Religion, religious conflicts and interreligious dialogue in India: an interrogation
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Date
29/11/2012Author
Swamy, Muthuraj
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Abstract
This thesis is an assessment of interreligious dialogue in India developed as an
approach to other religions in the context of exclusivist attitudes. While dialogue is
important in such a context, nevertheless, in terms of its wider objectives of creating
better relationships in society, it has some limitations which need to be addressed for
it to be more effective in society. Studying the past 60 years of dialogue in India and
undertaking field-research in south India, this thesis discusses three such limitations.
Firstly, critiquing the notion of world-religion categories which is fundamental to
dialogue, it argues that such categories are products of the western Enlightenment
and colonialism leading to framing colonised people’s identities largely in terms of
religion. Dialogue, emphasising the plurality of religions, has appropriated these
notions although people live with multiple identities. Secondly the idea of religious
conflicts serves as the basic context for dialogue in which dialogue should take
necessary actions to contain them. While the concern to do away with conflicts
through dialogue needs to be furthered, this thesis considers the multiple factors
involved in such conflicts and works for solutions accordingly. Analysing through a
case study a clash in 1982 in Kanyakumari district which continues to be termed as
Hindu-Christian conflict, this thesis shows that there are multiple factors associated
with each communal conflict, and dialogue needs to understand them if it is to work
effectively. Thirdly it critiques the elite nature and methods in dialogue which ignore
grass root realities and call for ‘taking dialogue to grassroots.’ The argument is that
grassroot experiences of relating with each other in everyday living should be
incorporated in dialogue for better results. What is proposed at the end is a necessity
of re-visioning dialogue which can lead to fostering ‘inter-community relations based
on multiple identities and everyday living experiences of ordinary people’ that
invites one to enlarge the horizons to comprehend the plurality of relations and
identities, not just plurality of religions, understand and address real-life conflicts and
question naming conflicts as religious, and incorporate grassroot experiences of
everyday living in continuing to work for a more peaceful society.