On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 4:11 PM, Charles Haynes <[email protected]> wrote: > As far as I can tell, all secular democracies struggle with how to deal with > religion and government.
India's secularism is a fortunate accident. I credit the small band of intellectuals who had fortunate control of the steering wheel during the early years of Indian independence with the course the country is on today. The tolerant Indian character interpreted secularism as just another religion entering India like all the religions that came before it and was welcome as long as it didn't interfere too much. Sardar Vallabhai Patel gets too little credit for the grand achievement of forging a united India from the 565 semi-autonomous princely states and British-era colonial provinces. I am so relieved we don't have a princely state of Tirupati playing tricks with the law like Vatican does. Ironically, I believe Sai Baba remained above the law precisely because he had secular appeal. Cheeni
