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a human being’s relationship with his creator is a very personal matter. An individual has to make his final journey all alone to meet with the Creator of this universe, Ram, Allah, Jesus or any other name, but the power is the same. Religions emerged as vehicles to facilitate human travel through the road of life in a spiritual way so that the union of the soul with the Divine is liberating. Each religion came into existence to help its people tread on the path of truth, because at the end of our lives, the only thing that will matter are our actions and thoughts and not the name we gave to our God, the Nirgun Apar. Religion should help us to rise above the human follies of hatred, anger, lust and greed. Regretfully, as a society we have become more religious, but are moving away from the true dharma. In the name of religion, we have no qualms in targeting a certain section of our population, in lynching people, in bull-dozing some people’s homes. Every time excuse is the same; they are the bad guys – they deserve it since they need to be set right. That is not all. What do the rest of us do – we either pretend not to have seen or heard anything or at worst, are even happy about such activities. It is no one’s case that the guilty should be allowed to go unpunished, but all those guilty of similar acts should also be punished even though they may be from the dominant section of our population. Besides, all should be tried and punished after following due process of law. Justice should not be dispensed by vigilantism or roadside instant dispensation. An impression is being created that the unlawful elements from a particular section of the population are allowed to continue their nefarious activities to terrorize a section of the population and intimidate citizens like you and me.
I worry when I see a retired CJI and now a member of the Rajya Sabha, takings a partisan view of the fundamental basis of the constitution instead of giving the correct legal explanation. It worries me when a student takes a video of a teacher in the class and uploads it on social media, resulting in an FIR being registered and the teacher being booked under IPC section 295A for hurting religious sentiments. What the Hindi teacher, Mr. Ashok Sopan, was telling the students was that God is one and having a discussion on Saint Kabir’s views on idol worship. If all this is encouraged in the name of religion, it will then discourage well-meaning teachers to help students to develop critical thinking and a questioning mind, lest some religious sentiments are hurt. Are we preparing our students to become robots that they should only store the knowledge that is fed to them?
In India today, our social fabric is getting fragmented and the citizens are being programmed towards the concept of ‘Otherness’. It should be a cause of worry for every right minded Indian. There is still hope. May the Love for Humanity bloom and Hatred of Divisiveness wither.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.