What are the challenges to our cultural practices in the name of secularism ?

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Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

Secularism challenges Indian cultural practices when courts and the state test them against equality, as in Sabarimala (2018) and Shayara Bano (2017), and when selective application breeds resentment. The essential practices test begun in Shirur Mutt (1954) lets judges decide which rituals are core to a faith.

**Introduction**

Indian secularism is not a wall of separation: Article 25(2) lets the state regulate secular activities linked to religion and reform Hindu institutions. Used in the name of secularism, this licence has put many cultural practices under scrutiny.

**Practices Challenged Through Constitutional Scrutiny**

1. **Courts judging theology**: Since Shirur Mutt (1954) courts decide which practices are "essential"; Sabarimala (2018) admitted women of all ages, drawing protests by devotees, and the review went to a larger bench in 2019.
2. **Personal law and gender**: Shayara Bano (2017) ended instant triple talaq, which some in the community read as the state rewriting faith.
3. **Neutrality of public spaces**: The Kendriya Vidyalaya prayer petition (referred in 2019) and the Karnataka hijab split verdict (2022) asked whether religious-cultural expression belongs in state institutions.

**Distortions That Strain Cultural Life**

SKETCH: forcefield | Reforming Cultural Practices
center: Practice under scrutiny
driving: Equality, Dignity, Rights
restraining: Faith autonomy, Identity fear, Selectivity charge

1. **Charge of selectivity**: The 1986 Act that undid Shah Bano (1985) fed the "pseudo-secularism" charge, so reform of majority practices is resented as one-sided.
2. **Alien idiom**: T.N. Madan (1987) and Ashis Nandy argued that an imported, rationalist secularism alienates a religious people and pushes faith towards communal politics.
3. **Shared practices squeezed**: Sorting culture into rigid religious boxes weakens syncretic traditions such as the Bhakti-Sufi legacy of Kabir, as communal claims over festivals and shrines grow.

**Conclusion**

The challenge lies less in secularism than in its uneven application. Reform grown from within communities and applied equally to every faith keeps culture compatible with dignity and equality, the core of constitutional morality.

What are the challenges to our cultural practices in the name of secularism ?

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