Monday, October 01, 2007

In the name of God


In a recent Andhra Pradesh high court decision Justice V Easwaraiah of the Hyderabad High Court granted an interim stay and directed a company not to take up any construction activity on the 1,600 acres at Manikonda village which were alienated to them by the State Government.

This decision came in petition filed by a Telangana Rashtra Samithi Member of the Legislative Council H A Rehman in which he complained that the said lands are Wakf properties belonging to Dargah Hazrat Shah Hussain Wali and located in the Hazrat Shah Hussain Wali village.

The petitioner claimed that the erstwhile Telugu Desam government submitted a report to the court stating that the lands were Wakf properties and allotting them to various multinational companies like Microsoft and Wipro was illegal. The Congress, which returned to power in 2004, allotted them without considering the report, he said.

While passing the orders, the Judge said that prima facie it was not open to the State Government to dispute the said properties do not belong to the dargah. ''I am of the opinion that the lands belong to 'Allah" the Almighty. God is the owner of the lands and therefore no construction should be made on them,'' he said.

Conversely in another recent case of Siddivinayaka Temple peripheral wall issue, the Mumbai HC questioned the State Government rational behind constructing a wall around the famous temple so as to prevent possible suicide bomb attacks. The local residents of the area had protested this and moved to the court asking the court to remove the wall as it was obstructing the flow of traffic on one of Mumbai's major arterial roads and had asked the court to order the government to relocate the temple out of the residential area . In its judgement the court said "God is supposed to protect us and not we protect the GOD hence re-locate the temple".

Secularism is all about equality; equality of religion. But does that mean that since India has more of Hindus hence Hinduism comes on the lower pedestal? Does that imply that the faith of Hinduism is open to questioning whereas other religions with relatively less followers are untouchable? why this discriminataon? India adopted secularism in its constitution so as to see to it that every religion develops equally, no one weak no one strong.

One has to see the present issue in the context of a broader picture. A renowned artist paints Hindu gods and godess nude, and somewhere in Gujarat an arts student does the same . Some months back a Danish cartoon of prophet Mohammad created furore worldwide. Why this blasphemy? Its one thing not to believe god, its totally different to mock them.

Freedom of speech and freedom of expression as enshrined in the constitution doesn't mean the liberty to mis-use it.

I again reiterate the same point. All religion is equal, and it's a matter of faith. Faith is about one's belief. It's simple; either you believe or you don't .

Who is Karunanidhi to question Ram and that too with so much of disdain? Hindus believe that the Ram-Setu was used by Ram and his army to cross over to Lanka. A child may not have read or heard about Panchatantra, Jataka or for that matter SRK but once in his life he is sure to have heard about Ramayan and Mahabharat.

Isn't it pertinent to ask that can we prove existence of god? Can anyone prove Ram? Has anyone been able to prove that Muhammad walked on this earth or for that matter was Mary the mother of Jesus, and if yes was there any Jesus? Gita, Kuran and the Bible are one and the same, if you question anyone of them you are questioning all of them.

These kinds of unanswerable questions are, should and can never be answered. Who are we the question faith? The believers don't need it and the non believers won't believe it.

Foolishly raising such issues give an opportunity the zealots to rear their dangerous contagious head. Every religion has a fair share of them and once you give them the chance to become active then it's the common mass that suffers not the gods.

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