Uniform, religion and why are women religious?

The Karnataka Government has revoked its 2022 school uniform order and permitted ‘religious and traditional symbols’ in schools and colleges.

Students may now wear hijabs, turbans, sacred threads, rudraksha beads, etc., provided these ‘complement the uniform’ and do not compromise discipline, safety or identification.

It sounds reasonable, even liberal, but it is also quite contradictory.

A uniform, by definition, is meant to erase visible distinctions such as class, caste and creed. Uniforms are meant to make the classroom a neutral space. But the moment you introduce ‘religious identifiers,’ especially visual ones, you introduce the very markers the uniform seeks to suppress.

Now that this issue is back on the table, one is tempted to wish for a vaccine against religious extremism.

Oh! But there is.

The religious virus can be avoided by following a protocol similar to COVID-19 protocols: 

Maintain social distance from fanatics.

Wash your mind frequently with logic.

And make sure your IQ saturation level does not dip into the 1st century but always remains firmly in the 21st.

More importantly, like how we took a vaccine to avoid dying from COVID, there is a vaccine available against this religious virus too.

The first dose is a shot of ‘mainstream education.’

The second dose is ‘science and critical thinking.’

Then a booster shot of ‘introspection and kindness.’

This combination will produce ‘thinking antibodies’ in one’s brain, which can ward off religious brainwashing.

Now, as students are demanding they be allowed to wear their saffron scarves and hijabs in class, I was left wondering, why are women so religious? Most surveys indicate that women are more religious than men!

If there is a group of people who should be naturally averse to mainstream religion, it should be women. Why? Because religion was not made for women and children.

Religion was created by men, for men and that is why all religious bodies are full of men.

The worst part is that almost all major faiths objectify women. Telling them to cover herself in purdah, ghoonghat or burqa. Monitoring her menstrual cycle or circumcising her clitoris.

Banning her from getting a divorce or having an abortion.  Holy men are constantly telling women what to do.

Meanwhile, what are the religious restrictions on men? Almost none.

Despite this harsh disparity, women still want to be part of organised religion! It’s                     perplexing, truly!

In a way, the relationship between women and religion could be diagnosed as Stockholm syndrome. This is where people who are held prisoners or subjected to abuse oddly develop feelings of sympathy and other positive feelings towards their captor.

Women must realise religion is not going to liberate women. Only education and financial independence will. Otherwise, women will always be at the mercy of a provider, a man, who will sooner or later, apart from providing for her, will also think for her.

Maybe all of us should read this paragraph from ‘Discovery of India’ by our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru:

Nehru writes, “Religion at its worst is divisive and at best irrelevant to the pressing economic and social problems confronting the Indian nation.

Some Hindus talk of going back to the Vedas; some Muslims dream of an Islamic theocracy. Idle fantasies, for… there is no going back to the past. There is no turning back. There is only one-way traffic in time. Forward.”

Now, will this revoked law promote diversity,  discrimination or further let religious identity dig its claws deeper into young minds? Only time will tell.

But for now, let us hope we don’t have parents practicing a religion called “Naturism” admitting their children in our schools because they believe that non-sexual nudity honours the human body as God’s greatest creation and it is an acceptable practice to be                        in the nude.

P.S.- I often say this and I repeat it. While religion has and still is the bane of human existence, the concept of God may have a purpose.

Here, I mean the God who is a cosmic mystery, not the worldly law-giver.

The idea and belief in God can be comforting when you have no answers. Guess one could say while science can cure us, God can heal us… but religion will kill us and it has done so by using God and God’s word as a shield to perpetuate evil.

So, instead of living by the diktats of organised religion, maybe we all must live by the advice of Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor, who said:

“Live a good life. If there is a God who is just, he will not care how devout you have been. He will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by.

If there is a God, but he is unjust, then you should not want to worship such a God.

If there is no God, then, after you are gone… and if you had lived a noble life, you will live on and on in the memories of your loved ones.”

It is interesting to note that the happiest, cleanest, least corrupt, peaceful and most developed nations are the least religious nations.

e-mail: vikram@starofmysore.com