Liberation through Fire

As flames envelop a young Buddhist monk, Saigon, October 5th, 1963, he sits impassively in the central market square, after setting himself on fire as a ritual suicide in protest against the government's anti-Buddhist policies. This photograph reminds me of an argument that I often hear about why 'religious education' (RE) should not be introduced into Indian schools. By this term (RE), I mean a set of courses through which students can learn about different religions of the world. This is especially important because in spite of the so-called 'tolerance' of Hinduism, it might be the case that Hindus are among the least educated of all people about the beliefs/practices of other religions. So why it is important to know what other religions actually teach? I shall here mention just one reason :

Communities which are ready to engage with one another in a deep search for mutual understanding by honestly acknowledging that there are differences (sociological/cultural/metaphysical) among them, and developing respect for one another through this process, are less likely to explode into flames at times of crises. On the other hand, it is precisely those communities who live (or try to live) with a veneer of 'mutual respect' with other communities, without even having the foggiest notion of what members belonging to the latter actually believe in, are more likely to turn upon them with violence and hostility at the slighest provocation.

To carry on with the Indian example, it would seem that even today most Hindus and Muslims are still living in the colonial era so far as their mutual knowledge of each other's beliefs/practices are concerned. For example, how many Hindus know why 'Mohameddanism' is a misleading term for 'Islam', and that there is more to Islam than 'eating beef'? On the other side, (some) Muslims continue to repeat the old (colonial!) charge that Hindus are 'idol-worshippers' without being aware of the never-ending series of warnings raised by many social anthropologists who have pointed out that the term 'idol' should rather be replaced by the term 'image', since it is not the idol in itself that is worshipped as divine.

Do I mean to say, however, that parents who are atheists will therefore be forced to send their children to RE? No, such children may be safely preserved within the protective confines of their homes (and this, in spite of the so-called 'spirit of free enquiry' of which atheists are so proud). Again, shall Muslim parents be compelled to send their children to take up RE in Hinduism, and Hindu parents to send theirs to study RE in Islam? Once again, no : Hindu children may continue to study Hinduism RE alone, and the same holds for Muslim children. (All these comments apply to Christians, Buddhists, and Jains too.)

However, I suspect that somewhere deep within the human heart there is also such a thing as 'curiosity' (Though often, to be sure, this 'curiosity' is repressed by various 'ideological' issues, and these may be religion, social pressures, political concerns, and for, that matter, atheism). I am using this word not in the prevalent sense of 'a futile interest in trivial oddities' but in that of 'a desire to know better that which arouses interest'. If I as a Hindu were to meet a Muslim (or, by the way, a Christian or a Buddhist) friend at school, play with yet another one after school, and do my home-work with a third one after play, I can only say that would indeed make me very curious to know what my friend believes in about the 'nature of reality', about who we human beings are, where we have 'come from', about what we are supposed to be like, and where we are 'headed towards'.

Nothing in the above implies, however, that I shall actually agree with my (Muslim/Christian/Buddhist) friend on all these points. For all I know, after talking to him/her for a month about these issues, I might realise for the first time that I have been an atheist all along --- and this, even unknown to myself. Or it may also happen that I come to the conclusion that questions such as 'where we have come from, and where we are headed to' are too loaded with 'metaphysics' for my post-modern stomach to digest. Thereafter, we can either stay friends or part company. From the political-pragmatic point of view, the concern is that such RE will make us more aware, more than ever before, of our fundamental differences and thereby foment more violence. I do not think there is any such necessary connection between the awareness of differences and the creation of hatred. Consider the case of Marxist thought. If the only concern that guides framers of 'national education policies' in India is the 'minimisation of violence', one could demand that the teaching of (classical) Marxism (with its notions of 'class-violence' and 'revolution') should be banned in Indian institutions. Why is (classical) Marxism nevertheless taught throughout India? As I see it, the reason is that we are still, for better or for worse, interested in the question of whether the truth-claims put forward in any world-view are valid or not.

The same, I submit, goes with the case of RE. Consider this example. If I as a Hindu were to (a) understand the 'essentials of Hindu thought', and (b) know exactly why I and my Christian (or Muslim/Buddhist) friend disagree over a number of crucial points, only a severely myopic politician will claim that (a)-(b) will necessarily lead to the increase of violence in 'civil society'. It may so happen that I have come to realise through my understanding of (a) the reasons why such violence would, in fact, be an infringement of the above mentioned 'essentials'. Therefore, while I am only too aware of (b), I may nevertheless also choose to stand by (a). Indeed, here is more to come : it may even so happen that among one of these 'essentials' is the belief that there will always be a diversity in the views that human beings hold about what 'reality' is like, and that this diversity is a value to be cherished. Far from increasing the levels of violence, then, knowledge of (a) may instead lead to a decrease in such levels. (Similar arguments can be constructed from the Christian/Muslim/Buddhist side.)

All of this can be summarised by saying that RE can also teach us the virtue of 'agreeing to disagree' within a context where the Other is 'tolerated' in its otherness. What that last, somewhat cryptic phrase, means I shall try to spell out in another place.