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 …
5 comments:
Present day humans have existed for the past about 40,000 years and much before if you include various other forms of homo-errectus, homo-sapiens etc. who have been around for the past 200000 years.
Various estimates made by mathematicians, historians and others put the beginning of concept of humans reposing faith in God to around the time 10000-15ooo BC.
The Mahabharata and Ramayana are estimated to be the folklore of 9000 BC carried forward orally from one generation to the other till they were scripted down by sage Valmiki etc. All religions have sprouted out of necessity of the masses at differents parts of the world, at different times.
It would therefore be incorrect to conclude that newer forms of religions have come to being merely due to "corruption of intermediaries".
Governments (especially in this part of the world) is hardly in a position to make every one part with 1000/- for a stamp paper on which to take the declaration of one's faith. Even if it succeeds, I fail to see what use such information can be put to.
It is better if the state remains completely irrelegious and does not pretend to have 'equal respect' for all religions.
The only panacea to wriggle out of the mess created by pseudo-religious outfits is to educate the masses and enable them to see that what matters more to one and all is 'Roti, Kapda aur Makaan', and nothing else. Such emphasis is purely a secular lookout !
The response to the original blog may appear to be disjointed and incoherent, but then the the blog itself is as inane as it professed to be !
Lungiwala
Middlemen in religion have existed and thrived mainly due to ignorance of the masses who are easily shepherded into per-ordained religious path by smooth talking, shrewd conman (in worst possible cases) or by few saintly persons genuinely dedicated to the welfare of the people (in best possible cases). Most other cases of middlemen, priests and mullahs fall somewhere in-between who have harnessed their position for personal gains with religious sanction.
It is quite an interesting idea that the STATE could be deployed to drive such people out of business. Do you recollect that till mid 18th century, all over the world, the STATE itself was an aggressive promoter of religion ?
Religions have been most useful to mankind for various reasons including giving solace during periods of grief and penury, guiding people on path of virtue and have generally propagated desirable human values like truth, justice, freedom, compassion, knowledge etc.
I believe and hope that in the coming decades, centuries and millennium, religions will once again be called upon to correct the deficiencies of Democratic, Free Market capitalism to which the whole world is inching to.
My dear Lungiwala
Happy to see your comments and thanks for not dismissing me off as a loony. Let us try to distinguish between God and Religion (including agents of God representing religions). While it is true that God gives succour from grief etc let us try to keep the middlemen out of it and seek relief from adversity in the privacy of our homes. While collecting 1000 Rs from its citizenry (for no apparent purpose except to fill its' coffers), the govt would be sending just that message- that religion is an irrelevant joke.
Except for the original, uncomplicated religions which idol worshipped, believed in occult/sorcery/black magic and incredulous theories of origin of mankind/genesis etc, all other religions, my dear Lungiwala are, primarily rebellions against the clergy. I do not wish to offend any sensibilities and have my limbs hacked in the process.
Do you really think that the world is inching towards free market capitalism? I don't think so. May be not freer, maybe less market. Maybe more subsidized, decentralized and planned. The deficiencies in the system ought to be corrected by bankers, policy makers, politicians, bureaucrats etc and not, by religions or Godmen, methinks. Hidden in your hypothesis is the assumption that those who believe in God/religion etc are good souls and those who don't are more likely to be living in sin. Somehow this hypothesis, my dear Lungiwala, is extremely flawed. I can cite several living examples. Also, it is for the liberation of those Lungidharis (as against those clad in Hugo Boss suits) that we need to reduce the role of religion in our life. So I believe you should join hands and fight this scourge called religion, which apart from occasionally propagating desirable human traits, have also killed more people than wars, natural disasters and airplane crashes put together. Enjoyed your comments, anyway
Lungiwala is pleased to invite you to his own blogspace at :
http://sevennotrumps.wordpress.com/
Apropos your essay on GOD BUSINESS.
You have stated that the State should insist on asking every citizen to officially declare his or her religious leanings. May be, this will enable the municipal authorities to plan the requirements of burial places, cremation places ,ghats, etc.
You have also thrown the option of people declaring themselves to be of no particular religious leanings. If such be the case, what does the state do (for disposing off the mortal remains) ?
a) Throw them in the Sea. But how about those places away from coastal or peninsular India with no access to Seas ?
b) Bury them. But then State should not knowingly or unknowingly favour one religion over the other.
c) Burn them. Same predicament as above.
d) Mummify them ? Well, that sounds like an interesting option !
I carried out some research and was surprised to find that mummification has been practiced since 9000 BC first by South American tribes (in places which are now in Chile, Argentina etc).
The practice ended around 2000 BC when the tribes disappeared suddenly.
Much later, i.e., around 5000 BC, the practice of mummification of the dead practice started in ancient Egypt by people who populated the banks of Nile. This too ended around 200-500 AD during spread of Christianity in middle east, especially areas around Egypt.
In its heydays, mummification in Egypt was perfected to high art with services of specialists used and no expenses were spared, particularly by the wealthy and royalty. The embalmers were keen uses of scented oils imported from India ! I was also surprised that India possesses a strong marine mercantile communities who have been trading with Rome, Greece, (pre-Islamic) Arab World, Egypt and hold your breath, with the (north and south) Americas !! Items of export from India typically included Gold, Gems, Jewellery, Sandalwood, Spices, Herbs, Silk, Hard Teak Wood etc. There are evidences available of Indian merchant ships doing the rounds of Java, Sumatra, Chinese seas, Aden, Greece, Rome since 4000 BC !
The State should really wriggle out of its inertia of accepting the western history of India and fund massive research into the ancient past and authorize scientific documentation of our knowledge.
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