Ruling on Rituals: Courts of Law and Religious Practices in Contemporary Hinduism

Abstract

The Indian Constitution posits a separation between a secular domain regulated by the State, and a religious domain in which it must not interfere. However, courts of law are regularly called upon to resolve a multiplicity of issues related to religion, and their decisions may have a far-reaching impact on religious conceptions and practices. The judicial process requires that standardized, clear-cut definitions of many notions (such as “religion” itself, or “worshipper,” “custom,” “usage,” “religious service,” “religious office,” “religious honor,” etc.) be established in order for them to be manageable within a legal context. Moreover, even though a religious domain may be distinguished from a secular one and protected from State intervention, there are litigations concerning civil rights that involve religious issues on which civil courts may therefore have an explicit duty to rule. Interventions such as imposing legal definitions or deciding on religious matters on which civil rights depend are systemic in character and intrinsic to “modern” law itself. In this they do differ from any explicit policy of state secularism or the no less explicit reformist will of some judges, which may change according to the historical period or to their personal dispositions. This paper comments on several judgments from the upper courts of India chosen from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day, with a view to discussing the disputed limits of this judicial intervention and the resulting entanglement between law and religion.