C.P. Bhambhri

The .... Uttar Pradesh ... Government ... has once again brought into sharp public focus the issue of the role of the secular state while dealing with places of religious worship ... The upshot of the argument in defence of the regulatory powers of the Indian state, irrespective of its secular character, is that every public institution or organisation has to be regulated by the state and public places of worship can not be an exception.

Further, the Indian state not only regulates the places of worship, it also very actively patronises some places of worship ... Should leaders of the Indian state openly identify themselves with places of worship and purely religious festivals and rituals? .

In a multi-religious country, functionaries of the secular state end up patronising every religion, seer or place of worship on the basis of a spacious and facile argument of equal respect for all religions. Id milans, Iftar parties, Ram lilas, temples in Mathura and Varanasi, Tirupati temple and places of worship or rituals of an important religious sect receive great, though formally, equal attention of the leaders of the secular state. While playing this game of equal respect for all religions leaders of the Indian state have come to be identified with majority Hindu religious places of worship.

A distinction has to be maintained between the regulatory powers of the Indian state, and active promotion and patronage of places of worship by state functionaries ... The functionaries of the secular state have to keep themselves at a respectable distance from religious functionaries in religious places because their public identification with places of worship or religious ceremonies has done harm to the actual functioning of the secular state of India which has come to be suspected to be a Hindu state.

Moreover, in a country where cultural practices and performances are intertwined with specific religions public functionaries can not maintain that their association with a cultural festival is a secular activity. Similarly, ... why should elected political leaders and permanent civil servants be associated with the actual management of temples or gurdwaras? Places of religious worship should be managed by the community of believers. In the age of the roll back state and amid the downsizing of the bloated bureaucracy, the Indian state should abandon its powers of regulation and management of the places of worship. The community should manage its own religious affairs subject to the ordinary laws of the land ..

A religious believer has a right to build a place of worship and manage it. The Indian state while performing its regulatory functions in relation to the places of worship should confine itself only to its essential role of maintaining law and order during religious festivals and implementing its normal ordinary laws while dealing with places of worship. A secular state, whose credentials are already suspect, should withdraw itself from promotion of religiosity in public and the management of places of worship ... (Source: The Pioneer, 12 May, 2000)

A.G. Noorani

The UP Regulation of Public Religious Buildings and Places Bill 2000, as passed by the state legislature is a scandalous piece of legislation which bears on its person the tell-tale traces of two disreputable ancestors – the Rajasthan Religious Buildings and Places Act, 1954 and the Madhya Pradesh Sarvajanik Dharmik Bhawan Tatha Stan Viniyaman Adhiniyam, 1984.

... Both, substantively and procedurally, the Bill, if enacted into law by the grant of assent, would be unconstitutional ... (What) really matters is that it gives the DM. power to refuse - if he "is satisfied that it is necessary to do so (refuse) in the interest of public order, morality and health". These three criteria govern the exercise of the fundamental right embodied in Article 25: "freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise, and propagate religion". It is preposterous to suggest that these would be attracted by allowing one's property to be used for religious worship or instruction ...

As Justice Matthew of the US Supreme Court said: "Though the law itself be fair on its face and impartial in appearance, yet, if it is applied and administered by a public authority with an evil eye and an unequal hand, so as to make unjust and illegal discriminations between persons in similar circumstances, material to their rights, the denial of equal justice is still within the prohibition of the Constitution."

The manner in which the Bill was rushed through, the clime and context in which it was drawn up and the very language of clause 5, with its conferment of arbitrary power on DMs, reek of a clear intent to discriminate. The procedure it establishes suffices to establish its unconstitutionality ... Let alone statutes, even constitutional amendments have been struck down as invalid by the Supreme Court because they barred judicial review ...

This is not a piece of municipal legislation ... It is always open to the state to enforce the law if (a) building or its use violates the law. There are standard municipal laws and local police Acts governing such cases. A central statute, the Religious Institutions (Prevention of Misuse) Act; 1988, takes care of the problem ..

The Government of India would do well to advise the President to refuse assent to the UP Bill and, thus, to draw attention to the obnoxious Acts in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. (Source: The Statesman, 12 May, 2000)