To demystify the word 'Religion'

In a chat, "Religion is beyond nation and is personal to an individual and not connected to any one particular religion. Geographic boundaries don't define a religion" said a well-read, well-travelled, right-wing Hindu. This article is to demystify the word religion and give a dose of filtered coffee to wake up Hindus.

Deity and its Land

An average Hindu must be familiar with the Vedic rituals of Homam. In Homam, Hindus seek blessings from Ishta Devataa, Kula Devataa, Grama Devataa, and other deities that influence our lives.  If my friend is right, either these rituals are not part of the religion or religion is not only personal but includes clans and lands. The latter is more likely to be true. Of the Devataas mentioned here, the Grama Devataa is the most relevant one for this topic. Grama Devataa is supposed to unite the people of a village - defined by some boundaries on land. They are the Kshetrapalas - protectors of the land, its people, and its flora and fauna. The connection between the deity and the land continued even in urban contexts. Rich and powerful people donated land to those temples. People living around the temple respected the landowner and performed their duties to the temple. There were flower suppliers, musicians, and dancers who performed for the temple deity and maintenance workers who ensured the upkeep of the place. We have so far covered the connection between the land and the deity.  

Holy Places 

Mahabharatam, considered a Hindu epic has two interesting episodes describing the geography of Bharata and its holy places. Dhaumya, the priest of the Pandavas describes various holy places (Thirta) to the Pandavas. Narada does the same when he visits them in the forest. They advise the Pandavas to visit those Thirtas for 'personal' reasons of earning punya and getting rid of Papa. More scholarly Hindus may identify these sections as later-day insertions and were not part of Vyasa's work. Even if that were true, why does a religious text mention these places? Because religion is not separate from the land and its features. From a religious angle, our mountains are sacred, our rivers are sacred and our forests are sacred.  (An interesting question - If forests are sacred, why did Krishna order the destruction of the Kandava forest?  Feel free to find fault with Krishna - we don't issue Fatwas.  We are Hindus.  A discussion on this event should elevate one's understanding of the Hindu world.)

Nation and Land

Wikipedia (I know, I know) says, "The consensus among scholars is that nations are socially constructed, historically contingent, and organizationally flexible."  In the absence of Indic contributors getting recognized even in India, this is a Western notion of a nation. The Wikipedia article on 'Nation' doesn't stress the territory part. Don't Hindus, the majority in India, need their definition of a Nation - at least their Nation? The Western notion speaks of the nation only for the people - not for the environment, not for the land and definitely does not speak for other living beings. But India, that is Bharat is different. Our National Anthem praises the land and appears to be very different from the anthems of many countries. (Interestingly Bangladesh's National Anthem written by the same Tagore praises the produce of Bengal and the season. It's a bit melancholic, but I love it.) It was from this kind of Hindu mind came the idea of Bharata Mata - the nation as a deity to be worshipped.

If the nation is in people's interest, it must include people's beliefs. Shouldn't the nation include what its people consider sacred? Or does the nation exist just to exploit these natural resources to benefit its people? 

Nation and Land in Other Religions

The religion that is a well-diversified corporation and the religion that is expanded by the sword are less 'personal' but more 'political'. The history of Christianity and Islam is all about how they conquered lands and not how personal those religions are or how enlightened their adherents are. The Church and the Waqf Board have nothing to do with personal religion, but have everything to do with land.  To these religions, land is material wealth not a sacred one worthy of worship.

Summary

I wish the educated elite Hindus understood the connection between their religion and their land. It is good to go overseas, learn new things, make a lot of money, and live a life of comfort.  They are building temples there. Let them not take just the architecture from India, let them take the sense of sacredness as well from India. It would be great if overseas Hindus consider the rivers, mountains, and valleys in their adopted land as sacred as Ganga, Kaverai, and Hrishikesh. In the process, they might discover the Kshetrapala and Thirtapala of those lands. That is the Akhand Bharat I like to see.

Smarter Tools and Dumber Consumers

Our morning walk topic turned to the gen-next and its dependence on tools, especially Google Maps. We regularly see drivers missing the signs on the roads when following Google Maps.  A late turn here and missed turn there make the driver look lost.  We see an absence of common sense and over-reliance on the maps for directions.  We wondered how we managed to find our ways over two decades ago.  We used to read the map and memorize the directions to the best of our abilities, supplemented by small notes in case our memory failed.  Most importantly, the focus was on how to not miss a turn. We would remember the street that proceeds the one that we must take.  

But every generation goes through the learning of new tools.  Why do we complain when the next generation uses maps? This article is an attempt to identify the missing factor - learning. 

Let me take the field I am most familiar with - programming.  Generations before mine used assembly programming before high-level languages were created. It definitely made our lives a lot easier.  But we also picked up the nuances of the languages.  We spent hours optimizing the code, making it more readable, ensuring standards, and so on.  We were the users of the tool.  A few brilliant programmers identified the shortcomings of one language and tried addressing them in a new language that they could create.  The cycle continued and now we have more complex software developed in a much shorter time.  There is also an overall improvement in the quality of software.

Such an improvement is also seen in Google Maps.  The audio cues are getting better, and the reroutings are getting smarter.  The system became more intelligent because of its usage by consumers.  Yes, they are different from the users of the tools mentioned in the previous paragraph.  These are not users who improve the tool by their conscious usage, but consumers who make mistakes that are used by the system to improve itself.  This led to the statement - that the phones got smarter and the people got dumber.

The question is - can the consumers of Google Maps become users who consciously improve it?  It may be possible for a few heavy users to figure out the nuances of the tool and improve upon them.  But Google will do a lot better than them.  It has data from millions of consumers from around the world.  It has the systems in place to learn about the mistakes they commit and possibly a team of analysts who figure out the deficiency in the software and fix it much before the smart individuals can act.  

Machine intelligence will gain with the stupidity of the consumers.

I am a Bhakt and I am against UCC

 Yes. You read it right.

RSS might think that the UCC is a brilliant idea to unite Hindus.  The BJP might think it appears like a good stick to beat the Muslims and get Hindu votes.  I think both are shortsighted if not totally wrong.

First, let's look at the political angle.  If UCC becomes a law, Muslims would continue to ignore it like an average Indian ignores traffic laws.  The interesting part is, even for a traffic law violation, our Police would hesitate to act if the violator wears a skullcap and sports a beard.  So, as in traffic law violation, it would be the Hindus who would be punished if they violate UCC.  In other words, UCC could be the new tool of an aggressor to target only Hindus.

Coming to the social issue, we are so diverse that each community has evolved its customs and traditions over hundreds of years.  Some are social, and some could even be biological.  I qualify it as 'could be' as there is no documented scientific proof but observation over generations.  For example, the optimum age for marriage and pregnancy.  Social and biological factors play their roles in this factor and every community should have the room to decide on this.

The marriage age is already becoming an issue in impoverished regions of the country.  Poor girls in the age group of 16-18 are lured by love jihadists here and there, get converted and the Romeos are rarely touched by our laws.  And there is a need to protect denominational groups.  If they have the custom to marry off their daughters (not consummate) before 18, they have to face the heat from law enforcement agencies - of course only if they are Hindus.

Let's take an example of a community that has a genetic condition that increases the probability of infertility with age.  If that community observes it for a few decades and chooses to address it by lowering the marriage age, it is already considered a violation of the Child Marriage Act.  Unfortunately, we do not accept a traditional view if there is no "modern scientific study".  

Our laws are no match for community-derived wisdom.  UCC will reject all such wisdom and would be selectively used to target enemies. A few examples of such misuses are painstakingly documented by Deepika Narayan Bharadwaj and Shubham Sharma.

So, here is a word of caution to my fellow Bhakts - tread with caution.  Be careful what you wish for.