A crisis of identity!

Since I have been talking so much about God, the next obvious increment would be religion. There are two things that happened in the last couple of weeks that got me thinking in a all together different directions about religion. One was obviously the discussion about my previous blog with Tanno where he said that he was a Muslim and his view of the world is based on the Quran. The second one was a shrine that Rahul created in the conference room at the ECM office.

I guess I have hinted on my position on religion in previous posts. I was born into a religion but i don't practice it. So far I don't believe religion has helped me with anything whatsoever, neither spiritually, emotionally nor socially. It has been used to discriminate against me right from the time i needed to go to school. I am not especially proud of being a Hindu. You can argue that I really don't know much about Hinduism or what it represents and you won't be wrong, I don't know much. Probably I am not happy with the way it is represented today and the I am not happy with the people who claim to be the leaders of the religion.

I am tired of the fundamentalism and the intolerance that all religion has come to represent in the so called modern world. It has become a tool to acquire power and status. Bombay has become Mumbai and Madras has become Chennai but the legacy of divide and rule doesn't seem to be going away anywhere soon. People can be divided along a lot of lines but religion seems to be the most potent. As I have discovered religion can be a very touchy subject and I am slowly discovering the meaning of "Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes", though definitely not in a communist way.

I am not opposed to the idea of religion per se but I definitely have deep reservations of the way it is being practiced and I have become so cynical about the concept that there is this tremendous inertia to learn about it. I think that religion should be a personal affair and I really don't think it should be overtly advertised. Most people, I have come to realize, don't even have the slightest notion of the religion they practice and I really have no qualms in saying that this is true even in my house. I have asked many a times for the significance of particular ritual or a verse and I have never got a straight answer for any question. It all seems to be second hand knowledge and religion seems to be practiced without understanding or questioning.

I have started reading the Quaran and even though it is a very difficult to read I am still sticking to it. As I read I am learning more and I am quite intrigued by the idea of religion in general and why it came about. I hope to read the rigveda and the Bible next. The idea definitely is to find out with an open mind when and how these religious texts came into being, why they are revered so much and why people follow it blindly, millennia after they have been written.

As it stands today though, I don't believe that I need religion to provide me with an identity in society. I would rather not be part of or be associated with a religious group or sect. I don't want to announce to the world or to the government my religious preferences. I would rather be nonreligious, if that is at all possible.

That said I cannot ignore the deeply communal society we live in. The majority of the people around me are attached and are more often than not proud of their religious identities. Their sensibilities are hurt and sometimes deeply wounded by the tiniest of pin drops. Everyday morning when I walk to my room in the office, I pass the shrine in the conference room and I have to ask myself in a land where even Ayappa and Venkateshwara have not learnt to coexist, is this not an invitation to trouble? Why give the company a religious identity? What purpose does it serve? Is this not talking a side? Is this not communalizing the fabric of the work place with such an "in your face" location for the shrine? Doesn't the location amplify the message unreasonably? The question really is should we as a business establishment be making such a statement when it can so easily be perceived as intolerant? I would think not!