Performing Religion, Faith, and Values by a Politically Contested Minority: Facilitation of Empathy and Forgiveness among Muslim Students and Teachers in India (Joining virtually)

The Muslims in India have been at a vulnerable position in the last one decade due to the political climate. The structural and religious oppression has the potential to trigger violence and riots due to its vulnerability of being a land divided into nations on the grounds of religion. The Muslims of India are reminded of having secondary status and added with negative derogatory identity labels by the majoritarian right-wing group. The present study looked at how does this socio-political oppression is perceived by the Muslim youth and whether it has effects on their religiosity, moral values, and sense of belongingness. The difference between religiosity and values of empathy and forgiveness in teachers and Muslims students are worth exploring to understand whether the two generations differ in the context of political oppressions. The hypothesis is that despite the experiences of religious oppressions, the Muslim Youth maintains their religiosity and values of empathy and forgiveness hold them non-violent. The connectedness between religiosity and sense-of belongingness is further analyzed to support the hypothesis.

Hanan PT, M.Sc. Statistics, Studies PG Diploma in Big Data Analytics at C DAC Thiruvananthapuram, India. Collaborating Statistics in multidisciplinary studies is an interest.

Mohamed Asheef TK is a postgraduate student of psychology in Aligarh Muslim University, India. Belonging to Kerala, the southern state of India, his areas of interest are positive psychology and mental health.

Suhara R. Hassan, is a Social Worker specialized in Psychiatric Social Work and is currently a PhD Scholar registered with Jamia Millia Islamia, a Central University in India. Suhara's areas of interest are mental health, families and children in difficult circumstances, research methodology, and intervention research.