WHY THIS RIGIDITY?

WHY THIS RIGIDITY?

Why can't Indian Muslims merge in India as Indians and not persistently hold on to their separate religious and cultural identity whose extreme outcome is separatism? From 'Vande Mataram' to 'Surya Namaskar', do they have a problem with everything on the pretext of religious affiliation and its doctrines thereof? Why did they have to force the emerging nation to renounce "Vande Mataram' and in consequence take up 'Jana Gana Mana' when there was so much of the freedom struggle associated with the former with martyrs chanting loud the mantra before hanging from the noose? How will Muslims lose their religion, so to say, if they sing 'Vande Mataram' or do 'Surya Namaskar'? Does the Hindu lose his religion by accepting Islam as a valid path to God as well, as Sri Ramakrishna has by practising it to perfection proved it? Then why this dogmatism? Why this persistent fear of the Muslim of being untrue to his faith simply if he chants or sings 'Vande Mataram' or does the 'Surya Namaskar' while performing yogic asans? Is faith so flimsy that by an act of easy conversion it can be gained or by a small act of apparent theological non-observance it can be lost? All this stems from this expansionist attitude of proselytising religions which mandates a certain code of conduct to maintain political solidarity. The sooner this rigid attitude is renounced, the better for these religious affiliates and the better for the religion as well. It will then flourish like never before, no more in terms of quantitative gain, perhaps, but in terms of qualitative gain for sure. Then and then alone will this religion reach its high-water mark of spiritual excellence when it will neither have anything to fear nor any other faith to feel suspicious about its proselytising motives which it will have given up as an exercise in sheer futility.

Written by Sugata Bose