Sameer Singhvi or Sameer Khan

I am writing this before going in for Firraq, heard it’s a movie on Godhra violence in 2002. You can read lot on this topic to believe that it was a horror.

Last few years of life wherein I have been waking up to understand this world and myself, trust me every morning is challenging. It scares me with dangers in world, like community violence, bomb blasts, and terror attacks, war on border, and than gives me strength in packets of various identities so that I am not alone and I can fight all dangers with my country, state and community.

By the way, if you did not notice, my name is Sameer, a name which can be Hindu as Sameer Singhvi or Muslim as Sameer Khan. In Hindus it means Breez and in Muslims it means "entertaining companion", or even "loyal companion", and was traditionally given to Arab males of both Christian and Muslim families.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samir_(name))

I am born in so called “Hindu Country”, in Maharashta State in a Jain family. So I have multiple identities which I use to save myself and almost everybody is doing that. Don’t we as Sameer Singhvi feel safe in Pandurangwadi and as Sameer Khan in Mohammad Wadi….we do…But why?

Whether, I am living on this earth as an Individual or as a Man, Asian, Straight, Hindu but non bramhin, a Maharashtrian from vidharbha, Jain, and that too Shewtamber, I don’t know if there are identities below this too. I will have to ask my parents.

Bottom-line is, I am confused; if I give any one specific answer I will be deceitful. When I think of myself I am an Individual and when I go to temple I am a Hindu. But why am I going to temple, because I am Hindu or I like going to temple? I think here I have answer, I go because I like. Why I like? Because my mom has taken me there from Childhood and I enjoyed it. And she was taken there since her childhood as well. So, all these identities are given to me, I never wanted or asked for anyone specific Identity. I just wanted to be myself. But it’s said that when you are in flow you can’t go back….and to high extent it’s true. When most, in society around me are proud as Hindus or Muslims and not as themselves I somewhere will have to flow with them, otherwise they won’t help me in times of my need. And somewhere we need people to help us. If violence breaks up again in Mumbai I will have to find place in Hindu Majority area otherwise I will get killed. Who made up all this religious nonsense? I feel this question is being asked by many and I just repeated. Instead of going into who made up all this nonsense I think now its time to shift more towards Individual as an Identity and not religion as one. Respect every religion is true till the time Sameer Singhvi is not attacked by Sameer Khan, the day two fight for any silly reason the respect for religion will go away once again.

I believe religion should be the most personal matter, just the way we become one with our partner in closed bedroom, we should be one with ourselves only in solitude (yes it should be that personal) and may be that’s our true DHARMA. I am here to prosper materially and spiritually, it should not matter where in world I am born to parents of which sect. My faith is just my faith and it should be something that will not cause harm, physically or mentally to other in society.

I remember my school days where whole class was given roll number in certain order; this was because students can be managed in a better way. Generally if you observe things can be managed well if they are labeled. Just like we give names to folders in our hard disk drives. Reducing people to identities is in the interests of our politicians. If people are seen only as Muslims, "community leaders" can get power and influence by claiming to speak for the "community," in a way they could not if being Muslim was seen as only one part of people's identity. And politicians go along with this, because it's easier to manage people if they are boxed and labeled.
In his book “Identity and Violence”, Amertya Sen says that “just as we have multiple identities as far as race, culture, background etc go; we also have multiple class identities. We do not therefore identify with any one specific class as at different times and in different situations, we occupy many different ones.

It’s just that it’s easy to get people to identify with religion than with themselves. So all those who succeeded to a high level in identifying religion are our “community leaders” who built temples and break mosques because they know god more than themselves. Quite funny but yeah, its horror truth.

When I go and tell this to people, they say sab aisa nahin sochte baba, but why? Its simple mathematics, if we think like this we will have atleast less internal violence and less violence means more happiness which ultimately every one of us is seeking. It has taken 62 years of independence to clear scars of partition; I don’t know how much time it will take to clear the scars of religion. If beautiful world like Religion can’t give me peace its better not to use it.