Political polarization is becoming a global illness. Everywhere from Bangladesh to Brazil and India to Indonesia, polarization is ripping the seams of democracies, fueling societal discord and erosion of democratic institutions. In India, religious nationalism, majoritarianism and triumphalism have increasingly inflamed socio-political divisions.
The rise in religious nationalism, where political and religious objectives are conflated and interwoven, has become the main source of divisiveness in many democracies around the world.
India, a country founded on secular nationalism post-1947 has been sliding towards religious nationalism over the last several years. Unlike Pakistan, which was created on the basis Islam, the vision of modern India as envisioned by Gandhi and Bose, who were at the forefront of the freedom struggle, was based on strong secularism and inclusive democracy that included all Indians, regardless of their language, religious, caste, or ethnic backgrounds. On the other hand, at the dawn of freedom, Golwalkar and Savarkar propagated a vision of religious Nationalism vis-a-vis secular nationalism.
Golwalkar, in his book “We or Our Nationhood defined” elaborates the political foundations for religious Nationalism. However, the ethos of India cannot be straight-jacketed into a rigid religious monolith. India has always been a land inhabited over centuries by people with diverse culture, traditions, language, religion and customs. Hinduism cannot be equated to Hindutva. Hinduism is a way of life with multiple systems of philosophy and theology. Hinduism has always been an unstructured religion welcoming different gods and their worshippers into this land. It neither imposes nor can be imposed on others. Religious nationalism is the real danger to the idea of India.
Mounting Religious Majoritarianism is also inflaming societal divisions and has been on a steady rise across South Asia. Following the partition in 1947, Pakistan became a homeland for British India’s Muslims. Over time all minorities, both Muslim and non-Muslim, were persecuted and harassed. The dominance of and preferential treatment for Muslims have cleansed the Hindu and Sikh population and forced the Christians and Ahmadis to migrate to other countries. Defending the sensibilities of the Muslim majority at the expense of the minorities and unequal treatment of the minorities in the light of Islamic law is justified by Islamist groups and scholars.
Although Bangladesh was founded as a secular Muslim country, radical Islamist groups, who would like to turn the country into an Islamic State, have attacked houses belonging to Hindus. In Sri Lanka, Muslims are being targeted by the majority Buddhist Sinhalese. Businesses owned by Muslim face informal boycotts. In India, Hindu supremacists have created a pervasive state of anxiety and fear among the Hindu majority that the minorities are a threat to Hinduism, its culture and tradition. Such divisive and discriminatory narratives have fueled violence targeting India’s Muslims and Christians by vigilante groups.
Religious majoritarian movements have tacit support of the state and have been deployed as a tool for political advantage and dominance. Politicians have been exploiting religious sentiments of the majority by repeatedly exhuming historical wrongs and increasing resentment towards religious minorities by portraying them as enemies of the majority. They have been dividing people into ‘us’ and ‘them’ and are conspicuously silent on acts of hate and violence against the minorities. The political class have exacerbated the societal divide by undermining the rights and protection of the religious minorities.
In the present, religious triumphalism is also contributing to political polarisation, creating significant division and discord within societies. The growing cacophony that one’s religious faith is superior to others and the unwillingness to recognise and acknowledge moral truth and spirituality of other religions is accentuating the ‘othering’.
In India, public and political discourse is resounding with religious triumphalism on the one hand and lament on the other over the erosion of secular humanism. Unlike western secularism, Indian secularism respects not one but all religions. Religion has no role in the functioning of the State and a citizen’s beliefs are his/her private affair.
Many Hindu sages and mystics perceive that the construction and consecration of the temple in Ayodhya is not a moment of triumph rather a moment of great danger for Hinduism. Swami Vivekananda, whom the Sangh Parivar constantly invoke as the foremost exponent of Hinduism and Hindu pride, would have openly opposed Hindu triumphalism exhibited in the destruction of the 500 years old Babri Masjid. His writings, speeches and correspondence reflect Hinduism’s magnanimity of embracing everyone with tolerance and love.
When American and British missionaries were insulting and defaming Hinduism, Vivekananda exhorted Hindus: “In spite of their hatred… and in spite of the vile language they are given to uttering, we will and must go on building churches for Christians and mosques for the Mohammedans, until we have conquered through love, until we have demonstrated to the world that love alone is the fittest thing to survive and not hatred.”
In Chicago, at the Parliament of religions, Vivekananda proudly proclaimed the ethos and essence of Hinduism. He said, “I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation.” Hinduism in its 3,500-year-old history has never carried out religious persecutions.
In India Political polarisation is being brought to a boil by the upsurge in religious nationalism, majoritarianism and triumphalism. Left unchecked political polarisation will be catastrophic for inclusivity and pluralism envisioned in our Constitution
(The writer is a member of the Society of Pilar. He is a Clinical Psychologist and the Editor of ‘Fr. Agnel’s Call’, a monthly mission and youth magazine)
