Discussion of Religious Pluralism
The religious pluralism is concerned with the attitude of the society regarding the co-existence of different religious beliefs in a particular region or country (Aslan 2013). The different religions have different degrees of values and some degree of truths, which needs to be accepted by the members of the other religion. There are exclusive claims of the different religions which possess mutually exclusive truths indicate towards the universal nature of the truths. There are instances of ecumenism, which is concerned with the promotion of the co-operation, unity and enhanced understanding of the multiple religions as well as different attributes to the same religion.
The thesis statement of this essay is involved with the comparative analysis of the religious pluralism in India and China. It would discuss the individual religious diversity of the individual countries. There would also be a comparison between both the countries regarding religious plurality. It is a long debate that there are cultural as well as religious diversity between these two countries, which would be analyzed in detail.
The religious diversity is concerned with the fact that there are significant differences in the religious practice and the religious beliefs between different faiths (Aslan 2013). The pluralistic approach to the religion has focused on the fact that one religion is equally good with that of the other religions. The pluralist quality of religions concentrates on qualities such as informed, broad minded, modern, tolerant, cosmopolitan and others (Bayram 2015). These qualities have one common aim of reaching the goal of mutual religious existence and display support for each other.
As defined by O’Leary (2016), the religious pluralism is concerned with providing valuable respects to all religions alike. This concept is equally valid for all religions and they focus on the fact that the multiple paths to Gods are a possibility, which is underlined by exclusivism. The concept of pluralism believes on the fact that the sharing of different values leads to the same shared goals (Aslan 2013). The pluralism is concerned with the ideas of the competing truth claims as well as acceptance of the diverse beliefs concerning salvation and God (Fabian 2013). The concept of pluralism is concerned with the fact that two or more religions have the capability of sharing doctrinal beliefs. For example, Muslims and Christians believe in one God, however, there are many irreconcilable beliefs.
As opined by Ching (2016), there are several forms of pluralism that can be observed in China. There is widespread presence of traditional religious practices in China such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity and others. Confucianism is considered to be the soul of the Chinese culture, which has gained popular support from the people (Ching 2016). It is associated with the ideology of the feudalism society. Recent survey has focused on the fact that the 85% of the Chinese citizens have religious beliefs while the other 15% are considered to be the real atheists. Taoism is considered as the oldest religion in China, which is based on compassion, good living and humility (Griffiths 2015). There are around 18 million in China who follow Islam and it was introduced around 1400 years ago.
Forms of Pluralism in China
The arguments made by Weller in the article named “The Politics of increasing religious diversity in China” in the first assignment discussed about the aspects of relative increase of the spiritual pastime in the last thirty years. This article helped in better understanding of the different government regulations in China so that there is implementation of the reliable regulations. This has also helped the government to regulate the various levels of discrepancies that arise between the reliable regulations and the non-secular regulations. This article also supports the increasing growth of religious diversity in China.
As opined by Klostermaier (2014), there are several problems related with the religious diversity. The religion approach based on the employment of the various service providers of religion provide broader base of the religious entities. There are issues with the unreliable religious intuitions. The different religions arrive at different conclusions regarding the intuitions (Klostermaier 2014). However, this cannot be treated as a valid argument since there is not enough information available in this regard in order to reach a definitive conclusion (Griffiths 2015). A justified level of the religious diversity is bound to be a psychological as well as spiritual deficiency which often arises in the untrained mind of the humans. There needs to be more effort in handling the issue of religious diversity, rather than just training the human minds.
As stated by Chaudhri (2016), the subcontinent of India is flooded with the religions and the Indian continent is considered as the land of four distinct religions namely Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism. India is a secular state in which the major religions of the world are practiced by the respective followers (Klostermaier 2014). However, the religious diversity has been a constant source of disharmony as well as unrest in the country. This is quite evident from the fact that there was partition as there was more emphasis on the two-nation theory (Zutshi 2015). Assam had the highest level of growth in the population in India and there has been substantial migration in this part. The partition of Bengal was phenomenal affair and the Bengali migrants were both Hindus as well as Muslims. There was partition of India and Pakistan in the year 1947 and there was transfer of large number of Bengali Muslims from Sylhet to East Pakistan (Corbridge and Harriss 2013).
There were also widespread communal riots in the state of Punjab in India, between Sikhs and Hindus in the year 1980. Punjab is a state with high per capita income and Sikhs are majority in this state. Sikhs used religious symbols for greater mobilization of Sikhs (Dikötter 2015). Their main demand was the greater radio time for the religious broadcast and individual legislative act for the religious shrines (Dikötter 2015). One of the greatest issues of India is the Hindu-Muslim debate and it was marked by the most controversial partition of 1947 (Dikötter 2015). This marked the beginning of the Muslim sovereign state of Pakistan and the situation in India worsened the condition of the Muslims. The Muslims were considered to be the main creator of problems in the country and there were often blamed for the division of the country in two parts (Dikötter 2015). There were also issues with Kashmir part of India. The secularism has found new meanings in Indian subcontinent. The legitimate domination of the secular forms of religion have led to inter-religion domination. The deep rooted religious diversity of the Indian subcontinent has led to many issues within same religion as well as between different religions.
Religious Diversity Issues in India
There has been constant invasion of alien tribes in both China and India and they were considered as the centers of civilizations (Fuchs 2015). They are the backbones of two ancient cultures where Confucianism is prominent in China and Hinduism religion is prominent in India. In China, there was the creation of more philosophical religious beliefs where Confucianism gained moral values and virtues (Fuchs 2015). Daoism, which is considered as another major Chinese religion and it embraced mystery as well as harmony of nature (Fuchs 2015). This religion was also inclined to more spiritual nature. On the other hand, the religion in India is mostly based on Hinduism, which is based on the attainment of higher level of spiritual thoughts. The religion is considered with a one-sided act of balancing the acts of the government and politics in the country related with the humanly affairs (Fuchs 2015). China and India are carrying on the perspectives of the modernity to different extents.
The realization regarding the religion issues in China and India was fostered with the help of social media websites. There is an online emergence of variety of religion in the digital media, which has helped in the better understanding of the concepts of religious pluralism (Fuchs 2015).. The social media has played a prominent part in the junction of the mass media and is successful in media coverage between the secularism, Christianity and other religious diversity parameters.
Conclusion
The multiculturalism has been a religious identity for both China and India. Both the countries have witnessed sufficient religious ups and downs. There have been major religious protests in India such as Partition of Bengal, Partition of Pakistan and India. The religious diversity has much to do with the mere attitude of the people. The government as well as well as the religious bodies should engage with religious harmony and should encourage the citizens to practice their own religion as well as respect the religious sentiments of other religions as well. There should be more brotherhood among the different religions so that they can coexist in the same country in a harmonious manner. There should be greater intervention of the social media in understanding the nuisances of religious diversity.
References
Aslan, A., 2013. Religious pluralism in Christian and Islamic philosophy: the thought of John Hick and Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Routledge.
Bayram, A.B., 2015. What drives modern Diogenes? Individual values and cosmopolitan allegiance. European Journal of International Relations, 21(2), pp.451-479.
Chaudhri, S., 2016. Gandhi and the Partition of India.
Ching, J., 2016. Chinese religions. Springer.
Corbridge, S. and Harriss, J., 2013. Reinventing India: Liberalization, Hindu nationalism and popular democracy. John Wiley & Sons.
Dikötter, F., 2015. The discourse of race in modern China. Oxford University Press.
Fabian, J., 2013. Religious pluralism: An ethnographic approach. Theoretical explorations in African religion, pp.138-163.
Fuchs, C., 2015. Culture and economy in the age of social media. Routledge.
Griffiths, P.J., 2015. Problems of religious diversity. John Wiley & Sons.
Klostermaier, K.K., 2014. A concise encyclopedia of Hinduism. Oneworld Publications.
O’Leary, J.S., 2016. Religious pluralism and Christian truth. Wipf and Stock Publishers.
Zutshi, C., 2015. An ongoing partition: histories, borders, and the politics of vivisection in Jammu and Kashmir. Contemporary South Asia, 23(3), pp.266-275.
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