It's 26th January once again. The Republic of India is 63 years old today. While the country has advanced in all forms of progress, a range of problems continue to plague our beloved country. And there is a list of issues that percolates through every stratum of its sectarian society, down to encroach upon the basic rights of an individual - The Right to Live, and The Right to Live with Dignity.
Violence against and sexual abuse of women, the 'unequal' society that the girl child finds herself in to face, female infanticide, foeticide, gender bias form a big chunk of the list. While there has been an increasing consciousness in our society about these issues, we still have a long, long way to go.
Religious fundamentalism too continues to exist worldwide and its social ramifications encroach upon basic human rights - the Right to Live. While an Indian continues to hope that this will vanish too, we should be conscious of the fact that we ourselves form the society and all of us have a responsibility to address religious fundamentalism from within, the responsibility to care for our neighbour, or the unknown man in the streets. We just cannot afford anymore to look the other way.
Believing sincerely in a religion bestows upon man a responsibility which most of us do not realize or choose to keep silent on. Every religious person has to see that religion does not become an instrument to divide and kill where religion was 'devised' by the prehistoric man to sustain, survive and let live.
Religion is not an aberration. It is a norm of human society and it has always been so. But it is here I would like to stress upon an opinion (which I believe is a fact which even the deepest religious person cannot evade). We have witnessed genocides in the name of religion. Not to repeat oft-repeated emotions about 'the riots' India has witnessed and been a victim of time and again, and phases of militancy (that has become synonymous with terrorism) which again has, and is proving to be too expensive for India and her citizens. Religion has been historically used to justify waging heinous wars and performing unspeakable atrocities on fellow men. The sheer ferocity of religious fanaticism of holy wars rivals the worst crime man has ever committed.
Though religion, over the millenia, has been carried ahead to signify something totally different from what it was in prehistory, to assume predominant spaces of one's life to influence thought and action, the religious person Has to account for every crime that is committed in the name of his religion. While the Right to believe in religion should never be questioned or even opposed, it is by no means irrelevant to step in and point out when religion as a right encroaches upon a far more fundamental and significant right, the right to Live.
It is up to us to ponder upon and try to sustain an equilibrium between how one puts Faith in his/her religion, and how following religion affects our community outside the comfort of our own homes.
I am sure all of us will continue to evolve a bit in consciousness and in conscience, and make India a violence-free country for our future generations to live in.
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