NEHRU ON SECULARISM
Born on 14 November 1889 at
Allahabad (now Prayagraj) , Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru is described as “an Indian colonial rationalist, secular
humanist,, social democrat, author and statesman who served as country’s 1st
Prime Minister.” He died on 27 May 1964. His birthday is celebrated as Children’s
Day.
What follows are Pt. Nehru’s views on secularism
expressed by him in the Foreword to the book Dharam
Nirpeksh Raj written by by Raghunath Singh (1961).
Pt, Nehru says: We talk
about a secular state in India …..Some people think that it means something
opposed to religion. That obviously is not correct.
What it means is that a
state which honours all faiths equally and gives them equal opportunities and that, as a state, it does not allow itself to
be attached to one faith or religion, which can become the state religion.
In
a sense, says Pt. Nehru, 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 except on the basis
of secularity.
According to Pt. Nehru
any narrower approach must necessarily exclude a section of the population, and
then nationalism itself will have a much more restricted meaning then it should
possess.
As
a result of this approach, he thinks, India would have to consider Hindu nationalism, Muslim
nationalism, Sikh nationalism or Christian nationalism and not Indian
nationalism.
Pt. Nehru thinks that these
narrow religious nationalisms are relics of a past age, no longer relevant
today.
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G. R. Kanwal
14 November 2024
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