Religion in India – what changed?
By Tahira Kaur Dhillon (F-307) Wednesday, Mar 30, 2022
Whether its politics, social change or economics, religion tends to come up in conversations concerning India. And in an age of change, religion in India is coming under fire – there’s an environment of religious scepticism.
Religious scepticism arose as a countermovement to undermine the contentions of dogmatic philosophers, scientists, and theologians. They laid the bricks to Western Philosophy. One often confuses religious scepticism with atheism and agnosticism, when in fact it remains a mere questioning of the current form of religion. It stands as a rejection of the prevailing organised religion and is a process for discovering the truth rather than blind acceptance.
Now before we come to the present times, we need to go to the start of organised religion in India the get a clearer idea. When people thought of the Indian faith, they thought of the golden ages of Buddhism or the works of the Vedas. One of the first religious periods of India were that of the Early Vedic. Their theories were simple and consisted of worshipping nature (the sun, the moon, the sky, the wind, and the air). They praised nature and called themselves Aryans. But around 1000 BC, this faith faced a distortion with the rise of deity worship, animal sacrifices and the rise of the caste system. As an offset of this, faiths like Buddhism and Jainism arose.
A religion of social change and purity, Buddhism acted as a renaissance movement of Indian religion. Here ascetics created a more personal and spiritual experience than that found in the Vedas and spread their gospels far and wide. For the longest time, this is what characterised Indian religion. The world saw Indian beliefs as those of yoga and Buddhism. But things change – and so did this.
Praying to nature and the sun has now turned into a money-making scheme for Pandits. Beliefs of the universal brotherhood turned into a program to pit Hindus and Muslims apart. Religions that promoted education and social upliftment now worked for the supremacy of one religion. And all staunch supporters believed that nothing could stop their journey to God – even if they must lynch, manipulate, convert, or destroy the rest of mankind.
It saddens me that such a beautiful image of worship could turn into something so ugly. Religion was created to facilitate communities of love and support, and to work for the betterment of mankind. It was a means to stop conflict and not to create it. And I hope that one day our transcendent nation can return to its pure and peaceful origins.
Illustrator - Himanshi Gupta
