Revision summary
Some offices and laws secularise with education and growth. Public ritual, endogamy, and communal politics have not faded. Development can even sharpen identity, as in prosperous low-sex-ratio belts. 1991 middle-class life mixes career and piety. India secularises unevenly; it does not become irreligious.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Education and economic development have secularised some Indian institutions and have also fed public religion. Indian society is not becoming secular in the simple Western sense of faith retreating. It is becoming a disharmonic mix of worldly careers and louder sacred identities.
Body
Where secularisation appears
- Offices, labs, and many classrooms follow worldly rules, Yogendra Singh’s differentiation.
- Constitutional secularism is taught even when it is not practised.
- Urban work mixes castes in the canteen, muddling everyday ritual rank.
Where it does not
- Endogamy, pilgrimage, televised gurus, and communal voting have grown with markets and media.
- Educated prosperity in DEMARU states showed development without a secular gender ethic.
- G. S. Ghurye’s civilisational Hindu frame returns as political culture, not as a fading leftover.
Education’s two faces
- Schooling can spread scientific temper and minority-majority stereotypes, depending on the text and the town.
- The new middle class after 1991 consumes both English and temple apps.
Verdict
- More education and GDP do not equal more secular society.
- They reorganise religion as identity, market, and politics beside a secular legal creed.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD ED[Education development] --> DF[Institutional differentiation] ED --> ID[Identity media politics] DF --> MX[Disharmonic secularisation] ID[ID] --> MX[MX]
Conclusion
Indian society is not steadily becoming more secular with education and growth. Institutions differentiate; public faith and communal organisation often thicken. The accurate statement is Beteille’s: secular equality is a value in a still religiously marked structure.
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Same topic · past papers
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These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2016 · Q7(c) · Sociology GS 2 · 15 marks
How is ageing becoming an emerging issue in Indian society ?
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