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Religion and Development: Understanding their Relationship with Reference to Hinduism: A Study Marking the Centenary of Weber’s Religions of India

An interesting debate in social science pertains to the relationship between religion and economy, particularly the areas of economic development. Both these aspects are so different that they are often approached with a streak of scepticism. Religion is expected to drive one away from this world, engaging one with supra-empirical and spiritual concerns, and it is to its amelioration that the process of development devotes itself. This relationship of religion and development being polar opposites was challenged in Max Weber’s comparative religious studies. Since then, it has generated an animated debate whether the cultural and symbolic ingredients present in Protestant ethics were found in other religious traditions. This article submits that religion, ‘in and by itself’, is neutral. So malleable it is to interpretations by people and their institutions at different points of time that it can be defined as promoting economic enterprise at one time, and at another, its pursuit may be situated as antithetical to economy.