Summary of 'Role of Religion In Resocialization of Prisoners' By Dr Mandeep Gaur 

1. EVOLUTION OF RELIGION

As human beings mused over phenomena like the rhythmic cycle of day and night, the rising of the sun at morning, accuracy of cellular composition in identical tissues of living entities, regularity of bodily functions, the appearance of gigantic mountains and vast oceans, raining clouds, rainbow-filled skies, the periodicity of natural disasters and the inevitability of death, they believed in the existence of Master Hand behind all these happenings. They pondered over it and imagined that it is an unseen force, energy or God. A super human-controlling power does exist they believed. Faith in this power became the basic tenet of Religion. ¹

In reality none can tell about the exact place and time of the or_igin of religion. All the theories of evolution of religion are mere speculations and we can say that when the wonderful events of nature attracted the attention of primitive humans and fascinated them, they started sharing this feeling of fascination with the fellow humans. After collective apprehension of these mysteries and wonders of nature, they assumed that there is definitely a Super-power working behind these events. Their intellect conceived the idea that if there is rule of this Supreme­power over all the natural events, then, definitely, control of human beings is also in the hands of the same super-natural power. The conception of this idea encouraged the primitive man to appease this power and use it in his own favour. He sought its help for the realization of his objects. This deliberate  consideration gave birth to two things, i.e., firm faith and practice of rituals. Faith was an attempt to relate with the Supreme-being and ritual practices were the attempts to appease this power for the realization of his own motives. With the development of human intellect his faith became more fixed and the form of ritual practices changed with the lapse of time. ²

During various phases of human evolution these beliefs and practices changed their modes and left their impact in the form of naturism, animatism, animism, fetishism, agnosticism, pantheism, panentheism, monotheism, impersonalism, totemism, mana, taboo, magic and myth. Though, these religious beliefs and practices changed many forms, and the scholars like Hobbes.. Locke, Rousseau, Spencer, Durkheim, Bergson, Darwin, Marx, Engels, Freud, Frazer, Tyler and Max Weber expressed their views about evolution in different terms, human faith in the existence of a Supreme-being and a trend of the practice of rituals in groups strengthened the mutual-relationship of human-beings; it transformed the savaged and barbarous men into civilized people and, ultimately, turned them into social and moral beings of the modern age. ³

2 RELIGION AND CIVILIZATION

There is hardly any civilization where religion did not exist in one form or the other. Some early travelers, ethnographers and anthropologists described that some tribes did not have any religion, but studies conducted later did not support their views. Their observations were subjected and biased because they attempted to define religion only according to their own notions of what constituted religion and did not apply any objective viewpoint to unearth the beliefs and practices of the primitive people. They ignored the fact that religions vary from civilization to civilization and from culture to culture. Religion has been found to exist from earliest times of human existence. ⁴ It is maintained that the predecessors of modern man, the Neanderthals, must have had some kind of religion, since it is evident from the .discovery in France (L.E. Moustier) that they buried their dead in a definite position and placed their tools at their sides, indicating a belief in the after-life. Religion: Journey from Primitive Form to Civilized Form

In the primitive periods, the religious element was blended with cultural element of existence. During savagery, the mode of human thinking regarding important matters was religious; it was., a kind of psychic expression that was active in all the major events of life. Thus, the birth, death, sudden manifestation of various natural forces, social customs, seasons, crops, group leader and everything else was interpreted and apprehended on the basis of religion.

Savages were not able to distinguish between natural and intellectual powers. Their religious life was born out of their belief in certain understandable, impersonal, non-material and unindvidualized supernatural power that resorts inside all the existing animate and inanimate objects. This power acted both for good and for bad. It was connected with the soul, ghost of the dead and the living being. They tried to please this power by offering the sacrifices of different types of animals and birds before it. Naturalism, animism, animatism, mana, faith in immortality of soul and faith in rebirth were the main features of this stage of human-civilization. 

About The Author of 'Role of Religion In Resocialization of Prisoners' 

Dr. Mandeep Gaur is a lecturer in religious studies. He is a keen researcher in the field of 'corrections'. In the present study, he emphasized on the fact that religion can play a big role in the social re-construction of prisoners. He has a firm belief in the potential of religion as a correctional agent. He claims that it's the uniqueness of the situation (prison environment) which compels the inmates to redefine religion and assign a new role to religious beliefs, practices and teachings.