Religion and Secularism in South Asia: Some Reflections on Nepal
Author(s): Mohan Kumar Mishra
Abstract: In the case of secularism, the South Asian experience differs from that of the West. Here, religion has been a source of peace for millennia. South Asia is the birthplace of four significant religions of the world – Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism. A large number of Muslims also live here. South Asia has witnessed bloodshed, migration, and the changing of borders on religious lines. So, in South Asia, the notion of secularism is multifaceted, and it has multiple missions such as maintaining peace among all communities in a diverse society, not allowing dominance of any one religion in the public sphere, ceasing communal violence, maintaining social harmony in the society, and protecting religious and cultural rights of minorities. Unlike the Western model of strict neutrality or separation, South Asian secularism responds to religions by accommodating cultural and religious diversity. Indic traditions, unlike Abrahamic faiths, lack a centralized church and permit multiple identities, enabling people to practise overlapping affiliations such as Hindu-Buddhist or Hindu-Sikh. This plural and inclusive ethos shapes the evolution of secularism in South Asia. This paper is an attempt to analyse the historical background of religious and cultural traditions of South Asia in general and Nepal in particular, and further, it analyses what kind of model of secularism is emerging from Nepal.
Keywords: Culture, Religion, South Asia, Secularism, Soteriology, Nepal
DOI: doi.org/10.65719/RC.3.2.2025.027
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