Religion and The Republic ~ Ravneet Sangha

Your religion is what you do when the prayer is over . Today I happened to read one of the truest quote .Every day one gets to hear sermons and we read about how to conduct ourselves and the Tv channels keep on playing religious shabads , bhajans and they tell us to do paath.All the priests keep on sermonising and because we have a herd mentality we follow blindly because otherwise we would be left behind than others .


A few days ago , eight men were arrested trying to vandalise statues of folk dancers on Heritage Street that leads to the Golden Temple
The accused were successful in breaking the marble panels of the platform . And , this road leads to the most famous pilgrimage spots of the world. It is sacred not only to the Sikhs but to everyone as a melting pot of religion , humanity and spirituality . And on top of it we had religious bodies justifying the attack and also demanded the cancellation of the cases against them.
How wonderful ! In a world where I think we need to understand and be more kinder to each other and tolerant .


But , what are we doing , the priests have become more orthodox and conservative and rile up sentiments , whipping anger and fundamentalism against each other . We all descended from monkeys , religion just further divided us ,as if we didnt need anymore divisions.


The world needs more kindnesss, love, and tenderness but what we face is a stupid uncouth reporter saying that women are kanjari ( a prostitute ) and its good that this statue was defaced. Who gave this reporter the moral authority to comment on National Tv like this ? A religion which is the forerunner in proclaiming a woman to be equal and from whom kings are born , one calls her such .Making such  irresponsible statements , impress the masses and they get riled up for no reason .


It’s hypocritical , when such double standards exist and we support them , I had hoped people would speak up , but we are afraid , we cower behind anonymity and in our homes thinking this fundamentalism wont affect us.It will , this is regression .Tomorrow is 70 years to being a republic and all we can moan about is that how a holiday has been wasted . If it had been any other day than a Sunday another holiday would have been added ! A step forward is needed in these trying times , but we seem to be spiralling downward .


All the Whatsapp groups are upset over a holiday being wasted , such is the mentality . And we ask for equality of women, aren’t men dancing kanjars?teh moral compass is in the hands of the illiterate and I wish we would have stronger leadership.