Dear Editor,
The dust from the destruction wrought in Manchester on May 22 by Salman Abedi, described by British media as a “radicalised Muslim”, and his accomplices has not yet settled, and now we have the news of yet another suicide bombing in Jakarta, Indonesia. The week of carnage was not yet complete and, on the first day of Ramadan, 26 Coptic Christians, on their way to St Samuel’s monastery were dragged out of their bus and massacred.
Given the history and global spread of this violence, it seems somewhat superfluous, if not merely academic, to quote the ‘chapter and verse’ reference that Abu Bakr Ji demands of me in his letter, ‘It is practically impossible to find a country which is neutral in terms of religious influence on culture and laws’ (SN, May 24). In any case, outsiders will invariably be reminded of their ignorance of the Arabic in which the Qur’an is written, a language of celestial origin whose sophistication and intricacies elude the understanding of millions of ardent believers. Then again, there will be the polemics of interpretation in spite of the fact that we are constantly reminded that the text is a literal composition, written in heaven, representing the verbatim, immutable, infallible word of God.
The context of a faith provides a greater insight into what it stands for than what is written in its holy book. What believers do in the name of any religion is as important as what is in the text and attention should be to the self-confessed motivation and rationale they themselves provide as the justification for their behaviour, rather than the self-deception apologists inflict on themselves and others by taking cover behind textual ambiguities. If a person gives clear textual justification as the basis for his behaviour, such obscurantist constructions as “self-proclaimed”, “so-called”, “radicalised”, “lone wolf” “misguided” will only thicken the veil of deception.
Abu Bakr Ji has studiously avoided the case of Africa. While he invokes India’s caste system to justify and advocate conversion, no attention is given to the same phenomenon in Africa and the rationale for the mass conversion there. It can’t be an African “caste system”. Abu Ji again chooses to ignore the monumental social transformation occurring in India, in favour of his favourite fixation with India, essentialising the most diversified and constantly evolving religious tradition in the world, as his “born and bound in dharma” characterisation reveals. He seems to desperately need a caste system to validate his notion of “release.”
Vedic hermeneutics of “desha and kala” or place and time, allow for a dynamic, contextual interpretation of dharma. On one level there is the idea of “vishesha dharma” or specific dharma that is bound by time and place and which is subject to change and transformation. All social institutions, including the caste, fall under the category of specific dharma. A Dalit Mayawati could become the chief minister of the most populous state of the India, and a lower caste Modi could become the Prime Minister of the largest democracy in the world. But changes are far more widespread and profound.
Regarding Abu Bakr’s advocacy for conversion of Hindus, Hinduism did not suffer a loss on account of Baba Saheb Ambedkar becoming a Buddhist. Indeed, we have no issues with persons moving from one to the other of the autochthonous traditions of Bharat Mata. The constitution of India itself, of which Babasaheb is the acknowledged inspiration and architect, makes no distinction among Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs. All are Hindus. Abu Ji is probably aware that when Babasaheb was contemplating “conversion”, both Christianity and Islam were considered and both were rejected, but it is not for me to repeat here his reason for doing so.
Frankly, I am flummoxed by Abu Bakr Ji’s contention that “to retain one’s religion … may … render co-existence difficult”. Would he prefer that we become a religiously monolithic state to ensure “co-existence”? Rather than uniformity which is what seems to be advocated here, our view for social harmony is the ancient Hindu concept of “Unity in Diversity”, a version of which is the motto of the European Union. Our European brother knows this.
Yours faithfully,
Swami Aksharananda
