Editorial

In the first editorial of JST, I argued that, over a period of time in Europe, notions about ‘secularism’ had undergone radical transformation. These changes occurred when European cultures encountered the ‘permeable membranes’ of cultures in other parts of the world (Raza et. al., 2002)1. Embedded in the idea of the ‘enlightenment’, secularism constitutes a nebulous notion and is represented as a set of values that could adapt to different conditions as it travels the complex space occupied by time and cultural spaces. Pt. Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, carved out a separate space within the evolving notion of a ‘secular value system’ and termed it ‘scientific temper’