Secularism in India in the context of "AMASR Act"

The Indian National Congress (INC), also known as the Congress Party, or simply the Congress, is a big tent political party in India. It is one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Bharatiya Janata Party, and the oldest party in India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Empire in Asia and Africa. From the late 19th century, and especially after 1920, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, the Congress became the principal leader of the Indian independence movement. The Congress was one of the parties who led India to independence from the United Kingdom, and significantly influenced other anti-colonial nationalist movements in the British Empire.

The INC is a "big tent" party that has been described as sitting on the centre of the Indian political spectrum. The party held its first session in 1885 in Bombay where W.C. Bonnerjee presided over it. After Indian independence in 1947, Congress emerged as a catch-all, Indian nationalist and secular party, dominating Indian politics for the next 50 years. The party's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, led the Congress to support socialist policies by creating the Planning Commission, introducing Five-Year Plans, implementing a mixed economy, and establishing a secular state. After Nehru's death and the short tenure of Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi became the leader of the party. In the 17 general elections since independence, it has won an outright majority on seven occasions and has led the ruling coalition a further three times, heading the central government for more than 54 years. There have been six prime ministers from the Congress party, the first being Jawaharlal Nehru (1947–1964), and the most recent being Manmohan Singh (2004–2014). Since the 1990s, the Bharatiya Janata Party has emerged as the main rival of the Congress in both national and regional politics.

Jawaharlal Nehru (14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat, and statesman who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20th century. Nehru was a principal leader of the Indian nationalist movement in the 1930s and 1940s. Upon India's independence in 1947, he served as the country's first prime minister for 16 years. Nehru promoted parliamentary democracy, secularism, and science and technology during the 1950s, powerfully influencing India's arc as a modern nation. In international affairs, he steered India clear of the two blocs of the Cold War. A well-regarded author, he wrote books such as Letters from a Father to His Daughter (1929), An Autobiography (1936) and The Discovery of India (1946), that have been read around the world.

The son of Motilal Nehru, a prominent lawyer and Indian nationalist, Jawaharlal Nehru was educated in England—at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge, and trained in the law at the Inner Temple. He became a barrister, returned to India, enrolled at the Allahabad High Court and gradually became interested in national politics, which eventually became a full-time occupation. He joined the Indian National Congress, rose to become the leader of a progressive faction during the 1920s, and eventually of the Congress, receiving the support of Mahatma Gandhi, who was to designate Nehru as his political heir. As Congress president in 1929, Nehru called for complete independence from the British Raj.

India and Pakistan have a complex and largely hostile relationship that is rooted in a multitude of historical and political events, most notably the partition of British India in August 1947.

Two years after World War II, the United Kingdom formally dissolved British India, dividing it into two new sovereign nations: the Union of India and Pakistan. The partitioning of the former British colony resulted in the displacement of up to 15 million people, with the death toll estimated to have reached between several hundred thousand and one million people as Hindus and Muslims migrated in opposite directions across the Radcliffe Line to reach India and Pakistan, respectively. In 1950, India emerged as a secular republic with a Hindu-majority population. Shortly afterwards, in 1956, Pakistan emerged as an Islamic republic with a Muslim-majority population.