Are Quran and Geeta More Important Than A Human Life?

A Quran gets accidently burned in Afghanistan. Obama apologizes. It was a mistake. Karzai is offended but he accepts the explanation and the apology. But what about the aam aadmi in Afghanistan? What they should have done was gather around the US embassy with placards and shouted slogans. Maybe even burn Obama in the effigy. After that they should have gone home. After all, accidental (or even deliberate) burning of Quran will not shake the foundations of Islam. But what really happened? Taliban from Pakistan entered the picture, the protests became violent and dozens of poor Afghanis died. The topic to ponder is – Is the sanctity of a religious book more important than a human life?

Hindus have gone through centuries of abuse. Muslim marauders destroyed everything we held scared. Our temples were burnt and converted into Mosques. Who knows how many of our holy books were destroyed. Then came the British with their subtle ways of destroying us. They raped us for couple of centuries. They inflicted their culture and ways on us. But, did it destroy Hinduism? No.

Look at the Jews. Their numbers were far less than us. They went through a holocaust. I am sure that the Nazis did not treat their temples and the Tora with any kind of respect. Did that destroy Judaism? No.

The point is that all religions have strong foundations and will be there well after the followers are gone. It is the faith and the belief that makes the religion strong. The religious books, which carry the message, are just that. Books. Their destruction will not harm the religion. What destroys a religion is lack of faith not destruction of books.

What about the emotions and sentiments of the followers? When someone puts a picture of Ganpati on a toilet seat, it is hurtful and we should protest. But there are ways to protest. If a book gets burned, then it can be printed again but a human life is gone forever. With that in mind, our protests in matters of this kind or for that matter all the kind should be one which shows our resolve, faith, strength of character and civility not our inner beast. I wrote the following on our blog in regards to MF Hussain and his depiction of Ma Saraswati.
Even as a Hindu, when I saw the picture of a so called art piece where Jesus Christ was shown immersed in urine, I was offended. The guy who made that had only one thing in mind and that was offending all the religious conservatives in the US. Despite of that grossly offensive piece of puerility, the artist was not harmed in the US. He was just ignored. That is what we should have done to M F Hussain. He should have died an ignominious death in complete anonymity instead of getting feted by the entire left wing of India (of course that speaks volumes of them).
Islam and to some extent Christianity have always been the aggressors. These religions in attempts to expand have inflicted unspeakable cruelty on the non-believers. Christians now have mended their ways and resort to other tactics to meet their ends. They have come to believe that the foundations of the religion are strong enough to withstand onslaughts by liberal perverts. However, Muslims are still very insecure about their religion. Even the slightest provocation brings out the most worst in them. It is upto their religious leaders to correct this. Instead of provoking the Muslim aam aadmi to meet some political end, they should actually respect the lives of their followers and refrain from provocations, which result in deaths. Until that happens, we will continue to see what we are now seeing in Afghanistan.

I would like to remind the Muslims a powerful line in a poem by a Muslim Sufi poet.
Kis-waleya ka Majnu-nu, O teri Laila disdi kaali we!
Majnu ne jawab ditta, O teri ankh wekhan-waali we!
Je tu dekhe meri ankh naal, Teri surat na jaaye samhaali we!Ved bhi chitta ter Quran bhi chitti, Vich shyahi rakh ditti kaali we!Ghulam Farid jitthe ankhiyaan lagiyaan, Utthe kya gori, kya kaali we!
The highlighted line means that both Ved and Quran are blank pages until we put black ink in them. Of course the poet is using that line to prove that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder but we could take home a different message from it.

Our blogpost on MF Hussain can be read at: http://thenethindu.blogspot.com/2011/06/m-f-hussain-india-and-freedom-of-speech.html