Mitali Saran: Random atheist thoughts on a weekend

Dear ladies of deity-distracting age between 10 and 50 years, I totally support your right to visit the Sabarimala temple, and any other temple, mosque, monastery, synagogue or roadside shrine you like. I support your right to do this no matter what time of the month it is – non-leaky, spouting like a geyser, or just a bit spotty. Your right to do this seems perfectly clear to me; everyone else’s spiritual rights end where your menstrual cycle begins.

But then I’m an atheist and a rationalist. I think of nature as a mind-bendingly awesome force, but not a divine one, and of the things that happen in life as products not of a grand design, but of random chance, further shaped by human will and agency.

 
I have sometimes been envious of people who can park all their troubles in a spot called ‘God’. These people can hand off to someone competent; they can reliably know, in an unreliable world, that someone has their back with an all-powerful bag of tricks. They know what happens when you die. I get that all this must be nice. But I’m not so envious that I can cross the belief gap. So while I love a good story about a god who takes vows of celibacy, I cannot really get behind the idea that a temple idol might become frisky and start breaking things if it sniffs out your pheromones.

 

The only way I can understand the force of the religious sentiments of people — including some of you, ladies — who believe with every fibre of their being that menstruating women should not be admitted into places of worship, is to compare it with my equally fierce, and perhaps equally arbitrary, belief in non-violent personal and social freedom. I’m all about equality, live and let live, no physical violence, and don’t get in my face by trying to restrict my freedom. We don’t have to agree, or even be respectful in disagreement, as long as nobody’s throwing punches.

 
The thing is, as far as Sabarimala goes, or Haji Ali, I don’t have a dog in the fight. I couldn’t care less about either. But you might, and if you do, I defend your right to menstruate all over any place of worship. But I do so based on my belief in your personal freedom, not my understanding of your spiritual need. (To be honest I think you’re nuts, with your imaginary friends — but to each her own.) I’m simultaneously defending my own right to walk into any place of worship and admire its beauty and emotional power, and/or hate its naked institutional power play, whether in the richness of St. Peter’s Basilica, or at the gorgeous Jama Masjid, or among the rock-sculpted gods at Ellora, or by the gleaming Harmandir Sahib. I am a huge fan of the architecture, art, music, and mythology inspired by religion, and an implacable enemy of its power- and fear-mongering, its divisiveness, its encouragement of both docility and hair-trigger sensitivities, and its cultural despotism, social conservatism and sexual hysteria.

 
Organised religion is too ruthlessly invested in power and control for me to respect it, let alone like it. I don’t think that any law or custom of any religion should get special treatment, bypassing regular laws and individual freedoms. There’s no reason why religious sentiments should require more respect, more treading on eggshells, more politeness, more coddling, more bending over backwards, than any other.
 
I think we should scrap Section 295A, the law that criminalises intent to outrage and insult religious belief and sentiment — it is arbitrary, waffly, regularly abused, and usually infringes on someone’s legitimate personal freedoms. 295A allows the arrest of people like — most recently — comedian Kiku Sharda, who quite reasonably poked fun at a highly comedic character known as Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insan. It allows people to defend entrenched discrimination and oppression as ‘custom’ and ‘tradition’, and to throw tantrums when they are called out. It indulges arbitrary censorship, vandalism, fanaticism, and violence, and constantly sabotages India’s art, literature, and intellectual pursuits. It gives teeth to religion’s already ugly fangs. We have to stop giving religion a free pass, stop allowing it to hold society hostage.

 
Prayar Gopalakrishnan, head of the Travancore Devaswom Board, was quoted in The News Minute as saying: “The court and government should understand the consequences if they decide against the religious belief [sic]. This is not a warning, but they should know”. This kind of open threat is a staple among religious (and political) leaders. It means: if there’s no spontaneous public uprising, one will be created.
 
That’s generally the tone of the places you’re debarred from, ladies. I have no idea why you would want to go, but good luck, I’m cheering you on.