Will India Avoid Replacing Religion with Western Materialism?

March 20, 2007

telegraph.co.uk

VARANASI, INDIA, March 17, 2007: As the first rays of the morning sun fall upon the banks of the river Ganges at Varanasi, an old man in a loincloth raises his outstretched hands towards the slowly rising orb and bids it namaste, or welcome for another day. It is a scene which has repeated itself every day for more than three thousand years in this holiest of India's cities - a place as ancient as Babylon or Thebes - which Hindus consider to be the beating heart of their religion.

While modern India rushes headlong to embrace many of the material aspects of Western capitalism - even Varanasi has an outlet of McDonald's - standing on the ghats (broad steps leading to a river) of Varanasi at dawn, it seems as if time is standing still.

For all the material changes of the last decade, India remains a deeply religious country, with more than 93 per cent of Indians believing in God, according a major survey conducted this year by the Center for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi. However, to speak to India's new urban elite, like the young mobile phone company executives we met a week ago on the upper reaches of the Ganges, is to wonder whether India will follow Europe into Godlessness in the century to come.

It is a debate which pre-occupies many in India as old social structures are broken down by children who earn more than their parents and increasingly absorb the attitudes and mores of Western culture.

However, Saurabh Sharma, a 49-year-old IT specialist who spent several years living in California before retiring to Varanasi, is among those who believe that the battle for India's soul is far from a foregone conclusion. "The Hindu religion will endure because of its capacity to reinvent itself and to assimilate new cultures and traditions," he says, "Hinduism has shown over the centuries that it is a philosophy that can adapt to the times, but remain true to its heart."