Dear Editor,
This refers to the report, “32 died in violence after conviction of Dera chief ” (National, August 27, 2017). Anarchy is bound to happen when political power bows to religion. And this has practically been staged in Haryana. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has rightly said to Monohar Lal Khattar, the Chief Minister of Haryana, “The Chief Minister is also the Home Minister.
Why have you allowed people to assemble for seven days? If they were antisocial elements, why were they allowed entry for seven days?”
It is a pity that when the judiciary is trying really hard to drive religious prejudices like triple talaq out of the socio – political backyard, our political representatives are fighting shy of such responsibility even though they themselves had promised to take up that job after getting elected.
We need to realize that there are two aspects of religion – spirituality and religionism. Sri Aurobindo had rejected religionism or sectarianism in religion. He said, “On the other hand, religion when it identifies itself only with a creed, a cult, a Church, a system of ceremonial forms, may well become a retarding force and there may therefore arise a necessity for the human spirit to reject its control over the varied activities of life.”
According to Mark 12 : 17, Jesus Christ said, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” Here Caesar means the Government. This is a clear message for a secular government, which is not connected with religion. Had we followed this teaching, we could have avoided oceans of bloodshed and banished many Rasputins from enjoying political power.
History has indeed witnessed many Rasputins, big and small, coming out of an unholy alliance between religion and politics. So, the people need to be very cautious about religious dogmas hijacking our political rights as well as our evolutionary progress. The names of those who shared the public space with Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh even after his being charged with as grave a criminal offence as that of a rape, must be made public. The electorate should be in the know about such political Who’s Who to beware of them.
Yours,
Sujit De,
Kolkata