Comment

The Orissa church attacks symbolise a renewed effort to build a Hindu vote bank; they can also be seen as an aggressive response to well-funded Christian missionary activity, which obviously threatens Hindu/tribal numbers.

The issue is best understood if we look at it as a form of marketing warfare gone wrong. There is a huge market for religious brands, and the world’s religions are bidding for market share.

As with any product, religion has to be tailored to market needs. With a diverse audience, you may need more than one brand to build overall market share.

When Surf saw Nirma eating up market share at the low end, it had to launch Wheel. In other words, any upmarket brand needs a complementary fighter brand at the mass level.

The conflict for political and cultural identity could use similar analogies. The world two biggest religions — Christianity and Islam — are aggressive market share builders.

Hinduism, which does not actively convert, is defending a declining share. It is like an unadvertised product whose negatives (caste, etc) are well tomtommed by rivals and internal critics.

If nothing is done to defend market share, Hinduism will by the end of the 21st century be reduced to a rump — like Judaism.

Building market share needs an understanding of market segments. Abraham Maslow’s human hierarchy of needs offers a way to define target segments.

His theory suggests that human beings have five levels of needs. At the base level, human needs are largely physiological — food, water, sex, sleep.

At the next level, it’s safety — security of body, jobs, family, health. At level three, there’s a need for love and belonging.

At level four, a need for self-esteem, confidence, achievement and respect. At the top level, when all basic human needs have been met, humans look for self-actualisation (a higher morality, creativity, freedom from dogma, etc).

The major world religions address this differently. I would put Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism as capable of meeting level 5 needs, and possibly a bit of level 4, too.

But they offer relatively less at the three levels below. Christianity, with its ability to market itself better, offers a product at every level, especially at level three (love and belonging). Islam seems to focus on the mass market.

Religions marketed to the mass market typically tend to have defined truths, clear dos and don’ts. At these levels, people look for security and direction.

They are not self-driven. As far as level 5 goes, most religions offer followers the opportunity for self-realisation since it does not need active marketing. At level 5, one uses formal religion only as a base camp from which to explore higher truths.

If one accepts this segmentation, it should be obvious that the Indic religions — with their emphasis on self-actualisation, acceptance of diversity and pluralism — are missing out on the mass market. To regain market share, they must become more mass-market.

This is effectively what Hindutva is all about. It is trying to broadbase the market appeal of Hinduism by narrowing its focus. It is developing a combative monotheism, just like fundamentalist Christianity or Islam. This explains the focus on Ayodhya, Ram, Ram Setu, et al.

The other prong is development activity among potential customers at the bottom two rungs. The Sangh Parivar’s anti-conversion drive with tribals is a part.

If you look at the new caste composition of the Hindutva brigade, it’s clearly broadening its base: whether it is Modi, Uma Bharti, Togadia, Kalyan Singh or Vinay Katiyar, they are all non-upper caste people. Hindutva is going downmarket for gaining numbers.

A similar thing is happening with Buddhism. Today’s Dalit converts pay lip-service to the Buddha’s teachings, but are, in reality, creating a kind of aggressive neo-Buddhism for mass market combat with the upper castes. When religion is used to battle for the mass market, sparks are bound to fly.

Email: r_jagannathan@dnaindia.net