Why don’t we know the future?

Why don’t we know the future?

The above statement seems very odd at first sight but in the light of modern science it is a rather interesting venture. According to the laws of physics the equations of motion are time reversible or independent of the direction of the flow of time. In other words if an empty  glass can fall off a table and break into many pieces it can also reassemble and rise and situate itself back on the table. Thus ideally we should be able to reverse the state of things, however what fortunately prevents this, is, yet another law, the second law of thermodynamics. This law says that the disorder of the universe or of an isolated system only increases with the flow of time. Thus if we are conforming to the second law we can only conclude that the empty glass is more likely to break than reassemble. Although the breaking of the glass and its assembling itself together can both happen, the inevitability of the former over the latter is likely. In other words we need to conclude that although equations of motion are time reversible, the law of entropy forbids us from being too confident of undoing things that have already been done.

Thus we come to some acclimatization to this understanding and that is with how much certainty can we know about the future? In weather forecasting systems we can only forecast so much because the entropy law induces chaotic features in the predictions. Thus the forecasting is not so well supported always by actual events.

Recently, in the country of India we get to see similar chaos prevail in the support of the government by the student community. The Indian government has come up with two statutes very recently. The media and the metropolises are raging with gunfire over these two laws and what they seem to imply about the future of  the nation. As a very profound religious teacher and scholar in recent times pointed out very recently the two laws are two separate and distinct pieces of literature. Unfortunately, the media, and those who league themselves in terms of what they presume from the former are so impressed as to how two laws have been handed down to the nation, simultaneously, and seem so convinced that the two laws are diabolically linked to each other, and, will inevitably, lead to administrative mal-practice towards a religious minority, that it is heart rendering.

Is the government not allowed to come up with two or five or twenty laws and every time they do, do the educated elite have to immediately assume that there is some amount of forgery involved whereby the government is conniving to arrive at a malpractice? The two laws are distinct and they are worded very individually and differently.

There have been two legal statements one known as the CAA and the other NRC.  Lets hear from a national newspaper what these two have to say:

What is NRC? (National Register of Citizens)
NRC is the National Register of Citizens. The NRC identified illegal immigrants from Assam on the Supreme Court's order. This has been a state-specific exercise to keep its ethnic uniqueness unaltered. But ever since its implementation, there has been a growing demand for its nationwide implementation. Now, many top BJP leaders including Home Minister Amit Shah have proposed that the NRC in Assam be implemented across India. It effectively suggests bringing in a legislation that will enable the government to identify infiltrators who have been living in India illegally, detain them and deport them to where they came from.

What is the CAA? (Citizenship Amendment Act)
According to the CAA, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh and Parsi migrants who have entered India illegally-that is, without a visa-on or before December 31, 2014 from the Muslim-majority countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh and have stayed in the country for five years, are eligible to apply for Indian citizenship.

Why is the provision extended only to people of six religions, and not Muslims, and why does it apply only to people coming from these three countries?
The Union government claims that people of these six faiths have faced persecution in these three Islamic countries, Muslims haven't. It is, therefore, India's moral obligation to provide them shelter.

Here are the understandings that evolve from the above:

-         The CAA is just an amendment of an act that was already there.

-         India is a nation fighting terrorism all over its geography. There are Hindu Muslim riots almost every year.

-         India is a Hindu majority nation. Staunch Hindus would like some opportunity to practice their religious duties without having to hear blood curdling screams of beings they consider as sacred, like cows coming from somewhere nearby.

-         There are plenty of examples to show that the cows are considered sacred in the Abrahamic faiths and also in oriental religions like Buddhism, Jainism etc. We do not really know why other religions don’t insist on the preservation of this animal but we as Hindus demand some opportunity in terms of land and preservation rights to worship what we have considered sacred for thousands of years. Hindus have worshipped the cows as sacred even when under foreign rule. A hindu eating cow’s meat would be considered an outcaste. Hindus have paid taxes as inferior citizens in their own nation just so that they can go on without violating their rituals. Now as a free nation, Hindus would like to preserve what they have held on to for so many unyielding years. Since Hinduism had its origin in India, Indian Hindus would like to preserve what they can of their culture and heritage. As more and more people tune in we are finding that the Hindu or rather Vedic culture had many contributions to make in terms of architecture, mathematics, yoga, medicine, astronomy, ecology and fuel functions, philosophy, the human mind and its nature, administration, the cloth industry, a systematization of language, non violence and so on. Thus if we preserve our culture we stand to benefit ourselves and the world at large. If a person just wants to eat meat there are a whole lot of options out there and one need to utilize any one or any other combinations to satisfy the  sense of taste. As per our religious leaders we can slaughter the buffalo, or any such animal that can be domesticated easily. If you go to the zoo you will know that there are many animals which can be held on to in a domestic way and which can be later slaughtered for the taste of their flesh. There are rabbits, deer, giraffes, zebras, horses, antelopes, gazelles, bison… even elephants can be chained and eaten later. The cows are considered pious. The stool and urine of the cow have many curative or antiseptic properties and along with ghee, milk and butter contribute to ideological benefits as well. Lacto vegetarian diets are preferred by all religions preferring the diligence of non violence. Hindus need their cows and the cows need the Hindus. The cow is venerated as a mother and the bull is used to till the soil and thought of as the father.  Our ancestors used to utilize two bulls to plough the land and neo Darwinists are yet to come up with a better sense of symmetry.     

-         The NRC is just a requirement of a systematization of knowledge of who is who and where do they stay and what do they do etc. It simply implies a data bank which can be very effectively used to counter terrorism, other types of crimes, public utility services like finding where we’ll find a doctor or a rice mill etc. A data bank is something that can always be used to do a variety of useful activities like building hospitals or educational institutions or anything where it is necessary to have an idea of who is available for what and where.

-         The CAA is an amendment which simply says that persecuted minorities from three neighboring countries are eligible to be granted the status of a refugee. From Muslim majority countries you wouldn’t expect Muslims to be persecuted. Unfortunately some Muslims are, like the Amides, and they can find citizenship in many other countries many of which offer Muslims legal ids as priority-one citizens. If the government is embarrassed about saying that yes we are afraid of Muslims because we really do not know where there integrity is even though they may stay in India, are they potential terrorists or actual terrorists,  then it (the Indian govt) is NOT to be really blamed. This is NOT, NOT, NOT the case of discrimination against any religion or scripture or a man of God. It is just the socio-economic situation prevailing in India and neighboring countries for some time and maybe the Indian government is just trying to counter this situation in a forthright way… The Quran is not a security threat to Indians, but during Hindu, Muslim riots, Muslims riot against Hindus. If the Muslims seem less fundamental about their socio legal rights to kill or mistreat our religious representations like cows and less inclined to raise weapons against their neighbors, the Hindus, the government might just feel more inclined to be more impartial. If a terrorist organization is looking for a potential terrorist then if they are able to speak more easily to a Muslim than to someone from another community…. what can the government do but just feel uncomfortable and… apologetic.

-          Simply because the present ruling party is inclined to think favorably about our Hindu heritage they are being axiomatically accused of trying to criticize a religious minority. If I own an Audi car then I can like no other car or any other person owning another type of car… this kind of reasoning can be confusingly condemning. If the ruling party wants to represent the cultural values of a vast majority of Indians, it is just a party policy not a crime.

-         To empathize one can see that there are quite a number of reasons to represent Hindu culture. Although Hinduism is arguably the oldest religion it was reeling under foreign rule for over a thousand years. Many of its customs were subjected to sacrilege and desecration rites were profoundly performed. Millions of Hindu people converted to another religion because of persecution by the State. Although India recovered its freedom in 1947 the then Indian Prime Minister said that the industries of India would be the modern temples of the same. There were partition wars where millions were killed… over religion. The author remembers how during his school days the representation of Hindu culture was symptomatized by the feelings that the foreigners ruled over us because they were superior to us in every possible way… by standards of beauty, intelligence, by standards of physical as well as psychological strength etc. The roads of India where unclean, and our poverty levels as well as educational serfdom, still seem to hide that the Hindu way of existing was quite advanced. We keep enduring the feelings that Indian women wearing saris are backward in contemplation as compared to those belonging to western cultures. A man wearing a dhoti would be rarely seen on a public thoroughfare in central or northern India. The outpourings of the sage, millennia ago seem to make no sense and no sensibility. Under the present government, Indians have excelled in sports, in economical standards, and in other ways which could be indicative of the fact that Hindus are taking their cultural impetuses seriously and being inspired about life. Other governments have also helped us feel enthused about our nationality and have fostered brotherhood among antagonistic communities. But the Vedic culture was being slowly forgotten and in fact the number of people proficient in knowing the Sanskrit language had reduced to an all time low….

To conclude the author would like to affirm that this treatise is not discouraging a government or a religion. All the personalities who have ruled over India were famous and capable personalities and some have even staked their lives…. Similarly Abrahamic religions are also beautifully expressing the encouragement of a Divine which fosters beautiful living, and righteous deeds. However, disorder creeps into the best of systems as it did in the past and that causes degeneration of an orderly establishment. Thus some housekeeping done by the national leaders while following the constitutional laws and the laws of humanity should not seem too appalling. What is appalling is that those of us who venerate the Vedic literatures seem to deserve having our ears clipped off on the charges of polytheism, idolatory, pantheism, monism, voidism etc. While dealing with these charges will have to consume another sitting, one can at least appreciate that before you clip the ears off, of a human being, give him a chance to present to you in his grandeur what measure of a heathen he actually is. Then the ears are yours .... to clip. But you must allow the supposed heathen to make a case because he says that the books he venerates seem to boasts of over four lakh verses and one who has studied the literature under an able guide can not but help see a beautiful synthesis which is not so observable to an outsider. An infinitely powerful being might just have multiple synthesizing features which takes some cumulative understanding to appreciate.