Such
Significance of Secularism being a Pillar of the Indian Constitution
Rajindar
Sachar
The Preamble of Our
Constitution mandates. WE THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to
constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC.
It is well settled that
the Preamble is the key to the Constitution and the objectives mentioned in the
Preamble, namely the ideals of Socialism, Secularism and Democracy, must govern
any programme of the governments.
It is self evident that
secularism as a philosophy as highlighted in the Preamble is one of the working
foundations of the Indian Constitution.
It is implicit in the
secular character of the Indian State that no religion can claim superiority of
status on any other religion. All religions under our Constitution have equal
acceptance and status. A single citizenship is assured to all persons
irrespective of their religion.
Secularism does not
signify anti-religion. In India people fervently believe in their respective
religions and an overwhelming number of persons of all communities give equal
respect to the religion of others. Secularism signifies giving equal dignity
and respect to all religions. Of course it goes without saying that the Indian
State has no religion of its own, nor for that matter can any religion claim
superiority over another religion such as by resorting to the false premise
that it is indigenous while others are foreign. This is heresy not permitted by
our Constitution, which gives equal reverence to all the religions practiced by
the various communities of India. The Supreme Court too has declared that the
concept of secularism is that the State will have no religion of its own.
All religions have the
same message. Thus Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is one family) shows the
spirit of tolerance in Hinduism. The same message of humanity and common good
runs through all religions. Thus the Holy Quran proclaims, “All the created
ones belong to the family of God . . . so, an Arab has no precedence over a
non-Arab, a White over a Black”. And Christ said succinctly, “All are children
of God.”
It is a truism that in
any country the faith and the confidence of the minorities in the impartial and
even functioning of the State is the acid test of being a civilised State. This
is accepted wisdom, and was succinctly expressed by Lord Acton as follows:
A state which is incompetent to satisfy different races
condemns itself; a state which
labours to neutralise, to absorb or to
expel them is destitute of the chief
basis of self-government.
We need only substitute
minorities for races in the above quotation to apply the test to India.
But much earlier, the
founding fathers/mothers of Indian Constitution with their vision to secure to
all citizens justice, liberty, equality and fraternity provided these rights
for the minorities. Thus the Fundamental Rights Chapter in Part III of our
Constitution specifically provides, vide Articles 25 to 30, various rights and
privileges for the minorities such as:
i. Freedom of
conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion.
ii. Freedom to manage
religious affairs.
iii. Freedom as to
payment of taxes for promotion of any particular religion.
iv. Freedom as to
attendance at religious instruction or religious worship in certain educational
institutions.
v. Protection of
interests of minorities.
vi. Right of minorities
to establish and administer educational institutions.
Supreme Court and
Secularism
However, mere provision
of Rights can give no assurance by itself. It is for this reason that Article
32 guarantees to every citizen the right to move the Supreme Court for the
enforcement of Fundamental Rights. This article gives an assurance to the minorities
that in case of apprehension that the political process is not giving them
justice, they are not without remedy. The Supreme Court has upheld secularism
in no uncertain terms. In the words of Chief Justice S.R. Das in the case
pertaining to the Kerala Education Bill 1957 [AIR 1958 SC 956]:
We the people of India have given unto ourselves the
Constitution which is not for any
particular community or section but for
all. Its provisions are intended to
protect all, minority as well as majority
communities. . . . It is, we conceive,
the duty of this Court to uphold the fundamental
rights and thereby honour the
sacred obligation to the minority communities who are of our own.
The same sentiment was
expressed by the Supreme Court when it said [Dr. Ismael Faruqui vs. Union of
India, 1994 (6) SCC 360]:
It is clear from the constitutional scheme that it
guarantees equality in the matter of
religion to all individuals and groups irrespective of their faith emphasising that there is no religion
of the State itself. The Preamble of the Constitution
read in particular with Articles 25 to 28 emphasises this aspect. . . . The concept of secularism is one facet
of the right to equality woven as the
central golden thread in the fabric depicting the pattern of the scheme in our Constitution.
The Court stressed
that:
The purpose of law in plural societies is not the
progressive assimilation of the
minorities in the majoritarian milieu. This would not solve the problem; but would vainly seek to dissolve it.
Posing the question as
to what is the law’s purpose, it referred with approval to the test laid down
by Lord Scarman of the House of Lords of the UK:
The purpose of the law must be not to extinguish the
groups which make the society but
to devise political, social and legal means of preventing them from falling apart and so destroying the
plural society of which they are members.
Thus inclusive development
in India and for that matter in any country is the only path to prosperity. It
is an undeniable truth and needs to be irrevocably accepted by all in India,
namely that the minorities, Muslims and Christians are not outsiders. They are
an integral part of India. Let me quote what Swami Vivekananda, one of the
greatest spiritual personalities of India, has to say of the intimate
connection between the spirit of Islam and Hinduism. He told the Hindus not to
talk of the superiority of one religion over another. Even toleration of other
faiths was not right; it smacked of blasphemy. He pointed out that his guru,
Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa, had accepted all religions as true. Swami
Vivekananda in fact profusely praised Islam and in a letter to his friend Mohammed
Sarfraz Hussain (10 June 1898) without any hesitation wrote:
Therefore I am firmly persuaded that without the help of
practical Islam, theories of Vedantism,
however fine and wonderful they may be, are entirely valueless to the vast mass of mankind. . . . For our own
motherland a junction of the two great
systems Hinduism and Islam—Vedanta brain and Islam
body—is the only hope. I see in my mind’s eye the future perfect India rising out of this chaos and strife,
glorious and invincible, with Vedanta brain
and Islam body.
There can thus be no
real progress in India which does not include minorities, Muslims, Christians
as equal stakeholders. It needs to be emphasised that development and growth in
the country has to be all inclusive—the mode of development must necessarily
take into account the needs and sensitivities of minorities, Dalits, tribals in
India. This was reaffirmed and emphasised recently by the Socialist Party
(India), which is inspired by and follows the philosophy and programme of Shri
Jayaprakash Narayan and Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, thus; “that they must be treated
as a special trust and there is an urgent need to attend to their problems
immediately.”
United Nations and
Minorities
The UN Declaration of
the rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic
minorities 1992 mandates in Article 1 that States shall protect the existence
of the national or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity of minorities
within their respective territories and shall encourage conditions for the
promotion of that identity.
The minorities, many a
times, may feel that there is discrimination against them in the mater of
employment, housing, for obtaining loans from the public or private sector
banks, or opportunities for good schooling. It is self evident that if
minorities have these perceptions, law must provide an effective mechanism
which should examine their complaints and be able to give effective relief.
In this connection it
heartening to find confirmation in the report of UN Human Rights Council, Forum
on Minority Issues, on December 14–15, 2010 wherein it has made some
significant recommendations on minorities and their effective participation in
economic life, which each country is mandated to follow. The Council
emphasises:
Consequently, the right of minorities to participate
effectively in economic life must be
fully taken into account by governments seeking to promote equality at every level. From implementing
non-discrimination in employment and
enforcing protection laws in the private sector to developing national economic development and international
development assistance schemes,
governments face the constant challenge of ensuring that the rights of minorities are protected and that they benefit
as equal members in society. . . .
Governments can consider both targeted and inclusive
approaches to addressing the
economic and social exclusion of minorities. . . .
Governments should gather and regularly publicize
disaggregated data to measure
and monitor the effective participation of minorities in economic life. Improved data collection should be
made a priority for the areas of employment
and labour rights, poverty rates, access to social security, access to credit and other financial
services, education and training, and property
and land tenure rights.
In the report of the
Working Group on Minorities formed by UN Sub Commission on Protection of
Minorities, it was the unanimous view that the assimilative approach was not
promoted by the United Nations, and that formal recognition of minorities is
the first crucial step towards their effective participation in society. This
means not only participation in governance, but also involvement in the
economy. Also accepted was the need for multi-lingual education and respect for
cultural identity of minorities and the need to ensure fair representation of
minorities within the law enforcement system and the workplace. The basic task
is to reconcile the pluralism which then exists in that State, and the need to
respect the identity of the various groups, with the overall concerns of
non-discrimination, equality, national security, territorial integrity and
political independence.
UN Special Rapporteur
on Minority Issues has recently emphasised the following:
The outcome document of the 2005 World Summit of Heads of
State and Government, approved by the
General Assembly, notes that “the promotion and
protection of the rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities
contributes to political and social stability
and peace and enriches the cultural diversity and heritage of society.”
Respect for minority
rights assists in achieving stable and prosperous societies, in which human
rights, development and security are achieved by all, and shared by all.
Inclusive Development
Sole Path to Prosperity
As a member of the
United Nations, the Indian government has a legal obligation to give concrete
shape to these requirements, if its claim to minority welfare is to have any
meaning.
Amongst the various
recommendations by the High Level Committee constituted by the Prime Minister
on the ‘Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of
India’ (report submitted in November 2006), a very urgent recommendation dealt
with the unfairness of divisions of electoral constituencies which results in
lesser number of Muslims in the legislature as compared to what they are
broadly entitled based on the population. This anomaly arises from the
irrational demarcation of seats in the legislature.
Thus for instance, in
UP there is abundant potential for a substantial number of Muslims to win
seats. UP sends the largest number of members (80) to the Lok Sabha. There are
25–52% Muslim’s in 18 seats, in 23 seats Muslims are 15–24% and in another 18
seats Muslims are 10–14%. The demographic–electoral reflection is similar in
most other states. However, the constituencies with substantial number of
Muslims have been reserved for Scheduled Castes, and constituencies with
substantial number of Scheduled Caste voters are unreserved. This is unfair to
both Muslims and the SC electorate. The Committee had concluded that Muslims
were thus denied benefits in politics since assembly constituencies where the
voter population from the community was substantial were reserved for scheduled
caste candidates. It would therefore be more equitable to reserve those
constituencies for SCs where their voter population is high, rather than those
where it is low and the Muslims presence is higher.
The Committee had hoped
that its report would receive the attention of the government immediately
because the Delimitation Commission was at that time engaged in this exercise.
However, the High Powered Committee’s suggestion was ignored during the
delimitation. This anomaly is a reason for the low representation of Muslims in
the legislatures. How inequitable that important issues related to the
community are ignored or don’t get the desired priority! Somebody has to take
the responsibility for taking concrete action on this issue; mere lip sympathy
is a facade.
Inclusive development
in the country alone is the path to prosperity. It is an undeniable truth and
needs to be irrevocably accepted by all in the country that minorities, Muslims
and Christians, are not outsiders. They are an integral part of India. There
can be no real progress which does not include minorities, Muslims and
Christians, as equal stakeholders. I cannot put it better than what Sir Sayyed
Ahmed Khan, one of the greatest leaders of our country, had to say over a
century back. Gandhiji repeated it in 1921, and also in another prayer meeting
at Rajghat on 24 March 1947 thus:
In the words of Sir Sayyed Ahmed Khan, I would say that
Hindus and Muslims are the two eyes
of mother India. Just as the trouble in one eye affects the other too, similarly the whole of India suffers when
either Hindus or Muslims suffer.
Maulana Abul Kalam
Azad’s clarion call emphasises that composite culture is the bedrock of
secularism pervading our country. He said thus:
Islam has now as great a claim on the soil of India as
Hinduism. If Hinduism has been the
religion of the people here for several thousands. of years, Islam also has been their religion for
a thousand years. Just as a Hindu can say
with pride that he is an Indian and follows Hinduism, so also we can say with equal pride that we are Indians
and follow Islam. I shall enlarge this orbit
still further. The Indian Christian is equally entitled to say with pride that he is an Indian and is following a
religion of India, namely Christianity.
Eleven hundred years of common history have enriched India
with our common achievement. Our
languages, our poetry, our literature, our culture,
our art, our dress, our manners and customs, the innumerable happenings of our daily life, everything
bears the stamp of our joint endeavour.
There is indeed no aspect of our life which has escaped this stamp. . . .
This joint wealth is the heritage of our common
nationality, and we do not want
to leave it and go back to the times when this joint life had not begun. If there are any Hindus amongst us who desire
to bring back the Hindu life of a
thousand years ago and more, they dream, and such dreams are vain fantasies. So also if there are any Muslims
who wish to revive their past civilisation
and culture, which they brought a thousand years ago from Iran and Central Asia, they dream also and
the sooner they wake up the better. These
are unnatural fancies which cannot take root in the soil of reality. I am one of those who believe that revival
may be a necessity in a religion but in
social matters it is a denial of progress.
Email :
rsachar1@vsnl.net
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