I might have been misunderstood by Prof. Majid. Once I mentioned that I despite myself not being a believer live happily among the believers who include my wife, relatives, colleagues, and innumerable friends. There is no denying the fact that religion is deeply rooted in a culture and hence it is an integral part of it. I accompany my wife to the religious festivals that she attends. My wife every day performs pooja at home. I was not born into an athesist family as Tariq Ali did. But I turned into an atheist pretty early stage in life thanks to people including professors (Dhaka College), intellectuals and political peers with whom I directly came into touch or under whose influence I came directly or indirectly. I have to admit that initially there was a feat of "show off" like eating beef at an early age (I may be one of the youngest persons coming from a conservative family doing so). Now I realize that the show off was not necessary and was discomforting to the close relatives. To echo Sunil Ganguly, I do not preach atheism. I do not preach theism either. Let me repeat the last sentence from my last e-mail as below: Given so many facts beyond our control at least in the short run, we can help ourselves only by being tolerant, logical, open minded, and argumentative.
From: Farida Majid <farida_majid@hotmail.com>
To: mukto-mona <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 5:48 PM
Subject: RE: [mukto-mona] FW: (Negative Lessons for Bangladesh) Telangana: A new Hindutva laboratory in the making
To: mukto-mona <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 5:48 PM
Subject: RE: [mukto-mona] FW: (Negative Lessons for Bangladesh) Telangana: A new Hindutva laboratory in the making
Jiten Roy is deliberately diluting the word "communalism." It should be noticed that experienced activists in the field in India use the word without having to define it every time. It has a specific meaning within a historic and geographic context. Since it already includes in its meaning the warped sense of religious identity, artificially generated hatred between two religious communities, etc. Jiten Roy's coinage of the term "religious communalism" is ridiculous and meaningless. OK. Jiten Roy refuses to make a distinction between "religion" and communalism. He is in fine company of our friends like S A Hannan, M. Anwar, Shahadat Husseini, Munshi/Abid Bahar/ Naz Chow/FAlamgir and Kamal Das and all the rest. Take a survey. None of them wants to make that distinction. It is now clearly self-evident that those who boast about being secular and atheists are not sincere in their self-declared non-communal status. Period.
Note for Subimal: It is a pity that you too have sunk into a double-speak. Religion as a cultural artifice is part and parcel of an extensive web called culture. That is why communities of people belong to it collectively. You can, as an individual, choose not to follow a particular religion. But you would still belong to the larger context -- the shared culture. You cannot wish it away. That is why I believe that a peace-loving, thinking person would try to identify the roots of communal violence in the subcontinent. Look towards the example of the works of Asghar Ali Engineer, Achin Vanaik, and Ram Punyani.
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.comFrom: subimal@yahoo.comDate: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:37:20 -0700Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] FW: (Negative Lessons for Bangladesh) Telangana: A new Hindutva laboratory in the making
First let me make my position clear. I am not advocationg that there should be many religions although looking for unity in the diversity is a great idea. Nor am I advocating that there should not be any religion at all. After all that should not be even on my wish list as I am neither Stalin nor Mao. What I want to highlight is that we can clash over over any thing or any issue and those clashes can be bloody, long, and all consuming. Simply reflect on all the wars, battles, and feuds that happened ans are still happening. Clash between two villages, two schools, over districtism, over language, over soccar, and you can mention many more. But we cannot live without these institutions or organizations. Given so many facts beyond our control at least in the short run, we can help ourselves only by being tolerant, logical, open minded, and argumentative.
From: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2012 5:59 PM
Subject: RE: [mukto-mona] FW: (Negative Lessons for Bangladesh) Telangana: A new Hindutva laboratory in the making
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2012 5:59 PM
Subject: RE: [mukto-mona] FW: (Negative Lessons for Bangladesh) Telangana: A new Hindutva laboratory in the making
Whether I am a republican or democrat - that has nothing to do with the topic at hand? Just think about a hypothetical situation where there is no existence of religion and everybody is identified as human being, not Hindu, Muslim, Christian, etc. Do you think - there will be religious communalism? I don't think so. Do you? We have religion and that why we have religious communalism also. It's that simple logic. Jiten Roy --- On Fri, 4/20/12, Farida Majid <farida_majid@hotmail.com> wrote:
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Mukto Mona plans for a Grand Darwin Day Celebration:
Call For Articles:
http://mukto-mona.com/wordpress/?p=68
http://mukto-mona.com/banga_blog/?p=585
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