Arrival and Departure

This morning I recieved a journal advertisement from Japanese Journal of Political Science with included an article on religion and politics in India by Sanjay Kumar. Since my current research is on religion and politics in Asia, I figured I'd better read it.

I'm glad I did, because it makes an fascinating claim. The author's first point is this:

This paper intends to argue through survey data that the so-called modern constituents among the Hindus in India, i.e. the urban, educated, upper-caste, and high class have higher tendencies to practice religiosity in the public as well as in the private realm. Thus being religious in the explicit sense is a phenomenon that is seen more among the strata of the Hindus mentioned above. Thus, the survey data in a way goes against the highly prevalent tendencies of locating the ascriptive identity-based politics amongst the ruralites, lower-castes, lower classes, and uneducated masses among the Hindus in India.

In other words, religion in India is not for "bitter country folk," it is for the well-educated upper classes and prosperous city dwellers. This survey data is not the only evidence. The article cites a piece in the New Humanist by Meera Nanda that worries about religiosity in India, saying

Another measurable indicator of rising religiosity is the tremendous rise in pilgrimages or religious tourism. According to a recent study by the National Council for Applied Economic Research, “religious trips account for more than 50 per cent of all package tours, much higher than leisure tour packages at 28 per cent.” The most recent figures show that in 2004, more than 23 million people visited the Lord Balaji temple at Tirpuati, while 17.25 million trekked to the mountain shrine of Vaishno Devi.

Today’s generation of Indian upper and middle classes are not content with the de-ritualised, slimmed-down, philosophised or secular-humanist version of Hinduism that appealed to the earlier generation of elites. They are instead looking for “jagrit” or awake gods who respond to their prayers and who fulfill their wishes.

From this common beginning, Kumar and Nanda tie religion to politics in different (though complementary) ways.

Nanda describes how Hinduism is melded to the state, so that Hindu worship becomes a way of glorifying "India" (expressed as "Hindu Culture") along with the gods. Political leaders regularly pray publically at temples, and priests lead prayers for the government. Both sides assert that Hinduism and the Indian state are natual partners. If we see multicultural tolerance as a primary political virtue, as Nanda appears to, this is problematic. If we see strong community as a primary political virtue (a la Robert Kaplan's assertion that strong Islam is what makes Turkish slums so much better places to live than African slums), this is holds an unwieldy society together.

Kumar studies voting behavior, and he finds that the more publically active a Hindu is (and upper-class Hindus tend to be more active), the more likely he is to vote for the BJP (the nationalist Hindu party). The surprising thing here is that this shows the BJP support base is in the upper classes, not the marginalized (like the British National Party or Le Pen in France, to mention two similarly nationalist parties). Not what we would expect at all. He doesn't fully explain why the BJP lost seats in 2009 if religiosity is still increasing, but he hints that a split in the BJP, with some leaders moderating their hostile stance towards muslims, may have cost the party some support.

Indian politics is one thing I wish I knew more about.