Was India a More Secular Nation in Practice Before the Term 'Secular' was Introduced to the Indian Constitution?

The term "secular" was formally added to the Preamble of the Indian Constitution in 1976 by the 42nd Amendment during the Emergency. Yet the concept of India as a secular state—apart from religious identity—goes back prior to this symbolic addition. That poses an interesting question: Was India, de facto, more secular prior to the term being constitutionally established?

This article discusses India's pre-1976 secular ethos based on grounded historical practices, patterns of governance, and intriguing real-life anecdotes with a conscious choice of avoiding tired icons such as Akbar or Nehru. We instead embark on lesser-discussed but salient indicators of secularism based in the lived experiences of India.

The Constitutional Blueprint Before 1976
Even prior to the 42nd Amendment, the Constitution of India had a secular framework. The Articles 25 to 28 ensured religious liberty, and there was an explicit prohibition on favoring any particular religion by the state. Nevertheless, beyond documentation and lawmaking, the best test of secularism is behavioral governance, public culture, and institutional objectivity.

And by that standard, early post-independence India—and indeed pre-independence society in many ways—had a more natural secular weave than the frequently politicized tales of today.

Case in Point: The 1949 Somnath Temple Debate
In 1949, when the Somnath Temple was reconstructed, India's seniormost leadership was split on whether the state should intervene in religious matters. Official state money was not spent, but K.M. Munshi, a Union Minister at the time, led the charge as a private individual. The government's position was unequivocal: the state has to keep away from religious sanction.

Contrary to today's circumstances where politicians vie to publicly flaunt their religious affiliations, the restraint exhibited by the government at the time reflects a greater allegiance to the secular ethos even without the need for a label.

The Silent Secularism of Indian Bureaucracy
During the 1950s and 60s, India's judiciary and bureaucracy both functioned on a well-defined secular code. A sterling example is the Supreme Court's 1954 decision in the Shirur Mutt case that charted the boundaries of religious freedom and made it clear that core religious practices are protected—under reasonable restrictions.

The ruling lightly stressed institutional impartiality, a maxim frequently compromised nowadays. This sort of judicial tightrope walking established a precedent for the upkeep of religious freedom unencumbered by state intervention, and the reverse.

Ground Realities: Secularism in Small Towns and Villages
Rural Indian historical anecdotes indicate that secularism was a lived reality at the grassroots level, not an ideal concept. For example, in most villages of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, it was (and in some areas still is) common practice for Muslims to sponsor Hindu temple festivals and vice versa, not due to political necessities but tradition and respect.

In Odisha's Puri, the Lord Jagannath temple long used Muslim craftspeople to help build chariots for Ratha Yatra, a ritual Hindu practice. These are not stories of "tolerance"—a smug word—but of entangled cultural cohabitation, wherein religious identity never separated public life.

Political Rhetoric vs. Pre-1976 Ground Ethos
Since the Emergency and the 42nd Amendment, the use of "secularism" has become substantive rather than semantic, too often diminished to a political signal. Ironically, as the term gained visibility, its practice arguably atrophied. 

From vote-bank politics to performative pluralism, introduction of the word has at times been used to further partisan ends—ironically destabilizing the neutrality that the very term aims to impose.

Conversely, previous decades witnessed leaders across all ideological horizons—whether Rajaji in Madras, E.M.S. Namboodiripad in Kerala, or even Jayaprakash Narayan—advocating for inclusive governance without resorting to explicit religious posturing.

Reexamining the Significance of "Secular" Today
To inquire if India was more secular prior to 1976 is not to idealize the past. It is to inquire if institutional integrity, public restraint, and popular pluralism were more solid anchors of secularism than a constitutional term.

Indian secularism was never intended to emulate the Western phenomenon of church-state separation. It developed as a contextual compact, where the state accommodated all religions without giving preference to any. Ironically, the louder we scream secularism today, the more we appear to struggle to become it.

India's pre-1976 secularism prospered not by fiat, but by conscious discipline and social fabric. The original Constitution's lack of the term "secular" did not inhibit the state from applying it. On the contrary, post-1976 years have seen greater debate regarding secular credentials than in the pre-1976 decades.

As India navigates in the wake of a global tide of identity politics, perhaps what the hour requires is not so much to profess secularism—but to practice it once more with unassuming confidence, as indeed in the past.