Dear Editor,
Stabroek News editorial on “freedom of thought and of religion,” (08.03.21) is a timely reminder of the fact that this freedom must not be taken for granted.
Even though in the Guyanese society we are not given to extreme forms of behaviour in matters of religion and belief, there have been instances where these freedoms were breached and compromised.
About ten days earlier, on March 12, Stabroek News reported the vandalisation of the Durga murti at the Radha Krishna Mandir on Camp and Quamina Streets, Georgetown. It is a well known fact that sacred images are an integral part of Hindu worship and have been so for many thousands of years. The Hindus of Guyana are greatly perturbed by this unprovoked act of iconoclasm.
We know that some religions denounce what they call “graven images” and that iconoclasm, the destruction of sacred images, was and is a major part of their warfare conducted against faiths that have a different understanding of the role of the sacred image.
There are some believers who consider themselves as acting on a mandate from their god when they engage in image destruction. The logic, simplistic though it may seem, goes like this. If the thing is an “abomination” to a god then it must be so to the believer as well. And if a god has commanded its destruction, as we are told, then the true believer has no choice but to fulfil the divine command. Muslim leaders of Afghanistan, for example, fervently believed that they were following the injunctions of the Qur’an when they destroyed the centuries old Bamiyan Buddha images.
The history of the world is replete with examples of such believers, be they prophets, kings or commoners, and history also attests that Hindus have suffered more than any group in this destruction.
Recently in Trinidad the famous temple in the sea was vandalized and murtis were destroyed while further afield, in the Islamic Republic of Malaysia, where it is also illegal for non-Muslims to use the word “Allah,” dozens of Hindu temples have been razed to the ground in recent times.
There are numerous reports of Hindu children being forbidden by school authorities to wear a simple Raksha, a thread on the wrist. These reports include a number of city schools such as Queen’s College and St. Stanislaus College.
During the recently concluded Holi season attempts were made principally by persons of other religions, including a recent convert to Islam, to bar the worshippers of the East Meten Meer Zorg mandir on the West Coast of Demerara, from burning Holika on the day of Holi itself, on the Kastev ground, under a spurious pretext of ownership, notwithstanding the fact that for the last ten years the event has been held in exactly the same spot.
It took long hours of negotiations between the police at Leonora and interested citizens before the East Meten Meer Zorg Hindus were allowed to burn the Holika, and that too under police protection.
In 2007, a Christian group set its “crusade” in front of the temple in La Jalousie, West Coast Demerera. When the temple protested the crusaders brought in the police who upheld their “right” to hold the crusade. Later on better sense prevailed and the crusade shifted further down the street.
According to the March 12 Stabroek News report some people have surmised that the destruction of the Durga murti at the Radha Krishna temple was probably the work of a “mentally disturbed” person. This, of course, is little consolation but it is all we have to hold on to and we might as well do so.
For, if the destruction of the murti is the work of someone who acted on divine command against all “graven images” then we slip into a worse abyss than we have so far seen in Guyana.
Yours faithfully,
Swami Aksharananda
