My third blog post explores India’s tradition of religious plurality. Now what does religious plurality look like in today’s India and what may it look like in the future? What lessons might India’s plurality provide for Aotearoa New Zealand? These are the questions this blog post will examine.
Examination of this topic has been motivated by the privilege we as PMSA scholars have had to be thrust into by witnessing the inauguration of the Ram temple, India’s Republic Day and the run-up to the Indian elections, coupled with constitutional review of whether India’s constitution will give specific reference to secularism.
Cross-cutting these different events is the BJP, a Hindu nationalist party. To understand with all too short a brush, the BJP is understood as the opposing Congress party. Congress looked to unite India around an opposition to previous British occupation and the border to Pakistan. Contra to congresses’ focus on “all Indians”, Modi’s government represents a paradigm shift for the silent majority Hindus argued to have not been supported at the expense of minority religions.
Further, the BJP unites Hinduism’s pluralism into a political block where Hindu Shiva or Vishnu devotees, for example, are encouraged to understand their faith through the Vedas, Baghavita, Mabha, Mabaranya stories and accompanying BJP rhetoric.
The party was elected under the mandate to erect the Ram Mandir among other campaign issues. The temple sits between two narratives on history; some Muslims believe it is the rightful location of the Babri Masjid mosque in the Mughal empire and some Hindus believe it’s the historical site of the Ram temple.
In 1992, the Babri Masjid mosque was burnt down by religious extremists. To elucidate the heated nature of this history, the aggression resulted in 1,000-plus people being killed in the Dharavi slum. Despite extreme hardship in Dharavi, we witnessed the celebration of a plural community between Hindus and Muslims while visiting.
On the day of the Ram Mandir’s construction, Modi commentates:
People who say “If the Ram Mandir is built, it will catch fire.”
“Such people have not been able to understand the purity of the social values of India.”
“Five centuries of patience for justice.”
“Ram belongs to everyone”
“The Mandir of national consciousness”
“The new India”
What Ram Mandir may embody is the BJP shifting the relationship between church and state. When Modi speaks to “Ram belong(ing) to everyone” and “the prestige of the highest values and highest ideals” when addressing the nation, the leader inherently subjugates those of different religions. This is a phenomenon noted by political theorist Martha Nussbaum in Perfectionist Liberalism and Political Liberalism. Notably, this effect is made more explicit for Muslims when Modi says the opening signifies the “Shedding (of the Mougal and British) colonial past”.
Hindu nationalism makes for an interesting case study to consider a centralised approach to Te ao Māori. Both Hinduism and Māori tikanga and te reo Māori vary between individuals, locality or hapu. Sarah Song in Justice, Gender, and the Politics of Multiculturalism, argues that centralised approaches to culture or religion temporally stagnate and homogenise a phenomenon that’s worth to individuals lies in its diverse dynamic idiosynracies expressing people, place and time. Application of this line of thinking is supported by senior Hindu seers’ lack of invitation to the opening testimony, the temple not being consecrated and without blessing is unable to host deities, tantamount to instrumentalising the faith. Therefore, it could be said that the Hindu faith is what is damaged by uniting church and state and that minority religions have the liberty of self-determination. If so this has interesting insights to consider for rangatiratanga locally in Aotearoa New Zealand, per Article 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi.
In contemporary India, this would seem to be an overly charitable interpretation given India’s public-private relationship. Notably in India, we saw Garuda, our bus company, and a company we visited (Licious) were government-certified for their service and in the latter case for the juiciness of their chicken! Therefore, the government defining Hinduism cannot be downplayed for its influence on how Hindus relate to their own faith and the safety of religious minorities.
It could be contended that given the secular constitutional commitment separating state and church Hindus have understood their faith one step removed. This argument follows as religion can’t be taught in universities and so Western-trained experts have traditionally leant to Hinduism’s self-understanding. Insight from New Zealand may prove insightful where kaupapa māori schools specialise in teaching and research on Te Ao Māori (indigenous worldview) without compromising a secular state and subjugating other faiths. These indigenous institutions are able to self-determine their curriculum in a more adaptable and locally-sensitive manner than centralised approaches.
A further dimension of this ceremony is that by aligning the church with the state it could be said that Modi is elevating himself to be associated with deities. On this element, it could be said to be positive as in Mesopotamia where the ruler of the day was held up to the standard of Marduk or this could signify Charlemagne crowning himself as King of the Holy Roman Empire and claiming authority of the mortal and immortal realm. Alternatively, this could lend to a Napoleonic interpretation where the Pope or seers are not allowed to crown him, meaning his sovereignty is his own.
Both the next government of India and, in contrast, today’s New Zealand government will see many of these factors interplay as today’s states grapple with their religious plurality. Returning to the topic of aggression from Dharavi across India, it was India winning the 1983 Cricket World Cup which returned India to the appeal for a united Indian nation. We as scholars had the poignant privilege of seeing a glimpse from the thumping St Joseph’s Jesuit school gave us playing cricket. In New Zealand we see the same national love for rugby with lower stakes to temper. Nonetheless, as the world wrestles with pluralism, the case of Indian nationalism reawakens the imperative nature of the fourth principle of the Treaty of Waitangi: wairuatanga, the right to freedom of religion and belief. As for India, Modi leaves big shoes for his succession and an uncertain future for religious plurality in India.