Secularism and Secularisation of the State: Decoding Gandhian Philosophy in Contemporary India (original) (raw)

Endeavour of this paper is to examine dichotomy surrounded on secularism and secularisation constructed through Gandhian philosophy of secular state. In this chapter, attempt has been made to scrutinize the Gandhi’s controversial religious experiment with secularism and how it differs with classical description of the Western bravura of tolerance, coexistence and pluralism since Gandhi was not considered as secularist in the common western sense of term. The classical western interpretation of “Secularism” and “Religion” almost negating to each other due to some historical events which created two opposing centres of power vested in the political organisation and the ecclesiastical order respectively. Gandhian political thought on secularism and minorities rights really astonishing where he paradoxically distinguishes between state and religion but insist on secularism with a good blend of religion and spirituality. Gandhi believed that it is irrelevant to divorce religion from politics, in the Indian context as both have concomitant effects. That unique interpretation of secularism where religion play a pivotal character in state politics put him an illustrious philosopher of our time who described secularism virtually in a different arena. Gandhi proudly claimed that I can’t see politics without spirituality and religion nonetheless he also pitched for the secularisation, multiculturalism, and diversity of Indian society, hence stalwartly advocating the protection of the religious and cultural rights of minorities. In such peculiar contradictory thoughts, it is desirable to decode the Gandhian view of secularism and how his philosophy is relevant under the current scenario.