Secularism and India

Religion is a very sensitive issue for everyone since it is deeply rooted in everyone's heart and emotion. Its not possible to separate religion from mankind. Religion often helps in binding various religious communities together and sometimes it turns violent and kills the harmony among different religious groups. At this juncture it is pertinent to talk about the importance of secularism. Secularism can reduce the gap between different groups. It can also be added in this context that Indian model of secularism is quite different from the western model which reiterates the complete separation of religion from politics or state. In India it is not easy to make any separation between these two as Mahatma Gandhi too kept these two together. The term 'Secularism' was not originally added to the preamble to the constitution of India, but later through 42nd amendment of the constitution in 1976 the term was added. The following link will provide more facts on secularism in India-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularism_in_India