The Indic universe gave birth to four major world religions, diverse tools of philosophical thought and a variety of cultural traditions. It has witnessed dramatic and sometimes cataclysmic encounters with non-Indic religious traditions. The sub-continent also nurtured several persecuted religious traditions (e.g., Jews, Zoroastrians, Bahaiis) from different parts of the world. India is home to virtually all of the contemporary religions of the world and their interaction and dialogue has produced highly creative cultural forms. Within the Indic world, the diverse communities innovated their own different ways of relating to each other and living together. In contemporary times these traditions of co-living of communities are being reworked into new social-institutional and legal-political forms, especially through state policies and the working of democratic politics. This has radically changed the relations among the ethno-religious communities, making the traditionally established codes of co-living less effective for a more modern, multi-cultural society. Consequently, the old ritualistically and theologically determined boundaries between various religious communities as well as between folk and classical religious traditions are being transmitted into ethno-political identities contending with each other for power and hegemony rather than theological truth claims.
These developments have now begun to compel different religious communities to engage in new modes of religious dialogue and recover common civilisational ground, often even bypassing the long held theological differences among them. This has become necessary not just for the survival of different communities but even more urgently for countering the violence-prone agenda of global homogenization which is distorting or destroying cultural-religious communities on the course of self destruction.
The dialogic process, even if uneven and tardy so far, has brought into existence many new political-cultural symbols, socio-religious practices and codes of behaviour transcending traditional boundaries of communities and bringing them to deal with each other in trans communal spaces. The challenges and conflicts thrown up through this process are being handled mainly through the realm of politics or through cinema. Unfortunately, the academic world has not engaged with religious and cultural issues with the seriousness they deserve because study of these two disciplines has not yet found academic legitimacy. While many highly regarded universities in various parts of the world contain well-developed departments for the study of Indic religions, no university in India hosts similar, rigorous programmes of religious studies. It is a matter of great concern that the scholarly study of Indic culture and religion has not become a well-established discipline within the academic world in India. One of the consequences of this failure is the continuing hold of misleading stereotypes about the nature of Indic religious thought and practice and about the interrelations of ethno-religious communities living in the sub continent.
