Does surveillance intersect with religious freedom? The dialectics of religious tolerance and (re)proselytism in India today

Abstract

An individual is enveloped today by a vast network of automated, integrated, globalised, and ubiquitous surveillance that sweeps into all spheres of one’s life. One’s religious adherences and practices are no exception to this. The surveillance of religion, seen globally today, is yet another intrusion into the lives of people in India. Recently, it has taken on another dimension as issues of proselytism (conversion) and the movement of “Ghar Wapsi” or homecoming (reconversion) increasingly endanger the peaceful coexistence of India’s population. Growing religious intolerance to religious minorities under the influence of Hindutva—an ideological persuasion to establish the hegemony of Hindu beliefs and way of life—increases this distorted behaviour and encourages Hindu fundamentalism. This paper investigates this issue of state surveillance of religious minorities, focusing on certain political conspiracies and the perverted behaviour of some religious fundamentalist groups operating behind the veneer of constitutional secularism and state-determined coercive power control. With an analytical and critical discourse methodology, this paper argues that minority religious communities in India are key targets of surveillance and subject to manipulative (political and religious) interests that go against Indian liberalism. Thus, we find in the Indian case a categorical dissimilarity with the West regarding the focus of religious surveillance.