This blogger earnestly believes that, to be a secular state, we ought not to be sensitive to religious beliefs of its’ citizens. Instead we need to be brazenly indifferent about it. The state ought to display its supreme aversion and condescension to religion. How do we go about it? Considering the complications that our pluralism brings about, we need to go one step ahead of France and start offending sensibilities associated with faith. As a first step we need to demolish places of worship that are built on encroached land.
If we study the history of religions, it is easy to see that new Gods have not been discovered or broken out of nowhere. It is the cruelty and injustice of the priests, mullahs and other sundry intermediaries of God which have led to revolts and spawned new religions. Even today these very intermediaries create divisiveness through media, politics and other platforms. In matters of faith, everyone, turns serious, morose and sensitive. How can the State call their bluff?
Very easy, in fact….Any individual may be permitted to submit a declaration in a stamped document that he belongs to a certain religion. Those who do not submit such a document may be treated as a non-believer, ambivalent to religions. The stamped document can be of value Rs 1000- (let us not miss an opportunity to garner some revenue to the government out of this farce called religion). Those who do not submit any such document can be treated as who either doesn’t subscribe to any religion or who are believers but choose not to spend Rs 1000 to a (arguably) corrupt government and hence choose not to be publicly seen as belonging to any. If those who aren’t enrolled officially into any religion are banned from visiting the place of worship or propagating their religion and can only pray in the privacy of their homes, then we would have become the first country in the world to have cleverly nailed one of the most ludicrous rackets (of God’s agents on earth) in the world. In other words, we would have successfully carried out dis-intermediation of the God business, reduced entry barriers and facilitated easy exits too. Priests and Mullahs will have to look for alternate occupations like selling lottery tickets or becoming tea vendors. They might even migrate to the underworld and pose an existential threat to Bhai log in Mumbai.
Let us think further. What are the benefits of those who declare, say, Hindu? He gets to follow the Hindu succession Act, Hindu Marriage Act (if at all you see that as a benefit) and get to be burned, not buried on death. What if you choose to convert to Islam? You get to follow Islamic personal law. You can keep a few more wives (if you can afford them & are not particularly keen on a career in Government which has a precondition that you cannot have more than one wife living), you get to follow Muslim succession rules, you don’t get interest from Banks and get to be buried on death. Those who do not enroll in any religion get to follow secular personal laws, which do not permit more than one wife, get to be burned or buried or thrown into sea as they deem fit and get to follow secular succession Act. There could be all kinds of trivial reasons for conversion. Someone might choose to convert to Sikhism for the hilarious excuse that he needs to save money on a hair transplant and can spout a turban to hide his bald pate. Or he might just like to be known as a Sardarji. Proselytizing religions might sponsor mass conversions with Rs 1000 stamp papers using petro-dollars and church funds, but since the whole thing had deteriorated to a farce, wise citizenry might be unwilling to convert unless something more substantial is offered. Like a home, livelihood or hard, solid cash. Do you see a rush of individuals queuing up to subscribe to Christianity, Hinduism or Islam? No Sirree. Even a believer might choose to pray in the privacy of his home and choose not to flaunt his religion. No one will care a toss about religion.
Hmm… sounds interesting. Can we extrapolate this to the caste system also? Can we submit the aforesaid stamp paper and claim to belong to any caste we want? I foresee a queue of upper caste individuals waiting to declare as SC/STs to garner the benefits of reservation. Hence let us put a rider there. Once you submit such a document, then the person ought to be permitted to marry only from that caste. That settles it. Within a few years we will have the oppressive Hindu caste system reduced to a similar farce. All sorts of marriages of convenience might take place. Wealthy lower castes will declare themselves Brahmins and marry poor Brahmin girls. Poor Brahmins may aspire to move up the economic ladder by marrying someone rich from the backward castes. The benefit of reservation can then be given only to the offspring of such unions. There goes caste politics for a toss. It will be chaos in the beginning and an enforcement nightmare. In a few years we can claim to have broken the back of many divides and fissures in our society. What if two forward castes submit a document claiming to be backward and reap benefits? We might think of some safeguards to prevent such unions.
The seed of this idea was planted by one of my favourite columnists, Late M P Narayana Pillai, who proposed that anyone may be permitted to declare himself a Nair by submitting a stamped document. If you think I have a good idea or want to propose some changes to the above idea, I would be interested to hear about it. Or do you think I am crazy? Please tell me …
