INDIA OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN DECLARED A 'SPIRITUAL STATE'

INDIA OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN DECLARED A 'SPIRITUAL STATE'

The dictionary says that 'secular' means 'not connected with religious or spiritual matters'. Hence, India's constitutional status as a 'secular state' would in original linguistic terms mean that India as a political state is non-religious which is completely opposed to the Indian ethos dating several millenia, for the political state is nothing but the organ of execution of the national will and if India is secular, then what of spirituality is left in it? And if spirituality is by constitutional dictate gone from statehood, then what of India is left anyway?

The argument from altered meaning appended to the word 'secular' in the Indian context which supposedly signifies equal treatment of the state towards all the existing religions is flawed in its very linguistic supposition and, by going against the age-old Indian spiritual tradition, has harmed the Indian spirit incalculably. It will be in the fitness of things if India resorts to the Sanatan Dharma for conducting its affairs in every phase of her life, for that has been her very life-blood for aeons. The sooner the necessary adjustments are made, the better, and for this we must live up to the grand traditions of national spiritual living in real terms and not merely in terms of political clamour of a corrosive kind. Let India live up to her pristine spiritual standards and so bring glory unto herself.

Written by Sugata Bose