Challenges to Hinduism

The Independent State of India was established as a secular republic in 1948. With the various religious identities that abounded, the intention was to reconcile them.. Hinduism, by its nature is a tolerant religion but differences have arisen which have caused tensions, especially between Hindus and Muslims. India's adoption of a secular constitution was meant to diffuse the situation, and by and large, it has been fairly successful. Islam's rise of militant fundamentalism, however, has been a block to the relations between the two religions. This has seen a deepening association in India between religion and politics. This association, perhaps it could be said, signals also Hinduism's difficulty in adapting to modernity and the process of secularisation. This is not surprising seeing that in Western cultures, where the state has been long secularised, the various religions have seen a decline with the split from politics. Indian commentators attribute westerm promiscuity, materialism and individualism to the disparagment of religion and warn against the same thing happening in their own society.

The question of identity and religious authenticity is felt, it seems, most acutely, by young Hindus growing up in the West. Religious identity, however, is a fluid and changing notion both for individuals and for communities. The individual cannot or should not be reduced to a single identity. This reductive approach to the individual person denies the various ways in which he/she can assume different identities as he/she interacts in different contexts, both social and religious, for whatever purpose within which he/she finds him/herself. Perhaps the notion of a single identity presupposes a coherence of belief, action and emotion that many of us fail to realise or demonstrate, Hindus included.