The faith of a fundamentalist

It is not very difficult to stoke the flame of communalism in the country. The ground work has been surely and steadily laid over the years and is bearing fruit now. The job of a fundamentalist or an extremist or a fanatic is very easy these days, be it a Christian, or a Hindu or a Muslim, or a person of any religion or grouping.

My colleague was teaching in a Pre-University college (11th and 12th standards) in Bangalore. The college had many students who hailed from villages around Bangalore. Since they had studied in Kannada up to 10th standard, most of them struggled coping with Science subjects since they were taught in English. My colleague, took extra pains to ensure that each student understood what she taught and went to great lengths to make the subject interesting and accessible. Since she was fluent in Kannada, that also helped her to demystify the subject for the students who were facing difficulty due to the medium of instruction –English. Needless to say she was soon very popular among the students. One boy improved a lot in his studies after she began teaching him. He even brought his parents to the school one day. They came all the way to the college to thank her for helping the boy, who they said was doing very well in his overall performance. All of a sudden, he stopped going to her for help and he often missed her regular class. When she sent word through his friends for him to go and meet her, he refused. One day, she met him and asked him why he was not attending classes, and enquired whether he was alright, etc. After a lot of reluctance he spoke. Making the sign of the cross, he asked her, do you belong to that group. She said, “Yes, I am a Christian”. He said that was why he didn’t want to attend her classes or be associated with her in any way. Puzzled at the reaction, my colleague probed further.  It turned out that he had studied in a school, which was run by a right wing fundamentalist group where he grew up on propaganda which demonised Muslims and Christians. He told her all those things which he had been taught about them. It was so spiteful and dangerous!  She said that she was surprised that he only stayed away from her classes and didn’t do anything more.

My friend who worked in the State Government recounted a similar experience. A colleague of his after years of working with him, asked him whether ‘he was an exception, or whether all Christians were like him’. When asked for the reason of his question, he said that he grew up in his village hearing all kinds of things against Christians, that he was surprised to find that my friend was a “normal human being like him”.

The teachings and practices of fundamentalist Christians and Muslims and others are equally dangerous and harmful as the fundamentalist Hindus. All these fundamentalist and fanatic and extremist groups of different religions work in their own ways (knowingly or unknowingly) to create a lose-lose situation, where the teaching of their religion are dishonoured as are the followers of the different faiths. The actual religion of these extremist is not Christianity or Islam or Hinduism, but fundamentalism and the result of their faith is hatred and violence and destruction!!!