Tolerance and Religion

Before my rant begins, let me speak a bit about the the words 'Hindu' and 'Hindutva'. Due to the recent acts of violence and hatred carried out by the VHP and Bajrang Dal activists, everybody in the media (including people in the the blogosphere) has taken to condemning various aspects of "Hinduism". Yes, these acts of violence are cowardly and totally inhuman and I hope each and everyone invloved in such crimes of hate should be hanged by the neck till death. But, let me put some perspective in to this whole "Hindu" bashing fad. Which, for better or worse has also developed into the 'who's more Indian' debate.

Hindu is not a Sanskrit or Hindi word, in fact it's not even a word at all!. The early Persians who came to India just couldn't handle pronouncing the word Sindhu(Indus of Indus Valley Civilization as we know it) and so after much changes it simply became Hindu(which later became Hindustan) and the natives were addressed as Hindus. So everybody in the Indian subcontinent was known as a Hindu. Hinduism, in it's essence, has nothing to do with religion..it's all purely geographical. Before foreigners/invaders started coming to India, it was always known as Bharat(named after King Bharat) and it simply means lover of eternal knowledge and the religion(if you'd like to call it that) practiced was Sanatan Dharma which simply means eternal religion. So, the words Hindu or Indian or Bhartiya are one and the same thing. Of course, all invaders throughout India's history made sure they distorted the meaning. So the next time someone assumes you're a Hindu if you live in India...umm...it's technically right you know ;).

"Hinduism" is nothing but a set of beliefs, cultures and rituals(yes) that the inhabitants of this land inculcated in their lives through the thousands and thousands of years of our history. You have the same Christian wedding whether you're in France or Timbaktu, you have the same Nikah in every part of the world, but you'll see at least 36 different types of Hindu marriages in India. No baptism, no khatna There is no ONE GOD, there is no ONE holy book. Even the Bhagwad Gita which serves as the epitome of all "Hindu" philosophy talks about the WAY to lead one's life and nothing else. None of the Hindu scriptures or holy books talk about non-believers being "vile animals" or "destined to hell". There is NOTHING about other religions or non-believers...why? Maybe because this is much before the concept of religion even existed. Heck, with 18 Crore devi/devatas I think it would have been cruel to the human race..lol.

Some people also have trouble distinguishing Diwali or Holi from say X-Mas or Id. Let it be known that Diwali is an INDIAN festival, not a "Hindu" one as many of you know it. It has absolutely no connection to any religion whatsover. Let me explain; North Indians(yes, not Hindus) celebrate it as the victory of good over evil(I'm guessing you know the Rama,Sita,Ravana deal), and even then, instead of Ram,Sita,Laxman..we actually worship Ganesh and Lakshmi on Diwali night. Doesn't make sense right? And it doesn't need to. South Indians celebrate it for a totally different reason..something to do with narkasur. Jains celebrate Diwali for the same reasons and with same fervor as all "Hindus". Sikhs also celebrate Diwali but for a different reason and they call it Bandhi Chhor Diwas. There's a reason why the President of the USA addresses the Indian nation and wishes us happy Diwali. It is because Diwali is an Indian festival, not bound by caste, creed or religion. So the next time someone tells you that Diwali is more of an Indian festival than X-Mas or anything else....don't be mad....it's absolutely correct you know.

Am I making any sense up till now? Baah...I'll continue anyway. So you see, there are absolutely no rigid rules to be followed, not in the rituals, not in the festivals, not even in death. There is no ONE god/lord, no one way of life...nothing in absolutes. Generally the cow is considered sacred, but you have Kali temples where cows are offered as bali and meat is served to the pujaris as prasad. That is why it was, is and will always be the most tolerant faith on Earth. Note: I'm not talking about the VHP/Bajrang Dal concept of Hindutva here, I'm talking about the true essence of Hindu faith. As we discussed in the first paragraph, Hindutva, when translated, simply means Indian-ness, and that is how it should have been. Had all the emperors/invaders throughout India's history been like Akbar we would have no need to change its name from Hindustan.

A little bit on the “Indian-ness” and “tolerance” part of this great debate. Now, whatever I’m going to say is from my own experience and I don’t intend to generalize anything. From what I’ve seen throughout the 30 odd years of my life, many people, including Hindus, Christians, Muslim, Sikhs etc believe that by virtue of having a “best friend” of another religion or the fact that they mingle a lot with people of other religions they are “tolerant”. This can be so far!! from the truth. You befriend the “person”, you marry the “person” and let’s be honest; in a country like India you would have to be a moron of the first order to even think that you could get away without such inter-religious/cultural interaction.

Everybody who lives in modern age India and pretends to be(or really is) religiously tolerant will do some or all of these things: A self proclaimed modern Hindu will celebrate X-Mas, Id and even visit their Muslim and Christian friends places but he/she may tell their son/daughter to never marry a non Hindu or think of all Muslims as traitors. An educated Muslim will have lots of Hindu friends/colleagues and a high flying job but he may be secretly typing e-mails in lieu of SIMI or ISI coz TTT was a thing of ancient India. A well educated, well brought up Christian will mingle will people from all religions and cultures but he/she may be secretly thinking how to convert the bugger, coz very clearly, the days of TTT are over for them too. TTT stands for torture, taxation & tyranny.

How do we sort out the pretenders? More importantly, how do we sort out those who value their religion over India? I’ll tell you how. These are the people who lie low, masquerading as the “ideal” Indian citizen but come out of their shell as soon as something provocative enough happens. And then, sadly, there are those who don’t even need anything provocative. These are the people who view conversion as an act against their God and start taking innocent lives. These are the people who demolish mosques to avenge something that’s not even relevant today. These are the people who walk the streets as just another Indian but have posters of only Pakistani cricketers in their homes. These are the people who burst firecrackers every time India loses a match to Pakistan. These are the people who could care less about India or Indian-ness and their sole purpose is to go around proclaiming their God as the only saviour. These are the people who blow their trumpets of being an “ideal” Indian community not having the faintest idea of their miserable population Vs. enrollment ratio in the Indian army, the police, the administrative services or any public/social service cause (that does not involve religion).

If the rowdy Hindu MNS workers beat up a fellow Indian from the North to death it’s not so bad. But if a Hindu extremist takes Christian lives, it’s suddenly Christ Vs….well…who...Rama, Krishna, Shiva, Vishnu, Durga…who? It’s suddenly all about the shortcomings and intolerance of Hinduism. If you really are so tolerant, why would you not see this as just another inhuman act by some pathetic scoundrels destined to hell anyway? These are the people who’ll go to unknown lengths and nitpick on every damn thing about another religion when someone in their religion/community is attacked. These people, when provoked, will look for every conceivable way to justify their religion or God as being better or the ultimate one. Sad….but true. How do I know? Well…I have met my fair share of pretenders in my life, and fortunately, quite a few genuine ones too. The pretenders are usually very confused; they think they don’t take religion very seriously when in fact they do.

During my early childhood in Allahabad, my friends used to call me Zahir. My father wanted to name me that after Zahir Abbas(the famous Pakistani cricketer) but it never came through. Anyway, my friends still called me that…and I was also told that I had very Muslim features (dunno what that means). But it was ok, in fact the names kept changing from Zahir to Salim and some also started calling me Muslim Miya. After a while, some locals kids from a nearby area (all Muslim population) also started playing cricket with me and would also take me to their homes to meet their parents. Those kids were actually from a lower economic section of the society and it probably made them feel good to bring home a friend who looked taken care of(I hope J). But, I have known (still know) quite a few Christians/Muslims who will get thoroughly offended if anybody assumes they’re Hindu because of their first name or the way they dress or the way they talk, even if the other person was just wishing them for a festival. NO SIR!!,..no way…how the hell did you get my religion wrong.

I sometimes don’t understand why people take all these things so seriously. Mind you, these are the ones who go all trumpetty tibbity bippity on tolerance at the drop of a hat. If you truly believe that all Indians are your brothers and sisters then simply view it as a brother killing a brother. On the one hand you blow your tolerance and Indian-ness horns and on the other you say a Hindu killed my fellow Christian..I need justice!!, or a Muslim killed my fellow Hindu..so on and so forth. Please stop pretending! National Integration is a thing of the heart and mind, not the mask we wear in our daily lives. Some people don’t understand that religion is not something that can be mocked or made fun of. No matter how hard one may try, it’s just not possible. Some pseudo-intellectual Hindus (I’ve known quite a few) talk crap about some of the gods. Heck, I remember one Hindu batchmate in London who actually called Lord Rama an ass-hole. None of us said a word and could only feel pity for her. Pity not because she had abused our Hindu God, pity because she had demeaned and Indian holy figure in front of all the foreigners and became another victim of the so called “cool” era.

So that was...errr..whatever that was. I am an Indian and a Hindu. Does that make me more of an Indian than a Christian, Muslim, or Sikh? Certainly not, but the simple fact that I belong to the majority (which by the way was not my choice) should not make an easier scapegoat out of me. I am a Hindu because my forefathers did not convert or bow down to the violence. We didn’t choose our religion. Once the other fellow Indians converted to Islam or Christianity; we were attached to Hinduism automatically. Ever wondered why the Indian Ocean is called the Hind Mahasaagar? Why there are Hindukush Mountains? Don’t hate on the word Hindu, it’s an identity, an Indian identity. Of course, now it has been severely maligned by politicians and extremist groups, but if you can’t see through it…then please don’t call yourself tolerant. The only differentiator is our forefathers’ decision to hold on to our native faith while the others adopted foreign ones. For better or worse is entirely subjective. Know before you talk, criticize the individuals, the politicians, the extremists, not Hindus. And if you should, then do your research first...and a thorough one at that, including the history of major religions (including their history in India, trust me...it's not as rosy as you may think) and the writings of all holy books. Then, we'll talk about tolerance. Violence or killing in the name of God is evil, and anybody who commits such a sin will go to hell. Trust me, no matter what you books say...killers will go to hell, rapists will go to hell, bombers will go to hell, people who let you die of starvation unless you accept their God will go to hell. Don't criticize the faith for that, don't criticize God for that. Faith or religion is what people make of it, and sometimes it's not what God intended.