Difficult to teach an old dog new Tricks!!!

2008-03-05T02:33:00.000-08:00

The very first thing that came to my mind after listening to our honorary director Mr. MV Kamath for 2 long hours is that, what is the first thing that religion teaches?
The first answer that strikes my mind when i think about this question is that religion teaches us love, humanity and the "art of tolerance." And this applies to all religions of the world not only Hinduism, Islam and Christianity.Every religion teaches us the same thing.
Last weekend a very renowned documentary maker Mr. Anand Patwardhan came to our college on a special invitation to show us his documentaries. We watched 4 of his films- War and peace which is a anti-nuclear documentary, Ram ke naam deals with the issue of Babri Majid, In memory of friends tells the story of Punjab and khalistan, and Narmada diary put forwards the issues of tribal people living in that region.
He showed us his documentaries and after watching them we were free to choose whatever stand we liked. To be very frank, 3 of his documentaries were anti BJP, RSS and VHP and the one on khalistan issue was anti congress.To me it is very clear that he just showed us the reality and was not propagating against any particular party or religion.It was totally up to us to accept the fact or deny it completely.We are no more kids, we are the responsible citizens of a developing nation, studying in a very reputed university like Manipal. No one can spoon feed us.For god's sake we have our own brains to think what is right and what is wrong.
Anyways some of my friends, classmates and Mr. Kamath believe that Mr. Patwardhan is a very dangerous man and he is trying to corrupt the image of the BJP,RSS and VHP.They are free to believe so.But to me he is a man who is showing us the reality but the tragedy is that we have become so deaf and dumb that we can't get the point of what he is trying to convey. His films were not against any political party or religion but all the four movies were for the humanity.And if this small thing people find hard to accept then let me tell you we are not going anywhere.
People said that his documentaries can influence the opinion of the people. May be it can.But again what i understand till date is that a common man of India is much more intelligent and intellectual than the person who has completed his studies and now sitting in an AC room.The common man knows very well what is good for him and what is bad.
It is not the illiterate or common man of the country who needs to think rationally but the so called 'intellectual' people sitting in their rooms and propagating their ideologies because they think that they have lived the history of India and know everything about Indian culture and religion.
There was a scene in the documentary 'Raam ke Naam' which will prove my above point. A villager in ayodhya who was a hindu, who was asked about his stand on Babri Majid before the demolition in 1991 said that, why do we need to demolish the masjid and build a temple instead of that,both Hindus and Muslims can pray together.There is no need of demolition.Remember he was a Hindu.
On the other hand, during same time, our so called 'intellectuals' and preachers of Hindutva had only one thing on their lips and that was, "Ayodhya toh bas jhaaki hai, kaashi- mathura baaki hai".
I just want to raise a question that do we really understand the meaning of Hinduism??
To me it means a way of living with love and brotherhood, it teaches us the art of tolerance.
If some 1000 years ago Babar came and demolished the temple and build a masjid in its place then today after so many years we can not undo that act.Somewhere in our heart we all know that the demolition of Babri Majid was a totally political and shameful act done in the name of religion.And it was a total propaganda done by political parties for their own benefits but who was the sufferer, No doubt we people.
And if today we tries to justify the demolition of Babri Masjid by saying that Ayodhya is a "Ram janam bhoomi" and we should built a temple there then let me ask a question, What is a temple?? To me any place where you put your god is a temple, you do not need to built boundaries for that and name it a "TEMPLE".
And one more thing that going on in my mind is that if Mr. Patwardhan was propagating against some political party by showing us reality than our own Mr. Kamath by coming into the class and speaking so openly and diplomatically in favor of the demolition of Babri Majid and against Mr. Patwardhan's documentaries was also doing a kind of propaganda.
It is a high time that we people should realize that the common man of our country is very much intelligent than all of us and knows what is good or bad for him.He can think much more rationally than us. Its we who need to come out of our old shackles and face the reality.Its a high time we realize that the so called 'Hindutva' can not take the country anywhere and we need to come together as a nation in order to leave our mark on the world.Its not about religion, or some political party or anything, its all about us and the humanity and love.
I wish my writing does not hurt anyone's sentiments because its totally my point of view about what happened and to those who wants to call it a 'propaganda', they can happily do so because for a fact I know that "IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO TEACH AN OLD DOG NEW TRICKS"!!!

Wake up!!!

Difficult to teach an old dog new Tricks!!!