Religious freedom and cultural asymmetry: Some pitfalls of secularism

Abstract

Both in post-Independence India and in contemporary Europe, the problems caused by state interference in religion and tradition are most visible in legal disputes and court decisions. In recent years, the European Court of Human Rights, the Supreme Court of India, and lower-level courts in both parts of the world have had to decide on several major cases: from disputes concerning the wearing of the burqa and hijab in public spaces, through questions about the incompatibility between the right to religious freedom and the fixing of crucifixes on the walls of state school classrooms, to conflicts about government control of the management and practices of temples.Europe, India, and the Limits of Secularism (2015) addresses the theme of legal disputes concerning secularism and religious freedom only tangentially: it briefly looks at claims made by Indian judges about 'Hinduism' and examines one European case, that of Lautsi v. Italy, in some detail. Still, it is not a coincidence that two contributors to this colloquium point to relevant court decisions and note how certain issues at the heart of my book play out in the domain of law. Prakash Shah discusses a British case that involved the question whether the wearing of the Kara (a type of steel bracelet) is a requirement of the Sikh religion, a practice of exceptional importance to the claimant's religion, or neither. Rajalakshmi Nadadur Kannan mentions the important Sabarimala case. Here, the Supreme Court of India decided about the 'constitutionality' of a traditional practice in the temple of the deity Ayyappa in Sabarimala, a major pilgrimage center located in the South-Indian state of Kerala. The practice stipulates that women between 10 and 50 are not allowed to enter the temple. In his decision of 28