SMC No. 1/2014 etc 16. 20 Article 20 must then be interpreted to guarantee the rights of the community as well as the right of the individual against those from his own or other religious communities – the ultimate goal being the eradication of religious intolerance in the society. English political philosopher John Stuart Mill in his treatise ‘On Liberty’ (1859) stated that “the great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others for his religious belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realized, except where religious indifference, which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theologically quarrels, has added its weight to the scale.” 17. Although in the West, the separation of the Church and the State and ultimately the Renaissance ushered in an era of objective reasoning, liberal democracy, freedom and secularism, it was soon realized that religion could not entirely be relegated to the private / individual realm. The political aspect of religion has been rife with conflicts, extremism and a claim of monopoly of truth which historically has not been without its toll in human suffering. A step towards resolution is promoting religious tolerance, which should be the underlying objective in interpreting the right to freedom of religion. In the subcontinent, the individual right of freedom to religion has occasionally been trumped by the right of the community, as in the above-cited Indian case of Sardar Syedna. It is imperative that the right to freedom of religion be restored as an individual and indefeasible right, while concurrently