My first brush with religion was as a boy of 5 (as far back
as I remember). My mother would sit me down with my sister every evening at
about 7pm and ‘make us’ pray to Lord Ganesha – the first among God’s – the
‘Vighnaharata’ – the destroyer of all obstructions. I never much understood
what I was saying or whom I was praying to, except I believed that my mother
knew it and so it must have been right. This ritual went on for about another 7
years. The only time of the day when my sister and I would prostate before the
almighty and mime words in Sanskrit and pay our obseience to our maker would be
the 7pm evening prayers. I give credit to my parents for never trying to force
religion on me. I always assumed it was their background as medical
professionals that made them have healthy reverence on the almighty but never too
clingy and over dependent. I must have been about 12 years old when religion
hit me hard. On one of my visits to Bombay (Oh! How much I loved those yearly
visits), I happened to notice that my cousins – who were much younger than I
was, had memorized Sanskrit hymns for every occasion. There was a morning
prayer; there was prayer before meals, an hour long evening prayer and a prayer
at bedtime as well. To add to that my
cousins were followers of Sathya Sai Baba and attended classes to learn more
Sanskrit prayers. I felt an inferiority complex for the first time in my life.
I felt I was the atheist of the family who many times gave a miss to the 7pm
evening prayer (my 5 minutes with God) and here were my cousins, much younger
than I who spent so much time just praying. Once or twice, I even heard few
relatives commenting that we (my sister and I) were not brought up well and
religious culture was not imbibed in us. I did feel I was missing out on
something. It was the cult feeling – everyone in the family was overtly
religious except for me.
I do remember asking my mother, why we have to say the same
prayer every day while my cousins know so many hymns and ‘shloka’ in Sanskrit.
To which her reply was simple – Ganesha was the provider of knowledge and
students my age should seek knowledge. “If you pray to him daily, you will,
through him, learn about other Gods” – still remember her short reply. Needless
to say, I spent most of my childhood either playing games or studying math – my
mother loved math and had always aced it – I was performing not too bad, but
excellent was my benchmark. As far as I remember, my sister and I were the only
2 kids in the family whose benchmark was always higher in terms of behavior and
academia. It was like my parents were making up for the lack of religious
enthusiasm with acute detailing of acceptable behavior and academic levels. I
must give the credit where it is due, if I am of some standing today, morally
or academically, the credit goes to relentless pursuit of perfection on basis
of ‘active pursuit’ by both my parents. Needless to say, very early in my life,
my subconscious was developed for ethical behavior than ornate display of
religious devotion.
I must be biased in my views, but religion has always been
personal to me. It was so, because it was fiercely personal to my parents too.
I remember not having remembered what religion or caste most of my school
friends belonged to. In fact, it was news to me in 8th grade, when
one of my teachers told the class that one can guess a person’s religion by
knowing the name. I remember discussing the topic with my grandmother, who then
gave me a detail picture of how divided we are within Hinduism – caste and
sub-caste wise; and at a higher level on basis of religion. I must say, it was
the day I lost my innocence. I started to read into people’s names to find a
trace of the religion they belonged to. I mean – innocently- it was a new
science to me and I wanted to make sure I perfected it. I don’t blame my
parents or even grandparents for any caste bias they had in mind. They were
after all from a different generation and these identities mattered a lot to
them. I remember my father’s shocked face when I told him “I don’t like you
treating Muslim patients to working in Muslim area”. Yeah, ghettoization began
long before I arrived in this world, apparently. I had always known my father
in two shades – smiling and happy when I was good and unforgiving when I did
something bad- that day I saw a third shade- of disappointment. He sat me down
and calmly explained to me how religion was irrelevant factor for a doctor to
treat his patients. He went on explaining at great lengths of how we are born
equal – irrespective of caste or religion and we all seek to pray to the same
God whom we refer to in different forms. I must say, to this day, I try and
follow those words in letter and spirit but I never really knew what they meant
then. Soon we got more involved into academia and pressures of higher studies
took precedence over all other issues – religion included. For the next 6- 7
years religion was wiped out of my memory… until 2002 riots came long.
I remember as if it was yesterday, I was arguing with a
bunch of classmates on what happened in Gujarat. It was an emotive issue and
the whole of India was divided into “pseudo-secular” and “hindutva” ideologies.
I was called ‘pseudo’ secular because I believed that one must not harm others
at all cost. Enforcing law and order is duty of state and not for individuals
to arrogate it onto oneself. I must say the scars of what happened in Gujarat
left indelible mark on my conscience because it challenged each and every
doctrine of life – as I had learned from my parents. Apparently, religion had
become an ornament one must ostentatiously wear and show off at every possible
occasion. I could not accept universal acceptance to this new doctrine. While
we were debating religion, lot many channels started mushrooming (television
boom) who gave religious sermons. India was never as openly Hindu and so
unabashedly too. Every channel, worth its salt had a “baba” who would preach
you Hindu way of life. Not to be left far behind – Muslims had one channel,
Christians had foreign English channels and Sikhs had Punjabi religious
channel. In short, religion had become such a important part of everyone’s
life. Everyone I knew was following some “baba” or “fakir” or “pastor” and I
was left behind the learning curve with only values on humanity with no grasp
of religion. I remember being outcast in many a discussion – “Which baba is
God?” I had enough people telling me – this topic is not for you, you are an
atheist. I was not. I would be proud of being an atheist if I was one, but my
subconscious was trained to “religion is personal” not to be discussed or
debated. Apparently, we had become so involved in religion that we needed to
see a living, physical form of divine and not just accept the existence of a
divine spirit. Religion was the most – in your face thing. Everyone, who was
anyone, came out with ridiculous proposition of how we Indians need to
safeguard our “religious culture”. It goes without saying that many of these
involved in what women could or could not do.
We saw a spate of violence against “immoral” pub going young
women or couple canoodling on Valentine’s Day or women visiting holy shrines or
women having a grip of their bodies or sexuality. As an adult myself, having
met my fair share of women, I knew that women were as free spirited as I was
and I had no right to demand something from another human being that I would
not do myself. ‘Women’ was the rare unifying force for all the various religion
and caste that exists in India. All the religious leaders or caste ‘panchayat’
or ‘Khap’ were unanimous in their decree of making women freedom subject to
restraint from the male members of her family. At first, people privately
disagreed or refused to follow the ‘dictat’ but once the spate of violence
increased targeting young women on pretext of “protecting culture”. India – I
mean liberal values within India stood up and fought these fringe elements that
had made their way into mainstream tagging onto the coattails of religion.
“Babas” faced a unnatural prospect of being question of what they considered
was Gospel according to them. As days passed by, every now and then a baba was
exposed for improper sexual conduct. The skeletons started falling out – from
baba of ‘puttaparthy’ to ‘Nityanad’ to several other small timers were being
exposed by the day. Many others got involved in politics and were caught off
guard wielding clout. Rest of Babas, were plainly using ashrams for illegal
trafficking. All of sudden, so much muck was being raised on the so called
“holders of Indian culture” that these pseudo vigilante movements against women
morality stopped abruptly and died an unnatural death. Volunteers of these
fringe groups could not justify calling a woman immoral when his baba was
caught sleeping with 3.
I was once told that Indians can let go of religion but
religion shall never let go of India. Sure enough, the religion struck back
this time targeting free speech, literature, arts cinema and whole host of
things. Today, as we speak, there are fatwas or threats being issued against
some painter or film maker or writer for “hurting religious sentiments”. This
time the vengeance is even stronger because in some form, the state is
protecting these fringe groups. Somewhere, it seems the constitution mentions
that free speech or expression can be curtailed if it happens to hurt
sensibilities of some fringe element – provided the fringe element threatens
violence. I would really like to read this constitution that is strictly
subscribed by these states and not seen by the rest of us (including the
Supreme Court). How is it, that religion which should have been a part of
individual identity – a personal part, becomes so larger than life that it
infringes upon people’s right to expression through their art / literature /
film? How can a State, sworn to protect
individual fundamental rights of citizen under the constitution, abdicate their
duties to pander to fringe elements. Why is India the only country which has
more exception than rules? We must try and answer these questions in the
context of importance of religion is one’s life. If I can write an article
disliking a tenet of the “Holy Quran”, should I be condemned to death for
blasphemy? If I write a movie script depicting fundamentalist Hindus blowing up
the ‘Taj Mahal’ do I mean disrespect to all Hindus? If my friend – who has a
natural talent for music has to give up her singing because its “haram” in
Islam but the same Mufti is silent about several people who kill in the name of
Islam, should I not question that Mufti’s understanding of religion? If in any
form of art, I offend my God, who by the way has no qualms about being depicted
naked, should I be persecuted in my own country? Finally, is religion the only
significant thing left on which we are ready to kill/ maim / hurt fellow
Indians with whom we share this wonderful history of togetherness? I do hope
someone is listening to my silent prayers and sooner than later we will again
defeat these fringe elements and relegate them to the fringes. Nothing can be a
good reason to harm a fellow human being – not even religion.
So long…
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