Thursday, September 30, 2010

Reluctant Fundamentalist


Today morning, as I was waking up, I discovered that in my bed I had been reduced into a black flag.

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All of a sudden, a verdict falls on mankind like a thunderbolt. Not for the first time and not for the last time. Court will pronounce peace and leave justice to the progeny! And historians and archeologists will be called upon to decide the matters of faith! Whether Lord Ram was born there or not! They might as well decide whether God exists or not.

That has never been just another place. And that is not just another case anymore. There lies a history in the background which gives a meaning to "whatever the hell is happening" today. It's a story of a haunted house. It's a burning emblem of a culture that needs to restore its vitality, its honor and its potency. The defeated needs to redeem himself. Tolerant he must be, but not unconditionally. His dignity he must not forfeit. And cowardly he must never feel. Forgiveness doesn't come for free; it has to be deserved and re-deserved. With the passage of time, peace will follow justice. But Justice must not be challenged again. Those who are fooled by the sight of olive branches must remember that there lies a gun in the right hand.

He has willed to come back, time and again. Had he been a man, one probably could have stopped him. Had he been a God, one possibly could have stopped him. But he is neither a man nor a God. He is an idea. And as learned men say, no army can stop an idea whose time has come.

What's happening is not new. His exile is yet another beginning of the old epic. He has always been betrayed by the throne. That has been his destiny. But the same destiny also marks the fall of evil, no matter how powerful, how assured. He will walk through the forests and the trees will bow. The clouds will scatter, the mountains will stand aside, and the seas will give way. His army will find him. Vain will be vanquished again. And he will again make his people believe in him. As history will be there to witness, the Ramayan will happen, yet again.