Eighteenth Century philosopher Goethe argued that ‘tolerance needs to be a temporary attitude only, and it must lead to recognition. For, to tolerate is to offend’ (Goethe 1893). ‘In the philosophy of toleration, the Permission Conception is considered as a relationship between the authority or the majority and the dissenting minority’, whereby, ‘the majority gives permission to the minority, to live according to their beliefs, on the condition that the minority will accept the rule and dominance of the majority’ (Forst 2017). This conception of toleration, based on religious, social and cultural context, has existed in the Indian subcontinent for centuries (Park 2004). Within Indian political order, the undercurrents of right wing extremism have been omnipresent. 

However, with the re-emergence of Hindutva ideology (Savarkar 1928) after almost 90 years, and movements such as Ghar Wapsi (return home) and Shuddhi (purification), India has witnessed a sudden and steep rise of the political and religious right. Their extremist ideology has manifested itself against minority religions in everyday Indian life. The conduct of these movements and religious right is inconsistent with their philosophy of tolerance. In this vein, this paper is a conceptual analysis of rise of the religious right in India, in an effort to signpost the notional displacement of toleration. The paper recommends measures to caution against the rise of religious right extremism, and concludes that both extremism and tolerance cannot co-exist in the same space in a society. 

References:

Forst, R. 2017, ‘Toleration’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Zalta, E. N. (ed.) California: Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.

Goethe, J. W. V. 1893, Maxims and Reflections, New York: Macmillan and Co.

Park, C. 2004, ‘Religion and Geography’, Chapter 17, in Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion, Hinnells, J. (ed.) London: Routledge.

Savarkar, V. D. 1928, Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu?, Bombay: Veer Savarkar Prakashan.