Religion?

Religion is an identity. One more identity along with many others. It is an identity we live with every day - for MOST of us, it decides how we eat, dress, pray, marry, live and exit strategy. And this is an identity that is far more longer and deeper than our identity as a citizen of a sovereign country. You like it or not, whether this is ideal or not, this is how we live, atleast as of now. Whether this identity is deeper than our identity as a citizen is very much debatable and varies from person to person. “Idea of India” cannot be something a bunch of people who called themselves “founding fathers” defined in 1947.

So, my question is, in a country that celebrates diversity and wishes to uphold it (I think) - why should we have to hesitate/scoff at proclaiming this identity – who decided to attach a taboo to religion? When I say, I am an IT professional or a mother or a Dhoni fan, nobody tells me, “Hey, but you are an Indian first and we are all equal”. So why is mention of religion and caste frowned upon, when it is a reality we live with every day – isn’t it presumptuous to think people identifying with a religion and caste can only be regressive and divisive? The real problem is about hypocrisy and demonizing/wishing away something so much, that it became the elephant in the room. Ordinary people and harmless citizens are made to feel bad when they identify with a religion and caste – whereas it is totally NORMAL/REVOLUTIONARY to put up an elevated pedestal with loudspeakers talking about others’ religion and caste. Me identifying with my religion and caste destroys the “idea of India”, but NOT people addressing hundreds and thousands of others about every caste and religion but their own or about all castes and religion put together. Real change should be about calling out this bluff, and not about imposing taboos on religion and caste for the average man and expecting people to change who they are or what they know about their identity. When we expect people to be ashamed of their religion as identity, we have already conceded that there can be no Unity in Diversity, unless there is an intermediate sameness factor. The idea of India is simply too fuzzy/complex, but stronger and deeper than what people can imagine or hope to achieve with forced ideals like secularism. And Indians shouldn’t be expected to dumb down to fit into SOME people’s unidimensional theories and logic boxes.

So, what really happened? If I were to write a hilarious satire – the script would go like this -  somewhere, a group of people who had a large identity crisis with respect to religion, called themselves free thinkers and liberals, but couldn't stand how much the religious/believers were at peace with their religious identity. So, what they tried to do was force their identity crisis on us, believers. They defined that religion must be personal, meaning if you really must have anything to do with it, no one needs to know. But in India, we don’t live like that – expressing is second nature, we are not known for our subtlety - it is who we are. Archimedes shouted Eureka once and the world can’t stop talking about it, Eureka is a way of life in India. We marvel at everything, we celebrate everything, we fight, we are passionate, we can bow down to everything, we laugh together, we cry together - really our culture is one big song and dance. Telling us suddenly to be ashamed/downplay who we are, is sort of like caging us back again. Only a deeply joyless Western ideal/ism can define such rules for us.

"Why I am a Hindu"- I don’t have any such identity crisis. I am a Hindu and I can be one, without having to be Indian at the same time, and I can be Indian without being restricted by the fact that I am a Hindu. I don’t have a problem with my identity and I don’t expect anyone to have problems with me proclaiming this identity. And this is the same of any religion - Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Parsi, Jainism etc. and should be the same of any caste, language as well. There will always be some ups and downs in society and inequalities, but that won’t be levelled out by parroting hypocritical narratives that don’t mean much in everyday, practical life. It is the same sham as some liberals/feminists thumping their chests and imagining that women's rights and progress happened because of some people on the streets and placards. You may push and push and push a woman to go out and work, but it will never happen until there are jobs that don’t need brute strength and working in harsh conditions. The growth of technology and digitalization made sure physical strength and skills that were unique to men were irrelevant and we needed the kind of skills which both men and women could provide equally. Society evolves by discovery - of self and of needs and opportunities around us, by inventions and innovations and not by ideologies and theories. Most importantly, it evolves by active contribution.

Coming back to my favourite - religion :) - Expecting citizens to push back their religious identity as a necessary condition for the country's unity is well, it will just be an expectation, far removed from reality, it will be a sham and subversion of how people genuinely feel and how they live. When every other identity is valid and legitimate and considered healthy for a nation, why not religion and caste? A society must be able to extract the best of diversity, not judge which differences are needed and which should be done away with. India is still a very religious country. Most people atleast. AND we must be very proud of that. If not, we must ACCEPT this. As normal and healthy.