By Dr Tamanna Khosla
Religion has been a fundamental part of human society for thousands of years. However, it is not uncommon for different religions to have conflicting teachings. So, when we talk about religious conflicts, do we see them as inevitable clashes of ideas.
THE CASE OF TARUN SINGH: GROWING RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE
Lately there has been growing intolerance in India. Recently the police Police has arrested four individuals in connection with the incident. According to reports, all accused belong to the Muslim community. The victim’s family, the dispute began when an 11-year-old girl was playing Holi on a terrace and threw a water balloon at her relatives standing below.
The coloured water accidentally splashed on a woman passing by, triggering an altercation between the two sides.
Several people were reportedly injured as the confrontation escalated. Tarun’s grandfather, Mann Singh, alleged that the woman hurled abuses and started a fight over the incident. He further claimed that although the matter initially appeared to have been resolved, the woman later returned with several people from her community and attacked Tarun when he was on his way home.Members of Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad staged demonstrations demanding strict action against the accused.The protesters blocked traffic for several hours, while a car and a motorcycle were set ablaze by the agitated crowd.Both organisations held demonstrations under the Uttam Nagar East Metro Station and raised slogans seeking justice for the victim. The Hindu groups said that they are not innocent Muslims but Jihadist.
NEED FOR PUBLIC REASON AND TOLERANCE: JOHN RAWLS IDEA OF RESOVING INTOLERANCE
The idea of public reason emerged as one of the most influential attempts to address this dilemma within modern political theory. The concept was developed most systematically by the philosopher John Rawls, who argued that democratic legitimacy depends not only on majority rule but also on the quality of justification offered for political decisions. In societies characterized by deep moral, religious, and philosophical diversity, citizens inevitably disagree about ultimate values. Yet democratic stability requires that these disagreements be mediated through a shared framework of political reasoning. Public reason refers to the expectation that when citizens and political leaders justify laws or constitutional principles, they appeal to arguments that other citizens, despite their differences, could reasonably accept as members of a free and equal political community. Islam as a religion, when existing in democratic constitutionalism needs to be involved in public reason inter and intra community ie within the Muslim community and with other non- Islamic religions.
This idea does not require individuals to abandon their comprehensive moral doctrines. Rather, it distinguishes between private convictions and the reasons offered to justify public authority. Citizens may hold religious, ideological, or cultural commitments that shape their personal lives, but when they participate in political decision making about constitutional essentials or matters of basic justice, they are expected to offer reasons that respect the equal status of all citizens. Public reason thus functions as a shared language of political justification in pluralistic societies. It creates the conditions under which citizens with fundamentally different worldviews can nevertheless participate in a common political order.
However, the practical significance of public reason becomes most evident when democracies confront the problem of intolerance. Liberal societies have historically treated tolerance as a foundational civic virtue. From the aftermath of the religious conflicts that followed the Protestant Reformation to modern commitments to civil liberties, the ideal of tolerance has been associated with the rejection of coercive orthodoxy. Yet the liberal tradition has long recognized that tolerance cannot be without limits. The philosopher Karl Popper articulated this problem in what he described as the paradox of tolerance. Unlimited tolerance, he argued, could ultimately destroy tolerance itself if intolerant groups are allowed to mobilize democratic freedoms in order to eliminate those freedoms once they gain political power.
Historical experience provides powerful evidence for this concern. The collapse of the Weimar Republic remains one of the most frequently cited examples of democratic vulnerability. Political movements openly hostile to constitutional democracy were able to exploit legal electoral mechanisms and civil liberties to gain political influence. Once in power, these movements dismantled the democratic framework that had enabled their rise. The lesson many constitutional theorists drew from this experience was that democratic neutrality toward anti-democratic forces may inadvertently facilitate democratic collapse.
This historical lesson informed the development of the theory of militant democracy, associated with the political scientist Karl Loewenstein. Militant democracy argues that constitutional systems may legitimately defend themselves against actors who seek to abolish democratic institutions. Such defensive measures may include restrictions on extremist political parties, legal limitations on incitement to violence, and institutional safeguards designed to prevent democratic procedures from being used to destroy democratic rights. In this view, democracy must be capable of protecting its own constitutional foundations.
HOW CONTEMPORARY DEMOCRACIES DEAL WITH RELIGIOUS CONFLICT
Contemporary democracies continue to wrestle with this tension in visible and often dramatic ways. The debates that followed the January 6 United States Capitol attack revealed how fragile democratic norms can become when political actors begin to question the legitimacy of electoral institutions themselves. In the aftermath of the attack, political leaders, scholars, and courts debated whether restrictions on extremist mobilization or disinformation were necessary to defend constitutional order, or whether such measures risked politicizing the boundaries of legitimate dissent. The controversy illustrated precisely the dilemma that the theory of militant democracy seeks to address: how far democratic systems should go in limiting actors who challenge the legitimacy of democratic institutions.
Similar debates have emerged within European constitutional systems confronting the rise of extremist political movements. Germany, drawing directly from the lessons of the interwar collapse of democracy, has repeatedly considered legal restrictions on parties that threaten the constitutional order. Discussions surrounding the activities of groups associated with the far right, including movements connected to the party Alternative for Germany, have revived longstanding debates about whether democratic states should prohibit political organizations that undermine constitutional democracy. These debates reveal that the challenge of balancing tolerance with democratic self-defence remains an unresolved feature of modern constitutional politics.
Platforms such as Facebook and X have helped in debates but the structure of digital communication often rewards immediacy, outrage, and identity based mobilization rather than careful reasoning or evidence based argument. Advances in artificial intelligence have made it possible to generate highly convincing fabricated audio and video, commonly described as deepfakes. These technologies have the potential to erode the basic epistemic conditions required for public reason. As a result, the environment in which citizens encounter political arguments increasingly resembles a fragmented network of competing narratives rather than a shared space of democratic reasoning.
Emerging technologies may intensify this challenge further. When citizens cannot reliably distinguish between authentic political communication and algorithmically generated fabrications, the ability to conduct political debate based on shared facts becomes increasingly fragile. Public reason depends not only on moral reciprocity among citizens but also on a minimally stable informational environment. Without that environment, democratic deliberation risks collapsing into suspicion and competing claims about reality itself.
There is growing polarization experienced by many democracies. Political disagreement, which once occurred within a broadly shared constitutional framework, is increasingly framed as a struggle between incompatible visions of political community. In such environments, tolerance is often reinterpreted not as mutual accommodation but as reluctant coexistence between hostile camps. The space for public reasoning shrinks.
NEED FOR TOLERANCE AND DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY IN LIBERAL DEMOCRACY
Tolerance cannot be sustained merely through legal guarantees of free expression. It also requires civic norms that encourage citizens to treat political opponents as legitimate participants in a shared political order.
If legal limitations are imposed through partisan calculation or ideological suppression rather than through arguments grounded in constitutional principles and equal citizenship, they risk losing their democratic legitimacy.
The enduring challenge therefore lies in maintaining a delicate equilibrium. Democratic societies must protect the freedoms that allow diverse convictions to flourish while also preserving the institutional and normative foundations that make peaceful coexistence possible. Public reason offers a framework for navigating this tension by emphasizing justification that respects the equal standing of all citizens. It does not eliminate conflict, nor does it guarantee consensus. What it offers instead is a set of standards through which democratic disagreements can be conducted without abandoning the principles that sustain democratic life.
Where it is sustained, democratic societies retain the ability to confront deep disagreement without sacrificing the freedoms that define them.
(The views expressed are solely those of the author.)
