Hinduism’s lack of moral center has been apparent for quite some time. How else do you explain the dowry killings, the killings of infant girl child in many parts of the country, mass weddings of underage kids, and now most recently the honor killings in
Muzaffarnagar?
One could argue that these are social problems and it exposes society’s lack of moral center. No, it does not. Society is not supposed to provide a moral anchor to a person’s life – it is the responsibility of the religion. Society tries to prevent crime by creating deterrents in the form of law and punishment. Religion tries to prevent crime by creating moral deterrents, by providing a moral underpinning to leading a crime free life and here lies the crucial difference.
No amount of deterrence from society in the form of punishment is enough for an amoral person. Society provides a lot of examples of ruthless criminals who were not deterred by social punishment but ultimately gave up the life of crime when reined in through religion. In fact, one of Hinduism’s greatest figures, Valmiki who wrote the Ramayana was himself a ruthless and much feared dacoit who found religion and turned his life around.
For people killing their new born girl child, doing honor killings or indulging in dowry related crimes – fear of punishment from society is meaningless. Why? Because in their moral framework such acts are not wrong. It is in such situations that religion should act as a moral compass and it is here that today’s Hinduism fails so miserably.
Is there a structure in Hinduism that provides them (or us) with a moral leadership on such issues? Could it be the Pandit in the village who probably is fighting for his own survival and probably is just happy to take money from these people and perform a few rituals and hawans to wash off all paap? Could it be the whole slew of religious leaders like the Shankaracharyas and Sathya Sai Baba who probably have lost their own moral compass in the race to amass most influence? Could it be the religious-political leaders like Uma Bharti or the myriad other Swamis? Fat Chance!
Some sense of moral anchor could have come from reading religious scriptures like Gita or Vedas but Hinduism has become such a mindless ritual of reciting some Sanskrit shlokas mindlessly that even during weddings people are just in a hurry to get done with it without understanding the meaning. Moreover, most of the religious texts are inaccessible to layman like me with hard to understand Sanskrit language.
It is the same story with festivals. So Ganesh Chaturthi just becomes a contest to see who has the tallest and most beautiful Ganesh statue in the city, Navratri just becomes a contest to see who has the biggest setting for Garba and Diwali just becomes a contest to see who bursts the most crackers. Myriad other festivals come and go each with their own routines of rituals, fasts and customs but in the end they prove to be too many and we go through them like, yes you said it, rituals.
So say what you will but every one of these crimes committed in our country is a glaring failure of Hinduism as a religion and its role to provide morality to its followers.