Understanding Indian Secularism

Only the Indian constitutional framework envisaged a unique model of secularism that its Western counterparts did little to imitate. This is not a theoretical distinction, it is at the heart of how laws, including the UCC, are interpreted and applied. Unlike other countries, where secularism simply boils down to the separation of church from state, Indian secularism has a very deep socio-political and cultural premise. This invokes questions of the feasibility and desirability of a UCC in a religiously plural society.

Difference Between Indian Secularism and Western Secularism

Western secularism, especially as it emerged in countries like the United States and France, rests on a rigid distinction between religion and the state. They tend to promote a near-total non-interventionist model, maintaining that religion should be a private matter and that the state does not favour or endorse religious ideology. This American model, grounded in the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment[1], forbids the state from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” By the same token, the French version of laïcité imposes a strict secular space in public life, sometimes to the point where religious signs are banned from public institutions.

On the other hand, Indian secularism does not call for an absolute separation. Rather, it adopts what scholars have referred to as “principled distance” — a system in which the state can relate to religion in a way that fosters social reform and protects individual rights. In this light, the Indian state has not taken on a religiously neutral position but rather has taken on the role of a facilitator, balancing the collective rights of religious communities with the constitutional end-goals of justice, equality, and dignity.

This distinction matters especially for the UCC debate. It has often been seen in India that state intervention in religious personal laws violates secularism and, therefore, cannot be the basis for substantive equality. One of the earliest examples would be the approach that the Hindu Code Bills of the 1950s took whenit argued that this was merely an exhibition of reform of religion-based personal laws to align with constitutional morality, and while this may seem antithetical to secularism in the Western understanding, it is normal in the Indian circumstance.

This position has been echoed by judicial interpretations. In S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994), the Supreme Court categorically included secularism in the basic structure doctrine. The Court explained that Indian secularism does not imply that the state is either anti-religious or irreligious; Indian secularism means that the state will neither favour nor discriminate against any religion. This judgment firmly embedded secularism into the ethos of the constitution itself, lending judicial legitimacy to state-backed legal reform like that of the UCC.

Hence the Indian secularism concept offers a nuanced continuum in which to examine the UCC, where the emphasis is not on the entire avoidance of religion, but on guaranteeing that religion-based laws foot not contradict the precepts of equality, justice, and non-discrimination.

[1] U.S. Const. amend. I, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/#:~:text=Congress%20shall%20make%20no%20law,for%20a%20redress%20of%20grievances