By Barnes Mawri
The curse of the third millennium in my opinion is the rise of religious fundamentalism which we are witnessing day after day. Just this week we witnessed the twin blasts which rocked the city of Brussels where about 30 persons were killed and many more injured. This was again the handiwork of ISIS a religious fundamentalist group who are bent on destroying civilization. The recent gruesome murder of the four MC nuns (one of whom was an Indian) and thirteen of their employees in Yemen by the ISIS terrorists has already sent further shock waves across the world. Killing in the name of religion which ISIS is perpetrating has been going on for years now. How many innocent persons are still to be sacrificed at the altar of religious fundamentalism is a question still to be answered. I know that what ISIS is doing is not subscribed to by the moderate Muslims. ISIS presents an extreme leftist religious ideology which de facto is posing a great threat to our civilization itself. In a civilized world of today, where freedom of expression, freedom of belief etc, are upheld with scrupulosity, such religion-based cruelty can never be condoned. Any good hearted Muslim should feel ashamed of such inhuman acts in the name of his/her religion. However, what perplexes me is the fact that till date no Muslim writer has expressed strong condemnation against religious fundamentalism in our local print media. Such lack of sensitivity can be misinterpreted by the general public.
Back home in our own country, in the last few years we have seen a surge of suffronization which is another form of religious fundamentalism perpetrated by groups of Hindu fundamentalists. The gruesome events of Kandhamal in Odisha which took place in August 2008 are still fresh in our memories. Politics and religion became a dangerous concoction in those events leading to the loss of 38 innocent lives, 18000 injured and more than 50,000 displaced persons. Over these, 4640 homes, 252 churches and 13 educational institutions were torched during the attack. Hatred against the minority Christians was injected into the minds and hearts of Hindus who started persecuting the Christians systematically. The murder of Swami Lakshmanananda and four other Hindus, was maliciously blamed on Christians which added fuel to the already high degree of hatred against Christians. It is alleged that leaders of VHP and Bajrang Dal were behind the scene fanning the flame of hatred. They effectively played on the religious sentiments of the Hindu mobs. Even today seven innocent Christians are kept behind bars although no proof of their involvement in the crime has so far been established. A national signature campaign for the release of these innocent victims is being floated on the internet, but with so much of anti-Christian politics, will they ever be released?
Today with the BJP government at the helm of national affairs, it looks like religious fundamentalism is at its apex. In many BJP ruled states like Gujarat, MP, Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra etc, religious freedom is being curtailed and the so called “Ghar wapsi” programme is being enthusiastically implemented. Hindu fundamentalists are taking the law in their hands and they are dictating terms even in matters of food habits, entertainment, dress etc. This is what we call “religious fundamentalism at its worst”. Why condemn only the ISIS? We too have such religious bigots roaming freely under the protection of the law. This was what Gandhiji stood against all through his freedom struggle even at the cost of his own life. Religious fundamentalism is the woodworm that will gradually gnaw at our national integrity and destroy the “unity in diversity” that we have so far enjoyed.
Coming closer home to our own Northeast region, we see the seeds of religious fundamentalism being sown in the simple minds of our tribal people. The process of suffronization is being achieved indirectly through the believers of traditional religions. A Karbi friend and a Bodo friend of mine have told me how Hinduization is gradually taking place in the Karbi and Bodo indigenous religions in a very subtle manner. The same phenomenon is being witnessed in the Niam Khasi, Niam-tre. I have no objection to tribal people becoming Hindus if they so desire, but to sow the seeds of hatred and division among members of the tribe is something malicious and unacceptable. To my knowledge there had always been a warm relationship between tribe members (paradoh-parasnam) in the past, irrespective of each one’s religious adherence. This is simple to prove because going through the earliest Seng Khasi paper “U Nongphira”, I came across many articles of Niam Khasi members lauding the role of the Church (especially the Catholic Church) for its contribution to education and promotion of culture. Similarly, many Christian missionaries have shown respect and love for Khasi culture through their writings. Persons like Rev. Thomas Jones who gave us the alphabets and Fr. G. Costa, Fr. E. Bars, Fr. J. Bacchiarello have preserved in black and white our rich cultural heritage. It is surprising therefore to see how such a cordial relationship has disappeared altogether and that too within the last few decades. Evidently there is a reason for that or let us say there is a devious factor at work. I shall refrain from being judgmental but I shall leave to the wise readers to ponder and draw their own conclusions.