TERROR AND THE TIMES

Liberalism is the need of the hour. Instead what we are witnessing today is gross violation of basic humanity, intolerance of a noxious kind. Politicians are playing with the gullibility of ordinary citizens and trapping them in their web of vote-bank politics. Secularism is the safe card for the foul-play of sectarianism fuelled incessantly by political parties who camouflage their dubious designs under the cover of offering protection to the minority communities but who in essence drive a wedge between different sections of society to suit their political ends.

There is a difference between patriotic politicians as were evident during the days of our freedom struggle and professional politicians as are evident now. The former liberated the motherland from her bondage to foreign yoke while the latter are perpetuating her bondage to factionalism. What India needs today to attain national cohesion is an enlightened leadership that can rise above the pettiness of the times and take the country ahead. Unity of purpose and resolve, integration of will and a shared vision of a hopeful future where every Indian will see the light of day in his/her life ought to be the objective now and for that we need a national consciousness and self-identity rather than caste or religious identity. The higher must supersede the lower and so must nationalism gain pre-eminence over all other considerations of religion, caste or creed. Only when we feel we are Indians first and then, whatever else we may be, will we progress as a nation enroute to peace and prosperity. But such an enlightened citizenry is a far cry at the present and the turbulence of the times seems to be our likely fate in the foreseeable future. Cynical it may seem but there are deep-seated, intractable historical imperatives for it being so.

Hinduism is perhaps the only major world religion which openly declares that all religions are true and that they are but varied expressions of the highest transcendental truth as perceived from different standpoints and planes. It is universal in its scope like the physical sciences and is completely impersonal although incorporating the vast body of personalities within its fold. It is the science of the Self and of the spiritual world which is the continuum of the material world in an ever-refining inward progression enroute to the Absolute. The three major Semitic religions, namely, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all exclusive religions which hold their respective doctrines to be the final word on God with Islam being the most conservative in this regard. It holds itself, arbitrarily though, to be the last word on religion, its highest refinement and the ultimate evolution of religious thought for it categorically affirms a dated personal revelation as the Word of God and that too in its final formulation, inviolable and sacrosanct. And herein lies the problem. When evolution of thought in the realm of spiritual discovery is denied beyond a revealed text and the enunciation or formulation of new principles of spirituality or the amendment of old ones prohibited by scriptural injunction and by political force, when religious stricture founded in singular authority debars human freedom to challenge its rational validity, when scientific scepticism which is the birthright of every rational being is outlawed in matters scriptural, religious growth is retarded and with it comes stagnation of right thinking in the society that harbours it. This is turn leads to intolerance, violence, forcible proselytization to reinforce unreason, and, war-mongering in the name of religion whose foster-child is terrorism, although, it must be averred that there are geo-political reasons galore behind such hideous impulsions as well.

Now, here we are at the inception of the new millennium, civilized humanity fighting like barbaric brutes on grounds of our differences which are but natural but which appear in our myopic vision to be contrary to our contracted conception of homogeneity which in our estimation is the highest social ideal to be followed in the name of whatsoever scriptural authority. Such homogeneity may never subsist at the surface of phenomena for variety is the design of surface distribution of life and things. Diversity evidently is the plan of Nature and needs to be accepted as the gospel social truth whereby we may all cherish each other’s differences of life and living as contributory to the general mosaic of society. Unity lies at the base of things and may be reached through multiple avenues even as the centre may be approached through infinite radial paths. The scheme of the universe once apprehended on a broad philosophical basis, fanaticism takes to flight and it is here that we must work to educate our children out of the noxious web of religious exclusiveness and lead them on to the clear space of rational discourse and evidential understanding. Then only will liberalism triumph over fanaticism, enlightenment over superstitious ignorance and universal sympathy over sectional sentiment. The world perhaps is too young in experience as yet to appreciate the higher principle of harmonic co-existence and will in all probability continue to engage in futile feud over earthly trifles thereby deluging humanity in an ocean of blood for the foreseeable future. But through all these vicissitudes humanity will have learnt its lessons alright and will have opened itself up to new outflow of light from the heart of consciousness wherein it shall stand transfigured, a divine entity free of the shackles of its chequered past. Then alone will peace ensue here on this brutalized earth but that is a far cry today, a distant call whose echo we are yet to hear.

Right now vast numbers of people are held hostage to primitive practice of religion seeking sanction from absolutist medieval texts that brook nor reason nor reference to time and place in their current decadent interpretation. Hundreds of thousands are being slaughtered in the wake of such revivalism of a barbarous historical past as the world watches in dismay and knows not how the scourge of fanaticism may yet be contained. Political expediency and human correctness on the part of the Western democracies choose not to link religion with this brand of mass barbarism and its agenda of global terror to get the better of modern civilization which it despises but the fact is that terrorist organizations like ISIS are founded exclusively on religion by their own admission and practice. To deny this in the name of civilized moderation could be dangerously counter-productive quite akin to the ruinous path of the late 1930s when the Chamberlain-Dadalier denial mode and appeasement of Nazism led to the Second World War. History should not be allowed to repeat itself for it requires but a spark to start off a catastrophic Third World War in a pronouncedly nuclear age when political alignments are hazy and unclear. A concerted effort must therefore be made by the West to understand the genesis and inspiration of ISIS and other terrorist organizations, their geo-political compulsions and objectives, their world mission of exclusive survival and propagation of a singular culture before the terror perpetrated by them may be successfully combated and eliminated. But for this the world must stop delinking Islamist terror from radical Islam. That is a naive approach to a complex problem and opposed to truth in the first place. Calling these terror organizations non-religious is a blatant lie and does not address the central global problem of religious fundamentalism. Rather, calling a spade a spade faces the brute square on and overcomes it to save humanity. In no way does it thereby compromise illumined Islam which throughout history has produced countless savants, seers and saints. Rather, only then will it successfully isolate the extreme factions of Islam from mainstream moderate Islam and build up a strong middle ground of harmonious co-existence for the bulk of the world Muslim population with the rest of humanity. The fringe elements will have then been set aside to the fringe once more to their extinction or else, if sanity prevails, to their future assimilation in the bulk of the mother body of humanity. Peace may prevail only then, not before. The motto forever is: face the brute, be founded on the acceptance and affirmation of truth and struggle to unite as a single human family with inner union amid myriad superficial divergences of approach to life and living on account of differences of location, perspective and experience.

Hail Humanity!