Articles 25 and 26

In one line

Article 25 protects the individual believer and article 26 the organised religious body, and the two are not restricted on the same terms: article 25 must give way to the other fundamental rights, article 26 need not.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: article 25(1) guarantees to all persons, subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions of this Part, freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion, subject further to the State's saved powers in clause (2). Article 26 guarantees to every religious denomination or section thereof, subject to public order, morality and health only, four rights: to establish and maintain institutions for religious and charitable purposes, to manage its own affairs in matters of religion, to own and acquire property, and to administer it in accordance with law. The Commissioner, Hindu Religious Endowments, Madras v. Sri Lakshmindra Thirtha Swamiar of Sri Shirur Mutt, 1954 AIR 282, 1954 SCR 1005, held that "what constitutes the essential part of a religion is primarily to be ascertained with reference to the doctrines of that religion itself", and that while the right under article 26(b) to manage affairs in matters of religion "is a fundamental right which no legislature can take away", the right under article 26(d) to administer property "can be regulated by laws which the legislature can validly impose".

Why there are two articles

Religion is practised by people and organised by institutions, and a Constitution protecting only the first would leave a State free to destroy the second by taking over its management. That is not hypothetical: both cases here arose from statutes putting a State officer in charge of religious endowments.

So the two articles have different holders. Article 25 speaks of "all persons", meaning every human being and not only citizens, as Ratilal notes; article 26 speaks of a "religious denomination or any section thereof", and makes the claimant prove it is one. They protect different things too: belief and its outward expression, against the running of an institution and its property.

Article 25 in its own words

Article 25, headed Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion, opens: "Subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions of this Part, all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practice and propagate religion."

Clause (2): "Nothing in this article shall affect the operation of any existing law or prevent the State from making any law (a) regulating or restricting any economic, financial, political or other secular activity which may be associated with religious practice; (b) providing for social welfare and reform or the throwing open of Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus."