7/29/2019 Religion and Politics Are Inextricably Blended

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Religion and politics are inextricably blended. Their separation tantamount to the separation

of blood and body. It was due to this notion that Gandhiji called politics without religion a

dirty game. Swami Vivekananda had also considered religion as the core of politics.

The religion-politics relationship poses no threat to a country's polity as long as politics does

not use religion and vice versa. Unfortunately our country witnesses both of them. Today,

politics has been religionised and religion has been politicised. Thus a religion-politicscollusion is taking place.

What is the cure for eradicating the ill effects of such a collusion? No doubt, it is impossibleto separate both of them. But to a certain extend both could be kept in their respectivecamps.

Firstly, all religious propaganda must be done away with from public places.

Secondly, provocative religious processions must be banned at any cost.

Thirdly, all historical wrongs must be buried.

Fourthly, a general awareness among the people must be created either by education orthrough awareness camps and processions.

Fifthly, radical electoral reforms are a major requirement.

Lastly, a common civil code must be implemented to reduce social, cultural, religiousailments.

Fourth, it does not erect a wall of separation between state and religion. There are boundaries, of course, but they are

porous. This allows the state to intervene in religions, to help or hinder them without the impulse to control or

destroy them. This involves multiple roles: granting aid to educational institutions of religious communities on a

non-preferential basis; or interfering in socio-religious institutions that deny equal dignity and status to members of

their own religion and to those of others (for example, the ban on untouchability and the obligation to allow

everyone, irrespective of their caste, to enter Hindu temples, whilst potentially correcting gender inequalities), on the

basis of a more sensible understanding of equal concern and respect for all individuals and groups. In short, it

interprets separation to mean not strict exclusion or strict neutrality but rather what Bhargava recalls as principled

distance, which accepts a disconnection between state and religion at the level of ends and institutions but does not

make a fetish of it at the third level of policy and law. That means, religion may intervene in the affairs of the state if

such intervention promotes freedom, equality or any other value integral to secularism.