SHOULD WE BAN RELIGION ?

One more Islamic terrorist strike in India. This time at least 60 people were killed in Jaipur in a part of the city full of temples and popular with tourists.

I am afraid there is a sense of fatigue with terrorism. In addition maybe due to the sheer frequency of such acts the government, opposition media and ‘secular’ sections of society react predictably. Then there are the Governments of US and Pakistan.

One can almost see a STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE [S.O.P]
The SOP goes as follows:

. PM Manmohan Singh will ‘condemn’ the ‘dastardly act’ and call upon the people to maintain peace.

. Sonia Gandhi will offer her condolences to the families of those killed. In her effort to reach out to the Muslim community she will ‘advice’ the police and investigating authorities not to target the Muslim community.

. The police will tell us that they suspect the hand of LET or SIMI or JAISH e Mohammed – this has been the burden of their song for years. It is another matter that not an iota of evidence has been offered to substantiate such accusations.

. The BJP will accuse the PM of being weak and the government of being soft on terrorism. They of course do not feel it obligatory to tell us what THEY would have done in similar circumstances. We the public know that during their time they did precisely what they accuse Manmohan of doing. But then BJP has no time for such niceties.

. Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi will call a press conference to say ‘This is not Islam’.

. Some Bajrang Dal hotheads will go berserk and ask all Muslims to leave India and go to Pakistan.

. George Bush and the Pak PM will condemn the terrorist act. Some Pak politicians will shock all of us by insidiously suggesting that the blasts are the work of freedom fighters from ‘India occupied Kashmir’.

. The public –fed up with all this bickering and painfully aware that nothing will come out of all this – will feel the pain for a few minutes and will then reach for the TV remote, switch to the sports channel and breathlessly check out the cricket scores before moving to the film channels to ascertain if Aishwarya is pregnant. I am not boring you with details of the visits to Jaipur by VVIP’s accompanied by cronies waiting for a photo- op and in the process destroying all evidence at the scene of the crime.

Meanwhile deep inside a cave in Afghanistan an elderly man in frail health will chew juicy kababs and announce to his evil gang ‘The mission has been successful. The infidels have been killed. Allah O Akbar’.
Where do we go from here?

I have been researching on human nature, violence. mind, religion, God and such other interrelated subjects. I can, in this limited space write a very few observations:

The kind of terrorism unleashed on the world will last for a long time. There is no ‘solution’. We have to wait it out till the terrorists begin to understand that they are not achieving their goals. Then they will themselves calculate that the cost they are paying [their lives] is not commensurate with the benefits They will at some time in the distant future realize that the promise of Heaven is misconceived. Heaven lies here in a life of constructive work—this will take years to sink in.

I may also add that the bulk of Muslims all over the world have their grievances but they are convinced that jihad is not a solution.

As for us the common people of India there is a suggestion. Extend all assistance to those affected and continue normal life. Nothing emboldens a terrorist more than the panic reaction of people. The more cool we are the more defeated the terrorist feels.

As for our nature I can summarize my viewpoint in one shocking sentence-
IT IS BUT HUMAN NATURE FOR GOOD PEOPLE TO DO GOOD THINGS, AND FOR BAD PEOPLE TO BAD THINGS, BUT TO GET A GOOD MAN TO BAD THINGS YOU NEED RELIGION!

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