Ideological Influences on Fundamentalism

The Bigger Issue: Charlie Hebdo So here we are, shameless, intolerant, irrational, uneducated, illiterate, and fanatic lot of people sitting in our drawing rooms or offices or classrooms, changing the display pictures in watsapp or twitter or facebook as a mechanical business to show it to the world our intellectual capacities to understand what happened at Charlie Hebdo. Do we really see what’s wrong with the world? Ahaan! There you go, blame Islam, blame Islamic fundamentalism if it at all solves the problem. The fact is, religion, the organized form of practicing “God”, the supreme power is the root of every massacre. Irrespective of the scale, killings have been in the name of this ridiculous invisible authority invented by man to make sure his own fanaticism rules the masses. There exists no reasoning behind the idea of cloaking the whole world with a blanket of one religion. The rise of the Catholic Church is called the Dark Age, what does it signify? What does history’s criticism of the Spanish inquisition signify? What does killing of Galileo Galilei signify? The identical intolerance towards ideas and verses of truth, of reason, and of logic. The same goes with Islam. At the time of such Christian invasions, the killings in Jerusalem, Islam was quite modern as an ideology. The caliphs interpreted the verses of The Koran with logic, which were later in the wake of Wahhabi interpretation, reason was denounced and Islam became medievalised. The Koran instructs how to deal with those who mock the prophet is absolutely clear in Al-Hijr 15:95 which says, “Inna Kafayanka Almustahzieena” [We are surely sufficient to deal with those who scoff at you]. The divine power will itself deal with those who ridicule at the prophet, what is the man’s business in it? And if you commit such mistake by taking this for granted which is an act of arrogance, as a believing Muslim you have done a greater sin. Another example is, “Wa Rafa’na Laka Zikrak” [Surely We Have Elevated Your Mention (or Exalted You)] . If the God himself has (as the text says) exalted the Prophet, can he be mocked or in any manner his honour be ridiculed? Prophet himself didn’t react on Muhannad (an offensive remark) mischief. He smiled at it. When the civilization in the Indus valley migrated to the banks of Ganga, a new form of spiritual practice was born called “Sanatan Dharma” where dharma didn’t mean religion, it meant ideology, which it its natural sense changes with time. Krishna in Bhagwadgita explains it quite correctly by saying, “Atma Dharyate Tat Dharma” [Dharma is worn by Atman], analysing philosophically we can safely conclude that the self perceives an ideology and with time keeps on changing that by cumulating what suits what time, it’s like database management system which also gave room for ideologies like Charvak. Vedas for that matter were quite modern, although they too had some societal and practical issues which were then clarified by Brahmans and further by Upnishads. The puranas were written to make common mass understand the wisdom the sages have gathered. Form the time they belong, they seem quite rational given the kind of social hegemony the times had. Why don’t we find any rational interpretation of the texts post Shankara? Nobody wanted his fingers to bleed dissecting the verses on logic. I don’t understand the rationality behind Ram Mandir issue and the killings of Ayodhya. If Ram was born, he died and the case is closed. The real mess in India started post 1857 mutiny when religious laws were enforced and Divide & Rule Policy was instilled. The greater forefathers forgot to change these laws giving India to fight more communal battles in Ayodhya, Godhra, Muzaffarnagar and where not. The Nehruvian politics used

Pranav Sharma

The Microcosm Diaries

political censorship of literature as a tool to shut voices of truth, if not truth then of course of question. The multireligion ethos has become a complex cancer to the Indian society. The French massacre is also raising the Indian question of religious fanaticism. Every religion seem to boil under surface against each other, we are flaming up inside. I saw somebody calling me a dhimmi, the word which I heard almost after ages, in context of me raising voice against the nonsense that is taught in Indian schools. If you talk logic or try to put a neutralist view you are termed as pro-Islam if your name sounds like hindu and same goes vice versa. I don’t understand what Islam or any other religion has to do with it. We as nation are intolerant to the freedom of expression. We drag M F Hussain out of the country, we do not let Salman Rushdie enter. We do not let Aseem Trivedi live. We ban Wendy Doriges’s book. What is wrong with us? I see Bhagwat saying something and Owaisi something else, not forgetting Sakshi Maharaj, Azam Khan, Sukhvir Singh Badal and other saints of the same league. We as nation have to be tolerant in spite of religion not because of religion. India, the case is quite fatal given the population it has, the forces are fighting under a veil. The day is not far when the volcano will erupt, inflaming passion into the minds of the masses, killing millions in numbers. I fear to think of the verse from Bhagwadgita, “I am become Death. The destructor of the worlds.” We need to learn tolerance, if religion stops us from that, let the religion be denounced. Let’s get out from our beliefs and for the sake of humanity accept reason as one common practice as a civilization. The final night fell upon twelve people at Charlie Hebdo, I hope the civilization wakes up in their afterlife.

Those wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. -Dylan Thomas

Pranav Sharma

The Microcosm Diaries