Should Religion Be Above Criticism?
June 1, 2025
A 22-year-old law student in Pune has been charged with allegedly offending religious sentiments after making derogatory remarks about Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. Whatever the merits of the case, the incident raises an important question: should the right to free speech include the right to criticise religion—one’s own or someone else’s?
Let’s set aside the question of whether this woman’s case is justified, and instead look at the larger context in which such charges arise.
In the age of social media, the ability to reach large audiences is no longer limited to elected officials, writers or professional broadcasters. Ordinary citizens—students, drivers, homemakers, artists—can now also broadcast their thoughts. This is a form of democratised speech. But it has also brought sharper scrutiny by governments and societies to what can and cannot be said—particularly about religion, which remains social taboo, protected by law and treated as beyond criticism.
Like this law student, many authors, comedians, social media users and public intellectuals have found themselves facing similar accusations, where the content of the remark often matters less than the fact that someone, somewhere, claims to be offended.
‘Blasphemy’ Laws
Now let’s turn to the law most commonly invoked when someone claims to be offended.
Few realise that India, too, enforces laws that function as a form of anti-blasphemy legislation—though in a less brutal form than in some other countries. Section 302 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita criminalises any expression—spoken, written, gestured or symbolic—that is made with the “deliberate intention” of wounding another’s religious feelings. But in practice, what counts is not the “intention” but the perceived impact.
The remarks under scrutiny are almost never directed at the individuals or groups who file the complaint; they are aimed at the religion those individuals follow or the beliefs they hold. In other words, it is the ideas, or the founders of religions and deities, that are being criticised—not the people themselves. Because of the law, when someone claims to be offended, the state is often quick to respond, particularly under political or communal pressure. Arrests are promptly made, FIRs filed and trials—often dragging on for years—begin. The process itself becomes the punishment.
From the accused’s point of view, they are being punished for criticising a belief, a religious figure from the past, or a deity someone believes exists. People often take offence only as collateral damage, since the comment isn’t directed at them personally—leaving the accused confused and feeling the punishment is unfair.
We must ask: can feelings serve as a stable basis for laws that carry penal consequences? One person’s satire is another’s sacrilege. A cartoon might provoke laughter in one corner and outrage in another. Laws based on sentiment empower those who shout the loudest.
Social Perspective
Now, leaving the law aside, let’s look at the issue from a social perspective. Should we uncritically accept the idea that people must be protected not just from violence or discrimination, but from thought itself?
If someone says “yes,” they are denying the fact that human understanding has progressed through disagreement—not through blind respect. Science has progressed because people challenged old assumptions. Philosophy exists because humans have always asked, “What if this is wrong?” Political systems have been reformed through dissent, not obedience.
Religion, too, has changed and evolved, and thankfully so—sometimes slowly, sometimes with great upheaval. For example, Martin Luther protested against the Catholic Church, the Buddha rejected certain rituals, and Kabir used poetry to question both Hindu and Islamic dogma – not through polite suggestions. Some courageous individuals challenged practices claimed to be rooted in religion—like sati, the dowry system and caste-based discrimination. We are grateful to them today, not angry.
To imagine that religion today should be immune from critique is to deny this entire history. It is to insist that the most powerful ideas about life, death, justice and meaning must not be examined too closely, lest someone be offended.
Imagine a teacher who tells students never to question anything, because it might offend their classmates. That would lead to indoctrination, wouldn’t it?
Religious Perspective
Now, let’s turn to religion itself. Should we have the freedom to say we don’t believe in God—to be atheist or agnostic? What if saying there’s no God offends someone? Should we also be free to follow the religion of our choice, even if it’s not the one we were born into? That choice would require serious reflection and questioning. But again, what if someone’s sentiments are hurt in the process? Without the freedom to question or criticise religion, living a sincere religious—or non-religious—life would become nearly impossible.
Further, religions differ—often profoundly—on some of the most basic questions. What is a human being? What is the highest purpose of life? What happens after death? What counts as virtue? A Buddhist understanding of the self is worlds apart from the Islamic view of the soul. A Christian idea of grace is not the same as the Hindu doctrine of karma. This diversity of answers makes disagreement natural—and there is nothing wrong with that.
Peaceful coexistence requires the maturity to live with disagreement—not the obligation to agree with the religious beliefs of all communities. Respecting another’s right to believe does not mean agreeing with their beliefs. It means accepting that they may believe deeply in what I reject, and that both of us have the right to speak, argue and persuade.
Therefore, to criminalise criticism is to reject the very idea of pluralism. It is to say: you may believe differently, but only silently.
That is not to say that all speech must be free from legal consequence. There are clear and justifiable limits. Speech that incites violence, promotes hatred, or directly harms others, especially the vulnerable, deserves legal attention. But the standard must be high, precise and proportionate to the actual harm caused, and not to how offensive the speech may seem.
Politics
Lastly, let’s consider why religion is treated as such a sensitive subject. If we are free to criticise political ideologies—which are also rooted in deep philosophy—then why should religion be any different?
Perhaps we still assume—often without realising it—that we live in a world where religion and the state remain inseparable, or where a community’s safety and wellbeing depend on defending its religious identity. That, in essence, is a form of tribalism. There is no denying, however, that religion has become a fragile and volatile issue, largely because political elites exploit religious sentiment for electoral gain—by stoking a heightened sense of identity and, at times, fuelling communal tensions.
Laws meant to protect religious sentiments are enacted to deal with manufactured religious tensions—driven by the fear that someone’s hurt sentiments might lead to violence or unrest. Therefore, the politicisation of religion exposes us not only to the threat of violence, but also to restrictions on the right to criticise it—undermining our collective ability to think, question and learn as a society.
Meanwhile, Hindu nationalist groups rushing to defend the law student—because her remarks targeted a minority religion—are themselves reacting to manufactured religious tensions, and in doing so, fuelling them further. One can only hope the young woman is treated in proportion to the actual harm, if any, her words may have caused.
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