Why should the minorities not fear?

Codified books have been a bane of religion – X,Y,Z (feel free to assign names). Thankfully for the ones that are still in their adolescence, they have to contend with just ONE. For the others who have seen through the days of unwritten text, have to content with as many texts as the number of gods.

The spirit of competition is good – it led to the discovery of the Americas and eventually Coca Cola. However competing religions are a bad press. When the guy dressed in robe preaches cosmic difference between believers & non-believers and a similarly vain dude goes bullshitting around with cow dung, it becomes nothing more than a clown show.

Allowing practitioners of another faith/god/opinion/ideology to co-exist with you is not tolerance; it is basic tenet of humanity.  

The case relating to Staines murder and the subsequent Wadhwa commission findings has a universal legal adage to it – innocent till proven guilty and for all the wrong reasons has allowed many a inglorious to roam free. On the role of Bajrang Dal’s involvement, the findings was quite clear and contrary to the advise of its counsel as well as the investigation team (http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl2021/stories/20031024003902400.htm).  However beyond the legal boundaries, lies a society that cares for it little less than going beyond the 2^nd line of a headline. This is the group that believes Modi did it the right way in Gujarat, that RSS had a hero in Godse, that Dara Singh was eponymous to his name. Religious tolerance, well that’s what gets thrown out while flying in the Puspak. Philosophies are better practiced than just remain in glorious textbooks.

Minorities have as much right to feel frightened as the majority has the right to feel threatened. Claiming a dalit as your own and then denying him the right to enter your sacred temples is what Mallya did by charging you to book a Kingfisher flight and never really taking off. Worse still, you are not served beef on board. 

Christian missionaries have for long carried the white man’s burden, the Islamist literature has for long spawned a group of fanatic zealots, but definitely when the mantle of upholding the national pride falls on to names like Godse and Dara Singh, there is a serious flaw in the conditioning of the modern Hindu. Nothing escapes a black hole, not light, not even our or their gods. All that enters becomes the same, a black hole. For the sake of argument, Holocaust may never happen again, hopefully the fear is uncalled for, but then some of us feel on the surface that it is time for the other party to be taught a lesson. Tolerance, that’s for the secular freak.

If churches are vandalized, so be it. If massive public ‘ghar-wapsi’ ceremonies are held, so be it. Even temples have reported increased cases of theft. Why feel the fear?

What New Year Resolution do we want?

Midnight of 31st, the compulsory wishes flow, it may be symbolic, but as along as there is a warmth in winter who will complain? Of the messages I got today, one series in particular interested me - HAPPY NEW YEAR 2015 written with 'Hindu' inscribed in the letters.

Are we heralding a 'Hindu New Year', the question I ask myself and how will it define what future we are shaping for our nation? While a section of our society plans a movement from 'Hindi, Muslim, Skih, Isaai, aapas mein sab bhai bhai' to 'Gharwapsi' and from celebrating 'Gandhi Jayanti' to 'Godse Jayanti', what is expected of the others? Who are these others who are re-writing Mythology as History? What are their numbers? To what level of intolerance will they go? & more pertinently, how many of us will adhere to these views or dangerously still be blind to this transition in our society?

2014 was the year we saw a massive mandate in the name of 'Achhe Din' but this was also the year where fundamentalist Hindutva came out of with a full-fledged Bhagwa drive to saffronise not only our policies, but also our history and thought. The government of the day has been a mute spectator to this undercurrent that is assuming the shape of a wave which will define this nation for the years to come. Appeasement was bad, but Hatred would be destructive. And in the process of this intolerant Hinduisation, we may just be breaking the basic fabrics on which this religion has stood to the glory which the nationalists tend to infuse us with.

Will the tolerant Hindu be able to withstand this militant thought that threatens to destroy it or will mark the advent of the militant Hindu? Exaggeration in celluloid is entertainment, in reality, it assumes the shape of a dangerous propaganda. Reducing all the 4-5 centuries of Mughal rule with a single word 'invaders' is not the correct route. All it takes is a single drop of poison to make the entire glass of water poisonous. The venom in our thought we are sowing today will one day become a hydra that will swallow us with a disdain it reserves for the races doomed in their pride.