Gods and Godmen of India (3 page)
Take it from me it is hundred per cent rubbish and sooner our media stop off-loading this nonsense on a gullible people, the better. We can’t do it because far too many people in high places believe in them: Presidents, prime ministers, chief ministers, judges of the Supreme Court, and most of all, ambitious unscrupulous politicians. Indira Gandhi had her Anandamayi Ma and Dhirendra Brahmachari. In later life she also had
havans
performed in secret to ward off evil. President Shankar Dayal Sharma was indiscriminate in his worship of gods and godmen. So was Narasimha Rao who, besides the Sai Baba, touched the feet of racketeer Chandraswamy. Deve Gowda is also a firm believer in astrology. So is Jayalalitha. Retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Bhagwati is chairman of the Sai Baba Trust. Amongst the Baba’s many eminent disciples is my friend Nani Palkhivala. Are they nuts? Or am I?
Jayakrishna Sahu, an advocate in Orissa, writes in the recent issue of
Indian Skeptic
of his dismay at the alarming increase in the number of “fake swamis, sadhus, babas and gurus”. He goes on to say “the growth rate of crime and corruption is directly proportional to the rise in the number of such frauds and charlatans.” Strong words to which I subscribe.
The greatest godman buster of our times was the late A.T. Kovoor. He not only demonstrated that all the so-called miracles were no more than magicians’ tricks, he had the courage to say that belief in God had no bearing on human character. He wrote, “Morals are and have always been independent of religion. If there are no independent moral standards, religions turn themselves meaningless. How do we know God is great unless we know what is God?
“The question is not whether there is God or not. What worries us more is the blind belief in godmen. In the name of God they are cheating the people. God, if there is one, himself did not create wrist watches, gold chains or rings. Yet, the godmen claim they create these things and fool people.”
On the stage Kovoor performed every one of the ‘miracles’ performed by self-styled godmen in saffron robes. It was to no avail. Stupid people are impervious to reason. And now we have the craze for
Vastu
as asinine as any of the irrational junk to clutter our minds. But not all is lost. We have in India a growing number of rationalists who have rejected all beliefs in the occult and the unprovable. They have branches in all the States. If you want to read about their activities, get a copy of
Indian Skeptic
published in Tamil Nadu.
25/7/98
R
ight From the time life began on earth people have been asking themselves who or what made us, what was his, her or its purpose, where do we go, when do we die? Nobody has yet been able to give satisfactory answers to these questions. All we have are assertions about a God who one fine day decided to create life, gave different creatures different names, different spans of life and then made them disappear forever.
At first, they conjectured that elements that created life – the sun, rain, earth and air – were their creators and worthy of worship. Some time later people thought there must be hundreds of thousands of creators who looked after different aspects of life. Others argued there should be one creator. They called it God. Still later came philosophers and prophets.
In West Asia we had Zoroaster, Abraham and Moses, Jesus Christ and Mohammed. Their followers banded themselves into separate groups and sought to impose their views on others. In India we had Mahavir and Gautama the Buddha. Neither really accepted the existence of a God but laid down norms of social behaviour and acquired large followings. Their predominance was challenged by Adi Shankara who was able to re-establish Hindu predominance.
In India the inroads made by non-Indian religions like Christianity and Islam posed serious challenges to the caste-ossified Hindu society. These challenges were met in battlefields as well as in attempts to come to an understanding between each other. From the Hindu side they were the
Bhaktas
(notably Kabir and Nanak), from the Muslim side
Sufis,
notably Farid, Muenuddin and Nizamuddin of the
Chishtia
order. The process of coming to an understanding between contending faiths has continued.
Rafiq Zakaria, who was for 15 years a minister in Maharashtra, has written books on Indian politics and religion, mainly Islam. He has also set up several educational institutions in Mumbai and Aurangabad. He is a believer but open to dialogue. I, a non-believer, had the privilege of having long discussions with him on religion. Our audience was his wife Fatma and her two sons Arshad and Farid, both in big jobs in New York and with American wives.
Rafiq was apprehensive that I would subvert their faith in Islam. He was very upset when I pronounced God as a gas balloon and his sons took up the slogan as a chant. I was hoping that in his latest publication,
Discovery of God
he would give reasons why he believes in the existence of an Almighty God. He has avoided committing himself besides affirming his Islamic identity.
Instead he has compiled an encyclopaedia of the evolution of the concept of God in human minds from ancient to modern times. It is a well-researched compendium, profusely illustrated with apt quotations and pictures which will be of great value to both theologians and lay students of religion alike.
8/7/2000
A
Paradox I have not been able to explain is why in two countries as poles apart as the US and India, religion is good commerce. America is among the richest of the rich nations with nearly hundred per cent literacy; India is among the poorest of the poor with more than half unable to read or write. However, both countries share the passion for proclaiming the glory of God. So do many others like Pakistan. I watch Pak TV; it spends more time extolling the greatness of Islam than American or Indian TV channels. However, I do not detect as much commercialization on it nor as large audiences as in America or India.
When in the US or Canada, my favourite TV viewing are Sunday morning services in churches of different denominations. Being a non-believer, I find them hilariously comical. I am amazed how antics of evangelists are taken seriously by congregations, Since 1998, God-believers have opened up another front to win larger followings.
An anonymous donor from Miami (Florida) funded the ‘God Speaks’ campaign by donating 150,000 dollars towards advertising God. Hoardings came up along major highways exhorting people to attend church regularly. One-liner messages like ‘Love thy neighbour’ are credited to the campaign. It is estimated that Americans spend over 15 million dollars a year on boards advertising ‘God Speaks’.
We Indians don’t have that kind of money but we provide much larger audiences. You can hear
keertan
from dawn (
amrit vela
) to dusk from the Golden Temple and the morning services from different
gurdwaras.
Some
ragis
are first-rate; others go through at a speed which make words incomprehensible. In the evenings, theologians expound meanings of
Gurubani.
I find
pravachans
by the dozen or more
acharyas
and
sadhvis
more arresting. My top favourites remain the two
Bapus
– Murari and Asa Ram. Both have the gift of the gab. Murari Bapu has a very melodious voice and his chanting induces men and women in his audience to get up and start dancing. Asa Ram Bapu intersperses his sermons with humorous anecdotes which raise laughter and clapping.
Lady
sadhvis
come off poorly by contrast: no oratory, no jokes. What I find disappointing about these purveyors of religion and morality, be they Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Sikh, is that they have nothing new to say because they do not tackle problems of our times. Have you ever heard any of them tell you of the perils of our exploding population or the denigration of our environment?
8/7/2000
S
ince I have often questioned the existence of an Omniscient (all-knowing), Omnipotent (all-powerful), Just and Merciful God, I get a lot of letters from believers who denounce me as an ignorant, self-opinionated man ever bent on mischief-making and provoking controversy. They quote religious texts, founders of religions, savants and scholars theology to me. Most of them are in the form of assertions without reasons to back them up. I pity and envy them for having blind faith that God exists.
A few days ago I received a longish article on the subject from T. Gopal Iyengar of Hyderabad. It made a lot of sense to me. He was logical, lucid and examined the subject from different angles. He spelt out his doubts and wrote to the Sankaracharya of Kanchi and the head of the Ramakrishna Math in Belur. From both of them he received terse replies brushing aside his queries and advising him to read this or that. Evidently they did not have the answers.
Iyengar starts by asserting that we are nurtured on religious beliefs from day one as we start imbibing our mother’s milk. By the time we are old enough to think for ourselves, we are thoroughly brainwashed into accepting the existence of God and incapable of questioning it. The very few who ponder over the matter try to define God. How do you define someone or something you can’t see, hear, touch or smell? Nevertheless the feeling persists that there must be someone or some power which created the earth and life on it, and then take it away we know not where.
Two distinct approaches to the problem of defining God are available: the Hindic comprising Jain, Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh and the Judaic (Jewish, Christian and Muslim). A good example of the Hindic approach is in the Vishnu Purana: “O! who can describe him who is not to be apprehended by the senses; who is the best of all things and the Supreme Soul, self-existent, who is devoid of all distinguishing characteristics of complexion, caste or the like, and is exempt from birth, vicissitudes, death or decay; who is always alone; who exists everywhere and in whom all things here exist; and who is thence named Vasudev – the resplendent one in whom all things dwell.”
Right from the Vedic times to the advent of Sikhism, the pattern of definition of God with minor variations has been the same. It should be noted that in none of them are justice, benevolence and mercy not attributes of God as they are in Judaic religions where benevolence and mercy are important attributes of the Almighty. Indeed, in common Punjabi parlance, God is often described as
vadda beparvaah
– the Great One who could not care less about human suffering.
That makes sense to me. Or how do you explain catastrophes like earthquakes and cyclones which take heavy toll of the innocent, upright and the God-fearing as they do of others? Why are so many children born blind, retarded or stricken with cancer? When there is so much injustice and cruelty in the world, why does not Almighty God punish tyrants and the corrupt? Explanations like paying for deeds done in past lives or punishments to be meted out in lives to come have no provable rational basis and should be rejected.
So what is the answer? Iyengar does not give one. But from the way he argues I am inclined to conclude that we do not know whether or not God exists or ever existed. I go one step further and hold that his existence or non-existence is of no consequence to human beings.
22/1/2000
N
o Country has produced as many gods and goddesses as ours. With us, the process has not stopped as we go on adding to their numbers as recklessly as we produce human beings. Every village has its own favourite deities. Even buildings like High Courts and hospitals have their patron gods and goddesses to whom offerings are made.
I pleaded with David Davidar of Viking Penguin (India) to publish a lexicon of our innumerable divinities so that people could know more about their names and carnations. He agreed and Penguin Viking has commissioned a lady to compile such a dictionary. Meanwhile, an old friend of my Bombay years, Arvind Kumar, and his wife Kusum have jointly published precisely what I had in mind in Hindi;
Shabdeshwari – Devi Devtaon key Namon ka Samaantar Kosh.
Earlier, they had compiled a
Samaantar Kosh
– a
Hindi Thesaurus
for which the couple won a Rs one lakh award from the Maharashtra Rajya Hindi Sahitya Akademi.
Arvind is an erudite scholar of Hindi. He does not wear his learning on his sleeves but is a very unassuming, shy and modest man. In his wife he has found an equally learned companion who does most of the ground work for him. They now live in comparative obscurity in Ghaziabad.
Some mind-boggling facts are presented in their compilation: Shiva and Rudra jointly share 3,411 names, next comes Visnu with 1,676, followed by Indra (451), Krishna (441), Kamdev (287), Skand (161), Ganesh (141), and Rama (129). The goddesses combine of Parvati, Durga and Kali have 900 names followed by Lakshmi (191), Saraswati (108), Sita (65) and Radha (31).
The authors also tell their readers about the power ascribed to these deities and forms of ritual in which they are worshipped. Apart from being a treasury of Indian mythology and legend, the book could be consulted by people looking for names for their children.
18/3/2000
A
four-year-old boy, the only child of his parents was on his way back from school. As usual with children on their return journey, he was impatient to get back home. Without bothering to look on either side, he ran across the road and was knocked down by a speeding truck and killed instantaneously. The truck driver sped away and was never traced. An innocent life was lost, the man who took his life escaped punishment. Is there a God? An all-powerful and just God? The Holy Book promises: “No ills befall the righteous, but the wicked are filled with trouble” (Proverbs). The Holy Book asks: “Consider, what innocent ever perished, or where have the righteous been destroyed?” (Job). Let those who believe in God and in His infinite mercy explain why a child whose parents had committed no sin had pain inflicted on them and then the man who caused them suffering went scot free. I will not buy the theory that we pay for sins committed in a previous life or will be compensated in the life hereafter. There is no evidence whatsoever of
Samskara,
it is no more than what Ghalib described: