RELIGION

Religion is one of the most ancient, sacred and time tested institution in society that is used as an instrument of social control. Religion espouses certain values and ethics which serve as a yardstick to measure our actions against. People feel that there is some power, or institution wielding immense power to which we are accountable to. In such a situation people would think before committing certain acts which are not accepted by the society. Due to the presence of such a force a person would think before committing a certain unacceptable act. Here religion assumes the role of a social control barometer. Religion also takes up the function of instilling positive and good values in a human being. The religious texts and legends that are passed down from one generation to another always have an idol person as their protagonist. This idol person is common across religions and cultures. This person is instilled with good sense, obedience and other qualities that, when present in a person are considered to make him a good person. This protagonist is given the status of god. Now people who are made to pay obeisance before this god have a person of supreme stature with idol values whom they want to follow, if not emulate. All religions espouse some good activities which they presume would benefit the community at large. Despite the fact that religion is the fountainhead of such good qualities, it is also used to draw divisions in our society. The problem here does not lie in the teachings of religion, but how religion is interpreted. If religious leaders interpret the teachings of religion in such a way that it harms the social fabric, then the interpretation can turn out to be harmful. For Example- Osama Bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda Network recruited their troops by maintaining a very intricate network of madarsas in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Here children were wrongly indoctrinated about Islam facing a threat from the western world. These children were taught about Jihad and the need to fight to against the west. The Al Qaeda then recruited the same boys who were then given military training. These were the people who then carried out terrorist activities. The biggest problem that is faced is that, due to a section of a particular religion going down the wrong road, the whole religious community is viewed in bad light. We should realise that because of the acts of one person, we cannot generalise. Religion is used as an instrument of vote-bank politics by politicians trying to drive political mileage out of such issues. To understand why religion is not the reason for existence of vote bank politics in India, we must delve into the psyche of a politician involved in such activities. We must keep this fact in mind that politicians only want to promote their political goals, and nothing else. In such a situation, even if there is no religion, these politicians would find some other criterion to divide the society and garner votes. They dont care whether they create divisions on the basis of religion or some other factor like caste, race etc. Religion is just a vehicle through which they garner maximum votes. Even if religion is eliminated, vote bank politics would continue on the basis of some other dividing factor.

We must realise that there are two faces to each coin, and pros and cons of each thing that we ponder upon. Similarly there are negatives and positives of each and every institution in our society. We must weigh both sides before reaching a definite conclusion about the relevance of the concept of religion in present times.