Michael Amaladoss, SJ
Religious Identity and Mobility

Religion is one aspect of life and one element in the social structure. Religious identity is supported by and supports social and political identities. Religious mobility is related to social mobility. While keeping in mind these interconnections, I would like to focus here on identity and mobility in the sphere of religion. In Indian history religious identity has been a factor in upward, downward, integrating, distancing, or protesting social mobility. I will have occasion later in the paper to make some remarks on religious mobility as an aspect of social mobility. But I would like to start with an exploration of religious mobility as such. I shall begin with an evocation of experiences of religious mobility, go on to analyse them and then reflect on them.

Experiences of Mobility

Identity supposes roots. A person identifies herself with a group or a tradition. Identity also means that one differentiates oneself from another group or tradition. There are borders between groups and traditions. Mobility means that these borders are crossed. The crossing may be temporary, frequent or permanent. Do people cross religious borders? Let us look at some facts of experience.

People at the level of cosmic or popular religiosity seem to cross borders easily. Christian shrines of Mary or of saints like St Antony, the tombs of Muslim saints, and Hindu pilgrim centres like Sabarimala in Kerala or Gangotri in the north seem to attract people of all faiths. People, without distinction of religion, contribute to popular socio-religious festivals. Shamans of whatever religion are frequented by every one. Religious practice at this level seems need-based. People want healing from various sorts of illnesses or fulfilment of different kind of individual and social needs. The reputation of a shrine or of an intercessor or of a charismatic healer for meeting such needs seems more relevant than its or his/her religious affiliation. A person who is perceived as holy is respected by all, whatever be the religion s/he belongs to.1

In the great religions the borders between the cosmic and metacosmis traditions are very porous. While the metacosmic refers to elements of transcendence, the cosmic sees the divine in personal, social and cosmic life.2 When metacosmic religions spread across peoples and cultures they do not totally replace the local cosmic religions but adapt and integrate them in many ways. They are actually rooted in a particular place thanks to the local religion and its symbols. These may be reinterpreted in the process, but not replaced. The reinterpretation does not totally evacuate the original meaning and references. This is the process of acculturation. One could even speak of accretion. The agents of the metacosmic religion variously protest against, tolerate or seek to integrate the cosmic elements. The ordinary people always integrate the different traditions in their own way, irrespective of the attitude of the official agents of the metacosmic religion. Popular practices may even go underground if official opposition is too strong. In such situations anthropologists speak of syncretism or of parallel or double religiosity.3 One can say that the borders here are very porous. This may be seen as a problem by the 'official agents' of the metacosmic religion, while people have no problem in crossing and re-crossing borders as often as necessary.

In slum areas of Surat in Gujarat, neo-Buddhist followers of Ambedkar were seen to be continuing many of the practices of the cosmic religion that they are supposed to have abandoned. Religious mobility here may really be social mobility. There is a new social identity. But at the religious level there seems to be an easy passage across the borders, especially at the level of need-based and life-cycle rituals.

During the communal conflagration soon after the partition of India in 1947, Mahatma Gandhi use to promote interreligious prayer services as a means of promoting religious harmony. Scriptures and bhajans from different religions were used. One can say that here we are at a place where the borders of different religions meet. Today people feel free to participate in the religious ceremonies proper to another religion. Many Hindus do not seem to have a problem in participating in Christian worship. It has become a ritual in many Churches in the South of India, especially during festivals, to announce that full participation in the Eucharist through sharing the consecrated bread and wine is reserved to the Christians. A group of Christian theologians discussing the problem of "sharing worship" some years ago did not see any difficulty in members of other religions participating in Christian rituals and Christians taking part in the rituals of other religions, though they mentioned some conditions.4 Obviously there is no participation if you do not accept the meaning of the ritual of the other religion. Shaving worship therefore means that one is able cross boundaries, not merely at the ritual level, but also at the level of symbols and meanings, even if this may involve an affirmation of an underlying common meaning.

At an international seminar recently with only Christian participants on multiple religious belonging we heard the sharing of experience of people who have been, seriously practising for a number of years oriental traditions of sadhana like yoga, Buddhist and Taoist meditation. This is more than integrating some breathing exercises or concentration techniques in Christian prayer. Contrary to the kind of tensions, even agony, experienced by people of an earlier generation like Swami Abishiktananda5 or even Brahmabandab Upadyayab in a still earlier era, these people seem to live this experience without too much tension, passing from one tradition to another, without seeking for an easy integration or even knowing that it does not exist.

In all these cases, I am not talking of people who belong to two different social groups simultaneously. But at the level of religious practice they seem to cross boundaries easily. these people belong to a particular religion socially and institutionally. A crossing is always followed by a coming back. But we all know people who individually and/or socially cross a religious boundary consciously and permanently. The motivations and reasons for this may be complex. But we are aware of the phenomena. With these experiences as my starting point I would like to reflect on what is religious identity and on the patterns of mobility and identity. This will lead me to ask a certain number of questions for our further reflection.

Religion and Religious Identity

Though it may not be necessary, it may be helpful to start with a brief definition or description of religion. By religion I understand a quest for ultimate meaning when the humans are faced with limit situations like unmerited suffering, unjustified and sometimes unexplained evil in the world and in human life and the ultimate limit experience of death. From one point of view, the quest is ongoing. People are not fully satisfied with the answers. On the other hand, available answers that come either from personal experience or from a claimed revelation are structured into a social institution that is religion. The meaning is expressed in myths, lived out and communicated in rituals and protected and transmitted in a structured community. A person is born into a family or social group which has a religion. The person interiorizes the culture and religion of the wider family as s/he grows up. The process is semi-conscious and collective. The child grows into awareness as the member of a particular family, of a particular ethnic group or caste, of a particular religio-cultural tradition. As the person grows up the search for meaning may continue and the person may slowly distance him/herself from the group until a moment when s/he may leave the group and join another. Thus there can be mobility within and across community boundaries. There can be different levels of belongingness to a religious tradition. Religious mobility is possible precisely because religion is not a meaning system like science which is subject to verification and experiment. Even in science new paradigms replace older ones. This is much more so in religion which deals with areas of meaning and experience that transcend the phenomenal world. Let us look at this phenomenon of mobility a little more closely.

Patterns of Mobility

I think that we can speak of three types of mobility in religion: personal/group mobility as a continuing search, multiple religious experiences and a group search for new religious identities. Let me explore each one of these.

Some people at the metacosmic level feel challenged by various circumstances and problems of life to continue to search for meaning. They are not satisfied with the explanations currently provided by tradition. They may follow gurus who claim a special experience/revelation and offer 'new' teaching: a new vision, a new framework, a new way of sadhana, a new community, etc. They may themselves acquire new insights through their reading and meditation. In most cases this is a new understanding or reinterpretation of tradition in the contemporary context. The basic religious symbols and practices remain. Accretions in the course of history may be thrown away. There is a process of purification. These people may even feel a certain alienation from the community who hold on to traditional symbols and rituals. People may be at various levels of spiritual development. A group of followers may follow the leadership of a guru or pioneer. But the search itself has an individual character. It is that of the guru. It is not primarily a group phenomenon. The growing differentiation and distance from the community and the narrowing down of their own concerns may eventually lead to sect formation: Then it takes on group characteristics. The focus is still religious. Progressively the sect may develop into a new religion or may be accommodated into the main body, but as a separate tradition. The early Christians frequented the temple and experienced themselves as a Jewish sect. But with the entrance of non-Jews into the communities and the hostility of the Jews, their links with the parent community were broken, especially after the destruction of Jerusalem. It was perhaps a sign for the Christians to emerge as a separate group. The Buddha was one of the Hindu ascetics. But his polemic against Brahmin rituals must have made him a heretic. However, if Buddhism had not spread outside India, it may have been reabsorbed into Hinduism as a sect. As a matter of fact this is what the Hindutva people are trying to do just now. Many Bhakti traditions continue as autonomous sects within the fold of Hinduism. Inter-sect conflicts within Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity are not unknown in earlier centuries or today.

The second type of religious mobility is multiple religious experience. Perhaps an example will make us grasp better what I have in mind. Abishiktananda was a French catholic Benedictine monk (Henri Le Saux) who came to India attracted by its tradition of sannyasis and contemplation. Impressed by Ramana Maharishi in Tiruvannamalai he undertakes advaitic forms of sadhana and has some success in achieving some form of advaitic experience. At the same time he is not ready to give up his Christian rituals, especially the signing of the psalms and the celebration of the Eucharist. He is also deeply involved in the life of the Church community in India. He did not achieve any superficial integration between the two experiences, Christian and advaitic, though he tried. Remaining loyal to both he is also torn between both. He seems to have achieved some sort of harmony a few months before his death, but we are not sure what it was. Abishiktanand was constantly crossing borders. He had a double identity, so to speak. When the time came for the initiation of his only disciple he planned a double initiation with two gurus: himself and Swami Chidananda, the head of Sivanandashram, Rishikesh.7 I have evoked similar examples when I spoke about my experiences earlier. We can see a similar phenomenon if we look at people like Keshub Chander Sen and P.C. Majumdar, who were devoted to Jesus, but did not feel the need of leaving Hinduism. Ramakrishna is said to have practised the sadhanas of different religions. I think that such multiple-belongingness is possible when one becomes aware that one is reaching out to an Ultimate Reality through different symbols and techniques. This does not mean that one's experience of the Ultimate is the same; as a matter of fact they are different. But the different mediations and the experiences they mediate are seen as referring to the same Ultimate Reality. This means that one does not absolutize the symbolic mediations and experiences; even if it is only through them that one reaches out to the Ultimate. One 'does not seek to integrate them too quickly and artificially, as a rational approach might try to do.

Much less does one confuse them. I am not interested here in exploring the spiritual validity or usefulness of such double or multiple experiences. I only wish here to point to the fact that there are people who have them and that they are an example of religious mobility.

Religious mobility can also be a group process. Unlike culture, religion is not merely a human/social product. There is an adage that says: "Culture makes the humans and the humans make culture". We cannot say that about religion. Religion, especially metacosmic religion, claims to be a response either to a deep religious experience of transcendence or to a divine self-manifestation in revelation. But the response itself is structured by the community making use of its cultural and other resources. We can therefore say that religion as asocial institution is a product of a social group. The group may reinterpret its religious symbols and ritual in accordance with changing historical, social and cultural context. The group feels free to define and redefine its religious identity. Such redefinition obviously involves a certain mobility. The mobility may be within the parameters of the same religion. It may also involve a change of religion. Cosmic religions are so much a part of culture and. society that they change with society. At one and the same time many people belonging to a cosmic religious tradition may move towards or accept and integrate a metacosmic religious tradition. Group movement from one metacosmic religion religion to another does not seem possible. Individuals do move from one to another. But experienced people suggest that often the personal movement from one metacosmic religion to another is not direct but passes through a period of non-religiosity, for whatever reason.

Group religious mobility does not seem to be purely religious. It often has social, political or economic reasons. In Latin America, the indigenous peoples became Christians. I think that; in the context of a colonial enterprise that wanted not only economic and political, but also religious domination, it was a strategy for survival. The result, however, was a parallel religiosity. In Africa some groups resist such religious colonialism, but take in some of the elements of the foreign religion as a factor of social progress. This gives rise to the birth of thousands of independent Churches. Outsiders may consider them syncretistic. But for the people themselves they give a new, creative identity. Similar phenomena can be found also in various Afro-American cults in Latin America. Sometimes social groups give up their gods and rituals and adopt those of other groups that have a higher social status, hoping in this manner to improve their own social status as a consequence. This is the phenomenon known in India as Sanskritization. Some Tribal, Dalit and backward caste groups may have embraced Islam or Christianity in India as a means of economic development and social promotion. Many middle and upper caste groups in north India may have become Muslim for political reasons. Finally, some groups in recent years have changed their religion as a sign of social protest. The neo-Buddhists of Ambedkar belong to this category. A group of Dalits in south India became Muslim some years ago. Some Christian groups have reconverted to Hinduism or joined a different Christian denomination. Such group mobility is never purely religious. It is a planned, conscious and deliberate decision by the group as such, led of course by its leaders.

Patterns of Identity

Religious identity can be experienced both as an individual identity and a group identity. As suggested above, a person acquires his/her primary religious identity as a member of a group. In a tribal group this is taken for granted. There is no differentiation between religion, culture and society. They are different aspects of one and the same group identity. One's individual identity is one's group identity. In more modern societies there is a growing differentiation between the individual and the group. Besides, in metacosmic religious groups there is also a differentiation between religion and culture. The same religion may relate to many cultures, and people of the same culture may practise different religions. There can also be different levels of religious belonging among the individuals in the same group. Religious identity is rooted in the group and is interiorized at an unconscious level in the early years of childhood: as the person grows up there is a conscious appropriation of that identity. At that time different levels are possible. While a minimum level of identity is experienced and shown in the performance of some basic rituals, especially concerning the life cycle, there is a certain freedom in attaining deeper levels of religious understanding and practice. Growth in this area corresponds to a certain initiative on the part of individuals. Some people continue to search. Their search may lead them to deeper religious experiences. Some times these experiences may be understood as special divine calls or manifestations. At such moments a response to a divine invitation takes one beyond the identity of the group. The personal identity is strengthened in relation to the group. A Sannyasi in India claims total freedom from social structures in the name of a developed personal identity. An individual can build up his particular religious identity even in the context of the group as a response to and manifestation of a special religious experience. Such person may be rejected as a heretic when the group refuses to accept the legitimacy of his/her experience. S/he may have to leave the group and found another, if s/he has not been destroyed in the meantime by rigid and dominant group structures Here we see the interplay of individual and group identity, making individual mobility possible either within the context of a religious group or even going beyond it.

Religious identity at the group level can be open/ 'weak' or closed/ 'strong'. A child interiorizes his/her religious identity in an early age. In a multi-religious society, as it encounters others on the street or in school it becomes aware of its identity as different and special. Sudhir Kakar thinks that this awareness of the other group as different leads almost automatically to a sentiment of superiority.8 But when there is no social, political or economic rivalry between the religious groups, the identity and differentiation is open or 'weak'. People mix easily and work together at the same tasks. Or there may be a traditional division of labour which is lived peacefully. For example, many Muslim communities in the north of India are artisans, while the traders are Hindus. Even in the religious sphere there is a certain friendship shown in mutual offering of gifts during religious festivals. People belonging to different religions live together in the same colony next to each other. We have had and we have examples of such inter-religious fellowship in many parts of India. Religious difference is not a social barrier. One is aware of being different from the other. But this difference is not seen as opposition.

Group religious identity becomes closed or 'strong' when religion turns fundamentalist and/or communalist. In ordinary speech fundamentalism and communalism are used almost as synonyms. But they are not the same. When a religious group feels contested at the strictly religious level by another religious group or by the secularizing trends of science and modernity, in a defensive reaction the group holds on to what it sees as the 'fundamentals' of its religion, in terms of doctrines and rituals. In a meaningless and hostile world their religious 'fundamentals' offer them a simple and clear framework of meaning. That is why it is called fundamentalism. In defence of its religious identity it may affirm the literal truth of its scriptures, the special and sure efficacy of its rituals and the divine authorization of its leaders. The others are seen as being in the darkness of error and sin. Therefore one avoids social intercourse with them in order to protect onself from their influence. But one does try to proselytise and convince and convert the others to one's own point of view. Fundamentalism is normally a sectarian movement within a religious group. There can be religious fundamentalists even in societies which are not multi-religious. Their proselytising efforts are often directed more to their own coreligionists who do not believe like them than to members of other religions. They are normally focussed on themselves. In multi-religious — societies they may consider the members of other religions as religiously 'polluting' and therefore avoid all religious contact with them. Normally they are not violent, if they are left alone. They tend to live in religious ghettos with a strong invisible wall round them. Any idea of religious mobility would be anathema to them, unless it brings new converts into their fold. Every religion has its fundamentalist groups.

Communalism uses religious identity for political purposes. Religion is used the a powerful integrating factor of a group that is competition with other groups for economic or political power. It has been noted in recent years that different groups of people live together rather peacefully under a colonial or authoritarian regime, often sustained by military power. But once the colonial or authoritarian regime disappears and the people are on their own in an emerging democratic order, then different groups start fighting with each other either for scarce resources or for political domination that would facilitate economic domination. We see such conflicts in former Yugoslavia, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere — all over the world, in fact, in open or hidden ways. Any factor of group identity can be politically (ab)used in this manner: nationality, race, ethnicity, caste, religion. Majorities seek to be assertive, while minorities tend to be defensive. Competition gives rise to conflict. Conflict leads to a mounting spiral of violence. The other has now become the enemy. A history of enmity leaves a trace of unhealed memories. Invisible but strong walls go up between the different groups. This leads to the ghettoization of the groups, even geographically.

In such situations of conflict religion seem to be a particular source of power.9 Reaching out to the Ultimate brings strong sources of motivation: one is not merely fighting for oneself; one is also fighting for one's Gods, for what is most sacred in one's life. It is also easy to demonize the other in a religious context as the embodiment of evil. Once the other becomes an enemy or the evil one, it is easy to project all undesirable characteristics, even one's own, on the other. The other is not merely a competitor in the economic or political field. S/he is also morally depraved and religiously ignorant and evil. S/he is an infidel, which is a term with overtones of unfaithfulness and disloyalty. People who get killed become idolized as martyrs. The hope for martyrdom may aggravate the conflict further. When religion is used in this way for political purposes what is important is not religious practice. The political leaders may not be and often are not very religious. But common religious symbols like popular Gods, festivals, and shrines are used as rallying points to gather a crowd. Communalism has more to do with politics than with religion.

Questions for Reflection

Now that I have tried to clarify and analyse the phenomena of religious identity and mobility, it is time to raise some questions for reflection. The context for reflection is a multi-religious community like India in which people are called to live together in freedom, fellowship, equality and justice, unhindered by the factors that may divide, especially religion. The Constitution of India guarantees its citizens freedom to practise and propagate any religion of their choice. Religious identity and mobility are not a concern of the State or the civil society, except when religion becomes communalistic. Then it is no longer a religious but a political problem. It is at the political level with political means that the problem has to be met and solved. The questions I am raising below suppose the Indian context, though they also go beyond it because the situations are similar everywhere.

A Secular Society

India is a multi-religious society. What social role should religions be allowed to play in it? We see two approaches and two answers to the question.10 Some think that we need a completely secular state and civil society. Religion should be a private affair of individuals and groups. Others think that religion should be given a social role. The state must be secular. But in civil society the identities of different religions must be respected and they must be allowed to play their constructive role. Religions must collaborate in the defence and promotion of common human and spiritual values. The debate between-these two groups was there in the Constituent Assembly and it continues still today. While there must be a differentiation between the state, civil society and religion and the identity and role of each must be respected, they cannot be compartmentalized. No true believer would think that religious perspectives should concern only the private behaviour of individuals and should have nothing to say about public life, its aims and means, its values and perspectives. But in a mufti-religious society no one religion must be allowed to dominate public life. The goal should be to evolve a consensus among the various religions which should guide public policies. In India the minority religions have been accorded special status and protection. But minority interests should not become vested interests. One point that illustrates the issue well in is the Common Civil Code. This was desired by the Fathers of the Constitution. Of course the minorities are afraid that in a Parliament dominated by the majority the Common Civil Code may become the Code of the majority imposed on the minorities. On the other hand it is true that certain fundamental rights, especially that of women, are not defended equally by the different Personal Laws. The famous Shabanu case was a well-known example. I think that we must respect the Constitution and move towards a Common Civil Code which, however, should emerge out of a consensus of the mufti-religious civil community. The consensus can come only when the different religious communities live together in mutual understanding and-respect, in peace and collaboration.

I think that this is possible only if the believers of different religions actively pursue a policy of dialogue rather than confrontation. The dialogue should be oriented not towards the abolition of religious differences, but to the recognition and acceptance of difference and to the common search for living together in civil society with shared goals and values, though each one finds the reasons and motivation for them in his/her own religious tradition. Perhaps between secularism and a spirit of tolerance we should look for active dialogue and collaboration. Such collaboration should be focussed on the defence and promotion of common human- rights, namely the right to liberty, equality, fraternity and justice, as spelt out in the Preamble to our Constitution and in it its various directive principles. Hindu-Muslim riots have continued from the time of independence in 1947, though they had started even earlier. The Christians have also now become the target of attack by communal elements. The forces of Hindutva demanding the domination of the state and civil society by Hindu 'culture' seems to be slowly gaining ground among the elite and the middle classes. Therefore the atmosphere for dialogue is not very propitious. But it is our only hope to get out of the spiral of inter-religious conflict that has taken our people hostage.

Religion and Culture

The second point that I would like to suggest for reflection is the articulation between religion and culture. Can one be a Christian. and an Indian? What does it mean to be an Indian? What is Indian culture? We do not seem to have easy answers to these questions today. That one could be an Indian and a Christian is the official ideology of the Church, whatever may be the difficulties in practice. There is no difference between religion and culture at the level of cosmic religiosity. But every metacosmic religion spreads across cultures by acculturating, even inculturating itself in the various cultures it encounters. Arabian, Maghrebian, South Asian and Indonesian Islam are not the same. Today there may be an effort to impose a certain uniformity in search of a self-defensive identity. But it will be disastrous for these countries if the multiplicity is lost. For an Indian Muslim to arabize is to say that s/ he does not see her/himself as an Indian. The differentiation between religion and culture must be clarified and promoted.

On the other hand, no culture is a monolith. India does not have one culture. 1t is a subcontinent with many cultures. But there is surely an overarching cultural unity, in spite of the many differences in the field. To this common culture various groups have contributed across the ages. We find in it Dravidian and Aryan, Tribal and Dalit, elite and popular, Cosmic and Metacosmic, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Christian, Muslim, and Sikh and finally Western (British-American) elements. Indian culture is a composite culture, a pluralism in identity. The Hindutva brigades would have us believe that Indian culture is basically Hindu. In that too they will emphasize the Brahmanic elements, ignoring the others. Nothing is farther from the truth and history. Indians even today live in different cultural worlds, though there are underlying links between them that make them different from the European or the Chinese cultural world. Tire challenge today for every Indian, whatever be the religion s/he may belong to, is to assert his/her identity as Indian and to assume India's complex cultural history as his/her own. I think that it is urgent to cut to size the Hindutva claims to the patrimony of Indian culture in its saffronized version. This means that we distinguish between our religious and our cultural identity. Religious mobility need not involve cultural mobility, though it might give rise to a new sub-culture. This does not mean that culture itself does not change in the course of history or that religions may not have caused some of this change. But it. is a change in continuity of identity.

Can Religious Mobility also be Social Mobility — Why Not?

We have seen that while individual religious mobility may sometimes be purely religious, group religious mobility is also social mobility in terms of economic development, political liberation or social status. My question is what is wrong with it? Contemporary discussion on religious mobility seems to accept individual mobility but is very critical of group mobility because it is not purely religious, as it involves additional social motivations. Religion is for life. In practising religion, at the popular level, people do not seek otherworldly benefits. Their concerns are often very down to earth: healing from physical or psychic illness, a job, success in an-interview or in an exam, blessings on a new venture, a good harvest, timely rains, etc., etc.. As I have suggested in the first section, people do not hesitate to cross religious boundaries in their quest for a response to their needs, if they can identify a powerful 'sacred' person or place. Divine favour is seen not purely in spiritual, but also in material terms. Therefore, we need not be surprised if a particular social group moves from one religion to another, not purely for 'spiritual', other worldy reasons, but also for economic, political and social reasons. All that we can say that it would not be a religious conversion if the motives were purely economic, political or social. Behind the economic, political and status improvement people must perceive, at least vaguely, the hand of the divine. Once this perception is there, there is nothing wrong in religious mobility also being social mobility. No one should condemn Ambedkar because he chose to become a Buddhist in search of freedom and dignity from an oppressive social (caste) structure. If any one needs to be condemned it is those who, in the name of religion, continue to perpetuate such unjust and oppressive social structures. Such religious mobility need not be apologetic. As I have suggested above, at the cultural and religious level, people do construct their identities actively. It is a sign of their freedom and agency. Metacosmic religions have not spread across the globe only by force. While the use of political force cannot be denied in some cases, in most cases an element of choice has been there, even if choice may have been motivated by other than religious reasons.

Mobility and Community

Religious mobility is a human right. Just as every person has a right to practise any religion of his/her choice, every person has also the right to choose the religion of his/her choice. But rights always go with responsibilities. The responsibility here would be that the group that has moved to another religion does not make this new identity something rigid and exclusive but is open to the wider community. Such openness may not be present when the mobility leads the group into religious fundamentalism. Even here people have the right to do so, if they wish. But they should not be surprised if the wider society reacts when it feels that its unity and integration is harmed in some way. Such an occasion calls for dialogue and negotiation so that a new socio-political integration is achieved that recognizes and accepts the new religious identity of the group. Some conflict in the process may be inevitable. But the goal is always social harmony.

Pluralism and Relativism

Religions tend to be exclusive. Even Hinduism, which often claims to be tolerant, integrates other religious groups either by a process of acculturation and accretion or by admitting them into a hierarchical order in which a particular version of Hinduism is dominant. For the last fifty or more years Hinduism has been trying to domesticate and include in this way other Indian religions like Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, not hesitating to use the constitutional machinery to do so. Certainly, Islam and Christianity will resist such assimilation. This may be a reason why the Hindutva forces consider these as foreign religions, though they have been here for centuries. But does not the recognition, respect and acceptance of other religious traditions involve a certain relativization of one's own claims to exclusive truth or legitimacy in the religious field? Christianity has been struggling with this now for some time with simultaneous affirmations of its own exclusivity as mediation of salvation and of the need for dialogue with other religions. It has yet to achieve a balanced perspective. Islam has not squarely faced this problem as yet, though some Indian Moslems have raised this issue in the Indian context. Hinduism, in principle, is open to the possibility whatever may be its historical practice. Some people would even say that the caste system rather than any religious factor is the real integrating element in Hinduism.

If in contemporary times we realise that the dignity of human beings gives them the freedom and the right to construct their own religious identity in response to their experience of the divine, should not this freedom be accorded within each religious tradition? Such freedom does not seem to exist within the Church today. Its approach to the so called sects or dissenters within its own ranks shows that the spirit of the inquisition, minus its physical violence, is still very much alive. In Islam even physical violence may not be absent. Is this not a defensive reaction? Loyalty to authority is imposed for political or disciplinary rather than religious reasons. This leads one to suspect that the openness to dialogue is basically a political rather than a religious gesture — at least for some. Or dialogue is instrumentalized for ulterior motives. When religious identity becomes communalistic then it is defended and imposed with violence, since dissenters are seen as traitors.

My final question is also a vision. We always seem to think of identity, not in positive terms of what we are, but in negative terms of how we are different from others. Both aspects are there. But in an atmosphere of dialogue and collaboration can we think more and more in terms of clear and firm centres, but open boundaries? Our identity comes from what we are within, not from what we are not when compared to others without. Can we build more and more on the positive elements of our identity and relativize the negative elements? Then we would not need walls, real or symbolic, around ourselves either to defend ourselves or to keep others out. Our borders would be porous. I think that this is what Gandhi meant when he said that he was open to the winds from the different directions blowing through the windows of his house, but refused to be blown off his feet by them.

Conclusion

At the end of these reflections, I think that the basic question is: what are our priorities? Do we give importance to people as free agents or to structures? People are born into structures and they grow interiorizing them, like learning the language, for example. But this does not make them prisoners of the structures. People are able to create for themselves an identity within the limits laid down by the structures. But they are also capable of going beyond them if necessary. This capacity of being free agents of their own self construction is available to every human being whatever his/her economic, political, social and educational status. There may be obstacles that condition or limit this freedom and agency. But these obstacles do not come from the structures but from others who use them or manipulate them to their own advantage. In Gujarat or in Ayodhya Hindus and Muslims who had been living together are now separated into ghettos. It is not because they want it. The a choice is forced on them by others who make it dangerous for them to do anything else. Identity and mobility are what people make of themselves and their lives, individually and collectively, in religion as in other spheres of life. A true democracy should enable people to be themselves and to be creative and yet to live together in larger communities recognizing, respecting and accepting others.

 

Notes

1. For some examples see Thomas BAMAT and Jean Paul Wiest (eds.), Popular Catholicism in a World Church, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1999.

2. For the terms 'cosmic' and 'metacosmic' see Aloysius Pieris, An Asian Theology of Liberation, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1988, pp. 71-74.

3. Robert Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies, London: SCM, 1985.

4. See Paul Puthanangady (ed), Sharing Worship, Bangalore: NBCLC, 1988.

5. See Henri Le Saux (Swami Abishiktananda), Ascent to the Depth of the Heart. The Spiritual Diary of Swami Abishiktananda, Delhi: ISPCK, 1998.

6. See Julius Lipner, Brahmabandab Upadyayay: The Life and Thought of a Revolutionary, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.

7. See Henri Le Saux, The Further Shore, Delhi: ISPCK, 1975.

8. See Sudhir Kakar, The Colours of Violence, New Delhi: Viking, 1995, pp. 242-3.

9. Cf Sudhir Kakar, "Some Unconscious Aspects of Violence in India" in Veena DAS (ed.), Mirrors of Violence: Communities, Riots and Survivors, Delhi: Oxford, 1990, pp. 144ff.

10. As examples see Achin Vanaik, Communalism Contested. Religion, Modernity and Secularization, New Delhi: Vistaar, 1997, and T.N. Madan, Modern Myths and Locked Minds. Secularism and Fundamentalism in India, Delhi: Oxford, 1998.

 

Ref.: Vidyajyoti (Journal of Theological Reflections), Vol. 64, n. 9, September 2000.