There will not be many people who would deny the important role of religion in human lives. However, a public role of religion is controversial. As religion comes out of the shadows and is embraced not only publically but also enthusiastically, the debate has increasing relevance. The most recent triumph of public religion came on May 16 when Hindu nationalist party BJP won a landslide election victory in India (See Landslide for Modi).
An overtly religious party winning in secular India is new. Though BJP had won in late 1990s too, in at least two ways this win was different. First, in late 1990s, BJP was led by the intellectual, poet, 'soft' team player Vajpayee who is world away from the current leader Narendra Modi (NaMo) who is brash, street-wise and domineering (See The fact remains, Narendra Modi can never be a Atal Bihari Vajpayee). While Vajpayee's religion was closer to Gandhian model, Modi has been accused of being anti-Muslim and (although not proved) is widely implicated in 2002 riots when around two thousand people were killed (mostly Muslims) under his watch. Secondly, in late 1990s, BJP government was dependent on other parties as it didn't have simple majority in Lok Sabha. In 2014 election, however, BJP won a landslide victory and is not dependent on anyone. So, it can implement its agenda of Hindutva, if it wants (See Will Modi be India’s Putin?)
So, religion is not going anywhere. Ok, but can we justify or understand religion's powerful existence in this modern age? Habermas, possibly the most celebrated intellectual/philosopher of our current age provides some answers. His detailed views are available in his many books and lectures. Here is a small tasting discussion by Michele Dillon on his views of post-secular society and religion (See Enter the Post Secular).
Among other points, Habermas noted that the Enlightenment project of modernization had gone somewhat awry, has become derailed. In particular, as he had previously elaborated, he noted that globalizing economic markets defy the control of consensual rational judgments, and he lamented not only the extent of global socioeconomic inequality but the mass political indifference toward it. This indifference is part of a longer depoliticization process resulting from modernization and increased affluence and consumerism, highlighted by Habermas decades earlier. For Habermas, the threat posed by current globalizing forces to potentially “degrade the capacity for democratic self-steering,” both within and across nations, makes the need for public communicative reasoning all the more necessary. He thus looks to discover new (i.e., underappreciated) political cultural resources for the democratic revitalization project. Hence, “a contrite modernity,” one characterized by several social pathologies that need fixing, may benefit, Habermas argued, from religious-derived norms and ethical intuitions. He conceded that these religious resources can help human society deal with “a miscarried life, social pathologies, the failures of individual life projects, and the deformation of misarranged existential relationships.”
Many sociologists have elaborated on the perils of globalization and the increased polarization between classes and regions as the profit logic of capitalist markets inexorably trumps normative considerations. Yet only Habermas looks to the religious domain rather than pushing for attentiveness to a rearticulated political ideology of, for example, global social democracy, as a way of reorienting societal thinking about modern socioeconomic pathologies. In his view, “The translation of the likeness of the human to the image of the divine into the equal and absolutely respected dignity of all human beings” offers a way of using religious values to reorient society’s values toward principles of economic and social justice. Clearly, Habermas’s new affirmation of the relevance that religious ideas and ethics have for contemporary political debate marks a major transformation in his thinking. I very much welcome this more inclusive view of religion as a potentially emancipatory political and cultural resource, a resource that can open up and enhance rather than retard public discourse, and energize the creation of more deliberative and more participative social institutions.
A Habermas's article on the solution of the 'problem' of religion in public sphere can be read here ( See Religion in the Public Sphere).
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