Turkey and Bangladesh are other good examples of countries where elites tried to impose secularism, and succeeded for a time, but which ultimately failed because the public didn’t want it.
Speaking in the context of India, you can argue secularism has sort of failed here too. The problem happens to be with the top-down approach. You can't exactly ram down these political concepts down peoples throats. And when the popular leaders who were executing these concepts die, in time these projects fail.
Secularism really is more of a process than a law, you can't exactly legislate a culture into people. On the longer term, you need lots of good intentions sustained over decades, and you need investments in education sector to keep them going.
I agree, but I’d go further and say that promotion of secularism is a warning sign. It’s indicative of a westernized elite trying to reshape the “common people” according to their own ideology.
This is in the context of India, but does a good job explaining the phenomenon: https://unherd.com/2021/04/the-culture-wars-of-post-colonial...
Turkey and Bangladesh are other good examples of countries where elites tried to impose secularism, and succeeded for a time, but which ultimately failed because the public didn’t want it.