The Philanthropic Poor: Prosocial Behavior in Rural India

The study of philanthropy has largely been the purview of the wealthy and privileged in Western societies. However, the act of giving transcends race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, and socioeconomic conditions. This article adds to the philanthropic literature by providing empirical evidence of the prosocial behaviors of rural villagers throughout India. Using responses from a large-scale, door-to-door survey ( n=3,159), we found that high percentages of rural Indians regularly engage in both formal and informal giving and volunteering. Even among generally poor, rural Indian villagers, socioeconomic indicators still matter (with the exception of education), and minority religions and lower social groups tend to exhibit higher levels of prosocial behavior than dominant religious and social groups.

Keeping the tradition alive: An analysis of contemporary Jain religious education for children in India and North America

<p>How do Jains, adherents of one of the oldest minority religions in India, maintain their identity and protect their way of life when surrounded by non-Jain religions? Even more striking, how do Jains in the United States, where they constitute a minority within the Indian minority, maintain their traditions amidst a multi-cultural American society? Seeking upward mobility, Jains in post-independence India, have migrated locally, regionally, and internationally and these migrations have disrupted their social, religious, and cultural practices. My thesis looks at the ways in which Jains have addressed these disruptions. I analyse how they have restructured their traditional religious education, transforming it in a variety of ways, producing a range of contemporary Jain religious schools for children, both in India and the United States. I argue that these new religious schools serve an important function in maintaining ancient Jain traditions, but have, at the same time, initiated significant structural as well as curricular changes that have transformed some of those traditions: widening the gap between Jain children and Jain mendicants, and reallocating authority within the Jain community by enabling laywomen to shape the curriculum and to teach in part-time religious schools, to name a few. The thesis pays attention to these changes, the reasons for the changes, and their consequences. Using in-depth curriculum analysis and formal interviews, I examine contemporary Jain religious schools for children in the image-worshipping Digambar tradition and the non-image worshipping Shvetambar Terapanth tradition in India, and in mixed traditions in the United States. These Jain schools are growing exponentially in number and popularity within India and America, but have largely remained unexamined. This study aims to fill an important gap by closely analysing the rituals, leadership, and curricula of these new religious schools and their role in shaping modern Jain traditions.</p>

Keeping the tradition alive: An analysis of contemporary Jain religious education for children in India and North America

<p>How do Jains, adherents of one of the oldest minority religions in India, maintain their identity and protect their way of life when surrounded by non-Jain religions? Even more striking, how do Jains in the United States, where they constitute a minority within the Indian minority, maintain their traditions amidst a multi-cultural American society? Seeking upward mobility, Jains in post-independence India, have migrated locally, regionally, and internationally and these migrations have disrupted their social, religious, and cultural practices. My thesis looks at the ways in which Jains have addressed these disruptions. I analyse how they have restructured their traditional religious education, transforming it in a variety of ways, producing a range of contemporary Jain religious schools for children, both in India and the United States. I argue that these new religious schools serve an important function in maintaining ancient Jain traditions, but have, at the same time, initiated significant structural as well as curricular changes that have transformed some of those traditions: widening the gap between Jain children and Jain mendicants, and reallocating authority within the Jain community by enabling laywomen to shape the curriculum and to teach in part-time religious schools, to name a few. The thesis pays attention to these changes, the reasons for the changes, and their consequences. Using in-depth curriculum analysis and formal interviews, I examine contemporary Jain religious schools for children in the image-worshipping Digambar tradition and the non-image worshipping Shvetambar Terapanth tradition in India, and in mixed traditions in the United States. These Jain schools are growing exponentially in number and popularity within India and America, but have largely remained unexamined. This study aims to fill an important gap by closely analysing the rituals, leadership, and curricula of these new religious schools and their role in shaping modern Jain traditions.</p>

Voices of Rebellion

While Moses Lopez sought acceptance in Philadelphia, Isaac Lopez Brandon fought his own battles in Barbados. Before leaving the island, Brandon signed the Jews’ 1819 petition to the island legislature asking it to make the synagogue a vestry and give Jews the vote. For lower middle-class Jews, the bill was deeply distressing: they lacked property to vote anyway, and they didn’t want pay the mandatory taxes the change entailed. They were also enraged that Isaac Lopez Brandon, a “man of colour,” would gain privileges that white Jews of a middling sort could never hope to attain. Eventually the bill passed, but only after Isaac had been demoted and lost his right to vote in the synagogue. Isaac’s battle was part of a larger religious war waged by the Gill family, a battle that underscored the intertwined role of minority religions and rights on the island.

The Alternative Concepts of Blasphemy Law in Indonesia: Legal Comparison with Ireland and Canada

<p>This study explores the future implementation of blasphemy law in Indonesia. This research suggests some recommendations for Indonesian blasphemy law by looking at different blasphemy policy options in Ireland and Canada. This research will focus on the principle of legal certainty. Legal certainty is an essential aspect for criminal law to avoid state arbitrariness and to have predictability. The results of this research indicate that some aspects of Indonesian blasphemy law may be reconstructed in five ways: expanding the protected religions to include the minority religions, defining explicit limitations, specifying <em>mens</em><em> </em><em>rea </em>element, measuring the ‘threat to public’ elements, and more professional law enforcement officers. </p><p><strong><br /></strong></p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> Blasphemy; Indonesia; Ireland; Canada; Comparative.</p>

Formalizing Secularism as a Regime of Restrictions and Protections: The Case of Quebec (Canada) and Geneva (Switzerland)

In 2019, the province of Quebec and the canton of Geneva passed bills establishing their states as “secular.” While each law is, to a certain extent, context specific, both present noteworthy similarities. First, neutrality (the cornerstone of laïcité) is articulated around two elements: (1) restrictions that affect the religious practices of public servants belonging to minority religions and (2) protections for Christian symbols constructed as “cultural.” The article questions the implications for inclusive citizenship of formalizing regulatory regimes that differentiate between “religion” and “culture.” Second, a comparative lens enables an analysis of how, through whom, and why similar regimes of regulation travel from one area of the world to another. The article argues for the importance of considering transnational influences when analyzing the regulation of religion to better (1) understand why particular models of secularism gain traction and (2) capture power dynamics structuring these processes of traction.