(The Tribune
24 December 2006)
Role of religion in world peace
by Balraj Puri
AN international conference on world peace recently held at Edmonton in Canada, organised by John Humphrey Centre, deliberated on the role of religion and human rights. While I almost completely endorsed the view that human rights substantially contributed to the world peace and without minimising the values of rich debate on world peace, I had reservations about the way religion was projected for making similar contribution to that end.
The concluding statement of the conference, for instance, declared that “it brought together representatives from many faiths and cultures: Aboriginal, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish and Muslim”. Apart from the fact that the participants included many agnostics and atheists, the followers of different faiths that were mentioned also belonged to a number of identities other than those of their religions. For multiple identities alone can satisfy human urges. An exclusivist identity is hardly possible without fanatic attachment to it.
The use of religion, even with a liberal interpretation to combat growing cult of religious militancy, might tend to become self-defeating if it encourages an exclusivist attachment with one’s religious identity. Multiple identities, on the other hand, cut across one another and provide links to every individual with many others, beyond his/her religion.
How denial of a non-religious identity can make it less tolerant would be best illustrated by what happened to the Pushtoon community, the ethnic base of the Taliban. Divided by the Durand Line between Afghanistan and Pakistan, it was one of the most ardent followers of Gandhi. Pushtoon-led Afghanistan was the only country that had opposed Pakistan’s membership of the United Nations Organisation. It retained most friendly relations with India till 1979 when Soviet army entered Afghanistan.
India, on account of its cold war compulsions, favoured Soviet action. That caused great shock to Afghanistan, in general, and to its Pushtoon community, in particular. The resultant emotional and political gap was filled by Pakistan which, with the help of the US, provided not only arms but also ideology of militant Islam.
American policy makers were convinced that an Islamic ideology was the most effective antidote to Communist ideology. The strategy was applied in many other Muslim countries as well. By now it should be obvious that wherever Muslim communities had or have attachment with supplementary identities, their behaviour was or is far more moderate. This applies to other religious communities also.
The inter-faith movement is supposed to counter clash of civilisation theory of Huttington. While dialogue within and between religions is certainly welcome, it cannot effectively counter Huttington’s theory unless it exposes his fatal assumption that civilisations are synonymous with religions. All great civilisations of the world — Chinese, Indian, Arab, Persian, Greek and Roman — were non-religious. Even though the bulk of the population of the West is Christian, it is the inheritor of a number of non-Christian civilisations.
Inter-faith movement in the West has created special problems for the Indian diaspora. Instead of treating Indian settlers in the Western countries as Indians, they are identified as members of their respective religious communities. In particular, Hinduism is facing a serious crisis. To enable its comparison and dialogue with other major religions of the world, it is being subjected to a process of standardisation and semitisation.
Unlike Judiaism, Christianity and Islam — the conflict between which is the main cause of international tension today — Hinduism was not revealed on a single day, by a single prophet and through a single book. Essentially, it has been an evolutionary religion which has been influenced by and influenced other religions, indigenous or imported.
Buddhism, for instance, started as a revolt against all scriptures, gods and goddesses of the time in India. It was eliminated from the Indian scene not by physical liquidation of its followers but by absorption of teachings of Buddha into religious thought of India and acknowledging him as an incarnation of God. Jainism was treated more or less in a similar way.
It is rarely realised how Islam and Christianity interacted with Hinduism. Both had first reached on the South coast of India perhaps during the lifetime of their prophets. A great genius like Shankaracharya, born in a predominantly Muslim principality namely Kalhindi in present-day Kerala, updated the philosophy of Vedanta according to which God, soul and inanimate objects, were expressions of the same identity.
In a way, it accommodated and transcended monotheism of Islam. Likewise, Shankaracharaya was the first missionary who roamed around all over India like a Christian missionary. In fact, Christianity has influenced Hindu thought much more than the number of Christians in India will indicate.
Again, India is the only country in the world where Muslims have ruled without converting majority of its population and have shared power with Non-Muslims during the Muslim rule as also after Independence. In fact, the mutual impact of Islam in India (undivided) and Hinduism deserves a deeper study which would provide vital clues to their uniqueness.
It may however, be recalled that Iqbal, the greatest influence on Muslims of the subcontinent referred to the unique potentialities of Indian Islam the growth of which was stunted due to the influence of what he called Arab imperialism.
Sikhism is another illustration of synthesising process to which religions in India were subjected. The opening words of its scripture Aikam Onkar aptly translates monotheism of Islam in Indian Idiom. Guru Granth Sahib incorporates poetry of Muslim Sufi and Hindu Bhakti saints. Referring to Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism, till a century ago, Harjot Oberoi doubts if “such clear-cut categories actually found expressions in the consciousness, actions and cultural performances of the actors they describe”. There was indeed a more useful discussion on dialogue of civilisations at the Edmonton Conference; though it could not precisely define what does civilisation mean. However, if India aspires to play its proper role in world affairs it must pursue the idea of dialogue of civilisations for which it is best equipped instead of falling into the trap of inter-faith dialogue currently being tried in the West which, according to Roger Ballard, “promotes a unitary vision of what religion is all about” and “seeks to reduce all religions to centralised issues.”
The writer is Director, Institute of Jammu and Kashmir Affairs, Jammu
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