This book traces the origins of colonial secularism in India and seeks to provide an account of how it was replaced by an indigenous form of secularism in post-colonial India. Chandrachud claims that the British raj imposed an alien doctrine of secularism which originated in the Christian theological belief that native religions like Hinduism and Islam were false and ‘heathen’ (p. x). The transfer of power to Indian hands after independence led to a shift from colonial secularism to ‘soft secularism’ (p. xix) which predates the political ascendancy of the Hindu nationalist right. These claims are substantiated in six meticulously researched chapters following the introduction (pp. ix–xxiv), which locates the contentious issues around secularism in their colonial historical context and describes their evolution in post-independence India.