Introspecting Aloud

Of theocratic states,treason and capital punishments

There is a very interesting debate going on at talkislam.info after an Islamic Cleric in Harvard, no less, claimed how capital punishment is the right punishment for people deserting the Islamic faith. The common premise of those defending the cleric in the comments of that post, is that for a theocratic state apostasy is like treason. While I can't completely agree with that notion - it has to be an extremely insecure and intolerant theocracy to have such a position, I can't but help see the convenience of such a rule. Convenient for the masters of such a theocracy, that is. These masters are likely to be de-facto leaders of the state religion, and like any autocracy (I look at all theocracies as a form of autocracy) they would rather use any means necessary to hang on to their positions rather than be secure in a faith which survives by conviction alone. For faith and thought can seldom be peaceful co-dwellers. In fact, I couldn't help putting such a situation in India's scenario today. We now have a major political party, really close to gaining power in the country, which is philosophically almost completely in disagreement with the premise on this country was formed. One easy way to finding it out, is to go through their manifesto and see the number of times they talk about modifying the constitution (you know, repeal this, overturn that, enact this, etc.). The party is backed by a sinister pan-india organisation which has been at work to overturn the premise of this country from the day that we became independent. So what happens if this prominent political party eventually manages to convert this country to a theocratic state as has been their quite public fundamental aim all this while? Will we see people being executed for leaving their religion? Well, we already see a bit of their vision in what they are doing in Orissa. Will we stop debating religion as other Islamic theocracies have done? And by the way, unlike the Muslims, we Hindus do not have an equivalent of Qu'ran or Hadith or Sharia to run this country. Oh yes, I forgot, maybe the 2000+ years oldManusmriti - the document being quoted by this party to provide justification for all their social policies? Or maybe, the Gita, which regrettably far being a reference of wisdom is now quoted by people of this party as a justification for chopping off hands of people from other religions.

Interview of Romila Thapar on UNESCO

Romila Thapar interview on UNESCO

The worrying thing is, what will happen if the Bharatiya Janata Party returns to power in the next election, which will be held within 12 months? Will they change the textbooks again? I worry for the school children who have to be examined in the subject and depend on textbooks. Once we accept one religious group’s agenda and beliefs to be taught in the public schools, it opens the door for every other group to do the same thing. As educators, we have to make a distinction between history on the one hand, which involves questioning existing knowledge about the past where necessary, and faith on the other hand, where even myths are acceptable. The two have to be kept separate. The first is the domain of the historian and the second that of the priest.