There has to be something seriously wrong when leaders from every major religion in India come together and agree on something. This is precisely what happened with Section 377 in December. Championed by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and supported by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, Utkal Christian Council and Apostolic Churches Alliance, some of India’s most prominent religious bodies decided to launch into a battle against sexual pleasure. They managed to reinstate Section 377, which effectively means that any sexual act that cannot potentially produce a child is illegal. Apart from the implications to homosexuality, this section also outlaws oral and anal sex between a man and woman. All this, does beg the question about why religious organizations want to govern how a couple wish to get intimate in the privacy of their bedrooms.

There is no denying the huge role that spirituality and religion play in defining India. However, that does not mean that we should make irrational decisions about matters that could be detrimental to us in terms of limiting our freedom and choices. Unfortunately many of our religious leaders (who for the most part are self-sworn and politically active) have taken it upon themselves to define ‘morality’. Here are some instances where we have allowed ourselves to be dictated by senseless beliefs that stem from religion.

Legal Subjugation of Muslim Women

Thanks to the politics of the Indian National Congress, laws in India allow the freedoms of Muslim women to be trampled upon legally. Consider the case of Farhana Parveen who

while pregnant with her third child, had cooked a lavish meal for her in-laws and family. In her own words she says, “I made five kilos of chicken curry along with biryani and some ten other items. But when my husband saw me feeding my daughter, he asked me why I had not given it to his mother instead. I was accused of being partial to my children.” This “unpardonable” error on Farhana’s part meant that the next morning, hubby Salim left the house with his mother after uttering that dreaded word three times: “Talaq Talaq Talaq”. Today, Farhana struggles to provide for her five daughters. Unfortunately it remains a common practice in Muslim communities in India to utter the word ‘talaq’ three times in front of any set of random witnesses and then get a Qazi to endorse it. To make matters worse, Muslim men are allowed to practice Polygamy in India. This means that the Salims of India can randomly divorce their wives based on personal whims and then marry around to suit their convenience. Maybe there is some credence to the cries for a common civil law that is applicable to all citizens of the country irrespective of religious beliefs.

Hunting for buried treasure based on a random dream

Unnao District in Uttar Pradesh had its fifteen minutes of fame in September  last year when a local priest named Shobhan Sarkar, claimed that Baksh Singh, a 19th-century king of Daundia Khera, Ram had come to him in a dream and told him that one thousand tons of

gold treasure was buried under his palace. In an interview to Wall Street Journal, Sarkar said, “..The ghost of Singh is worried about the Indian economy and he wants the treasure to be used for the economic growth of the country”. Most 5 year olds would have dismissed Sarkar’s claims as ridiculous and stupid. But amazingly Sarkar’s claims managed to find traction with the government of India. One Charan Das Mahant, a Minister of State for agriculture and the food processing industry in the Government of India, heard of Sarkar’s story and convinced the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the Geological Survey of India (GSI) to inspect it.  The ASI announced the excavation of the site which began on 18 October 2013. Obviously, absolutely nothing was found and all that was achieved was wastage of government resources based on the silly dream of a Godman.

Procreating for world peace

Most religions in India are against abortions, and against contraception. The birth of a child is seen more or less as a gift from God and one that cannot be refused. Mother Teresa did phenomenal work for the underprivileged in the country. Much of this action was inspired

by Catholicism.  However, one cannot ignore the stupidity of some of the arguments made in favour of ‘God’ by her. During her prime, Mother Teresa said that the “greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion,” and added that “every abortion is the denial of receiving Jesus.” She called for adoption, rather than abortion, and natural family planning instead of contraception. So this essentially translates into saying, don’t use condoms; instead abstain from sex. Don’t consider abortion as an option; instead bring a child into the world irrespective of whether you want to or not – else face the wrath of God. 

‘Death’ by Vaccination

India was recently declared as polio-free. However, one of the strangest battles faced during the polio eradication campaign was persuading certain pockets of Muslim communities that the vaccine was not a Western conspiracy to wipe out Islam from the world. The general mindset of Muslim parents in parts of UP was that the polio vaccine would make their sons impotent and their daughters infertile. Thankfully, the mosques were won over and they declared the polio vaccine to be ‘safe’ and in turn the war against polio in India could be won!

Roll over a Brahmin’s left-over food to cure skin ailments

When the BJP was in power in Karnataka, it decided to defend a bizarre practice of people rolling over plantain leaves containing leftovers of meals consumed by Brahmins in the belief that it cures them of skin ailments. Most sane people in the state, along with many dalit organizations, called to ban this practice. However, some BJP leaders, most notably Vedavyas Srinivas Acharya, a doctor and minister who was handling the higher education portfolio, vehemently opposed the ban of this practice called, ‘made snana’ or ‘urulu seve’ (roll over ritual). In a country where we are still trying to completely get rid of the caste system, we continue to have the political will of our leaders to continue ridiculous customs that have no place in society today.

Rejecting science for fantasy

Many political debates in the West often include absurd theories on the origin of life. Evolution is disregarded by many factions in favour of ‘creationism’ which means that the world and life was created by some ‘God’. Most of this rubbish exists because of the backing of the church which needs this far-fetched theory in order to be consistent with its God narrative. Unfortunately, this thought process also exists in certain pockets in India. The basis of this entire theory is that the moment you face a question that can’t be answered – one should dump all scientific evidence and say that ‘a man in the sky’ did it. In science one would investigate, challenge and prove any hypothesis. In religion, one simply assumes that ‘God’ did it.

A Silver Lining

Thankfully, we seem to have enough sane people around to ensure that theories similar to Creationism, irrespective of which religion they originate from, stay out of our schools. A recent survey showed, that of all the major countries in the world, Indians were most comfortable believing in a God and still holding the view that life on earth, including human life, evolved over time as a result of natural selection as well as agreeing to Darwin’s theory of evolution. So it seems that India is saner in this aspect than, Argentina, China, Egypt, Great Britain, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Spain, and the United States.

As is always the case with politics in India, the ongoing battle for the Lok Sabha has a strong religious undercurrent. Most would agree that this is detrimental to the nation. Yet, we will allow ourselves to be swayed by religion to take decisions that may not be the most logical or rational. We will always remain spiritual and religious to a great degree in India. But it’s possible, that for our society to take a leap to the next level, we need to weed out many of the stupid and illogical aspects of religion that time and again raise their ugly heads, to unnecessarily and poorly govern our lives. 

Copyright secured by Digiprove