Introduction

Religion refers to all forms of belief systems based on spirituality, mysticism and faith in divinity in contrast with secular philosophy, which can also unite and identify groups, religious belief systems are those that center around some form or forms of the divine (Schipper, E.L.S., 2010).

Religious beliefs do not only provide a support system but it is a ray of hope in adverse conditions. At the same time, the worldview of any people provides a sense of identity for the entire community or group. Thus, religion remains as the most powerful forces influencing individuals and group decisions, livelihoods, perceptions of nature, natural hazards and associated risk and works as a key force behind the way a community or society interacts with notions of development and disaster.

Religious Rituals

The rituals are patterned, repetitive behavior focused on the super-natural realm and the enactment of belief expressed in myth and doctrine. Religious ritual has generally been seen as indispensable in deepening spiritual insight. The repetition of rituals instills religious values and attitudes in the lives of the worshippers. Ritual also expresses and emphasizes the things that bind a faith-community together and rituals portrays basic needs, values and aspiration of both the individuals and the communities.

Regularly performed rituals are called periodic rituals. Non-periodic rituals, in contrast, occur irregularly, at unpredictable times, in response to certain unscheduled events.

Risk Reduction during Disaster

Risk Reduction, which reduces the impact of hazards of a disaster, involves mainly three basic measures - mitigation, preparedness and advocacy. Mitigation is a way of reducing the frequency, scale and also the impact and intensity of hazards. Preparedness is a holistic approach which engages in itself the strengthening of locales, community, government and non-government activities to withstand, response and recover from hazards; whereas, advocacy is concerned with the social, political, economic and environmental issues, which are related with to the causes and magnitude of impact of hazards.

According to Schipper (2010), sociology of religion, cultural anthropology and ethnology are some emerging fields of academic enquiry to understand the role of religion in culture and society, and addressing the issues, such as religion and its interaction with, among other things, science, technology, education and politics. Unfortunately the important role of religion in shaping perceptions and attitudes and influencing key decisions is frequently forgotten particularly anthropogenic interactions with ecosystems, including behavior and attitudes towards nature. Religion is a significant factor that is usually not discussed in mainstream debates and only a few studies have been conducted in this regard (Bolin, R.C. & Bolton, P. 1986; Schmuck, H. 2000; Campbell-Nelson, J. 2008; Reale, A. 2010; Schipper, E.L.S., 2010 & Harris, D., 2012). Against this drawback, this article reveals the role of religious rituals in disasters –from religious interpretations of disasters to the roleof religious organizations in disaster mitigation,preparedness, response and reconstruction, throughthe example of Pulin Utsav, of Vrindavan (UttarPradesh, India), i.e., a non-periodic religious ritual.

Methodology

The area for the present study was the villages of Vrindavan, situated at the bank of river Yamuna. Both the sources of data collection, i.e., primary as well as secondary sources, have been used. Local residents, devotees, priests of the temples and visitors were interviewed.

The data has been collected through quasi-participant observation. Maintaining the position of a researcher, observations of their activities and behaviour were done by remaining at the periphery, which helped in bringing out a vivid picture of the role of the religion risk reduction in a disastrous condition.

An interview guide was used to capture history of the area, profile of natural hazards and disasters that have affected the community, periods of occurrence of disasters, type of the short term and long term strategies they were used to adopt, religious activities during natural hazard which could mitigate and hence enhance the resilience of the community to hazards.