Every year on international peace day, we take all children from our schools to different places of worship to inculcate in children a feeling that God is one, though the way to worship Him may be many,” said Touraj Moghbelpour, the founder-manager of Blossoms School, Bhubaneshwar, Odisha. He was sharing his experience with the audience at a symposium on ‘Places of Worship: The evolving nature and purpose’ organised by the Office of Public Affairs of the Baha’i House of Worship, New Delhi, on August 29.
People flock to temples, mosques, gurdwaras and churches for succour, as these places of worship, they feel, connect them to the Creator. Khwaja Iftikar Ahmed, founder-president, Inter Faith Harmony Foundation, said, “While offering namaz in the mosque, if your shoulders don’t rub with other devotees then the purpose of prayer is lost. There are two kinds of namaz, one which is performed mechanically, like any aerobic exercise, and the other is namaz-e-ishq, from where emerges ruhaniyat, spirituality, that is the kind which works.”
Places of worship can also bring about social transformation. One call from the influential mullahs during the Friday prayers in a mosque in Uttar Pradesh turned the tide in favour of government’s polio eradication drive and brought scores of members of the community to health centres to get their children inoculated against polio, something that they had been resisting all along, said K G Suresh, professor of journalism, in his talk. Langar seva in gurdwaras is another example of social transformation where people from all walks of life and communities break bread together, pointed out another participant, M M Verma, founder president, Interfaith Foundation, India. The flip side is that these places could become breeding grounds for fundamentalist tendencies. M D Thomas, founder director, Institute of Harmony & Peace Studies, said that places of worship are often visited by people of the same religion only and there are chances they may get confined to a certain ideology, making them insular and narrow minded. He proposed that all religious places should be thrown open to people of all faiths. “Let’s turn places of worship into places of love and harmony. If this is not happening, then these places need to go,” he said. “Would God be pleased with gold-plated domes in places of worship housing his murtis while his children, sleep on the streets with no roof over their head?” he asked.
Khwaja Ahmed said that nothing can justify violence, but this happens sometimes due to the lack of attention by civil society, those in governance and, academia.
–MONA MEHTA
