I use Django with and without HTTP.

All a Django View is is a function (or in the case of a class-based view, a method of the class) that takes a request object and returns a response object... this is pretty fundamental to HTTP, so any HTTP app will do this. Its not Django dictating it, its the nature of HTTP.

You don't have to use any of those parts of Django if you don't want to.

I often opt to use Jinja2 instead of the Django Template Engine. I happen to like the Django ORM, so I usually do use it, but you certainly don't have to, I have certainly used Django without models before. Your views don't do anything with models unless you tell them to.