Religion and Society in India

Introduction: Religion in the Indian Context

India is one of the most religiously diverse societies on earth. Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism all have deep roots here, and the country's Constitution guarantees freedom of religion to all. Yet religion in India is not simply a matter of private belief it shapes caste relations, political mobilisation, family structures, gender hierarchies, and national identity. Sociologists of religion in India are therefore simultaneously sociologists of caste, ethnicity, nationalism, and the state.

The three fundamental questions that organise the sociology of religion in India are: How do India's diverse religious traditions relate to each other? How does the secular constitutional state manage religious diversity? And how are religious identities being transformed by modernity, democracy, and globalisation?

Religious Pluralism in India

Religious pluralism is a condition in which two or more groups with diverse religious beliefs, practices, and identities coexist in society. India has been pluralistic from ancient times Buddhism and Jainism emerged within and alongside the Vedic tradition; Islam arrived in the 7th century and Sikhism was founded in the 15th century; Christianity came through the Apostle Thomas and later through Portuguese missionaries.

Amartya Sen, in his essay "Secularism in India," argues that India's pluralism has always been a doctrine of the state rooted in the traditions of tolerance exemplified by Ashoka's edicts, Akbar's Din-e-Ilahi, and the composite culture of the Mughal court. But he also observes that illiteracy, rural living, and commitment to tradition mean that constitutionally India is pluralistic while internally there are conflicts within all major religions.

Peter Berger links pluralism to modernisation and secularisation modernity brings values of individualism, freedom, and the separation of state from religion, creating conditions in which multiple religious beliefs coexist rather than one orthodoxy dominating. Stark and Bainbridge (Religious Economist Theory) take the opposite view: pluralism makes religion stronger, not weaker, by creating a "free religious market" with competition among providers contrasting the pluralistic, competitive American religious market with the monopolistic European model where state-sponsored churches have suppressed competition and weakened religious vitality.

Contemporary challenges to Indian pluralism include: the use of religion for vote-bank mobilisation; Hindu nationalist organisations acting as moral gatekeepers restricting entry of Muslims and Dalits in public festivals (Garba controversy, Gujarat); the politics of conversion and reconversion; and the global rise of religious fundamentalism generating local echoes.

Syncretic Traditions: Bhakti and Sufi Movements

The Bhakti and Sufi movements represent the most significant syncretic traditions in Indian religious history movements that accepted, celebrated, and learned from diverse religious traditions, producing a composite popular culture that cut across the Hindu-Muslim divide.

The Bhakti movement (8th-17th centuries) rejected caste hierarchy and ritual formalism in favour of personal devotion to God. Its saints came from all castes Kabir was a Muslim weaver, Ravidas a cobbler, Tukaram a Shudra farmer, Mirabai a Rajput princess. They composed in vernacular languages (Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil) rather than Sanskrit, making their teaching accessible to the masses. The Bhakti movement challenged both Brahminical caste hierarchy and Islamic orthodoxy, producing a space of shared spiritual experience that transcended communal boundaries.

The Sufi movement represented Islam's mystical dimension emphasising direct personal experience of God (fana, or annihilation of the self in God), love and ecstasy over legal compliance, and openness to local cultural forms. The Chishti order (Moinuddin Chishti, Nizamuddin Auliya, Amir Khusrau) became deeply embedded in Indian popular culture. The dargahs (shrines) of Sufi saints attract devotees of all religions embodying the syncretic spirit of popular Indian religiosity. The Sufi concept of Wahadut-ul-Wajud (Unity of God God and his creations are one) resonates with Advaita Vedanta's non-dualism.

The Bhakti-Sufi synthesis produced a composite culture shared music (qawwali, bhajan, doha), shared pilgrimage sites, shared vocabulary of devotion that formed the cultural backdrop against which both anti-colonial nationalism and communalism later struggled. This composite culture is what TN Madan calls "Indianised" or "domesticated" religion religious traditions that have adapted to each other through centuries of co-habitation.

Communalism

Definition and Nature

Communalism is the mobilisation of people on the basis of religious community to pursue sectional interests, generally at the expense of others using social-religious traditions to serve vested political and economic interests. Bipin Chandra defines communalism as the belief that because people follow different religions they have different secular (social, political, economic) interests which are incompatible and antagonistic. Communalism is therefore distinct from religiosity one can be deeply religious without being communal, and communal leaders often have only a cynical relationship to their professed religion.

Bipin Chandra identifies three stages of communalism:

• Liberal Communalism members of a religious community have similar religious interests but different and compatible secular interests. The community organises around religious concerns (festivals, personal law) without generating antagonism toward others.
• Communal Communalism members of a religious community believe they have different secular interests from members of other communities, but these communities can coexist.
• Extreme Communalism the belief that two religious communities have such fundamentally different and antagonistic secular interests that they cannot coexist. This is the logic of the Two-Nation Theory (Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations) that culminated in Partition.

Causes of Communalism

• Unhealthy competition for scarce opportunities (government jobs, political seats, business licenses) along religious lines
• Different (often manipulated and mythologised) perceptions of history historical grievances, both real and constructed, are weaponised by communal leaders
• The trauma of Partition and its unhealed wounds continuing to poison Hindu-Muslim relations
• Vested interests politicians who benefit electorally from communal polarisation; religious leaders who derive authority from communal mobilisation
• Insecurity among religious minorities (fear of conversion, cultural erasure, physical violence)
• Perception of threat even among the majority (demographic anxiety, narrative of historical victimhood)
• International linkages events outside India (Palestinian conflict, Rushdie affair, Danish cartoons, anti-CAA protests) imported into domestic communal politics
• Colonial legacy the British deliberately used the "divide and rule" policy, separate electorates (Morley-Minto reforms, 1909), and communal census classifications to produce and harden communal identities

Consequences of Communalism

• Communal riots episodic but devastating violence (1947 Partition, 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, 1992 Babri Masjid demolition, 2002 Gujarat riots, 2013 Muzaffarnagar, 2020 Delhi)
• Atmosphere of chronic mutual distrust and unrest
• Forced migration and ghettoisation religious minorities concentrated in enclaves for safety, reducing social contact and entrenching segregation
• Xenophobia and othering members of the opposing religious community treated as foreign, suspect, and potentially dangerous
• Hindrance to social change communal mobilisation can function as a substitute for class mobilisation, channelling economic grievances into religious conflict rather than structural reform
• Political mobilisation degenerating into electoral vote-bank politics based on communal identity rather than developmental performance

Problems of Religious Minorities

Jagannath Pathy identifies four dimensions of problems faced by religious minorities in India:

• Subordination physical and economic subordination; reduced access to space and resources
• Deprivation material, employment, and educational deprivation
• Inferiority the culture of the majority is celebrated as national culture; minority cultures are marked as "other" or exotic
• Distinctiveness manifestly marked as different through clothing, language, food habits, and ritual practices that invite discrimination

Additional problems: low literacy and ghettoisation leading to limited employment options; suspicion about loyalty to the nation-state; difficulties in housing due to communal segregation (Kashmiri Pandits displaced from the Valley; Muslims denied housing in many Indian cities); underrepresentation in the police, military, and judiciary; threat to cultural preservation as minority languages and practices face assimilationist pressure; violence during communal tensions; and the pressure of the Uniform Civil Code debate (minority personal law seen as under threat).

The Sachar Committee Report (2006) on the social, economic, and educational status of the Muslim community found that Muslims were significantly below national averages on virtually every development indicator literacy, income, government employment, share of IAS/IPS/IFS officers, presence in urban formal economy. The Ranganath Mishra Committee (2007) on religious and linguistic minorities made recommendations for affirmative action that were never implemented. These reports confirmed that India's largest religious minority faces systematic, structural disadvantage that communal rhetoric alone cannot explain.

Religious Fundamentalism

Religious fundamentalism is a movement or belief system calling for a return to the fundamental or basic religious texts, treating certain original values as pure and inviolable in direct contrast to modernist interpretations that accommodate change and pluralism. The term originated in 1920s American Protestantism (publication of "The Fundamentals") but the phenomenon is found in virtually all religious traditions.

Causes of Fundamentalism

Giddens argues that the cause of fundamentalism is high modernity and globalisation. Whenever there is a period of drastic social change that disturbs established order, disrupts traditional social bonds, and creates rootlessness and identity anxiety, people clutch onto any available support. Fundamentalism promises a return to an earlier, better age a time of certainty, moral clarity, and community cohesion. The psychological appeal is difficult to resist for those experiencing rapid, disorienting change. Other causes include: perception of cultural threat (globalisation seen as Western cultural imperialism eroding indigenous values); economic deprivation creating receptive audiences for simple explanatory frameworks; vested interests of religious leaders seeking to consolidate authority; lack of modern education that might provide alternative frameworks; and political manipulation by parties seeking to mobilise fundamentalist constituencies.

Mechanisms of Fundamentalism

Fundamentalists build rigid belief systems and enforce intense commitment among believers. They treat their interpretation of sacred texts as literally true and infallible. Non-believers are denied legitimacy and sometimes rights. Fundamentalism frequently takes an aggressive militant form where violence against "enemies of the faith" is theologically justified the Taliban's implementation of Sharia in Afghanistan is the most extreme recent example.

Consequences of Fundamentalism

Negative consequences include: religious orthodoxy suppressing dissent; intolerance for diversity; hindrance to progressive social change; riots, terrorism, and war; perpetuation of social evils that harm women especially (strict dress codes, restrictions on mobility, denial of education and employment). However, fundamentalism also has some sociologically observable positive functions: it can check abrupt and disorienting social change; it provides psychological security and solidarity in times of uncertainty; and it can provide a basis for political and social mobility for groups previously excluded from mainstream power (the BJP's rise drew many lower-caste Hindus into a new Hindu nationalist identity that promised social dignity).

Clifford Geertz identifies fundamentalism as an ideology-based belief system and phenomenon. It exists at a latent level in all religious traditions but becomes socially problematic when manifested in public action when private belief becomes the basis for coercing others.

Secularism in India

The Indian model of secularism is distinctive and has been the subject of sustained sociological and political debate. Western secularism (the American or French model) involves a "wall of separation" between state and religion the state is strictly neutral and religion is a purely private affair. Indian secularism, by contrast, involves what Rajeev Bhargava calls "principled distance" the state maintains an equal relationship with all religions rather than distancing itself from all. The Indian state funds Hindu temples, Muslim mosques, Sikh gurdwaras, and Christian churches, regulates personal law for different communities, and grants special rights to religious minorities.

Four basic tenets of secularism as a value system: tolerance; flexibility (accommodation of diverse practices); rationality (public reason rather than religious authority governing state decisions); coexistence.

D. Smith identifies India as having strong secular credentials the Constitution (Article 25-30) guarantees freedom of religion, the state has attempted to remain equidistant from all religious communities, and the judiciary has intervened to protect minority rights. However, critics argue that Indian secularism is "pseudo-secularism" either because it involves too much state intervention in religion (Hindu reformers who want the state to keep out of temple affairs) or because it protects minority personal law while reforming Hindu personal law (communal critics who see this as "minority appeasement").

TN Madan, in his influential essay "Secularism in Its Place," argues that secularism is a minority viewpoint in India a viewpoint of Hindu elites who have internalised Enlightenment values but who represent neither the majority of Hindus nor the Muslim, Christian, or Sikh communities for whom religion is not separable from public life. For Madan, secularism in India is therefore "an impossible project." Ashis Nandy similarly argues that Western secularism cannot be the solution to Indian communalism it requires the privatisation of religion in societies where religion is inseparably public.

Partha Chatterjee responds that secular modernity, however imperfectly realised, remains the best available framework for managing India's religious diversity without permanent communal civil war. Amartya Sen emphasises that India has ancient traditions of religious coexistence and tolerance (Ashoka, Akbar) that can provide an indigenous foundation for secular values, without requiring a purely Western model.

Hindu Nationalism

Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) is the ideology that India is essentially a Hindu nation and that Hindu cultural values should define the national identity of all Indians regardless of their religion. It was systematised by VD Savarkar in Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? (1923) and further developed by MS Golwalkar. Savarkar defined Hindutva through three criteria: Pitribhumi (fatherland India must be the ancestral land of one's fathers), Punyabhumi (holy land India must be one's sacred land), and Rashtra (nation). Under this definition, Muslims and Christians are not fully Hindu because their holy lands are in Arabia and Palestine they are guests who must accept subordinate status in a Hindu Rashtra.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, founded 1925 by KB Hedgewar), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), and the Bajrang Dal constitute the "Sangh Parivar" the organisational family of Hindu nationalism. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the political wing. Under Narendra Modi, Hindu nationalism has moved from the political periphery to the centre of Indian governance with the abrogation of Article 370 (special status of Jammu and Kashmir), the construction of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, and the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA, which critics see as discriminating against Muslims) all marking the consolidation of Hindutva in state policy.

Sociological perspectives on Hindu nationalism: Christophe Jaffrelot sees it as a form of ethnic nationalism using the vocabulary of Hinduism to mobilise a majoritarian social movement. Thomas Blom Hansen argues Hindutva is a form of modern mass politics rather than pre-modern traditionalism it uses modern organisational forms (the shakha system of RSS, mass media, social media) to mobilise a new Hindu public sphere. Suhas Palshikar identifies the BJP's electoral success as producing a new "regime party" a party that shapes the terms of political competition so fundamentally that even the opposition must engage on its terms.

Dalit Religion and Religious Conversion

Religious conversion has been a central site of struggle over social inequality in India. Dalits have converted to Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism as strategies of exit from the Hindu caste hierarchy a form of collective resistance that Brahminical Hinduism and Hindu nationalism have tried systematically to suppress.

BR Ambedkar's conversion to Buddhism in 1956, along with approximately 600,000 followers, was the most significant act of collective conversion in Indian history. Ambedkar had famously declared in 1935: "I was born a Hindu but I will not die a Hindu." His choice of Buddhism was deliberate it was an Indian religion rooted in the same soil as Hinduism but without the caste system; its egalitarian philosophy was opposed to Brahminism from the very beginning. Ambedkar's The Buddha and His Dhamma reinterpreted Buddhism as a philosophy of social liberation rather than withdrawal from the world. The Navayana (New Vehicle) Buddhism that Ambedkar created rejected traditional Buddhist metaphysics (karma, rebirth, nirvana) in favour of a this-worldly ethic of human dignity and social equality.

Christianity has historically attracted Dalit and tribal communities, particularly in the Northeast and among specific communities (Mahars in Maharashtra, Nadars in Tamil Nadu, Madigas in Andhra Pradesh). Missionaries provided education, healthcare, and a theological framework of human equality that contrasted with Brahminical hierarchy. The sociological consequence has been complex conversion sometimes enabled social mobility while generating new forms of discrimination (Christian Dalits are excluded from SC reservations under the 1950 Presidential Order, which restricts SC status to Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists).

Islam attracted Dalit converts during the Sultanate and Mughal periods, often among artisanal communities (weavers, potters) who found in Islamic theology a rejection of caste hierarchy. However, as Gail Omvedt observes, caste has been reproduced within Islam in India the Ashraf-Ajlaf-Arzal hierarchy among Indian Muslims replicates caste distinctions based on descent and occupation, demonstrating that conversion to an egalitarian religion does not automatically dismantle social hierarchy.

The "Ghar Wapsi" (homecoming) movement organised reconversion campaigns by Vishwa Hindu Parishad and other Hindutva groups represents the Hindutva response to conversion, reinterpreting Islam and Christianity as "foreign" religions and Hinduism as the "original" religion of all Indians. These campaigns have been controversial, with questions about coercion and the legal standing of reconversion.

Religion and the State: Constitutional Framework

Article	Provision
Art. 25	Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice, and propagation of religion (subject to public order, morality, health)
Art. 26	Freedom to manage religious affairs and establish religious institutions
Art. 27	No person compelled to pay taxes for promotion of any particular religion
Art. 28	No religious instruction in state-funded educational institutions
Arts. 29-30	Right of minorities to conserve their culture and establish educational institutions
Art. 44 (DPSP)	State shall endeavour to secure a Uniform Civil Code for citizens (has never been enacted; remains contested)
42nd Amendment (1976)	Added "secular" to the Preamble, making India officially a "Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic Republic"

Caste and Religion in Contemporary India

The relationship between caste and religion in India is far more complex than the traditional understanding that caste is a Hindu institution confined to Hinduism. Empirical studies have consistently shown that caste operates within all Indian religious communities:

• Islam in India has its Ashraf (claiming Arab, Persian, or Afghan descent), Ajlaf (artisan and cultivating castes who converted), and Arzal (the "lowest" converted castes analogous to Dalits) distinctions
• Indian Christianity has caste divisions Dalit Christians face discrimination from upper-caste converts and from the dominant Brahmin and Vellala Christian communities
• Indian Buddhism (Navayana) is almost entirely a Dalit community, making it effectively a caste-religion
• Sikhism's founding principle of equality has not prevented the emergence of caste hierarchies among Jat Sikhs, Khatri Sikhs, Mazhabis (Dalit Sikhs), and Ramgharias

Rajni Kothari argued that democracy has politicised caste rather than dismantled it and similarly, secularism has politicised religion rather than privatised it. The ballot box has made both caste identity and religious identity into political resources that parties mobilise for electoral advantage producing what Kothari called the "ethnicisation of politics."

Religion, Gender, and Social Change

Religious institutions have historically been key sites for the subordination of women through control of sexuality (child marriage, purdah, widowhood restrictions), restriction of religious roles (women excluded from priestly functions in most Hindu and Muslim traditions), and theological legitimation of domestic hierarchy. But religious traditions have also generated women's resistance the Bhakti movement's female saints (Mirabai, Akkamahadevi, Andal) created a tradition of women's spiritual authority that subverted patriarchal orthodoxy; the Sufi tradition's inclusion of women seekers (murids) created spaces of spiritual equality; and the reform of religious personal law (divorce rights, inheritance rights, protection from domestic violence) has been a central feminist demand.

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986 (Shah Bano case) and its amendment (2019 Triple Talaq Act criminalising instant triple talaq) show the contested terrain where religion, gender, state power, and minority rights intersect. The Sabarimala verdict (2018, Supreme Court allowing women of all ages into the temple) sparked massive protests illustrating that changes to religious practice through legal intervention generate fierce resistance even from religious women who see their exclusion as religiously meaningful.

Desacralisation and Secularisation in India

Desacralisation refers to the process by which supernatural beliefs are no longer seen as controlling the world action is no longer governed by religious belief but by rational, scientific calculation. In MN Srinivas's sociological terminology, Westernisation and Secularisation are two faces of the same modernising process though they can be separated analytically.

Evidence for secularisation in India: growth of scientific education; decline of traditional healers; commercialisation of religious services (online puja, temple apps, e-darshana); the "Traditionalisation of Modernity" (Y. Singh) even traditional religious practices are mediated by modern technology (Sanksar channel on cable TV, matrimonial websites, kundli software). Evidence against secularisation: religious observance has not declined; political mobilisation along religious lines has increased; the BJP's electoral dominance represents a re-sacralisation of public life in some respects; pilgrimages have grown in scale (Kumbh Mela, Sabarimala). The Indian evidence is consistent with Peter Berger's later position his abandonment of the classic secularisation thesis in favour of the view that modernity produces pluralism, not necessarily the decline of religion.