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Opium:
The Stupefying Role of Religion in India

T. SHER SINGH

I’ve long wondered if it is religion that softens the brain and, through slow stages, turns it into pulp.

Surely, I’ve felt, it is what brings on demented behaviour. Confusion. Arrogance. Irrational opinions. Illogical feelings of superiority. A closed mind. Claims of exclusivity. Visions of direct access to deities … even God. Claims to a reserved status in imagined, fantastical heavens. A pathological need to pass judgment on others.

The last few days have dispelled all doubts for me. Now, I know for sure it’s true.

Before I go further, let me first explain the use of terminology so that there is no confusion.

By ‘religion’ here, I mean a practice bereft of spirituality and based totally on dogma and literalism. I do not use it here as ‘Religion’, that is, in the sense it is used to refer to a system of beliefs … such as the Christian Religion, or the Jewish Religion, or the Hindu Religion, or the Sikh Religion.

In this article, I am using the word to describe the blind adherence by some to the letter of religious law, not its spirit or context, and the resulting headiness it creates with delusions of superiority and exclusivity, and allows one to feel entitled to lord over others. All of it resulting in pronouncements against and denunciation of, closely followed by oppression and tyranny over, any and all who are weaker or voiceless: children, women, poor, minorities, aged, gays, uneducated, foreign … 

As I said, recent new-clips have finally confirmed my fears.

Now I know for sure. Yes, religion is, as Karl Marx once said, truly the opium of the people. But in more ways than even he had imagined. It stupefies, of course. But it doesn‘t stop there. It goes on to generate criminality. The transformation … an irreversible one in such cases … is from Dr Jekyll to Mr Hyde. 

I won’t burden you with a survey of human history, which is proof in itself. Or the state of the world today … all our problems today are ultimately rooted in religion and its collateral damage.

But I will give you the latest evidence which has clinched the argument for me.

All of it emanates from India. Around the tragic gang-rape of a young woman in New Delhi and her subsequent death.

While women in India stagger from the details of the atrocity and the world looks on in horror, fundamentalist Hindu religious leaders -- yes, I use the word ’religious’ here in its most demeaning sense -- have turned to the air-waves with all the aggression and perversion their demented minds will allow, to tell us that the fault lies not in our stars or with the perpetrators of the heinous crimes, but in the victim herself: the innocent woman who fell prey to the beasts. Nay, all such women.

Here is what they are saying in India, and its unholy media is dutifully giving than all the “front-page” space they demand.

1   Asaram, a leading Hindu religious leader from Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, said during a sermon to his flock: "The girl should have taken God's name and could have held the hand of one of the men and said, 'I consider you my brother' and to the other two, she should have said, 'Brothers, I am helpless. You are my brothers, my religious brothers'. Then the misconduct wouldn't have happened."

He went on, during subsequent interviews, to explain that because of her failure to do so, it is her fault. When chided by some in the media, he dismissed them as “barking dogs”.

He has continued with his tirade, describing the nation-wide protests over the endemic violence against women as “anti-man”, and warns against any new laws ‘picking’ on the male gender.

In Gujarat, they call Asaram ’Bapu’ - father! The same honorific they gave another Gujarati, Mohandas Gandhi, who is also widely known for bizarre sexual perversions.

2   Then there’s Mohan Bhagwat, the Chief of the RSS - a Hindu fundamentalist, extremist party which was banned for decades because it had planned and executed the assassination of Mohandas Gandhi. It is currently the main bulwark behind Narendra Modi’s wet-dreams to become Prime Minister. 

Mr Bhagwat has proclaimed that rapes only take place in India, never in ’Bharat’. As if that absolves the people or the country.

For those of you who don’t know, Bharat is merely the Hindi name for India. For example, every Indian postage stamp and currency bill read “India’ in English, and ’Bharat’ in Hindi.

Mr Bhagwat then goes on to offer his taliban-style explanation: everything bad that happens in the country is because of “western influence” and therefore neither India nor its corrupt politicians are to blame.

The rape, therefore, was the result of India’s perennial arch enemy, the “foreign hand”.      

3   Ashok Singhal, a pooh-bah with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a ’worldwide’ Hindu governing body, echoes the overseeing RSS by adding that India’s lack of human values is the fault of the United States of America. 

4   Sharad Yadav is the Convenor of the National Democratic Alliance (“NDA”), a right-wing Hindu political coalition. He is also a Member of Parliament and is a leader of the fundamentalist Hindu political party, the Janata Dal.

He hastened to the hustings to defend the six perpetrators of the gang-rape on December 16, 2012 by proclaiming that young men need, “just like they need air and water,” sex every 15 to 20 days. They have to get it somewhere; what are they to do?  

He also praised the all-male ‘Khap’ villlage councils of Haryana for having come out in opposition to any change in laws in the country.

5   India’s head of state, the President of India, is an ardent Hindu who has suddenly become publicly pious and ultra-religious since he was sworn in as President a few months ago.

His son, Abhijit Mukherjee, was hand-picked by his father to succeed him as Member of Parliament, and was elected as such, and now holds the honour.

Mr Mukherjee scolded the female protesters after the December 16 gang-rape was reported and dismissed them as “painted” and “dented” and therefore deserving to be silenced. Which they were: the protests were brutally suppressed by the Delhi police. Many of the women who were arrested were then tortured in jail.

6   In case anyone dare suggest that insanity in India is limited to males only: Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, a woman herself and a Member of Parliament, has added her own twist to the matter.

“It was not at all a rape,” she said of another rape victim, “it was a misunderstanding between the lady and her clients.”

That is, she was branding the victim a prostitute. Because she was raped!

*   *   *   *   *

Not to be outdone, the leaders of virtually every extremist Hindu group have stepped up to the podium and made similar statements.

So, is there going to be change coming soon to India? You be the judge.

Now, before anyone jumps to conclusions, I do not mean to suggest that fundamentalist Hindus have a monopoly on stupidity.

All religious groups … and there are no exceptions … have their fair share of nut-cases. Even the Sikhs.

But in this particular scenario unfolding in India, remember, Hindus constitute 80% of the population. That is, there are a billion of them.

So, whatever portion of them are nutty, no matter what the percentage is, figure out for yourselves the number of neanderthals and dinosaurs that roam the land.

If you want to solve … no, merely begin to solve … the multitude of towering problems that plague the land, you don’t need to hang your criminals.

All you need to do is lock up your religious nuts … and throw away the key.   

On the other hand, if you don't want to do anything, merely distract public attention, you could start hostilities on the Indo-Pakistani border, threaten war ... and the rape will be forgotten in a jiffy amidst the jingoism.         

January 9, 2013

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