The thing called 'secularism': Part-I

The Parable:
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Once upon a time, the all powerful deity of a land wanted to create a perfect forest, different from others, where everybody would be equal, and there would be no food chain, and so everybody would be happy, an "ideal forest". He created a forest, and named it (for the lack of a better name) Dandakaaranya. In that forest, the Lion and the Deer, the Tiger and the Cow all lived peacefully, feeding upon the food provided by the creater deity. They all loved him and respected him for creating them and giving them such a jolly time.

Then one day, a company of foxes wandered into the forest from elsewhere and begged the deity to live there. They said they were tired of travelling and being hunted by humans. They said they wanted to live out the rest of their lives peacefully, and share their vast knowledge of the world with the idyllic inmates of this vast forest. The diety accepted their request and everybody was happy--the foxes because they found a new home, and other animals because now they had someone new to talk to.

But after a few days, the foxes slowly began murmuring among themselves. The food provided by the diety was not as good as raw meat that they wanted. Actually, they stopped in this forest mostly because they wanted to eat tasty meat of the Deer, the Cow, and the Rabbit. The murmur quickly grew into loud arguments and even dissent and rebellion. The leader then thought for a while, and he got an idea.

One night, he led a few of his followers and hunted a couple of nice tasty Rabbits. Then they invited their friends the Tigers for lunch the next day. There was a lot of celebration and dance and song. The Tigers were amazed at the number of songs and the number of languages the foxes knew and the they felt they were strangely rustic. They wanted to be like the Foxes-- dance like them, sing like them, talk like them.

Then the leader of the Tigers went upto his counterpart and wanted to know how they had got to be so intelligent and smart. The leader of Foxes came forward and offered them the raw meat of the two Rabbits and told them that raw meat has unmatched qualities and it was what made them so intelligent. The Tigers recognised the two Rabbits as the young sons of their good friend and neighbour, the Rabbit, but they were too preoccupied with becoming smarter. So each of them ate a piece of the Rabbit.

As the raw meat and blood went down their food pipe, the Tigers began to feel strangely new and strong sensations. They began to think they are the actual masters of the forest. The deity had got it all wrong. He was really holding them back. They just had to reach out and grab the respectful position they deserved. But this feeling quickly faded away as they swallowed the piece of meat they were chewing. They wanted more.

On their request, the Foxes magnanimously ran out and brought two more Rabbits, freshly hunted. These tasted even better, but this was clearly not enough... they wanted more. They felt an unknown hunger. Some were snarling at the Foxes, and some arguing with each other, and yet some others were looking hither and thither, to see if they can try their hand at this thing called hunting.

And one of them, who could not hold himself ran wild and attacked his friend the Cow, who was peacefully grazing. The stunned Cow sprang aside and stared at him in a new light--his long sharp canines, his tongue red with stains of fresh blood, his strong paws with razor sharp claws, and a murderous intention in his eyes, all made his friend look, well, not friendly at all, to say the least. The Cow was scared to death, and did the only thing it could. It prayed to the deity.

The deity appeared and he was furious and sad. His own creation, the Tiger was behaving in a such a shameful way. And he chided the Tiger for this unspeakable, unprecedented, and decrepit act. But the Tiger did not back down. He said that its in the nature of a Tiger to desire and eat raw flesh and that the Deity had been wrong to try to change the nature of things in the Universe. He said that if the deity believed that all the animals in the forest were equal, then he should also respect the right to food of every animal. And the food of the Tiger were of course other smaller animals. He said that this was a universally accepted fact and this was what happening in other forests in the world.

The deity was taken aback. He knew that the Tiger was right. His experiment had horribly gone wrong. If he punished the Tiger, it would only increase his anger and resentment. If he left the Tiger alone, he would surely kill the Cow. If he pushed the reset button and started it all over again, it would be accepting that the whole "ideal forest" thingy was a sham. All the options were leading to breaking of the fundamental principles on which Dandakaaranya was created.

And the deity, crushed by the utter failure of his experiment, vanished into nothingness forever and with him vanished the beautiful forest of Dandakaaranya.

to be contd...