STOP MUTILATING THE BEAUTIFUL ORIGINAL FORM OF THE BODY IN THE NAME OF RELIGION

STOP MUTILATING THE BEAUTIFUL ORIGINAL FORM OF THE BODY IN THE NAME OF RELIGION

Bodily mutilation caused in the name of religion is an archaic tribal practice that ought to have no place in modern society, especially in the case of people converting from one faith to a particular another. Freedom of conscience to convert ought to ensure the maintenance of sanctity of the physical form as well in such conversion. Leaving on the body a mutilating mark of conversion is, to my mind, detestable, a gross violation of the beauty of original form. Surgery when required medically is different but a cultural imposition by way of religious practice continuing to this day is outright regressive and ought to stop. In the case of babies who can neither choose nor protest, for them to undergo such mutilation is again, to my mind, a fundamental violation of human rights. To inflict pain on a baby days after birth or sometime thereafter is reprehensible, an execution over which it has no control. No society ought to have such a right over the new-born. If the baby is unsafe in its parents' hands owing to societal pressure, where lies the safety and security of the world at large?

P.S. If a mutilated/circumcised baby grows up to be an atheist or a convert to some other faith that does not circumcise or if he simply rejects such a practice by way of his reformed convictions, will he be restored in his genitals to its pristine form? What about that? 

How can someone be born into a religion? Religion is a system of belief or understanding and living thereby which comes into one's life when one has grown to maturity. Why then call one a Muslim baby or a Jewish baby and force circumcision on it? These are important cultural and societal questions that need cogitation and consequential amendment in action thereby. 

No one's form may be violated. Molestation of the baby is as heinous a crime as any other. This must be remembered. Human society will not grow out of its animality unless the sanctity of the human form is preserved and protected right from its inception. This would bring other contentious questions like abortion as well, I know, but that is another matter in the wider context into which I may not be drawn into right now as I feel abortion and euthanasia are matters extraneous to the current discussion. 

Written by Sugata Bose