Religion in Indian Politics

Meaning & Forms

Religion as basis of politics

Doctrines reinterpret nationalism and political purpose — Bhagavad Gita read for political action; Quranic teachings used for community politics.

Religion as tool of mobilization

Temples, mosques, festivals, religious leaders, symbols, processions, sacred sites — e.g. Sarvajanik Ganesh Puja in Maharashtra.

Communal politics = using religion for secular gains — votes, jobs, concessions, patronage and power.

Reform → Revival → Communalism

• Reform (19th c.): Raja Rammohan Roy questioned orthodox Hindu practice; movements attacked child marriage, enforced widowhood, caste ritual; Swami Vivekananda stressed Vedanta’s moral-spiritual core while criticizing rigid hierarchy.
• Revival: Bal Gangadhar Tilak opposed the Age of Consent Bill (religious interference), banned parallel sessions of the National Social Conference in 1885, popularized Sarvajanik Ganesh Puja — cultural nationalism gained priority over social reform. Hence Tilak’s thesis: political reform must precede social reform.

Bipan Chandra — the three stages of communalism. Stage 1 (people see themselves as distinct religious communities) → Stage 2 (they believe their interests contradict other communities) → Stage 3 (interests are antagonistic — coexistence held to be impossible). British rule deepened division — divide & rule, Partition of Bengal, separate electorates (Morley-Minto), communal representation, competitive elite politics.

Hindu Revivalism & Hindutva

Revivalists linked nationhood with Vedic texts, Hindu symbols, spiritual superiority, cultural homogenization and the need to unify Hindus. Regional variants: Bengal → Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Ananda Math and “Vande Mataram”; Maharashtra → Ganesh Utsav as mass mobilization; North India → cow protection and the Hindi-Urdu debate; Arya Samaj → reform plus polemics with non-Vedic faiths. Swami Dayanand Saraswati attacked some rituals yet took strong positions against non-Vedic faiths; Sri Aurobindo and Vivekananda presented ancient India as spiritually unique. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s Hindutva converted Hindu identity into territorial-cultural nationalism — Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Sikh faiths treated as rooted in India; Muslims and Christians placed outside the core.

Thomas Blom Hansen (The Saffron Wave): the BJP’s rise is not merely religious or political — it occurs against a background of democratic transformation. Pratap Bhanu Mehta: Hindutva politics is not new; Congress too practiced “soft Hindutva” — Ram Janmabhoomi gates opened under Rajiv Gandhi, the Shah Bano reversal, Indira Gandhi’s use of Sikh fundamentalists against the Akalis and later Hindu fundamentalism against Sikhs, and symbolic Hindu gestures in contemporary Congress.

Islamic Reform & Community Identity

Shah Waliullah, Sayyed Ahmad of Bareilly and Haji Shariatullah sought to purify Islam of non-Islamic elements; Sir Syed Ahmad Khan’s Aligarh Movement promoted modern education and rationality, advising Muslims to stay aloof from nationalist politics for a time and cooperate with the colonial government for socio-economic progress. Traditionalists and modernists differed, but both deepened Muslim community consciousness. By the early 20th century, religious autonomy, minority representation, separate electorates and community rights became politically powerful — feeding the politics that culminated in Partition.

Secularism & Constitutional Politics

Rajeev Bhargava calls Indian secularism “principled distance” — the state need not follow strict separation, may intervene in religion for reform and equality, but must not privilege one faith. It differs from Western secularism because India is a deeply multi-religious society.

“Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.”

Mahatma Gandhi

For Gandhi, religion meant morality and ethical politics — Ramrajya as an inclusive moral order, spirituality a guard against moral bankruptcy. Thomas Pantham explains that Gandhi’s “Purna Swaraj” and “Ramrajya” went beyond liberal democracy, aiming at real freedom anchored in spirituality.

Communal Violence & Electoral Mobilization

Patterns: disproportionate impact on minorities, partisan law enforcement, distorted history, mobilization around sacred sites, fear of “the other”, and conversion of violence into vote polarization.

• Romila Thapar → medieval temple destruction often had political or economic causes, not only religious fanaticism.
• Gyan Pandey → cow slaughter, language and “Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan” hardened communal lines in North India.
• Kenneth Jones (Arya Dharma) → Arya Samaj in Punjab combined reform with polemics against Muslims and Sikhs.
• Paul R. Brass → communal violence is organized and politically managed; his institutionalized riot systems explain how riots are prepared, sustained and used electorally.
• Ashutosh Varshney → stronger inter-community civic engagement makes an area less prone to communal violence.
• Moin Shakir → minority electoral participation is limited to choices between reactionary, casteist and communal politics.
• Tausif Ahmed → minority communalism is an assertion of identity under scarcity, but it may alienate minorities from the wider social fabric.

UPSC 2020 · 15 marks — Examine the role of religion in Indian electoral politics in the contemporary times.

Contemporary Importance

Religion persists because identity is emotionally powerful, parties use religious symbols, religious leaders influence followers, personal laws and temple management stay political, communal violence affects voting, Hindutva has become a major national force, minority consolidation can follow in response, and religious issues intersect with welfare, security and citizenship.

Contemporary set: Ram Mandir · CAA · NRC · “Love Jihad” laws · Babri judgment · gurdwara politics — Punjab · Assam migration · Shiv Sena / Hindutva · AIMIM / minority politics

Ashis Nandy points to growth of religious revivalism and fundamentalism; Kanchan Chandra treats religion as part of ethnicity-based politics; the Ranganath Misra Commission and Sachar Committee highlight minority socio-economic backwardness that feeds political insecurity; L. K. Advani’s critique of “pseudo-secularism” became central to the BJP’s attack on Congress. On the electoral link, Steven I. Wilkinson ties communal violence to electoral outcomes, and Samuel P. Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” offers a wider frame for religious identity politics.

UPSC 2017 · 15 marks — Religion is still an important factor in Indian politics. Discuss.

Assessment

Religion can give ethical depth (Gandhi) or become communal mobilization (both majoritarian and minority). It has moved from colonial communal representation to contemporary ideological nationalism, and works alongside welfare, leadership and development — not always alone. India’s challenge is to protect religious freedom without letting communal polarization weaken citizenship.

Secularism — the Indian Model

Indian secularism is constitutional before it is philosophical: Articles 14–16 (equality and non-discrimination), 25–28 (freedom of conscience and religion) and 29–30 (minority cultural and educational rights). Gandhi emphasised Sarva Dharma Sambhava; Nehru, neutrality and principled distance; Ambedkar, minority protection and “one man, one value”.

Western strict separation vs the Indian model of principled distance

• Wall of separation — State and religion kept strictly apart; no intervention either way.
• Principled distance — State may intervene to help or reform religions, without seeking to control or destroy them.

“Indian secularism does not erect a wall of separation between state and religion. It allows the state to intervene in religions to help or hinder them without the impulse to control or destroy them.”

Rajeev Bhargava

Definitions and defences

• Donald Eugene Smith — a secular state guarantees freedom of religion, treats the individual as a citizen irrespective of religion, and is not constitutionally tied to any faith; India has some features of this but not all.
• S. Radhakrishnan — secularism is not irreligion; it stresses the universality of spiritual values.
• Rajeev Bhargava — a multi-value, context-sensitive model of principled distance, alert to intra-religious oppression and inter-religious domination.
• Christophe Jaffrelot, in The Fate of Indian Secularism — it has deeper civilisational roots, not a mere post-1947 invention.
• Amartya Sen — part of the larger project of recognising heterogeneity.

Critiques

T.N. Madan argues secularisation must precede secularism in deeply religious South Asian societies; Ashis Nandy reads it as a Western import lacking cultural grounding; Partha Chatterjee highlights the difficulty of applying Western separation to India. From the Hindu Right, Arun Shourie and L.K. Advani call the model “pseudo-secular”. Pratap Bhanu Mehta calls principled distance “asymmetrical”, leaving all communities insecure; Romila Thapar wants a stronger secularism able to counter communalism. S.R. Bommai settled secularism as a basic feature.

UPSC 2015 — Comment on secularism in the Indian Constitution (150 words).

Uniform Civil Code — Article 44

Article 44 places a Uniform Civil Code among the Directive Principles — a common set of personal laws on marriage, divorce, inheritance and succession, to replace religion-based personal laws. The debate is old: the Rukhmabai case (1884–88) exposed the tension between custom and modern individual rights, and the Hindu Code reforms of the 1950s recast Hindu marriage and inheritance.

The argument, both ways

• Madhu Kishwar — codification can weaken the diversity of customary practice.
• Flavia Agnes — the politics of women’s rights within personal-law reform.
• Martha Nussbaum — sex equality must be secured through law.
• Romila Thapar — demarcate civil jurisdiction from religious authority.
• Nivedita Menon — favour internal reform, new-area legislation and a gender-just framework over a single imposed code.

Judicial references

The Goa model — a common civil code derived from Portuguese law, with registration of marriages, communion of assets and equal inheritance — is often cited, though patriarchal practice and community resistance limit it.