This is a speech that I wrote for a debate last year, which I won:
Secularism is defined as: the concept that government or other entities should exist separately from religion and/or religious beliefs. "Secular" is a word found in the preamble of our constitution that has been there since 1976, when it was added in a constitutional amendment, along with the word "socialist". Unfortunately, as I shall show you in the next few minutes, our country has repeatedly betrayed its secularity, and therefore our constitution. Yes, I am for the motion "India is secular only in name". Our nation has made considerable progress in various areas, including technology, our economy, and secularity, but there are still gaping holes in our secularism.
Firstly, I would like to point out that a secular government should either a)be indifferent to religion, as stated in the definition, or b)treat all religions equally, regardless of following- as that would equal religious indifference. So if society were truly secular, there would be no holidays for hindu/muslim festivals, and workers would have to take leave if they wanted to celebrate them, or they would have to give other religions holidays, and if I were to start a religion tomorrow, it should have a few national holidays. One might say that this religion is illegitimate, but where do you draw the line of legitimacy? For this reason, it makes more sense for government to be indifferent to religion.
Since we have made it clear that government should stay away from religion, I would like to point out that the government of India doesn't have a uniform civil code for all religions. Only Muslim men are allowed to be polygamous while it would be a crime if a man of another religion, say, a Hindu man were to be polygamous. This law hasn't been changed, even after the addition of the word "secular" to our constitution. One could argue that the government is just enforcing religious rules on its citizens, but is the government supposed to enforce religious rules? Since religion is created due to belief in god, shouldn't god be enforcing them, unless government is playing god. The fact that government tries to enforce religious rules, means that it is participating in a religious activity, which is contrary to the word "secular".
The above statement was mainly theoretical, and my opponents would say that it doesn't deal with the practical reality in the nation. There are inter-religious friendships, and marriages, but every day, there are hate crimes, and honour killings due to these inter-religious relationships. Social evils like sati are still a very painful reality, and police turn a blind eye in many rural areas, due to religious beliefs. In 1986, in the famous Shah Bono case, Rajiv Gandhi, and the supreme court, refused to look at an Islamic divorce fairly to an Islamic woman, to prevent the alienation of a Muslim vote bank.
There are other such incidents, such as the famous Ahmedabad riots, where 1000's of muslims were killed, and the police famously ignored the massacre that was taking place. The Ayodhya incident, in 1994, where leading politicians in our country were behind the destruction of a mosque in Ram janmabhoomi. Their argument was, "There would be no church in Mecca, or temple in Vatican city", but those countries don't claim to be secular, and we do. The final verdict, where two thirds of the land was given to the Hindus, and one third to the Muslims, was even handed, which could have been shown as a proof of secularity, but there were clear legal arguments for both sides, and the dispute should have been decided one way or the other. The compromise might have been to prevent a riot, since it doesn't take 15 years to decide that a case can't be decided one way or the other. Although, I appreciate the noble cause of preventing a riot, the decision was taken on religious grounds, which would never happen in a truly secular country.
There are those that point out the peace after the Ayodhya verdict as a sign of a secular India. Since the word "secular" is written in the constitution, I presume that lack of secularism is a violation of our constitution and therefore a crime. To determine whether or not a crime has been committed, we need to look at instances where the crime has been committed, not instances where it hasn't been, for example, person a is accused of murder of person b, with person c as a witness. If person c says that he saw person a kill person b, then it proves murder, but if person c says that there was an instance where he saw person a not kill person b, it doesn't acquit him of the murder. Therefore, lack of unsecularism isn't secularism, but unsecular acts show a lack of secularism, and there have been many unsecular acts in our nation's recent history. Therefore, I must conclude that our nation isn't truly secular.
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