The Challenges of Managing Religious Diversity in India: Between Hegemonic Domination and the Quest for Equality

Kim, Heewon; Singh, Gurharpal

Abstract

This chapter discusses four ways of understanding the political management of religious diversity in India. It assesses the efforts of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to implement new policies and practices to improve the social and economic conditions of religious minorities after 9/11 and the Gujarat pogroms of 2002. These efforts were directed at all religious minorities, but especially Muslims, who were identified as suffering a serious development deficit. The chapter describes the historical institutionalism and path dependence theory that holds particular policies and choices made at a critical juncture can have a persistent. The highly normative analyses by proponents of state secularism and anti-secularists have produced an equally profound counter-reaction. The paradox of managing religious diversity in India is that of a secular polity governed by a political party committed to establishing a Hindu state and the primacy of Hindu values. Finally, the chapter focuses on the constitutional framing of religious minorities and is institutionally path dependent.

Citation

Kim, H., & Singh, G. (2016). The Challenges of Managing Religious Diversity in India: Between Hegemonic Domination and the Quest for Equality. In A. Dawson (Ed.), The Politics and Practice of Religious Diversity: National Contexts, Global Issues (49-66). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315762555-4

• Publication Date: Apr 15, 2016
• Deposit Date: May 31, 2016
• Publisher: Routledge
• Pages: 49-66
• Series Title: Routledge Advances in Sociology
• Book Title: The Politics and Practice of Religious Diversity: National Contexts, Global Issues
• ISBN: 9781138791817
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315762555-4