INDIA, August 8, 2020 (Swarajyamag by Ashwin Sanghi): Hindus do not expect an apology from anyone. But my generation is equally unwilling to apologize for being Hindu. We are also tired of being the ones who have to regularly prove how secular we are. August 5, 2020 marked the bhoomi pujan of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. I have noticed that many have been genuinely anguished by this event. Some have been bemoaning it as the death of secularism in India. I consider myself to be secular, so why do I not see it that way? What does the term secular mean? Strictly speaking, secularism means separation in entirety of church and state.
In a secular nation, the government must stay away from anything religious. But isn’t it odd that the word secular was not part of the preamble to the Indian constitution when it was originally adopted? By leaving the word out of the preamble, the fathers of the Constitution were making it incumbent on Hindus to remember their commitment to the Upanishadic ideal of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. That the world is one family. The framers of the Constitution were subtly saying that the Indian ethos was essentially Hindu in character but that ethos implied an ingrained respect for and tolerance of all faiths. So, secularism in the Indian context would not mean the state remaining away from religion. Instead it would mean maintaining equidistant from all religions. Unfortunately, that equidistance never happened. Over the years, the test of secularism came to be whether India’s minorities perceived an action as secular or not.
Much more of this lengthy and informative discussion at “source”.