The Impact of Social Media on Religious Tolerance in India : A Case Study on the Digital Discourse in Religious Conflicts

Abstract

Social media which is the core of the new information technology fulfils the interactive element of human communication. Social media sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, come in such a way that we cannot side-line those facilities and live our lives in isolation or without being influenced by their use around us. Moreover, social media has become a determining factor in shaping the religious, social and cultural life of the people. Furthermore, the impacts and implications, challenges and threat of social media have become unavoidable territory in academic discourse. India give the potential way to study the impact of religious tolerance in social media because of its multi-religious, multi-social and multi-cultural background. Moreover, India being a secular country, India promotes the fundamental rights for its citizen to his/her beliefs. At the same time secularism in India means respect for all religions and it does not mean irreligion, in other words the essence of secularism is non-discrimination on the basis of religious differences, which is the core principle of every religious teaching in India. However, the involvement of political parties in religious ideology in the political history of India resulted in more divisive communal tensions. Social media is now used as a tool to propagate various religious ideologies which has brought more religious intolerance and communal riots. This development of religious fundamentalism has created tension among the different religious institutions and communities. Therefore, the challenges of religious tolerance in social media has been identified and along with the nature and extent of social media sites and networks. Furthermore, from the studies of social media analysis, the new media of communication has laid the foundation for social media tools, which can be understood as a continuation and strengthening of the participatory communication. The aim of this participatory approach is to build awareness, consciousness, and facilitate conscientization and mobilization of people for collective action. Show more