RELIGION, POLITICS OF CONVERSIONS AND P K




            It is not news that a movie has been well made or scripted. News these days is whether it makes it to the 100 crores club or breaks box office records. Politicians are less concerned by the ‘state of welfare’, or any change thereof, of its ‘proletariat’, but more concerned with their religious commitments or any changes thereof. This is not unexpected in a nation obsessed with religion, and caste. Ever since I can remember, every blessed form that I filled in, even prescription I wrote, carried the blanks for religion and caste. This caste based distinction and segregation has pushed the nation into an abyss, from which it is difficult to conceive how we will extricate ourselves, if and when we are able to. Leaving the caste factor aside before a thousand daggers are drawn against me, the boohoo about religion is difficult to fathom.
            To many like me, religion is a very personal thing. Which God I believe in, or don’t believe in for that matter, is entirely my preference, and should have, and often does not have any bearing on what religion a person was born into or bred up with. Religion is not just an amalgamation of ways of praying to the Creator, of the forms in which he is visualized and worshiped, of what we expect from Him, and how we go about pleading with Him it. Even what religion means to each one may be vastly diverse and distinct. Does it then really matter whether a person is Hindu or Muslim or Christian? He may be a Hindu but atheist in practice, a Christian but celebrates like a Hindu. Does religion actually give a Muslim any better life than if he was of any other religion? I doubt if being a Sikh or Jain gives them anything more than a sense of fraternity. Probably a bigger sense of oneness and inner peace would come if everyone looked on the other as a fellow human being, and a creation of God. Forget about who was who by way of religion, and who they should be or you want them to be. Why are we so keen to welcome “Goa Christians to Hindu fold” and undo what the Portuguese did so much earlier, or convert Muslims to Hindu because the Mughals converted them centuries ago? Shakespeare’s words in the form of Shylock’s outburst ring so true, notwithstanding the context. Let’s just let them be mortal and human beings, God’s creation as they were meant to be.
            Love produces many virtuosities. Apparently now, jihad is another offshoot. Love jihad has now become a tactical issue, and Bajrang Dal plans a Hindutva version, goading Hindu youth to marry Muslim girls. The end is very laudable in that a universal brotherhood may emerge, but unfortunately the end is for all the wrong reasons. At least here, in the words of the Mahatma, the end does not justify the means.
            Aamir Khan’s “P K” has grossed 214 crores in first nine days. I have not seen the film, but I doubt if this earning is totally attributable to his ‘excellent’ acting. The storyline seems fascinating. Some of the insinuations have caught the attention of the audience because they do strike as being superfluous. That there are similar insinuations and beliefs in all religions is obvious, but conveniently forgotten by one faction and vehemently protested about by the other. The audience of the film “P K “doesn’t give a damn, and the producers are chuckling all the way to the bank. You wouldn’t mind about hurt sentiments either, but for the fact that if the shoe was on the other foot, things would be lot different, with burning cinema halls and may be a blood bath. It is wiser to steer clear of any religious sentiment, as there are far more socially relevant issues to debate and portray.
           It is not for everyone that religion is a nonentity.
             

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