Author: Giridhar Mamidi
Publication: Bharatiya Pragna
Date: July 2002
It is very common for a number of
learned persons especially, Indian politicians and some scholars and Swamis
to say that all religions teach the same thing and it is only selfish and
power-hungry and mischievous people who create differences, in fact strife
between the followers of different religions. Bharat Ratna Bhagavandas
even wrote a book, "The Essential Unity of all Religions". So great a person
like Mahatma Gandhi not only subscribed to this but even made the bhajan
"Eeswar Allah tere naam" quite popular. Discerning people would notice
that it is only the Hindus including Mahatma Gandhi who say these things.
Have we ever come across any Mullah or Maulvi or Maulana or Islamic scholar
who has said that all religions are equal and that they all teach the same
thing and all have equal validity? Or that Allah can also be called Eswar
or that Prophet Mohammed could be equated to the avatars like Buddha, Krishna
or Rama of Hindu Gods? Have we come across any Christian Bishop or Cardinal
or any Rev. Father saying that Hinduism and Christianity are equally valid?
If any Muslim or Christian cleric
or scholar says that all religions are teaching the same thing and all
are equally good, then there is obviously no case for any proselytization
or conversion. Since many a Hindu politician and some Swamis say that all
religions teach the same, they don't see any need to convert others to
Hinduism or resist Hindus being converted to other religions. Hinduism
of course, does not want any converts because its concept of life and the
relation of man to objects of nature and God and among ourselves is entirely
different from faiths like Islam or Christianity. Let us see how totally
different the religions are.
Hinduism has no founder, has no
agent like a Prophet or a Pope between God and man. It has no one holy
book which alone is sacred and whose teachings or writings or messages
are valid for all time to come and whosoever questions such teachings or
writings is a an apostate or a heretic. Christianity has a founder, Jesus
Christ; Islam has a founder, Prophet Mohammed. It is not sufficient to
believe in God; Christians must believe that Jesus Christ is the only son
of God and that he was immaculately conceived. Christians believe that
what is written in the New Testament is the word of God, though there are
several versions and differences in the description of the same phenomena
of the New Testament written by different apostles. Similarly, it is not
sufficient if Muslims believe in Allah; their belief in Allah alone without
belief and faith in Prophet Mohammed is invalid. In both cases, it can
be seen that it is not God who is supreme; His supremacy is shared by the
son of God in one case and that of the Prophet in another. In Hinduism,
not only every person can directly reach God without any agent to assist
them but this right is believed to be available even to animals has can
be observed in cases like "Gajendra Moksham".
It is Prophet Mohammed who will
decide on the judgment day whether a person will go to hell or heaven;
and it is not God who does this.
Christianity believes that all human
beings are born in sin and that Jesus Christ redeemed the sin of all human
beings for all time by his death on the Cross. Hinduism believes that all
human beings are the children of God, of deathlessness "Amruthasya Puthrah".
While in Christianity, there is only one son of God, Hindus believe that
all human beings including Christians and Muslims are sons of God. Islam
believes that only those who are born as Muslims are non-sinners; the rest
are all living in false faith and false belief and therefore they should
all be converted to the true faith, Islam.
It is not enjoined upon any Hindu
that he should convert non-Hindus to Hinduism. Every Christian is told
that it is his duty to spread the gospel, to convert non-Christians to
Christianity. Muslims also believe that their religion, Islam is the only
true religion. We therefore, see the two faiths Christianity and Islam
pre-competing with one another to convert everyone else to its own faith.
This would certainly lead to tension and conflict as it has done with terrible
slaughter in the past and promises another slaughter as postulated in the
book, The Clash of Civilizations (Islamic and Christian) by Prof. Samuel
Huntington of Harward University.
Hindus, including Buddhists, Jains,
and Sikhs believe in the theory of karma and rebirth. One has to enjoy
or suffer the consequences of his actions. If they are not fully accounted
for in this life, one has to account for them in the next life. It is only
through a series of more and more rightous lives that the Hindus believe
they attain moksha and kaivalya or freedom from the cycle of birth and
death, dissolving himself in the primordial cause or divinity. Christians
and Muslims do not believe in Karma theory or in rebirth. They think that
all the dead will be revived on the Day of Judgment and that their God
Allah or Yahwey will assign him to hell or heaven for eternity, depending
upon the strength of his faith in his God and his messenger.
Muslims think that they are superior
to every person of a different faith. Maulana Mohammed Ali, the "brother"
of Mahatma Gandhi in the Khilafat movement said this very eloquently when
he observed and then reaffirmed later on that "As a follower of Islam I
am bound to regard the creed of even a fallen and degraded Mussalman (as)
entitled to a higher place than that of any other non-Muslim irrespective
of his high character, even though the person in question be Mahatma Gandhi
himself'. (From the book: Understanding The Muslim mind by Rajmohan Gandhi).
Many Muslims objected to Gandhi
being called a Mahatma. The objection was that none other than Muslims
can be a great soul. Christians believe that whosoever does not convert
to Christianity, is doomed to hell. There is no equality of all human beings
according to Islam or Christianity. That is the reason why the 58 nations
of the Organisations of Islamic Countries (OIC) produced and adopted an
Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, different from the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights that all other members of the United Nations signed and
adopted.
Hinduism does not prohibit inquiry
into God or any text considered by any of them as sacred. A Hindu can be
an atheist or agnostic. Hinduism holds that every person must use reason
and in the light of reason, intellect and discriminating power, he can
reject any of the concepts in Hinduism without inviting ex-communication
or any punishment. People have written scurrilous things about Rama, Sita
and about Krishna and Radha without coming to any grief. Hinduism holds
that one may conceive of God in any image, call him by any name and worship
God in whatever manner he likes. Thus total freedom of thought, writing
and expression about divinity is available in Hinduism. Everyone is free
to reject without any punishment whatever he does not like in Hinduism.
This is obviously not so in Christianity and Islam. Christianity launched
inquisition to identify and punish heretics; it burnt to death a scientist
(Bruno) who said that the earth was going round the Sun because the Papacy
held that he was speaking contrary to the revelation in the Bible. Inquiry
into the Koran or Hadith is unthinkable in Islam. If an Islamic cleric
holds that the word or writing of a person is offensive to the sentiment
of Muslims or blasphemous, then a fatwa to kill the offender is issued.
There are thousands of fatwas issued like this. We are very familiar with
the fatwas issued against Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasreen for their
allegedly blasphemous writings.
It is quite clear that all religions
are not the same nor or they equal. The brother- hood obtaining in Islam
is confined to those who believe in it. According to them humanity is already
divided into the virtuous and sinners. Tolerance has different meaning
for different religions. The same thing is in regard to respect for other's
religion. When one is in a minority then they would see the virtue of secularism
and tolerance. But when and where they are a majority, they do not show
tolerance or respect for others' religions. When the people of particular
religion are in a majority, then the people of the minority religions are
dhimmies; that is, protected people in return for certain payments like
Zazia. Moslems want that India should be secular and that Muslims should
have freedom of worship, have their own laws for marriage and divorce and
inheritance and that their sentiments should be respected but these freedoms
and regard are not conceded to Hindus in Islamic countries eg: Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Bangladesh Afghanistan etc.,). Moslems and Christians
can propagate their religion and convert Hindus but conversion of Moslems
or Christians by Hindus is called intolerance and fascism. If a Muslim
renounces his religion, it is punishable by death; apostasy is a crime
in Islam. Hindus can renounce religion with impunity.
Conflicts between and clash of religions
is barbaric. In a globalising world, people will move from country to country
to eventually settle even. There are only a few countries where all citizens
belong to only one religion. If all the citizens of nation-states do not
show equal and reciprocal respect for others' cultures and religions and
languages, nations would be engulfed in communal wars. When some countries
are nuclear armed and fanatic and resort to resolution of differences by
violence and warfare, then the entire humanity might disappear in the nuclear
holocaust. It is therefore necessary that men of good will and humanity
try to moderate the intolerance, exclusiveness and self righteous attitude
and proselytizing zeal so that multiple faiths and multiple cultures can
all flourish with equal and reciprocal respect for one another. Tolerance
should not be truce, but sincere acceptance of the equal validity of other's
faiths, beliefs and cultures.
(The author is Chartered Accountant
and is reachable at: giridharmamidi@rediffmail.com)