Gandhi's secrets

By Ranjan Yumnam *

An easy way out for writing a column when I am overburdened with work and find little time for doing 'original thinking' is to recall the most interesting articles I read in the past, then put them in a petridish mixed with my own thoughts and opinions and wait with anticipation the result of the concoction. This column is one such, and I do not know what kind of article this would end up. Let's start the experiment.

The first article in my petridish is an extract from the book "God is Not One : The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World—and Why Their Differences Matter". As the title suggests, the book debunks the populist and politically correct idea that all religions are basically same and carry one message. The oneness of religions is a myth and an illogical one at that. For why on earth would there be so many religions if they are same? Good point, isn't it?

Stephen Prother, the author of the book, comes up with convincing arguments to back his claim that religions are as different from each other as chalk and butter. The crux of the difference lies in what religions see as the major problems of mankind and what they prescribe to be their solutions. Christians consider sin as the greatest human problem and salvation as the religious goal. Buddhists believe that suffering is the problem and liberation from suffering as its goal. Hindus seek an end to the cycle of life, death and rebirth. Moslems want to reach heaven through submission to the Allah. Confucians see social unrest as the problem and social harmony as its goal.

So, you see, religions are at their core very different from one another. If a Christian sells salvation to a Hindu, he would remain unmoved and even be amused because a Hindu does not see sin as the root problem and would not like to be saved as much as he wants karmic liberation. It might be even an act of empathy when Christians say Confucians and Buddhists can be saved. But it would make no sense to them as neither Confucians, nor the Buddhists believe in sin; so they would not give a damn about being saved from it.

Prother has a better analogy than I could ever make. "Which of the following—baseball, basketball, tennis, or golf—is best at scoring runs? The answer of course is baseball, because runs is a term foreign to basketball, tennis, and golf alike. Different sports have different goals: Basketball players shoot baskets; tennis players win points; golfers sink putts. To criticise a basketball team for failing to score runs is not to besmirch them. It is simply to misunderstand the game of basketball…Just as hitting home runs is the monopoly of one sport, salvation is the monopoly of one religion".

Religions even disagree on the existence of God. Buddhists believe in no God, Jews believe in one God while Hindus believe in many Gods and Goddesses. Buddhists also don't believe in the existence of human souls which is central to the Hindu philosophy of reincarnation. Can there be any meeting points of the religions when their core faith and beliefs are not only different but fundamentally contradictory?

What's more, all followers of religions tend to elevate their faith while disparaging the other people's religions. Each one of the religion has tended to dismiss the other as "practitioners of empty rituals, perpetrators of bogus miracles, and purveyors of fanciful myths."

Such antagonistic mindsets have led to many conflicts and terms such as the clash of civilisations. Yet, we still peddle the meaningless idea that all religions are same and one. Just as we accept that capitalism and socialism and for that matter democracy and monarchy are the opposites of each other, we need to accept the fact of the differences of the religions.

We have had enough of false multiculturalism—idealistic and utopian. Instead of dwelling on the futile daydream of interfaith dialogue, we need to identify areas where religions can cooperate and come together and leave the thorny issues that have inflamed religious enmity (that often led to genocide and wars).

Yes, religions share some similarities but they are similarities of a generic nature. Like the similarity of an ape and human being but how different they are! "What they share are family resemblances —tendencies toward this belief or that behavior. In the family of religions, kin tend to perform rituals. They tend to tell stories about how life and death began and to write down these stories in scriptures. They tend to organise themselves into institutions and to gather in sacred places at sacred times", writes Prother.

The conclusion of all these arguments is this : Instead of promoting tolerance and manufacturing common ground among religions, what is more important is changing our attitudes to religions. In short, we should be realistic and instead of trying to bridge the differences through bogus extrapolation, let's celebrate the differences. Religions are like different games, and the benchmarks and rules that apply in one sport won't apply in the other.

Prother writes, "What we need is a realistic view of where religious rivals clash and where they can cooperate. The world is what it is. And both tolerance and respect are empty virtues until we actually know whatever it is we are supposed to be tolerating or respecting".

So that settles the first ingredient in my petridish.

The second book that drew my attention this week was "Gandhi : Naked Ambition". The book is written by the British historian Jad Adams who had done a tedious research going through hundreds of pages on Gandhi, Gandhi's' writings and eyewitnesses accounts. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is not only the hero of the Indian freedom movement but also considered as the spiritual icon, known for his abstemious lifestyle and resistance to earthly pleasures.

But behind the curtain of his popular ascetic image lies secrets of Gandhi's sexual antics. Jad Adams reveals that Gandhi tested his resistance by sleeping with naked women in his ashram, including with his grandnieces Manu and Sushila Nayar, sister of his secretary. In bizarre experiments, he shared his bed with wives of many of his male followers in the ashram though he forbade them from sleeping together.

Not only this, he took bath with nubile girls, had nude massages and encouraged them to stimulate him sexually to demonstrate his resistance. To be fair to Gandhi, he never broke his vow of chastity in all these experiments. This and much more are in Gandhi : Naked Ambition. Jawaharlal Nehru, as did many of his followers, disapproved of Gandhi's sexual behaviour and distanced themselves from him after Independence, says the book. This revelation will further bolster the strong association between sex and creative people like painters, writers and geniuses.

It seems Gandhi, like Madonna, will be reinvented. And this leads me thinking nothing is constant and permanent in this world, including Gandhi's narrative of ascetic lifestyle that we have been made to believe.

(Views expressed are personal)

Ranjan Yumnam

* Ranjan Yumnam, presently an MCS probationer, is a frequent contributor to e-pao.net. He can be contacted at ranjanyumnam(at)gmail(dot)com. This article was webcasted on May 08, 2010.