<p>Secularism emerged in 17th-century Europe as an essential element of what</p><p>became the modern state. The separation of church and state that it entailed</p><p>paved the way for the democratic republics we take for granted today.</p><p>Tolerance, as understood in the West, was sought to be introduced as state</p><p>policy by the British in India too. But our nationalist leaders understood their</p><p>country better than to adopt the concept without local adjustments.</p><p>Political philosopher Nalini Rajan examines the tension between religious</p><p>freedom and state intervention in India, a tension that comes with the idea</p><p>of 'principled' state intervention in matters of religion, as mandated by the</p><p>Constitution. Demands for reservations and separate electorates by minorities</p><p>in the early twentieth century had essentially ruled out absolute state neutrality</p><p>in this respect. But it is only by analysing the fascinating debates on secularism</p><p>in the Constituent Assembly (1946-49) that we see how and why the specific</p><p>provisions on minority rights-Articles 25 to 30-came to be adopted. These</p><p>provisions implicitly envisioned a key role for the judiciary. A full section of</p><p>this book is thus devoted to understanding the role that the courts have played</p><p>in establishing, and just as importantly, defining Indian secularism-through</p><p>such judgements as in the Shirur Mutt case of 1954, the Durgah Committee case of</p><p>1961, the Satsangi case of 1966, the Stanislaus case of 1977, the Shah Bano case</p><p>of 1985, the so-called 'Hindutva' cases of 1996, the Vaishno Devi case of 1997,</p><p>and the Puttaswamy case of 2017.</p><p>This exhaustive monograph should be read by all those interested in</p><p>understanding how a distinctive secularism shaped modern India, and how the</p><p>latter shaped our secularism.</p>