India is a country of religions; there exist multifarious religious groups in the country. But, inspite of this, India is a secular state and its constitution declares India as a’Sovereign, Socialistic, Secular, Democratic, Republic.’ There is no state recognized religion and fundamental rights are guaranteed to each and every citizen of India to worship any God and accept any religion.  Hence, India is a secular state, which means that there is no official religion in India.

Father of our nation Gandhiji and Pt. Nehru declared India as a secular state, because it is the common home of the Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, Buddhists, Jains and many more. The result of this secularism is that in India all Indians are equal and they enjoy equal rights irrespective of their  religion. In India people of all communities are treated equally for each and every post from the President of India to a peon. Article 15 of our constitution prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste etc. Again articles 25 to 28 confer certain rights relating to freedom of religion to all persons of India. The religious freedom guaranteed by our constitution extends not only to individuals but even to religious groups.

For our India, secularism is  in reality a practical proposition. After becoming free from British rule if India had declared herself a Hindu state as Pakistan declared itself a  Muslim state, the position of  6 Crore Muslims and other communities, would have been untenable at that time.  In Gandhiji’s view secularism stands for equal respect for all religions. At his prayer meetings, holy texts were recited from Gita, Koran, Bible, Granth Sahib and Zend Avesta of Parsis. According to Mahatma, all religions are equally true and each scripture is worthy of respect. Under this ideology Pt. Nehru, our First Prime Minister made special article in our constitution and banned religious instruction in any educational institution maintained by government.

It is a matter of shame and sorrow that though we profess secularism, still we are rid of the evils of communalism and casteism. Even now we have communal riots and the caste politics have been playing a vital role in India. In the name of secularism, many undesirable tendencies have crept into our national life. During the last 50 years the political parties ruling our countries have exerted utmost efforts to pollute and corrupt the Hindu religion inorder to please the minor communities with a view to winning their votes. All the restrictions are imposed on Hindus in the matter of religion, mirages, family planning, services and other activities. But Muslims and Christians have been given full religious freedom in these cases because India is a secular state. This is not secularism but moral bankruptcy and it is in fact, a travesty of secularism.