Society and Business

Session 4

Salamah Ansari
 Module

Politics of Religion in India- II

• Religion and electoral politics

• The interplay of religion and caste

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 Religion Based Political Organizations

1. Akali Dal

2. Shiv Sena- Vernacularised Hindutva

3
Caste Based Political Organizations
1. Muslim OBC Movement: Maharashtra

2. Balmiki- Mazhabi Movement: Punjab

Politics of Reservation

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 Secularizatio
n

Poverty Caste

DEVELOPMENT

Disparities Religion

Economic
Democracy
Growth
 Development
• An attractive and powerful idea
• Poverty-related programmes: most heavily-funded government schemes

• Development is no longer seen as being inevitably premised on a

process of secularization
• Development can produce collective identities based on religion and
other forms of ascription
• Political mobilization tends to unite religious groups as communities
with common interest: Development
• Development policies disaggregates them, reinforcing the internal
divisions and diversities within religious communities
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 Religion/ Caste/ Community
• Religion: normal sociological phenomenon
not restricted to private domain

• Religion/ culture do not disappear from public life with the onset of
economic change

• Government in the past “group targeted” programmes for the scheduled

castes and scheduled tribes, religion had not been a part of the Indian
discourse on development

• Dominant religious community do not act as a homogeneous entity in

the electoral process: Akali Dal, OBC Movement, Balmiki- Mazhabi
Movement

• Caste mobilizations in Maharashtra and Punjab

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 Religion/ Caste/ Community
• Religious/ Community identities:

i. Constitutive elements of the notion of well-being that people have in

a given context
ii. Not irrational collectivist ideologies
iii. Can be a source of security and sustenance for individuals and groups
located on the margins
iv. Do not necessarily represent the past

Religious communities as the basic units for political participation

Religion entered public domain, as individuals who shared a religious

identity could come together and form political organizations and
associations. 8
 Secularism
• With growing movements of people, nation states everywhere are
becoming ethnically and culturally diverse

• Secular-communal dichotomous way of thinking is becoming

increasingly meaningless

• Sachar Committee Report in 2006: Need to pay attention to the religious

dimension

• Competitive democratic politics creates a peculiar situation where

apparently “secular” political parties target the most marginalized and
try to wean them away from “religious” political parties by granting
special benefits to them

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 Disparities
• Issues relating to deprivation and citizenship are raised by identity
movements of historically deprived collectivities such as the dalits and
adivasis, Muslims

• Deprived groups critique mainstream notions of development, they are

not against the idea of development

• Core thrust is more inclusive and just development

• Social policies dealing with issues of marginality and exclusion are

framed using “social group” variables

• Reservations: A major asset that can provide access to prized public

goods in a situation of acute competition and scarcity of resources

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 Economic Growth
• Involvement of religion with politics and economics has always
been looked upon with suspicion

• Role of religion in shaping the moral order is widely recognized

• Role of religious institutions in eradicating corruption???

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