Skip to main content

Bigots and Selfistan




In Salman Rushdie’s novel, Shalimar the Clown, a Muslim boy and a Hindu (Pandit) girl are in love.  When the matter is brought to the attention of their parents as well as the panchayat, nobody finds anything seriously wrong.  Abdullah, the boy’s father, mentions Kashmiriyat, “the belief that at the heart of Kashmiri culture there was a common bond that transcended all other differences.” Pyarelal Kaul, the girl’s father added, “There is no Hindu-Muslim issue.  Two Kashmiri (…) youngsters wish to marry, that’s all.”

This is the Kashmir of the early 1960s as presented by Rushdie.  Half a century later, we know how far Kashmir is from such a broadminded understanding of religion and life.

It’s not a problem confined to Kashmir or a few places.  The more the world advances towards the utopian global village, the more the people’s minds seem to shrink.  A recent New York Times report lays bare the bigotry of a Lutheran pastor in America.  The pastor had to apologise for participating in an interfaith service.  His explanation highlights the bigotry that plagues the Lutheran church.  He explained that he had spent hours with his congregation educating them about the differences between Lutheran teaching “and the teachings of false religions such as Islam or Baha’i,” both of which had clergy members at the interfaith service. (emphasis added)

What can an interfaith service mean if the participants come with such prejudices?  It will only be a mere sham meant to hoodwink people into accepting a pseudo tolerance of other religions.  Such hypocrisy will not achieve any noble goal.  It’s better to live in the small circle of one’s own religion than pretend to make friends with believers from other religions.  Pretensions are more lethal than open bigotry. 

The bigots should not stretch out hands of pretended friendship.  As one of Rushdie’s characters says in the novel quoted above, “Why not stand still and draw a circle round your feet and name that Selfistan?”  Bigots should be confined to their own Selfistans. 
Labels:

Comments

  1. PanchaliFebruary 9, 2013 at 11:04 AM

    Well said!This reminds me of a famous quote:
    "“What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.”
    ― Albert Einstein

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 9, 2013 at 6:11 PM

      Indeed. And prejudices wreak more havoc too than atoms!

      Delete
  2. The MukhtiarsFebruary 9, 2013 at 5:19 PM

    well said

    ReplyDelete
  3. mandakolathurFebruary 9, 2013 at 7:22 PM

    So, you see as well as or better than I do, religion is bigotry-distiller. Vive la religion!

    RE

    ReplyDelete
  4. Vishal RathodFebruary 9, 2013 at 9:09 PM

    absolutely true

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownFebruary 11, 2013 at 9:57 AM


    It's the season of love and everyone is busy planning special ways to make their Valentine's Day memorable. Check out personalized photo calendars & t-shirts on http://www.facebook.com/VistaprintIndia that will have your special one appreciating your thoughtfulness. And if you like our FB page, consider a Flat 25% OFF as our Valentine's gift to you.

    ReplyDelete
  6. VetirmagalFebruary 12, 2013 at 11:45 PM

    Beautiful!

    I once heard a Priest , doing theology in Rome express humbly " All religions seem to the same".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 13, 2013 at 9:45 AM

      And, perhaps, they do! How many religious people are genuinely willing to admit that their own religion is nothing better than any other?

      Delete
  7. RoshanNovember 16, 2020 at 10:50 PM

    The way you explain is very easy to understand. You can also check our blog : photo calendar

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ghost of a Banyan Tree

  Image from here Fiction Jaichander Varma could not sleep. It was past midnight and the world outside Jaichander Varma’s room was fairly quiet because he lived sufficiently far away from the city. Though that entailed a tedious journey to his work and back, Mr Varma was happy with his residence because it afforded him the luxury of peaceful and pure air. The city is good, no doubt. Especially after Mr Modi became the Prime Minister, the city was the best place with so much vikas. ‘Where’s vikas?’ Someone asked Mr Varma once. Mr Varma was offended. ‘You’re a bloody antinational mussalman who should be living in Pakistan ya kabristan,’ Mr Varma told him bluntly. Mr Varma was a proud Indian which means he was a Hindu Brahmin. He believed that all others – that is, non-Brahmins – should go to their respective countries of belonging. All Muslims should go to Pakistan and Christians to Rome (or is it Italy? Whatever. Get out of Bharat Mata, that’s all.) The lower caste Hindus co...
121 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Romance in Utopia

Book Review Title: My Haven Author: Ruchi Chandra Verma Pages: 161 T his little novel is a surfeit of sugar and honey. All the characters that matter are young employees of an IT firm in Bengaluru. One of them, Pihu, 23 years and all too sweet and soft, falls in love with her senior colleague, Aditya. The love is sweetly reciprocated too. The colleagues are all happy, furthermore. No jealousy, no rivalry, nothing that disturbs the utopian equilibrium that the author has created in the novel. What would love be like in a utopia? First of all, there would be no fear or insecurity. No fear of betrayal, jealousy, heartbreak… Emotional security is an essential part of any utopia. There would be complete trust between partners, without the need for games or power struggles. Every relationship would be built on deep understanding, where partners complement each other perfectly. Miscommunication and misunderstanding would be rare or non-existent, as people would have heightened emo...
9 comments
Read more

Tanishq and the Patriots

Patriots are a queer lot. You don’t know what all things can make them pick up the gun. Only one thing is certain apparently: the gun for anything. When the neighbouring country behaves like a hoard of bandicoots digging into our national borders, we will naturally take up the gun. But nowadays we choose to redraw certain lines on the map and then proclaim that not an inch of land has been lost. On the other hand, when a jewellery company brings out an ad promoting harmony between the majority and the minority populations, our patriots take up the gun. And shoot down the ad. Those who promote communal harmony are traitors in India today. The sacred duty of the genuine Indian patriot is to hate certain communities, rape their women, plunder their land, deny them education and other fundamental rights and basic requirements. Tanishq withdrew the ad that sought to promote communal harmony. The patriot’s gun won. Aapka Bharat Mahan. In the novel Black Hole which I’m writing there is...
61 comments
Read more

A Lesson from Little Prince

I joined the #WriteAPageADay challenge of Blogchatter , as I mentioned earlier in another post. I haven’t succeeded in writing a page every day, though. But as long as you manage to write a minimum of 10,000 words in the month of Feb, Blogchatter is contented. I woke up this morning feeling rather vacant in the head, which happens sometimes. Whenever that happens to me but I do want to get on with what I should, I fall back on a book that has inspired me. One such book is Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince . I have wished time and again to meet Little Prince in person as the narrator of his story did. We might have interesting conversations like the ones that exist in the novel. If a sheep eats shrubs, will he also eat flowers? That is one of the questions raised by Little Prince [LP]. “A sheep eats whatever he meets,” the narrator answers. “Even flowers that have thorns?” LP is interested in the rose he has on his tiny planet. When he is told that the sheep will eat f...
8 comments
Read more