I go for dance classes - jazz funk and bellydancing - that happen in the evenings on the terrace of a play school in Richmond Town. (Phew. Talk about endless sentences.) I met a little girl here whose Mommy was part of the Salsa class happening just before my bellydancing. I struck a conversation with little Tanishka to make her feel better about being left to fend for herself while her mother danced - school, friends, what she likes etc. A brief interlude of silence followed, where i didn't know what else to ask her. Out of the blue she goes, "You know, I'm a Hindu." Wha?! Assuming i'd heard wrong from her 4-year old mouth, i asked her to repeat it. And she did. "I'm a Hindu", she said.
I had asked her nothing at all about her faith. Naturally, no person would ask something of the sort from one so young. Yet, she thought it important enough to be part of a conversation she might have with anybody.
My first reaction was panic. I'm not sure she fully understood what she was saying, or the enormity of the statement she was making. It was scary that she was growing in an atmosphere where her religion was being drilled into her not just as words, but as behaviour and more importantly, as a foundation for her future beliefs and actions. Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying it's a bad thing. It's just that with the way things are going right now, i wouldn't be surprised if all this tutoring makes her something of an educated zealot.
This isn't just true of her, you know. I have my own cousins, all of them not more than 11 years of age. Already, when they meet their non-Muslim friends, they go chee when they see idols and all that. I'm stunned into silence, because it's such a wrong way to behave. Religion is something each of us has the independence to practice in our own way. Imposing one's beliefs on others is just so...uncouth, and such an exploitation.
And yet, is it any surprise that these things happen in our households, while the same occurs on a larger scale across the nation? Is it any surprise, when moral police from the religions fighting for domination in India hash and re-hash and ruin educational material, introducing conflict in content? Is it any surprise that each of us is religiously afraid of each other thanks to some bloody people somewhere who decided to start a fight and blow it out of proportion? I mean, think about this: for years, the Taj Mahal was admired for its beauty, and heralded by all and sundry as the one thing India and Indians should be culturally proud of. Suddenly, we have people who claim that the foundation was laid over an ancient temple. Innumerable texts and pamphlets were circulated, e-mails passed around. People had protests all over, and then they evolved into fights. The Raj Kumar protests are another example: the man died from natural causes, and Bangalore went berserk with grief. If it was possible, they would have stoned the Gods to death for taking away their beloved annavaru. Some places, buses were burnt and public property damaged. A boy was killed in some sort of stampede. His religious identity then started a semi-war between Hindus and Muslims.
It's like, people are waiting for an opportunity to bring out swords and fight in the name of God. And they're readying armies of the future by instilling thoughts in the heads of children as young as Tanishka.
It worries me no end. I hope i'm not around to see the last defining act of this degenerative process.
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