PT. NEHRU ON SECULARISM
Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru was born on 14th November
1889 and passed away on 27 May 1964. His
biographers have described him as “an Indian anti-colonial nationalist,
statesman, secular humanist, social democrat, and author.”
He served as the first Prime Minister of independent India
for 16 years and 286 days.
What follows is his viewpoint on secularism extracted from “Foreword
to Dharam Nirpeksh Raj by Raghunath Singh (1961).
“Some people think
that it (secularism) means something opposed to religion. That obviously is not
correct. What it means is that it is a state which honours all faiths equally
and gives them equal opportunities; that, as a state, it does not allow itself
to be attached to one faith or religion, which then becomes the state religion.’’
“In a sense, this is a more or less modern conception. India
has a long history of religious tolerance. That is one aspect of a secular
state, but it is not the whole of it. In a country like India, which has many
faiths and religions, no real nationalism can be built up except on the basis
of secularity. Any narrower approach must necessarily exclude a section of the
population, and then nationalism itself will have a much more restricted
meaning than it should possess. “
To conclude one of his
most famous quotes:Time is s not measured by the passing of years but by what
one does, what one feels, and what one achieves.”
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G.R.Kanwal
26th May 2024
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