New Delhi, July 26 -- Recently at a media literacy workshop for students of classes VIII- IX at a school in the National Capital Region, the discussion veered towards belief systems. While several students talked about the different facets of religion and spirituality they have grown up with, N.K., 14, declared herself to be a "pantheist of sorts". I have not come across this term often, and certainly not declared with such conviction by an adolescent. At that age, most teens are navigating the intersections or dissonance between a budding personal belief system and that propagated by family and society, so this firm belief in nature being the sole source of all sacred energy in the universe came as a surprise.

"I look towards indigenous...