Is religion playing an important role in increasing fundamentalism? Give reasons for your answer. (UPSC CSE Mains 2016 - Sociology, Paper 1)
- Since the awakening of religion, wars, have been fought in the name of different gods and goddesses. Still today most violent conflicts contain religious elements linked up with ethno-national, interstate, economic, territorial, cultural and other issues. Threatening the meaning of life, conflicts based on religion tend to become dogged, tenacious and brutal types of war. When conflicts are couched in religious terms, they become transformed in value conflicts. Unlike other issues, such as resource conflicts which can be resolved by pragmatic and distributive means, value conflicts have a tendency to become mutually conclusive or zero-sum issues. They entail strong judgements of what is right and wrong, and parties believe that there cannot be a common ground to resolve their differences.
- In a world where governments and international organizations are suffering from a legitimacy deficit, one can expect a growing impact of religious discourses on international politics. Religion is a major source of soft power. It will, to a greater extent, be used or misused by religions and governmental organizations to pursue their interests. It is therefore important to develop a more profound understanding of the basic assumption underlying the different religions and the ways in which people adhering to them see their interests. It would also be very useful to identify elements of communality between the major religions.
- Fundamentalism is an effort by religious interpreters who like to go back to that they believe to be pure and original values and behavior. The forces of social change are important for the emergence of fundamentalism. Whenever there are drastic changes in society and a pace of change which disturbs community life, there is loss of identity and rootlessness among people. Fundamentalism offers restitution and bringing back the earlier better period. To achieve this fundamentalists evolve a comprehensive and absolutist rigid belief system and practice. This belief is capable of intense commitment among its followers.
- The fundamentalism takes on a rather aggressive, militant form where killing and terrorism is justified. Post independent India has seen an increase in the religious intolerance with religious harmony being undermined and deliberate attempts are made to encourage and intensify religious discord among different religious communities. One of the reasons being the electoral practice which encourages the formation of vote banks. The vote bank is nurtured on the basis of caste and religious lines. Another reason is the increasing size of claimants to the national economic gains. One way of increasing the share is to mobilize politically on religious and caste lines. Thus one''s religious or caste identity is emphasized more than one''s national identity.
- Religious organizations have a major impact on inter-communal and international conflicts. During the Cold War, religious as well as ethnic and nationalist conflicts were relatively neglected in the study of international relations and peace research. After the implosion of the communist block, the escalation of nationalist violence was a surprise. Some expect an escalation of religious conflicts as well. Despite an increase in the attention to the religious dimension of conflicts, it remains an under-researched field. There is no useful typology of religious conflicts; no serious study of the impact of religious organizations on conflict behavior; no comparative research of peace- making and peace-building efforts of different religious organizations.
- The world cannot survive without a new global ethic, and religions play a major role, as parties in violent conflicts, as passive bystanders and as active peace-makers and peace-builders. Hans Küngs'' thesis that there cannot be world peace without a religious peace is right. Representing two thirds of the world population, religions have a major responsibility in creating a constructive conflict culture.
- They will have to end conflicts fueled by religion, stop being passive bystanders and organize themselves to provide more effective peace services. Religions and religious organisations have an untapped and under- used integrative power potential. To assess this potential and to understand which factors enhance or inhibit joint peace ventures between the Christian religions, but also between the prophetic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), the Indian religions (Hinduism and Buddhism) and the Chinese wisdom religions, is an urgent research.
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