From: varma@nuclear.physics.sunysb.edu
Subject: RE: ""...... to castrate the Hindus ...""
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook, Nuclear Physics
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 18:51:59 GMT

Mr. Newton has alleged that religious doctrines should not be changeable. I
beleive that greatness of Hinduism lies in its keeping in step with the
evolution of society and man. I believe religion gives us the moral code to
live in our world as of today. Problems arise when we follow a set of rules l
laid down centuries ago which have little or no relevance to life that we are
living today. The basic tenets of hinduism still remain the same but thinkers
philsophers and sages (as we call them) have given their interpretation based
on the values and traditions prevalent at that time. That I beleive should be
the real purpose of religion. Let us take Sati for instance. The practice of
Sati in not one of the basic tenets of hinduism. It was started because the
Muslim invaders after winning a battle sexually assaulted the women of the
palace and made them their slaves. To preserve their honour the women started
practising Sati. When the britishers came and such acts of barbariasm became
rare it was again a hindu reformer, Raja Rahmohan Roy who asked that principles
sorry the practice of Sati be banned. Problems arise when we practice what was
supposed  to have been laid down centuries ago. I think the word dogmatic comes
into existence because of our behaviour of following things which were laid
down centuries ago and which have no meaning in the World of today. The Word
secular has been stretched a bit too much in our country. Let me take the
example of a Muslim having four wives or divorcing his wife by saying Some
god forsaken word thrice. When the supreme court of India tried to repeal the
law a lot of hue and cry was raised because the shariat permits it. But such
a law or whatever you call it was laid down years back when women had no
respect and they were just objects of sex and more like slaves. There were
many enlightened muslims who tried to object to it. But or GOI listens to
those good for nothing pandits and immams who apart from issuing fatwas have
no constructive work in the advancement of mankind. This could go on and on
I by no means wanted to point out any shortcoming of Islam, I just wanted to
say that religion has to be viewed in a proper perspective otherwise we are
going to have many such problems in future too. I dont thing literacy would
help looking at the kind of mudslinging that has been going on in this net. I
therefore think that secular means that our constitution gives us the right to
practice our religion freely but only so long as the religion does not infringe
on the basic principles of our preamble. Our preamble clearly states that
"Equality of status and of opportunity" and Upholding the Shah Bano case the
supreme court had upheld our constitution without destroying the secular nature
of our constitution. This was just to prove my point that changes are not
always for bad. And that hindu religion has been changing over the centuries
is good. But some of us hindus have forgotten that and they went back to the
10 century and destroyed a mosque and thereby stooped to that level of barbar..
Once we stop changing our progress stops and there is no meaning to life...
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian