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Comment by nu2ycombinator | Hacker News Reader

Author has no clue about what is Democracy and what is secularism. A country can be democratic but not a secularism. Democracy means people chose their own govt(Pakistan is also same). Secularism means religion does not matter for the jobs.

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"For India to appoint a Muslim to be the chief of the country’s intelligence service is a big, big deal." - This is not true. 6 years back Indian president was a Muslim. So in India all it matters is talent not religion.

So please explain this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Mumbai_bombings ?

Indian intelligence failed to stop them. This is nothing to do with being democracy or not. There is 9/11 in USA too.

What democracy has to do with that sentence at all? We are speaking about religious tension in countries and how it is handled in India and other countries. As well noting that India is doing better here.

Exactly my point. It is nothing to do with democracy or secularism, what is your point in mentioning bomb blasts. Entire world is suffering with islam terrorism, unless they are muslim states.

My point is that author is correct pointing that while Muslim has chances to take important positions in government in India that's not common and naturally accepted thing. I found article reasonably weighted and thought out and found strange to see that first comments to be completely not-insightful and not-contributing anything valuable.

I know you meant it as an illustrative example, but India has been a liberal democracy ever since it won its independence.

We had a Muslim head of state in 1967 (Zakir Hussain).

APJ Abdul Kalam - the President you refer to- was one of India's most beloved Presidents because he holds a double Ph. D. At the time he was elected, I think the Indian cabinet had the highest number of Ph. Ds in the world, for political (non-appointed) positions.

In western cultures, "Democracy" really means "Liberal democracy" [1]. Separation of church and State is a pillar of Liberal democracy.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_democracy

So the UK isn't a “democracy” in the western sense then?

Perhaps we should ask the next Lord Defender of the Faith if he agrees to separations in his church and his state. I wouldn't mind a choicy piece of Wales and Scotland for myselves ;-)

I'm from Denmark, which like UK has a hereditary head of state as well as an official state church. Neither are really consistent with our democratic ideals, and not something we try to encourage when engaging in state building.

In practice, the legislative, executive and judiciary powers are separated from the church there too. But formally, yes, that could be a subject of debate.

Can country with two big religions be secular democracy?

As long as nobody gets the brilliant idea to start questioning Dharmasastra (Hindu) or Sharia (Muslim), things will probably keep working fine. The day that anybody thinks that they should start democratically re-inventing these things, all bets will be off. I seriously suspect that you would not have to wait too long before hell breaks loose ...

It depends more on how much religious nuts gain weight on either side. I still have to see a single Hindu preacher asking for a Hindu laws in place while it's not uncommon for Muslim preachers to try to preach sharia down the throats. Muslims are therefore considered uneducated and easily lead to violence. They have their own ghettos (much like Europe) and try to run a state within a state.

Although, number of Muslims educating their children are rising, specially in cities. And such people have no hatred towards anyone on religious lines.

Biggest achievement of India would be to ensure that every child goes to a proper school and get modern education and not some religious BS in early years

On the long term, it is the religious "nuts" who seem to make approximately all the children. It is the same in Israel with the Haredim, I have noticed. Their progeny is growing exponentially. The meek will apparently again inherit the earth ;-)

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