"Jahan tak Ram Janambhoomi ka sawal hai, koi ma ka lal Bhagwan Ram me hamari aastha aur nishta ko diga nahi sakta (No one can shake BJP's faith and reverence to Lord Ram),"
I was surprised to see the party president so vehement on the issue for I have memories of him as an inarticulate, almost incompetent speaker when he tried miserably to defend his party in the aftermath of Godhra. But then I saw the actual video of his speech where the man raises the gauntlet of faith to be cheered by an audience with cries of "Jai Shri Ram".
It is just miserable that a mainstream political party is able to win seats in the parliament by harnessing its agenda on an religio-centric issue like this. The talk of giving this issue the highest priority in their political agenda is understandably directed to a section of the Hindu classes comprised of the middle class and upwards. And it would be least surprising if a large part of educated Hindus actually vote for the BJP across constituencies obeying the calling of their faith. A good part of my extended family falls in the bracket of these deluded fools. They remain blissfully unaware of the moral obligations that they have failed to live upto.
We have a plethora of political critics attacking the BJP's stand on the basis of its provenance in pernicious identity politics but surprisingly, not on the basis of its inherent irrationality and subterfuge.
It is just miserable that a mainstream political party is able to win seats in the parliament by harnessing its agenda on an religio-centric issue like this. The talk of giving this issue the highest priority in their political agenda is understandably directed to a section of the Hindu classes comprised of the middle class and upwards. And it would be least surprising if a large part of educated Hindus actually vote for the BJP across constituencies obeying the calling of their faith. A good part of my extended family falls in the bracket of these deluded fools. They remain blissfully unaware of the moral obligations that they have failed to live upto.
We have a plethora of political critics attacking the BJP's stand on the basis of its provenance in pernicious identity politics but surprisingly, not on the basis of its inherent irrationality and subterfuge.
5 comments:
"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.”(Bertrand Russell)...that India shall not(or is it safe to say never?!) be rid of religion's beleaguering existence is the pity. We have too many things going wrong around us and with no religion to blind us, we'd be lost...it'd destroy the very stuff of our souls!!
(Finally! got down to read your blog...prolific, very prolific!)
Thanks for stopping by and the kind words.
This seems to be a pathological problem and India is only first among equals. The problem of irrational religiosity is much more rampant in the US where schools that teach their students that the earth was 9000 years old continue to function and it is next to impossible for a non-Christian, let alone an agnostic or an atheist to hold office. The European countries (especially the Scandinavian) are faring much better on this aspect.
The Marxian maxim about religion being the opium of the masses seems no longer cogent to me. Probably because, coming from an overtly religious family, I strongly believed it was true as a kid :-)
Graham Greene makes an observation about the maxim. Back in Marx's days, opium was a legal pacifier, something like alcohol today. Perhaps what he meant was that religion was a soothing agent for the poor. Our interpretation depends highly on the social status of opium :-)
From Monsignor Quixote
Alcohol a legal pacifier, really? Our common experience should negate that :P
The interesting bit of newsitem that i came across is the fact that the BJP right consider the Gandhian economics (Rajnath Singh apparently believes so)as the only possible solution out of the economic crisis.
So much for all Gandhiji's actions to integrate and unite the prevalent divisive forces
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