Oh! Boy.. This post is going to be controversial…!!!
A few days back, when P Chidambaram attended the Deoband national convention, all he would have had in his mind would have been political motives. The support of Muslim organizations like the Jamait-e-Ulema is absolutely essential for a party which claims itself to be a secular one. But this raises an interesting question.! If u r secular, why even bother attending a religious convention? Would he have taken the time off his busy schedule (when he should have been contemplating and formulating defense strategies against imminent attacks from the other side of the North Eastern border or even better, addressing the naxal problem of the north east where innocent policemen and civilians are being decapitated) to attend a Hindu/RSS convention that promotes Hindutwa? It should be either ‘all or none’ if u r a secular party. Shouldn’t it? What this shows is that at the end of the day every single politician in our country is a bloody hypocrite.
This fatwa raised against Vande Mataram states that ‘no muslim can/will worship the Nation. They can only worship Allah, not the mother land. ’ But experts believe that Vande Mataram actually means to respect the motherland and not worship it. Irrespective of this, I believe that when this song was promoted, the people then had no intentions of disrespecting other religions. The first Indian national flag raised by Bhikaji Cama in 1907 is a proof of that. Or atleast that’s what I think. I may be totally wrong too.
The Flag of 1907 (Wikipedia)I did all my 14 years of schooling (yet I have not learned much :P) in two Christian institutions. I have started each and every working day of those years offering prayers to Lord Jesus. As my previous post most obviously indicates, I have also dressed up as a santa. But I m a practicing Hindu. Does it mean I should never worship/respect other religions? Absolutely NO…! At the end of the day I believe there is only one god. It may be Shiva/Jesus/Allah/Nature. We do not know for sure. But the point is that religion is just a basis for an identity. Not a measure of our superiority.
In this week’s ‘We the People’ in NDTV, when a young muslim musician echoed my thoughts when he said he respected every religion and worshipped every god around because there was only one god, he was fried by the supposedly elder section of muslim junta in the panel. This sums it up totally. For us, the younger generation of India, the future of India, NATIONALITY is our identity and not religion. We may have enrolled to visit temples or churches or mosques but we most definitely have not enrolled to disrespect or disbelieve other religions and gods. Atleast the sane people.
The one major upsetting outcome of this fatwa might be that AR Rahman may not ever be allowed to sing his beautiful version of the Vande Mataram again.
Rammy
Good article. Just a small thing about religious conventions. The reason why the JEU is so important is that it represents the followers of a central faith. They rule by edict. However, there are no hindu 'conventions' in India with 1% of the influence that the JEU has. Put into that context, this article is very enlightening. The fatwa is not mere chest-beating, it assumes the power of an unwritten law.
ReplyDelete1)If politicians are to be blamed, they must be blamed for this:
In a free country where all citizens are equal, how in the world do the muslims have a separate civil code? It is well established that the so-called shariah law is a medieval , demeaning, and utterly useless collection of mambo-jumbo. By giving the muslims their seperate legal space to operate in, you will pre-empt such acts of dissension. Secularism cannot be pushed beyond a point. We are a nation, not a collection of people.
2) Secondly, with regards to this quote:
"For us, the younger generation of India, the future of India, NATIONALITY is our identity and not religion"
I wish that was true..Just take a peek into the madrassahs of the deoband, or those youthful creatures that constitute the SIMI. A very small but significant portion of india's younger generation is upto no good.
Another group are the ones that form the youth wings of political parties (there some really good apples and bad apples here). The remaining are worthless in the sense that they are incapable of making any political difference. I say this because NATIONAL identity is different for all three groups. You are talking about the third group. They will be sidelined just like the Hindus if they donot make noise, despite being the majority ( which I strongly doubt they are...)
3)The vande mataram fatwa is the most publicised. In discussing that we forget that the JEU also frowns upon higher education for women, prohibits co-education and asks women to wear a tent (the hijab). Such medieval dumbfoolery cannot be tolerated, especially in a so called democracy.
ooh.. thats a post in itself. I understand u da. ! i do not know how to respond to ur comment..!
ReplyDeleteNice one...
ReplyDeleteGood one Ram!
ReplyDeletestrong views expressed..
ReplyDeleteI just hope a world of atheism dawns in the near future. get away with all religious practices and strip the power of the religious big heads. I believe religion by itself is a medieval (or may be even a stone age) idea.
Socialsim can be achieved only if there is no wealth to divide. Same way, religious pluralism can be achieved if they r not practised at all. With the passage of time, just as the crude practices of medieval times get abolished, no one dares to challenge religion as it occupies a sacred position in the minds of the public.
gud one da rammy !!
ReplyDeletein response to anonymous:
ReplyDeleteCommunism and socialism are even greater evils than an organised , centralised religion. Infact both of them seek the same subjugation of the masses. On in the economic sphere and the other in the emotional/spiritual sphere. As long as religion remains a personal moral compass and a uniform code of values, it wont cause problems.
"Same way,religious pluralism can be achieved if they r not practised at all"
Typical upside down commie reasoning. Economic justice can be achieved if wealth is completely destroyed. Racial inequality can be abolished by ethnically cleansing all races. All of these are statements make sense only grammatically. But then, isnt that true for the entire spectrum of socialist thought?
please continue to amuse me.
Good one. Like you said most of the muslim's just
ReplyDeleteabide by religion laws rather than Indian law.( Not meant to offense their worship - I mentioned about their divorce method) .But most of their laws finally leads to male chauvinism.Men can do anything but not women .. How one can raise fatwa like violent things in a big convention?
For politicians especially for congress which banks on muslim votes there is no other way ..
Anyway Hindu fundamentalism also a bad one.. You can see the raise of MNS in mumbai and what they are doing there ..
good post anna! and I'm wondering if things will ever change for the better!
ReplyDelete