Religious exclusion in corporates: Unspoken realities

Most of us in India may have been trained to believe that religion and politics are topics best avoided in a social and particularly, in a professional context. As a result, we barely create opportunities to have open and honest dialogues around this topic.

Religion is a deep part of our identity psychologically. It has an impact on our outlook in life, whether or not we speak about it. While there are thousands of academic and theological definitions of what religion is, the Religion and Mediation Action Guide produced by the United States Institute of Peace defines religion as, " A human response to a perceived non-physical reality concerning the origin, meaning and purpose of life. It is typically organized by communities into a shared system of symbols, rituals, institutions and practices.”

A definition such as this encompasses mainstream religions as well as other systems of belief including atheism, agnosticism, spiritualism and so on.

Given the deep historic trauma associated with violence related to religion across the world, we have naturally attempted to suppress conversation around it, particularly in the professional space where it does not have a bearing on people’s competencies. However, in the process, we have only suppressed conversation around it.

These internalised belief systems continue to operate within us, sometimes in an unconscious manner, even as we may try to stay neutral about it in our organisations. Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung famously said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” It is the same with religion in most workspaces.

The CEO of a software firm in Mumbai who prefers anonymity says, “I regard myself as secular, and I am open to hiring people from any background. As such, we do not have any discriminatory practices in our hiring process. However, if there is someone who requests during their interview that they will need to break for prayers during work hours, I do have an objection. It interrupts workflow and is simply unprofessional. I expect my employees to keep personal practices at home.”

If one were to assess this statement from an inclusion perspective, it may be considered a discriminatory practice, even as the person in question considers themselves secular. The question, though is about what is really excluded here - is it a particular religion(s) or the idea of religion itself?

Antara M, a human resource professional in the hospitality sector, says, “I have noticed most of my hiring managers squirm at the mention of religion. There have been times I have called out some managers when they recommended certain candidates for interviews. Invariably, there is a trend of religious preferences. However, when I try to have an open conversation about it, they simply say they chose candidates based on their experience and qualifications, not because of their religion.”

While there are no statistics published regarding experiences around religion in the workplace in India, some organisations are trying to neutralise the biases in creative ways. Antara adds, “For a short period of time, we tried a process of sending resumes for shortlisting by blinding the names of candidates. We thought it may counter some unconscious biases including religion, caste and gender. However, there was a lot of pushback from our managers who argued that it was essential for them to have complete information, so we had to go back to the old habit.”

Most employees we spoke to in this context expressed their need to keep religion away from their workplace conversations, though some of them did not mind religious expression through clothes, accessories, etc. They were also happy to partake of food shared by their colleagues as part of religious celebrations, as long as it did not breach any of their own food preferences.

Fixing the problem

People from minority communities do report feeling that they get lesser opportunities to be hired, as well as for growth and promotions. The lack of statistical data around this makes it difficult to address this issue openly.

However, organisations serious about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives could do a lot about this. Here are some suggestions to bring the unconscious to the conscious, as psychoanalysts would say:

Create spaces for celebration: Include religious celebrations as part of the organisational engagement initiatives. This will allow for people to familiarise themselves with each other’s ideas and practices of religion and open up conversations.

Make all religious holidays optional: In India, a lot of Hindu festivals are declared mandatory holidays for all, while some other religious holidays are often optional. Organisations may consider the possibility of making all religious holidays optional so that people have a choice around what festivals they wish to observe.

Avoid enforcing religious practices: The Union Bank of India drew a lot of flak in October 2021 by issuing a circular asking all staff and onsite vendor partners to follow a daily colour dress code for Navratri, failing which a fine would be levied. This invited outrage from a lot of quarters and the circular was withdrawn swiftly. There is a lesson to learn here though: organisations are not religious authorities and need to know their boundaries.

Build dialogue spaces around religion: It is healthy to create dialogue spaces, or simply educational sessions, as part of townhalls or occasional team meetings, where a short amount of time may be dedicated to a person sharing a little bit about their faith-based practices and how it impacts their worldview. When facilitated well, such spaces can break the taboo around religion and make people curious about each other.

One may argue that religion has nothing to do with the workspace. However, when something impacts our way of life, it also has an impact on the way we work. Organisations have a lot to benefit from by integrating religion into their DEI agenda, not merely in terms of metrics, but also in terms of creating interfaith harmony at the workplace and contributing to the larger socio-political milieu.

(Reji Varghese is the managing director of a fixture-building company. Rukmini Iyer is a leadership and organisation development consultant)