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“What the mysterious is I do not know. I do not call it God because God has come to mean much that I do not believe in. I find myself incapable of thinking of a deity or of any unknown supreme power in anthropomorphic terms, and the fact that many people think so is continually a source of surprise to me. Any idea of a personal God seems very odd to me.”
The last place you’d expect to hear a quote this outrightly ‘ungodly’ is 20th century India. The last person you’d expect to say it without fear for his own life (or at least, the next election) is the Prime Minister of India. At a time when atheists are being killed for expressing their thoughts on the subject of god –– or the lack thereof –– it’s hard to imagine that just 70 years earlier, Jawaharlal Nehru was able to make such a statement publicly in our country.
For all our lauded progress in the years since, modern India remains a land firmly rooted in theism. It is a land of multiple religions, a thousand gods, a million doctrines, and a billion believers. With a religiously-charged populace who have no qualms resorting to violence in defence of their gods, few would argue that religious sentiment does not lie at the heart of almost everything we hold dear –– right from movies to McDonald’s. How else does one explain entire states being held hostage by thousands of rioters angered by the fact that their Godman, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, was convicted of rape? Or that the meat we eat is becoming a political pawn, betting on our basest instincts to turn against each other where our religious interests differ? But while we’re embroiled in similar everyday conversations, furiously debating the rights of the religious minorities of this country, there’s a tendency to ignore the smallest, most minuscule minority of them all — atheists.
To understand who they are, we need to look at the numbers. According to the 2011 census, 29 lakh people refused to state their religion, but only 33,000 people declared themselves atheists — a mere 0.0027% of the population. For a country of 1.2 billion people, that number, quite simply, is mind-boggling. As shocking as that is, it doesn’t take an expert to know that logically speaking, the number is far from the truth. The way our administrative system and society is set up contributes significantly to this distorted picture. To better understand the experiences of those who openly disbelieve, we spoke to five Indian atheists about their journeys.
The Accident Of Birth
It’s pertinent to note that atheism is not officially recognised in India. Hypothetically, if a child were to be born to atheist parents, he or she would be considered as belonging to the religion of his or her parents’ birth for administrative purposes. So whether you like it or not, you will grow up, live a life, and die ‘belonging’ to the religion of your birth in this country. Just ask Ira Godbole. Born a Hindu into a relatively religious family that followed all the customs and rituals, religion played a huge role in her life even as recently as five years ago. “It was a rather restrictive environment,” she admits. “My education was never hindered, sure, but things like going out at night, eating out, wearing ‘western’ clothes, and the like were dictated. As a teenager, I didn’t understand a lot of it, but I thought that I was doing the right thing by playing along.”
The 20-year-old life sciences student says that through extensive reading and exposure to the intricacies of science, she eventually realised that it didn’t matter who prayed and who didn’t, because god wasn’t the explanation for anything. She also struggled to forge an alliance with the idea that religion was any indication of moral uprightness. “Hinduism says that the goddess of education is Saraswati. And yet, how many women are deprived of a basic primary education in this country?” Godbole explains the hypocrisy that began to wear down her conditioning. “The reality of our religious, apparently morally upright country is one where goddesses have a special place but women were treated like secondary citizens. Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of kilos of food is wasted on deities when millions starve to death every year. If the picture they paint of an all-loving, all-merciful god was real, this wouldn’t happen.”
Unfortunately, however, it’s this apparent link between religiousness and ‘goodness’ that makes it so difficult for atheists to be honest with strangers or family. Violent backlashes are all too possible and familiar.
On Conditioning, Epiphanies And The Subsequent Struggle With Identity
Every child is programmed to mimic, follow, and learn the way of living from his/her parents. Whether it’s being encouraged (or forced) to visit a temple on Mondays as a devotee of Lord Shiva, or imitating your parents for the fifth namaz of the day, the religion of your birth is foundational for most in their formative years.
Sara Hussain, a 24-year-old writer based in Mumbai, born into a Muslim family can attest to this. She was taught how to pray, fast, and celebrate Eid from an early age — although she never took interest nor found peace or joy in any of the ‘religious activities’ that she was made to indulge in through her childhood. “Over the years, I would find some excuse or way out of saying my namaz or fasting. I recall my father getting upset about it on occasions, especially when he wasn’t around to oversee it. When I was in my teen years, I’d always ‘get my period’ during Ramzaan which gave me an excuse to not fast.”
Still, ‘coming out’ was never really a part of her thinking. “I think it was in my first year in college that I openly said that I don’t believe in God,” Hussain says.. “I was generally hesitant earlier, but I met an incredible woman that year, my professor Rina Ramdev. She taught me a lot more than just English Literature, classical studies, philosophy or literary theory. I never saw a reason to believe in ‘God’, nor was I mystically provided one, I didn’t see the rationale in having blind faith in something I could not see, nor feel a presence of in my life. I’ve been pretty vocal about my dislike for organised religion and my own beliefs since then.”
Sara’s experiences also shed light on how trivial your own beliefs can seem when set against a backdrop of overwhelming religious belief. Despite never really feeling othered as the only ‘Muslim’ kid in her batch, she has a different story to tell of the ‘real world’. “House-hunting in Bombay post college made me hyper aware of my religion,” she admits, “and it didn’t matter whether or not I was practicing, let alone believed in, it. There is a perception involved and my last name, Hussain, tends to set me up for failure before I even try.”
The reality of her situation forces us to acknowledge the triviality of distancing oneself from religion in first place. Is there any merit at all? And what of people who weren’t born into generations of religious belief, do they face the same reality?
Religion And Culture — A Coalescence
To understand it a little more holistically, we spoke with Raag Mathur Ramdev. One of the rare few to be born into a semi-atheistic household, yet undoubtedly influenced by the religious traditions around him otherwise, too.
“Irrespective of how I was brought up, it’d be foolish to claim that the dominance of the Hindu religion didn’t affect me as I was growing up,” he explains. “For example, when I was in school, I remember watching my classmates come to class after a pooja. I would think the tika and the orange thread around their wrist looked very cool because it was something I personally only got once or twice a year. As I grew older, however, I attempted to be more reflective, so as to determine what parts of the Hindu religion affected me. Today, one of my favourite texts, in fact, is the Mahabharata, and I love it because it is filled with flawed characters.”
For Susanne James, however, it really boils down to priorities –– a sentiment many we spoke with can relate to. “I tend to follow my family’s customs during festivals, and I humour my mother blessing me each morning, and asking me to touch our shrine before I leave,” says the 23-year-old literature student who has grown up in an orthodox Syrian christian household. “I do this because I don’t want to offend the people I care about. Religion may not be important to me, but it is to them. When I’m asked to do small things like this that don’t impact my life in any way, I see no reason not to do it. At the same time, I love churches, the peace associated with them, the architecture and the history. I’d willingly go to a new church or temple or wherever I’m allowed access for this.”
Sara adds her own anecdotes in support of the sentiment, “All religions have their faults and follies, and my religion of birth has those too,” she says, “However, zakaat is one aspect of Islam I admire a lot. There are other things, like saying ‘alhamdulillah’ after a sneeze, but that’s more out of habit than anything else. Another would be greeting relatives with ‘salaam’, but that itself is more out of respect than habit, and it’s pretty much for the sake and comfort of my parents. I don’t really mind it, anyway.”
Atheism And The Indian Law Today
The question is if any of this matters at all if culturally, you enjoy no benefits, and legally, no protection. Freedom of religion is a fundamental right in India — freedom from it, not so much. As mentioned earlier, atheism is not officially recognised in our country. While apostasy, thankfully, is a right, there are no specific laws that cater to atheists, or help them identify as one. Try filling out a municipal form, and you’ll fail to find ‘atheist’ — or even ‘none,’ as an option under ‘religion’. Try filling out your child’s birth certificate, and you’ll meet the same fate. When it comes to marriage and divorce, the Special Marriage Act of 1954 is your best bet, albeit with complications of its own. As for legal inheritance, you have no choice but to follow the laws of your religion of birth, whether you like it, or not. So no matter what our beliefs, we’re all shackled to the beliefs of the majority anyway.
This becomes even more pertinent when you consider that identifying as an atheist In a country full of people who’re obsessed with religion and easily offended, can be seriously dangerous. Just ask the family of H Farook, a 31-year-old atheist who, was savagely hacked to death by a religious mob in Tamil Nadu earlier this year for refusing to bow down to the dogmas of faith.
Furthermore, it’s almost impossible to engage in any form of religious discourse thanks to archaic blasphemy laws. Try criticising a religion in public, and you stand a chance to be jailed for three years for ‘insulting a religion or religious beliefs of a class’ under sec. 153(a) or sec. 295(a).
To sum it up, it’s 2017, and yet, we live in a country where religious doctrines are continually used to twist the law of the land. Since the fear of persecution or a violent backlash is very real, it’s no surprise that we barely see Indians identifying as atheists. Furthermore, there is often disbelief of the existence of atheists in the country. Tell someone you don’t believe in god, and they’ll view you with contempt, and question your character and morals. Without mincing words, there have been instances where religious fanatics have come to metaphorical and literal blows over their differing ideologies. However, what they collectively agree is that the only thing worse than believing in another religion is not believing in religion at all.
“In my opinion, religion should be a lifestyle choice, but more than that, religion needs to be personal,” says Sara. “It can’t be politicised, nor made into a doctrine for the masses. Over the years I’ve observed more and more people being put off by religion because of the politics that surround it –– to a point where parody religions like Dinkoism that mock believers’ illogical and absurd practices are gaining popularity too.”
The point is, seventy years after we had an atheist leader, we’re nowhere close to accepting atheism as a concept, let alone a fundamental right. Sure, cultural cognitive dissonance on the part of atheists doesn’t help, but that religious dissent isn’t tolerated by our peers, family, or the law is worrisome. The question we need to ask is, if freedom of religion is a fundamental right, why can’t freedom of being irreligious be one too?
More importantly, if people are losing sleep –– and in more recent cases, their lives –– due to beliefs and non-beliefs, isn’t it imperative to try and find a golden mean?
*Some names have been changed to protect identities.
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