New Delhi: While global talk around secularism is resulting in nations like Austria, France, Belgium and recently Denmark denying their citizens the right to wear the veil in public, a panel gathered at the India International Centre in Delhi on Wednesday to discuss the “contradictions and frailties” of secularism.Former Vice-President Hamid Ansari and former director of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies Rajeev Bhargava joined author and professor Sumantra Bose to discuss his recently-launched book, Secular States, Religious Politics: India, Turkey, and the Future of Secularism.Ansari explained the “unusual book” as a study of two states and their systems of governance, not regarding just institutions but their ideologies and underpinnings.Bose and the panellists spent an hour unpacking the ideology that the author claims is the “core principle” of the Indian polity – secularism.Secularism in India, Bose explained, can be understood as the symmetric treatment of all religions and groups by the state. Bhargava pointed out the difference between the Eastern and the Western version of this concept. While the West, he said, believes in solely exerting hindrance to religion, the East plays a delicate balancing act of aiding and hindering religious practices.It is this act of balance that Bose said has failed to be stable. According to the author, his book illustrates the idea of secularism in the Eastern context by comparing India and Turkey. Bose chose to juxtapose the two countries because of the similarities and differences between the two.“It makes sense to compare two cases which are somewhat similar and somewhat different,” Bose said. “Only then is the logic of comparison met.”Ansari recently received heat from Bharatiya Janata Party supporters over his own book, Dare I Say, which is a collection of essays. In the preface to his book, the former diplomat commented on the state of Indian nationalism and democracy saying,“So while electoral democracy on the first-past-the-post system is in place, it falls short of being substantive, inclusive and participatory…Alongside, some questions relating to it have risen: does it remain plural, egalitarian, secular and inclusive or does it with whatsoever subtlety metamorphose itself into an illiberal, ethnic democracy premised on the principles of Hindutva?”He questions the secularism of the Indian polity, which Bose sees as “eroding”.The discussion wasn’t confined to the East; the panellists actively discussed the idea of Western secularism as well.Contrasting the two hemispheres, the panellists reached a consensus that Eastern and Western secularism have separate and distinct origins. While the Indian government faces issues of providing too much aid, countries such as Denmark, where it’s possible to have your burkha stripped off and spat on, citizens feel the government doesn’t do enough. The so-called secularist niqab ban has come under fire for exhibiting discriminatory sentiments.Bose calls out to secularists to reform and reaffirm their views to sustain a robust secular state. The author also gives examples of compromises and opines that the future of secularism in India rests on the capacity of Indian secularists to address the pitfalls that have emerged in the practice of the ideology and have “benefitted the proponents of Hindutva despite their limited number.”“Secularism is not just a defensive minority right,” Bhargava added, while explaining the frailties of its practice.Ansari said the book traces the “origins and impulses” that propelled the two states which opted for secularism as an intrinsic form of governance. Published by the Cambridge University Press, the book is a comparative study of the two major attempts to build secular states – where the state’s constitutional identity and fundamental character are not based on or derived from any religious faith – in the non-Western world.“The challenge before advocates of secularism as a constitutional value today is to focus on its contradictions and frailties and improve it framework…,” Ansari said. “The alternative of a non-secular state would impinge on both equality and fraternity, and thereby on the very idea of justice as a primary social virtue.”Bharbi Hazarika is a student at Ohio University and an intern at The Wire.