92. I am a Hindu and I am not sorry for it.

I am not a secular person. Secular means "not connected with religious or spiritual matters". I am religious though I was not earlier and I am spiritual, which also I was not earlier. I respect all religions and I enjoy going to different religious buildings and feel the presence of different culture at these places. I have Muslim friends and I have Sikh friends too. I have SC, ST friends and I have Pandit, Thakur friends too. Some behave nicely and some don't. That is just human. I don't care about that because that is the ratio of normal human beings and not religious people. Some people will be good to you and some will be not. Deal with it. I never called myself Hindu except for nowadays because earlier I never felt any need to, now I do. Not because Modi is raising Hindutva funda and Yogi Adityanath is Chief minister, it is because for the first time I am feeling that what I believe in really matters and there are people out there who finally care about it.

What I did earlier was sometimes I derided my own caste just to prove I was secular. Other people from other castes like Muslims and Sikhs won't deride their own caste and religion just to prove they are secular. Deriding one's own religion has become an easy solution to showcase your secular inclinations. I have seen a lot of people cursing their own religions just to prove they are secular. If you are secular, you are, there is no need to curse someone for that, because then you are not secular, then you are anti-religion. When I was secular I was constantly poked on my secularism to prove that I didn't care about my own religion. One of the ways was to curse my own religion and do things that are prohibited in my culture. I am ashamed to admit that I did those things just to prove my secular stand, but proved to whom, I proved to people from other religions who would never listen to anything against their own religion but sadistically enjoy my pathetic game of trying to prove that religion does not matter to me. They fingered me at right places and I danced to their tunes.

Religion matters and it matters a lot. Everyone has the power to chose his religion. Almost every one of us is born with religious identity behind us. No one is born independent anymore. The man is a social animal who lives in communities because while living together he lives in a more efficient and comfortable manner. So every group of humans lives in this manner but they hate other groups and then the competition begins about which group is better. soon the competition which was limited to talks and living better life moves out of that zone and reaches in the violent zone because conclusion from living a good life is not coming out. No one wants to lose but someone has to lose, so to avoid the final verdict the fight is prolonged. The fight never stops because no one wants the final result.

I don't care which religion I could have been in different circumstances but I am a born Hindu and iIshould cherish my identity. I do know that my love for my religion will help me bond with fellow religious people because all people cannot be bound by one religion to live together. It would be too good but it will never happen. What happened to the world's biggest religions - Christianity and Islam, they are not biggest anymore, they are divided among themselves. There are Catholics and protestants and there are Shias and Sunnis and much more such distinctions. The religions were made for a reason. The reason was to live under a code of ethics, to have a more synchronous society, to follow the same rules, to celebrate at same times, to feel protected when feeling threatened. The religions today have changed to something else mostly because most people don't understand it. They are trying to fulfill their own selfish interest under the umbrella of religion and it works, primarily because when you are doing an unjust act under religion you can easily justify it as no religious books there has been clear about what they want you to do. Most religious books have their text written in abstract manners and left to the interpretation of the one who reads it. That is why there is so much confusion among religions.

Hindu is a not a religion. Hindu is a country. A country in which we live. The Hindus have never cared about their own religion because they had really unflexible rules under which you cannot become a Hindu if you are not a Hindu by birth, you have your life profession decided once you are born. Hindus live a tough life of sacrifice and meditation and that is why their minds were very strong. The problem was that they thought they were invincible and they are really lazy and laidback people, an advantage of which was taken by rulers of other countries and advantage of which is still being taken. I have met so many ashamed Hindus who haven't done anything to be ashamed about but they are ashamed to be Hindu. They don't know the reason but it is part of their act of proving that they don't care about religions and they are secular.

My suggestion is that as much as one respects other religions, one should respect his own religion as well. Every religion should be given a benefit of doubt as nothing survives for thousand of years without a merit of its own. Do not try to prove your secularism by deriding your own religion or for that matter any religion, what is the need. Your religious preference is your personal matter and no one else.