Communal Harmony
COMMUNALISM
Communalism is one of the greatest problems plaguing secular India today. Every morning there is at least one report on “Violent communal clashes” in one part of the country or the other. Scores of men, women, and children are massacred mercilessly in the name of religion. “O judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason”.
But what is the source of this discord between religions? The forceful imposition of one’s belief on others ? Conflicting ideals? Percieving of other religions as a threat ? Or can the explanation be as simple as a perennially growing culture gap which has precipitated into a LoC littered with minefields?
Let’s see:
If all religions said that the others were wrong, there wouldn’t be a single “Right” religion! So philosophically, they would all be on the same footing!! Since religion consists of a set of beliefs, and beliefs are but abstract , there is no real ground on which the superiority of a religion can be determined. Hence it follows logically that no religion can forcefully impose itself on others; a change of religion can be brought about by a change of belief; and that also means no one is to blame for religious inter-conversions.
Conflicting ideals? I can’t think of any. In fact, all “civilized” religions preach the same ideal: Righteous living. The trouble is the interpretation given by different peoples of the world –
The interpretation by great, learned men (of all religions) is “To live a peaceful and contented life, loving one and all unselfishly, adhering to moral values and helping those who are in need irrespective of caste, creed, or religion. And this alone can give a feeling of happiness and well being to a person.”
Unfortunately, the common people have been misled by power-hungry / fanatic religious leaders, who have classified butchering non-believers under “righteous” acts, their justification being self-preservation (wait, who’s doing the attacking?); or the irresponsible fourth estate – which derives morbid (and monetary) pleasures in reporting gruesome incidents with much fanfare. The society, influenced by these cunning men, has fed upon these ghastly occurrences for so long that hearts and minds are poisoned by vengeance, ‘ An eye for an eye has made the whole world blind’, blind because everyone thinks that they alone want peace, blind because everyone thinks that they are being forced into war.
So now that there is no threat, no conflicting ideals and no imposition of beliefs, why still the hate?? I’m led to conclude it is just a culture gap , which can be easily bridged if one can just accept the existence of a culture different from their own.
Still, for those who are unmoved, and insist on Jehads and Crusades and “Holy Wars”, I would recommend them Gandhi’s works or R.K.Narayan’s “Another Community”. If their foolishness (or religious fervor as they call it) will go so far as to ignore the warnings in the aforesaid works, then let them listen to this:
“There is only one way to conquer hatred. With the Truth. In a war, the only victor is death. Today we may quarrel whether to build a temple, mosque, or a church. If we keep at it, in the end, a consensus will be reached – and it will be to build a graveyard”.
M.Shankar
Communalism is one of the greatest problems plaguing secular India today. Every morning there is at least one report on “Violent communal clashes” in one part of the country or the other. Scores of men, women, and children are massacred mercilessly in the name of religion. “O judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason”.
But what is the source of this discord between religions? The forceful imposition of one’s belief on others ? Conflicting ideals? Percieving of other religions as a threat ? Or can the explanation be as simple as a perennially growing culture gap which has precipitated into a LoC littered with minefields?
Let’s see:
If all religions said that the others were wrong, there wouldn’t be a single “Right” religion! So philosophically, they would all be on the same footing!! Since religion consists of a set of beliefs, and beliefs are but abstract , there is no real ground on which the superiority of a religion can be determined. Hence it follows logically that no religion can forcefully impose itself on others; a change of religion can be brought about by a change of belief; and that also means no one is to blame for religious inter-conversions.
Conflicting ideals? I can’t think of any. In fact, all “civilized” religions preach the same ideal: Righteous living. The trouble is the interpretation given by different peoples of the world –
The interpretation by great, learned men (of all religions) is “To live a peaceful and contented life, loving one and all unselfishly, adhering to moral values and helping those who are in need irrespective of caste, creed, or religion. And this alone can give a feeling of happiness and well being to a person.”
Unfortunately, the common people have been misled by power-hungry / fanatic religious leaders, who have classified butchering non-believers under “righteous” acts, their justification being self-preservation (wait, who’s doing the attacking?); or the irresponsible fourth estate – which derives morbid (and monetary) pleasures in reporting gruesome incidents with much fanfare. The society, influenced by these cunning men, has fed upon these ghastly occurrences for so long that hearts and minds are poisoned by vengeance, ‘ An eye for an eye has made the whole world blind’, blind because everyone thinks that they alone want peace, blind because everyone thinks that they are being forced into war.
So now that there is no threat, no conflicting ideals and no imposition of beliefs, why still the hate?? I’m led to conclude it is just a culture gap , which can be easily bridged if one can just accept the existence of a culture different from their own.
Still, for those who are unmoved, and insist on Jehads and Crusades and “Holy Wars”, I would recommend them Gandhi’s works or R.K.Narayan’s “Another Community”. If their foolishness (or religious fervor as they call it) will go so far as to ignore the warnings in the aforesaid works, then let them listen to this:
“There is only one way to conquer hatred. With the Truth. In a war, the only victor is death. Today we may quarrel whether to build a temple, mosque, or a church. If we keep at it, in the end, a consensus will be reached – and it will be to build a graveyard”.
M.Shankar
posted by shankar at 11:20 AM
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