Your Passport to Hindu Temples is Cancelled

Maggie with a friend in front of Bardrinath Temple

Maggie and I visited many holy places and temples in Uttarakhand, known as the Abode of the Gods, a few years before Narendra Modi became India’s Prime Minister. We are grateful to Dr S C Biala, Principal of the school we taught at in those days in Delhi. He was and still is (now in his 70s) an enthusiastic mountaineer. He took senior students on trekking in the Himalayas instead of the conventional study tours to historical places. Now Dr Biala wouldn’t be able to take Maggie and me along on such treks. The Badri-Kedar Temple Committee [BKTC] has banned non-Hindus and non-Sanatanis from entering Kedarnath and Badrinath shrines and 45 other Hindu temples.

Before I proceed, let me tell you I don’t know the difference between a Hindu and a Sanatani. There are many things I don’t understand in Modi’s India. So this post is being written by a confused Indian whose very citizenship may be terminated at any time by Sanatanis who have decided to shut their gods up in what Tagore called “a lonely dark chamber.”

I gave up religion long ago when I realised that too many gods are only frivolous entities conjured up by infantile fancies of silly-but-shrewd politicians. What morality am I expected to learn, for example, from Indra, King of Hindu gods? He seduced women from all walks of life – divine, human, ascetic – and ruined their lives. He had no sense of morality whatsoever.

Brahma, the Creator, raped his own daughter Saraswati, according to Matsya Purana and Shiva Purana. God of fire, Agni, is involved in episodes driven by unrestrained lust. His favourite targets were the wives of eminent sages.

In my own state of Kerala (now renamed Keralam), the most famous Hindu god Ayyappa is believed to be the son of God Vishnu and God Shiva. Homosexual intercourse and resultant pregnancy and what not!

There are umpteen such stories.

Who would expect such a religion to ban worshippers or visitors in any of its temples?

Isn’t India regressing terribly? Going backward to the medieval mindset?

If Hinduism is confident in its spiritual inheritance, why should the presence of a Muslim, Christian, atheist or Buddhist make a Hindu temple less sacred?

It’s just absurd and hilarious that India is building walls around temples in order to protect a religion whose greatest philosophical achievements were made by people who spent their lives questioning walls. I mean they gave us big philosophies like the Advaita and all. But Advaita was just another theological hogwash, of course. Like Modi’s electoral jumlas.

What is religion? Just a bundle of lies? A mammoth perversion? A cosmic neurosis?

This question has been at the back of my mind for long. Of course, I did find an answer and wrote that in the form of a book: The Simplest Guide to Religion.

I found the answer to my questions as I wrote this book. I wish a lot of other people did too.

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