Early this afternoon, the PTI reported that in the worst-ever temple tragedy in Himachal Pradesh, 146 devotees, including 30 children and 38 women, were killed and more than 50 injured today in a stampede at the Naina Devi shrine. This makes me ask a question: Are our religious leaders failing us?
We have been taught from our childhood that God resides in all the living beings, therefore if one wants to worship God, one has to look inside. One does not need to go to temples or pilgrimages. Unfortunately, millions of us spend our hard earned money on pilgrimages every year. Many poor people can hardly afford such trips and it is largely these families, because of their ignorance and superstitious believes, that travel to such places. Is it not imperative for religious leaders to come forward and say that such sacrifices at the cost of continued deprivation of the family concerned is not needed for spirituality? Or is it that the religious hierarchy has a vested interest in promoting such pilgrimages because these are the main sources of income and the basis of comfortable (or even the luxurious) life of the religious hierarchy?
If my visiting a holy shrine, or a dip in the Ganges, absolves me from all my sins what stops me committing sins all my life and once in a while visit a pilgrimage or take a dip in one of the holy rivers?
Even with respect to the offerings I may have a question. Is it justifiable to pour tons of milk, fruits and sweets on stone statutes while millions of children, the living incarnation of Gods starve? Is it not the duty of the religious hierarchy to see that some of these offerings are used to eradicate hunger and poverty from India? Should not the hierarchy fattening on people’s largesse--not many of the hierarchy has in fact renounced the worldly pleasures; for those who have renounced worldly pleasures I have a great regard—devote a part their earnings on the elimination of poverty and raising educational standards of the community?
There are many major social issues, such a sex-selected abortions, infanticide, burning of brides, banishment of widows from homes, sexual abuse of children and so on that need reforming. The religious leaders can be the main instruments for such social changes. They would have much more influence than government legislation. Why, then, are these leaders silent? To the best of my knowledge they have not spoken even against the ‘Devdashi’ system which is directly in their jurisdiction.
I may raise some other issues of great significance to India, in fact to the world humanity. We Hindus do cremate dead bodies. This requires lots of firewood, ghee and oil. Clearly, burning of ghee and oil is questionable in a country where millions of people suffer from hunger and malnutrition. Burning a lot of firewood is depleting our forests and changing our climate. Is it not imperative on our religious leadership to support electrical cremation? It is clean with the least environmental consequences and the ashes can still be taken to holy rivers. In fact, the sandal wood that the rich use in funeral pyres is one of the main reasons for the scarcity of sandal wood so much so that we have now to import it from abroad.
In my view, religious believes and practices have to adjust according to the changing circumstances and it is the duty of the religious hierarchy to redefine values and practices to suit modern times. If they do not do say they are failing us, and \ bringing religion to disabuse and ultimately opening the path to self-destruction.
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2 comments:
It seems you are concerned only with the evils in the hindu faith & the hindu religious leaders. agreed that going on pilgrimages is an age old tradition in our culture & mythology,but what about muslims? every muslim, at least in india from his childhood dreams about going to mecca & medina for haj. there also stampedes occur every alternate year killing hundreds of pilgrims, mostly indians, but that dose not deter them from taking on the journey & no body sees any harm in that. As for the existing poverty in india, no one is quite concerned. in the 60 years of independence the congress govts. that have ruled the country, following the policy of religious apeasement has handed out millions of Rs. of the public money as haj subsidy to the muslims going on haj. In the present economic crisis in the country where the inflation rate stands at 12% this money could be used to feed so many of the starving masses. Agreed that electric cremation for the dead hindus is a better option but surely the wood needed for lighting the funeral pyer of the hindus must be quite less than that needed to make chopsticks to feed the enormous chinese & japenese population. as for the sexual escapeds of the religious leaders, it is prevalant in all religions, otherwise why would the Pope have to say sorry to the victims of sexual abuse, by the people of the church, on his visit to Australia.
Of course, being a Hindu, my main concern is with Hinduism,its strengths and weaknesses. Besides, Hindus account for 85 per cent of India's population so if Hinduism, as practiced, is reformed, it will go a long way solving some of India's social problems. May be it inspires other religions to do likewise. There is another point to consider. If there is a fire in the neighborhood, one does not say other people are letting their houses burnt so we should do the same. Irrespective of what others say or do we save our house because we think it is right to do so. A. Sinha seems to suggest that because others are letting their houses burnt we should do the same.
A.S. is right about the loss of trees because of chop sticks use in East Asia but traditional cremation in India requires twice as many as trees every year as chop sticks. Besides, East Asian are trying to find solutions. South Koreans now use metal chop sticks. Some Chinese now carry their washable chop sticks with the. The Chinese government has also begun to tax disposable chop sticks. Admittedly. some attempt is being made in India to make traditional cremation more efficient. One example is Agarwal's Mokshda Cremation which saves the wood as well as carbon emission by 50 per cent. But it still require a lot of wood. Electrical cremation is still better. R. S.
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