Living in India, the best way to impose a ban on a particular movie that does not suit your interest or when you simply feel like extending your personal conservative ideas to the entire nation, just accuse the film of ‘hurting religious sentiments’ and that’s the final seal. There. Nothing can be said or done now. Why can we simply not allow people to reveal a certain degree of truth that lies buried under the cloak of religion? What are we so afraid of? The truth? More importantly, why do we have to take to the course of an instrument of the weak in order to shun an objective point of 
view? Where did our pristine attitude of tolerance vanish? Why has religion even become this hush-hush topic which nobody can possibly discuss without saying something drastically objectionable and run the risk of being publicly condemned or even socially boycotted? How have we reached this utterly disgraceful state?
According to me, in our devout nation, religion reigns supreme over the belief in God. Man has created these multitudes of belief-systems and over time, tried hard to gather masses to accept his own form. In doing so, he is, intentionally or unintentionally, generating a rejection of the other forms, hence brewing hatred. When one person believes in a particular religion, no matter how great a man/woman he/she is, he/she will definitely regard the other one with a certain contempt or maybe unequal regard. Why? Since there are distinctions and categories, it is but obvious that you will look down upon the ones that you did not chose, or more poignantly, were not born into.
Humans have deliberately created separating factors between the same species which has erased all their fundamental similarities and what precisely makes them human. I say, religion is a sham. That’s my word. Why? Well because God did not conspire to use a cruel tool for dividing humans, namely religion. When nature provides us with endless uniting factors why are we humans hell bent on creating disastrous differences?
Now, I really do not find any discomfort in people believing in a higher power or a supernatural over-arching force, but when this same, supposed to be divine and pure force, begets disdain, abhorrence and malice in the same group of people, why shouldn’t it be problematic for any humanist? That’s my only question and my sole problem. On the one hand religion teaches you to be compassionate, helpful and all those pretty qualities but 
if on the other hand, you stoop to violence, coercion and scorn to practice or propagate this very religion, then what’s the use of it all? Isn’t all this a sham? If not, then what else?
One more botheration that I have with the idea of religion is the pompous proclamation of one’s devotion. People go around walking on the streets chanting His name, singing devotional songs, appreciating Him and the world that He created. Assuming that He is our creator (another significant debate) would he really want you to spend your days and nights over-obsessing about him rather than make the most of the gift of life that he has given you? What is the point of bringing you to Earth if only to talk of Him? I fail to comprehend this very thought-process. We have transcended from the Theo-centric world to a man-centric world, so why this unbound fetish?
When a path-breaking movie like PK hits the cinemas, instead of recognizing the element of authenticity that is being revealed, the spiteful devouts will do anything to protect their own God while defeating the other’s. Whatever happened to the existence of one God? Whenever instances of communal disharmony occur people merely reflect on the 
superstructure or the exterior manifestation of the trouble without ever questioning the root cause of the problem. Why are we so reluctant to raise a finger on religion? Is this a fear of God or something else? Why are we unable to ponder over the real issues and simply go around addressing the question with a garb of inter-religion disputes. No resolution can ever form itself without touching the essence of cause. And what I am saying is not limited to India but spreads across the globe. Until and unless we identify and recognize the nature of the problem and resolve to direct our energies to fixing it, we will find ourselves in the same spot for a long time to come.
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Tags: God vs Religion Religious controversy in India
