Shielding Gods from People

 

“There’s no use calling on the Lord – he never hears,” Cassy tells Tom with a mix of pain and scorn. “There isn’t any God, I believe; or, if there is, he’s taken sides against us. All goes against us, heaven and earth. Everything is pushing us into hell.”

Tom and Cassy are characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852). They are both Black slaves who have suffered much pain, physically as well as emotionally. The pain has had totally different effects on each. Tom’s faith in Jesus, his God, is redemptive, while Cassy’s attitude to the very question of God’s existence is resistant. Tom finds meaning in his suffering through the suffering of Jesus. Cassy rejects a god who, in her view, is on the side of her oppressors.

I was reminded of Tom and Cassy, and the novel in general, when I read yesterday that certain famous Hindu pilgrimage centres like Badrinath, Kedarnath, and 47 affiliated temples are being closed to non-Hindus. I remembered my visit to some of those temples two decades back. Nobody was concerned whether we – Maggie and I – were Hindus or whatever. In fact, Maggie followed the ritual and prayerfully offered dried fruits and nuts to the deity and got back her share of the Prasad (sacred offering). We shared that Prasad with our non-Hindu friends and relatives later when we returned to Delhi. Nothing happened. The sky didn’t collapse. Nor did the earth tremor. God Badri Narayan had no issues with our devotion. Now some of his devotees have problems.

We would normally expect any society to move forward from primitive tribalism to modern openness. India is doing just the opposite. We are moving backward towards more clannishness. 

Maggie with a friend in front of Badrinath (file photo)

Tom and Cassy are both outsiders in the American system of their time. What the White America did to them and other Blacks was cruel as well as unjust. How those who enjoy power – political and social – treat those who are deprived of such powers speaks much about their culture and civilisation. Does India’s repeated claim about her glorious ancient culture make sense when it keeps shutting doors to certain sections of the country’s citizens?

George Harris, another Black slave in Stowe’s novel, decides to run away to Canada and liberate himself from the cruel and unjust system in America. The American “officers of justice” pursue him and order him to surrender. “We’ve got the law on our side, and the power, and so forth,” one of them tells him, “so you’d better give up peaceably, you see; for you’ll certainly have to give up, at last.”

George refuses to accept the law of his oppressors. It is their law, not his. He fights.

Shouldn’t the law be supportive of every citizen?

Earlier in the novel, George raised the question about God too. “There’s a God for you, but is there any for us?”

Whenever any community of people choose cruelty and injustice for others in the name of God, I find myself raising questions like George and Cassy. I can never be Tom who accepts suffering meekly with Christlike resignation. I can never accept any god who is morally complicit in the suffering of any people.

Personally, it matters nothing to me whether I will be allowed to enter Hindu temples or not. I’m not a believer though I used to visit temples out of curiosity. Whenever I did, I followed the rituals with due respect. Now if you choose to keep your god locked up like a fragile commodity, that’s your affair. But if you turn that god into my oppressor, I will resist.

No religion can be meaningful to me unless it promotes goodness – for all. Justice – for all. Suffering – for none. I will respect any religion whose God has compassion for all beings, whose faith is visible in the actions of its adherents, whose hope is grounded in restored relationships… A God who doesn't need to shielded from people.