The News Minute | December 31, 2014 | 12.41 pm IS
Is the Indian government at the centre or at the states pandering to one religion or another, how should the government treat religion? While India debates what secularism is, it might be useful to look at the meaning of the word in other countries.
The United States for instance, has an official Religious Freedom Day, a day enacted in 1992, to commemorate a law that was authored by Thomas Jefferson in 1786.
According to an article in Alternet, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom deals with the separation of the church from the state. Not only did it abolished an official state religion, which was the Anglican Church. Writing for Alternet, Frederick Clarkson says: “As a practical matter, this meant that what we believe or don’t believe is not the concern of government and that we are all equal as citizens.”
The Christian right in America, according to Clarkson, has never spoken about this law, and has always maintained that the United States was founded as a Christian state. Read more about it at Alternet.