From its early days, the national movement was committed to secularism. Secularism was defined in a comprehensive manner, which meant the separation of religion from politics and the state, the treatment of religion as a private matter for the individual, state neutrality towards or equal respect for all religions, absence of discrimination between followers of different religions and active opposition to communalism.

To counter communalism and give expression to its secular commitment, Congress, in its Karachi Resolution of 1931, declared that in free India ‘every citizen shall enjoy freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess and practise his religion’, that all citizens would be ‘equal before the law, irrespective of caste, creed or sex’, that no disability would attach to any citizen because of caste, creed or gender ‘in regard to public employment, office of power or honour, and in the exercise of any trade or calling’, and that ‘the State shall observe neutrality in regard to all religions’.