Dilemma of a hesitant or may be a pseudo-secularist!
He believes that no religion has a monopoly on issuing passports to heaven. But he also believes that one can only practice rituals of the religion in which one is born. He recognises that peace may follow when one practices some of the rudimentary rituals. But argues, and rather vehemently, that the rituals are the reminders of all that is odd and awkward with religions. They take away one from the spiritualism and often make the envelop more important than the letter inside. He genuinely accepts that while one can use slangs or icons of the religion in which one is born as a fill-in-the gaps in the faith cycle, so to say the punctures in the faith tube. But then treats them as a limitation of his vocabulary or linguistic repertoire. He would not discriminate against any one on account of the religion in which one is born but then he realizes that he does not come across as many good candidates as he wishes from other faith as would warrant a fair chance of their representation in dominant institutions of society. And where his power comes into play.
he would go out of the way in providing relief or succour to the victims of communalism but also recognise that fundamentalism is not a preserve of any one faith or religions. He believes that those who commit injustice are not moved by their religious faith or holy books but by the myopic understanding of what it means to be a good follower of any faith. The hatred to, him is incompatible with the most limited understanding of what constitutes humanity or basic human values. But he knows that he lives in an environment where his own parents might consider some believers to be more eligible seekers of His grace than others.
He decries the violence, discrimination and hatred but finds unable to dance at every party that declares similar concerns. He does not feel the need to carry his secularism up on his sleeves all the time. He will help anyone who deserves but is acutely aware that not all those who deserve his help have an equal chance to access him. He knows that there is hardly party or social group or individual who has not betrayed the human faith in hours of social crisis at least once or twice or may be more times. He knows that those who claim their own religion to be superior to that of others are misguided, and suffer from an inferiority complex. And yet, he finds very few people make an effort to understand and appreciate goodness in other religions. He bemoans the death of deen ey Elahi, propagated by Akbar which synthesised the best in all religions but realizes that one can at best be a good follower of a faith in which one is born, or the one which he adopts for his life.
He recalls that lakashman, the younger brother of Ram was asked to go to Ravana ( when the latter was on his death bed) and take lessons from him, since Ravana was a great yogi and learned man. But he finds untouchability being practiced by many in his tribe when it comes to deal with those accused of occasional human rights violations in the past. Would not all who kept quiet when injustice was being done, become culpable then? who has not kept quiet when some injustice was done some where he ( ‘he’, all along this write up has included ‘she’, of course) was present or with which she was involved in?
How do we deal with Gandhian advice, don’t hate the doer of a wrong act, but the deed? Neutrality as Albert Camu and Dinkar said, is not a choice. Dinkar said, pap ka bhagi nahin hai keval vyagh, jo tatastha hain, samay likhega unka bhi apradh ( those who perpetrated the violence are not the only one to blame, those who remained quiet or neutral are equally culpable, or deserve to be blamed)!
Anil K Gupta
