(The Hindustan Times - September 18, 2004 | Edit Page)
Noncensus!
Balvinder
We, the people of the 21st century, claim to be the most advanced and civilised people in history. Sounds very good, but it’s all bunkum. We, as Indians, brand our nation to be one of the most secular nations in the world. Bunkum again. For I can’t still figure out why we conducted a ‘religion-based’ census.
Well, there’s, of course, the political reason — as became evident immediately after the census data was released in the form of statements of acute worry from a number of zealots in politicians’ clothes. That didn’t bother me too much.
My worry is of an entirely different nature. Though a sort of non-believer, being the offspring of Sikh parents, I am a Sikh by birth. I’m not, however, as devout a Sikh as my Partition-patented ‘refugee’ parents were. Since I trim my beard, my many ‘sanctified’ acquaintances call me a ‘patit’ (lapsed) Sikh. Because of my artistic bent of mind, I always get attracted to any religious symbol I find visually pleasing or exciting. Thus, I have been collecting and keeping in my home various holy icons that belong to ‘other’ religions, Hindu and Christian in particular. However, this certainly makes many of my friends quite uncomfortable.
On top of it, members of my family, like many other ‘born-Sikhs’, don’t have their names on the voters list of the SGPC that periodically holds elections to choose its office bearers. So I am rather anxious to know in which category of religion my family and I were marked in this rather elaborate religion-based census!
I am sure that I’m not alone in my predicament. And I am doubly sure that all those counted during this census must have been ‘allotted’ one religion or the other against their names.
It is another matter that most of them, like myself, might not be practising the ‘allotted’ faith of their birth. Then there are all those who are either atheists or belong to varied multi-religious faiths. Which crack in the census did they fall into?
In any case, in this day and age — especially with every Tom, Dick and Hari seeing a communal slur when there is none — is there any need to categorise Indians on the basis of their religious faiths?
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