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West Bengal govt scrapping welfare for imams, purohits opens a larger question

Welfare can quickly turn into a game of precarious religious balancing. It is a dangerous direction for a republic built on equal citizenship.

All eyes remain on West Bengal after the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power. And one of its first major policy shifts has already triggered intense debate. The state government has decided to discontinue welfare funding for imams and purohits.

The issue has quickly turned into a wider political and social debate—ranging from arguments around the “end of appeasement politics” to questions of welfare misuse, identity politics, and the meaning of secularism itself.

The West Bengal government’s decision has revived India’s oldest and perhaps most uncomfortable political question: What does secularism mean in practice?

For decades, Indian governments across political parties have had a complicated relationship with religion. Unlike the Western idea of secularism—where the state and religion are meant to be separate, distant entities—India’s version has often meant active involvement with all religious communities. Governments subsidised pilgrimages, regulated temples, and introduced welfare schemes for religious clergy.

Some defended such policies in the name of inclusion, welfare, or historical balance reparations. But many saw them as selective appeasement of a vote bank through tokens.

The problem arises when governments start attaching welfare to religious identity.........

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