At its inception, the Indian constitution avoided the word "secular", though the founders of the constitution (and later the indian courts) affirmed that secularism was an inherent part of the indian constitution. In 1976, an amendment was made to include the word "secular" in the preamble of the constitution to remove any ambiguity and affirm that India is a secular nation:
... the Supreme Court of India in the 1994 case S. R. Bommai v. Union of India established the fact that India was secular since the formation of the republic. The judgement established that there is separation of state and religion. It stated, "In matters of State, religion has no place. And if the Constitution requires the State to be secular in thought and action, the same requirement attaches to political parties as well. The Constitution does not recognize, it does not permit, mixing religion and State power. That is the constitutional injunction. None can say otherwise so long as this Constitution governs this country. Politics and religion cannot be mixed. Any State government which pursues nonsecular on policies or nonsecular course of action acts contrary to the constitutional mandate and renders itself amenable to action under Article 356".
Despite this, if we take the incident of demolition of the Islamic Babri Mosque in 1992 by Hindu religious fundamentalists / Hindu nationalists as the starting point, then we can see that India has seen a gradual rise in violent Hindu Nationalism (not effectively prevented by state actions or with their tacit approval) that seeks to convert India into a "Hindu" country:
- Demolition of Babri Mosque
- Increased popularity of BJP
- Forced conversion into Hinduism
- Ban on Zakir Naik
- Increased activity of previously banned Hindu far right and extremist outfits
- Ban on cattle slaughter
- Emergence of cattle vigilante
- Significant increase in cow-related violence
- Significant increase in anti-Muslim hate crime
- Muslim lynching
What is the driving factor behind this transformation of India?