Debate and Dissent cannot be throttled in the Name of Faith

     It is reported that communal violence broke out in Kanpur as some people after offering Namaz in a mosque started pelting stones at shops in the locality to protest against the assertions of BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma about Prophet Mohammad in a TV debate. They say it is blasphemy to speak against the Prophet Mohammad even if it is based on the proofs of their own scriptures, thus leaving no scope for any discourse or dialogue. Many FIRs have also been lodged against her under sections 295A, 153A and 505B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)at many places for what she has said.

  Ms Sharma alleges that she has been receiving death and rape threats on social media after a "so-called fact-checker" circulated a heavily edited video from one of her recent debates on a TV channel on the Gyanvapi case. Be that as it may, the most perplexing question is why should a healthy debate be not allowed even in the first quarter of the twenty-first century and why the Maulvis are not issuing their firmans against those, who have become so intolerant? After all, what she has spoken about Prophet Mohammad is also based on some books and those sources cannot be dismissed in the name of faith. It is all the more surprising that when it is ordained that what Prophet Mohammad had said or done should be followed by his true followers, then why his preaching and activities should not be seen with microscopic subtility?

  In the name of faith, the reasoning and logic cannot be given go by, that too, at a time when the revolutionary changes have taken place, thanks due mainly to science and technology. After knowing the full facts about any one or all religions, if anybody wants to renounce the same to become an atheist, why should there be any bar on him or her? If any Muslim or a Christian has to say logically and factually something about Ram, Krishna or Shiva or any Hindu deity, there cannot be any objection to it by any Hindu. After all, Shastras (arguments) based on correct information are the basic ingredients to convince anybody to follow any religion.

 Swami Dayanand Saraswati had always fought against superstitions in all religions. Sanatani Hindus were his worst critics. He did not spare Christianity, Islam or any other sects of Hindu religion. He was respected rather revered for his razor-sharp mind and deep erudition. He had thrown an open challenge to any preacher, priest or cleric to prove him but those who always thrived on superstitions did not come forward to face him. Why the clerics and Maulvis are not coming forward to openly denounce such persons, who are abusing, trolling or threatening Nupur Sharma for what she has said?  They should prove with all politeness that what she has said is not based on facts. She must also be prepared to rectify the mistakes if it is proven on scriptural evidence.

 But the way, Nupur Sharma is being intimidated has no place in any civilised society. The Courts and the Administration must deal with such persons with iron hands, who want to foreclose all debates and discussions in the name of religious beliefs. Such stupidities and puerilities by some people cannot be allowed to suppress and suffocate the voice of dissent and logic. If it were so, then the great thinkers like Charvak, Heraclitus, Nietzsche, Karl Marx and the whole hosts of atheists across the globe would have been exterminated after opening their mouths.