Ladies and Gentlemen, thaw your brains

Why do people ordinarily so suspicious of everyone in their lives revere some religious institutions and follow some religious leaders with utter and complete devotion? What makes people follow these pied pipers in the mistaken belief that they are doing the "right" thing for the "good" cause?

We have had two Acharya's - Hindu religious leaders - of the Kanchi Mutt in South India, arrested for allegedly ordering the successful murder of a former Mutt Employee, Mr. Shankararaman. Their innocence or guilt is largely dependent upon who you ask and I for one, am in no hurry to dole out justice until I hear the Supreme Court of India weigh in with its opinion. The High Courts, sadly, have shown a tendency to be bought and / or pressured.

As is to be expected, considerable national attention is being focused on this matter, with the usual suspects, BJP, RSS, the Bajrang Dal and the VHP all up in arms demanding everything from immediate release of the Acharya's to the dissolution of the State Government.

In the midst of all this hoopla - largely unnoticed by the rest of the world - Anuradha Ramanan, a woman writer of some fame, came out and accused the senior of the two Acharyas of behaving "inappropriately" with her when she visited him at the mutt along with a friend of hers. Here is the kicker: the accusation was leveled 12 years after the fact.

The nature of the accusation has shocked many, but the delay has raised more than a few eyebrows. But, there seems to be a group of people, whose strongly held opinion it is that this woman has no right to even come out and accuse the Acharya's of anything as he is completely above board and beyond such things. Where is the justice in this? Where is the protection of a person’s rights in this? Would we behave this way if a daughter of ours accused the Acharya of such conduct?

Tamil Nadu tends to be mind-numbingly conservative, and a woman coming out about being sexually harassed is in itself a rare occurrence. She is inevitably subjected to public ridicule for having lost her “virtue” and harassed further with catcalls on the street. For a woman, coming out with such an accusation is a rather burdensome undertaking that requires serious guts to do. So, it is completely understandable that Ms. Ramanan waited for a long – some might say opportune - time to level her accusation. It only stands to reason that she might be taken more seriously if the integrity of the person she is accusing is already under question. Had she come out with this accusation right after the fact, most people would have called her everything from “heretic” to “slut”. Rather than make a mockery of her accusation by discrediting her, we should strive to seek the truth in such matters. May be we will learn something about these Acharyas / Fathers and / Imams, that we didn’t know about.

Blind faith is a terrible thing, and has been exposed rather cruelly several times in recent memory by such characters as “Kalki Bhagwan”, “Chaturvedy Samiyar" and Premananda. And yet, the average person plods on, firm in their belief that this is an aberration, and that the vast majority of such god men are messengers from the lord.

Blind faith leads to very poorly evolved societies. We should NOT perpetrate the mentality that has caused our politicians to get to where they have gotten, and the state of affairs to what they have become, which is, putrid. We have suffered enough from placing our blind trust in frivolous institutions and individuals. Now has come the time to question people and organizations and have them prove themselves before they are accorded trust and respect. As a society, we must continuously monitor the situation, for such trust and respect should not be granted permanently, but rather as a credential that may be yanked at any time. You are only as good as your last behavior/action/word.

Wondering what set off this rant?! There is this site created by devotees of these Acharya's called Kanchi forum, which I will not glorify by giving you its URL, whose administrators delete every single post that is not in line with the "Acharya's are innocent and their Accusers are all morons" idea. One website does not indicate a social trend, you say?!

I humbly submit that the vast majority of people think this way; that the institution must be protected at all costs, and begin circling the wagons at the earliest opportunity.This is extremely intellectually immature, as it stunts dissension and encourages the construction of institutions and individuals that don’t deserve the trust and respect accorded to them.

Seems like a thawing of some brains is in order.