ABSTRACT
Religion has been a part of Indian consciousness since time immemorial, but the divisive result of its influence on politics was seen in 1947 when India made a historic tryst with destiny. Independent yet partitioned after extensive deliberation, and influenced by the genocide that followed partition, the Indian state opted for a secular, democratic structure: ‘Whether state directed or autonomously ensured, education in such a democratic polity should have been committed to free enquiry, fair and equal access to knowledge, both quantitative and qualitative, inculcation of the right to debate and dissent’ (Setalvad 2005: 6). Also, given the demographic profile and the socio-cultural make-up of India, a democratic and national system of education had to be secular. Any departure from this ethos would have been detrimental to the fabric of the new nationstate (Panikkar 1999). Therefore, the main thrust of nation building since 1947 has been towards a secular mandate in state policy as well as in education. The imperatives of state policy defined not only nation building, but also influenced its imagination through education. The national curriculum frameworks of education formulated after independence, especially in 1968 and 1986, delineated a secular, homogenous, conflict-free, and unified national construct, despite the apparent socio-cultural and religious diversity. This contestation between the imagination of unity and the reality of difference created a host of rival definitions, which are only partially shaped by state policy (Advani 1996).
