Sunday, January 29, 2017

Religion Vs Spirituality 

It was great to have a Hindu mother and Christian father. It really helped me to understand the different religious perspectives. I was much influenced by the Institutional church from my childhood. At one point of my life I was so influenced by the christian missionaries that I was about to become a catholic priests. But it was my mother who intelligently asked me to reflect on my decision and then take final call to join or not to join. I found the suggestion from my mother to be appropriate. So I started getting myself engaged with catholic church more consciously to know it through and through. It really helped me to know the institution better and finally take a decision not to be the priest. I will share the reasons for this decision in this blog of mine. Before I explain it let me explain what is institutional religion for me.

Religion for me is the "opium of the people". It is one of the most frequently paraphrased statements of German philosopher and economist Karl Marx. The full quote from Karl Marx translates as: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people". I was always confused with religion and spirituality. It was just few years back I understood the difference. According to me religion is the institutional arrangements to manage the congregation of people on the basis of biases, prejudices, fears and rewards. It is to organize the rituals to reinforce the majoritarian ideals to manipulate things to establish a hierarchical system. I always felt that the managers in this institutions firmly believe that there is "No God" and hence they become heartless and soulless. Its because of this believe, I suppose, that they can allow any kind of violence and bigotry ideas to be percolated down among the people. Religion, according to me makes people really narrow minded and look through specific coloured glasses. Religious people always try to establish their ideals as rights over the other ideas. Actually the institutions of religion survive because of the insecurity that prevails among the people.The greed among the people grease it's tools. The fundamentalist attitude among the people is the fruit that these religious institution helps to bear at the end of the day. Its obvious that people cannot stay in vacuum. Where as Spirituality is a broad concept with room for many perspectives. In general, it includes a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves, and it typically involves a search for meaning in life. As such, it is a universal human experience—something that touches us all. People may describe a spiritual experience as sacred or transcendent or simply a deep sense of aliveness and inter connectedness. Some may find that their spiritual life is intricately linked to their association with a church, temple, mosque, or synagogue. Others may pray or find comfort in a personal relationship with God or a higher power. Still others seek meaning through their connections to nature or art.


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Tradition and Pride

Jallikattu is a traditional spectacle in which a Bos indicus bull, commonly of the Kangayam breed, is released into a crowd of people and multiple human participants attempt to grab the large hump of the bull with both arms and hang on to it while the bull attempts to escape. In January 2017, occupy marina protest, the protestor’s claims that Jallikattu is promoted as bull taming, however, others suggest it exploits the bulls. The human associated in this game suffer serious injuries and fatalities. The bulls themselves sometimes sustain injuries or die, which people may interpret as a bad omen for the village. An investigation by the Animal Welfare Board of India concluded that "jallikattu is inherently cruel to animals".[1] Animal welfare organisations, the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations (FIAPO)[2] and PETA India have protested against the practice.[3] The sport was banned by the Supreme Court in a decision citing animal cruelty based on a lawsuit filed by the animal rights activists group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which asserted that the tradition violates the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (PCA).[4] Occupy Marina protest by enthusiastic Tamil youths associated the ban with Tamil pride and the government had to come up first with an ordinance to lift the ban followed with an Act in the state. With this incident in the back ground I reflect back few questions and my independent thought from a bird view perspective in this blog.  

Should “Jallikattu” be associated with Tamil pride? Should any activity that is cruel to animals or humans, in any forms, be protected and made legal in the name of tradition? If the answer is yes, then caste system, dowry, sati, killing of girl child, khap panchayat etc., can also be made legal in the name of Indian pride. Where were these youths when poor fishermen were crying aloud for their support when the nuclear plant was destabilising their livelihood and above all existence at Kudankulam? Why these organised spontaneous youths were invisible when a couple were killed at day light only because they took the courage to love and get married even though they come from different caste? Where does one locate Tamil pride when Dalits people were denied of recent flood relief in and around Chennai? Is this the same land of Periyar, who once challenged the traditions, because they oppressed and discriminated people? Isn’t these youth’s hypocrites? Or are they puppets in the hands of the politicians?

But the larger question that we face today, is that whether it is rig appropriate to rigorously hold on to any culture or traditions if they are really harmful? For the sake of our regional or religion pride do we need to endorse and safeguard our culture or tradition? This is the most important context that needs to be analysed from the recent debate around Jallikattu.  

Has our country and the world at large accepted globalisation and liberalisation in true sense? (When I say true sense, I mean beyond economical gain). But when I see around and specially after the jallikattu protest, I am very much sure that the world is just making its U-turn towards fascism, traditionalism and fatalism. The world is ruled by people who are staunch supporter of protecting traditions and culture which was thought to obsolete unanimously by the world a century back. The world had agreed on human rights and protection of nature, which includes animals too. But today with the mediocre leaders leading powerful nations we seem to fuelling the dark age mentality of the people to erupt like volcano and engulf the whole world with its lava of hatred, hyper nationalism, brahmanical thoughts and concentration of wealth by few.

I think the world is becoming cynical. The country which voted Obama four years back has now voted Trumph. Isn’t that irony and cynical? The 2016 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos "for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end, a war that has cost the lives of at least 220,000 Colombians and displaced close to six million people."[5] But the same country rejected that same peace deal in the national referendum on October 2. The country India, where we had one of the biggest messenger of peace Gandhi leading the country for Independence, voted for Modi as its Prime Minister who has to be accountable for the Godhra  carnage, where thousands of Muslims and Hindus were killed mercilessly. Where is this world heading towards?

People will stand for national anthem in cinema hall and cry out the lyrics with deep feeling of nationalism but alas the same person will go out of the cinema hall and tease, stalk or may rape their own country women. Is this the narrow minded nationalism that we want? We may fast, fight and shout to bring ordinance or law to legalise Jallikattu even though Supreme Court of the country banned it but the same general public is silent on section 377. We are all hypocrites. We are not guided by our consciousness but with narrow mindedness and selfishness. 

I see Jallikattu agitation not as Tamil pride but as insane of Tamil youths. There are many things that have demean your pride. When the fisher folk was affected due to nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu, your pride was affected. Every day when a Dalit women or men is discriminated, your pride is demeaned. When every day a marriage is planned on the basis of the amount of dowry, your pride is demeaned. When couple have to give their life due to inter caste marriage, your pride is demeaned. When your politicians loot your money and still you vote them, your pride is demeaned. When a bull or a person die in Jallikattu your pride is demeaned.

Tamil population have always been vulnerable in the hands of identity politics played by their politician. They are aware of that but still fall in its prey. Tamil is a rich culture. A culture that speaks of Dravidian empowerment. It conveys me the message of standing head held high even when Aryan influence was galloping the country. Tamil pride is in its intellectuality. Tamil’s pride is in Periyar’s vision. Tamil’s pride is in their hospitality, integrity and hardworking. Tamil’s pride is in its strength to fight for the voiceless people. But the politicians in Tamil plays with their sentiments and identity, which have brought great loss to them. The same explanation can be true for all culture. If we all become like Trump who see inwardly development of America and not outwardly enlightenment, I think we are all heading towards a cynicism and skeptism.


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