Evaluating pluralism, British Hindu identity and gender

Overview

Recall questions on inclusivism and exclusivist features, Gandhi's Sarvodaya, assimilation into a secular society, whether one identity exists here, changing roles, and feminism as a frame.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Give the case that Hinduism is an inclusivist and tolerant tradition.

   Model answer

   It has no creed to enforce and no history of religious wars of its own making, its scriptures say that truth is one and named in many ways, the idea of a chosen deity makes rival claims unnecessary, and it has absorbed rather than suppressed the traditions it met.

2. 2

   Give the case that Hinduism has significant exclusivist features.

   Model answer

   Individual sampradayas do claim that liberation comes through their deity alone, the varna order excluded whole groups from religious life for centuries, some theologies deny that all souls will be released, and Hindu nationalist politics has defined the nation in a way that excludes other faiths.

3. 3

   Is Hindu inclusivism genuine respect for other religions?

   Model answer

   Critics answer that saying all paths lead to Krishna, or that other faiths are stages towards Vedanta, quietly ranks them below Hinduism and denies their own accounts of themselves; defenders answer that this is still more generous than exclusivism and that it refuses to condemn anyone for the faith they were born into.

4. 4

   Give the case that Gandhi's Sarvodaya strongly influenced Hindu attitudes to other religions.

   Model answer

   It gave Hindus a religious argument for the welfare of Muslims, Christians and Dalits alike, it was enacted publicly in his multi-faith prayer meetings and fasts against communal killing, and it shaped the inclusive language of Indian public life after independence.

5. 5

   Give the case that the influence of Sarvodaya has been limited.

   Model answer

   Partition and repeated communal violence happened despite it, Gandhi was killed by a Hindu who rejected exactly this teaching, the Sarvodaya movement itself faded within a generation, and Hindu attitudes to other faiths owe at least as much to older habits of coexistence as to anything Gandhi taught.

6. 6

   Give the case that Hindus can assimilate into a secular society.

   Model answer

   Hinduism has no weekly obligation and no missionary demand on the wider society, its practice is centred on the home and so is easily private, its ethics conflict little with secular law, and British Hindus are among the most educationally and economically successful of minority communities.

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