Analyses
Religion
  • Silent Endorsement? Political Inaction Fuels Cow Vigilantism in Modi 3.0
    Akash Chopra 14 November 2024
    On October 20, 2024, tensions erupted in Jammu, Kashmir, when accusations of cow smuggling triggered a violent clash, part of an escalating wave of Gau Rakshak (cow protection vigilante) aggression across India. Under Prime Minister Modi’s third term, commonly known as “Modi 3.0,” these self-styled cow protectors have become increasingly emboldened, often targeting marginalized groups – particularly Muslims and Dalits involved in the livestock trade. Modi 3.0 has seen a noticeable rise in such incidents, with vigilante groups frequently operating with implicit political backing as they enforce cultural and religious norms around cow protection.
  • BJP’s Majoritarian Push in Uttar Pradesh
    Abhijan Choudhury 27 September 2024
    India’s ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has repeatedly been accused by the opposition and civil society of pursuing divisive politics and promoting a sectarian agenda aimed at dismantling the country’s secular foundations to establish a majoritarian state. The recent incident involving the Kanwarias, pilgrims devoted to Lord Shiva, should be viewed in this context, rather than dismissed as trivial, as has been done with similar cases in the past. It once again highlights that the party and its leadership are focused on securing power by appealing to the majority community while sidelining minorities.
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    Qaraqosh: The Fragile Rebirth of Iraq’s Christian City
    Ilaria Romano 2 September 2024
    Brother Wissam drives his pickup truck to the convent where he lives alongside other Franciscan friars. He’s on his way back from Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, where he picked up his nephew Francius, 19, on vacation in Iraq on his own for the first time. Like many Christian Iraqis, especially ordained ones, Wissam studied abroad for a few years, but never considered leaving his country permanently. The city he calls home is Qaraqosh (in Syriac) or Bakhdida (in Arabic), thirty kilometers from Mosul, the symbol, since 2014, of the Islamic State’s fury against Christians.
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    Hezbollah’s Gaza War Stance Deepens Divides in Lebanon
    Vanessa Breidy 31 July 2024
    Twenty-four hours after Israel’s declaration of war following October 7, 2023, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hasan Nasrallah announced a “war of support for Gaza” from South Lebanon. This declaration was made solely by the political armed party Hezbollah, not the Lebanese government, thus constituting a clear violation of Lebanese state sovereignty and the rule of law. This breach has elicited varied reactions from Lebanese parties, with some Christian parties declaring the inevitability of political system reform and emphasizing the necessity of opening up the debate as soon as the war ends.
  • The Dalai Lama’s Visits to Taiwan Intertwined with Cross-Strait Relations
    Kristina Kironska 5 June 2024
    The Dalai Lama has visited Taiwan three times – in 1997, 2001, and 2009 – and there are calls for his return. Since his first visit, Tibetan Buddhism in Taiwan has grown significantly. The total number of Tibetan Buddhist centers has increased from 82 in 1996 to 473 in 2018, while the community of Tibetan Buddhists soared to approximately half a million. From this perspective, the Dalai Lama’s visits to Taiwan have achieved their goal of disseminating Tibetan Buddhism, making his potential return to Taiwan of paramount religious significance. But there is also a political significance to his visits.
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    Can We Prevent an Iranian Caliphate?
    A Vatican City-Style Arrangement for Al-Aqsa
    Jonathan Laurence 3 April 2024
    The Gaza war is a reminder that the Europeans left behind an unstable status quo a century ago. Absent a Sunni consensus, Iran is making an indirect power play. Iran’s weakness is also a strength: as non-Arab, Shiite Muslims, Iran’s leaders can’t trace their ancestry to the prophet Muhammad’s qureysh tribe—as can Jordan’s and Morocco’s monarchs, and as ISIS’s Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi claimed. Though around 85 percent of Muslims are Sunni, the demography of global Islam has long favored much larger non-Arab populations. The dynamic might be resolved with a Vatican City-style solution for Al Aqsa.
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    How the Mughals are Being Erased from Indian Textbooks
    Ashaz Mohammed 28 March 2024
    The 1992 destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, upon which Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Ram temple was built, is seen by Hindu nationalists as a “historical retaliation” against India’s so-called “dark ages”. Several right-wing news outlets, such as Republic TV, have celebrated the inauguration of the new temple as a “500-year wait coming to an end.” This “dark” period, which lies 500 years in India’s past, is popularly characterized by the rise of the Mughals, an empire of Muslim rulers from what is now Uzbekistan. According to Hindu nationalists, the Babri Masjid is believed to have been built by the first Mughal emperor, Babur, as a result of the destruction of the “original” Ram temple that once stood on the site. Although there is no concrete historical and archaeological evidence of the destruction of this temple, there have been attempts by archaeologists and historians leaning towards the ideology of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) to suggest otherwise.
  • Haifa: A Joint Appeal Against Violence
    19 March 2024
    The following appeal has been signed by the leaders of the main religious communities in Haifa, Israel, and released by the Haifa Laboratory for Religious Studies after six intensive meetings that were held at the University of Haifa between December 2023 and February 2024.
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