India, Nov. 18 -- A very persistent question that has been the subject of an age-old controversy is - are religion and politics two exclusively distinct areas of human activity? Should religion be kept away from politics or should it play a role in the affairs of the state? When one reviews the important events of the recent past across the country, one would say that religion should be be separated from politics. But when we dig deeper and look at an overall view of the present-world situation, we feel that if religion is kept out of politics, the state will be deprived of a more benign and humanitarian role. The state will then be reduced to being a mere law-making, law-enforcing and punishing agency or to a financing and distributing a...