Professor Knut Axel Jacobsen
Students are often surprised when they meet a muslim woman in nikab at one of the famous Catholic holy places. Together with Professor in Religious Knut Axel Jacobsen they explore the multi-religious India and religion span from holy power across borders to material manifestations and power of definition.
Since 1999, Jacobsen lectured for Kulturstudier religion students in Puducherry. As Norways leading expert in religions and religious life in India and the Indian diasporas he knows to take advantage of the onsite location.
- India is a superpower with almost 1.3 billion citizens. This vast country has been one of the biggest laboratories for religious innovation and development. India is multi-religious and it's precisely this diversity of religions and how religions have influenced each other and the community that is among the most interesting. Students learn about emergence of religous diversity in India, about the religion as sacred power and identity, says Jacobsen.
One of the main themes in the study isreligion, power and locality. In a relatively short distance from Puducherry there are various important pilgrimage sites both for Hindu, Islamic and Catholic, where to the students go on study excursions.
- These places attracts people not only from the religion that has ownership of the site, but Muslims and Hindus come to the Catholic pilgrimage site and many Hindus come to the Muslim. The heavenly powers do not care about religious identity! People from different religions experience that the healing power that is made available at the site, exceed the social reality constraints. This says something important about religion, says Jacobsen
He has been with us since the start of the Kulturstudier religion study in India and saw the discipline go through a lot of changes. From 2011 it was merged with a module in anthropology and became the religion and power study we offer today. For example, at the request of the students in the course of the last few years the curriculum got to include more on women and religion in India. But the religious and political life in India is in constant motion.
India is becoming more secular, yet some important aspects of religion such as pilgrimage and temples, especially the temple building is an important aspect of contemporary India. Politicians may try to mobilize voter groups based on religious identity, but voters seem uninterested in this rhetoric. The voters are interested in economics, education, transportation, corruption and that everyday life will be easier. But caste has remained important in political mobilization, says Jacobsen.
In addition to students from Scandinavia, there are also students from South Asia that study Religion and power of the study every semester. They often have longer educations already and know the community well.
-These students are important sources of information for the Nordic students. They can correct romantic and naive notions of holiness that many westerners have about India, and also some Nordic conceptions of other communities that may be characterized by complacency, says Jacobsen.
After a semester in Pondicherry he hopes the students leave with a good expertise concerning religion in India and India as a religious pluralist area.
-I hope they understand how religiuos diversity have shaped and shapes India, and that they reflect the religious diversity as an intellectual challenge. The course places special emphasis on religion related to locality and how religion focuses on material objects at these locations. Religion is at all something material, says Jacobsen.