Islam and Peace
Religion and Politics
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RELIGION AND POLITICS
With the independence of India in 1947, two
countries – India and Pakistan – came into existence
on the subcontinent. In both these countries there
was a secular group and a religious group. The
secular group held that the system of the country’s
governance should be run along purely secular
lines, independently of religion, whereas the
thinking of the religious group was quite the
contrary. They insisted that the political system of
the country should be governed in accordance with
the dictates of religion.
This religion-based system was called Nizam-e-
Mustafa in Pakistan, and Ram Rajya in India.
Although in both of these countries political power
fell into the hands of the secular group, in neither
country did the religious group remain silent.
Rather, they pursued the path of confrontation in
order to attain their goal of establishing the system
of government on the basis of religion. To put it
another way, they opted for the path of force in
order to replace the secular system with the system
of government of their choice.
