Sarva dharma sambhav is merely an attitude – a noble sentiment at best - while secularism is a political category, a tried and tested mode of statecraft ... The efficiency and deftness with which it goes about doing its job cannot be replaced by mere sentiments of goodwill and wishy-washy thinking, the product of a wobbly mind that would give in easily in situations of social conflict.

Since India began its history as a free, modern nation state some people have been consistently opposed to its secular Constitution and laws. They have kept up their pressure throughout the last 50 years to do away with the secular character of the state giving, at different times, different arguments for why we should do so ...

The present clamour about sarva dharma sambhav is part of that larger anti-secular drive. As a noble sentiment there is no problem for anybody with this idea, or, for that matter. more contemporary ideas like pluralism or multi-culturalism. However, the advocates of sarva dharma sambhay do not believe in pluralism or multi-culturalism. For them India has only one culture - Hindu culture.

The distinction between secularism and sarva dharma sambhay is clear from their approach for school prayer. Advocates of the latter see nothing wrong in Saraswati Vandana in schools while the former demands that the religion of one group must not be forced on other groups. Saraswati Vandana is a prayer to the goddess of education, a goddess of Hindu religion. Muslims and Christians who pray to Saraswati without beheving in her would be committing an act of dishonesty. Besides, this violates the very fundamental principles of secularism. For yotaries of sarva dharma sambhav it may not be wrong even though one commits ån aet of dishonesty by praying to something that one does not believe in.

... Secularism demands that schools and educational institutions remain aloof from denominational disputes ... (In USA) the opponents of (school) prayers have a valid point: the US is a multi-religious multicultural society and the introduction of school prayers would unnecessarily emphasise one religion at the cost of others. A multi-religious prayer would neither be necessary nor relevant.

In any case it would be a chimera. In fact, the education system has been consistently targeted by the protagonists of sarva dharam. And what has come from their tireless efforts is not an example of "equal respect for all religions" as they profess, but extreme discourtesy and animosity for Islam and Christianity ...

What the selective historiography of sarva dharma sambhay votaries promotes is not equal respect for all religions but extreme bitterness and hostility for other. This is not secularism in disguise but the reverse of all that secularism stands for ... By replacing secularism with "equal respect for all religions" we will give ourselves a state which does not distance itself from people's diverse faiths. It will not be secularism in disguise but a Third Reich in a Swadeshi mask (Source: The Nation and the World, 16 May, 2000)