ambivalence at the heart of the secularist project, arguing that secularism in India can only be understood when situated in the particularities of its historical context. 56 Finally, at the other end of the continuum, we have discourses that question the very viability of secularism within India, arguing that secularism is a Western transplant with almost no intelligibility in the Indian context.…”

Histories of Indian Citizenship in the Age of Decolonisation

“…In contrast to a focus on the constitutional legal doctrine, these contributions have focused on constitutional ideals such as secularism or affirmative action, or on those who have been excluded from exercising the full range of rights and entitlements of citizenship, including those marginalized on the basis of religion, caste, and gender. 5 In A People's Constitution: The Everyday Life of Law in the Indian Republic, Rohit De shows how the Indian Constitution became a "field of practice" from being an aspirational legal text, a transformation during which ordinary citizens were able to assert their rights and freedoms, seeking new legal remedies and drawing public attention to their plight. 6 Using previously unexplored records of the Supreme Court, the highest judicial body tasked with interpreting the Indian Constitution, De offers a vivid account of how appellate litigation challenged a range of legislative interventions of the first years of the Indian republic -from prohibitions on the sale and consumption of alcohol to restrictions on cow slaughter that impinged on the right to freedom of trade and profession.…”