Someone save us from the insanity of people who think temples and mosques are important, and so go about destroying mosques and temples. Someone tell them, they are just stones. Someone tell them, the people who die are our temples and mosques.
Not someone. You. Me.
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15 comments:
Someone tell "them"!!
Who's "them"? Try talking to "them" if you know "them" and let to us if you do make it back.
Also, it's not secular to discuss only temples and mosques. Chruches too can go - after all just stones, bricks and mortar.
Wonder if DD had the same post up if the Jama Masjid was attacked.
The main issue, according to me, is not that a temple was attacked or a mosque or a church, it is our reliance on organized religion. Why do we need to associate objects like temples/mosques/churches with religion never ceases to amaze me. Religion is a very private matter, if you believe in God, it is your own belief. Why do you need a forum where 1000 people can do the same activity together ?
This is not something new. This has been happening ever since humans evolved as a society. In any war in the olden days the attack was on the temples and women. By attacking these symbols of your enemy, you are attacking their core beliefs and value systems. Women were considered property back then and even now in some societies. Why was the Balmiyan Buddha statue destroyed. Because they believed that having the statue in that country will have negative consequenses for their religion.
Is this justified? No. Can we do something about it. May be, if there is someone who is willing to listen, and that listener is the perpetrator of this crime. A person who is willing to listen will not do this.
Faith is blind and a Religious Faithful is oblivious to what goes on outside his mind.
I am surprised at some of the comments.
Sriram: Human beings are more important than buildings or animals? I have two counter points. Firstly, in that case the security forces should not have killed the attackers, just tried to disarm them, since they were humans too. Secondly, look at USA, having killed all its wildlife. It's such a sad place to live in from that point-of-view (and India is going that way as well) -- you hardly see any birds in the sky.
Anonymous 1: I am a Hindu by birth. If I did at all care about yesterday's attack (I don't), I would be equally appalled at the attack on , say, Jama Masjid or St. Peter's Cathedral.
Anonymous 2: If you had been reading Dilip's posts, you would have noticed one about the plight of Kashmiri Pandits. So, that leads me to think that, yes, he would have put up the same post if JM were attacked.
Now, before anybody comes out and asks me why I am defending Dilip on his own turf, let me answer -- because something about some of the comments angered me. Hinduism blew a huge toot about being a tolerant religion, but it is not. It angers me, as a Hindu, when people make sweeping statements about all Hindus. Please, ladies and gentlemen, if you try and represent all Hinduism, please put a disclaimer declaring that you don't have my support.
Well said Anurag. I wonder if the comments would be different had Dilip been writing the same stuff, but was Dilip Dixit instead of D'Souza. I am afraid yes.
re: Anon (comment 3) asks if DD would say the same thing if mosque was attacked. Isn't DD condemning attack on a makeshift temple? I am just too naive to understand the comment.
in reply to post3 by anonymous.. guess the them being referred to the author cud well be people like u who make religious politics out of nothing.... i perfectly agree to wht niket said... and support dilip's view... its utter nonsense to go destroying temples'/mosques'/churches' for selfish reasons and to bring out chaos in the country......
Mr Anurag
Can you clarify what you meant by Hinduism not being a tolerant religion. I could not see the context. Unless the posts have been removed
Anonymous: My statement was not completely inspired by this post, or the comments, but was an outlet of irritation which has been building up over the years.
When people assume that Dilip is not shocked by these attackes because he has a Catholic second name, that is an indication of intolerance for me.
In general, I find that we are not so tolerant as we profess to be.
Thanks Dilip. So many people have issues when someone makes a comment like you. Either it rankles their own sense of what they think is loyalty to their faith or they are just used to expressing agression at what they think is incorrect. I agree , religion and faith is important, but not when you choose to let it prevail over your common sense. They are all paths which have the same ulterior goal, none of which encompasses any violence.
Dilip I salute your statement. Few have the courage to make it on a open forum. And readers if you feel he would have felt differently had he been from a different caste, try and remember so would you if you belonged to a different community. Dont miss the point he's trying to express.
Build hospitals, build schools in villages, build peace in your heart, instead of searching for it in religious temples, churches or mosques ( or any other premises of any other religion)
This isnt a temple. Not in the usual sense of the word where people go for religious and not political purposes.It isnt a mosque either. It's a disputed area. Why does the media have to attach religious significance to it? It has its effects on the economy : look what it must have done to the tourism industry at least. ( The Sensex diving down may be sneered at as in inadequate index of economic health). It is an attack on the State. And hey, we were trying to get that edifice separated from religion, at least when we established the country. When we start terming this an attack on a temple and start comparing it to potential attacks on mosques, we are making politics out of religion: and playing into the hands of the attackers.
Anurag:
Anonymous 1: I am a Hindu by birth. If I did at all care about yesterday's attack (I don't), I would be equally appalled at the attack on , say, Jama Masjid or St. Peter's Cathedral.
Since you really don't care (per your own statment)for the temple at Ayodhya being blown up - I guess your-equal-equal secular credentials wouldn't let you be appalled at say Jama Masjid or Mt Mary's Church be blown up too. To extrapolate, since all we are talking about the are some brick-mortar structures, let's shift focus away from religion for a minute - why get appalled when terrorists try to blow up say Red Fort or Century Bazar or BSE exchange or Gateway of India?
We should observe a "national open thod-phod divas for terrorists" when one day a year, we pull out all our citizens from these buildings and tell "them" - avo bhai log, do all the thod phod to your hearts content
Maybe that'll be solution to all the world problems.
-"Anonymous 1"
This country is a communal timebomb! One secular and human statement and so much resentment. Well, some appreciation too.
Lets hope the good guys prevail.
And Dilip's "them" has struck - once again - this time in London.
The world's communal timebomb.
Gotta go.. real world's calling.
TO add to earlier Anonymous what provocation did these people carrying out the london blasts have against the Brits?
Come on Dilip, communalist hindus have not provoked them
Anurag - I know Dilips surname has nothing to do with what he writes. It is only his affliction with the Teesta Setalvad like disease let us call it 'Secularites' for lack of a better word that makes them write like they do. Not only he but a lot of other journalists with proper Hindu surnames are affected by this disease.
Anyway this for Dilip- Any comment about Teesta's comment not to call the perpetrators terrorists or jehadi terrorists.
All I learn from this post is how one glib truism can lead to so much sound and fury and so little light.
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