They comprise about 80% of the population while Muslims account for 14%, the largest of the minority religions. The country also is home to Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Sikhs and numerous Indigenous faith traditions.
Renouncing one’s religion is allowed in India, and the Special Marriage Act of 1954 permits people with no religious beliefs to marry, as well as nonreligious and non-ritualistic weddings. But the country doesn’t officially recognize atheism or the nonreligious. To avoid a hassle, some feel forced to list a religion on government forms such as birth certificates, or on school admissions paperwork.
“There are delays with documents when you don’t state your religion,” said Jaswant Mohali, a coordinator for the rationalist group Tarksheel Society Punjab. “Sometimes we take this issue to court, but most of the time we just state our religion at birth to avoid problems with official documents.”
Mohali’s and Patil’s organizations are among those pushing for the government to add a “no religion” checkbox to the country’s new census form. But irreligious activists don’t just advocate for their specific causes; they have long pushed for other social justice issues like caste and gender equality.
Although small in numbers, atheists in India have been able to exert influence and advance their agenda “with a human approach and empathy,” said K. Veeramani, president of the Chennai-based Dravidar Kazhagam, a social justice organization advocating for equality. It was launched in the 1940s by E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker, popularly known as Periyar, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
“It’s not about a show of hands,” Veeramani said. “It’s about clarity of thinking. The rationalist way of life is about equality and equity.”
The group, along with its coalition of political parties, has resisted Modi’s central government policies. Their biting rhetoric has sometimes proved controversial.
On Sept. 2, speaking at an event in Chennai, Udayanidhi Stalin, Tamil Nadu’s sports minister and son of Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, called to eradicate Hinduism, comparing it to coronavirus, malaria and dengue. After a firestorm of criticism from opponents, allies and Hindus both within India and in the diaspora who called his statements anti-Hindu, Stalin, who identifies as atheist, doubled down on his comments, clarifying that his fight is against a system that perpetrated caste discrimination.
Idol of Hindu God Ganesha
Sharp rhetoric about Hinduism often stems from deep-seated hurt and the trauma of caste, and not from hatred of Hindus or upper-caste Brahmins, said Annamalai Arulmozhi, a Chennai-based lawyer born to parents who were followers of Periyar and raised their children as atheists. Arulmozhi, who is still an atheist and a feminist, says feminism and fighting inequities perpetrated by the caste system have been central to Periyar’s movement, which continues today.
Fighting for justice means facing opposition from religion, culture, caste and everything else the system throws at you, Arulmozhi said.
“Atheism has given me the strength to stand against all of this,” she said. “To get justice, you have to oppose all these structures, branches and corollary institutions. You need to reject all that and only view your path and your goal as a humanist. That feeling, to me, is atheism.”
Arulmozhi said her family would not have had the opportunity to get an education without the push for equality that Periyar led. She has found living as an atheist “freeing.”
The nones in India come from an array of belief backgrounds, including Hindu, Muslim and Sikh. Atheism is still largely invisible and ignored in India, said Mohali, who was born into a Sikh family. Rational thought, he said, is without a platform.
“There are a lot of television channels for religion, but not for science or rational thought.”
- Jaswant Mohali, a coordinator for a rationalist group in India.
Sultan Shahin, founder of a progressive Muslim website called New Age Islam, said he is seeing more Muslims in India questioning their religion and some even calling themselves “ex-Muslims.” Shahin shuns such labels but said most would view him as a “cultural Muslim.”
“I question how the Quran is compiled and I ask these questions openly,” he said. “We need to have room for these discussions without fearing for our safety.”