Shackled

A young lady who is training to become an educator, spoke to me recently.  She is wonderful, very smart, articulate and confided to having grown up in an environment bound by strong religious belief where no deviation from the stated tenets of their ‘Book’ was accepted or permitted.  It is customary in their household to consult the ‘Book’ to seek guidance for any and all quandaries.  Now, planning to be a teacher, she felt ambivalent about some matters, especially the current public narrative and policies around LGBTQ+ issues.  She was looking for ways to help resolve her confusion.

We talked about different ways on how to approach this subject.  I told her it is my understanding that while Hinduism and Buddhism may possibly be less rigid, Abrahamic religions perhaps have a more dogmatic view about LGBTQ individuals, communities and practices.  In any event, being neither a scholar nor a theological student, I emphasized my inability to engage in this discussion from a religious perspective.  I respected her beliefs without reservation and suggested that we keep an open mind to review her conundrum.

During the course of our dialogue, I inquired if she had chanced upon Brave New World by Aldous Huxley which was published in the 1930s and had presciently foretold the state of the dystopian world we live in, today!  She had, but as she could not readily recall its substance, I sought out my notes and shared the following excerpts from this novel with my friend:

QUOTE

• “But if you know about God, why don’t you tell them?” asked the Savage indignantly.  “Why don’t you give them these books about God?”
• “For the same reason as we don’t give them Othello: they’re old; they’re about God hundreds of years ago.  Not about God now.”
• “But God doesn’t change.”
• “Men do, though” … said The Controller, Mustapha Mond … “You can only be independent of God while you’ve got youth and prosperity; independence won’t take you safely to the end. … (God) manifests himself in different ways to different men.  In pre-modern times he manifested himself as the being that’s described in these books.  Now… he manifests himself as an absence; as though he weren’t there at all. …. Call it the fault of civilization.  God isn’t compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness.”
• The Savage interrupted him.  ‘But isn’t it natural to feel there’s a God?”
• “You might as well ask if it’s natural to do up one’s trousers with zippers”  …[The Controller continued] “You remind me of another of those old fellows called Bradley.  He defined philosophy as the finding of bad reason for what one believes by instinct.  As if one believed anything by instinct!  One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them. … People believe in God because they’ve been conditioned to believe in God. … The Gods are just.  No doubt.  But their code of law is dictated, in the last resort, by the people who organize society; Providence takes its cue from men.”

UNQUOTE

As she mulled over these excerpts, I added that in The God Delusion, author Richard Dawkins states, “You can’t get away with saying, ‘If you try to stop me from insulting homosexuals it violates my freedom of prejudice.’ But you can get away with saying, ‘It violates my freedom of Religion.’”  He adds that “Faith (belief without evidence) is a virtue. The more your beliefs defy the evidence, the more virtuous you are.”

Dawkins’ book states that, “In India, at the time of partition, more than a million people were massacred in religious riots between Hindus and Muslims (and fifteen million displaced from their homes). There were no badges other than religious ones with which to label whom to kill.”

Famed poetess, (late) Parveen Shakir had recited this beautiful sher (couplet) in her very popular ghazal:

Ae meri gul-zameen tujhe chaah thi ik kitaab ki	Oh my flower-strewn homeland, all you desired was One Book (to guide your peoples)
Ahl-e-kitaab ne magar kyaa teraa haal kar diyaa	Alas, see what the People* of the Book have reduced you to [*broadly, all those custodians, interpreters, or self-appointed guardians of the ‘Book’ who claim authority through scripture, scholarship, or religion]

Footnote:  Lest your unconscious or selective biases lead you to wrong conclusions about her religious background, please know that the young lady here is just a figment of my imagination.  But, the thoughts expressed are very real, apply to every faith and resonate in my mind every single day. 

To conclude, please enjoy one of my all-time favourite songs by Sahir Ludhianvi that beautifully encapsulates some long standing debates respecting aspects of Indian philosophy on renunciation or acceptance of traditions; I especially like the following stanza:

Ye paap hai kyaa ye punya hai kyaa Riiton par dharm ki moharen hai	What after all is sin, what is virtue? They are merely social conventions sanctioned by religion
Har yug mein badalate dharmon ko Kaise aadarsh banaaoge	When every age refashions its faith and moral codes How can you hold them to be absolute and timeless truths?