Religion inspires ‘very high’ social hostility in India

Intolerance has been the word on everyone’s lips since 2014, when the Right-inclined Bharatiya Janata Party led by Narendra Modi won the Indian general elections. Anxieties surged on both sides of the spectrum. Right-wing supporters claimed the country was overrun by “sickularism” – a term aimed to denigrate left-liberals and punning on “secularism” — and Hindus were being shortchanged. Those inclined towards the Left argued that the BJP is following the ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and pushing a majoritarian attitude at the expense of minorities.

In this context, a research report on religion by Pew Research, a think-tank based in America indicates that the situation in India warrants concern. According to the report, India had extensive social hostilities involving religion in 2014. The four classifications of social hostilities are: “Low”, “Moderate”, “High” and “Very High”. The number of countries involving a “very high” level of social hostility due to religion fell from 17 in 2013 to 11 in 2014, but India’s name continued to be on the list. Other countries included in this “very high” list were Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, among others.

Pew Research’s ranking of social hostilities measures acts of religious hostility by private individuals, organisations or groups in a society. This includes armed conflict or terrorism inspired by religion, mob or sectarian violence, harassment over attire for religious reasons or other religion-related intimidation or abuse. The social hostility index (SHI) includes 13 measures of social hostilities.

One section of the report measures restrictions placed by a government on its people on the subject of religion. This ranking measures government laws, policies and actions that restrict religious beliefs and practices. It is comprised of 20 measures of restrictions, including efforts by government to ban particular faiths, prohibit conversion, limit preaching or give preferential treatment to one or more religious groups.

The number of countries that qualify for “very high” in this category came down from 18 in 2013 to 16 in 2014. India is classified in the list of countries featuring “high” religious restrictions by the government. Other countries in this category included Singapore, Bhutan, Qatar and Sri Lanka. Four countries – Kazakhstan, Laos, Maldives and Turkmenistan were new entrants to the list. China had the highest level of government restrictions in 2014, while Pakistan had the highest level of social hostilities involving religion.

Harassment of Hindus increases, Christians, Muslims harassed most across the world

Christians and Muslims, the two largest religious groups of the world, faced the most harassment across the world. An interesting revelation, however, was that there has been an increase in the number of countries in which Hindus and Jews were harassed. The report classifies harassment in many forms which includes physical assaults, verbal assaults, arrest and detentions, desecration of holy sites and discrimination against religious groups in employment, education and housing.

The number of countries in which Hindus faced harassment rose from nine in 2013 to 14 in 2014. India’s neighbouring countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and Bangladesh have seen a continuous persecution of religious minorities, who flee to India. Almost 5,000 Hindus flee Pakistan every year due to persecution, as The Times of India reported here. More recently, Bangladesh has seen the rise of radicals who have been going after Hindus.

In January 2015, Newslaundry has published a story series on “Vanishing Hindus of Pakistan: A demographic study”, which focused on how the Hindu population has faced persecution in Pakistan ever since 1947, but it didn’t vanish – it came home. Earlier this year, there was also a story on Hindus from Pakistan who came to India, hoping for a better and free life. More troubling scenario is in Bangladesh, where one has witnessed a steady decline in the Hindu population.

The silver lining in all this is that overall, there has been a modest decrease in social hostilities involving religion and a noticeable drop in the number of governments that have attacked religious groups, worldwide. This is particularly heartening because all regions except sub-Saharan Africa have experienced more religion-inspired terrorism in 2014 and over the past few years, we’ve seen a steady rise in the number of casualties claimed by acts of terror. Perhaps we aren’t doomed to be puppets of propaganda after all?