That was the question. We got an answer to it this week and now the dispute over a secular country or a ‘Hindu Rastra’ has finally been put to rest – for the time being– through the voting process in the CA. Although many were relieved at the apparent lack of enthusiasm for the ‘Hindu Rastra’ cause, it was nonetheless rather surprising given the huge number of Hindus in the country.
Religion plays a prominent role in every milestone of our life, from birth to death and there isn’t any aspect that it does not touch from our culture and traditions to even politics, which was the one thing it was conspicuously absent from so far. In short, many (including me) expected a bigger fuss to be kicked up for this cause instead of the whimper that accompanied the CA’s decision.
However the proponents of the cause may soon find their feathers ruffled again because of the visit of Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples from the Vatican. While it might be seen by the saffron brigade as adding insult to injury, it is not entirely out of character for Christian institutions to mix philanthropy and humanitarian initiatives with evangelism backed by dollar power.
Many religions and their accompanying beliefs are exported in our globalized world, but one has to be wary when these religious intentions come in the slipstream of humanitarian aid. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu put it very succinctly, ‘When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.’
Us VS Them
All this left me wondering why we hadn’t exported Hinduism in this manner before. I don’t mean the odd foreigner coming here ‘looking to find themselves’ or the cliché of the westerner seeking ‘inner peace’ or an answer to the ‘meaning of life’. I mean vigorously and properly export it like the commodity (for lack of a better word) it has become.
We might not have dollar power but it’s not like we don’t make enough money if we were to look at it from an institutional viewpoint. Our religion is just as commercialized as any other on this planet, even more so. If you think that advertisers do a good job of tapping into sentiments to turn over a quick profit, you’ve obviously never seen religion at work. Think of all the people who give money and contributions to sadhus and babas and matas and all sorts in the name of donations, yoga, Ayurveda or myriad other schemes.
It’s not just the monetary aspect of things because our religion is fun too, if you practice it selectively like most of us do. It’s not like we spend all our time worshipping cows, monkeys and assorted wildlife. Our festivals are a mosaic of noise and colour and can be quite fun even for people of a somewhat naughty persuasion – the marijuana and bhang during Shivratri and Holi, drinking and eating to a coma during Dashain, firecrackers in Tihar and colors during Holi. It does sound like a lot of fun compared to Western festivals like Thanksgiving or Christmas where the only exciting thing is meeting with family (something of a novelty in the West), the exchange of presents and wondering how the turkey will turn out. We shouldn’t have such a hard time if we really gave it a go. If only we had piggybacked on Beatle mania during their Rishikesh stint, we could be looking at world domination right now.
In all honesty, we probably wouldn’t have global domination because we can confuse and contradict better than most religions. The economic clout required to propagate religion aside, it’s probably the archaic practices (formulated for the welfare of the priests) and the contrived rituals that will probably be our undoing. It doesn’t help the confusion that we have half a million Gods and Goddesses all requiring appeasement, preferably through material goods to the priest. A billion festivals can also get pretty confusing, although the ‘khaires’ will love all the holidays that come along with it. That it is heterogeneous too is something that doesn’t work in its favor being practiced differently in South India, Nepal, Indonesia and any other place you care to look at.
It can also be terribly difficult getting your head around something when contradiction permeates its practice. We tend to worship women but subordinate them in real life and we talk about finding inner peace and contentment but think nothing of commercializing all aspects of our religion. The credibility of many of our practitioners can be questioned (like a lot of other religions) and it doesn’t help that we don’t have one overarching authority looking after all of our activities.
For the moment though, we can put all of these factors aside and take the chance to revel in the simple pleasure of being declared a secular country. After all, who’s to say that this or that religion is best? We’ll only find out when we reach the gates of heaven or hell. In the meantime, let’s live and let live!
