What
exactly are religious books trying to tell us?
All popular contemporary religious beliefs today, where
established roughly 2 to 4 thousand years ago. Under these circumstances it
cannot be argued that Islam Christianity and Hinduism “eternally” existent. The
concept of “eternally” existent religion is a misguided belief. However eternal
or otherwise, it is true that the “creation” of religion is a process that was
initiated many thousands of years ago. One particular scenario where mankind
might have felt the need for “Godly” interventions, are natural disaster.
Mother Nature can be cruel at times with an ugly assortment of weapons at her
disposal to vent her rage whenever she feels like it. Desperate men and women
unable to properly explain (and in a bid to save themselves) the phenomenon
behind tornadoes, thunderstorms and floods turned to the alternative
explanation of a deity, Gods/Goddesses behind these occurrences. Unable to
define death satisfactorily, many resorted to the concept of spirits or unseen
souls. Those slightly practiced in the trade of social sciences may have come
across all these things. As such based on what we have gathered so far, it is
evident that religion or religious faith are nothing but the creation of
Neanderthal humans who ruled the world some two hundred and fifty thousand
years ago. Before the Neanderthals there was no evidence of practicing religion
found during the age of the Pithecanthropus or even the Sinanthropus before
them. But the findings of the Neanderthals lacked sophistication - compared to
modern beliefs that is. The upper Palaeolithic age (some 40 -98 thousand years
ago) saw the concepts spirits, ghosts, religious behaviour and the practice of
magic added and integrated into an already growing pile. In comparison to
modern religion the Veda religion (predecessor to Hinduism) for example was
conceived some 3,500 years ago, while Islam and Christianity were conceived
1400 and 2000 years ago respectively. The religious rules and regulation
maintained out of the need to preserve social order and harmony during those days
are largely recognized today as being weak, suppressive and even barbaric at
times. History again is the silent eyewitness to the Phonicans, Hebrew,
Cananights, Mayans, Incans, Aztecas, wolmex, Greek, Roman Carthagian, Tewton,
Celts, droid, Gall, Thai, Japanese, the Mauris, Tahitians and the Hawaian
citizens, all of whom have “sacrificed” countless men, women and children in
order to satisfy these invisible entities they refer to as Gods and Goddesses. I
have explored these issues in broader detail on the “Poisonous Faith” section
on my book. For now let us focus on these books, these religious manuals if you
will and try and determine they message they are trying to convey. Formed,
moulded and firmly established by modern religion today we undertake a no holds
barred approach to analyse their content and decode the mysteries behind the
words.
For those who have memorized or are familiar with The
Quran’s content, know for a fact that it has numerous provocative directives
strewn all over its pages. For example –
And wherever you find non-believers kill them (2:191, 9:5),
get into conflicts with them, so that you may demonstrate hostile behaviour
against them (9:123), engage in war against them (8:65). Humiliate the
non-believers at every opportunity and impose the “Zizia” tax on them (9:29).
And retract the freedom of those who believe other things, and announce that
Islam is the only adoptable religion (3:85). This condemns non-believers to
hell (5:10), and brands them as ‘unholy’ (9:28); Muslims are encouraged to
carry on fighting till all manners of other beliefs are eradicated and Islam is
the only religion that exists (2:193). The Koran says that it is only in Islam
that a non-believer will be condemned to hell because of the stature he/she
maintains, and he/she will be forced to drink pungent smelling pus (18:17). You
are encouraged to slice off the hands and legs of non-believers, you are
encouraged to dishonourably discharge them from their countries, “There are
unimaginable horrors waiting for them in afterlife” (5:38). “For those who did
not believe, I have made clothes for them weaved from fire, steaming, boiling
water will be poured on their heads so that skins and their stomachs melt, and
iron clubs will be used to beat them” (22:19). The Koran explicitly prohibits
Muslims from even befriending a Nasar or a Jew (5:51), it even has instructions
encouraging you to sever all ties your mother or father if they are
non-believers (9:23, 3:28). For those who do not believe in Allah-Rasul, for
them a burning pyre is reserved (48:13). For those who die without believing in
Islam, state – “wring him by the neck, bind him up and then throw him to the
pits of hell. Use chains as long as 70 feet in length to bind him” (69:30-33).
It has instructions to commit to warfare in order to appease Allah, where it
says “It is good for us, even if we don’t like it, it is” (2:216), and also –
“slay the neck of all Kafirs” and immediately after that blood-soaked instruction
it says “and bind them up properly” (47:4). Next up is a section where Allah
himself has vowed – “I will induce fear into the heart of all Kafirs” and he
has specifically instructed believers to “strike Kafirs on their shoulders and
to break each and every finger on their hands” (8:12).
Allah has made Jihad mandatory for the ‘Mumin’ and has
warned them that, “if you do not willingly engage in Jihad, the most heinous of
punishments await you” (9:39). Allah has instructed his beloved Prophet, “Oh
prophet, campaign against non-believers and be stern against them - for only
the deepest recesses of hell awaits them” (9:73).
Dear readers, those are just some of the words that
constitute The Quran (forget delving into other religious publications for
while). Those inundated by their sense of blind faith have dubbed the Quran as
‘the book of guidance’, and have declared Islam as the ‘religion of peace’. It
is to those that I pose this question, have you ever wondered if anybody took
the above mentioned verses ‘as guidance’ and acted upon them, what sort of
“peace” he/she will bring to this world? Thanks to the principles of Jihad
‘Islamic terrorism’ is a well-established term today. Every day the newspapers
bear some report or the other describing men or women inspired by the edicts of
Jihad, resort to bombing people, open streets, houses, factories, transport,
cinema halls, cultural establishments or on the seas or oceans. About a
thousand Jihadi groups such as – Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Hamas,
Harkat-Ul-Jihad, Harkat-Ul-Mujahidin, Jammat-E-Islamia, Hijab-E-Islamia,
Ansaralluah Bangla Team have managed to envelope the world in a never-ending
fog of fear.
The Bangladesh government has banned a few groups such as
the Hizbut-Tahri over allegations of terrorism. Before that happened the
BNP-Jamat coalition government managed to ban the Jamaitul Mujahidin (JMB),
Harkat-Ul-Jihad-Al-Islami Bangladesh (HUZI) during their reign;
Shahadat-E-Al-Hikma and the Jagroto Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) were also
banned during their reign due to similar allegations. Harkat-Ul-Jihad first
came under the radar of Bangladesh during the year 1996. On the 29th
of February that, a joint operation between the police and army, led to the
capture of 41 Harkat-Ul-Jihad terrorists along with a raft of guns, bombs and
ammunition. They were arrested from the Lundakhali Jungle which is attached to
the Painkhali village of Uthia, Cox’s Bazar. The group consisted of one
foreigner whilst the other forty were comprise of Madrasa students and teachers
from all parts of the country. After that on 18th January 1999,
during an attack on poet Shamsur Rahman, a total of ten 10 terrorists were
arrested, some right from the scene of crime (Shamsur Rahman’s house) and some
later from the other areas. They all claimed to be a part of Harkat-Ul-Jihad.
And again during the Udichir ceremony in Jessore, on the 23rd July
2000 where bombs were planted in a general assembly held in Gopalgonj
Kotalipara set to be attended by none other than the then Prime Minister Sheikh
Hasina, and of course who can forget 14th April 2001 in Dhaka Ramna, or the
grenade attack of 21st August or the 17th August 2005
serial grenade attack all over the country. With these horrifying deeds the
Harkat-Ul-Jihad forced themselves into the centre of all diplomatic conversations.
However the 17th August bombings in 2005, surpass
their entire list of obscenities by quite a margin. Readers perhaps many of you
remember the horrors of that day. A series of synchronized bombs went off
across 63 zillas in Bangladesh. The day was unanimously declared as the
blackest spot in the country relatively brief history and was dubbed as
Bangladesh’s ‘9/11’. It was evident just how sinister the link between
terrorism and “pure” Islam was after a visit was paid to the places whre the
bombs set off. The streets there where littered from top to bottom with
leaflets and pamphlets , bearing verses from the Quran and Hadith, specifying
instructions to go into Jihad or wage war against Kafirs and non-believers. And
despite the feeble attempts of people like Farhad Majhar and Badruddin Umra to
deny the relationship between pure Islam and terrorism, it was all in vain. Even
though the government then oversaw the expulsion of 5 terrorist groups, another
70 strong ones had joined them in secret. Together they are intimating every
possibility to cause as much disruption in the country’s affairs as possible. Their
main objective of course is to hinder and destabilise the war criminal trials
in Bangladesh as much as possible.
It is time for the peace-loving, pious and socially
conscious people to undergo a bit of self-realization, and ask from a sceptic’s
point of view – Why are all terrorist groups extreme Islamists? Why are they
‘terrorists’ at all’? Who’re the ones responsible for the gradual rise of the
Molla Omars, the Bin Ladens, Moulana Mannan, Golam Azam, Sheikh Abdur Rahman,
Mufti Hannan and the Bangla Bhais? It’s time to come out of all this obscurity
and state with razor sharp clarity that these religious books are at the very
root of terrorism. Of course we can add in the imperialistic mind frame of the
US in conjunction with that of the Western world and of course, the malevolent
foreign policies maintained against the Middle East should not be forgotten as
well.
The non-existence of weaponized WODs, or the figmental link
between Saddam and Al-Qaeda, or the failure to establish that Iraq was housing
biological weapons and then mercilessly trampling through their landscape, America’s
imperialistic aspirations was there for the world to see. And the Islamic world
meanwhile interpreted the Iraqi war as a ‘hostile blow against Islam’, for one
reason or the other. As such if we analyse with raw statistics, we will find
that that countries with the largest number of suicide bombing since the Iraqi
war, are ran by governments who shamelessly supported the Bush-Blair agenda.
And it doesn’t stop there. Isolating the Palestines and supplicating Israel
over the years has also riled the larger Islamic community, leading them down a
dangerous path where only conflict seems to be the viable solution. It wouldn’t
be prudent to ignore all these political elements and their reactions and this
constant blood thirst for revenge while conducting these discussions. It won’t
be too irrelevant perhaps to introduce another related matter here. I am
talking about the USA of course who are naturally gifted in nurturing
fundamentalism by utilising religion as a tool, while simultaneously possessing
the uncanny ability to spot the perfect opportunity to provoke it. Whether or
not scientist should research on stem cells, whether or not artificially
assembled defence weapons should be withdrawn, whether the theory of evolution
ought to be taught in schools, if so how should it be approached. Everything
from the biggest to the smallest of aspects is being quietly micromanaged by
the government. Government sponsored priests and preachers are asked to lend
their expert opinions or supervise scientific research or a particular project
for that matter. Their job being is to determine if the relevant proceedings
are ethical or non-ethical. Perhaps the president there had an epiphany like
the prophets and heard the “the voice of God” before going into battle; the
media meanwhile, in conjunction with major newspaper outlets and influential
editors sought to ‘decide’ what to believe on behalf of us and later, decide
what to pack away and bury deep. In all honesty, by projecting a false
‘impression’ of a free world, this group of power-hungry, uber rich zealots are
trying to impose a measure of control over the society’s demands, its tastes
and its emotions in general. But that in itself is another long story.
Now although ‘US Imperialism’ does pose a problem, Islamic
terrorism mainly originates from Islam itself. History here is witness again
here and this time to the Prophet Muhammad and his antics on 624 B.C against
the Bani Kuyanuka, the Bani nadir in 625 B.C. and the Jewish tribe of Bani
Quraiza in 627 B.C., all of whom he attacked and then exterminated. He murdered
700 hundred Jews of Bani Kunayuka in one morning alone, while the Bani Quraiza
saw between 800 to 900 people murdered, even after they had surrendered. The
horrors of these incidents were so pronounced, that even Karen Armstrong, a
revered figure amongs the Muslim community, was forced to compare it with ‘Nazi
barbarism’. Many researchers have constantly pointed out with proof, as to how
terrorists such as Bin Laden, Bangla Bhai, Golam Azam and Mohammed Ata adopt
then imitated Islam down to the very last verse, before using it as an excuse
to justify their actions. Readers, if you wish to know more about these things,
I would like to take the liberty to refer you to a book published on ‘Mukto
Mona’ – ‘Je Shotto Bola Hoini’ by Akash Malik.
Even after all this there are some who choose to ignore
historical facts and reality for that matter, and blatantly point fingers at
America as the main catalyst behind Islamic borne terrorism. Noam Chomosky has
penned a few articles describing and then analysing American imperialism, and
is well recognized in Bangladesh and other Muslim dominated countries. On one
instance he offers, “America itself is a terrorist infested country. That is
exactly why an attack the scale of 9/11 managed to land on their shores”. News
host for CNN and editor for News Week International Mr Fareed Zakaria published
a book in 2007 titled ‘Bhabishyoter Shadhinota’. There he goes on to state,
“Should we strive to find the main reason behind Islamic terrorism, it would be
the failure of American policies in the Middle-East”. Philosopher Sam Harris
offered a rebuttal, “That may be, but if Muslim terrorism is an escalating
problem, then the main problem lies within the fundamentals of Islam itself”.
One of the biggest problems of discussing matters related to
religion, terrorism and fundamentalism is the fear of ‘stereotyping’. For if
it’s seen that once a discussion about Islamic terrorism for example takes
place, the believers tend to pose, “Why is that the greater Islamic community
is looked down upon and branded as terrorists, due to the action of a handful
of men such as Bin Laden or Mufti Hannan? Do you truly think they are true
representatives of our religion?”
No, it’s true they are not.
As such, I have no qualms in stating that it is unwise to
brand the entire Islamic community as a band of terrorists, and those who tend
to indulge in such ‘stereotyping’ are making a big mistake. Actually I can go
as far as describing this as another form of racism! Some however have come up
with the clever term of ‘Islamophobia’, implying it to be a disease. Be it a
disease or be it contempt on the Western world’s behalf (the late Edward Sayd
re-entitled this contempt into ‘orientalism’), after the events of 9/11 Muslims
residing within the western world have been subjected to all kinds of
psychological and physical abuse, a fact which is undeniable. We don’t need
hear about ornate ideals to recognize that not every Muslim is a ‘terrorist’.
Our common sense and personal experiences should suffice in this case. I myself
have befriended many Muslims. Nonje of them are terrorists. None of them are
Bin Ladens or Mufti Hannans. They tend to me whenever I am going through
difficult times, we get together and spend time, we eat and drink together
sometimes, and at times they ask me which way is east, so that they may engage
in Namaz (prayer) even at this “Kafir’s” house. All in all they are decent
human beings. For one they are not aware of the Quran’s more violent verses,
nor are they interested in sifting through them. They practice something called
‘spiritual Islam’. See people like them were never the problem. They champion
peace and love and believe in patience. But the difference is these qualities
have been cultivated in them from their childhoods some admittedly through
Islam, but most of them through proper social grooming. There are countless
examples of those who’ve never even seen the Quran nor have practiced in the
ways of Islam but at the same time, are not devoid of these qualities. And then
there are those who refuse to accommodate an alternative solution and tend to
memorize the Quran and its directives by heart. They’re the ones who want to do
everything according to the Quran and want to build a world based on Islamic
ideology only. And that is exactly what the problem is. If a person completely
refuses to learn from the social infrastructure and just blindly bases his
faith on a limited set of instruction (that being the Quran) what will happen
then? Let us take a look at one of the verses in Sura Al-Imran –
“Mumins (Muslims) are encouraged to only befriend other
Mumins. Those who befriends Kafir’s or non-Muslims, Allah will cease all ties
with them (3:28).”
Those who maintain that the Quran’s does not have a violent
side, and want to use it as the very foundation to lead their lives I ask, have
you ever acted the way the Quran explicitly instructs you to with your Hindu,
Christian or non-Muslim neighbour? Do you decline someone’s friendship just
because he is a non-Muslim or a person with another faith?
If not, well, then you are not in sync with the Quran’s
mandated etiquettes. And isn’t the Quran “Allah’s Book”? If so, if one chooses
to cease this insipid on and off practice of Islam and really, I mean really
adopt the Quran as a way life, what happens when he grows in to another
‘Taliban-esque’ figurehead? Whose fault will it be then?
A verse in Surah Al Baqara offers –
“I’ve made war ‘Faraz’ (responsibility) for you, and yet you
dislike it. In parallel there may be other things that you may not agree with,
but they may bear well for you. (2:216)”
There is another one in Surah Al Nasr which says –
“Keep waging war for
Allah, you are not accountable for anything apart from you well-being!
Encourage other Muslims to do so. Soon Allah will diminish the strength and
power of the Kafirs. And above all Allah is exceedingly stern when it comes to
enacting punishment (4:84).”
True to these provocative words from the Quran, and riled by
Jihad mixed adrenaline, many jumped at the chance to fight shoulder to shoulder
with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and wage war against the Jews and the Nasaras.
They thought that all they were doing was following Allah’s rules and
guidelines. And in many ways they cannot be blamed. On an 18th
October 2005 issue of The Daily Prothom Alo in Bangladesh, there was a report
which claimed that about 3000 Madrasa students and teachers were “inspired” by
the Harkat-Ul-Jihad in the 1980s, to travel to Afghanistan and take on the
Soviet army. The fact that the Quran is liable for cultivating this
unreasonable hatred towards “Kafirs” in Madrasa students, is irrevocable. And
those who choose to deny it are simply deluded and ignorant. Every time I try
and indulge myself in this sensitive issue, the events of 9/11 tend to float
its way into the discussion. The world stopped and grimaced in horror at the
deedss of a handful of Jihadi fanatics, who managed to convert entire aeroplane
into a weapon and claim thousands of innocent lives. Those who practice Islam
for peace will argue that this is work of those who are beguiled and nurture
misguided ideals. Not only are they not in sync with what Islam actually is,
but they are deluded into thinking that they are pure Muslims, who have only
strived to execute Allah’s will to the word. Before 9/11 ever happened, the 11th
of January 1999 issue of the News Week published an interview conducted with
Osama Bin Laden. In that interview Mr Bin Laden clearly explained why he thinks
that killing each and every American is “Jayez” (right deed). For the benefit
of the readers, I have chosen to provide snippets of that conversation. Take a
look –
QUESTION: Why have you asked Muslims to target
civilian Americans all over the world? Islam prohibits its followers from killing civilians in war?
BIN LADEN: If the Israelis are killing small
children in Palestine and the Americans are killing the innocent people in
Iraq, and if the majority of the American people support their dissolute
president, this means the American people are fighting us and we have the right
to target them.
QUESTION: All Americans?
BIN
LADEN Muslim scholars have issued a fatwa [a religious order] against any
American who pays taxes to his government. He is our target, because he is
helping the American war machine against the Muslim nation.
As far as Hinduism goes,
Islam is acutely critical. And they have every reason to be. For the instigator
of poisonous caste system which has continued to rot away inside India for the
last 3000 years, is none other than God himself! From the Munshonghita we
discovered – that alimight God created the Brahmins from his mouth, the Kshatriyas
from his shoulders, The Baishyas from his thigh and the Shudryas from his feet
(1:31). Believers vehemently claim that everyone is the same in the eyes of
God. And yet, God’s decision to create Brahmins from his mouth and the Shudryas
from his feet is seen as a noble act! Everyone today is aware of the
maltreatment of the Shrudyas and other ‘lower caste Hindu’ sects, at the hands
of the ‘high class’ Brahmins who after all were created from “God’s mouth”. At
every rich houselhold the man or maid servant is always employed from one of
the a lower castes. Monu further went on to state – God created the Shrudyas to
serve as slaves (8:413). After these ‘lower caste’ servants had finished their
work and left for the day, the household in question was ‘cleansed’ by
gathering and sprinkling ‘holy’ water from the Ganges (in some households this
ritual still exists). And why shouldn’t it exist? After all ‘lower caste’
p[people cannot be deemed fit enough to be human beings? They are all but
‘Acchuts’ (untouchables). According to Sri M.C. Raja, “You have no qualms in
keeps pets in your households, no qualms in drinking the urine from cows or
even resort to drape yourself cow faeces in a bid to get rid of your sins, but
are reluctant to even step on the shadow of a lower caste Hindu! Are these the
moralities that govern Hinduism?” Moreover according to Hindu rites, Shudryas
don’t even have any proprietary rights to their own hard earned money/assets.
Everything accumulated should go to his/her employee, that was the rule laid
down by Monu – “ন হি
তস্যাস্তি কিঞ্চিত স্বং ভর্ত্তৃহার্যধনো হি সঃ’ (8:416)”. The Shrudyas were
pitiful examples of social negligence. Not only were they stripped of any
rights as citizens, theye were stripped of any religious or economic rights as
well. The Shudryas were kept in a way so that they could be distinguished from
the other three castes and they were reminded constantly that they were created
as slaves in order to be serve the other three castes. To further differentiate
the Shrudyas from the other three, Monu even instructed that the Shrudyas have
all the hair from their heads shaved off once every month (5:140). As far as
learning the Veda goes, they are banned from even listening to others reading
it let alone practice it themselves. They are not even permitted to marry
anyone above their caste group. If a Shrudya by some mistake perches himself on
a place where his Brahmin master had formerly occupied or currently occupies,
there are instructions to either poke him with melting hot steel rods or use
them to make incision on his back, as statutory punishment of course (8:281).
We found scores of examples
in the Ramayana and the Mahabharat where Monu’s grossly racist practices came
into life. The use of religious edicts and scriptures to create a gulf between
the different castes of people was especially noticeabale and in particular,
the brunt of that abuse was bore by the Shrudyas who were usually on the
receiving end. Take the Ramayana’s Shambukbhod story. Charged with the ‘crime’
of meditation, a Shrudya by the name of Shambuk got himself killed by none
other than Ramchandra himself, who used a trumpet to behead him. All this
happened during his ‘Ramrajya’ (reign).
A similar incident is
recorded in the Mahabharat where the Aklavya, the son of Nishadraj Hironnodhanu,
approached the Dronacharjya to learn the art of swordsmanship. Drona however
rejected him on grounds that he was a lower caste human being. Afterwards
Aklavya did learn his trade elsewhere and learned it well. But the Drona partly
jealous of his abilities and in part to maintain the reputation Arjun, one of
his very own as the best archer in the kingdom, resorted to cut off one of
Aklavyas fingers using ‘Guru Dakshina’ (a token you have to pay whenever you
visit you teacher/master) as an excuse. These ancient religious publications
are littered with countless examples such as the ones above.
This brand of of ‘organized’
religious practices in ancient times, managed to severely disturb the very
equilibrium of the social infrastructure, creating huge gulfs between different
classes of people. However we look at it, religion was the chief architect in
giving birth to artificial anomalies such as the “Huzur” (religious
master/teacher/expert) class, who were determined from the offset to use
religion as a weapon to meet the ends of their selfish needs. Ignorance and of
course a lack of knowledge thus paved the way for social and economic “leeching”.
To ensure the continuity of such a process – the Brahmins resorted to promoting
that all religious books were created by God from his mouth. They claimed God
has specifically instructed to maintain an identifiable difference between
various castes of people! One glance at the subcontinent’s political prowess
over the years, will tell you that these religious discrepancies are still put
to use today. All do it of course bearing God as their witness.
Not unlike the Jihadists
it’s all hands on deck for the political juggernauts in India as well, the BJP
for one, Congress, ‘Bisshohindu Parishod’, Shib-Sena and Bajrang Dol to name a
few, all striving to preserve ‘eternal religion’ and consequently continue to
stretch the gap between the various castes and groups in society. Even a few
decades ago there was no definite form or shape to this type of practice in
Hinduism. But deceitful knowledge or a complete lack of it altogether, combined
with this inexplicably blind faith on religion, has paved the way for the commoners
to be hoodwinked by groups like the Shannashis, Geruas,, the Jatas, Dandas,
Rudrakhyas and Kumunduls for generations. Now, those who are a bit more
sagacious in the art of politics are well aware of people’s irreversible
enchantment towards religion. Perhaps to further feed this sentimentalism
towards religion, Durdarshan channel was sponsored by the government to air the
Mahabharat and Ramayana in their channel from the year 1998-1990. Perhaps the
government’s naivety in sugar coating the blind faith in religion people have,
provided the perfect opportunity for fundamentalism and communism to plant
their poisonous seeds. While the fictional Ram championed fundamentalism to
orchestrating campaigns to take back his homeland in Durdarshan’s Ramayana, 1992
followed with the inception and initiation of terrorist superpowers through the
destruction of the Babri Mosque. Jayantanuz Bandhapaddhay in his book
“Mohakabbo O Moulobad” had this to say on the matter –
“Unfortunately, instead of
treating the Mahabharat and Ramayana as an information rich treasury on ancient
civilization and culture or as invaluable pieces of literature, their
respective messages are being wrongly twisted to funnel fundamentalism and
promote communism in politics. And therein lays our greatest embarrassment.
First it was from 19880-1990, and then after the Ramayana and Mahabharat had
been re repeated a few times and the way it was portrayed as well, with
simplicity and yet with a certain amount of vindication, further fuelled
fundamentalism in to our politics in my opinion. The Ramatan aired in
Durdarshan, was primarily based on Tulsi Das’s book titled ‘Ramcharit Manash’,
not on the ‘Balmiki’ Ramayan. Tulsi Das’s Ramayan is a biproduct of the Vaishnava
Padavali movement (refers to a period in medieval Bengali literature from the
15th to 17th centuries) and mainly recounts the consequences of medieval worship.
The early Balmiki Ramayana did not consist of ‘Balkada’ or ‘Uttarkanda’. Later
on apart from these two sections in the early Balmiki Ramayana and of course
any of their related constituents, there aren’t that many accounts of Ram’s
antics in the book. But the main objective of the Tulsi Das version was to
establish Vishnu as the almighty all powerful deity and that Ram was merely an
avatar that represented him, which does not match the main agenda of the
‘Balkanda’ and the ‘Uttarkanda’ in the original early Ramayana. Yet the early
Balmiki version gained praise as an intricately woven piece of literary
delight. The Tulsi Das version aired on Durdarshan’s screen on the other hand,
presented a perverted version of the original work, distorted to make it more
‘avatar-centric’ and decorated with religious opulence. Thus it is logical to
assume that the government ‘sponsorship’ of this blind faith in religion, in
turn has proved to be the catalyst which has paved the way for fundamentalism
and communism to sneak into the nation’s politics. Durdarshan’s Ramayana
portraying Ram who utilizing fundamentalist movements to regain his homeland,
is irrefutable proof.
As to how worse things can
get - the Gujarat conflicts in 2002 are prime examples. They remain etched in
history as reminder of how religion can cloud your sense of judgement and turn
you into monsters. And yet, whenever someone criticizes religious practices as
the reason behind these obscenities, fundamentalists and even progressives
sometimes strive to oppose him!
Now moving on, if we take a
look at the Jewish and Christian religious publications, the Bible in
particular is strewn with incidents where there were murders committed, women
raped and hooliganism practiced, all validated ‘in the name of God’. It
wouldn’t be prudent not to provide a few examples. After they’d won the war and
claimed prisoners, Musa ordered to kill all the men amongst them. An order, he
claimed, that came directly from God,
“And kill all the boys and
men. And kill the women who are married, but save those who aren’t for
yourselves (Gonons Pustak, 31:17:18).”
One consensus revealed that
about a 100,000 men and 68,000 women were slaughtered according to Musa’s
wishes. But it does not stop there. There are even more aggressive, barbaric
and downright evil collection of verses present in there. For example, “Jishayo
(21:9), 1 Bangshabali (20:3), Gononona Pustak (25:3-4), Bicharkritigon (8:7),
Gononoan Pustak (16:32-35), Ditio Biboron (12:29-30, 2 Bangshabali
(18:9,18:12), Ditio Biboron (11:4-5), 1 samuel (6:19), Doyternomy (13:5-6,
13:8-9,13:15), 1 samuel (15:2-3), 2 Samuel (12:31), Jishayo (13:15-16),
Adipustak (9:5-6)” etc, are scattered about in different sections.
Devout Christians of course
tend to deny that the Bible itself is savage, and have blamed that most of the
constellation of savage directives were found in the old Bible which was weaved
by Jews (and derived from their religious book). All these discrepancies were
sorted out after the birth of Christ and peace was established. That is not
true.
According to the new Bible,
Jesus Christ himself has declared quite clearly that he intends to conduct
himself according to the laws laid down in the old Bible –
“Don’t think that I’m here
eradicate the teachings of Mosi or the writing of the prophets before me. I
have not come to repudiate them, but fulfil them.”
There are doubts as to how
much of the loving caring person Jesus Christ is, as his devotees make him out
to be anyway. Jesus has clearly said,
“Don’t think that I am here
to establish peace in this world. No, I don’t want peace, but I want justice
and I want establish laws by the sword. I have come to pit men against men, a
son against his father, a daughter against her mother, and married women
against their mother-in-laws. (Mothi, 10:34-35)”.
Not only did Christ seek to
get rid of those who commit adultery, but he vowed not to spare their children
even –
“And that is why I will
throw her on the bed, and those who were her partners in crime if they do not
deter from adultery themselves, I shall seek make life difficult for them. I
shall kill their children. (Prokashito bakya 2:22-23)”.
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