I was reading the small booklet written K N Panikkar "Culture and Consciousness in Modern India". The booklet has got some tremendous reference quotations and raises some mind boggling questions about present day India. I am putting some of the excerpts and quotation here:-
"In contemporary India religion as an ideology has embraced almost every sphere of existence, thereby masking the socioeconomic and political reality. Therefore, if people are to be made to face the reality, the illusion that masks that reality is to be removed. Developing a critique of religion therefore becomes an immediate political task."
- K N Panikker
The above para is the need of hour in the country when in the election year religion and caste is being used as a weapon to polarize the masses to get political advantage. The polity in a country which is secular (which means does not favors any religion) is filled with insecurity among its political class across the parties, who are afraid to take up the questions when it comes to religious reforms.
Now let us see some of the good quotes in the book:-
" I want my lawyer, tailor, valet, even my my wife, to believe in God. I think that if they do I shall be robbed less and cheated less."
- Voltaire
In the same lines of thought Raja Rammohan Roy said:-
"Mankind are to be excused in admitting and teaching the doctrine of the existence of the soul and the next world for the sake of the welfare of the people as they simply for the fear of punishment in the next world...refrain from the commission of evil deeds".
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"I came to the conclusion that the only means of obtaining knowledge, conviction of faith is reason...But if knowledge or conviction of faith is not based on reason then their achievements in any age or period of time is impossible."
- Sayyid Ahmed Khan (who established AMU)
"In contemporary India religion as an ideology has embraced almost every sphere of existence, thereby masking the socioeconomic and political reality. Therefore, if people are to be made to face the reality, the illusion that masks that reality is to be removed. Developing a critique of religion therefore becomes an immediate political task."
- K N Panikker
The above para is the need of hour in the country when in the election year religion and caste is being used as a weapon to polarize the masses to get political advantage. The polity in a country which is secular (which means does not favors any religion) is filled with insecurity among its political class across the parties, who are afraid to take up the questions when it comes to religious reforms.
Now let us see some of the good quotes in the book:-
" I want my lawyer, tailor, valet, even my my wife, to believe in God. I think that if they do I shall be robbed less and cheated less."
- Voltaire
In the same lines of thought Raja Rammohan Roy said:-
"Mankind are to be excused in admitting and teaching the doctrine of the existence of the soul and the next world for the sake of the welfare of the people as they simply for the fear of punishment in the next world...refrain from the commission of evil deeds".
------
"I came to the conclusion that the only means of obtaining knowledge, conviction of faith is reason...But if knowledge or conviction of faith is not based on reason then their achievements in any age or period of time is impossible."
- Sayyid Ahmed Khan (who established AMU)
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