The addictive logic of religious fundamentalism -Soter

 Lead article published in oHeraldo on May 25, 2026

A society does not become tolerant merely because the streets overflow with booze, food and merriment.

The recent controversy surrounding the hate-filled remarks against a revered catholic missionary saint was yet another flashpoint in Goa’s struggle with communal rhetoric. At first glance, the outrage it generated appears to signal a society unwilling to tolerate bigotry. But a closer look suggests something more troubling; the reaction itself may be fuelling the tactics employed from the playbook of societal polarisation it claims to resist.

There is no doubt that the remarks were reprehensible. But how they were circulated, debated, and instrumentalised can enable a pattern that benefits forces investing in deepening societal divisions. The cycle is by now familiar. An incendiary statement is made, it is amplified through social media, outrage follows, and political actors seize upon the moment to consolidate their respective bases. The public sphere gets gradually polarised along communal lines, episode after episode.

For decades, Goa has sold itself as an exception in India’s increasingly polarised landscape. But beneath this comforting self-image lies a harder truth: Goa has never been entirely free of communal fissures. Goa’s much-celebrated pluralism is less a lived reality than a convenient myth. The duplicity of ‘goykarponn’ makes it difficult to configure as to where the caste manipulation for political power and business monopoly ends, and religious intolerance begins. A society does not become tolerant merely because the streets overflow with booze, food and merriment. Violence does not need to be only physical rioting. It can also be psychological, social and political. It exists in humiliation, suspicion, intimidation and the constant signalling that a community does not fully belong. And it is this disguised and diplomatic form of violence that is being employed in Goa.

The hypocrisy surfaces in insinuations that some minorities are somehow less Indian because of their faith. It appears in conspiracy-laden conversations about conversions, demographics and “foreign influence”. It emerges when minority initiatives are viewed with suspicion while majoritarian assertions are framed as natural expressions of nationalism. It becomes visible when attacks on minority identity are dismissed as isolated incidents rather than symptoms of a broader ideological shift. Even if no stone is thrown and no place of worship burned, but a community is repeatedly given the message, directly or indirectly, that its history is suspect, its patriotism conditional, or its political and cultural presence is excessive, the damage is profound. Fear does not require mobs. Alienation does not require riots.

This denied reality in Goa explains why those who target the minorities through inflammatory rhetoric and communal provocation can operate with growing confidence. They are not creating divisions from nothing. They are exploiting tensions that already exist beneath Goa’s carefully preserved self-image. Beneath this visible coexistence lies an undercurrent that many Goans privately recognise yet publicly hesitate to confront, the growing normalisation of anti-minority sentiment in social discourse and political culture.

History across the world shows that societies fracture long before physical violence becomes visible. The emotional groundwork comes first. Stereotypes get repeated often enough to become common sense, minorities are pressured to constantly prove loyalty, and public discourse is shaped around resentment and grievance. Communalism often advances gradually through language, symbolism, historical revisionism and social suspicion before manifesting in more visible forms.

Fundamentalism, like chemical addiction, feeds on vulnerability, rewards repetition, resists correction, and thrives in enabling environments. Treating it only as a legal and political issue without addressing its psychological roots ensures that society remains trapped in an endless cycle of provocation, outrage, and recurrence. Hatred offers emotionally vulnerable individuals a seductive illusion of superiority. By reducing another community, religion, caste, or ethnicity, the bigot temporarily elevates himself.

Like chemical addiction, ideological extremism provides emotional intoxication. It offers certainty to the insecure, belonging to the isolated, identity to the confused, and power to the resentful. The bigoted mind, much like the addicted mind, becomes dependent on emotional highs from outrage, victimhood, superiority, and the constant reinforcement of “us versus them.” Just as addicts frequently resist intervention by becoming defensive or hostile, ideological extremists interpret criticism as persecution. For them police action feeds the delusion that they are “dangerous truth-tellers.” Public condemnation feeds their martyr complex.

When bigotry is tied to identity, fear, political power, or emotional conditioning, facts alone rarely produce immediate transformation. Psychologists call this motivated reasoning, in which people tend to protect beliefs that give them belonging, certainty, or status, even when contrary evidence is presented. In such cases, rebutting distortion with facts can paradoxically make some people cling more tightly to the falsehood because admitting error feels like losing identity or community.

This is not to advocate for silence in the face of hate speech. Accountability is essential in any democracy and the law must take its course. However, when outrage becomes performative rather than transformative, it risks serving as a recruitment tool for majoritarian politics. Each viral clip, each angry hashtag, can harden identities rather than challenge prejudice. The conversation shifts from addressing the root of what enables such rhetoric to a spectacle of indignation that ultimately changes little. The visuals of reactions from clerics, with religious symbols as the backdrop, provide the most desired publicity material for the fundamentalist propaganda. A “healthy” response does not ignore the insult, but tactically avoids getting pulled into the emotional and social dynamics that make such provocations powerful in the first place.

Better late than never, Goa needs to wake up and resist the current trajectory. But resistance requires honesty. It requires acknowledging that communalism does not always arrive shouting. Sometimes it arrives smiling, joking, provoking and normalising itself into everyday conversation until prejudice becomes ordinary.  Combating hate requires more than outrage after each incident; it requires long-term civic healing. The law can punish conduct. It can restrain incitement. But it cannot alone cure emotional dependency on hatred.