Suchergebnisse

Professor Smith has produced a comprehensive survey1 of the relations between state and religion in India which will be of great value to students of modern Indian government and politics as well as of religion. Moreover, this useful, stimulating and very readable study raises questions of compelling, interest for all who are concerned with problems of "church and state". India, the seat of a civilization renowned for elaboration of religious thought and pervasiveness of religious observance has, even by Professor Smith's rigorous standards, successfully established a secular state. In this volume, Professor Smith has undertaken to explain how this has come about, to analyze the Indian achievement and the problems that accompany it and, finally, to indicate how India may advance to the full realization of that "true secularism" which he so enthusiastically endorses.

I am greatly indebted to Professor Marc Galanter and Professor John T. Flint for their detailed and thoughtful reviews of India as a Secular State. One of the important objects of the book was to stimulate precisely this kind of serious discussion of problems, problems of both scholarly analysis and public policy. The two reviews are useful in sharpening certain of the issues, and I am grateful for this opportunity to comment on them.