Opium Of The Masses.

Religion is ancient. Religion is exalting. Religion is a way of life. Religion is what each one of us perceive it to be. It isn't for nothing that Karl Marx stated that "Religion is the opium of the masses". Religion, in today's society is capable of building both wars and peaceful communities.

During the beginning of civilizations, religion was created to make sense of the world around us, to attribute mysterious happenings to a super natural power and to find solutions to the natural problems that we never understood the origin of. Religion is one of the foremost informal means of control, that helped in maintaining order in the society. Religion holds different meanings to different people. Religion, for some, could be the last resort for hope when everything is going downhill. For some more, it could be the futile attempt to pin our failures on something supernatural.

Religion, to me, has always been simple. It was my imagination of a fluffy cloud on God's lap, putting me to sleep when everything around was overwhelming. Religion, to my friend, was her daily walks to the church to spend some time in solitude. Religion, to my parents, was the weekly visits to the temple and the immediate visits to the astrologer when something is not going right. But the very same religion, in today's society has become the scapegoat for politicians to fill their vote banks. It has become a frightening excuse for terrorists to take away innocent lives for their sadistic pleasures. Religion has become causes for lynchings and murders, fueled by organisations that claim to bring about purity in this country.

Nothing creates divisions in a society as much as religion does, the Britishers knew this, and that's why even today Pakistan remains as our biggest enemy. Religious crusades are not new to this world, there's been enough bloodbath in history to prove this point. Somehow, in the midst of all this chaos over protecting one's religion, we fail to understand that this was not and never will be the true purpose for the creation of religion. Religion is what that brought huge amounts of people together to believe in something common. It stood for unity and brotherhood. It was created to imbibe good morals and values in human beings.

Religion leads a defeated purpose today, and we're all being politicized to believe and fight over what one religious party has to say about the other. India as a country has always been celebrated for its multi cultural identity. It has always been looked upon to be a nation of tolerance and fraternity. We lead the next generation of this great nation and it falls upon the hands of you and me to define the meaning of religion for ourselves. We could either use it to lay waste to our land or to climb up the ladder of progress, not as Hindus or Muslims or Christians or Buddhists or Sikhs, but as Indians, holding hands and marching on together.