Religious Revivalism in India

Bollywood is spending billions of rupees to bring India’s gods and mythological figures alive on movie screens. This new religious fervour is in addition to the numerous new, monumental temples and other religious structures being consecrated by none other than the Prime Minister himself.

I’m naturally tempted to ask whether India is becoming more spiritual. What exactly is reviving: spirituality, religious faith, cultural identity, or the political power of religion?

A society can become religious without becoming the least spiritual. It can construct magnificent temples while its people remain indifferent to the suffering of their neighbours. It can celebrate divine heroes on screen while tolerating dishonesty, cruelty and injustice in everyday life. Conversely, a person who never enters a temple may live with extraordinary compassion, humility and moral courage.

It is a serious mistake to assume that the visible expansion of religion automatically signifies an inward transformation of human beings.

Religion is a commercial success

According to India’s Ministry of Tourism, Ayodhya recorded approximately 164.4 million visits in 2024, compared with a meagre 6 million in 2020. More people are flocking temples, but there is no evidence of deeper faith or greater compassion towards fellow beings.

The success of religion-based movies is another indicator of what religion means today. Even a movie like Hanuman Ansh, made on a shoestring budget of Rs 1.7 crore, has crossed Rs 400 crore in global earnings, “and the counter is still ticking,” as India Today puts it.

Commercial success does not necessarily measure religious conviction. People watch films for many reasons: spectacle, childhood memories, family entertainment, cultural curiosity and the pleasure of seeing familiar stories told on a grand scale. One can enjoy a film about Krishna without believing that Krishna is divine. In other words, the success of religious movies does not mean that people are becoming better human beings. In fact, all evidence suggests that they are becoming far worse in their attitudes and behaviour towards other religious communities.

Religion and Identity

A person may become more assertive about religious identity without becoming more contemplative, compassionate or ethically serious. In contemporary India, religious identity operates in the political sphere. Hindu temples, symbols and mythological narratives are occupying a central place in the nation’s public identity.

In its 2021 survey of Indian adults, the Pew Research Centre found that only 26% of Hindu respondents regarded being Hindu as exclusively a matter of religion; 34% saw it solely in terms of ancestry or culture, while 36% viewed it as a combination of religion and culture or ancestry. The survey pre-dates the latest cinematic and temple-building developments, but it demonstrates how closely religious and cultural identities can overlap.

Why does religious enthusiasm appeal more now?

Narendra Modi has converted religion into a powerful political tool. He knows well that gods command the kind of loyalty that he never can. Modi uses gods just like a juggler uses his balls. Temples are no longer merely places where devotees go to pray. They are symbols of national achievement, civilisational pride and political fulfilment.

Consider the consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya in 2024. Modi did not attend merely as a private devotee. He personally led the consecration ceremony, fasted in preparation for it, and addressed the nation in language that linked Lord Ram to India’s national destiny. The Prime Minister became the High Priest who described the temple as a form of national consciousness and declared that the day marked the beginning of a new era.

The symbolism was unmistakable. A religious ceremony became a national spectacle, and the Prime Minister stood at its centre. The distinction between religion and politics blurred. When a religious ceremony is presided over by the Prime Minister and the whole solemn ceremony full of rituals and spectacle is broadcast as a historical event, its symbolism becomes inseparable from the image of the government. Modi became India’s Messiah who is in direct contact with gods.

Is this a spiritual revival?

We can count the temples constructed, pilgrims arriving, religious films released and money spent on worship. But we cannot measure spirituality or humility or compassion. We can be quite sure of one thing: India hasn’t become an iota better than earlier because of all these religious activities. In fact, it has become a lot worse. There’s more hatred. More crimes are committed now in the name of gods.

The most revealing questions are not how many temples are constructed or how many people visit temples, but whether people are becoming less prejudiced, more truthful, more willing to question their own beliefs and more concerned about the suffering of those outside their communities. These are not the only measures of spirituality, but they are more meaningful than the height of a Shiva Ling.

The uncomfortable contradiction

There is a question worth asking without presuming that religious people are hypocrites or that religious devotion inevitably produces intolerance. What happens when devotion to a deity coexists with contempt for people who worship differently? What happens when reverence for a sacred text discourages independent thought? What happens when the celebration of divine justice coexists with indifference to injustice in society?

These contradictions are not unique to India or Hinduism, of course. The central problem is that religious symbols can become substitutes for the moral demands they are supposed to represent. And India is undoubtedly in the grip of a severe plague in this regard.

What the Hindu revivalists of India today should understand is the distinction between revering an ideal and allowing that ideal to change one’s conduct.

From India Today

What would a genuine spiritual revival look like?

Imagine two societies:

1.     Every town has a magnificent temple. Religious festivals attract enormous crowds. Films about gods break box-office records. Public figures invoke sacred traditions constantly. The national song incorporates the names of all possible deities.

2.     Religious buildings are rather unimpressive. There are no grand religious festivals. But people are less cruel to minorities, less obsessed with caste, more willing to admit mistakes, more respectful of women, more honest in public life and more generous towards the poor.

Which society has experienced the deeper spiritual transformation?

What is the point of constructing more religious places and producing more movies on gods if we do not build a little more humanity within ourselves?