Much has happened since news started coming out about the tunnel that linked the Dera Nivas (Ram Rahim’s quarters) to Sadhvi Nivas (Sadhvi’s hostel)…with the Akhil Bharatiya Amhara Parishad now releasing a list of “fake” babas in India, which include the much-known suspects like Asaram, Nirmal Baba, Radhe Maa, Swami Asimanand, etc.
Truth be told, there are many such faces out there…across sects…across religions. And these are the forces that actually are what pose a hindrance to the uniform civil code. In case you are wondering how: Think about this…
Which religious text or holy book advocated the burning of brides (‘Sati’ pratha) in the Hindu tradition? Similarly, does the Koran advocate Talaq-e-bidat wherein a singular pronouncement of three ‘talaqs’ automatically dissolves a marriage? Or does the Bible preach that one should use exorcism in place of psychiatric care? Or does the Hebrew Bible or Talmud prescribe swinging a chicken over one’s head before slaughtering the bird in an attempt to cleanse oneself of one’s sin by transferring those sins to a hapless bird.
Of course, don’t bother answering those questions for they are completely rhetorical?!? The simple truth is that bad practices abound in plenty across religions and across cultures. And it doesn’t need a rocket scientist to figure out that these bad practices are not the result of “bad” religions or “bad” religious texts, but bad men who in the garb of religious preachers have distorted their religion’s message to suit their own interests.
You see, religious preachers are simply ordinary men and women, no matter how extraordinary they make themselves sound. Thus, they have their own biases, prejudices, and beliefs. Just like ordinary human beings, they have their own failings and just like ordinary men, they promote a fear psychosis in order to defraud their disciples. After all, it’s a business!
This is why, such discriminatory social practices flourished in our societies with these god-men and god-women promoting bad and evil practices either (1) in order to make money off their disciples, or (2) to maintain their power and hold over the general public. Of course, in some rare cases, they even decided to abuse this relationship by turning into a temptress (aka Radhe Maa) or a rapist (like Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh) or something equally nasty.
However, it is important to remember that times are changing. We are living in the information age, where religious preachers cannot be allowed to prey on the gullible and the weak. Not to mention, those bad practices that have come to be accepted as a cultural “norm” need to go too!
This is why we need to ban bad practices across the religions…no matter what the religion is. After all, freedom of religion does not give anyone the right (no matter how big a man/woman of God he/she is) to trample on someone else’s right. Hence, from triple talaq to dowry pratha…all social evils must go. And for once, let’s not make everything about “religion”…bad practices are universally “bad”, no matter what the religion!
