Religion and faith based governance, in a democracy, wow.
I don’t know why the oxymoronic quality of that doesn’t
strike more folks, especially to the folks who vote saffron, skull cap, cross,
what have you.
No, that’s not true, I do know why. They just haven’t
thought about it. They cannot have. No thoughtful examination of the concept
will fail to point to the contradiction of including “… because HE/SHE/IT says
so” in a, of the people, by the people, for the people, system of the
governance. Religion, as far as I can see, doesn’t allow for a whole lot of
yeah-but-we’ve-been-thinking from their congregations. Rules is rules, they
thunder, (hey, religion doesn’t have to be grammatical, or even coherent, come
to that), from pulpits. It is not for you, you imperfect worm, they continue,
to question the Word. Yours is to do or die. And we, the anointed voices of
HE/SHE/IT, will tell you what to do, when to do it, and more often than not,
how to do it, and no back-talk.
And there you have it.
Back-talk is exactly what makes a democracy, well,
democratic. Back-talk, adversarial points of view, out-of-the-box thinking, and
yes, even fringe opinions, are all part of the mix in the governance of as
varied a lot of beings as we citizens; our individual self interests, corners
rounded off by the compromises necessary for the existence of a collective well
being, subsumed into the greater good, each of those corners discussed,
deliberated, and only then fit into the whole. Arguing with the power structure is what
democracy is all about. Not a lot of that in the practice of religion which is
given to edicts, commandments, and holy writ, a top down theory of governance.
Which puts paid to any impulse to check with the People to see what they think
about, oh, let’s say, killing in the name of the
God-whose-Voice-is-all-Terrible. Nope, no consultation, no focus groups, no
referenda, and most certainly, no back talk.
That this, faith
based governance, is happening here in India, home of lower case hinduism, the
philosophy, is particularly galling. Saffron clad satraps have bullied their
way into the halls of governance. It should be noted here that Saffron has
become the battle color for upper case Hinduism, now an Official Religion,
replete with rules, regulations, and intolerant righteousness. Pontificating
from their tax exempt pulpits the Saffron Sages (SS) have been able to parlay
their quite often irrational interpretations of the tenets of hinduism(lc) into
the right and the power to impose on the rest of us their version of a pure
State. Beef, they orate, and the eating of the same is antithetical to the
dictates of Our One True God(s) and any Hindu who thinks otherwise is apostate.
One such SS politician has gone on record as saying that cattle abattoirs are
the source of Islamic Jihadists funding. Or so she believes and the fact that
she is wearing Saffron when she goes to the office, well, that says it all,
doesn’t it?
I have no idea on how to deal with any of this. Religion
and Faith have taken the place of rational discourse, world over. And all i can
think to do is ... Holy Smoke.
What an idea, sirji.
