Iniquity of Religious Intolerance and State Connivance

It is self evident that all religions have come for the well being ofmen. God has created all men equal. There are certain moral values inevery religion which wants its followers to obey. However perceiveddifferences in meaning of what religions say lead to differences whichmorph into groups. One group tries to out do the others. Every modernstate is bound by some governing principles of equality before laws aswell as security of life and property and retributive justice, if anyone is wronged, is the right of every citizen.The Iraqis had enjoyed many such rights as well as religiousobservance until the other day. But now the state and religioussituation is so skewed that they have undergone a traumatictransformation. Neither religion nor the state can be justified forthe suffering of the people in its name. India has also seen greatupheavals of injustice. The genocide of Muslims in Gujarat is onesuch glaring case.In Iraq the lots of the women plummeted with the fall of Baghdad. Theylost freedom and equality they had enjoyed before 2003. The policechief of the southern town on Basra said in mid November 2007 thatreligious intolerance had risen very high. One section tried to showthat it was holier than the other. They were shias of differentdenominations. Imam Khomeni had brought a degree of modest coveringfor women which allowed them to live in Iran as well as in Mumbai orPoona like many Muslims in Kerala. Now extremism has seized the land.There are self styled followers of religion who chase women and runthem down by their cars because they are unveiled. In this way a partof the religious observance is made into the whole body of faith,synecdochic Islam. Ayaan Hirshi Ali calls it Parada Islam. There aregroups who apply the electric grill to the knees of their opponents toinstant death.

In America there is a similar change. In his book Our EndangeredValues former president Jimmy Carter says that in the last quartercentury there has emerged a right wing movement. This right wingmovement is revolutionary (radical) and gives special favours for thepowerful at the expense of the others, and justifies abandonment ofsocial justice and denigration of those who differ. All of theseviolate the basic Christian teaching of loving our neighbours asourselves. The fundamentalist Pat Robertson says about the differentgroups, "You say you are supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians andthe Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, and the other thing.Nonsense, I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the antichrist."Samuel Huntington has nuanced his nefarious thesis of "clash ofcivilization" (Islam versus the Rest) into cultural conflicts. Thisis nothing else but what the RSS has been saying in India. Golwalkerand others have always asserted that everyone who lives here is Hindu.But the RSS exists to maintain the Hindu culture against the culturesof the minorities. Thus on October 20, 2007, marking the 82ndanniversary Sarsanghchalak S.K.Sudarshan said "When we try to evaluatethe result of more than eight decades of effort, one thing comesoutstandingly. When in 1925 the Sangh was founded, the Hindu societyhad descended to such an abyss of self negation that they were ashamedof calling themselves as Hindus. 'Call us donkeys but don't call usHindus.' Today, however, the Hindu has become conscious of hisidentity. He doesn't feel any inhibition in calling himself aHindu…But the Sangh is not satisfied with only this much. Sangh wantsthat not only the Hindu society should be vigilant and full of selfrespect but should be able to face all kinds of onslaught perpetratedagainst the Hindu society."

Former sangh pracharak and now Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modiused state power to make experiment in the Gujarat Hindutivalaboratory of what sarsanghchalak exhorts above. The result is thegenocide of Muslims, on whatever pretext that comes handy. Therefore,the subversion of religious and state power and belief is not onlyinterlinked but justified. To save India from such disastrousconsequences the retributive justice system must be enforcedimpartially.J.S.Bandukwala's specious appeal to Muslims to forgive theperpetrators of the genocide of 2002 and his placatory lopsidedreasons cut no ice. He says "It is time for Muslims to considerunilateral forgiveness. Such forgiveness by victims confirms to thehighest traditions of Islam." Bandukwala fails to understand that inthe Hindutva laboratory the guinea pigs are Muslims. They areessentially victims of the pogroms but in the heinous design of theexperimenters the Muslims have always been victors and aggressors anddeserve no pity. That is what Bajrangi and Bhatt, Modi and Sudarshanwant. Can eighty years of cumulative revengeful efforts disappear by aformal declaration of forgiveness?