No, they were not. Hindus and Sikhs faced extraordinary official persecution while people of other religions did not.

Why not have an egalitarian system where you have equality under the law and individual rights similar to America (sans affirmative action) ?

Also worth noting that the majority muslim parts of India (with the exception of the Kashmir valley) at the time of the partition formed their own countries where Islam is priviledged over all other religions.

Honestly, this sounds particularly whiny and completely ignores the benefits that many Hindus receive as the majority religion. The Indian Constitution protects religious minorities because people were scared of joining a federation that wasn’t going to protect minority rights. Can you imagine living through the violence of colonization, independence, and later Partition and not wanting some kind of self-protection to ensure that you, too, wouldn’t be targeted and annihilated in this new project? And I’m not saying this to be extreme – nearly every religious community in India under one empire or another was treated cruelly. I think states entered the formation of Indian democracy with a lot of hope that the rhetoric of justice and equality would be upheld.

No. Indian govt’s interference in temple affairs is not due to the constitution. It’s because the govt “administers” the temples. Historically kings used to patronize temples and pay for their maintenance but after British took over from them and Indian govt from British, it’s come into its purview. Of course, it doesn’t do much except benefit from temple revenues, but I digress…

Thanks for the info. I’m surprised that it hasn’t been changed back.

observer,

The U.S. Constitution says nothing about economic or social justice, so saying that it requires the government to secure either takes a significant leap. The Indian Constitution, on the other hand, seems a lot more oriented toward reshaping society — hence the provision for forcing Hindu temples to accept all people and for affirmative action.

The term “SOCIALIST” was not in the original preamble. It was added by Indira Gandhi during her dictatorship (the emergency). She had the audacity to change the preamble of the constitution.

Incidentally, I love reading the transcripts of the constituent assembly debates which are available on the Parliament of India website. Sadly, it lacks a good search mechanism.

Going by the way you interpret things, anything could be made to “seem to require some amount of” anything.

The job of the Constitution/Government is to provide justice and equal rights for all, not to do social engineering.

Another difference I noticed between the U.S. and Indian Constitutions: the latter begins with, “WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens: JUSTICE, social, economic and political”

Social and economic justice seem to require some amount of “social engineering.”

Your ex post justification of the differential govt. treatment accorded to religious communities is ahistorical. While I wouldn’t call the attempt to cater to non-Hindu communities ‘pandering’, I suspect that those provisions of the Indian Constitution were written in an attempt to contain the effects of India’s communal fragmentation: Not so much an attempt to create ‘mosaics’ (gorgeous or otherwise), but an attempt to stave off chaos.

The terrible irony, of course, is that in effecting ‘remedies’ which discriminate against one religious community, India is even farther from being a ‘mosaic’ (of any sort whatever). Instead, this attempt has resulted in an even greater fragmentation of Indian society.

So, here’s a balance sheet: A govt. that openly discriminates against one religion–in some matters–in the name of secularism and tolerance and lovely mosaics. And what do we have in India? No mosaics, but communities ever more isolated from each other. I don’t think the ends (mosaic etc) justifies the means (discrimination against one community, in some matters) even in principle; but for those who do, the current state of affairs in India ought to force a re-examination of such ideas.

Kumar