Introspecting Aloud

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.

Why convert

Powerful, well reasoned arguments made to the untouchables in 1936 by Dr. Ambedkar, persuading them to convert from Hinduism. Vitriol for die-hard Hindus, but a fascinating read. I should read up more about this man.

An excerpt,

A congenital idiot alone will say that one has to adhere to one’s religion because it is that of our ancestors. No sane man will accept such a proposition. Those who advocate such an argument, seem not to have read the history at all. The ancient Aryan religion was called Vedic religion. It has three distinct characteristic (features). Beef-eating, drinking and merry-making was part of the religion of the day. Thousands of people followed it in India and even now some people dream of going back to it. If the ancient religion alone is to be adhered to why did the people of India leave Hinduism and accept Buddhism? Why did they divorce themselves from the Vedic religion?… Thus this Hindu religion is not the religion of our ancestors, but it was a slavery forced upon them..

The description of Vedic religion sounds a bit new to me, especially the part about the beef eating. A little digging around showed me quite a few interesting post about that, none of them very authoritative mind you, but Dr. Ambedkar’s points were not too incorrect. This cooking site(?) gave a nice summary on beef eating in India over the ages. And this is an extract from an interview with Swami Vivekanada. That is surely more authentic!