Tony Blair Faith Foundation

As part of our blog series: Perspectives: Religion and Public Life, Dr. Nandini Chatterjee examines India’s interesting case of modern state practices where the regulation of religion is concerned. Perspectives: Religion and Public Life is a series of short blogs on questions about the relationship between religion and secularism, you can find the rest of the series by clicking here. To western and non-western observers, India has long been synonymous with pervasive and exotic religiosity.

We have become accustomed to the popular notion of “culture wars” with religious and secular worldviews presented as the principal belligerents. But is such a polarised vision of the world really justified?

With the Faith Foundation now in its fifth year, it was a particular pleasure for me to see Kosovo formally adopt our schools and universities programmes. It is an extraordinary country, smaller than Northern Ireland but with much the same population, and filled with a similarly attractive optimism and hope.

Proselytism is one of the neuralgic areas in relations between different faiths. It has certainly become one of the major secular objections to the practice of religion. But the reality is very often different from the assumptions and fears of those wishing to find a stick to beat the faith communities. To begin with only a tiny proportion of people of faith are engaged in what is normally meant by proselytism: coercive or manipulative attempts to get people to join their faith community and adopt their set of beliefs and practises.