TO WIN ALL WARS, YOU MUST KNOW HOW TO WIN AS A “VICTOR”, AND YOU MUST KNOW HOW TO WIN AS A “VICTIM”.
Every Friday afternoon, a large part of India comes to a halt for several hours.
After their lunch, hordes of pious, religious people take a stroll to designated places, taking a few hours to assemble. Then they call upon their Gods to annihilate all non-believers from the world. Then they take their own sweet time to go away.
For these couple of hours, the traffic in these areas come to a halt. There are instances when this happens even on railway lines too and the power of the Almighty God brings even trains to a halt.
This is not a religious gathering. There is nothing divine or spiritual about this religion, and so there is nothing divine or religious about these gatherings.
It is a show of the might of the religion, of God, of the universal fraternity. Every believer has his heart puff with pride when they see images of thousands of people congregating in the middle of the road, bringing the world to a total halt. They watch with glee the hapless travellers stuck on either side of the assembly waiting patiently for the “call upon God for their annihilation” to end so that they can move on with the unworthy and meaningless lives they live as disbelievers.
Once in a while, things go wrong. People get disgusted with this cheap nuisance and seek legal help to dismantle this nonsense. Sometimes when the law doesn’t do its job, and things go beyond tolerance limits, people may take it on their own to shoo away these dreamers of the death of kaffirs.
Does it impact the power of religion and might of God?
You bet. Once you subscribe to a religion founded on the nuances of all the base human instincts you can imagine, you never lose. The first important historical incident of this religion was the (in)famous treaty which was signed by the founder of the religion when he was in dire straits. He used the treaty as a breather, collected men to fight for him, and when sufficiently confident, broke the treaty unilaterally and annihilated his opponents. That – in brief should give you enough hints on the level of moral decadence you ought to expect from any follower of this religion.
So, what happens, when once in a while, some people manage to fight against this weekly nuisance and get it stopped?
To cite another example, there is this chronic problem of cattle smugglers. This is a topic which was discussed in the United Nations in early 2000s. Day in and day out you hear about cattle smugglers killing people and policemen who try to obstruct their activities.
Once in a while a cattle smuggler is caught vulnerable and taught a lesson they deserve. At times they cannot take the lesson alive and succumb to it.
What happens when a cattle-smuggler exercising the right to steal cows, kill them and eat them up as entitled by their religion to do so with pride, finds himself on the wrong end of the rope?
Is that a moment of loss for the God, the religion, the fraternity?
Absolutely not. When your have an existence that came into being through victory by fraudulent means, you cannot lose.
When that happens, the believers become a “victim” of the monstrosity of communal hatred.
They decry this assault on democracy, they condemn these hateful acts against individual rights to pray, they cry hoarse on all platforms within and without the country to see how their religion and their identity and their lives are in danger.
International magazines and journals write articles on how somebody was killed in India for praying to the wrong God, or exercising their right to choose what to eat.
This is notwithstanding that if you tried these prayer street-plays on the streets of quite a few Islamic countries, you would get a lesson you would never forget.
All burden of humanitarianism lies on the shoulders of those who volunteer to carry them.
So, for this religion, “losing” is not a trait they have learnt. They either win by annihilating you, or they win by playing victim. They either win by calling out to their God in their hoarse voices, or they win by crying hoarse till a lot among you would have their hearts melted and would start fighting for their human rights.
They win either by humiliating you to defeat, or they win by humiliating you for winning.
The same stands for the cousin religion founded on the foundations of the same lowest level human instincts. They display their might by putting Crosses across the routes and hills belonging to sacred Hindu pilgrimages, enter Hindu temples and preach the gospel, get hundreds of thousands of India dance hysterically having been possessed by the spirit of the ghost of the Son of God, resort to every mean thought, action and deed imaginable to make the Son of God enter your hearts and feel proud about the Kingdom of God.
Once in a while, things go wrong. An annoyed crowd may show them their limits.
Does it mean the Kingdom of God gets into danger?
Of course not. Remember that this religion too was born 4 centuries after the existence of the founder, when a smart Roman emperor discovered that he could use as religion as a means of universal imperialism. Every Pope till the 4th century AD made a good meal for lions. After 4th century, the Popes were feeding those from the other side to the lions. Such escalations in power do not come by divine intervention.
With every assault, the Kingdom of God gets stronger. No, not poetically or metaphorically. I mean it literally.
They play victim all over the world. International magazines start printing articles on how Christianity is in danger in India. US sets religious freedom committees, and pastors from India rush to provide testimonies to those committees.
Once again, the soft-hearted among us decry on the monstrosities of Hinduism which is so narrow-hearted that it cannot allow the one and only true and authentic religion the right to annihilate all other faiths and followers of those faiths.
In fact, these tricks work so well that they often have someone from amongst them throw a stone at a Church window and then rush to the United States to give a testimony to some goddamn committee.
You do not get 2 billion followers each on basis of spiritual merit. No God, howsoever “True” has that kind of power. Spirituality is a very deep perspicious field of thought, and doesn’t appeal to all. Genuine spiritual congregations hardly draw any attention.
What people want, just like Roman Mobs, is their daily breads and their daily circus. The quickest way to having lots of successful followers is to appeal to the lowest of human values. Promise them their daily breads and keep them engaged with a daily circuls.
You can either get people by instilling chilling fear in them, or you can bribe them into accepting your God. Both these establish the power and might of God and the religion.
There are many valourous warriors in the world. But they do not have the same record of being victorious. What is the missing secret?
The missing secret of being ‘eternally victorious’ is the unbeatable card – the victim card. You cannot achieve greater heights without mastering the art of playing victim. It does not only get the attention of everyone from your clan around the world, it creates huge dents in the opposition clans too.
The world is full of soft-hearted idiots, who do not care to look into anything deeply, but are always dying to come across as the one for whom humanity is the only religion. Especially, Hinduism is full of such shallow idiots and it is extremely trivial to have all of them support your cause by playing the victim card.
You can easily see through this all around yourself. A few years ago, one of India’s leading stand-up group in collaboration with Bollywood bigwigs organized the first “live roast show”. It was a bad, distasteful program, but that’s not the point. What made news about the program was one of the participants committing a gaffe – amidst all this humour, he ended up naming one of the “two great men should not be named”.
The leader of this standup-comedy group had earlier made headlines for tweeting “Ganesha is shit” and when there was an outrage, issued an apologizing for insulting shit, because shit has at least some value as manure.
After this program, they were summoned by the archbishop of Mumbai. What happened then?
Of course, this champion of free-thinking, this brazen bold warrior who had proudly tweeted “Ganesha is worse than shit” showed a finger to the archbishop and stood his ground.
No, that is what he would have done if he were a true champion of free-thinking. As I have written in my earlier blog, Thou Shalt Not Question The Mask, we do what we can get away with it. The Archbishop of Mumbai is not someone you can get away from.
You will find a very pretty picture of the entire stand-up gang sitting in front of the Archbishop like erring students do before a headmaster. They forgot all about championing free-thinking, decrying superstition, bemoaning blind faith.
They just crumpled like butter paper. The proud claimers of “Ganesha is worse than shit” not only issued public apology, but stopped their public performances for several months.
This was the power of God. The power of Gospel. The power of religion.
Then, you find news videos of members of the species called evangelists distributing pamphlets announcing the coming of the Son of God in a very elaborate Hindu religious congregation. Some people get annoyed at this Son of God’s persistent habit of coming over uninvited. They snatch the pamphlets and ask the evangelists to go away.
Does it make the religion any weaker?
You bet.
When something of that kind happens, they cry out that loudly that pastors and evangelists from all over the world start crying hoarse about how unsafe India has become for Christians.
If they were not chronic mass-murderers, both these religions would have provided great comedy to the entire world.
The best example of the meltdown from the power of God and religion to crying victim was seen during the Ghaza skirmishes earlier this year.
One group starts the trouble, creates nuisance, and proudly declares that “God will annhilate Israel“.
Then after a few days, Israel starts its campaign of getting back at the assaulters.
Following a series of meltdowns, the war-cries of annihilating Israel turn into wailings of “God, why are you not listening?”
As I said earlier, if they were not mass-murderers, these 2 religions would provide great comedies.
To them, it doesn’t even seem ridiculous that their whole existence is based on attempts to kill other faiths, cultures, turning the colorful world into one shade of grey, but when they themselves get a scratch, they cry louder than a 2-year old woud.
You do not become a popular religion by divine power. You become a popular religion by being mean, and there is no strategy more powerful than the strategy of “heads I win, tails you lose”.
Go out, overpower people, establish your mind. Announce the power of God and religion.
Get beat up. Turn victim. Cry hoarse. Appeal to humanity. Appeal to individual rights. Appeal to democracy. Show your wounds. Paint wounds if you want. Shed crocodile tears. Rant till the whole world sits up and listens to you.
Yes, you got to be that filthy for your God to be worshipped in this world.
Even a child knows these tricks. If two children fall from a bicycle, who will get more of your attention? Not the one with a bigger wound. but, the one who wails and moans the loudest.
All the Samurais, Spartans, and other warriors are long gone. The virtue of not shedding tears, not showing your wounds, doesn’t work in this world. You survive only if you learn to moan over someone obstructing to your right to destroy them.
You got to win all wars. Either as Victors, or as Victims.
The ability to package your wounds is the greatest skill one could learn.
Behind Pretty Masks 