{"id":22899,"date":"2026-04-08T02:21:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T02:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/?p=22899"},"modified":"2026-04-08T02:21:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T02:21:02","slug":"legal-debate-grows-over-courts-role-in-defining-religion-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2026\/04\/08\/legal-debate-grows-over-courts-role-in-defining-religion-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal Debate Grows Over Courts\u2019 Role in Defining Religion in India"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>INDIA, April 5, 2026 (swawrjyamag.com): A recent legal analysis examines how India\u2019s courts came to play an unusually powerful role in defining religion itself. The article traces this authority to a 1954 Supreme Court case involving the Shirur Mutt, where judges introduced the \u201cessential religious practices\u201d test. This doctrine allows courts to decide which practices are central to a religion and therefore constitutionally protected, and which are not. Over time, this has led judges to rule on matters ranging from temple customs to Islamic rituals, effectively placing the judiciary in the position of interpreting theology\u2014often without the cultural or doctrinal grounding to do so.<br><br>The authors argue that the problem runs deeper than flawed legal reasoning. They suggest the entire framework rests on a Western, Protestant-derived idea that religion can be separated into \u201cessential\u201d and \u201cnon-essential\u201d elements, or divided into sacred and secular spheres. Drawing on the work of scholar S.N. Balagangadhara, the article contends that many Indian traditions do not operate within such categories, making the court\u2019s task inherently misguided. The result, critics say, is a legal system that unintentionally distorts indigenous traditions. The article concludes that meaningful reform may require rethinking not just the doctrine itself but the constitutional assumptions behind it.<br><br><a href=\"https:\/\/swarajyamag.com\/ideas\/the-doctrine-that-ate-indian-traditions\">https:\/\/swarajyamag.com\/ideas\/the-doctrine-that-ate-indian-traditions<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>INDIA, April 5, 2026 (swawrjyamag.com): A recent legal analysis examines how India\u2019s courts came to play an unusually powerful role,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22899"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22911,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22899\/revisions\/22911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}