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 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
47 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 4

The footpath between Park Avenue and Subhash Bose Park The Park Avenue in Ernakulam is flanked by gigantic rain trees with their branches arching over the road like a cathedral of green. They were not so domineering four decades ago when I used to walk beneath their growing canopies. The Park Avenue with its charming, enormous trees has a history too. King Rama Varma of Kochi ordered trees to be planted on either side of the road and make it look like a European avenue. He also developed a park beside it. The park was named after him, though today it is divided into two parts, with one part named after Subhash Chandra Bose and the other after Indira Gandhi. We can never say how long Indira Gandhi’s name will remain there. Even Sardar Patel, whom the right wing apparently admires, was ousted from the world’s biggest cricket stadium which was renamed Narendra Modi Stadium by Narendra Modi.   Renaming places and roads and institutions is one of the favourite pastimes of the pres...
12 comments
Read more

Good Life

I introduced A C Grayling’s book, The God Argument , in two earlier posts.   This post presents the professor’s views on good life.   Grayling posits seven characteristics of a good life.   The first characteristic is that a good life is a meaningful one.   Meaning is “a set of values and their associated goals that give a life its shape and direction.”   Having children to look after or achieving success in one’s profession or any other very ordinary goal can make life meaningful.   But Grayling says quoting Oscar Wilde that everyone’s map of the world should have a Utopia on it.   That is, everyone should dream of a better world and strive to materialise that dream, if life is to be truly meaningful.   Ability to form relationships with other people is the second characteristic.   Intimacy with at least one other person is an important feature of a meaningful life.   “Good relationships make better people,” says G...
21 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 1

Inside St Francis Church, Fort Kochi Moraes Zogoiby (Moor), the narrator-protagonist of Salman Rushdie’s iconic novel The Moor’s Last Sigh , carries in his genes a richly variegated lineage. His mother, Aurora da Gama, belongs to the da Gama family of Kochi, who claim descent from none less than Vasco da Gama, the historical Portuguese Catholic explorer. Abraham Zogoiby, his father, is a Jew whose family originally belonged to Spain from where they were expelled by the Catholic Inquisition. Kochi welcomed all the Jews who arrived there in 1492 from Spain. Vasco da Gama landed on the Malabar coast of Kerala in 1498. Today’s Fort Kochi carries the history of all those arrivals and subsequent mingling of history and miscegenation of races. Kochi’s history is intertwined with that of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, the Arbas, the Jews, and the Chinese. No culture is a sacrosanct monolith that can remain untouched by other cultures that keep coming in from all over the world. ...
7 comments
Read more

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let...
36 comments
Read more