When you feel you are just there but someone pulls you miles back. Like how the bonus works in games. Exactly same is the situation of India. We were just there fighting the circumstances for the first time together, with self-realisation among the citizens. No factor according to the country could pose a problem as life values above all as a rational and normal thinker. It was a perfect game of Jenga with all divisions and diversities fitted together until a piece ruined it all.
In a country like India which follows thousands of gods of different religions and people have immense faith in supreme power and some aren’t even afraid of the biggest fear : death : in order to surrender to the whole, the supreme power they believe in. But that’s an individual choice, AN INDIVIDUAL CHOICE. Freedom to follow any religion, any culture, any activity is AN INDIVIDUAL CHOICE. No one can involve anyone in their individual endeavours, no one can violate other’s freedom to believe.
Sadly, immense sadly this is way far from the understanding of ‘tablighi jamaat ‘and I don’t even expect them to also after the present situation especially whose sole purpose is as simple as spreading religious uniformity. How to expect them to let the jenga game go on? How to expect them to respect an individual’s choice? Other people of the country I believe had much more important tasks, conferences, festivals etc. to indulge in but the citizens thought collectively and everyone surrendered to the nation’s need but religious marketing was so very important!
This does not stop here. After all this when the health workers and government comes to rescue for all the other citizens not to suffer, they face further protest, nurses and doctors face vulgar behaviour in isolation wards while they continue treating them. Debate on intolerance folks?
The words I use and the passive aggression I display is exactly how it felt this time. It’s a passive aggression and a long stored aggression and the pressure point was not the actual Tablighi Jamaat incident but the news of their vulgar behaviour in the hospitals for me. After that news everything that I was ignoring and moving on as a balanced citizen came up in the present and the urge to share it increased. This is the only medium, I can and I should use. Writing.
The first point, “People are not homogeneous, we’re not all the same, physically, psychologically and dispositionally. There’s a huge area of psychology that’s worked to define personality as a primary basis for individual differences.”. (Jim Weaver) Agreed, not all think the same way. Not all can think the same way. But, those who do not think the same way can express it when asked, they can try not to ignore it.
Many beliefs, for example, the old cultural practice under Hinduism like Sati, widow remarriage, class system was questioned by many great scholars and attempts were made to reform them and they were well welcomed by the community after a system of checks and balances. Many other beliefs also saw many reforms with time like Martin Luther’s famous revolution in 1517 and Mu ‘tazalia rejecting wrong traditions in 9th and 11th century. No wonder headings like “Religious and social reforms in India “comes up in the very first few search results in Google. Being a land of multiculturalism, India provides maximum religious freedom for an Individual.” The western countries which defines multiculturalism as co-existence of different religions, but In India multiculturalism is co-existence of various ways of life.” (Rakesh Sinha).
So, as mentioned in the first quote by Jim weaver, the aggression is not on a whole community, but a part of it, on which a communal psychology and ideology has worked to define their personality. That is a great threat to Indian Multiculturalism and now to Indian lives also. This being so evident, it becomes very necessary for it to be condemned and a strict reform to be supported.
Secondly, use of various weak factors in the lives of commoners and believers and feeding them fundamentalism is the most prevalent way of communal Lords. The mind is the weakest and the most open to influences when it’s disturbed or thriving. There is where, “the reluctant fundamentalist” hit! The reference to this movie which I find was very thoughtfully made ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ is very essential at this point, when Changez after being the victim to financial crisis and xenophobia returns homeland, Lahore. He is an easy target to be transformed and influenced with fundamentalist ideas. This chain of people coming in the web of a dangerous influencers like Tablighi Jamaat forms the most urgent and essential need of the hour and it needs to be broken through the same way, but it being a much wider nationalist influence ,‘indianizing’ their fundamentals.
It’s all a mind play. It’s all up there. What I say, the words are all playing up there. The words are trying to find the old knowledge and beliefs stored up there for it to make sense to them. The fundamentals stored up there influence every word you have been reading. It’s that powerful. Being rational, is it that easy? It’s basically the fight of fundamentals and prejudices. The first way to solve any problem is to know the cause and source. What I perceive from the present crisis is that it is an intelligent problem, and it requires intelligent solutions through intelligent mediums as it is not the crowd which is the source, it is the driving force. After all, it’s all a mind play.
Shades By Meera Sharma 