Author: Ananya Chatterji, K L Narasimha Swamy, Parvathy B.S., Piyush Wankhade
“Quebec Muslims slam proposed ban on religious headwear”
“Demonising your own: ‘Textbooks preach intolerance for minorities”
“Injecting propaganda: Learning acquires saffron hue in RSS-run schools in Madhya Pradesh”
“Israel education ministry accused of bowing to religious extremists after censoring sex-ed chapter”
“Academics, eminent citizens dismayed over biases in textbooks”
These are the few excerpts of the headlines from the print media across the world. All the above clearly showcase the interference of religion and its various machineries haunting the present education system and society. These headlines are just a glimpse of the conflicts between education and religion. While religion has always been supposed to be the foundation for moral values and human virtues, it is actually being used to instill hatred and narrow the mindset towards the people of other religions. The education system is being exploited as a vehicle to propagate the skewed version of religion.
Across the world religion is part and parcel of everyone's life, even for non believers. Religion is an integral part of our lives-our culture, the way we live, our views about society, almost everything we do is defined in one or the other way by the religion we follow. When religion and education converge, there are many conflicts that arise. People fear that in the process of formal education, their religion may get suppressed or carried away by some other dominant religion. Another conflict is when content of the education defies their religious convictions. Opinions of a few who have religious authority influence a large community and its thoughts. It not only affects the harmony in the society but also the well being of an individual. This seemingly never ending dispute led us to sit and think about the influence of religion in education and try to get the clarity on the question “How religion has to be dealt in education?” because its impact on our day to day life is so enormous that it can neither be ignored nor left to the destiny to find the order or equilibrium by itself.
We also see the need to reflect on the roots of the conflict between religion and education. For that we may have to figure out the essence of both education and religion. We all agree with the fact that “Faith in God” though named differently in different religions is the gist of all religions. All other paraphernalia like places of worship, rituals of worship, doctrines of worship(The Bible, The Quran, The Bhagavad Gita etc) and people exclusively assigned with the task of worshipping for themselves and for others are built on this fundamental thought. When it comes to education it is mostly about getting the younger generation ready for the norms of the society and to equip them with the faculties to face the issues and challenges that the society may pose before them. While the norms of the society and also challenges have kept changing over the time for many obvious reasons, people with vested interests in religion have been the major force in trying to manipulate the education to perpetuate the status quo to protect their own interests. Letting the norms of the society to change also means such well entrenched religious authorities losing their ground and also their privileges. So the conflict between religion and education is natural and quite obvious.
Another confusion is whether religious education is about educating people regarding rituals and traditions from the scriptures or is it the preaching of noble values which have universal recognition. We do agree that knowledge about basic symbols, practices and rituals of one’s religion is important. But should it become the point of comparison between different religions, rather than promoting cross-cultural understanding?
Now let us see what the literature has to offer to this debate, historically…..
Historical perspectives on the conflict between religion and education
A quick overhaul of the available literature suggests or leads us mainly to the historical conflict of science and religion. Is it the same as the conflict between education and religion? or are these two completely different?
Firstly we would like to sort out this issue before moving ahead further. Whether conflict between science and religion is same as conflict between education and religion?. We get an interesting insight on this issue when we look at the evolution of education historically. Education was primarily religious and also primitive in its initial stages with limited scope for dwelling on the other disciplines of knowledge like astronomy, medicine, mathematics etc but as these disciplines evolved tremendously they all started adopting the common way of approaching the knowledge in their own domain via scientific method. Today we even refer disciplines like politics as political science and the nomenclature like social sciences, life sciences, physical sciences has become the trend. This trend is clearly not just to have some fashionable labeling but arises out of the fact that all these disciplines have took the idea of scientific method very seriously. This fascination for scientific method is seen in the acceptance of knowledge as something that has to be constructed collectively rather than individually and also in welcoming multiple interpretation for the knowledge they have built. Today every academician agrees that no knowledge is absolute and it is ever evolving. So in a broader sense every discipline comes under this common umbrella called science. Hence the word ‘education’ can be used synonymously with the word ‘science’ in this context. Also the conflict between religion and science comes within the broader conflict of religion and education.
All the available literature deliberating on religion and education(science) can be grouped under three major theories :
The hostility theory
The harmony theory
The indifference theory
All these three theories are quite helpful to anyone who is interested in solving or putting an end to the conflict between religion and education(science). let us briefly see what these three theories have to say…….
As per the hostility theory “Scientific claims are false if religious claims are true, and religious claims are false if scientific claims are true. This depiction usually goes beyond that, however, to the claim that the opponent is not simply incorrect, but operating under great and dangerous delusions” (Bradley Sickler)
The classic examples for this theory include
The conflict between catholic church and Copernicus-Galileo duo over heliocentrism where the Church found justification for geocentrism in Christian scripture: “You have established the earth on its foundations; it cannot be moved,¨ says the psalmist(Bradley Sickler,IEP) and staunchly opposed heliocentrism though Galileo backed his hypothesis with solid evidence from telescopic observations made by him.
Newton and Mechanism: Through clever combination of observation and mathematical modeling, Newton formulated his three famous laws of motion. The result of this comprehensive and powerful work was the ability to account for nearly all natural phenomena from a few carefully stated physical principles. This led to the notion that if God is not needed to explain the behavior of the world, and if the cosmos, like a giant clock, operates on mechanical principles alone, then one has no reason to suppose that God even exists. There are no explanatory gaps left for God to fill(Bradley Sickler,IEP)
Darwin and Evolution: Genesis claims that God decreed creatures to reproduce “after their kind.¨ It also claims that species were created directly by God in the manner (more or less) that they exist today which contradicted the Darwin’s claim that species can mutate into a different species over a very long period (Bradley Sickler, IEP).
Whereas harmony theory takes a very different standpoint as compared to the hostility theory:
It says that during the heyday of scientific advancement in the modern period, countless thinkers have found themselves adhering to religious commitments and adding to scientific knowledge at the same time. People like Descartes, Newton, Pascal, Boyle, Kepler, Gassendi, and many more have sought the harmonization of science and religion . Since the belief that world is the direct result of God’s creative activity, advances in science has actually served, in William Paley’s words, to “increase the admiration of the contrivance¨ of nature’s(God’s) workings. Science has not refuted their view of the world: it has confirmed and strengthened it(Bradley Sickler,IEP).
Then we have the indifference theory which states that science and religion make declarations that are completely unrelated to each other. As per this theory Science pertains to the classification of empirical observations; religion pertains to ethics, ritual, and propositions such as the assertion that a divine being exists that has no empirical entailments. Unlike the conflict model, where religious claims and scientific claims are seen to falsify each other, this description makes scientific declarations exempt from religious scrutiny and vice versa(Bradley Sickler,IEP).
Bradley Sickler views that religion and science can actually work together to present a fuller understanding of the world by mutually enlightening each other. This also gives us a significant insight into the conflict of Religion and Education.
Existing methodologies of dealing religion in public school curriculum
Why should study about religion be included in school curriculum? Can religion be completely excluded from the school curriculum? Religion had been and is continuing to be a significant part of human life and the omission of such a significant component of human history will give a distorted picture of the past and the events happened. Most of the events in history are intertwined with religion that its omission will make the whole picture unclear. For instance, the Renaissance and Reformation episodes in world history and certain incidents in Indian history like that of the greased cartridge episode during the first war of independence in 1857 cannot be made clear unless one has prior knowledge of religion. Also, if religion, which definitely played a role which is not trivial in the history, is denied its legitimate position in education, the new generation may get a false notion about religion that it is insignificant and irrelevant.
Proponents of religious education believe that for the overall development of an individual, it is essential that he is aware of the religious practices and traditions. While it is widely believed that the ongoing violence and distress in the world is because of extreme faith in one’s religion, the rest of people think that it is because of more importance given to vested interests and not to religious values .They blame the formal schooling system for including materialistic outlook and ignoring values promoted by their religion. To counter this argument, it can be assumed that one’s intolerance to alternative belief systems is because of one’s ignorance about other religions. From this argument we can deduce that education about religions have a positive aspect in bringing about religious tolerance and peace.
The approach of school in imparting religious knowledge also needs to be considered in this context. Confusion still exists in the entire education scenario whether it is teaching about religion or teaching of religion. Though schools are not constitutionally allowed to give religious instructions, teaching about religions in a secular manner or context may be permitted. For instance The Bible or The Bhagavad Gita or The Quran or any other scripture for that matter may be taught to children but for its historical or literary or cultural value and not as a religious doctrine to be followed. Teaching about religions can bring about a tolerance, acceptance and respect towards religions or faiths which are not one’s own.
Religious practices cannot be forced on children who attend public schools under the garb of constitutional right to freedom of religion. But we believe that courses which present the comparison of different religions and practices in a historical perspective are essential to have aware and are constitutionally acceptable.
Teaching about religion involves giving information about the religious practices and beliefs in a religion while teaching of religion involves a dogmatic training of children. It heavily depends on the teacher’s methodology. There is a grave problem when the teachers believe in a particular set of religious beliefs and are not tolerant to any alternative beliefs. This has a direct influence on their way of approaching religious education. Instead of teaching about religion, they eventually start teaching religion which they adhere to. How the teacher uses the study material for religious education in the class cannot be kept under surveillance, and these methods of inducing criticism can easily undermine the purpose for which the course was intended.
Again we cannot always blame the teacher for failing to promote tolerance and understanding. Such courses will be successful only if teachers are familiar with, the religious traditions of the world. The teachers themselves possibly do not have such studies in their schooling and do not have the training to teach a religion course. But their lack of knowledge can lead them to sound weird and disrespectful about unfamiliar religions unconsciously.
If religion comes up as a topic of discussion in a classroom situation it may create unnecessary confusion in the class which may contain students from different belief systems. Also the teacher will also have his or her own system of belief and may not be aware of all the religious beliefs represented by the students in the class and those who are in minority may feel left out and it is one of the major disadvantages of including religion in school curriculum. But those in favour of imparting religious education to students counter argue that if curriculum omits religion the students will not be able to understand and appreciate the customs and belief followed by the co-existing faith systems. For example the Islam allows the practice of polygamy which is not advocated by many other religions and if these are not transmitted to students in a proper manner it can have negative impact leading to alienation of a section of students who follow a particular belief system.
Apart from the curriculum, there are many other aspects of religion on the basis of which schools may involuntarily discriminate children. In order to make the children feel secular and comfortable in the school environment, the schools should avoid demonstrating the prominent symbols representing any religion. Putting images of Gods and Goddesses being worshipped by a particular religion also gives out a wrong signal to children from other religions. They fail to accept this as they have been following some other set of beliefs related to God whom their religion worships. Prayers that are recited in the school assembly become a very important part of children’s routine. If they are made to sing prayers pertaining to a single religion, they may feel inferior and also it will not make any sense to them since that is not a part of their religion and they are totally unfamiliar to it. So, schools should plan the prayers in such a way that it represents humanity as a religion and develops a sense of unity and harmony among the children.
The portrayal of national leaders has a deep impact on children’s minds. They not only look up to them as ideals but also try to identify themselves on some similar grounds such as region, caste and religion. If a school keeps on stressing the role of leaders from a particular religion and ignores the significance of leaders from other religion, children from that religion start feeling ignored and at times suppressed too. When they grow up, this suppression may turn into rebellious attitude towards the other religions. On the other hand, children from the glorified religion consider themselves as superior which creates rift between the two groups. Results of such conflicts are terrible and sad.
At first, uniform may not seem to be a ground for discriminating children on the basis of religion. But when we see that a Muslim girl has to wear shirt and tunic instead of the long gown called as jilbaab and the headscarf hijab as required by the Islam religion.
“Quebec Muslims slam proposed ban on religious headwear”
We agree that it is not possible for the schools to keep aside their disciplinary rules and agree to each request being made for wearing clothes or symbols that represent a religion. But denying education on this ground is also not constitutional.Although, parents always have the freedom to admit their ward in an institution where there is no rigidity about uniform policy.
Teaching about religions seems to be closely related to teaching of values. Schools have to inculcate moral, social and secular values like honesty, brotherhood, being sensitive to other’s feelings, courage, etc in their students. These values may be taught using the stories in various scriptures but it should never be taught as religious codes of belief. Special care should also be taken not to make those children who are brought up with no religious faith being alienated.
But many schools fail to understand the difference between instilling secular or moral values using religious stories and propagating religion or faith of their own interest. For instance, there are schools run by certain Hindu Sanyasi Missions which strictly ask the students to participate in Hindu scripture classes and all the students, irrespective of their religious beliefs have to take part in Hindu ceremonies like Mathru Puja in which one have to wash ones mothers feet and perform puja. But the whole idea of touching another person’s feet is against the belief system of many religious groups. We believe that trying to instill qualities through such religious activities without considering other’s belief systems will never help and it is bound to fail at some point of time.
One more problem that the schools need to handle sensitively is the religious holidays. In a classroom, children from different religions come together and study the common curriculum. But when it comes to religious holidays, they have different beliefs and school should not force anyone to participate in any such religious practices which are not acceptable to them. School should try to focus purely on the culture and traditions of the religion and the values which are in consensus with other religions.
These holidays should be used by institutions to teach children about religions across the globe. Such occasions are an opportunity to present the positive aspects of a religion to them so that they can be tolerant to it and try to learn the significance of respecting each religion. In doing this, the school should not get involved in the celebration of that festival, but limit its role to imparting the desired values to the students.
The role of parents in deciding the appropriate kind of schooling for their children cannot be overlooked. Education system’s objective to include religious courses in formal education is to allow children to have a broad view about secularism and to satisfy the liberal society's need for tolerant citizens. But this is not more important than the parental rights to exempt their children from religious education. Proponents of liberal society must demonstrate that religious education in the public schools does not restrict parental rights, and that such courses do not violate the constitutional guarantee of, or human right to, freedom of religion.
Parents may deny permission for their children to attend a religion course in the belief that such a course will be harmful to the spiritual welfare of the child. However, parents who desire that their children be tolerant of others' religious views may also withdraw their children from religion courses in which the school authority is dogmatic in its set of rules. A rigid education structure could promote the very indoctrination that the mandatory religious education courses are opposed to.
The following case as referred from an article “The Fundamentals of the Fundamental Right to Education in India” by Dr Niranjanaradhya and Aruna Kashyap researched and written under UNESCO illustrates the tension which arises when content of education contradicts the religious beliefs of parents.
“As per the Danish Constitution, all children have the right to FCE in State primary schools. The State had introduced compulsory sex education in State primary schools as part of the curriculum. The applicants, who were parents of school going children, gave several petitions to have their children exempted from sex education in concerned State schools. Although the court rejected their argument, it accepted that the school should respect the parents’ religious and moral convictions. But it clearly stated that imparting sex education keeping in mind the appropriate age of children is not the violation of their freedom of compulsory education. Moreover, the parents still had the freedom to educate their children at home to instill their own religious convictions and beliefs.”
Curriculum makers should take into account the sociological aspects which help in building the personality of children as broad-minded individuals. Academicians should always take enough care not to hurt the sentiments of any religious groups. Teaching about religion does not mean indoctrination or practicing of a particular faith. It should neither sound devotional nor should it be doctrinal. The curriculum must not promote or denigrate any religion. For example The Bible may be used in the curriculum but the academicians should be vigilant not to make it project it as a religious doctrine. Similarly an incident happened in the state of Kerala, i.e. in the process of question paper formation a teacher unintentionally made a question in which a madman was called Muhammad. Such a hue and cry was made on the issue by the Muslim minority in the state arguing that it was an intentional move from the side of academicians to give a madman face to the Prophet Muhammad and alleged that it was a part of hidden curriculum to give an unpleasant face to the religion.
“Controversial question paper: Lecturer’s hand chopped off”
Thus adequate attention should be given even to such minutest of the details when it comes to the matter of religious interference in education.
State machinery acts as a mediator between the curriculum makers and the constitution. It has to implement amendments in the curriculum as per the demands of time and requirements of the society. At the time of independence, the emphasis of the then government was on building institutes of higher education like IIT’s and IIM’s and keep words like religion, dharma etc away from such institutions. during this time, the primary education and the role of religion was neglected. This has resulted in long existing dichotomy between education and religion. Though now the government of India has brought in the right to education, but it does very little to resolve this problem.
Even though the constitution of India does not allow propagation of any religion in any of the governmental schools, it has no control over the private owned schools. As a large population of students learn in such private institutions, they should be brought under the purview of the state. The state should be in the driver’s seat at least in issues which are highly sensitive.
As of now the state holds a major role of curriculum development. But still very often the designed curriculum becomes the bone of contention on various counts. Thus this demands greater sensitivity so as to overcome all such conflicts. Moreover, this should be done in such a way that it propagates harmony among all the religions.
Sensitization of teachers is again an issue that should be looked after by the state. Inclusion of topics of religious inclusion in the curriculum of the aspiring teachers can be one such step in attaining the goal.
Till now we saw how various issues of religion were dealt in the context of school in existing literature, blended with our own personal experiences. We also after much deliberation among ourselves felt that the existing literature on the ways the religion is dealt in school curriculum is not comprehensive or efficient enough to equip our younger generation to deal with issues like same-sex marriage, use of contraception, abortion, caste and race discrimination , religious restrictions or reservations on food habits like Hindus not having beef etc and dress code such as burqa for Muslim women and turban for Sikh men , ethical questions on surrogacy, cloning humans, menstrual-related religious traditions and restrictions on women, occupational bias like people belonging to certain castes being reluctant to pursue or venture into new occupations, where religion confronts all these issues in its own manner.
Just because it is part of one or the other religion should we blindly tolerate these things as a respect to our fellow being’s faith? Is there a way out of this conundrum? The various ways that we have seen earlier only concentrates on making the school environment secular and lays its emphasis on tolerance rather deliberating on the root cause. Aren’t we dealing this issue in a businesslike manner rather than dealing with it holistically? May be in a democratic nation like ours this businesslike approach may help our politicians to enjoy the luxury of peaceful governance.
But……..what if am a gay? If am a lesbian? If I am a woman being a surrogate for the sake of livelihood? a woman risking my life, my career because the society does not allow abortion or the use of contraceptives to lead a better life? a woman facing social exclusion every month ?
Can the words of tolerance, secularism, and respect for fellow religions console these individuals? Don’t these individuals have the right to live with dignity and comfort in between everyone? Do our schools and education system really have anything to help these individuals?
We see that the only solution for all these issues that arise due to religion is to reform the idea of religion itself. We consider the basic idea of religion itself is fundamentally flawed. Consider any religion, they have their scriptures , doctrines like The Bible, The Quran or The Bhagavad Gita and these scriptures are considered to be the words of God Himself . It is fine that these scriptures are direct words of God but why do we fail to recognize the limitations of our own. That we mere human beings tend to interpret the words of God in our own way, that we are not as knowledgeable or as matured as God Himself to arrive at a common interpretation among ourselves. So conflict among us over different interpretation of God’s words has led to many divisions within a particular religion like Shias,Sunnis,Catholics,and Protestants etc. Hence the religion itself which is solely based on the God’s direct words, that is the holy scriptures is fundamentally not reliable. Does this mean that we should completely abandon the religion itself or stop having faith in God?
We would say No. We need not stop having faith in God. We genuinely consider the need of having faith in God to have a mental equilibrium in this uncertain world as very much essential. But only thing is we should take care to employ better methods in interpreting the so called God’s words. So what should that method be?
As every other discipline has accepted the scientific method to enrich itself we suggest that all the religions should consider reforming themselves using the scientific method. We all know that mathematics is abstract to the core but still it makes our life so convenient. Why not accept ‘God’ as just another ‘Concept’. Yes this type of God will be abstract. Now it is natural that we will not ask our new ‘God’ to come before us alive. Of course we have to associate certain qualities to this concept of ‘God’. Some will be just the same as what we have considered till now like omniscient,omnipotent,the saviour,the one who could control and take care of that incomprehensible and uncertain part of life. This enables us to now add or delete certain qualities as required by our collective or personal life. So ‘God’ is no more a static symbol. He/She is a dynamic, ever evolving entity just as any scientific principle or concept. As we evolve ourselves from the knowledge and experience of life the ‘God’ of ours too evolves hand in hand with us.
Now we could pray in temple, mosque or church. It makes no difference. Our God is now scientific, rational and learns along with the mankind. God is just an entity who takes care of certain things while we do the other. Our God is now secular, open to ideas and also ready for transformation.
REFERENCES
Kashyap, A., Dr. Niranjanaradhya (2006). The Fundamentals of the Fundamental Right to Education in India. Books for Change, Bangalore
Sharma, R.K., Sharma, R.N. (1996). Problems of Education in India. Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, New Delhi
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