The principle that the state has no official religion, treats all faiths with equal respect and does not discriminate on the basis of religion; in India it allows the state to engage with religion to promote equality and reform.
In Europe, secularism grew from conflicts between church and state, and in France it took the strict form of laïcité, which keeps religion out of public life. In the United States, the First Amendment built a "wall of separation" between church and state. India's experience was different. It was a land of many religions, with deep religious practice in daily life, and had just experienced partition violence on religious lines. The framers wanted a state that would neither favour one religion nor ignore the need to reform social practices linked to religion, such as untouchability.
The original Constitution did not use the word "secular", though its provisions clearly reflected the idea. The word was added to the Preamble by the 42nd Amendment in 1976. Courts later held that secularism is part of the basic structure, most clearly in S. R. Bommai (1994), where the Supreme Court said that a state government acting against secular principles could be dismissed under Article 356.
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