So again they mock, make fun, ridicule millions of people's belief, culture, traditions and few of us silently protest with ethical and legal way. And, still so called celebrities have issue with our way of protest. We are called communal and regressive for just raising concerns for own faith. We have been hounded, killed, destroyed repeatedly by all kinds of foreigners starting from 712 A.D. Millions of native Indians(Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs) have been killed over the period and it's documented well in the history. And still today we are being called bigoted for defending my own faith. Can't a person with multiple injuries even defend own self? What do we do?
We need an honest conversation on two points.
1. Belief & dignity
2. Freedom of mockery through democratic freedom of expression
Let me start with my own story; Back in 2007/8, fresh out of engineering and when Narendra Modi didn't even complete his 2nd term as a Gujarat CM, I used to feel offended when people made fun of my and may be crores of other people's belief through the means of entertainment but I never gave too much of thought to it. I was raised in the middle class family of 90s. My mother was religiously Hindu who believed in murti puja and father was staunch atheist who never believed in any religious customs. Mummy used to do puja every morning and sometimes in evening and papa never did until 1999. By the time I became mature enough to understand logical aspects of all these, I saw two opposite views for same thing. That thing was BELIEF.
Mummy believed in murti puja and papa believed only in logical reasoning. Papa had a strong opinion about his beliefs. He even used to make fun of religious customs but that was rarely. Papa read and heard many of Osho Rajnish's discourses because he explained everything thru logical reasoning. Osho attracted many young people like my father at that time throughout the world. So I was raised with such wonderful environment of mixed beliefs. Broadly it was bhakti and gyaan. Somehow I never rejected any of them in my mind. May be, I kept myself open for both paths. Moving ahead from my school days to college days, we came in contact with Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishankar's organization The Art of Living. Something beautiful happened due to acceptability of wholesome idea of Hinduism within the organization. My father attended basic course on Pranayam, Sudarshan Kriya and then an advance meditation course. My mother obviously, being a hindu believer, followed the suit. Both of them found place for their beliefs at the same place. Both opened up for each other's belief system. Papa understood the importance of bhakti, puja and daily rituals. Mummy understood the importance of gyaan, understanding essence of ancient hindu texts. And my sister and I followed them later by doing multiple courses and serving needy people through the AOL. Both of us found all practices so interesting and we both tried to learn and understand this amazing gyaan written and preserved by ancients of this amazing hindu civilisation. This is the importance of dignity and respect!
I narrated the story of my home to tell you that dignity is as important as freedom of expression. I really don't think mockery is an expression but it is bullying. Unfortunately, this doesn't fit in modern definition of expression and democratic rights. If papa would have made good fun of bhakti or mumma made fun of the sankhya, we could have never progressed from that point. Yes, we might have had fun for few moments. But, that would be useless in individual's progress or widening of our thought process. Making continuous fun or ridiculing of anyone's belief doesn't solve ANY PURPOSE but yes, its a freedom of expression in democracy! By constant bombarding on anyone's belief from all different sources, by all different people, from all different channels have made youth of this generation develop an irritation to this wonderful space of ideas, own religion, own culture, own profound knowledge, own ancestors. Today's youth would never even think to plunge themselves in reading Bhagwad Gita or Ashtavakra Gita or Yoga Vasistha or stories of Mirabai or Narsinh Mehta or Vivekanand and 1000s of more philosophers India had. Why? We are closing the brains of millions of young people from all of these just in the name of freedom of expression!
What a terrible loss!
Same time we never ridicule science and scientists. We never ridicule the modern science even though we don't understand it at all in detail. May be because collectively we think that's one of the necessity to progress in this world. If we don't know, we just leave. And, don't we have enough topics or characters or subjects around the world to ridicule in the name of fun? What purpose do we solve by making such mockery? We would have fun and laugh for few minutes on the expense of closing doors for millions of young from exploring a well researched, experienced by many, 1000s of years old philosophy, techniques and knowledge! It's a science, developed by many scientists(rishis) over thousands of years. Fun is good but continues mockery of peaceful, tolerant, accommodative, progressive culture is not good! We have to decide what do we want our children to learn?
Crux is;
Along with democratic freedom of expression, we need to make sure that we don't mock. In a democracy, freedom to do anything mustn't mean that you keep ridiculing your own culture by all the possible means. If few people who can't understand this simple logic or they have their own philosophy of mocking other's beliefs, law must protect land's own culture, philosophy, techniques, traditions and beliefs of lacs of people! We are wasting whole lifetime of so many young minds for few minutes of fun. Let the youth of this generation take plunge in the infinite universe of knowledge offered by ancient rishis and universities!
Let there be freedom to feel dignified!
