(The Rant)

Disclaimer : Here the title church vs state simply refers to the constitutional principle of separation between government and religion. So “CHURCH” here not only refers to the Christian church but also all the other religious institutions and organizations there is…..:)

Religion and patriotism are two things Indians are extremely emotional about, right after cricket and free Wi-Fi. Both can inspire people to build nations, sacrifice comfort, and stand up against injustice. Both can also make people shout at strangers on the internet at 2 a.m. with unmatched confidence.

The problem is not faith or love for one’s country. The problem begins when people confuse belief with ownership and devotion with dominance.

Let’s begin with a simple truth that often makes people uncomfortable, loving God and loving your country are not competing full-time jobs. You don’t have to resign from one to commit to the other. History proves this repeatedly, though we seem determined to forget it every election season.

Mahatma Gandhi, for instance, was deeply religious, inconveniently so for people who want to reduce him to a harmless statue. He prayed every day, quoted the Bhagavad Gita regularly, and believed in God with a stubborn gentleness.

Yet he was also the same man who defended Muslims during riots, fasted for communal harmony, and annoyed extremists on all sides equally. If Twitter existed then, Gandhi would’ve been cancelled at least once a week by everyone.

What made Gandhi interesting wasn’t that he believed in God, but that he refused to monopolize God. His Ram Rajya was not a Hindu-only gated society with divine security guards. It was a moral idea of justice, truth, compassion.

Ironically, many who shout his name today would have found him deeply inconvenient in real life. He spoke too softly, walked too slowly, and questioned power too often.

And Gandhi wasn’t alone in this spiritual-but-not-sectarian patriotism.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a scholar of Islam and a freedom fighter, believed India’s soul lay in pluralism. He once said that if an angel descended and offered freedom in exchange for Hindu-Muslim unity, he would reject freedom (The angel of God descends from heaven and offers me freedom in exchange for Hindu-Muslim unity, I would tell him, “O Angel! Go back! For my freedom can wait, but not unity.”)

That’s not a man confused about his faith, that’s someone confident in it.

Then there was Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the “Frontier Gandhi,” a devout Muslim who preached non-violence in a region stereotyped as aggressive. Imagine the irony, a man from the North-West Frontier Province teaching peace while the rest of us still argue over whose god is more offended today.

And let’s not forget Bhagat Singh, the atheist who loved India enough to die for it. He didn’t believe in God, but he believed deeply in justice, equality, and reason. He rejected blind faith not because he hated religion, but because he hated oppression disguised as divinity. Today, he would probably be accused of being “anti-national” by people who confuse loud slogans with courage.

Then there were Parsis like Dadabhai Naoroji, Christians like Annie Besant, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, all wildly different in belief, united by one radical idea, “This land belongs to everyone who lives in it.”

Which brings us to the present day, where patriotism has become a performance sport. Flags are waved louder than policies are read. Faith is worn like a badge, not practiced like a value. And nationalism has been rebranded as a personality trait.

Somewhere along the way, loving your country became about proving others don’t…… Religion, once meant to humble humans before something greater, now often inflates egos. God, who was supposed to make people kinder, is now used as a co-signer for anger.

History, however, keeps quietly reminding us, When religion enters the courtroom of governance, justice usually leaves through the back door.

The idea of separating church and state is not an attack on belief. It’s a safety measure, like keeping fire away from a fuel tank. Religion is powerful, emotional, deeply personal. Governance must be boring, procedural, and fair. When the two mix, faith becomes policy and policy becomes prejudice.

A state that picks a favourite religion automatically turns citizens of other faiths into guests. And guests, as we know, are always expected to behave and also leave at the earliest….

India’s Constitution understood this long before social media debates did. It didn’t ask citizens to abandon faith, it simply asked the state to stay neutral. Not because faith is dangerous, but because power combined with faith often is….

The irony is that those who shout the loudest about protecting culture often know the least about it. Our culture survived precisely because it absorbed, adapted, and argued without erasing. It grew because it allowed contradiction. It breathed because it allowed dissent.

True patriotism is not fragile. It doesn’t panic when someone questions it. It doesn’t need daily validation. It doesn’t demand uniformity. It simply asks, are we becoming fairer, kinder, more just than we were yesterday?

Faith, when genuine, humbles. Patriotism, when healthy, unites. When either becomes a weapon, both lose their soul.

And perhaps the most ironic truth of all, the people who fought hardest for our freedom did not demand agreement, they demanded conscience. They didn’t ask what god you prayed to, only whether you stood up when it mattered.

Maybe that’s the kind of patriotism worth resurrecting. Quiet. Confident. Inclusive. And secure enough to not feel threatened by difference.

Because if your love for your country needs someone else to be excluded, then maybe what you love isn’t the country at all, just the feeling of being right (or far right….)

Happy New Year.

SleepySocrates