Hinduism Needs Reformers Not Leaders
Stephen Hawking has said in his new book (Grand Design) that God did not create the universe. If this is the case then why are we wasting our time on pleasing Gods and following his/her/their religions? Maintaining the God myth is very expensive and time consuming process. Consider the fact that at this given moment millions of people are fasting in India and elsewhere for the sake of God be it Allah or Krishna. Millions more soon will not only fast but also put their body and lifestyle under a lot of stress to prepare for the annual pilgrimage to Mecca and Sabarimala. Does God deserve such undivided loyalty and attention?
God does not just impact the individual alone. God and has a huge impact on society and how we treat each other. 23% of Indians belong to the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe (SC/ST) category (approximately 300 million people). They face the brunt of the decimation from the rest of the society. They live a life and a life style that is completely detached from the rest of Indian society. We meet them only when we want someone to clean our bathrooms or cremate our dead.
The only person to blame for the status of the SC/ST in India today is the concept of God and people’s ability to use God to justify discrimination against fellow human beings. In the Bhagwat Gita Lord Krishna explains to Arjuna the reasons and objectives for the caste system. Irrespective of what the concept of caste was supposed to be, Krishna (as God) should have foreseen the catastrophic end results.
Did Krishna really make these statements or did the author of the Bhagwat Gita put words in Krishna’s mouth? I am one of those who believe that someone on behalf of Krishna provided the explanation on how the caste system was supposed to be because caste system was already in big trouble then.
God impacts the way we feel and treat people in India who are different from us. Bias against left-handed people, widows, and gays and lesbians and others exists because we believe that they somehow violate the laws of society/culture as implemented by God. We rarely say that we are against people who are gay or lesbian because we hate them but we say that it is against our culture or religion (if both these arguments fail we then say that it is unnatural. How can something that exists be unnatural?)
A marriage blessing from the Rig Veda (X.85.46) says the following: “Bounteous Indra, endow this bride with great sons and fortune. Give her ten sons and make the husband the eleventh”. One of the biggest impacts Gods and their religions in India is on the status of women. In most parts of India (except in few places like Kerala) men have inheritance rights over women when it comes to parental property.
In addition Hinduism sanctions the system of dowry. The dowry system has origins in the Hindu concept of “kanyadan” and “stridhan”. This has had a serious impact on the status of women in the country. There are some estimates that suggest that about 95,000 women die every year over the issue of dowry. The Laws of Manu crystallizes the status of women when it says “In childhood a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, when her lord is dead to her sons; a woman must never be independent”. According to tradition the Laws of Manu (Manusmriti) records the words of Brahma!!
The list can go on and on. We are more likely to find peace, equality and a sense of “Brotherhood of Man” (as Alexander supposedly said) if we are willing to distance ourselves from the concept of creator Gods and the rigid rules of religions. There is no point in fasting or going to great lengths and distances to prove our loyalty to God if we are unwilling to shake hands with the “untouchable” who is living across the street from our house.
“Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all” – Alexander the Great
Related posts:
- Hinduism: Myth vs. Reality
- Is Rajan Zed Promoting Hinduism or Damaging Hinduism?
- Eat Pray Love Hinduism
- Thirumala Venkateswara Temple: From Buddhism to Hinduism
- Lord Krishna and Caste System in India
Category: Culture & Religion
I do not from where did you got all those figures but tell you the truth your article does not make any sense.
I can also make my own stuff and called it real. relation between kanyadan and Dowry is one example. Either u r stupid or acting like one.
Also 23% SC/ST in india (got this number when u were sleeping or what)
go back to ur sweet dreams instead of writing falsy things abt Hinduism.
Jay,
You have no respect for another human being.
A simple Google search would reveal the following:
SC/ST in India: According to India’s 2001 Census the number of Schedule Caste in India is 16% and the numbers of Schedule Tribes in India are 7.5%.
Kanyadan and Dowry: The following is what Encyclopedia Britannica says about Kanyadan (Britannica: India, Volume Six (Select Essays)): Hindu marriage has traditionally been viewed as the “gift of a maiden” (kanyadan) from the bride’s father to the household of the groom. This gift is also accompanied by a dowry, which generally consists of items suitable to start a young couple in married life. On page 154 it says “Of the two (between dowry and bride pride), dowry has been the most prestigious arrangement for Hindus, in line with the Kanyadan ideal, and an important index of social ranking”.
“Arrogance diminishes wisdom” – Arabian Proverb
Acc. To me, Gods are not the ones to blame for the status of the SC/ST, it’s the people, the uppercaste Brahmins, who oppressed/discriminates the fellow human beings. All the text has been recorded by them in their own convenience, for that we should not blame the religion..
As far as I am concerned Gods and Human Beings are one and the same and equally to blame. We created God to get a divine sanction for what we were doing or planning to do.
We do not have a consensus on who wrote the “Hindu” scriptures. We have some names but we do not know very much about their backgrounds (many of the Tamil classics particularly from the Sangam period were likely written by Buddhists and Jains). But there is no question that today the Brahmin community sits at the top of the caste system.
Indians should be allowed to choose they own caste and religion or choose nothing at all!!
Just because Mr Hawking says that God does not exist doesn’t necessarily make it true. The author seems to have made a God out of Hawking.
It always amazes me how the people of India cannot establish a middle route with retards to religion. You’ve either got zealots (Islamic and saffron groups) or atheists. Humans draw their inspiration from religion, their values, and an avenue to express their wonder of the world and celebrate the mystery and beauty of existence. In an educated society it would be very difficult to misuse religion as people would see through the ruse every single time.
The key is education. If every man in some of the Hindutva mobs you see on TV had a college degree, would he still be out on the streets cutting up his fellow countrymen? Probly not. Education is the key.
Welcome Mel.
God and creation stories as described in the scriptures are not true. I am one of those who believes that you do not need religion to celebrate anything. In addition based on my experience most of the fundamentalist types in India are very educated individuals. An educated person would not be committing violent acts on the streets but he/she would be leading them!!
I used to think I am one of the most vocal critics of religion and supernaturalism in India, but you are more. :) Of course, that is not a praise nor a criticism, just an observation.
Yes, you are right, humans invoke God/tradition/nature to justify what they find right. There is an interesting article about this: http://atheismblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/my-imaginary-friend.html (as you might appreciate, that is one of the best maintained atheist blogs over the internet).
In many of the discussions or even ‘sessions’ of my own thoughts I find it important to strike a distinction between culture and theism. Unfortunately, the boundaries between religion and other human pursuits/studies have got blurred over time. Religion has permeated too deep into the daily way of living, the unfortunate part is, all that traces (or is thought to trace) its origin in the supernatural. Look around, religion has taken over ethics & morality (what is right v/s wrong), administration (no, I am not talking of religion as a ploy, but see how people invoke Krishna or events from Ramayana to justify an act, as if just citing what they had done becomes the sufficient basis to do something!), medicine (ayurveda is founded largely on supernaturalism), gender preference (though, I believe belief in God has little to do with this, it had more to do with the fact that males were more indispensable for survival of the families than females – I am not talking of the reproduction part here, but farming, hunting, protection from enemies like animals and soldiers of other kingdoms, etc., that is why perhaps, in all major religions, males enjoyed higher status than females, and of course males were physically stronger to be in position to subjugate), aesthetics (how home interior should be), music (most musicians I believe used to be devoted to some form of God), dance (same as music), etc.
It is high time, we resolve the individual pursuits that go into making of a society that religion has hijacked and demonstrate that none of them really require a belief in the existence of supernatural. For most parts, logic, conscience, honesty, creativity, common sense and practicality suffice to lead a fulfilling life; belief in existence of God does not figure anywhere.
And yes, I too had done a post on how the influential members of the society who claim to “know” God exhort that which benefits them: http://ketanpanchal.blogspot.com/2009/06/are-few-religious-leaders-atheists.html
Ketan,
I spend a lot of my free time trying to learn about religions particularly those that are practiced in India. And then I write about the logical questions that I have. In a small way I am trying to challenge some of the preset notions that Indians have about our culture, religion and history.
I did read the article “My Imaginary Friend”. The claim that you need God to have morals (to define what is good and bad) is a very common claim that religious people make in the United States. This would mean that people did not have any morals before Christianity came into the world. This obviously is incorrect. In addition, most of the morals that are found in Christian scripture themselves are borrowed from Judaism and other Pagan religions.
You are right when you say that religion has permeated into all aspects of our society. I do not necessarily see this as a bad thing provided human beings understand the difference between the importance that they should give to religion and religious beliefs as compared to reason, logic and scientific knowledge. Human beings should also understand when to apply religious concepts and when not to. People like me (and perhaps you) are perfectly fine and lead a happy and content life without any religion but there are others who need help compartmentalizing the two.
The fine print as they say in the West should indicate that “Religion is for entertainment purposes only”.
In the first place why Stephen Hawking is so important for you as if what ever he find is Absolute.Total Nonsense.Secondly rascal who are u to criticize Krishna-can you avoid the division now in this so called caste-less society, there laborers, merchandise, rulers and intellectuals and on basis of your equality can president marry a laborer girl or can u do it. Do not make artificial equality.Rasscal by fasting there are so many advantages than disadvantages biologoically and even economically
Kak,
It is up to me to decide who is important to me. I hope you are mature enough to understand the concept of personal choice.
I am not sure whether you are fit to defend Krishna. Do you think it is alright for a Krishna supporter to keep demeaning other human beings by calling them “rascals”?
A casteless society is not “artificial equality”. Most supporters of caste system like you try to equate caste with some of the class divisions that exists in other societies. Caste is determined by birth. Caste decides where you live, whose house you can enter, whether you can enter a temple or not, who you can marry and what type of jobs you can do. So wake up to reality.
First of all I am very sorry to use the word rascal because it became a common practice for people to criticize God with the puny knowledge that they acquired about God from most unauthorized system, so out of that I used the word rascal.Now coming to your point in Bhagwat Gita Lord Krishna never spelled out caste system based on birth. The division of society is based on the qualities that a person acquires, since few selfish people from the high class society made birth based division the Indian became like the way it is now, Krishna is not at blame, we have to blame the people who made it like this and apply it the right way.A perfectly right principle when applied wrongly doesn’t make the principle or the person who gave principle wrong.And for your information I was born in so called low caste but I dont have a problem in accepting the division of society that Krishna stated to Arjuna. Its a perfect division of society based on propensities and qualities of an individual soul and nobody can break this division.What we have today is perverted version of the same and trying to making every one artificially equal, irrespective their qualities.Dear Hari who doesn’t believe Lord Hari, as you rightly said every body has a personal choice, each one of us are making our personal choices and breaking the laws of God so we have to suffer. The brahmins in the past forgot their duties and established their rights. Similarly all other classes in the society, so total vedic society break down and fights started between each of the communities and today we have a head less society, MIGHT IS RIGHT. If you examine carefully there are hundreds of examples in of the who had a low birth but elevated to highest status to name a few Narada Muni the greatest of all the sages was born to maid servant, Valmiki was a robber, Prahlada Maharaj was born in a demoniac family and so on…although there are hundreds these are most prominent. So there is nothing wrong in division of society leg has to do its work and the head has to its work then only the body will function nicely.If legs tries to compete with head society will be upside down, the way it is today. Great scientists like Newton, Einstein etc praised Bhagwat Gita. Hawkings is nothing, you are giving much importance to a mortal person with questionable characters than the time tested vedic knowledge… Anyway I can go on, please make proper choices in life adn please dont reply for this message you can your own views, it requires open heartedness to understan wisdom of Vedic Knowledge and particularly Bhagwat Gita. Once again I am born in very low caste….
Kak,
Most Hindus are familiar with the “myth” of what the caste system was supposed to be according to our scripture. I have written an article (Lord Krishna and Caste System in India) about it and we can have a discussion there on whether or not Krishna set up the caste system based on human “qualities”. Our DNA shows that caste system is a result of successive migrations into the country with the forward community having predominantly Ancestral North Indian (ANI) genes and the backward communities having predominantly the Ancestral South Indian (ASI) genes. ANI is genetically close to Central Asian and European.
Krishna is either a God or not. We cannot acknowledge Krishna as God on one hand and then make excuses for him on the other. If Krishna is God then he should have known how we human beings would have twisted his plan for the caste system. He is not in the “clear” yet!
People who belong to the lower castes do not want to hear stories about what caste was supposed to be according to scriptures that Brahmins wrote some 2500 years ago. They also do not care about a few of them who may or may not have have become popular among upper caste Hindus in the past. Such stories are totally irrelevant to the almost 900 million Indians who belong to these backward communities and schedule caste and schedule tribes and are being discriminated against on a daily basis. They are second class citizens in their own land (Many of them cannot enter nor offer Poojas in temples built in their own land. Many of them would not be allowed to eat from the same table as the rest of us do. Many have to bow their head and move to the side when they cross path with a member of the upper caste). This is totally unacceptable. These people need reform now!
I am surprised that you are claiming that you are born in a very low caste. Kak is a popular Kashmiri Pundit surname. But then what do I know?