Our country just waded through the UN declared International Day to Commemorate the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief on 22 August. The General Assembly, however, failed to elaborate on the limits to practicing “religions” as well as “beliefs”. The terms “religion” and “beliefs” are the two most mischievous words of social theory; as a result, laws and norms around them camouflage the distinction between the victims and the perpetrators. The biggest beneficiary of this fuzziness is the lawmaker and the law enforcer, as a result of which religion becomes a bait for democracy in the hands of despots, as Plato lamented. Another resolution passed unanimously in the General Assembly on this year’s 15 March was to combat Islamophobia. Where are these resolutions taking the world to, especially in an absence of any educated scholarly debate on the use of these subjective terms in the Assembly? If secularism incorporates varieties and diversity, a single resolution would bury the fuzziness practiced by most nations. However, this cannot be.
What is the origin of religion and beliefs? It comes from a culture that fails to question, is non-argumentative, timid and fearful of supernatural powers. Incidents such as the one which took place in Raigadh (Maharashtra), a district which has developmental indicators above the national average, a woman was allegedly forced to take bath naked under a waterfall in public, under a belief that this would lead to child birth. Take the other side of it in inculcating a religious belief in which riots and killings are legitimized by belligerent parties. The fear that grips a community against the other when the government becomes party to actions which release perpetrators of religious crimes is a dent in nation’s frame. The news that a community is fleeing out of their village on visuals of celebrations taking place after Gujarat government released all 11 convicts serving life imprisonment for heinous crimes of gangrape and 15 murders in the same family is a crime against humanity. The story goes on as many noted journalists, academics and social workers are locked up behind bars as under-convicts till a sufficiently reasonable grounds of their involvement in alleged activities of terrorism, sedition or anti-national funding is placed before the court. Most states have laws to develop scientific temper similar to the one under which the Maharashtra government has taken action against Raigadh culprits for practicing beliefs detrimental to one’s safety, honour and dignity of life, i.e; The Maharashtra’s Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and Other Inhuman, Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act, 2013, but does that actually create a scientific temper? However, despite a steel frame available in the Indian Constitution against violence based on practicing beliefs, religion or an ideology leading to the targeting of minorities and sexually diverse communities, one may yet have to wait for many decades till India adopts the 2019 UN General Assembly’s Resolution 73/296 designating 22 August as the International Day to Commemorate the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief both in letter and spirit.
The world is becoming increasingly unliveable as religious boundaries are deepening on one hand, while on the other narrow outlawed beliefs in black magic, witchcraft and supernatural powers is returning to inflict an escalating crime graph in society. I, for one, in my long life has never seen so much display of religious ritualism, public sermons by priests, sadhus, sadgurus and trusts controlling news and TV channels with much disproportionate impudence and audacity to push out non-believers to the social periphery. Interestingly, as scientific temper weakens, technology industry rises to control every home but can the government boast of its tech outreach to open the minds of users? Engineers have a big role to play in a current scenario but are their minds open enough to see the impact of what they create? A shocking and soul stirring incident of 2018 when ten people in Delhi’s Burari village commit a ritual suicide to meet their dead father in a plight for prosperity. Millions of people across the world are killed due to religious beliefs. One can safely start this statistics from the brutal killing of 6 million Jews in Nazi Germany. Racism has been the biggest killer but ironically its origin is the same as the origin of other supernatural and divisive beliefs practiced by communities and political masters trained in a culture of uneducated compliance to ideas, irrational and unscientific timidity towards inquest as a result of which they easily become fodders to ideological sermons directing them to eliminate all factors of disbelief for an assured Arcadian bliss or glorified victory to live happily ever after.
The hollowed weakness of this illogical belief of religious separatism is best exhibited in the two nation theory promoted by Pakistan’s founder Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah who took away the Muslims of India into a separate state.
Has any society which is separated on religious grounds ever achieved an Arcadian bliss promised to them? A questioning culture of enquiry and dialectics is a road to harmony and togetherness but in today’s times questioning the establishment becomes a plea for sedition. The carnage against the Jews started by racist leader Hitler ended up in the holocaust of 6 and 9 August when atom bombs were dropped over innocent civilian victims in two most industrial cities of Japan. The world continues to pay its price in the nuclear race of mutually assured destruction that followed and erratically stopped with Détente but boldly survives through labels of rogue nations as wars continue. Hitler continues to inhabit our minds.
Few realize as policymakers that every ideology or a belief sooner or later becomes a bread and butter for someone, whether it’s Hinduism, Islam, Christianity or racism of any kind including black magic or supernatural forces. Violence breeds in them. When the General Assembly proclaimed this International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief, it reiterated that States have the primary responsibility in promoting and protecting human rights, including the human rights of persons belonging to religious minorities.
However, minoritism soon becomes another religion if the debate is blocked by powerful lobbies and the state. These resolutions should be read in their spirit towards inculcating universal brotherhood of co-existence by building a scientific temper and inculcating a spirit of questioning authority in public life.
Amita Singh is President, NAPSIPAG Centre for Disaster Research (NDRG); Senior Professorial Fellow ISS; and former Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University (Law, Governance and Disaster Management).