When gods had no religion

Even as I heard about the cold-blooded murder of Brother George Kuzhikandan at the St Francis Public School at Nawada, my thoughts naturally wafted from Delhi to my home town in Kerala. We have there an ancient church of Virgin Mary, painted white, overlooking the sea across a stretch of green palm trees. In my childhood, whenever I fell ill, my mother offered a pair of candles to the Virgin Mary. When I am cured of my fever or diarrhoea, she would take me by the hand to the church, buy from a roadside shop a couple of white candles, enter the building and burn the candles at the feet of Virgin Mary in an expression of thanksgiving. Not only my mother, many others in my hometown used to do this, and they still do. And, remember, my mother is a Hindu. So am I. And many others who turned to the Virgin Mary when their children suffered from mumps or scabies, were also Hindus.

For many years, until I grew up into adulthood, I never realised that Virgin Mary was a Christian and me, whom she cured of all ills of the body and soul, a Hindu. The disease-sowing bacteria and virus, however deadly they were, knew no religion. Much the same way, the goddess who cures the afflicted never cares for their religion. That is how we lived in my hometown those days. For us, God did not have a religion. The cross did not have a religion, either. It was a metaphor for love, sacrifice and compassion. When they pulled out the crosses from the graves of Yavatmal they were, in fact, tearing away the heart from the body.

Now some religious fanatics are striving in their fury to alter that scenario of godly peace and beatitude, splattering over it the blood of Brother George Kuzhikandan, Vijay Ekka and the like. They believe that they can redraw the spiritual map of the country with blood. They seem to be convinced that their misadventures in this direction in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, UP and Maharashtra, would get them nearer their goal. But they are not aware of the Zeitgeist. They fail to see reason.

The Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad who are cherishing the dream of turning the country into a talibanised society, should keep their eyes wide open and see where they stand in the wider perspective of truth. They who are torturing and killing the poor Christian priests, do not realise that they themselves could one day be targeted elsewhere. Neo-fascism and neo-racialism are growing abundantly at a global level, in Great Britain, in Germany, in Toronto. Hans Eysenck and Dereck Beackon are cloning themselves.

If the reality does not help them see the reason, let them see the reason in a bad dream. So let us give them a nightmare.

Hindus do not live in India only. Not just in the rich countries of Europe, not just in the USA, but even the dark African continent is home to Indian emigres and the quasi totality of them are Hindus. Hinduism is not the presiding religion in these countries.

What if, in a sudden reversal of roles, these countries target the Hindus living there? If they burn down Indian temples? If they batter to death the pundits of the Vinayak temple at London? If they pull down the Indian school at Houston run by the Arya Samaj? The Christian community in India makes up just 2.3 per cent of the country8217;s population, while the number of Hindus living outside India is many times more that. Do they realise the magnitude of such a holocaust, although it may never happen, God willing?

This is the bad dream we want to give them to force them to see reason.

But will they?