For dignity in life and death - JAWED NAQVI
Liberal ideologues were bound hand and foot as the states pursued their faith-based route to social control.
A NEWS story from
Sweden has rekindled what was a mere fading hope for fair play. This may
interest atheists in the subcontinent as elsewhere. According to the story
highlighted in leading British newspapers, a graveyard free of any religious
symbols has been opened in Sweden to cater to the country’s growing number of
atheists. In a world brought to its knees by its religious preferences it is a
bold step. For the reviled tribe of cynics, it should be a welcome departure
from the daily setbacks.
Earlier, I wrote about
a rare TV channel that opened in the United States. Atheists run it and
propagate their creed. Among other issues they discuss the possibility without
ramming it down anyone’s throat that we may have evolved from apes. However,
both sides eventually benefit from debating faith and doubt. The fact is that
modern atheists have evolved from major or minor religions although Hinduism
claims the oldest tradition as questioners. In India, charavakas questioned the
Vedic order thousands of years ago. This would not be very different today, but
state-backed religious revivalism in India and Pakistan browbeats discussion
into forced submission.
In the United States
where McCarthyism hunted communists, they didn’t spare atheists either though
not all of them are Marxists. The wheel has turned full circle, or thereabout.
‘In God we trust’ still continues to be the legend on the dollar bill as
advocated by the founding fathers but the constitution resolutely protects
everyone’s right to free speech and belief. It offers equal protection to
America’s atheists, be they Jews or Gentiles in origin, and that’s laudable.
By contrast, similar
clusters in India and Pakistan live in a state of mortal threat. A group of
atheists from different corners of India planned a conclave in Mathura the
other day. Hindutva groups loyal to the right-wing government together with
members of the Muslim clergy opposed the meeting. This the two often do to
jointly throttle debate.
India’s constitution,
drafted by an entrenched critic of organised religion, however, gives MPs the
choice to take their oath of office in the name of God or to ‘solemnly pledge’
allegiance to their new office. I am not exactly familiar with the larger
provisions for atheists in India but my surmise is that they have equal rights
with those with beliefs. Things are changing, however.
On what grounds was
the Mathura conclave subverted? Apparently the police threw up their hands
citing threats from the muscular religious opponents. But isn’t this how the
various Senas and Lashkars are shored up on both sides of the border, in a
not-so-secret pact with the state? The police told the Mathura organisers to
hold their meeting but not come for help if they were attacked
Consider the flip
side. In India, the army protects an annual Hindu pilgrimage in Kashmir. Anyone
who opposes the Amarnath pilgrimage — even though the annual melee of devotees
takes a toll on the fragile Himalayan ecology — must confront the best-trained
coercive arm of the Indian state.
To keep a balance of
social control, the Indian state runs the only system in the world that
subsidises Muslim citizens who go to Haj. Also the foreign
ministry fetches Chinese visas for the pilgrimage to Lord Shiva in Tibet. And
when the fruits of religious fervour turn toxic, as they did in Punjab, the
state strains the limits of its secular army to destroy religious aberrations
it foisted for political gain.
A million dubious apologies follow but there’s
no such luck for the sceptics. From the little that I know there does not
appear to be a Haj subsidy in Pakistan. The official airline arranges to fly
out pilgrims for a fee and brings them back.
Lofty liberal promises
the two countries made to their people on independence were bartered away to
religious groups, sooner in Pakistan and slowly but steadily in India. Liberal
ideologues were bound hand and foot as the states pursued their faith-based
route to social control.
The state of play
overrides the fact that undivided India inherited a tradition of atheism, older
than most other civilisations. The charavakas or nastiks, as Brahmins called
them with derision thousands of years ago, confronted a stubborn clergy with
logic and reason. (They would convince Prime Minister Modi that ancient India
did not discover plastic surgery.)
Three shining stars of
this Indian tradition of questioning and debate were murdered in a deliberately
violent campaign in recent years by Hindutva partisans. Many others have been
silenced or marginalised by the state and its religiously inspired mobs.
Atheists in Pakistan — they exist and I have met a few — lead an equally
precarious life. The clergy keeps them in a state of fear not without help from
dubious leaders who started out as liberals.
The late Jaun Eliya,
in the tradition of fine Urdu poets, including those fighting pitched battles
in Pakistan, poured acid on the state of affairs. Hum wo hain jo khuda ko bhool
gae/Tu meri jaan kis gumaan mein hai? (True, we are those that forgot God/So
what is the illusion that you applaud?)
We do not know if Jaun
Eliya was an atheist or a polemicist. For his verses, according to the
orthodoxy, he should burn in hell. Let’s assume he was prepared for that. Can
we let him be? Safdar Hashmi and Zohra Sehgal among others asked to be
cremated, not buried. It helped them dodge religious ritual in death as they
had done in life.
Sweden’s idea of a
cemetery, bereft of religious or nationalist symbols, thus extends the choice
for everyone to go with the dignity with which they had lived. Whatever happens
in the hereafter, if anything should happen, should be no one else’s business.
see also
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able, and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?