Plural Societies and imperatives of change:

Interrogating religion and development in South Asia

Most of the countries in south consider development as an important component

of state policy. Poverty alleviation programmes in low income countries are still
among the heavily funded government schemes and even attract funding and
charities from international agencies.

However over the years the concept of development has changed. Development
is no longer premised on secularisation. It is now widely accepted that cultural,
traditional and religious beliefs still stick on in spite of the economic change.
Internationally religion has increasingly begun to be seen as a normal
sociological phenomenon. With growing movements of people, nation states
everywhere are becoming ethically and culturally diverse and plural, making it
difficult to ignore religious and communitarian identities. In countries like India,
issues on citizenship and deprivation are raised by dalits and adivasis, or religious
minorities as Muslims are reinforced by social and political processes. These social
groups often critique the mainstream notion of development, they arent against
the idea of development however demands inclusion and just development.

Though the Govt. of India had group targeted programmes for SC and STs,
religion had not been the part of discourse on dvpt. The Sachar Committee report
in 2006 brought the topic of religious communities into development. While
questions on development in relation to cultural and religious beliefs have
become important, the social study on these topics is still in nascent stage. A
comparative research program on theme of religions and development funded by
UKs Department for International Development was launched in 2005-06 with a
series of interconnected projects in 5 countries: India, Pakistan,
Nigera,Bangaladesh and Tanzania.

Objectives of Programme:
The programmes focused broadly on 3 themes:
1. how do religious organisations, states, societies and economies relate to each
other at local, national and international levels?
How are the relationships changing and what influence they have on governance
2. How do religious values and beliefs influence in ways gropus and individuals
see their own situation? How it affects their action
3.How do other people on margin perceive religion? Do they think it is resource to
mobilised or cause for their exclusion.

These broad objectives were broken down to questions and addressed through
series of research projects at Indian Institute of Dalit Studies in India.

Findings of programme:

Findings were diverse and complex

They clearly show the importance of understanding relationships b/w
religion and dvpt. But fail to recognise the role of religion so as its positive
or negative
Although role of religion in shaping moral order, Religions institute or
leaders in eradicating corruption is considered crucial. There was suspicion
and doubt due to low credibility
Mixed results for research on faith based organisations
Some people have specific political ideologies which influence their action
and some work of poor and marginalised
Some have political orientations (like right wing) and pursue their own
agenda where as others(eg. Buddhist Dalit organisations) work with
positive and inclusive notins of development

Studies on dalit communities show in their perspective on development

poverty is no worse than the indignities of caste in hindu system of
hierarchy. Religion thus remains an important element in social
movements of marginalised, even when they move out of their social and
national political contexts.