Religion of Terror

Jama Masjid blasts on Friday only confirmed what all intellectuals have always been aware of, that terror has no religion. There have been numerous incidences of attacks on places of worship Raghunath temple in 2002, Akshardham in 2004, Varanasi blast in 2006 and now these blasts in Jama Masjid are to name a few. And these brutal acts are not limited to India alone. If the demolition of statues of Mahatma Buddha in Bam district of Afghanistan was to test the patience of millions of devotees all over the world attack on Al Askari Mosque of Samara City in Iraq this year was another instance of such dastardly acts.

So what makes these men of no honor attack such places that should be considered symbol of peace both of soul and humanity in general? I think the answer lies in the deep mistrust an average individual has for other religion. The phenomenon is not something new. The history is replete with crusades and other religious wars just to stamp authority of one creed over other. Destruction of holy places has been considered the greatest humiliation on the suppressed community and there I think lays the reason for the attacks. The aim is surely to incite the religious feelings of the people so that people of one community may blast their anger balloons on the people of other community. The death count post Godhra incident was more than 1000. Although the source of trouble in this case was not any terrorist activity (or is it??) the example just goes on to show how destructive communal clashes can be. Jerusalem is another prime example ( I would not even contemplate the head count over there considering Jerusalem has been fought over by armies of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Ptolemies, Seleucids, Romans, Byzantines,Persians, Arabs, Seljuks, Crusaders, Mongols, Mamelukes, Turks, British, Jordanians, Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese, and Iraqis, all in the name of religion !!!!).

Evidently we must realize that Christ, Mohammad, Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Nanak, Moosa, Ali are great men whose messages are not limited for any one religion. All these great men incarnated on this earth for the welfare of humanity & not for the welfare of any one sect. So we the human beings have this moral responsibility to give regard to all those incarnations of all sects who embodied themselves in the human form on this earth. It is essential because if we wish our Gods or holy places to be revered, we shall have to pay reverence to Gods & holy places of the other faiths. Not only in India but in the entire world & almost all the people of the world are bearing the pain of attacks on their religious faiths. At such times, all of us must show the tolerance & goodwill for one another so that the evil spirits might not succeed in their nefarious actions.