Which one of the following is not an indicator of Secularisation?

Answer & explanation

Correct answer: option 1

The correct answer is Option (1) → Fasting during Navratra/Ramadan

Option (1) Fasting during Navratra/Ramadan — Not an indicator (Correct). Secularisation means a decline in the influence of religion. Fasting during a religious festival is active religious practice, so it shows involvement with religion, the very opposite of a decline.

Option (2) Lower Rates of church attendance — An indicator (Incorrect). One indicator of secularisation is the level of involvement with religious organisations, and lower church attendance is a fall in that involvement.

Option (3) Degree of religious beliefs being diluted — An indicator (Incorrect). Another indicator is the degree to which people hold religious beliefs; when these beliefs weaken, society is becoming more secular.

Option (4) Not taking part in any religious festivities — An indicator (Incorrect). Staying away from religious festivities is again less involvement in religious life, a sign of religion’s retreat from people’s lives.

Note: The example ‘rates of church attendance’, given for the first indicator of secularisation in the chapter ‘Cultural Change’, was there in the pre-rationalised NCERT, which NTA followed in 2023. The NCERT book (2025-26) keeps the indicator, levels of involvement with religious organisations, but this example has been deleted from it.

NCERT (2025-26): “Modernisation and Secularisation … In the modern west, secularisation has usually meant a process of decline in the influence of religion. It has been an assumption of all theorists of modernisation that modern societies become increasingly secular. Indicators of secularisation have referred to levels of involvement with religious organisations, the social and material influence of religious organisations, and the degree to which people hold religious beliefs.…”

“…This separation was related to the process of ‘secularisation’, or the progressive retreat of religion from public life, as it was converted from a mandatory obligation to a voluntary personal practice. Secularisation in turn was related to the arrival of modernity and the rise of science and rationality as alternatives to religious ways of understanding the world.”

NCERT (Pre-rationalised): “What kind of modernity? … In the modern west, secularisation has usually meant a process of decline in the influence of religion. It has been an assumption of all theorists of modernisation that modern societies become increasingly secular. Indicators of secularisation have referred to levels of involvement with religious organisations (such as rates of church attendance), the social and material influence of religious organisations, and the degree to which people hold religious beliefs.…”