Religious Conversions - From One Mirage to the Next

2014, IMHO, has been a watershed year as far as debate on religions go. One only needs to search in youtube to get some very fascinating debates - one religion vs. another, religion vs. atheism et al. If you haven't, look for Bill Maher, Douglas Murray, Majid Nawaaj, Richard Dawkins, Anjem Chaudhary, Athaar Khan etc. The discussions are thoughtful and highly entertaining to say the least.

The ongoing debate in India around conversions (and re-conversions) towards the end of 2014 has been an icing on the cake, so to say.

Now conversions are not new. Some of the major religions in the world openly propagate it and thrive on it. It has been going on for centuries. And while I firmly believe and openly profess the right of a person to believe in anything, and follow whatever path he/she thinks is the right one, I cannot but wonder what kind of a person (the preacher or the converter) would ask someone to forego his/her current religion and join a new one. That person, the converter, has to be a BIGOT or an IDIOT.

There is no way to sugarcoat this. You see, at the heart of the conversion inducement lies a fundamental assumption - that my religion is better than yours! Really, in this day and age, if someone says "my religion is better than yours", either he/she is a complete nincompoop or a vile scheming bigot. There are no other categories I can think of.

If a person decides to leave his/her religion of his/her own volition and go to the next one, there may be some understandable reasons. I will give a few but the list could be really long:

- Caste - If you belong to one of the so-called lower castes, there may be good reasons to embrace a different religion. All Hindus who love their religion need to wake up and realize that calling/treating some Hindus as "lower caste" is self-annihilating. Self respecting people will simply walk away as they should.

- Gender - Need I even say anything. All religions give women the short end of the stick. Some societies have moved away from the barbarism, some follow it today and some would like to get back to it! For females, the best alternative seems to be to show their middle fingers to this entire religion thing and let the males squirm. Pity is that it is the females who seem to be conditioned the most to follow their religions (and accept their second class citizenship status) from early childhood. They hold their religions on their shoulders oblivious of the fact that it is religion that has been burying them down for centuries.

- The Books - Living by the diktats of books that were meant for life in ancient/medieval times might insult some people's intelligence. Most people simply ignore those books, as they should. However if your society judges you by your degree of adherence to medieval books and ideas, it might be time to say goodbye to your religion altogether.

- The Followers - If your co-religionists make you uncomfortable, you can either fight them and make them irrelevant, or ignore them (but for how long), or leave your religion. Would you want to continue to be part of a group whose ideas you no longer identify yourself with.

There could be obviously many other reasons. In fact, I would aver that most people simply don't leave/change their religions out of inertia. They are too busy with their lives to care about it. However we all have to decide what kind of society we want to leave for our children. If we believe in something, we should raise our voice for it. If we don't agree with something, we should fight against it. Silence in this day and age is a privilege we don't have.

Indian Politics - I'm lovin it

Alternative 1:
Sonia G, Manmohan ji, Laloo ji, Digvijay ji, Karunanidhi ji, Raja ji, Devegowda ji, Yedi ji, Advani ji, Mulayam ji, et al

Alternative 2:
Modi, Nitish, Kejriwal, Shivraj,  - the list is short but hopefully growing (can Rahul ji make it to this ji-less list here?)

The fact that the political discourse in India is changing from a fight between "ji vs. ji vs. ji" to "tea seller vs. Engg. vs. IRS officer" is something that few would have contemplated even a decade back. The change is momentous. The first group focuses on who to give special privileges, who is exempt from paying tolls at toll gates (Vadra ji) while the second group clamors to do away with special privileges (Kejriwal has started it but I expect the second group to follow suit).

The first group professes a politics of entitlements and divisions of an existing cake (this or that group has first right to India's natural resources) while the second group works to make the cake bigger and better, so all and sundry can benefit. The first group throws freebies to win elections, selling the future for today's votes while the second group works for a better future.

The first group believes in "managing elections" (Digvijay Singh) while the second group works to widen its appeal amongst one and all, with their own unique methods. Mainstream media survives like a pest in a symbiotic relationship with the first group. The second group largely survives on its own PR by leveraging social media.

By no means the above generalizations about both the groups are 100% accurate (e.g. some in the second group also believe in entitlements). But in my view, they do largely represent the differences between the two groups.

Once the political battle is won (elections), next comes the economic battle. Leaders in the second group will have to show that they have an economic vision for India. Can they generate jobs? Can they engender entrepreneurship? Can they make India rich with economic activity? So far, only a few have shown the economic astuteness while a few are still playing with the politics of entitlements.

Regardless of how this goes, I will take an India where the battle is among Modi and Nitish and Kejriwal any day over an India where the battle is among Sonia G and Advani ji and Mulayam ji.

Perspective - Never lose

Work

The security guards, manning every apartment in Bangalore... I can't begin to imagine their lives. If you live in a typical Bangalore apartment (as I did), chances are it is manned by just two guards, one in day and one in night. 12 hours each. Bad, but not so much you say. After all, don't we all work 10-12 hour days. Yes, of course. Except that we also get our weekends. Now these guards, they get their day off too, but that means the other guard has to be on duty for a full 24 hours - and if you do the math, you will see they dont quite get a full day off, its just a half day off, every week.

Every time, I felt I was overworked, or that my work was mundane, looking and greeting my guards helped me put things in perspective.

Family

You cannot spend enough time with... And yet, we all know every relationship has their ups and downs. Life can get monotonous and so can being in a relationship. When we were young, we thought our parents were too much drag. Now that we are the parents, we often have our own issues. And yet, any day I have to leave my family to travel on business, for even a few days, it seems like forever. On my way back, I literally run the last few steps. Is distance good for relationships? I don't know. I suppose its like elastic - the further you pull, the more force there is between the ends to get together. But pull it more and it just breaks... If your work doesn't come in the way of you spending every night with your family, thank your stars and count yourself as the luckiest few.

Career

There was a (profane) line I picked up while watching a Hindi movie sometime back - jiski chalti hai, uski ga*nd par mombatti jalti hai. Loosely translated - people with authority often have their ass on fire.
The more I watch people around me with real authority, the more I see them being in constant stress. It is amazing how there is no end to this cycle. Authority breeds paranoia. Everybody has a boss to please regardless of who you are. Even CEOs and entrepreneurs have boards or investors to answer to. So while you go for that promotion and bask in that limelight, remember, as you get closer to the flame, the temperature only increases.

By the way, here is a closing thought experiment - what happens if all the farmers (and meat producers), world over, decide to go on a strike for a year? If they plan it right, they will have enough grain to last them for the strike year, which means anybody who is not directly involved in production of food (60-70% of world's population) is in trouble - people in manufacturing and services economy - people who are relatively well off today. Because there is no food being sold, no one is buying any cars, laptops/tablets or even gold. Money loses value and we go back to barter system. Hmmm, how much grain do you think that code or presentation will buy you.

Perspective is precious - don't lose it.

The Enslaved Indian Mindset

While watching the movie adaptation of "The Sign of Four" on a lazy Sunday afternoon, two thoughts occurred to me -

ONE: The great loot of India by the British was not done just at an institutional level but also at a personal level. It was a free for all wherein individual British citizens residing in India had an opportunity to amass for themselves wealth that they would not have dreamt of before. This mass loot was in no doubt aided and abetted by the Kings of India and their subjects who provided an easy access to India's wealth by concentrating the riches of the land in their own small confines, in their palaces where a stronger power could easily come and partake of the jewels - without scavenging every city, village and home which could have been an impossible task for any foreign power.

TWO: Even with all the wealth in the world, and all the men at its disposal, India failed miserably to guard itself and its freedom. Invaders, with a small militia, starting with Ghazni and followed by Ghori, Nadir Shah and the British among others, could always come to India at their will, loot its wealth, destroy its places of worship, treat its citizens inhumanely and return, only to come back again and repeat their acts. Contrast that with the British who fought against Hitler valiantly, and the Soviets who died like cattle but still held on to Stalingrad in WW2.

An easy explanation of this recurring (pathetic) behaviour of Indians can be that Indians at that time were divided among numerous kingdoms, each with their own small little armies, big egos and were constantly fighting among each other, thus making themselves weak. That would be just partly correct, if at all. After all, even with a thousand princely states, for a country as big as India, there would be enough people in each of those states to take on the invaders single-handedly.

No, there is an easier explanation. For the vast majority of Indians, it simply did not matter who the ruler was, for it had no bearing on their well-being. They could care less if a Nadir Shah was coming and fighting their king, their king was doing scarce little for them anyway. This majority was comprised of the farmers, the landless labourers and the untouchables (at that time). From an economic standpoint, while this class of people broke their backs working in their fields, the kings and their subjects amassed wealth for themselves. Why should the farmers take up arms if their king was in danger of losing his kingdom - good for the bastard, time to pay for his sins (and all the atrocities his men had committed on them).

From a socio-cultural standpoint, the majority of the people at the bottom rungs of Indian caste hierarchy gained little from the then prevalent system, a system that gave little respect to a vast majority of them. Why should the untouchables get agitated if a certain Ghori was looting a temple - they were not allowed in that temple in the first place all their lives. Let Ghori loot all he could - as long as he didn't come into their homes, not that he would find anything worth looting in there.

In all, there is a fairly simple explanation to India's continuous desecration by foreigners for the most part of 2nd millennium AD. And there are two vital lessons - don't let a few amass your country's wealth (a distributed wealth is nearly impossible to loot); and treat your people at the bottom of the pyramid with respect (give them a reason to protect their motherland).

Those who know me, know that I am a staunch believer in free enterprise, and have nothing but contempt towards communism. And yet for free enterprise to be successful and benefit the majority, we must be watchful against crony capitalism. I believe and can see that twenty first century India is inching towards a system based on free enterprise, albeit slowly. Hundreds of millions remain under poverty but millions have come out of it in the last 20 years. This is a good sign.

However the caste system in India remains entrenched as before, and much to my dismay, the situation has not become better even with rising education levels. In fact, some of the educated lot I come across are the most vicious proponents of casteism, forming their own exclusive clubs. Our politicians across all party lines feed on this division among people. But there is no point in blaming the politicians - we get the leaders we deserve (and vote for). The current system of reservations, while providing some benefits, perpetuates the caste division. We have to strive for a system and a society where reservations themselves become meaningless - by providing educational opportunities to each and every child to rise to the very top, and by allowing private enterprise to create jobs free of bureaucratic shackles.

If Indians can do this, they would have learnt something from their own history, and make this third millennium theirs. As I see it, return to the golden age is predicated upon if we can unshackle our enslaved minds of our rigid caste hierarchies. It is that simple!