Google and Facebook have recently removed content from websites with an Indian domain to protect that nation's "religious sensibilities." The two Internet giants were among 21 other groups forced to take down offensive material within 36 hours of the Indian government's request.
Comparable to the highly controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), India's press law states that companies, not individual users, are responsible for the material uploaded and shared through their web services. In a vein similar to SOPA, the law requires private parties be allowed to file copyright complaints against entire websites, even for infringements which are user-generated.
What is most disturbing, however, is neither the law's likeness to SOPA nor its placing blame on websites. It is, rather, the impermeable shield the Indian government's legislation has planted around religious institutions. Although the nation is labeled one of the world's developing democracies, this legislation reveals that India's shift into the 21st century is stunted by an ever-growing fear of maintaining peace among its religious minorities.
One could argue this law has its reasons. In juxtaposition to other emerging nations, India is home to a variety of subcultures, with complex social, economic and religious cleavages. Such divisions have been the source of extreme conflict for centuries and have only sharpened since the 1947 population exchange with the newly-founded Pakistan.
Even so, India's government has identified itself as a strictly secular institution since it established its current constitution in 1950. Indian politicians have since tried to promote a sense of national consciousness among the diverse citizenry. Despite the efforts of the Nehru-era to abolish caste discrimination, implement a neutralist foreign policy by helping found the international Non-Aligned Movement and promote a secular identity, India's social and religious minorities retain their distinct, cultural identities.
The question is not merely whether India ought to be secular, as we define it. Secularism, in fact, can have two definitions in contemporary politics. The first is how the U.S. government practices secularism: that is, an acceptance of all religions including their freedom to practice within the public and private spheres. The second, often called la
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