Is India Secular?

What does “Secularism” means in India? It means that every religion is equal in the eyes of law and state. But some recent events raise the question over the umbrella of “secularism” which covers the whole of India and making fun of Sikhs is one of them.

Sikh community is a minority in India and constitute only 1.7% of the total population. It’s been quite a long time since Santa Banta jokes are ridiculing the Sikhs and hurting their sentiments. However, Supreme Court will soon put an end to the ordeal faced by the people of this community.

The Apex Court on Friday agreed to hear a petition demanding a ban on about 5000 websites showing the Sikh community in poor light. Claiming that such jokes are a violation of their right to equality with fellow citizens and an attack on the dignity of the community, Sikh lawyer Harvinder Chowdhary filed a petition regarding this and said the court should order the government to ensure such jokes are taken off websites and filters are put in place to stop more such jokes on the internet as they tend to portray the Sikhs as people of low intellect.

We should feel blessed to be born in a country where we can experience diversity not in terms of religion only but also in terms of language, food, costumes, cultures etc. We should not forget the fact that the past Prime Minister of our country Dr. Manmohan Singh is a Sikh, Olympics Gold medallist Abhinav Bindra is a Sikh, martyr Bhagat Singh was a Sikh who lost his life to make India independent and he is also the youth icon of India. These are just a few names out of the whole lot of the great personalities who belong to the Sikh community. God has blessed us with an extraordinary intellect and therefore we should also try to broaden our thought processes in order to make India secular in a true sense.

“United We Stand, Divided We Fall”

[author image=”http://www.aapkatimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Sakshi-Agarwal.jpg” ]I am Sakshi Agarwal pursuing B.Sc. Home Science (Pass), Lady Irwin College I like to read books in my free time as they are my best friends.I also like to help others in any way possible and socialise, now I am doing it through my writing. You may contact me: luvsahara1@gmail.com [/author]

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