IF SO, THEN WHAT?

IF SO, THEN WHAT?

If it is scripturally ordained that infidels may be force-converted, subjugated, killed, their women molested, enslaved, held as concubines, their possessions looted, how can you prevent the periodic recurrence of such dastardly actions without doing away with such scriptural passages or rejecting such archaic inhuman injunctions outright? Cosmetic changes will not suffice. What is needed is, as Swami Vivekananda averred, 'root and branch reform'. If the toxicity springs from the root, making modifications in side-shoots will hardly help. The virus must be eliminated from its root. Then change will come, humanity will prevail. Till then all attempts to eliminate roguish behaviour from believers is an exercise in futility. Root out the root and the soil freed of such toxic takeover will grow benign roots afresh to shoot to life and light.

Written by Sugata Bose