Jammu, September 28: Last time we discussed about the desire to have eternal peace and why we must find commonality between the different religions for a harmonious society.
Taking it further, what seems imperative at this juncture is the need to put humanity first as a goal for every citizen to realize the dream of making this world worth living and a peaceful planet where people live for progress and prosperity inspite of using religion as a tool for spreading hatred amongst the people.
Coming closer to home we see how the government had to enforce a blanket ban on the internet in the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir fearing escalation in communal passions due to misuse of the facility of social networking by certain mischievous elements who wait in wings for such opportunities.
Not going further in the debate whether the ban was justified or not as we have put our views already before the readers what we want to discuss here is why government had to issue a blanket order in the first place?
We the common people on streets who keep mum and act mute spectators are also to be blamed for such blanket bans as we the so called civilized people who want peace and prosperity in the society don’t speak up against the mischievous elements and their mischievous deeds.
In fact it is also the duty of the civil society to put its foot down and reject the barbaric acts of any element in the society that threatens to take us into dark ages under the disguise of religious rhetoric as it is this civil society that bears the brunt when something goes wrong in the society due to bad elements and the silence of the majority.
Take for example the religious teachings of any religion, which are supposed to be the root cause of the turmoil, one would find that none of the religions teach barbaric violence and whimsical decisions that go against the civil society and harm the civilizations in the long run.
If we compare the major religions practiced in India and analyze them scientifically we find that the recent beef ban controversy is also not linked to religion but it is the vested interests among the society that misguide the people on religious teachings to whip up communal passions on one pretext or the other.
While in Hinduism and Sikhism in general eating mutton is not recommended and cow in particular is regarded as the mother that feeds us with its milk the close scrutiny of Islam also reveals that eating the cow meat is not recommended as it is considered not good for health and similarly among Christians while eating mutton is not taboo but still eating bovine animals is avoided as it is said to develop tapeworms in the stomach which are not only unhealthy for the human being but very difficult to treat.
Hence instead of making the ban on beef a political or communal controversy in the state we should rise above the petty politics and understand the game-plan of the vested interests in the society and reject their whimsical rhetoric on religion to divide the society.
Instead the civil society as a whole must unite and fight this dreaded disease of communal politics by putting humanity first and doing what is good for the universal brotherhood to make this society a peaceful place to live.