Religion And The Culture Of Intolerance
By Devika Mittal
02 February, 2015
Countercurrents.org
One of the most important things that we learn with time and which is associated with maturity is to learn to ignore what people think about us. With time, we realize that how we can’t please everyone. We learn to accept ourselves, learn to stand up for ourselves. We stop caring about what people think about us, their judgments, and their opinions about us. Why can’t we have the same attitude towards our beliefs?
Religious intolerance is increasing. Charlie Hebdo case is considered to be the latest evidence of it. This case, according to me, is way more complex than it is being seen. It is not just a case of freedom of expression. There is much more to this case. It is debatable. It is true that the cartoons were or can be seen as disturbing but so was the reaction. It is true that a cartoon or art is not for art’s sake. There is a certain ideology behind it. The ideology underlying these cartoon may have been Islamophobia. The objective may have been to clearly disregard Islam but was the reaction justifiable?
What did the attackers achieve? If we believe that the attackers really avenged the “disrespect” being shown to prophet Muhammad, what did they achieve? Earlier, the cartoons were restricted to a specific publication and in a specific region but now media houses across the world are publishing them. Also, how successful were they to avenge the disrespect? They only increased the disrespect. They only increased islamophobia.
My point is not exactly about Charlie Hebdo case. This is just one of the cases. I also do not wish to limit it to only one religion when people of all religions show the same traits. We see demonstrations and acts of violence when a hindu deity is disrespected, when anything which can be remotely seen or is interpreted as anti-sikh or when Christianity is challenged.
Why is there so much of intolerance? Is this what our religion teaches us? I saw a photo on social media being shared about footwear which had a Hindu symbol on it. It was clearly an act to show disrespect to the religion. But it did not provoke me. I did not feel angry. Infact, I felt pity on their thinking. They had to stoop so low. It provoked me to think that what did they achieve by it? Did this act gave them any kind of satisfaction? It speaks a lot about them, not about that particular religion.
People of all religions always try to show how great their religion is. They often do so by disrespecting the other person’s religion. I have seen Hindus, Muslims and Christians doing this. I have seen Hindus talking about the “glorious” and “golden” period of “Hindus” before the advent of “Muslims” in India. I have heard Muslims talking about how with their coming to India, many of the existing social evils were shunned away. They brag about the “high” culture that they brought it. I have also met several Christians preaching how only Jesus (whom they have made God while he is supposed to be the son of the God) and Christianity is the way towards humanity. There is a lot that one can say to all of them. A lot that can be said to refute what they all claim. In this article, I do not wish to do so. Instead, I wish to ask all of them that what do you achieve by creating a hierarchy of religions. Is this what your religion taught you? Is this what Ram, Krishna, Prophet Muhammad, Jesus or Buddha taught? Were they selling a religion? What did they teach?
If we actually see what all these gods or messengers of god taught us was to be rational. They taught us to question. None of them asked us to follow any ritual blindly. Infact, they had come to challenge it. As far as I understand Islam, prophet Muhammad opposed illiteracy and superstition. He challenged all existing evils. Whatever practices he preached, there was a reason with it. Infact, he despised blind following. He wanted that his grave be simple, it should not have any kind of decoration. But what are the followers doing? They are being uncritical and irrational. Prophet had responded to the problems of the contemporary world that he lived in. As an example, he permitted polygamy keeping in view the scenario of war that existed at that time. The political situation is different today. Similarly, even though he had permitted polygamy, he had said that the husband will have to take care of all the wives. How many of polygamous people care to follow this? Islam emerged out of questioning. It was very rational. But it seems that people have failed to capture this very essence of Islam, essence of what prophet said.
All messengers of God have always said the same thing. If we talk about Hinduism, the preliminary pages of the Mahabharata says that “with time, what is adharma will become dharma and what is dharma will become adharma”. Why have the followers neglected this? Time changes and with time, situation changes. The norms should be relevant to the situation. The norms must change but they should be modelled on the fundamental ideals of religion i.e. equality and harmony.
If one is truly religious, one should try to understand the essence of the religion and not blindly follow the rituals. When one talks about religion, people are always ready to attack. They are always ready to defend themselves, their faith, no matter what. They refuse to see any problem with it. They often respond by comparing with other religions. Some people also escape by making everything look like a conspiracy of the west. While it is true, that there does exist a politics, one cannot also deny the existence of religion intolerance. Both the politics and religious intolerance needs to be ended. And this with begin with our own attitude. If you don’t like a movie, cartoon, photo, ignore it. When you think it does not represent your religion, why bother? Do you think that the creators care? No, they don’t. They have already made up their mind. This is not to say that we should let hatred towards a religion persist. This is not to say that let people misinterpret. Yes, we must try to tell the real teaching but this is not the way. There are more constructive ways available.
Devika Mittal, M.Phil student of Sociology at Delhi School of Economics; Core member of Mission Bhartiyam; Convenor(India) of Aaghaz-e-Dosti
Blog: www.devikamittal.wordpress.com | Twitter: @devikasmittal
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