Secularism and Liberal Democracy

I generally favor a secular disposition of people and countries but often I do wonder why secularism is so important in the state affairs. How much does it help to declare secularism as a creed in a constitution? How many countries really are secular constitutionally? The US constitution never talks about secularism. It spells out its version of separation of church from the state but it does take pride in god we trust theme.

Can a constitution alone make a country theocratic or secular?
I think the separation of church from the govt does not make a county secular. It just establishes the fact that the religious teaching will not dominate the govt. But there is nothing in the constitution that bars religious leaders to contest and win elections and there is nothing that even bars them to create legislations that favor religion in the interpretation of law.

Mr.Dasgupta has discussed the ten commandment issue as a major victory for the secularist but he forgot that it was the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who put the ten commandments up there and it shows the presence of a school of thought in the US judiciary itself that does not feel that the constitution is threatened by putting religious symbols in govt buildings. What if this issue comes up again and a majority of the jurist decides that the religious symbols can be placed in govt buildings?

India does claim to be secular but is that country really secular? Indian constitution actually defines who should be called a hindu. Does that not contradict the secular principles? In India, people are counted in censuses based on their religions and it is an important factor in the Indian politics. In fact the whole Indian politics revolves exclusively around religion. The religious symbols are prominently displayed in the Indian government buildings and one railway minister put religious symbols in his office to protect the railroad systems from accidents.

An entry in the Indian constitution does not make India a secular state. It appears to be just political gamesmanship to pull a fast one. Looking at the last 58 years of history, no Indian government has taken a single step in changing anything that would make the country a secular country. Even the education system is not geared towards establishing secularism as the creed of the State of India. How Indian constitution would be different if it did not have the word secularism in it?

India is the only secular country in world that allowed partition of a province based on separate religions. That is after opposing creation of Pakistan on similar grounds.
So what kind of secular county Mr. Dasgupta would like to live in…

“All this to be taken with a grain of salt!”

I have taken the whole article with a boulder of salt…

Nicely written Dasgupta!

Well a good article...

The issue I think will always be about secularism with a capital S or small one...

secularism with a small s is the secularism that is the inevitable result of liberal democracy and will ultimately emerge no matter what religious connotations or identity issues that might exist.

Secularism with a capital S is secularism as an ideology... it can work but then it can also clash with liberal democracy.