Talk of secularism is meaningful when it refers to the weakness of traditional religious belief or the lack of power of churches and other religious bodies. That is what is meant when we say Britain is a more secular country than the United States, and in this sense secularism is an achievable condition. But if it means a type of society in which religion is absent, secularism is a kind of contradiction, for it is defined by what it excludes. Post-Christian secular societies are formed by the beliefs they reject, whereas a society that had truly left Christianity behind would lack the concepts that shaped secular thought.

It is because everywhere else in Christendom the state has been rebuilt within the last two hundred years upon principles which derive sovereignty from elsewhere than the monarch...that Britain is today the only surviving state which exercises spiritual as well as temporal authority and where sovereignty is ecclesiastical as well as secular... For us alone the identity of nation and Church survives in the symbolism of historical forms, and the link between spiritual and secular sovereignty is still, despite everything, a living reality.

Since we are a Christian country, God above all. This history of a secular state doesn't exist, no. The state is Christian and the minority that is against it can leave. Let's make a country for majority! The minority must bow to the majority. Law must exist to defend the majority! The minority suits itself [to the law] or just disappears.

We talk about a secular state in India. It is perhaps not very easy even to find a good word in Hindi for "secular". Some people think it means something opposed to religion. That obviously is not correct. What it means is that it is 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.

They who interpret secularism as dharma-nirpekshata fail to understand either dharma or secularism. A secular state does not mean an anti-religious state, nor even an irreligious state. For, in that sense, the people of India just never can become secular. A secular state simply means a state which does not identify itself with any specific mode of worship and holds the balance even between all sects- secularism thus mean sampradayanirpekshata and not dharma-nirpekshata.

Secularism is the legal and administrative principle that separates the state from organized religions. It was established during the French Revolution and later formalized in the 1905-1906 laws on separation. Article 1 of these laws guarantees individuals the freedom to believe and practice their faith. Article 2 states that the Secular Republic neither recognizes, engages with, nor funds religions, their representatives, or institutions. In a secular Republic, all citizens are equal and have the same rights under the law.

Britain has joined its brethren in the 'civilised West' to legitimise civil partnerships, which to us simply means same-sex marriages. They are also putting a ban on preaching because it offends Muslim minorities. Britain has, of course, made Sunday a working day.

A wise Government, allying itself with religion, would, as it were, consecrate society and sanctify the State. But how is this to be done? It is the problem of modern politics which has always most embarrassed statesmen. No solution of the difficulty can be found in salaried priesthoods and complicated concordats. But by the side of the State in England there has gradually arisen a majestic corporation wealthy, powerful, independent with the sanctity of a long tradition, yet sympathising with authority, and full of conciliation, even deference, to the civil power. Broadly and deeply planted in the land, mixed up with all our manners and customs, one of the main guarantees of our local government, and therefore one of the prime securities of our common liberties, the Church of England is part of our history, part of our life, part of England itself.

How many attempt to leave us aside saying the state should be secular. The state is secular but we are Christians. Or, in the words of my dear Damares [minister of Family and Human Rights], we are terribly Christians. You know how families have suffered in previous administrations. You were decisive in the search for the tireless restoration of family values. [...] Of the two seats I can appoint a justice for, one will be terribly evangelical.

Britain has long championed international religious freedom

We are all British. We respect democracy and the rule of law. We believe in freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of worship, equal rights regardless of race, sex, sexuality or faith. We believe in respecting different faiths but also expecting those faiths to support the British way of life. These are British values. And are underpinned by distinct British institutions. Our freedom comes from our Parliamentary democracy. The rule of law exists because of our independent judiciary. This is the home that we are building together.

In any Kulturkampf (culture war), control over the curriculum fed to the next generation is the primary issue. Note however that in India today, this is a war with only one warring camp. On the Hindu side, there is some grumbling on Twitter about biased textbooks, but nothing at the official level. Five years of BJP government (2014-19) have not yielded any impact at all on the curriculum, not even an attempt, and BJP ministers have expressed themselves as proud of that: “Look how secularist I am!” Their highest goal in life is a pat on the shoulder from the secularists, but they live in a fool’s paradise if they expect ever to get it. In the expression “BJP secularism”, the latter word has its acquired Indian meaning. In its original meaning, a “secular state” would be one where all citizens are equal before the law, regardless of religion. It would therefore not have a concept of “minority”. Statisticians are free to divide a population in any number of groups fit for their purposes, but in politics and law, the concept of “minority” has no place. In India, its impact is downright evil. So, I believe, India is a blatantly unsecular state, with separate Civil Codes according to religion, with Constitutional discriminations against the Hindus, and with numerous policies privileging this or that minority or the minorities collectively. When in office, the BJP (both under AB Vajpayee and under Modi) has kept on toeing the line laid down by the dominant Nehruvian discourse. It has not abolished any of these anti-secular arrangements in law or politics, and has continued to apply the Nehruvian categories in its own policies. In its election Manifesto 2019, it does not even pay lip-service to the interests of secular democracy in its original sense, let alone to those of Hinduism, but devoutly promises to work for the welfare of the enumerated minorities. Because in the rest of the world it is unambiguous: “secular” means disregarding the citizens’ religious identities. In India, by contrast, it means an endless concern with religious identities, at least of the minorities (who are hardly the poor, hapless groups suggested by that term, but are the Indian chapters of wealthy multinationals). It effectively means “anti-Hindu”, nothing else. That is why minority clerics whose Arab colleagues would abhor “secularism”, call themselves secularists in India. Deep down, many votaries of Nehruvian secularism have a bad conscience about their mendacious use of the term, and so they cackle endlessly about it.

I believe that the word secular is the biggest lie since Independence. Those that have given birth to this lie and those that use it should apologise to the people and this country. No system can be secular. Political system can be sect-neutral. If someone were to say that government has to be run by one way of prayer, that is not possible. In UP, I have to look at 22 crore people and I am answerable for their security and their feelings. But I am not sitting here to ruin one community either. You can be sect-neutral but not secular.

More fundamentally, the concept of "minority" is reprehensible in itself. Every democrat can understand that the law should equally apply to all, regardless of religion. Every Indian citizen may sociologically be a member of one or more communities, but legally, he is just an Indian citizen. That is the minimum for a state to be secular. India today is not a secular state at all. An Indian political analyst or a foreign India-watcher outs himself as incompetent when he asserts or implies: "India is a secular state." It is not.