Asma Jilani Jahangir is a Pakistani human rights lawyer and activist who co-founded and chaired the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Her talk focused on how government failure to address the questions of religious intolerance and free expression dilutes the principles of democracy, equality and justice, particularly for women and religious minorities. Religious intolerance gives rise to religious militancy, which further undermines democratic principles as national security measures come into play. In the process of combating religious tensions, the challenge today is to protect democratic principles and values rather than dilute them.
Amartya Sen is Thomas W Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, at Harvard University. He is the recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics and an honorary fellow of LSE.
Chetan Bhatt is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at LSE.
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Religious Intolerance and its Impact on Democracy