PK, RELIGION AND REALITY

By BINIT GURUNG

Imagine an inhabitant of another planet left stranded in a deeply religious society on earth by accident. He is compelled to learn the ways of the world to survive and in doing so, encounters a range of competing religious beliefs and traditions that mark his newfound world. This scenario is actually portrayed in the recently released Amir Khan Starrer movie “PK” directed by Rajkumar Hirani who has a reputation for making excellent movies.

The movie raises some plausible questions on ‘religion’ which holds sway over the lives of millions of people in India. The centrality of religion in people’s lives is not characteristic of Indian societies only. Rather, this is common to all societies in varying extents across the world. Against this background, let me dwell on the different facets of religion which we often take for granted.

The good side

The functionalist analysis of religion sees religion as contributing to the functioning of the whole social system. In other words, religion is seen in light of its role in maintaining the social order. It fosters shared values and beliefs among people and thereby promotes social solidarity. Religious rituals and festivals help to integrate the society by bringing people together in a society.

It also serves as an agent of social control by its prescription of moral codes of conduct and taboos among others. These beliefs have strong influence on the behavior and conduct of the people. Besides, religion makes suffering tolerable and instills patience in its adherents as they believe in the promise of eternal bliss in afterlife and the idea of reward and punishment according to one’s deeds.

It explains what cannot be explained otherwise. It therefore helps to allay frustration and tension arising from one’s failure or one’s inability to comprehend the contradictions of life. Religion has indeed many ‘functions’ in a society as explained by the functionalists like Emile Durkheim, Brainslaw Malinowski and Talcott Parsons.

The flip-side

The Marxian perspective of religion reveals a different picture of religion that contrasts with what that has been outlined in the preceding paragraph. Marxism sees religion as an illusion that somewhat lessens the pain of oppression and exploitation of the working classes leading them to have ‘false consciousness’. 

Ruling classes use religious beliefs to justify and legitimize their power and privileges whereas the oppressed find illusive solace in religion from the otherwise hostile world. Certain beliefs like the promise of eternal bliss in afterlife, suffering as a test of god to be reciprocated with reward in the next life, awaiting intervention of god in the right time and perceiving social structure as the creation of god among others keep oppressed people oppressed as they are dissuaded to protest against the existing social conditions. Religion therefore nourishes social inequality.

Religion and global middle class

After discussing the two classes at the extremes from the Marxian perspective, middle class merits a brief discussion vis-à-vis religion. Marxists are skeptic of middle class. Marx believed that the middle class would ultimately relegate to the lower class as they would not be able to compete against the upper class in the capitalist economy. However, this didn’t precisely come true. On the contrary, middle class has increasingly expanded as a distinct class category located in between the upper class and the lower class.

Now, the question arises whether or not religion pervades the lives of middle class people? Different opinion surveys in Western society have shown that middle class people do not tend to attach much importance to religious practices. With the rise of income and accessibility to new opportunities, there is often a remarkable shift in the religious beliefs of people.

The middle class people value democracy and have increasingly begun to take religion as a private affair. A survey by Pew Research Center on the religious attitude of the global middle class in 2009 pointed out that similar effect is at play on the emerging middle class of the developing countries.

Religion and Nepali middle class

However, this may not hold true for every place particularly not in the context of Nepal and elsewhere in South Asia. Mark Liechty in his book Suitably Modern writes “I went to Kathmandu looking for class as a ‘thing’ but every time I thought I had captured it, it was gone.” Liechty mentions that there is no consensus on what actually constitutes middle-class.

Middle class people, he writes, are modern in their outlook but paradoxically place a high premium on cultural and religious matters. In his words, they are ‘modern Nepali’. They, according to Liechty, construct and operate in a cultural space in-between the ‘national elites’ who are very few in numbers and the ‘urban poor’ who form the bulk of the population. In contrast to Marxian perspective, both of these classes located at the two opposite ends, he notes, are not as concerned about the moral codes of the society and religious matters as opposed to the middle class.

Secularism and secularization

Secularism is the separation of state and its institutions from the grip of religion. Here, religion is kept apart from government and administration. In other words, religion plays no role in matters of public policy making and decisions. The notion of neutrality vis-à-vis religions underlies secularism. In other words, all religions of a country are treated equally and religious freedom is constitutionally secured. Secularism therefore helps to protect religious minorities giving them a sense of confidence. Forced religious conversion has no place in secularism.

On the other hand, secularization is a process where the influence of religion in all areas of our social life is increasingly on the decline. Decreasing participation in religious institutions and increasing adoption of pragmatic life style and behaviors among others are signs of secularization. In 2006, Nepal was first declared a secular country and this has been carved in stone in the Interim Constitution of Nepal 2007 as well. This shift from a longstanding Hindu state to a secular state may be taken as an indicator of secularization among the Nepalese populace.

The way forward

Amartya Sen has made a valid point in his book Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny that religious fundamentalism should not be dealt with from within the realm of religion. The logic goes like this. If Hindu fundamentalists indulge in violence, we are not supposed to condemn it by highlighting the good aspects of Hinduism that prohibit such acts. Rather, Sen stresses that we should rather highlight other important considerations than religion. Otherwise, we would just create ‘good Hindus’ and ‘bad Hindus’ and the real problem remains unattended. Despite on and off acts of violence in the name of religion, Nepalese polity is fortunately not torn apart in the name of religion.

In recent times however, conservative forces across the political spectrum have raised their heads to subvert secularism in the country. It is to be noted that a Hindu-state or any religious state for that matter may prove counter-productive even to those people whose religion is patronized by the state. When our daily lives are subject to religion, whether it be mine or yours, the order of rational decision-making will be derailed entirely.

Secularism sits well with democracy whereas a state that patronizes a religion is incongruent to the basic ideals of democracy. Essentially, our faith on god need not be dependent on a particular religion. The movie ‘PK’ is to be admired because it tries to break the conventional attitude to religion and floats the idea that even religion must be put to question.

Thank you very much for reading this article. I hope you liked this article. I will be glad if you take little time and make a comment about this article. Your comment is highly appreciated.

About the author

Binit Gurung is a Research Fellow at Alliance for Social Dialogue and is a graduate of BA Humanities and Social Sciences from St. Xavier’s College, Kathmandu.

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