Amartya Sen, Religious Identity & Conflicts

In his essays and lectures, Amartya Sen emphasizes again and again that all individuals belong to different groups. The fact that Paole is a teacher does not entail that being a teacher is his only identity. Besides being a teacher, he is also affiliated to diverse groups that give him some sort of identity. He is a hockey player, political activist, poet, Christian, childless parent, Indian etc. Affiliation to different groups give him identity which if a particular identity is prioritized over others, Sen argues, his identity would be wrongly misconstrued. This multiple affiliation by an individual leads Sen to argue that mono-categorisation of a person's identity is unhelpful and can easily play into the hand of a religious fundamentalist. Is Prof. Sen correct? 

I think as a non-religious person Sen fails to see how much religious worldview shapes the identity of a person. Key questions like where am I headed? How do I obtain moral learning from? What is the purpose of my life? etc are very significant matters in the life of a person. For a practising Christian or a Muslim these questions are answered through the sacred text. Unlike a non-religious person for whom where there is no particular source from where all these answered can be derived, a Christian or a Muslim search deep into their respective Scripture to get the answer. Departure from this practice would make him or her a non-practising Christian or a Muslim. 

Once a Christian or a Muslim learns an ethical pattern from the Scripture, he or she will apply the learning in all the domain of his or her life. Thus religious affiliation effects the person to live out his or her religious conviction. This religious affiliation takes priority over even national affiliation or family affiliation. This is the nature of religious affiliation. Religious affiliation does not always come into conflict with national or family affiliation. But sometimes it does. For example, even when former USSR adopted atheism as its official religion, faithful Christians refused to comply with the state's law.

Does this entail that a clash of civilisation is inevitable? No. But that is not the point of inquiry here. In this post I seek to underline that religious identity of particularly the Christians or the Muslims is the most primary identity and will continue to remain so.