Two weeks ago Barkha Dutt held a debate on the matter of
Triple Talaq (verbal divorce undertaken by Muslim men simply by uttering the
word ‘talaq’ thrice) on her weekly show, We The People. The debate, as is usual
for such a debate, spiralled around interpretation of the Holy book, and, after
being chaotic and cliché in turns, did not lead to any fruitful conclusion.
Most of the female panellists tended to argue that it’s not the religion per se
that is anti-women, but its interpretation by the religious-heads that is so,
whereas the proponents of the Sharia Law (all men) denied any such allegation
and claimed the justness of the law as it stands.
Last week the USA saw one of its most horrific gun-shootings
as a young man walked into a gay-club and went about shooting people, leaving
50 dead and 53 injured. This man, as it happens, was of Muslim persuasion and
had in the past confessed to be revolted by the sight of two men kissing in
Miami. This incident stoked the debate over ‘Islamophobia’ all over again in
the mainstream and social-media. Many resorted to the time-honoured and
Twitter-honoured slogan: ‘terror has no religion.’ They, like the female
panellists on Barkha’s show, claimed that it’s not the religion but its misinterpretation
that informs such malice.
What bothers me is how we easily absolve religion of its
share of blame for the extremely exceptionable practices, by simply and naively
shifting the blame on misinterpretation. I think we can no longer afford to let
religion wash its hands off these tragedies, under the garb of
misinterpretation of texts. Mind you, almost all major religions are quick to
use this excuse. We have all been lectured by Hindu caste-apologists about how
caste-discrimination should not be blamed on the scriptures but their
misinterpretation. Is this a critique of religion(s)? Maybe it is. I am sorry,
but your religious text (from whichever religion it comes) should have had a
mechanism in place to counter such ‘misinterpretation’; and if it doesn’t have
such a mechanism then it should partake in the blame without making excuses.
Religion may be sourced from texts, but it thrives in the
minds of peoples that abide by it. Once it enters the mind of the people, it
stops being conventional wisdom and a list of thou-shalt and thou-shalt-nots;
it rather becomes a force so powerful that it can push people to do things that
are unimaginable. We have to stop thinking of religion as some sort of
absolute, inviolable entity that can be preserved in a glass-case from
contamination, because this notion is exactly what makes people make claims
like, “Oh, but our religion doesn’t stand for X or Y; these people are
misrepresenting/misinterpreting the texts.”
There are bound to be as many interpretations of religion as
there are followers of it. The critique
of religion should spring from the fact that it relies on texts (language) for
its existence and perpetuation, and any such system (which has language as its
foundation) will be open to human interpretations. And these human
interpretations will be varied, contrived to suit or advance personal interest,
and mostly flawed. The buck, then, stops squarely with the formulators of the
system in the first place. And because the most of the religions come down to
us as ‘divine revelations’ or are formulated by prophets/seers, the buck stops
at the doorstep of the Divine (God(s)) or these Oracles.
All texts and the systems codified by them are susceptible
to such flaws, even the secular books, such as, say, the Constitution of India.
Then, should the Constitution or democracy as a system be discarded because
Indira Gandhi misused it to suspend democracy in 1975? No, it should not be
discarded. Misuse of a system should not be an excuse for its demolition.
However, the fundamental difference between the secular books (and the secular
systems that arise out of them) and the religious books (and the systems that
arise out of them) is that the secular books concede to their imperfections and
limitations, where as the religious books do not. Religious books claim to be
foolproof; and there’s ample evidence to suggest they are not.
Religion, like
any other secular system, is susceptible to flaws. But where it differs from
other secular systems is that it claims to have come from the infallible divine;
but then the divine cannot err. In other words, religion hasn’t earned its
right to be flawed. It is imperfect without its having to admit its
imperfection. An imperfect system is symptomatic of only two possibilities: it
is either the doing of an imperfect God, or imperfect mortals. Which of the two
is more likely, I leave that choice for you to make.
Another striking
difference between secular texts and religious texts is that in case of secular
books, such as the Penal Code or the Constitution, there are arbiters (such as
the courts) who can intervene in cases of ambiguities; and the offenders
(people who deviate from the accepted interpretations) can be punished. In case
of religious texts, however, there is no such arbiter, and definitely no
authority/body that could punish the offenders lawfully.
My submission is essentially this: religion cannot evade its
share of blame when its followers use it to justify their ghastly acts. Islam
is no more responsible for terrorism or subjugation of women than Hinduism for
untouchability or Christianity for the oppression of the Jews. Rabid Hindutva has
as many roots in Hindusim as Jihad in Islam. One cannot be seen as completely
independent of the other. Those of us priding ourselves on the fact that such
blatant homophobia has not been shown by any right-wing fundamentalist in our
country, should not be too quick to judge. A gay club hasn’t been targeted in
India because there is none (at least openly and exclusively). It’s time we
stop defending religion and come out and accept its systemic flaws that are
corroding humanity.
