Secularism : Its implications for Law and life in India
- Bombay N. M. Tripathi. 1966
- 257p.
I have great pleasure in presenting this volume on Secularism : Its Implications for Law and Life in India. It contains the papers presented at a seminar organized at the Indian Law Institute, New Delhi, under the joint sponsorship of the Institute and the Education Commission, Govern- ment of India, in November 1965. Summaries of the proceedings at the discussion sessions are also included. The seminar (which was originally to have been held at Jaipur) was attended by eminent educationists, judges, lawyers, law teachers, political scientists, Indologists, historians, priests and sociologists. As many points of view as possible were presented at the seminar. a No apology is needed for a seminar of this kind in India. An effort to examine and analyze the concept would have been a necessary and welcome step at any time in the history of the country after independence. But the social and political problems of contemporary India make serious thinking upon the subject inevitable. In view of the stresses and strains and feelings of insecurity generated by continuous conflict with our neighbour it becomes the responsibility of the intellectuals to guide Indian social thinking on proper lines and to see to it that an atmosphere of brotherliness, tolerance, national unity, and the transcending of religious and sectarian differences is created. It is only through this atmosphere of a compromise of interests, of willingness to give everybody a hearing, of emphasizing that opinions should not be formed and expressed unless they are based upon rational appraisal, that Indian democracy can flourish. In truth the complex heterogeneity that India presents in almost all direc- tions-race, language, religion and colour can only be suitably contained through a democratic principle. But the atmosphere to operate happily and functionally rests not upon special privileges to any group but upon a guarantee that the institutions of law and order will be so run that there is no discrimination or arbitrariness as against individuals or groups. Secularism emerged in the West as a concept antagonistic to religion and as a byproduct of materialism and industrialization. The problem of secularism in India is how such a peculiarly intellectual and scientifically empirical concept can be made viable in a community subject to mass illite- racy, superstition and the all-inclusive hold of religion. Both the Hindu and the Muslim religions, though neither has an established church, pro- fess to guide the life of their votaries from birth to death.