Topic: Religion and the state: how far apart a constitution puts them
How does India mark Religion and the state: how far apart a constitution puts them?
Everyday topic
India's constitution calls the republic secular in its very preamble — a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic — but the secularism it means is not the American wall. The wording of Article 25(1) is where to look: subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions of this Part, all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion. Note that last verb: propagate. Writing the freedom to spread one's religion into the constitution itself is unique among these seven — elsewhere what is protected is believing or not believing, and taking part or not taking part in rites; India includes carrying the faith to others. At the same time, the string of limits at the head of Article 25 sits inside the same sentence: public order, morality, health and the other provisions of Part III. India's design, in other words, is not to push religion away but to keep it inside the public sphere and mark its boundaries item by item — a different instinct from the Brazilian and Japanese direction of telling the state to stay out.
What is this topic?
The very first line of Article 29 of Indonesia's constitution is that the state is based upon belief in the One and Only God. Brazil's Article 19 runs the other way, forbidding the Union, the states and the municipalities to establish religions, subsidise them, or maintain relations of dependence or alliance with them. Japan's Article 20 goes further into detail — no religious organisation may take privileges from the state, and public authorities are kept out of religious teaching and observance altogether — with Article 89 barring public money from religious bodies. The American First Amendment says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. China's Article 36 guarantees freedom of belief but protects "normal religious activities" and states that religious affairs are not subject to foreign domination. India's preamble calls the republic secular, while Article 25 includes the right to *propagate* religion. Taiwan's Article 13 is seven characters long: the people have freedom of religious belief.
Sources and dates
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