Religions & Social Change

Contributing to more intense religious conflict has been a resurgence of religious fundamentalism. As the name implies, fundamentalism is a literal interpretation and a strict and intense adherence to what the fundamentalists define as the basic principles of a religion (or a religious branch, denomination, or sect).

Fundamentalism started in the nineteenth century as a term for some fundamental principles held by some Protestants in the United States. More recently, fundamentalism has instead been used to refer to groups who mix politics with aspects of their religion and make claims that their views are the only correct views. These groups sometimes advocate and practice violence to enforce their claims.

India: Hinduism & Social Equality

Changing cultural, political, and economic customs can sometimes conflict with traditional religious values. In South Asia, Hinduism has been forced to react to secular ideas from the West, and in East Asia Buddhism has been challenged by Communist perspectives to diminish the importance of religion in society.

Hinduism has been strongly challenged since the 1800s, when British colonial administrators introduced their social and moral concepts to India. The most vulnerable aspect of the Hindu religion was its rigid caste system, which indicated the class or distinct hereditary order into which a Hindu was born, according to religious law.

The caste system apparently originated around 1500 B.C.E., when Aryans invaded India from the west. The Aryans divided themselves into four castes that developed strong differences in social and economic position: Brahmans (priests and top administrators), Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaisyas (merchants), and Shudras (agricultural workers and artisans). The Shudras occupied a distinctly lower status than the other three castes.

Below the four castes were the Dalits, which is Sanskrit and Hindi for "broken" or "scattered" (Figure 6-63). The Dalits—also known as outcasts or untouchables—did work considered too dirty for other castes. In theory, the Dalits were descended from the Indigenous people who lived in India prior to the Aryan conquest. They comprise around 16 percent of India’s total population.

Hindu Caste System

Women demonstrate for Dalit rights, Bangalore, India.

The type of Hinduism practiced depends in part on an individual’s caste. A high-caste Brahman may practice a form of Hinduism based on knowledge of relatively obscure historical texts. At the other end of the caste system, a low-caste illiterate in a rural village may perform religious rituals without a highly developed set of written explanations for them.

Over the centuries, the original castes split into thousands of subcastes. Until recently, social relations among the castes were limited, and the rights of non-Brahmans, especially Dalits, were restricted. British administrators and Christian missionaries pointed out the shortcomings of the caste system, such as neglect of the untouchables’ health and economic problems.

The rigid caste system has been considerably relaxed in recent years. But consciousness of caste persists: A government plan to devise a quota system designed to give untouchables more places in the country’s universities generated strong opposition. People looking for a marriage partner advertise their caste and the castes they are willing to consider for a spouse.

Communism: Religion & Revolution

Organized religion was challenged in the twentieth century by the rise of communist regimes in Europe and Asia that discouraged religious belief and practice.

Following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the Communist government of the Soviet Union pursued especially strong antireligious programs. Karl Marx had called religion “the opium of the people,” a view shared by V. I. Lenin and other early Communist leaders. Marxism became the official doctrine of the Soviet Union, so religious doctrine was a potential threat to the success of the revolution. People’s religious beliefs could not be destroyed overnight, but the role of religion in Soviet life was sharply reduced.

In 1721, Czar Peter the Great had made the Russian Orthodox Church a part of the Russian government. The Soviet government in 1918 eliminated the official church–state connection. All church buildings and property were nationalized and could be used only with government permission. The Orthodox religion retained adherents, especially among the elderly, but younger people generally had little contact with the church beyond attending a service perhaps once a year. With religious organizations prevented from conducting social and cultural work, religion dwindled in daily life.

The end of Communist rule in the late twentieth century brought a religious revival in Eastern Europe, especially where Roman Catholicism is the most prevalent branch of Christianity, including Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Property confiscated by the Communist governments reverted to church ownership, and church attendance increased.

In countries in Central Asia that were once part of the Soviet Union—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—most people are Muslims. These newly independent countries are struggling to determine the extent to which laws should be rewritten to conform to Islamic custom rather than to the secular tradition inherited from the Soviet Union.

China: Buddhism & the Dalai Lama

Conflict between the doctrine of communism and the authority of Buddhist religious leaders is especially acute in China. The territory known as Tibet in most of the world but called Xizang by the government of China, is the traditional home of the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, the Dalai Lama. Before the most recent Communist takeover in 1950, daily life in Tibet was traditionally dominated by Buddhist rites.

China, which had ruled Tibet from 1720 until its independence in 1911, invaded the isolated western country, renamed it Xizang Province in 1951, and later installed a Communist government. The Chinese sought to reduce the domination of Buddhist traditions by attacking the economic and cultural pillars of daily life. Monasteries and temples were destroyed and people were required to work on agricultural communes rather than pursue their nomadic way of life as livestock herdsmen.

Tibetan Buddhists believe that when the Dalai Lama dies, his spirit enters the body of a child so that the leader is reincarnated. In this tradition, in 1937, a group of priests located a 2 - year - old boy named Tenzin Gyatso and recognized him as the fourteenth Dalai Lama. The child was brought to Lhasa in Tibet when he was 4, enthroned a year later, and trained by priests to assume leadership

The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet

An unsuccessful rebellion against Chinese rule in 1959 resulted in the execution or imprisonment of tens of thousands, and forced another 100,000 Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama, to emigrate. Buddhist temples were closed and demolished, and religious artifacts and scriptures were destroyed. Since then, the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhist leaders have been based in Dharamshala, India.

When the fourteenth Dalai Lama passes away, Buddhist leaders assert that they will find the next Dalai Lama, wherever he is living in the world. However, Chinese government leaders counter that they will be responsible for finding the next Dalai Lama somewhere in Xizang, and they accuse Buddhist leaders of plotting to restore Tibet as an independent country.

Pause & Reflect 6.4.1

Why would the Chinese Communists feel it important to dismantle the religious institutions of a poor remote territory?