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GIUMBELLI, Emerson. Brazil and India: Attempts at Comparisons Regarding the Relation Between the State, Religion and Society  . in: Vibrant – Virtual Brazilian Anthropology, v. 5, n. 2. July to December 2008. Brasília, ABA. Available at http://www.vibrant.org.br/issues/v5n2/emerson-giumbelli-brazil-and-india/

Abstract

The aim of this text is to produce a rapprochement between Brazil and India that takes the idea of multiple modernities as its reference. The terrain chosen is that of the relations between the State, religion and society. The first part of the analysis examines how the separation between the State and religion was put into effect in Brazil and India in legal terms, beginning with constitutional definitions.  In the second part, an analysis is presented of two historical situations that occurred during key moments of the constitution of Indian nationalism and Brazilian republicanism. The point is to show how a link was established between public culture and particular religious references – Hindu in the Indian case and Catholic in Brazil. In both cases the relation with modernity is reiterated by these two countries’ different ways of defining “religious space”.

Keywords: nation, modernity, religion