Interfaith Dialogue: A Powerful Tool for Promoting Religious Freedom in India
by Mohammad Furqan, 2025 Summer IRF Fellow
What happens when sacred spaces are no longer safe — not from conflict, but from the very authorities meant to protect them? Last year, a 600-year-old mosque in Delhi was demolished by officials. This Easter, police denied Christians permission for a Palm Sunday procession. Islamic scholar Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui was arrested under dubious charges of leading a “conversion syndicate.” These are not isolated events. Across India, religious minorities are increasingly facing harassment, criminalization, and erasure. Amid this climate, one question haunts me: Is interfaith dialogue still possible — and can it still make a difference?
I grew up in Delhi, a city layered with faiths, festivals, and friendships — and I carry a deep emotional bond with it. Some of my favorite memories are of celebrating Eid and Diwali with Hindu and Sikh neighbors, and joining college friends in their religious traditions. But over the past decade, the spirit of unity I once knew has begun to fracture. The brutal police crackdown on my university, Jamia Millia Islamia, in 2019; the horrific communal riots in Delhi in 2020; and the demolition of historic mosques in recent years have shaken my sense of safety and belonging. These aren’t just events in the news — they’re painful signs of a country drifting away from its pluralistic roots.
The History of Coexistence:
India is home to many ancient religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and has always welcomed diversity and pluralism. That's the reason why some foreign religions such as Islam, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism easily flourished in India. Not only did it provide a welcoming space to foreign religions but it also allowed any new religion to emerge such as Sikhism, a relatively new religion formed by a Sufi saint Guru Nanak at the end of 15th century.
Adopting the principle of ‘unity in diversity’ and defining its identity as a multicultural and multilingual religious society, India remained as a centre for religious harmony, with many different religions and cultures coexisting peacefully for centuries. With more than 200 million Muslims today, it is home to one of the largest Muslim populations globally. Islam entered India in the eighth century primarily by Arab traders and spread throughout the following centuries. Islamic culture and practice soon became deeply embedded in Indian society, with a rich history of peaceful coexistence. The shared culture of pluralism that all faith traditions have lived in for centuries by welcoming all kinds of faiths, cultures, and practices has been a vivid chapter of Indian history.
Modern India:
After the fall of the Mughal empire in 1857, the colonial era of India started. The British rule marks a new chapter in Indian history, and this was the first time when tensions started emerging between Hindus and Muslims. The British Empire was very afraid of the social harmony and the unity of Indian people, so they brought up the policy of ‘divide and rule’ to break the unity and resistance of people and started drawing lines between groups in society based on religion, caste, language, and race. Having that colonial legacy of hatred based on religion, India finally gained independence in 1947. But the damage has already been done as India got divided into two nations based on religious identities, and Pakistan emerged as a new nation dedicated to Muslims.
However, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, India became a secular and democratic country that later adopted a constitution based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948. Article 18 of the Declaration says: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. This right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance.” Despite this very detailed, foundational, and prerequisite condition for human flourishing, a large number of people in India are deprived of this basic right and are facing violence because of their religious beliefs and practices.
The diversity of multi-faith traditions in India has peacefully coexisted until the rise of Hindutva ideology based on religious nationalism and cultural supremacy came into power in 2014 known as the Bharatiya Janata Party or the BJP under the leadership of Narendra Modi, the third time elected Prime Minister of India. Since then, there has been a notable rise in Hindu nationalist sentiments. The BJP’s promotion of Hindutva, an ideology advocating for Hindu supremacy, has fostered an environment where minorities, particularly Muslims, face increased discrimination and hostility. This political shift has emboldened extremist groups such as the Bajrang Dal, Vishva Hindu Parishad, and the cow vigilantes to perpetrate violence against these communities. Because of this ideology, Indian pluralism faces periodic communal violence, polarization, and marginalization of religious minorities in recent decades.
According to some recent studies on religious freedom in India, including annual reports of Pew Research Centre and USCIRF, the incidents of communal violence and targeted attacks on minorities are growing every year that reflect on varying restrictions on religious minorities from either government policies or social hostilities. Moreover, religious communities are constantly facing serious repercussions for practicing their religion, including fines, arrest, destruction of property, and violence. The example of India with the current situation of Muslims, Christians, and marginalized Hindu communities who are facing harassment, intimidation, and mob violence can be seen as a very relevant scenario of constantly shrinking global religious freedom.
The Scope of Interfaith Dialogue:
With the creation of the nation-state and the rapid globalization in the 20th century, interfaith dialogue emerged as a cultural diplomacy tool in different countries to promote religious harmony and peace. It is not only limited to the Western countries, but has also become very successful in countries such as Singapore, Indonesia, and the UAE. Interfaith dialogue refers to structured discussions, interactions, and collaborations between followers of different religious traditions. It helps in reducing misunderstandings and stereotypes between religious groups. Also, it encourages mutual respect while maintaining religious identities, with developing shared solutions to religious and social conflicts.
In India, where religious diversity is vast, interfaith dialogue plays a crucial role in peacebuilding, conflict resolution, and policy recommendations. It also provides insights into India’s long-standing traditions of religious coexistence with the writings of Mahatma Gandhi and Sufi saints on religious harmony with historical records of Hindu-Muslim cooperation during the Mughal era. The religious traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity all contain principles and practices to sustain peacemaking. Additionally, Gandhian principles of nonviolence and his concept of “equal respect for all religions” can inspire new strategies and possibilities for achieving peace and harmony.
There have also been traditional and evolving approaches to religious peacebuilding in India. While traditional approaches include grassroots interfaith dialogue, Gandhian nonviolence, and sarva dharma sambhava (“equal respect for all religions” or “all religions are paths to the same destination”), institutional mediation by religious leaders. New approaches have emerged, such as youth-led interfaith platforms, digital peacebuilding, and faith-based NGOs. Interfaith dialogue in India can be understood not only as a peacebuilding practice but also as a structured or informal conversation between people of different religious traditions aimed at increasing understanding, reducing prejudice, and building relationships. With its deeply pluralistic religious landscape and history of communal tensions, interfaith dialogue can become a very powerful tool for both religious peacebuilding and religious freedom.
Towards Religious Freedom:
I strongly believe that reviving religious and cultural harmony is integral to the preservation of India’s diversity. However, its success hinges upon the existence of a government with a secular, democratic, and republican structure to restore the century-old social harmony and coexistence. India needs a collective effort to promote religious freedom as a fundamental and constitutional right of every citizen with interfaith dialogue, religious literacy, and social harmony and coexistence. Also, it needs a serious engagement with people from different religious traditions including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism. It would be really helpful to understand each other's religion and traditions as each religion has something to offer about human dignity and social harmony.
Therefore, I think that interfaith dialogue will play a critical role in fostering mutual respect, reducing communal violence, and strengthening democracy. With its pluralistic foundation and by using nonviolent methods, interfaith initiatives, community-driven reconciliation efforts, and religious peacebuilding, can help India remain true to its ethos of ‘unity in diversity’. I would like to conclude with a beautiful poem by David Whyte, written as ‘Self Portrait’, to remind us to remain hopeful and embrace the challenges for religious freedom, peace, and love.
It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
Or many gods.
I want to know if you belong — or feel abandoned;
If you know despair
Or can see it in others.
I want to know if you are willing
To live day by day
With the consequence of love
And the bitter unwanted passion
Of your sure defeat.
I have been told
In that fierce embrace
Even the gods
Speak of God.
~ David Whyte ~
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Carvalho, Nirmala “Police ban outdoor Palm Sunday procession in India’s capital” The Catholic Herald, April 14, 2025. https://thecatholicherald.com/police-ban-outdoor-palm-sunday-procession-in-indias-capital/
USCIRF database: https://www.uscirf.gov/religious-prisoners-conscience/forb-victims-database/kaleem-siddiqui
Sankalp Phartiyal, Aftab Ahmed and Devjyot Ghoshal “‘Night of horrors’: Inside the Indian university stormed by police” Reuters, Dec 17, 2019. https://www.reuters.com/article/world/night-of-horrors-inside-the-indian-university-stormed-by-police-idUSKBN1YL0JP/
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Gettleman, Jeffrey and Raj, Suhasini “Arrests, Beatings and Secret Prayers: Inside the Persecution of India’s Christians” The New York Times, Dec 23, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/22/world/asia/india-christians-attacked.html
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
Pew Research Centre Report on Religious Freedom. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/07/15/a-closer-look-at-how-religious-restrictions-have-risen-around-the-world/
2023 Report on International Religious Freedom on India by the United States Department of State, Office of International Religious Freedom. https://www.state.gov/reports/2023-report-on-international-religious-freedom/india/
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