MPSC 2024 Prelims Paper-I · Question 81 of 100

Correct — option (2), '(B), (C) and (D)'. Indian secularism is not the wall-of-separation model of the United States and not the anti-clerical laicite of France; it is a positive equidistance in which the state has no religion of its own, extends the same treatment to every faith, and guarantees each person the freedom to hold and practise one. Test the five printed statements against that. Statement (B), that the state avoids preferential treatment for any particular religion, is the core of it: there is no established church, Article 27 forbids compelling anyone to pay a tax the proceeds of which are appropriated for the promotion of any particular religion, and the word 'secular' was written into the Preamble by the Forty-second Amendment in 1976. Statement (C), that the state treats all religions equally, is the same principle stated positively — the formula usually rendered as sarva dharma sambhava, equal respect rather than official indifference, and the reason the Supreme Court in S. R. Bommai (1994) held secularism to be part of the basic structure. Statement (D), that freedom of faith and worship is allowed to all the people, is Article 25(1): all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion, subject to public order, morality and health. Those three are correct and appear together only in option (2). The two that fail are easy to see once stated: (A) says the state DOES discriminate on the basis of religion in matters of employment, which is the exact opposite of Article 16(2), under which no citizen shall be ineligible for or discriminated against in respect of any employment under the state on grounds only of religion, race, caste, descent, place of birth or residence; and (E) claims that educational institutions 'without exception' may impart religious instruction, which collides with Article 28(1), under which no religious instruction shall be provided in any educational institution wholly maintained out of state funds.

• (1)(A), (B) and (C) — This option is wrong twice over. It admits statement (A), which asserts that the state discriminates on the basis of religion in matters of employment — the precise conduct Article 16(2) forbids, and one of the guarantees that makes the state secular in the first place. It also drops statement (D), the freedom of faith and worship, which is Article 25(1) and is as much a part of the secular scheme as state neutrality is. A candidate who picks this has probably read the list quickly and assumed that any sentence containing the words 'state' and 'religion' belongs in the answer, without checking the direction in which the sentence points.
• (3)(A), (C), (D) and (E) — This is the widest option and it sweeps in both of the false statements while leaving out a true one. Statement (A) contradicts Article 16(2); statement (E), by saying educational institutions are free to impart religious instruction 'without exception', contradicts Article 28(1), which bars religious instruction in institutions wholly maintained out of state funds. The Constitution does allow religious instruction in several other settings — an institution administered by the state but established under an endowment or trust requiring it, under Article 28(2), and state-recognised or state-aided institutions where no pupil may be required to attend without consent, under Article 28(3) — but a rule with exceptions is not a rule 'without exception'. The option also omits statement (B), state neutrality, which is true. Picking the longest option in the hope that a broad answer is a safe one is the specific habit this choice punishes.
• (4)(B) and (D) — Everything this option asserts is true — the state does avoid preferential treatment for any religion, and freedom of faith and worship is guaranteed to all — but the option is incomplete, because statement (C), that the state treats all religions equally, is equally true and equally central. In a 'select the correct statements' item an option that names only some of the true statements is wrong in the same way as one that names a false statement: the answer must be the exact set. This is the classic near-miss and it catches candidates who stop reading the moment they have found two statements they are sure of.

The Indian model of secularism is best understood by what the state may not do and what it must guarantee. It may not have a religion of its own, may not privilege one faith over another, may not compel any person to pay a tax whose proceeds promote a particular religion (Article 27), and may not discriminate in public employment on grounds of religion (Article 16(2)) or in access to shops, public restaurants, wells, roads and places of public resort (Article 15(2)). It must guarantee freedom of conscience and the right to profess, practise and propagate religion to all persons (Article 25), the right of every religious denomination to manage its own affairs in matters of religion (Article 26), and the right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice (Article 30). Religious instruction is regulated rather than banned: prohibited outright in institutions wholly maintained out of state funds (Article 28(1)), permitted in a state-administered institution established under an endowment or trust that requires it (Article 28(2)), and permitted in recognised or aided institutions only with the consent of the pupil or the guardian (Article 28(3)). The word 'secular' entered the Preamble only with the Forty-second Amendment in 1976, but the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the idea was present in the constitutional scheme from the beginning and, in S. R. Bommai (1994), that it forms part of the basic structure.

MPSC's polity section likes propositions about secularism because the concept invites a candidate to answer from a general impression rather than from a printed article. The safeguard is to convert each statement into the article that would have to support it: employment and religion sends you to Article 16(2), freedom of worship to Article 25, religious instruction in schools to Article 28, state funding of religion to Article 27. A statement that does not correspond to any article, or that reverses one, is false whatever it sounds like. Two other habits matter here. First, watch for absolute words: 'without exception', 'in all cases', 'always' turn an otherwise defensible sentence into a false one, and statement (E) is defeated entirely by those two words. Second, on a five-statement list the near-miss option that lists a true but incomplete subset is always in play, so the set has to be settled statement by statement before the options are read at all.

• The word 'secular' was inserted into the Preamble by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976, along with 'socialist' and 'integrity'.
• Article 16(2) forbids discrimination in respect of any employment or office under the state on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth or residence.
• Article 25(1) guarantees to all persons equally the freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion, subject to public order, morality and health.
• Article 27 bars compelling any person to pay taxes the proceeds of which are specifically appropriated for the promotion or maintenance of any particular religion.
• Article 28(1) prohibits religious instruction in any educational institution wholly maintained out of state funds; Article 28(2) and 28(3) create the endowment and consent exceptions.
• In S. R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994) the Supreme Court held secularism to be a part of the basic structure of the Constitution.

• Reading statement (A) as a description of the constitutional position when it is the exact reversal of Article 16(2)
• Accepting an absolute qualifier — 'without exception' in statement (E) — when Article 28 makes religious instruction turn precisely on which kind of institution is involved
• Settling for the near-miss option (4), which names two true statements but leaves out a third that is equally true
• Assuming Indian secularism means the state must keep away from religion altogether; the Constitution permits regulation of secular activity associated with religious practice under Article 25(2)

Secularism appears in MPSC papers both as a statement-list question of this kind and as a single-line item on a named article — which article guarantees freedom of conscience, which forbids religious taxes, which regulates religious instruction. It is also asked through the Preamble, since the Forty-second Amendment is one of the most heavily examined amendments in the syllabus. The reliable method is to attach an article number to every proposition before judging it, and to treat absolute words in a statement as a signal to look for the exception that the Constitution almost always provides.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under which article of the Constitution is religious instruction prohibited in an educational institution wholly maintained out of state funds ?

  • (a)Article 25
  • (b)Article 26
  • (c)Article 27
  • (d)Article 28

  Answer(d) Article 28 — clause (1) prohibits religious instruction in any educational institution wholly maintained out of state funds. Article 25 guarantees freedom of conscience and the right to profess, practise and propagate religion, Article 26 gives religious denominations the right to manage their own affairs in matters of religion, and Article 27 bars taxes whose proceeds are appropriated for the promotion of a particular religion.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The word 'secular' was added to the Preamble of the Constitution of India by which amendment ?

  • (a)The Forty-second Amendment, 1976
  • (b)The Forty-fourth Amendment, 1978
  • (c)The Twenty-fifth Amendment, 1971
  • (d)The First Amendment, 1951

  Answer(a) The Forty-second Amendment, 1976 — it inserted the words 'socialist', 'secular' and 'integrity' into the Preamble. The Forty-fourth Amendment of 1978 undid several other changes made by the Forty-second but left the Preamble as amended.