Though I refrain from writing about anything sensitive these
days because usually my remarks result in lots of controversy but still I
couldn’t resist from writing on this topic after watching so much hypocrisy of
seculars these days. You can find seculars almost everywhere, they could be
found with a very frustrated and annoyed look on a TV channel giving some high
level knowledge about secularism and religious harmony or you can find them on
any social networking site commenting on this issue with a very standard vocabulary
and other high standard remarks. They try their level best to show their
superiority by completely disrespecting and neglecting the religion they belong
to and proving every other person who follows the rule of their religion
inferior, stupid and blind.
At the core level, seculars are becoming as much trouble
giving as the communal and if I observe people around me, I don’t think they
belong to either category. Basically, no person is bothered about either being
a secular or a communal; everyone silently follows their religion and even participates
in functions of every other religion. We all are joined by only one bond and
that is us being a normal citizen of a country who has to either go to school
or college, or we have to go to our work station for work and as such there is
very little time to invest on thinking about our religion and what is happening
to it unless some communalistic person aggravates us or there is a high profile
media show involving both the communal and seculars, that is the only time
where we pay a little attention to this thing but the very next day we become
normal again.
Society is indeed a cluster of people belonging to different
religion who have very less time to think about their belief, most of us are
stuck in thinking about our grades or our promotion or our shop or our duties.
All Hindus wish their Muslim friends on eid and even visit their home for
eating ‘seviyaas’ and ‘biryani’ while all the Muslims equally celebrate major Hindu
festivals like Diwali, Rakhi, Holi etc. There exist not even a single visible
boundary and all respects others religions while following their own. All the
Hindus visit the dargaah of Salim Chishti and Moinuddin Chishti, and all the
Muslims also equally visit the holy places of Hindus and other religion.
At the ground level, both the communities co-exist peacefully and rarely there is any discussion
about religion. School, colleges, offices etc vanishes all the communal and
cultural differences and everyone is just a student or an employee, not Hindu
or Muslim or some other religion. But, as they say, even excess of education
corrupts you and it happens with the minds of higher intellectuals. Just to
criticize the tensions that happen due to religion, they start criticizing the
whole religion and the concept of religion. They show their moral superiority
by claiming that they believe the world to be a self running machine that can
be fully explained by science and they do not believe in any divine power.
Extreme end of both is faulty, the moral policing of the
extremist and the hypocrisy of seculars. No religion should be allowed to
decide what is one wearing, what is one doing and how is one doing and also no
secular should be allowed to comment on people who are following the rules of
their religion. If someone is bursting crackers on diwali, let them as one day
of crackers cause nigligible pollution in comparison to the pollution we create
via our factories, AC, Fridge, vehicles etc. If someone wants to play holi with
water, let them, saving 1 bucket of water in America won’t do any help to the
water driven states of Africa, there is no need of arousing emotions just for
the sake of it and also there is no need to compromise on one’s joy just
because someone else is unhappy in some other part of the world. If a
particular religion allows eating non vegetarian then let them eat, it
shouldn’t affect you, and there is no point in showing your supremacy over them
just because you are supposedly following a non violent tradition and they are
doing violence.
In the recent era, I have seen many people commenting on how
old fashion religions are and they apply the same old logic, that any religion
who exists in majority always try to dominate the other ones who are in
minorities. If I talk about India, then as Hindus form the majority, they are
often and often targeted and what I don’t like is that just because some people
have the freedom to speak they are really misusing it by forcefully carrying
the entire Hindu religion again and again in the witness box.
If we are having a ‘tilak’ on our forehead that doesn’t mean
we are showing off the power of our religion, if our respected prime minister
refuses to wear a cap offered by a religious leader then that is his personal
choice, that doesn’t mean disrespect to any other religion, surely there would
be some person from any other religion who would deny a ‘tilak’ on their head,
and all in all that’s just a matter of choice, you can’t blame a person to be
extremist for that. If someone is spending money in doing a pilgrimage or in
some pooja or something then there is no need for bring morality that this
money could have been spent in a better way, after all it’s that persons choice
how he want to spend his money, the money that he earned, why to make him feel
guilty by saying he is not helping the poor and wasting money on futile things.
What’s wrong would be forceful constrains imposed due to
religion or I should better say misinterpretation and selfish ignorant
modification of religion, if you are beating people on valentine day saying you
are protecting your culture then you are extreme fundamentalist, if you are
deciding rules and regulation on with whom one should marry and with whom one
shouldn’t and what one should wear and what one shouldn’t then again, you are
extreme fundamentalist, a religion would remain a way to live life and never a
way to control life and people should be free to live in any way they want to
live.
Sickulars can’t stop us for visiting temples, for dancing in
garbas, for playing holi, for eating seviyaas and sheer khurma, for giving
gifts on Christmas and the so called cultural savers can’t stop us from
celebrating valentine day or wearing whatever we want to wear. Both seculars
and communals need to go through all the religious scriptures once, as I am sure
they have never read it properly, understood its meaning properly and then
comment instead of making useless rules and harsh remarks on anything.
Even if you are an atheist, then remain one, no one is
compelling you to follow any religion, but don’t try to boast if off and hurt
any other persons sentiments, logic is on its side but at times there are few
things which logic can’t solve and where logic has nothing to do with,
reasoning become absurd, practicality is unrealistic, so it would be
appropriate to respect the difference in beliefs and not to hurt someone’s
sentiments. Sickulars also shouldn’t pass any inappropriate comment if a person
is following the trends of his religion and tag anyone as fanatic and
fundamentalist just because they are unwilling to mix up with the tradition of
some other religion. One could still respect every religion even if he isn't
following all of them so it would be better not to tag anyone extremist just
because they are not as flexible as others are.
Let us stay human, let us live and let live, let us enjoy
and celebrate, and let us not judge others life by our eyes !
