Skip to main content

Need for a model where people follow religion only inside their homes

By Sandeep Pandey* 

At the airports one sees a ‘Prayer Room.’ It doesn’t say which religion it belongs to. One could go in and pray according to one’s religious practice. This is the model which human society will have to adopt if we are to prevent internecine disputes over religious places in future.
Recently we witnessed a frenzy of court cases with petitioners claiming mosques and dargahs having being built upon temples. Had the Supreme Court not intervened and put a stop on the process there would have been no end to this process in which monuments like Taj Mahal would have followed religious places. But this is only a temporary relief. Right now the Places of Worship Act 1991 has come to rescue. But irrespective of what Mohan Bhagwat is saying about Ayodhya being a matter of faith and people should not go looking for a Shivling in every mosque, after all some people may be motivated by faith in other structures and by now we should have learned our lesson that Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh or Bharatiya Janata Party functionaries speak in different voices and RSS mouthpiece ‘Organiser’ has already come out with a statement that knowing the history of disputed sites is important for ‘civilisational justice,’ the BJP led union government is perfectly capable of doing away with the Places of Worship Act just as it made Article 370 of the Constitution related to Jammu and Kashmir redundant or enacted the blatantly discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act in complete violation of Article 14 of the Constitution. Then the floodgates will open once again.
Hence the only solution to this vexatious problem is to agree that people believing in God, if they concur that God is one, must come around to accepting all religious places as universal places of worship. This implies that all places of worship should allow followers of all religions to come in and perform their religious rites or worship according to the practice of their respective religion. In principle, everybody is praying that one God in their own manner under one roof. People will have to be just tolerant to others following different ways of worshiping. In fact, that would be a truly spiritual sight to see people worshiping in different ways in harmony with each other. After all, the objective of religion is to bring tranquility on earth where human society is in peace within and with the outer world.
However, slowly we must move towards a model in practice at the Maharogi Sewa Samiti, Anandwan in Warora, Maharashtra set up by the late Baba Amte, where there are no public religious places. Everybody is free to follow their religion inside their homes. After death everybody is buried under the earth, irrespective of their religion, and a tree is planted at their burial site. No tomb is allowed to be built.
Then the question is what would happen to the existing religious structures? All religious places would be converted into places from where welfare programmes would be run. Langars at Gurudwaras are an excellent example of a service being provided by a religious place. The beauty of the langars is that this service is open to all. It is not restricted to the followers of Sikhism. In fact, Sikhs go out of the way to provide the service of langars to all without discrimination based on religion, race, caste or gender, So, we saw Khalsa Aid set up langars in Bangladesh to cater to Rohingya refugees from Myanmar and langars were set up on Poland border for people fleeing Ukraine when Russia attacked it. There is no significant Sikh population in Bangladesh or Ukraine-Poland. The point is when it was required the langar service was pressed into action. The farmers movement on the Delhi borders sustained for 13 months because of the langars in which contributions were pouring in from villages of Punjab and Haryana. Families from villages has come and taken responsibility for running the kitchens of langars. This spirit of service is the essence of religion and followers of other religion need to learn from Sikhism. Hence, all places of worship must become places from where some human welfare work is performed. It could be a education programme, a health care programme, a women empowerment programme or simply a langar. As the essence of religion is service, there can be no better use of religious places than run human welfare programmes from their premises.
A Sarva Dharam Sadbhav Trust has been created in Ayodhya with the Mahant of a Ram-Janki temple, a Muslim activist, a Dalit scholar from Bihar, a Transgender and this writer, an atheist, as its trustees. This trust wishes to create such model religious places for future. A beginning has been made from Barabanki district in Uttar Pradesh. A temple has been renovated in Aseni village which displays on outside wall that people of all caste and religion are welcome to the temple and everybody is free to worship according to their method of worshiping. We hope more such places would come up soon. This is the only hope for a peaceful and friendly world.
---
*General Secretary, Socialist Party (India)

Comments

TRENDING

Gujarat Information Commission issues warning against misinterpretation of RTI orders

By A Representative   The Gujarat Information Commission (GIC) has issued a press note clarifying that its orders limiting the number of Right to Information (RTI) applications for certain individuals apply only to those specific applicants. The GIC has warned that it will take disciplinary action against any public officials who misinterpret these orders to deny information to other citizens. The press note, signed by GIC Secretary Jaideep Dwivedi, states that the Right to Information Act, 2005, is a powerful tool for promoting transparency and accountability in public administration. However, the commission has observed that some applicants are misusing the act by filing an excessive number of applications, which disproportionately consumes the time and resources of Public Information Officers (PIOs), First Appellate Authorities (FAAs), and the commission itself. This misuse can cause delays for genuine applicants seeking justice. In response to this issue, and in acc...

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor*  This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

Uttarakhand tunnel disaster: 'Question mark' on rescue plan, appraisal, construction

By Bhim Singh Rawat*  As many as 40 workers were trapped inside Barkot-Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a portion of the 4.5 km long, supposedly completed portion of the tunnel, collapsed early morning on Sunday, Nov 12, 2023. The incident has once again raised several questions over negligence in planning, appraisal and construction, absence of emergency rescue plan, violations of labour laws and environmental norms resulting in this avoidable accident.

Targeted eviction of Bengali-speaking Muslims across Assam districts alleged

By A Representative   A delegation led by prominent academic and civil rights leader Sandeep Pandey  visited three districts in Assam—Goalpara, Dhubri, and Lakhimpur—between 2 and 4 September 2025 to meet families affected by recent demolitions and evictions. The delegation reported widespread displacement of Bengali-speaking Muslim communities, many of whom possess valid citizenship documents including Aadhaar, voter ID, ration cards, PAN cards, and NRC certification. 

'MGNREGA crisis deepening': NSM demands fair wages and end to digital exclusions

By A Representative   The NREGA Sangharsh Morcha (NSM), a coalition of independent unions of MGNREGA workers, has warned that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is facing a “severe crisis” due to persistent neglect and restrictive measures imposed by the Union Government.

Gandhiji quoted as saying his anti-untouchability view has little space for inter-dining with "lower" castes

By A Representative A senior activist close to Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar has defended top Booker prize winning novelist Arundhati Roy’s controversial utterance on Gandhiji that “his doctrine of nonviolence was based on an acceptance of the most brutal social hierarchy the world has ever known, the caste system.” Surprised at the police seeking video footage and transcript of Roy’s Mahatma Ayyankali memorial lecture at the Kerala University on July 17, Nandini K Oza in a recent blog quotes from available sources to “prove” that Gandhiji indeed believed in “removal of untouchability within the caste system.”

Job opportunities decreasing, wages remain low: Delhi construction workers' plight

By Bharat Dogra*   It was about 32 years back that a hut colony in posh Prashant Vihar area of Delhi was demolished. It was after a great struggle that the people evicted from here could get alternative plots that were not too far away from their earlier colony. Nirmana, an organization of construction workers, played an important role in helping the evicted people to get this alternative land. At that time it was a big relief to get this alternative land, even though the plots given to them were very small ones of 10X8 feet size. The people worked hard to construct new houses, often constructing two floors so that the family could be accommodated in the small plots. However a recent visit revealed that people are rather disheartened now by a number of adverse factors. They have not been given the proper allotment papers yet. There is still no sewer system here. They have to use public toilets constructed some distance away which can sometimes be quite messy. There is still no...

Rally in Patna: Non-farmer bodies to highlight plight of agriculture in Eastern India ahead of march to Parliament

P Sainath By  A  Representative Ahead of the march to Parliament on November 29-30, 2018, organized by over 210 farmer and agricultural worker organisations of the country demanding a 21-day special session of Parliament to deliberate on remedial measures for safeguarding the interest of farm, farmers and agricultural workers, a mass rally been organized for November 23, Gandhi Sangrahalaya (Gandhi Museum), Gandhi Maidan, Patna. Say the organizers, the Eastern region merits special attention, because, while crisis of farmers and agricultural workers in Western, Southern and Northern India has received some attention in the media and central legislature, the plight of those in the Eastern region of the country (Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Eastern UP) has remained on the margins. To be addressed by P Sainath, founder of People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), a statement issued ahead of the rally says, the Eastern India was the most prosperous regi...

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.