Abstract
AbstractIn this paper, I want to focus on some aspects of the political process in India that have an impact on the treatment of religious minorities. Much of the discussion on multicultural jurisdictions deals with differentiated citizenship rights that allow religious groups to maintain their normative universe. This literature shows the tensions surrounding individual and group rights. I want to approach the question of religious freedom from a rather different angle. I want to first focus on the protection of bare life in the face of religious violence and then examine the issue of conversion from one religion to another. The issues of human security and conversion are linked in India, since Hindu nationalists see Muslims as forcibly converted Hindus who should be reconverted. To highlight the importance of majoritarian nationalism rather than political systems in the treatment of religious minorities, I offer a brief comparison with China.
Highlights
The sovereign nation-state has to be the guarantor of religious freedom in the modern period
I want to focus on some aspects of the political process in India that have an impact on the treatment of religious minorities
To highlight the importance of majoritarian nationalism rather than political systems in the treatment of religious minorities, I offer a brief comparison with China
Summary
The sovereign nation-state has to be the guarantor of religious freedom in the modern period. Since the nation-state and nationalism are crucial in religious and political practice everywhere, it is clear that what the philosopher Charles Taylor calls “the Secular Age” extends beyond the West.. Charles Taylor has argued that the rise in the nation-state and the mobilization around a national identity have been crucial for developing secular modernity. 46 Peter van der Veer violence seem to me the crucial questions in the study of secularism and religious freedom, but some of the recent literature inspired by Taylor’s work ignores them.9 In this contribution, I want to focus on some aspects of the political process in India that have an impact on the rights of religious minorities. The brief comparison with China is helpful It shows that a secular democracy like India is not a better protector of religious minorities than a non-democratic regime like China. The argument here is that the relation between civilizational majorities and minorities in nationalism is more important than the difference between democratic and non-democratic polities
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