Tomichan Matheikal's blog

The lead story in today’s Times of India (Delhi edition) flashes the headline: RSS body seeks donations to fund Christmas ‘conversions’ in Aligargh.   ‘Rs 5 lakh to convert a Muslim, Rs 2 lakh for a Christian,’ says the subheading.   RSS is collecting funds in order to buy adherents to Hinduism.  Ghar Vapsi (returning home) is the affectionate name of the project. The Muslims and Christians in Uttar Pradesh were allegedly converted from Hinduism and they are being brought back home by purchasing their religious loyalty.  But why the disparity in the prices?  Why 5 lakhs for a Muslim and only less than half of that for a Christian?  Because the Christians were originally Valmikis, untouchables.  This is precisely where the problems lies.  Even when the people return home their caste will be retained.  The erstwhile untouchable will continue to be an untouchable.  What the RSS and its affiliates fail to understand is that the people abandoned Hinduism precisely because

Poverty has many uses.  One is that the poor can be made vote banks easily.  Many political parties have ascended the stairs of power by bribing the poor with gifts during election time.  The Congress is one party that now carries the charge of having used the entire poor of the country as vote banks through what is rather imaginatively called “appeasement”. When the Congress and other political parties stand accused of having “appeased” the poor, the new dispensation is proving that it is indeed “a party with a difference.”  It is not using the poor as a vote bank; it is wrenching their religious identity from them. Rulers with imperial ambitions have always used the strategy of stripping people of their religious identities.  The Muslim conquerors and the Christian imperialists found their own unique ways of implementing religious conversion in regions captured by them.  While the former relied on brute force, the latter made use of gentler missionaries.  The reigning

Sunday musings “... if God spoke directly to your face and said, ‘I command that you be happy in the world, as long as you live.’  What would you do then?” That’s one of the questions that has remained with me ever since I read Richard Bach’s Illusions as a twenty year-old man.  It remained somewhere within me without affecting me really in any significant way.  Later on, as a teacher, I used it many times in the class for conveying certain messages effectively. Disclaimer: I don’t believe in God. But I don’t question anyone’s faith.  What I question is the exploitation of people in the name of gods and faith.  I have seen many people drawing the much needed psychological (call it spiritual, if you prefer) sustenance from their religious faith.  I’d be the last person to take away such sustenance from anyone. There are times when I felt that religious faith would be a blessing.  It can be a free panacea for certain ills that plague mankind in general and indivi

This cartoon fascinated me.  Just like most cartoons in The Hindu , this too unfolds the infinity before us, the ordinary mortals. The sadhu and the sadhvi are supposed to live a life of renunciation.  They should be somewhere in the Himalayas braving the snow and the landslides.  Or in some jungle covered with a gargantuan anthill.  Acquiring the wisdom that they failed to acquire in the normal course of life.  Instead they are in the Indian Parliament calling some Indians bastards .    The Parliamentary proceedings in India have been stalled for days because of one such saintly woman who became a sadhvi by climbing up the elevator of success with the help of the Prime Minister rather than climbing up the arduous stairs of austerity and contemplation.  Or plain hard work like a few of us Indians. In the meanwhile the government of India, under Mr Modi’s dynamic leadership, had already cut down Rs 11,000 crore from the Education budget .  Education is not important.

Sanskrit was originally the language of the gods the their beloved people.  Manu stipulated a terrible fate for the lower caste people who dared to listen to the Vedas or utter the shlokas.  “If the Sudra intentionally listens for committing to memory the Veda, then his ears should be filled with (molten) lead; if he utters the Veda, then his tongue should be cut off.” Now some 3000 years after those glorious days, the language is struggling to find learners.  Hence the BJP government has decided to make it compulsory in certain schools.  A language is ineluctably associated with a culture.  When the culture evolves, the language has to evolve too.  Conversely, the death of a language implies the death of a culture.  The ancient Brahminical tradition with its neat and convenient hierarchy which ensured that power remained concentrated in a few hands died as the civilisation evolved and democratic ideas overtook it. By the time India became independent the Brahminical sy

To tell anyone that he has many fathers is quite an abuse and an abominable aspersion cast on the virtuousness of his mother.  But our Minister of State for Food Processing Industries, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, certainly did not mean anything of the sort when she declared that everyone including Muslims and Christians are sons of Ram.  “Which Ram?” asked my cousin when he heard it. “Of course not our vegetable vendor,” I said and asked him whether he was a fool not to understand which Ram could afford to have so many sons. “Oh,” he said dismissively.  “That Ram.” He explained to me that he had no problem in considering the Sadhvi’s Ram as his father if she had no problem in taking the colourless and formless Allah or the grey-haired, misty-eyed Christian God as her father.  “It has to be a give and take, isn’t it?  After all, we live a liberal economy.” “Why not start with some indigenous options?” I asked.  “Like Krishna and Shiva and any of the other thousands of

The season of Advent has begun for Christians who will be celebrating the birth of Jesus 25 days from now.  These 25 days are supposed to be a season of abstinence from certain foods and drinks so that the believer prepares himself spiritually for Christmas.  Religion has no significance unless it makes one a better person and the practices like abstinence are meant to help one in the process of self-renewal.  But can a set of practices or some rituals make anyone a better person?  They can help.  But Jesus was explicit in saying that religion is not a matter of rituals or regulations.  Religion is an attitude of love and compassion. The parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the best in the Bible.  A wayfarer was beaten up by thieves, stolen of all his possessions including his clothes, and was left “half dead” on the roadside.  A priest came along but went away doing nothing to help the dying man.  Then can a Levite.  A Levite is a semi-priest in Judaism.  He too refused