Religious intolerance and the challenge of pluralism

It is to not erase differences or smooth them out but to discover ways of living in a society of differences

Why is religion, which supposedly espouses compassion, peace, and harmony, often the cause of intolerance? Usually, it is because of the attempts to claim political space and hence the failure of leaders to work with the ‘internal policers’ within their communities to cool down hotheads and prevent escalation.

The past few decades have been challenging for pluralism. Two challenges standout: religious extremism and religious pluralism. The first challenge that has reshaped our society is the increasing visibility and violence of many radical religious and political-religious movements around the world. The word ‘fundamentalist’ is sometimes used as shorthand for the energies of these movements, but we know that it is inadequate to describe the challenge. Powerful movements of various kinds have seized the headlines, to be sure; they have created the polarisation, the turbulence, and the instability that belligerent rhetoric and acts of violence so effectively precipitate.

The second challenge is of religious pluralism. The global movements of peoples as economic migrants and political refugees and the global movements of business and technology have created increasingly diverse and complex societies. At the same time, old complex cultures, such as those of India, are challenged in new ways by their own pluralities, by right wing groups, by transnational mission movements, and by new articulations of nationalism.

We citizens know far more about the currents of religious extremism today than we do about the progress of religious pluralism; and the media is drawn to stories of conflict rather than cooperation, and to fundamentalist rather than moderate voices. Ashis Nandy had long observed what he calls the ‘conspicuous asymmetry’ between the number of studies focusing on violence and those focusing on non-violence and on new and old forms of creativity across the lines of difference.

The analysis of religious conflict and the violence it perpetrates is unquestionably important. But so, too, is the analysis of ‘pluralism’. We are far more aware of the forces of conflict that tear communities apart than we are of those practices and movements that knit them together. Incidents of communal violence in India, for instance, capture our immediate attention. But we have a harder time maintaining steady focus on the ways people have maintained vibrant connections across religious, cultural, and ethnic differences.

The typical liberal response when faced with these challenges is to rush to find common ground and agreement. Perhaps this is the time to make clear that religious pluralism is not primarily about common ground. Pluralism takes the reality of difference as its starting point. The challenge of pluralism is not to obliterate or erase difference, nor to smooth out differences under a universalising canopy, but rather to discover ways of living, relating, arguing, and disagreeing in a society of differences.

This is no small challenge, given the fact that some of the most contentious differences are within religious communities and even within particular sectarian or denominational movements.

All religions have their own internal diversities and arguments, often more fraught with disagreement than those across traditions. We must recognise that over-emphasising specifically ‘religious’ identities, often derails our understanding of our complex society. What is too quickly referred to as ‘communal violence’ or ‘religious nationalism’ is complicated. Religion is enmeshed in economics, politics, class, caste, and education. Indeed, the very tendency to prioritise religion over other identities has often been a major source of conflict.

As citizens, we must learn to analyse and distinguish the registers of ‘voice’ that are used in these various arenas of public discourse: How is an argument made? What are the sources of authority? What is the evidence? ‘Voice’ in this context, is a term of rhetoric: it describes where we position ourselves, and in this case, where we stand in addressing the issue of pluralism. Voice depends upon the location of people we speak to, the context in which we speak, and what is at stake in that context, how we assemble an argument and on what we rely for persuasive evidence.

This seems stunningly simple, but in practice, many of us are not adept at thinking through the issues of voice, so strident is the push toward the unitary, the unequivocal. We must learn to question and challenge divisive assertions.

On the contentious issues of pluralism in Indian public life, what is at stake are the very principles and ideals of our society. What is at stake in the many highly symbolic public controversies over non-issues -- food, faith and festivals -- such as prohibiting merchants of a particular community trading with another during religious festivals, or about banning halal meat?

More than about religion, these are attempts to claim political space. When people assert the view that we must reclaim our heritage, a good question to ask is, who is the ‘We’? It is obvious that we are 80% Hindu, and 90% believe in God. However, it is clear as day that the Indian Constitution is not about majorities. It is about the rights of all citizens, and perhaps especially, those who do not win elections.

We will also want to pay careful attention to incidents of hate crimes, the harassment on the basis of religion, and the vandalism of property in the name of God. But following each incident beyond the initial violence, we realise that often, something else is also happening. The public response to incidents of vandalism, violence, and discrimination has often been to assert, to the contrary, that this is not who ‘we’ are.

Preserving our plural society requires the energies of all citizens; in public life, political life, and civic bridge-building. Generating new thinking adequate for the 21st century will also require the best of theological reflection in every religious tradition, theological leadership that is responsive to the challenges of both secularism and religious pluralism. If all citizens were to try, each in small ways, there can be little doubt that India will remain a beacon of a plural, multi-cultural society. We must rise to the challenge.

(The writer is Director, Public Affairs Centre, Bengaluru)