Satanic Saints

Let idealism live as long as it can!

A group of my students visited an industry today as part of their curricular activity. They returned looking very ebullient because the industrial complex looked perfect to them: immaculately clean, professionally managed, subsidised food in the canteen, a managing director who is not only highly religious but also an excellent motivational speaker, and so on. They were also given a gift hamper each which contained the religious publications of the organisation that runs the industry. One of the students thrust into my hand a book written by the owner of the industry and said, “Sir, please read this.” I turned a few pages. I am a rapid reader. Within seconds I understood that the book was of no use to me. I returned it to the student saying, “I don’t think this will serve any purpose for me.” The student refused to take it back. She said, “Read it, Sir, for my sake.” I accepted it. I read most of it in a few minutes during my free period which followed. It was entirely based on the Bible and the discourses were peppered with anecdotes about people who were converted to better spiritual and more fulfilling life by the writer through his religious preaching sessions.

After the school was over I mentioned to a colleague the book and the way I was forced to read it.

“Do you know anything about that man?” My colleague asked me.

“I have seen his photo on certain posters in my village. I know that he is a religious preacher and the posters advertised his religious sessions.”

“Yes,” my colleague said, “he is a preacher who earns in millions.”

“Religion is a good business nowadays,” I said indifferently.

“That’s fine. But do you know what he does with his employees in that industry which our students visited?”

I said the students were all electrified by the ideal conditions that prevailed there.

“The staff are paid a pittance there,” my colleague said. “Most of them work there because they have no better alternatives. They are treated like cattle. If they are late by a minute to report for their duty, they are penalised. They are exploited inhumanly.”

That shook me. “But the man is a religious preacher who apparently performs miracles!” I was aghast.

“His religion is a facade.”

I know, like my colleague, that we cannot tell that to our students. Let their exhilaration remain as long as it can. Let idealism live as long as it can in young minds. But I continue to be stunned, in spite of my awareness of all sorts of fraudulence practised by all sorts of religious people, by the disparity between what I had just read in that inspiring book and the reality behind it.