Melbourne Law School - Theses
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ItemMultireligious Adherence and the Right to Freedom of Religion in India( 2022-10)This thesis examines the scope for constitutional guarantee for the freedom of ‘multireligious adherence’ in India. Multireligious adherence means the adherence to the norms of more than one religion at the same time. This thesis asks whether multireligious adherents and syncretic religious groups are recognised by the Indian Supreme Court, the highest court in India. To answer this question, the thesis analyses the decisions of the Court from 1950 to 2022 on the interpretation of the right to freedom of religion under Articles 25 and 26 of the Indian Constitution. The thesis finds that multireligious adherents and syncretic religious groups are not judicially recognised due to the Court’s implicit assumption that religious adherence is necessarily exclusive. The thesis argues that the extent to which the Indian Supreme Court recognises multireligious adherents and syncretic religious groups significantly influences the right to freedom of religion of both individuals and religious groups in India. Furthermore, the thesis highlights that Article 25 of the Constitution, which protects a person’s right to freely profess, practise, and propagate religion, is an inclusive provision; it does not differentiate between those who adhere to the norms of a religion exclusively and those who do so non-exclusively. Therefore, Article 25 protects even the right to adhere to multiple religions. The thesis concludes that the Court’s ‘exclusivist understanding’ of religious adherence, which fails to consider the possibility of multireligious adherence, conflicts with this interpretation of Article 25 of the Constitution. This thesis aims to contribute to the fields of ‘law and religion’ and constitutional law: first, it offers an ‘inclusive view’ of religion and religious adherence, where adhering to the norms of one religion does not preclude a person from simultaneously adhering to the norms of another; and second, it shows how the judicial understanding of religious adherence influences the constitutional right to freedom of religion in India.