The latin word ‘Religio’means something done with over-anxious or scrupulous attention to detail and from that use it was applied to what we call religion,because of the way people performed sacrifices in those early days.The verb’religare’means to bind things together closely.Religion binds people together in common practices and beliefs.They draw them together in common goal of life.Since religions are the earliest protective systems we know about that enable people to have children and raise them to adulthood.Early worship of gods and goddesses was very important for it provided a shared culture where community approval and disapproval were held in common.Culture and cult both come from the same latin word’cultus’means worship of the ‘gods’or of a supreme authority.Worship and belief in a higher power form the foundation of culture.Culture is protective and religions with their different patterns of belief and practice,are the earliest cultural systems that we know about for the protection of gene replication and the nurture of children.
The question of survival is the reason many religions are so preoccupied with sex and food.The rules say what you can and can not eat.Who you can and can not marry.What kind of sexual behaviours are allowed.
Religions have always been in the process of change and transformation.Religions of Rome(Roman gods) and greece(Greek gods)seem to have disappeared long ago.But ancient religions are rarely dead religions.Much from Greece and Rome continued in christianity and in the renaissance they gave form and inspiration to art,music and literature in the west.Hinduism also is an ancient religion and has gone through changes,like the new religions Islam,Buddhism,Sikhism attracted sizable followings and millions of hindus converted to these later religions because of discriminations,oppressions on caste basis by upper caste hindus.Sikhism attracted hindus during mughal era because of hindu-muslim fightings.The only dead religions are those that can not leave the past and find new life in the present.At the end the questions of truth are paramount.Religions make claims about what this human life is worth and what it may become.They offer choises that have to be made about the opportunity of life.Which of them are true and in what way?
Hinduism is the name given in the 19th century to the coalition of religions in India prevailing in ancient times.It is derived from persian word’hindu’,in sanskrit’sindhu’which means river and refers to those peaple belonging to Indus vally.Indus vally culture is among the oldest and present day muslims,buddhists and sikhs in India are monotheists and don’t consider themselves hindus.so hinduism basically belongs to hindus who are polytheists and worship idols of hindu gods and goddesses.
Historically Hinduism is seen as unfolding through stages.The roots are in Indus valley civilisation which lasted from about 2500 BCE to 1500 BCE,and the religion of aryans,invaders in north west India from 1500 BCE onwards.Aryan religion led in to vedic religion,based on sacrifices and oral sacred texts known as vedas which for hindus contain eternal truth.Vedic religion is characterised by a world of elemental gods and goddesses,for example the trinity of gods Brahma,Vishnu and Mahesh(Shiva).As well as the principal deities and goddesses,Saraswati,Laxmi,Durga,Kali there are many avtaars most important being lord Rama and Krishna.There are numerous other deities that retain important positions in hinduism.These include the elemental such as Surya the Sun god,Agni the fire god,Vayu the wind god.Certain animals,reptiles and even trees are worshipped such as Naga the snake deity,Banyan tree deity,two of the incarnations of god vishnu Narsimha half man and half lion,and Varha the Boar.Three of the most important gods are,hanuman the monkey god,and the two sons of Shiva and Parvati,Ganesh the elephant god,and the youthful Kartikeya.
Devotional cults arose both receiving inspiration from and inspiring the great epic literature such as the Mahabharat,an act of the wars of Bharat,which includes a section called ‘Bhagwat Gita’which is famous for the spiritual poetic dialogue between,Krishna an avtaar of Vishnu and Arjun the warrior,master archer brother of pandavas.It is revered by all hindus and is the heart of hindu faith.The Ramayana,another great epic the tale of lord Rama,his wife Sita and his brother Laxman is equally worshiped by hindus.
All in all Hinduism is a religion in which divine is manifest and approachable in many gods and goddesses,as in ancient religion of Rome,Egypt and Greece,which we can call as polytheism.
Buddhism began historically in north India in 6th century BCE,when a prince called,Siddarth Gautam attained ‘enlightenment’,the ultimate truth by which people are freed from the cycle of rebirth.Buddha means’Enlightened or Awakened’who taught others the way to escape from suffering and cycle of rebirth.The truth of Buddha descipline which involves meditation and spiritual exercise and the teachings of Buddha have according to the followers of Buddhism,always been in existence.
What the Buddha saw is summarised in four noble truths.First all existence is ‘Dukkha’,filled with suffering,second dukkha arises from’tanha’a craving or clinging,a constant effort to find something permanant and stable,in a transient world,third dukkha can cease totally and this is ‘nirvana’,and fourth this can be reached by following the eightfold path.These 8 steps do not have to be followed in order.Each step is described as right-right understanding,right directed thought ,right speech,right action,right livlihood,right effort,right mindfulness,and right concentration.
Buddhism died out in India,perhaps due to the muslim invasions in the 11th century,although there are sections following buddhism who are called ‘Dalits’,considered a low caste by high caste hindus who follow hinduism.
Islam is the religion of allegiance to one God,that began historically with the prophet Muhammed in Arabia in 7th century.It began as the way of life or ‘din’which God intended for his creation from the start.Human rebellion and sin meant that god constantly sent prophets including Moses(moosa in islam),Jesus(Isa in islam)and then Muhammed to summen people back to the proper din.
Within 100 years islam had swept over the known world from the atlantic to the borders of China,India.It has remained a rapidly expanding religion with about a quarter of world population being muslims.They form nearly total majorities in countries in the middle east,Turky,Pakistan,Bangla desh,Indonesia,northern Africa,parts of central asia.There are substantial minorities in the western countries such as France,Germany,Uk and US.In india muslims are about 200 millions,more than the population of Pakistan.
Sikhism was the result of tension between hindus and muslims in 15th century(beginning of mughal empire)in north India.This religion began with the life and teachings of Guru Nanak.Sikh is a punjabi word which means ‘learner’or’student’,in hindi’shishya’In religious sense a sikh is someone who believes in one god,follows Guru who reveals the teachings of God to him.
During the tense period of mughal empire,some saints like Kabir,vaishnavites,sought a love of god beyond religious conflict.Guru Nanak was influenced by these groups and stated,’There is neither hindu nor muslim’which meant that the majority of these religions are not true to their faith and God is greater than the divided opinion of religions.Guru Nanak was moved even more by his own profound experience of God.He believed that God does not become manifest(unlike the avtaars of hindu belief)but his will becomes known through the Gurus.For this reason meditation(nam simran) is of the highest importance for sikhs in conjunction with ‘mul mantra’,which forms part of ‘jap ji saheb’at the beginning of the day.The translation of mul mantra is’God is one,whose name is truth,the imminent creator,without fear,without hostility,immortal in form,unborn,self sustaining,known by the grace of Guru’.
Humans are bound by karma(cycle of birth).God gives them help to move through five stages,from being a wrong doer or ‘man-mukh’to being devoted to the guru or ‘gur-mukh’.The manmukh indulges in five deadly evils’kaam,krodh,lobh,moh and ahankar’and is lost in maya,which means error that gives a higher value to the material things in life than to the spiritual.The final stage is utter bliss or’sach-khand’which is beyond words and beyond rebirth.In ‘Mandukya Upanishad’of hindu philosophy(which is propagated by swamy Ramkrishna Paramhans and later by swamy Vivekanand and being followed by a section of hindus)this state is called ‘turia’or fourth state,the other three states being’Waking’dream’and’deep sleep’.So it becomes crystal clear that Guru Nanak was in tune with advait(non-duality)philosophy of hindu thinkers and monotheism of Islam as well.What he did not like was the clashes of hindu-muslims,both being the creation of the same creator.
Guru Nanak did not regard other religions as worthless,but he did believe that their attention to the detail of ritual and outward observance was a severe impediment to a ralationship with God,who can be found better within.He rejected caste,brahminical authority and islamic rituals also.He said salvation was to be attained through devotion to akal purakh,the eternal, the immortal being.He saw elaborate rituals as pointless.Extreme ascetism and renunciation of the world was similarly rejected.More important was to live a good honest life,helping others,and with loving meditation on the divine reality.Guru Nanak was to found a religion that would begin as peaceful and pacifist but later on due to circumstances the sikhs became a military caste.
Guru Nanak was born in 1469 AD in a small village Talwandi.He was married at the age of 12 and worked as an accountant,but he always showed interest in spiritual quest.At the age of 30 when he was bathing in river Bein,he experienced the call of God and he was commanded”Nanak,i am with you and i bless you and exalt you.Whoever remembers you will receive my blessing”.”Go,rejoice in my name and teach others to do the same.”Nanak began to travel abroad,taught and chanted rhymns(which are compiled in the holy scripture’Guru Granth Saheb’).He designated Lahina,his desciple to be his successor guru(who was known as Guru Angad saheb)and died in 1539 AD.There were total 10 gurus of sikh faith from the founder Guru Nanak(1469 to 1539)to Guru Gobind Singh(1666 to 1708)and the holy scripture,Guru Granth Saheb(A compilation of verses by Gurus,saints and fakirs)became the 11th and final Guru after the death of Guru Gobind Singh.
For days after september11,2001 i wondered if Osama Bin Laden alongwith the rest of the world had watched the real time footage of those fully fueled airliners,hijacked by suicidal pilots and their henchmen,as they rammed in to the pentagon and the twin towers of Manhattan’s WTC.Then less than a fortnight before christmas,a partly inaudible amateur videotape was released by Bush administration.The casset’s contents were literally too good to be true.
In the videotape,Osama Bin Laden accurately listed the nationalities and names of the 19 men suicide squad.Osama confirmed about 4 hijacking teams.He explained their division among the 4 pilots and the Saudi ‘Muscle’ who Osama chuckled,learned the exact nature of their suicide mission only just before boarding the 4 airliners to cow their passengers in to submission with box cutters once the planes were in the air.Osama said he knew 5 days in advance that the operations would take place on september 11 and had a radio tuned in ready to hear the first plane hit the trade centre’s north tower.He recounted that in the planning stage his engineering training had helped him calculate the number of likely deaths from the explosive impact of a fully fueled airliner on the twin tower’s metal structures.He acknowledged his surprise that they collapsed completely.’all that we hoped for’ was the destruction of ’3 or 4 floors’ where the aircraft hit and those adjoining floors above the impact.
Indeed Osama Bin Laden was watching the crashes on television.His spokesman Sulaiman Abu ghaith had turned on a TV set in an adjoining room and seen the first run of the footage of planes hitting the twin towers,tried to tell Osama bin laden about what he saw’but Osama made a gesture with his hands,meaning’I know,I know’.
Al-Qaeda’s daring,patience,dedication,statecraft,stealth and pure luck were as breathtaking as was this most massive intelligence failure of America,the only super power of the world.
The specialist literature long ago concluded that the objective of modern terrorism was to inflict maximum casualties with maximum publicity.In those terms Osama Bin Laden had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
Labanese christian terrorism,Israeli terrorism,Islamic terrorism,Arab nationalist terrorism,Iranian and Palestinian terrorism,Hindu terrorism,Sikh terrorism,State sponsored terrorism,to those who ask for a definition of terrorism-as per the U.S code it means-’Premeditated politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents,usually intended to influence an audience.
Let’s recall that American president Ronald Reagon in 1980s recognised as freedom fighters all those fighting the Soviet Occupation of afghanistan and that included Osama Bin Laden and Afghan Mujahideens.
Afghanistan was America’s first experiment at franchising war,a practice employed again on a grander scale in the conflict to recover Kuwait from Iraqi occupation in 1991.Prize catch was Saudi Arabia,the biggest oil producer of the world.The Al-Saud did payments and provided Osama Bin Laden to America,to fight Soviets who invaded Afghanistan in December 1979.Osama that time was an employee of Bin-Laden group of construction companies owned by his father and George Bush a share holder of the companies.Here was a chance for america to enlist muslims and arabs from all corners of the world,to get even for the defeat in Vietnam from communists in 1975 and the overthrow of Shah of Iran(American imposed Monarch)in 1979.For Saudi Arab also Jihad in Afghanistan was literally a God-given chance to be on the winning side,a rare phenomenon in contemporary muslim history.
Osama Bin Laden formed Al-Qaeda,which in his mind was to be a kind of ready reserve,a standing islamic force prepared to serve at a moment’s notice not just in Afghanistan but many jihads to come.Once Soviets lost and ousted,arab and muslim volunteers turned increasingly anti-American.”No Arab or muslim in the jihad was happy with America,principally because of blind american support for Israel”.
On August 1990 Saddam Hussein invaded and occupied Kuwait.Boiling over with ideas inspired by his Afghan jihad experience,Osama Bin Laden insisted that his Al-qaeda should fight with Sddam Hussein in case Saudi Arabia was invaded by Iraq and no American or western army be allowed to sully the sacred land of the two holy mosques.The kingdom did not need to rely on the Americans to defend itself or to liberate kuwait.The saudi kings were not convinced that Osama and his Al-qaeda would be able to protect them against the huge military power of Sddam Hussein.Osama Bin Laden was angry with saudi monarchy for not accepting his just proposals.
The die was cast on August6,1990 when Dick Cheney flew to Riyadh and read out to king Fahad a message from george Bush”We are prepared to deploy American and other allied forces to defend the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.If you ask us to come we will come,and when you ask us to leave,we will go home.We seek no permanant bases.”King Fahad accepted the President of america’s offer then and there.Osama Bin Laden and younger clerics questioned the King’s call,upper most in their minds were the Prophet Muhammed’s dying words”Let there be no two religions in Arabia”.Osama’s personality from then onwards changed radically”From a butterfly doing good deeds to a bloody revolutionary willing to sacrifice human lives for his islamic cause”.
American military presence in Holy soil of Prophet Muhammed,given the koranic injunctions became the turning point in Osama’s life.Osama Bin Laden the dreaded terrorist was the product of said scenario in Saudi Arabia.But no amount of radical islamist violence inspired by Osama could shake the pentagon’s convictions.After each terrorist attack,be it 19 air force men killed at Al-khobar in june 1996,or the 17 sailors killed in USS cole in Aden(Yemen) in october 2000,the pentagon covered up by excuses and warned that world’s only super power(U.S)could not be pushed out of the region.
After august 20,1998 cruise missile attacks on Osama’s camps in Afghanistan and Khartoum(Sudan)in which Osama survived,Ayman al-Zawahiri his right hand man told a Pakistani reporter”Osama is alive and kicking.Tell the Americans we are not afraid.We survived Soviet bombings for 10 years in Afghanistan and we are ready for more sacrifices.”Soon after 60 American cruise missile attack failures,thousands of muslim volunteers were flocking to Afghanistan for training in Al-Qaeda camps from one end of muslim world to the other end.Osama’s reputation had assumed cult proportions.The Americans with their high tech weapons had missed their targets in Sudan and Afghanistan.The muslims were convinced that Al-lah had intervened to spare Osama Bin Laden’s life.
Thanks to the quadrupling of oil prices in 1970s the gulf was awash with floos(Arabic word for money).Osama first came to the attention of American intelligence as a financier to terrorism.Many countries soft on terrorist financing ignored hawala transactions.In Saudi Arabia foreign workers accounted for $15 billion the kingdom sent abroad every year.Hawalas(a process of money transfer from one country to other country,called Hundi in India and Pakistan) were ideal for terrorists.IMF has estimated that between$500 billion to $1.5 trillion is laundered every year equal to as much as 5% of gross world product.
Beyond America’s pleasure in punishing an enemy they equated with pure evil,it remains far from sure that Osama Bin Laden’s killing would provide any durable relief.Similar hopes had been expressed when American troups captured Saddam Hussein in his home town Tikrit.But resistance to the U.S occupation of Iraq failed to subside because basically it is an opposition to foreign and western occupation.
Beyond perpetuating his legend,Osama Bin Laden had succeeded in isolating America internationally in ways the soviets never managed in their heyday.Even the Bush administration was obliged to accept that its muscular post 9/11 foreign policy and military hegemony had damaged american prestige abroad so thoroughly that it will take us many years of hard focused work to restore America’s international standing.Particular hurtful were disclosures in 2004 of torture and humiliation meted out by Americans to prisoners in Iraq,Guantanamo and Afghanistan.
Smarter policies in dealing with the muslim world are essential to curb terrorism starting with Palestine.Some Arab world experts estimate that as much as 70% of muslim anti-Americanism would disappear if only Washington would help bring about a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel.Many muslims question the existance of Israel in otherwise wholly Arab world.Many Arab and muslim countries don’t even recognize the existance of Israel,and they say that it is not their promised land but a forcible occupation with the help of Britain and America.
The palestine problem remains the single greatest irritant in muslim american relations and an encouragement for Jihadi terrorism..
Secularism as we understand is followed in those countries where the constitution is not based on some particular religion or ideology and it is enshrined in their constitution that all religions or faiths will be respected equally and their followers will be treated without bias.Democratic republics try to follow this concept but time to time differences crop up among the sections following different religions and faiths.Very often majority community tries to suppress the minorities.So what is the solution for this issue?Prophets and saints from ancient times have maintained that there is only one God and one humanity and it was revealed to them by none other than God and those human beings who have faith in these revelations are living peacefully and devoting their time in praying,meditation and ultimately self realization.But there are sections who believe that their religion is superior than other’s religion or their God is superior than other’s God,or there is no God,which is the cause of ethnic clashes allover.
We should first see that which countries in Asia are constitutionally secular and which are not?China although liberal now,follows Mao’s communist ideology which does not believe in God and believes in atheism,so majority of population are atheists and minority is suppressed.Japan,there seem to be no ethnic clashes but constitutionally there are restrictions for some particular religions,which is not secularism.India is constitutionally secular but time to time communal clashes occur and prove that there are sections who do not believe in secularism.All the middle east countries are either kingdoms or dictatorships where secularism is not possible.All the earstwhile USSR constituents,Armenia,Azerbaizan,Georgia,Kazakhstan,Kyrgystan,Russia,Tajikistan,Uzbekistan are not secular and suffering from ethnic clashes.Pakistan,Bangladesh,Afghanistan are again islamic countries where they use a word,islamic secularists,which again is possible only when all the citizens are muslims and follow islam which is not the case,so minority non muslims are suffering atrocities.Singapore,Srilanka,Taiwan,Turki are secular and relatively peaceful countries.Indonesia,Korea,Malyesia,Myanmar,Nepal,Phillipines,Thailand,Vietnam are monotheists or atheists and relatively peaceful. In some countries Armies crush monotheists with force which is nothing but state sponsored terrorism.So one God and one humanity then why they are out for each others blood?
A doctrine that there is only one God is called Monotheism and the one that there is no God is called Atheism.Those who believe in the first are called Monotheists and those who believe in the second are called atheists.In western countries these doctrines are followed to some extent faithfully and the result is that they have prospered economically,socially and ethnically,constitutionally also in following secularism.But when we talk of Asia,monotheism and secularism seem to be a distant dream and probably that is the reason that most of the countries in Asia are called third world countries or developing countries or economically backword countries.Many islamic countries believe in monotheism,they believe that there is only one God(Allah) but they don’t believe in secularism which again becomes the cause for communal violence.If the entire humanity believes that there is only one God then there is no need for any state sponsored secularism,like Rabindranath Tagore dreamt in’Geetanjali’and we should all pray for that paradise on earth,but this seems to be an utopian idea if we see the ground reality.
Violence among monotheists and atheists also has become a common occurance in 21st century.Israel and Palestine,China,Korea,Vietnam are the burning example of this phenomenon.This proves the irresponsible and greedy behaviour of human beings.Human beings behaving humanely or ethically is a prereqisite or stepping stone for spirituality.All the prophets have loved all human beings and taught to behave with other human beings in their holy scriptures.We call ourselves christians,muslims,hindus,jews,buddhists,sikhs,communists and the scriptures and ideologies of all these religions and beliefs teach us to love humanity and worship one God then what are these differences and disturbances all about?Asia can be an economically and socially developed entity if only the human beings living in this sub continent love each other and live peacefully as secularists and monotheists.