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Journalism of Courage
This column began very quietly indeed by addressing the vast number of silent moderates in the majority community8217; on issues that are pa- ssionately articulated in private but rarely aired in public. But such is the miasma around the subject of Religion and Spirituality that unless you flap your secular8217; flag in three bold stripes at the very beginning, the Nice8217; Hindus are the first to pounce on you for not being Errol Flynn in print, for refusing to slide dramatically down the drapes and wave a rapier about at all the evil knickerwallahs.
You may swear that you loathe all shades of khaki, but you8217;d like a little quiet conversation first. You might insist on starting this sensitive dialogue with readers through small but sure steps on terra cognita, entitled8217; by the accident of birth to speak as a Hindu inheritor. You could have sincerely planned to include as many voices as possible, to weave a richer tapestry. But in a newspaper or even, increasingly, in private, it seems there8217;s a rigid expectation of secularspeak8217; that allows no room to explore nuances and complexities. After the eco-terrorists, it8217;s the secular or Nice Hindus who now goose-step round the block. Neo-dharmadhikaris or moral police, like Emperor Ashoka had and the Saudis do.
Yes, I revere God in the trinity of Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva and the fire as a sacred witness.
No, I do not uphold the Puranas, Manu8217;s opinion of women and varnashrama dharma the caste system.
Yes, I claim the right to worship God as a personal deity, with idols, flowers, incense and diyas.
No, I do not believe in re-incarnation or bad karma, but I8217;ve got my pet superstitions.
No, I do not support the BJP8217;s agenda of redressing8217; history. We have a future to build together. Why can8217;t we swallow our past to save our world, the way Shiva drank the poison churned up from the Kshirsagar?
Yes, I am deeply annoyed with those who knock my fa-ith down as pagan8217; and heathen8217;. Do I go about demeaning theirs?
No, I cannot bear to throw the baby out with the bathwater: how can I abandon my faith for the cold comfort of unbelief, when the be-auty of its songs and stories makes me weep?
Is that so terrible? Should Hindu moderates, like homosexuals in Oscar Wilde8217;s England, now describe their attachment to the faith of their ancestors as quot;the love that dare not speak its namequot;? Or ought they to take a cue from a vigorous proponent of Hinduism8217;s ancient cousin, Zoroastrianism, whom I met last week in Mumbai? Warned that Khojeste Mistree was a controversial figure, whose views on what constituted Zoroastrianism were unpopular with certain sections even within his numerically tiny community, I hoped, at the very least, to be entertained. I was enchanted. Not by his evangelical fervour, but by the refreshing view propounded by him and his articulate wife Pherozeh, that a multi-cultural country like India should actively celebrate its differences.
This resonates with what moderate Hindus mutter amongst themselves and what many Nice Hindus actually feel, if you scratch the surface, except that they8217;re abashed to come out and say so. They8217;d rather describe themselves as quot;freefloating spiritsquot; or repressively declare, quot;Ek hi dharam, insaniyatquot;. Nothing wrong with that, ex- cept that it conjures a dreary world. Don8217;t all religions urge insaniyat anyway? But why must we iron out nuances, forsake our separate and collective right to the azaan, the Magnificat, the loving warmth of Krishna lore or Guru Gobind Singhji8217;s stirring bani? And how uninteresting our lives would be without the calendar highs that religion provides.
We Indians are so rich in differences. Let8217;s keep them, each to our own. With this anxious Yellow Star coda to both Nice Hindus and those of other faiths: please make it easier for millions of moderate Hindus to steer clear of khaki paranoia by not denouncing a modern Hindu8217;s right to believe. The moderates are deeply embarrassed by Manusmriti, but are attached to the vision of Divinity painted in their ancestral religion. Why uphold one faith by decrying another? Or decry faith at all, when the right to worship is as much a constitutional guarantee as the right to worship freely?
