This is an unusual book. It is a study of two states, their systems of governance not in terms of institutions but in the evolution of their ideologies and their underpinnings. Hence the title: Secular States, Religious Politics.

The focus is on the role of religion in two modern states who at different points of time in the 20th century, opted for Secularism as an intrinsic principle in governance. There are similarities and there are differences. The book traces the origins and the impulses that propelled these two states:

• • Turkey, defeated in WWI, losing an empire and focused on the creation of a nation-state and on modernization in European terms – aimed at closer integration with Europe – adopted the principle of laicism (called it secularism) and imposed it on a more or less homogenous population of Muslims deeply traditional in their daily living. Hence the emphasis on external manifestation of dress and appearance, the resultant debate on the headscarf. The book diligently traces the challenges in society and in polity as they developed over decades, intertwined with political changes involving democracy, dictatorship and authoritarianism. The author rightly observes that ‘the perennial problem with Turkish secularism has been its symbiosis with authoritarianism.’ Record shows that the emergence of authoritarian governance has facilitated the drift away from secularism.
• • India, a plural society of immense diversity throughout its long history, took this plurality as an existential reality and gave itself through the Constitution a democratic state structure premised on equality and fraternity with secularism as an essential ingredient focused on symmetric treatment of different religious communities, defence of minority rights, and prevention of bigotry. On India’s track record, the author observes that ‘the Indian secular state has been most compromised and damaged not by any widespread rejection among ordinary Indians of the deeply rooted as well as pragmatic every day ethics of tolerance, mutual respect and coexistence of faiths, but by the elites and leaders who have sworn by the principles of secularism.’ He gives examples of compromises made and opines that the future of secularism in India rests on the capacity of Indian secularists to address the contradictions and frailties that have emerged in practice and which have benefited the proponents of Hindutva despite their limited numbers.

Religion can be a lethal weapon. The book records a remark of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose to a group of INA soldiers in 1942 that ‘if you use religion to unite yourself today, you leave the door open for someone to attempt later to divide you using the same sentiment;’ hence his insistence on the need to premise Indian unity on sentiments other than religious affiliations; one example of it the slogan Jai Hind.

The challenge before advocate of secularism as a constitutional value is to focus on its contradictions and frailties and improve its framework. It is doable but not painless. The alternative of a non-secular state would impinge on both equality and fraternity and thereby on the very idea of justice as a primary social virtue.

A single reading of this scholarly work does not suffice and I for one need to go back to it again and again.