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To the Tailors of Tolerance



Hey my Christmassy Baubles!

How are you hanging in there? I hope everybody is excited about the cold - the sunny days, chilly evenings and fast-approaching Christmas - just like me. At least I am head over heels excited about it (watching Xmas DIYs and ordering wintry candles online).

But the seasonal fever apart (or not apart maybe), this blog post is about the raging spicy debate of intolerance, that's enough to spice up any smoking pumpkin latte (or espresso for the corpo honchos). The newspapers are full of people returning awards to protest, people protesting against the return of awards, people being intolerant about other people thinking that the nation is becoming more intolerant and dropping being the director of movie festivals and then other people using the act against them to prove their point of intolerance by the intolerant reactions of the person against their expression of intolerance (*slow nodding of head with my half-moon shaped glasses on the tip of my nose*). True Story! And when this issue is discussed in the parliament, the leaders of our nation eventually end up arguing the "true meaning" and "relevance" of the words rather than focusing their attention on the ideology behind and the events of life-death being reported. Back to square one!

But why this discussion today? Hasn't the issue been raging since long? Well the reason is it was the Martyrdom Anniversary of the IX Guru of Sikhs Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji today. And before the atheists, agnostics and non-Sikhs (maybe) pull off a Ctrl+W on me, let me give the disclaimer - I am (trying) writing this as a non-Sikh and from a political/humanistic point of view.

Flashback : the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb gave an ultimatum to Kashmiri Pandits to either convert to Islam or be killed. In 1675, these Hindu Pandits came to a Sikh Guru - Guru Tegh Bahadur to plead their case. Guru decided that some well-known person would need to stand against this tyranny and make a sacrifice to set an example - some supreme soul who will die to awaken the sleeping consciousness of the people of the Hind. And with this, he sent the message to Aurangzeb that the Kashmiri Pandits would accept conversion if Aurangzeb is able to convert the Guru. Rest is history. Guru went to Delhi to the emperor and he and his companions were tortured in the most inhumane ways to make them surrender. One was sawn alive, another boiled in a cauldron and the third was roasted alive to instill fear in Guru. Finally, Guru ji was beheaded too in Chandni Chowk Delhi in a public square and that's how a great leader died fighting - not to promote his religion, not to stand for his faith, not to defend his thought school - but just to make a point - that, as long as somebody else's freedom is not being attacked, everybody has the liberty to believe his faith and stick to his ideas.

Tilak janju rakha prabh taka |
Keenho bado kalu meh saka ||
(To protect the Tilak and sacred thread of the Hindus, he committed this great act in the Kalyug)

One doesn't need any more words now to make a point about what is tolerance and freedom now, do they?

Peace out
Enigma

PS : This article does not mean to sing paeans to a religion or criticize another religion, or any political party for that matter. The aim is just to bring out the ideology and actions that will be needed direly to keep the world going round, with everybody safe and sound. :)

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