Nonreligious Struggle To Find Their Voice And Place In Indian Society And Politics
By Deepa Bharath
Associated Press
October 05, 2023
Sultan Shahin, Founder Of A
Progressive Muslim Website Called New Age Islam, Said He Is Seeing More Muslims
In India Questioning Their Religion And Some Even Calling Themselves “Ex-Muslims.”
Shahin Shuns Such Labels But Said Most Would View Him As A “Cultural Muslim.”
“I Question How The Quran Is
Compiled And I Ask These Questions Openly,” He Said. “We Need To Have Room
For These Discussions Without Fearing For Our Safety.”
------
Despite India’s millennia-old history of nonreligious
movements, most atheists and rationalists choose to keep quiet about their scepticism
of faith — it’s easier and far less risky than going public in one of the
world's most religious countries.
The space that does exist for debating religious authority
and belief is shrinking, said Avinash Patil, a religious sceptic who was born
Hindu and is now a leader of an anti-superstition group working in one of the
country’s western states. He blames the growth of nationwide religious and
communal tensions over the last decade as well as rising Hindu nationalism
under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership.
“When you are open about it and engage in activism, it can
get challenging, and even dangerous,” said Patil, chairperson of Maharashtra
Andhashradha Nirmulan Samiti.
In fact, Patil and his organization are still seeking
justice for its founder and renowned rationalist, Narendra Dabholkar, who was
gunned down during a morning walk in Pune 10 years ago. Patil helped organize
vigils and rallies Aug. 19-20 for Dabholkar in Mumbai and Pune. The murder
trial is ongoing.
Indians not affiliated with any religion — known as the
"nones” — are a very small minority among the nation’s 1.4 billion people,
according to government statistics and independent surveys. They include
atheists, agnostics, the culturally religious but not observant, rationalists
and the spiritual but not religious.
It is possible that nones in India are underrepresented in
such surveys due to societal taboos and shortcuts taken by interviewers, said
Stephanie Kramer, a senior researcher at Pew Research Centre who led a 2020
survey about the nation’s religious makeup.
Only 13 out of the 30,000 Indians surveyed by Pew said they
were unaffiliated with any religion, while many more responded that there was
no such thing as having no religion, Kramer said.
“Such a tiny percentage of people with no religion is
unusual,” Kramer said.
Hindus are the largest religious group in India by far. They
comprise about 80% of the population while Muslims account for 14%, the largest
of the minority religions. The country also is home to Buddhists, Christians,
Jains, Sikhs and numerous Indigenous faith traditions.
Renouncing one’s religion is allowed in India, and the
Special Marriage Act of 1954 permits people with no religious beliefs to marry,
as well as nonreligious and non-ritualistic weddings. But the country doesn’t
officially recognize atheism or the nonreligious. To avoid a hassle, some feel
forced to list a religion on government forms such as birth certificates, or on
school admissions paperwork.
“There are delays with documents when you don’t state your
religion,” said Jaswant Mohali, a coordinator for the rationalist group
Tarksheel Society Punjab. “Sometimes we take this issue to court, but most of
the time we just state our religion at birth to avoid problems with official
documents.”
Mohali’s and Patil’s organizations are among those pushing
for the government to add a “no religion” checkbox to the country’s new census
form. But irreligious activists don’t just advocate for their specific causes;
they have long pushed for other social justice issues like caste and gender
equality.
Although small in numbers, atheists in India have been able
to exert influence and advance their agenda “with a human approach and
empathy,” said K. Veeramani, president of the Chennai-based Dravidar Kazhagam,
a social justice organization advocating for equality. It was launched in the
1940s by E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker, popularly known as Periyar, in the southern
state of Tamil Nadu.
“It’s not about a show of hands,” Veeramani said. “It’s
about clarity of thinking. The rationalist way of life is about equality and
equity.”
The group, along with its coalition of political parties,
has resisted Modi’s central government policies. Their biting rhetoric has
sometimes proved controversial.
On Sept. 2, speaking at an event in Chennai, Udayanidhi
Stalin, Tamil Nadu’s sports minister and son of Chief Minister M.K. Stalin,
called to eradicate Hinduism, comparing it to coronavirus, malaria and dengue.
After a firestorm of criticism from opponents, allies and Hindus both within
India and in the diaspora who called his statements anti-Hindu, Stalin, who
identifies as atheist, doubled down on his comments, clarifying that his fight
is against a system that perpetrated caste discrimination.
Sharp rhetoric about Hinduism often stems from deep-seated
hurt and the trauma of caste, and not from hatred of Hindus or upper-caste
Brahmins, said Annamalai Arulmozhi, a Chennai-based lawyer born to parents who
were followers of Periyar and raised their children as atheists. Arulmozhi, who
is still an atheist and a feminist, says feminism and fighting inequities
perpetrated by the caste system have been central to Periyar’s movement, which
continues today.
Fighting for justice means facing opposition from religion,
culture, caste and everything else the system throws at you, Arulmozhi said.
“Atheism has given me the strength to stand against all of
this,” she said. “To get justice, you have to oppose all these structures,
branches and corollary institutions. You need to reject all that and only view
your path and your goal as a humanist. That feeling, to me, is atheism.”
Arulmozhi said her family would not have had the opportunity
to get an education without the push for equality that Periyar led. She has
found living as an atheist “freeing.”
The nones in India come from an array of belief backgrounds,
including Hindu, Muslim and Sikh. Atheism is still largely invisible and
ignored in India, said Mohali, who was born into a Sikh family. Rational
thought, he said, is without a platform.
“There are a lot of television channels for religion, but
not for science or rational thought,″ he said.
Sultan Shahin, founder of a progressive Muslim website
called New Age Islam, said he is seeing more Muslims in India questioning
their religion and some even calling themselves “ex-Muslims.” Shahin
shuns such labels but said most would view him as a “cultural Muslim.”
“I question how the Quran is compiled and I ask these
questions openly,” he said. “We need to have room for these discussions
without fearing for our safety.”
Historically, doubt has been an integral part of India's
spiritual DNA. The gurus or spiritual masters, including the Buddha, encouraged
followers to ask questions. Ancient Indian scriptures, such as verses in the
Rig Veda, address scepticism around the fundamental question of a creator god,
and the creation of the universe, said Signe Cohen, associate professor of
religion at the University of Missouri who focuses on Hinduism and Buddhism.
“Buddhism is a functionally atheist religion because there
is no belief in a god who is the creator of the universe or a saviour of
humans,” Cohen said.
Other religions that took root in India pose similar
questions, she said. Jain texts raise the question most atheists ask: If there
is a creator god who is the ruler of the universe, why is there so much
suffering?
Materialist schools of thought dating back to the fifth and
sixth centuries include declarations that human beings are nothing more than their
physical bodies, and denied the existence of god, the soul and life after
death. Others that denied the existence of gods still believed in rebirth and
the soul.
India has also seen several movements in the last century
that emphasize spirituality over religion and ritual, like the one started by
philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti. His foundation is headquartered in Chennai and
emphasizes living in the present.
“He (the philosopher) said we don’t need to go the previous
or next life because how we live now dictates the quality of the next moment or
the next day,” said Harshad Parekh, a long-time follower and educator in
Krishnamurti schools who was born Hindu and now is agnostic.
Krishnamurti died in 1986, but his view on the search for
truth lives on in followers like Parekh.
“Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any
creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophical
knowledge or psychological technique,” according to the late philosopher.
Krishnamurti also repeatedly stated that he held no
nationality or belief and belonged to no particular group or culture. Parekh
strongly aligns with that belief.
He does, however, support the Modi government.
“I'm not for or against any religion or faith group,” he
said. “But I do like what this government has done for the economy.”
___
Associated Press
religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The
Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely
responsible for this content. This story was originally published October 5,
2023, 12:57 AM.
Source: Nonreligious
Struggle To Find Their Voice And Place In Indian Society And Politics
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