Between God and the Devotee

 

Religion in this country was never born barefoot.

It walked wearing the sandals of power.

It ate from the plates of kings.

It slept on land gifted by believers.

It learned very early that faith can be turned into an occupation.

The Chatur Varna system did not merely divide labour, It has divided dignity.

One class became the owner of God, another became the customer of God.

The priest guarded the scriptures, the poor guarded their hope.

Then their hope became the currency & temples grew.

Donations grew.

Empires of devotion grew.

Every civilisation has had its priests.

But whenever faith begins collecting wealth, truth must begin counting money in accounts.

Bhakti taught us to surrender.

Temples became the address of that surrender.

People carried flowers, gold, silver, their savings, their grief, their dreams.

The deity accepted none of it, but humans in the temple did.

The Ram Janmabhoomi movement carried the emotions of millions, people did not merely donate money.

They donated memories, belief, identity, history.

When someone places gold before a god, they are really placing trust before another human being.

And trust is sacred if you are religious.

If allegations arise that donations disappeared, or records are incomplete, or accountability is missing, the question is not against Ram.

The question is for those standing between Ram and the devotee.

If everything is clean, why should transparency be frightening?

Why just an SIT investigation ? 

Every scripture praises satya before spectacle.

No ritual washes away dishonesty.

No slogan purifies corruption.

No temple becomes holy because its dome shines brighter than its conscience.

A person may chant God's name a thousand times.

If he steals from devotees, he has already stopped praying.

He is merely part of a performing art.

The loudest "Jai Shri Ram" cannot drown the silence of missing accountability.

In 2014, millions voted believing corruption would be fought, that governance would become cleaner,that public life would become more accountable.

The Prime Minister became closely associated with the Ram Mandir through both the movement's political significance and the Pran Pratishtha ceremony.

When an institution carries such immense national and religious significance, citizens naturally expect clarity when serious questions arise.

Leadership is measured not only in moments of celebration, but also in moments of regular scrutiny.

The silence keeps postponing the answer. 

The PM CARES Fund produced a similar debate.

Supporters defended its legal structure.

Critics demanded greater transparency because it carried the authority of the Prime Minister's office.

The argument itself revealed something larger.

Public trust without public accountability eventually becomes public suspicion.

Whether it is a government fund or a temple trust, the principle remains unchanged.

Money collected in the name of people's faith deserves the highest level of scrutiny.

Faith is no longer a private matter once it starts accepting public money.

Once devotion becomes emotional, questions become uncomfortable.

Accountability becomes blasphemy when you treat your leaders like a God

This is how democracies slowly learn to worship personalities (heroism) instead of principles.

During one government, scams were exposed.

During another, allegations become battles of loyalty before they become subjects of investigation.

Democracy begins to suffocate when faith is used to silence doubt.

The day citizens fear questioning to those who collect money in God's name, or power in the nation's name, they have not protected religion.

They have abandoned both religion and democracy.

The Guru, the Podcaster, and the Missing Questions

In the above podcasts, Jaggi Vasudev, popularly known as Sadhguru, said that we should not use the word “raising” for infants, because that word is more suitable for cattle. 

Many people found this statement deep and philosophical. But if we think about it carefully, it raises an important question. 

What exactly is the role of parents in a child’s life? 

Unlike cattle, a human child is completely dependent on parents for many years. A newborn baby cannot walk, eat, protect itself, or survive without constant care. 

Parents spend years feeding, teaching, guiding, and supporting their children. This process is commonly called raising a child.

 

Whether we use the word raising, nurturing, or parenting, the reality remains the same. Children need care, love, and guidance to become independent adults. 

The bigger issue is not the choice of words. The real issue is how children are taught to think. 

 

A child is not born with fixed beliefs about religion, politics, society, or culture. These ideas are learned from parents, teachers, books, friends, and increasingly from social media and influential public figures (Heroism). Therefore, parents have a responsibility to encourage curiosity rather than blind obedience. 

 

As children grow up, they should be encouraged to ask questions.  

 

Every scientific discovery and every social reform began because someone dared to ask questions. 

Curiosity and critical thinking help society move forward. But today, many topics that encourage questioning and scientific thinking like Darwin’s theory of evolution are being removed from NCERT textbooks. Coz we have easier way to understand same from our religious text.

 

Children should also be taught empathy, kindness, compassion, and respect for others. Equally important, they should learn how to evaluate claims using evidence and reason. When a child asks a difficult question, the answer should not be, “Believe it because I said so.” Instead, parents should help them understand how to think, not what to think. 

 

This is where many self-proclaimed spiritual leaders and godman like him become influential. Offering advice about health, meditation, or personal well being. 

In this case, podcaster did not challenge or point out that, in the context of parenting, words like raising and cultivation are often used with similar intent.  

Most of these reels and shorts are watched with only half attention, as viewers are often in a hurry to consume more content and get their next dopamine hit. In this process, the subconscious mind picks up the podcaster's silence, admiration, or expressions like 'aww,' creating the impression that something extraordinary has been said.

Simply because, these interview were not designed to critically examine the statement, but for the PR to present the speaker as larger than life.

That is why critical thinking is important. Instead of accepting a statement because it sounds philosophical or comes from a famous figure, we should ask a simple question. 

Does is actually make sense ?

 

When conversations focus more on promoting a public figure than on questioning their ideas, the personality can become larger than the ideas. 

 

However, problems begin when the followers stop questioning and start accepting every statement as an unquestionable truth. When admiration turns into blind faith, critical thinking disappears. 

 

A questioning mind is a healthy mind. If parents do not help children develop the ability to think critically, someone else like him will shape their worldview. 

 

The goal is not to produce a child who simply obeys, but an adult who can think, reason, and engage confidently with different ideas & defend your ideology in front of a rational person. 

 

Not to forget how questions got tough, when Sadguru faced a rational mind of Javed Akhtar.

 

Click below link to see the debate between him and Javed Akhtar 

Debate video link

Next time, choose your heroes and influencers carefully. Ask yourself whether their ideas truly make sense, or whether you are being impressed by clever wordplay and manipulation.

 

The Slow Death of Learning

 

It was around the year 2000. 

The world had entered a new century, computers were slowly becoming common, and India was still heavily dependent on paper records. 

I was young, but I still remember hearing something shocking from adults around me.

“Study is not important. If needed, we can arrange a graduation certificate.” 

At that age, I didn’t fully understand what it meant. Later I realised that for many people, education was never about learning. It was simply a way to get job, social respect, and financial stability. 

And people fell for it. 

Fake degrees quietly became part of the system. Some bought certificates directly, some managed admissions through influence, while others used loopholes in poorly regulated colleges and universities. 

Since India was not digitised back then, verification was difficult. Records existed in dusty files, university offices, and paper mark sheets that could easily disappear or be manipulated. 

Then came digitisation. 

Governments and employers slowly started verifying educational records more seriously. Students and employees were suddenly asked to produce all semester mark sheets, enrollment records, and university verification documents. Many people got exposed because they simply did not have proper records to support their “degrees.” 

But scammers adapted quickly. Instead of only selling fake certificates, they started sending dummy candidates to examination halls. Entire networks emerged where someone else would write your exam for money. What looked like isolated cheating slowly became an organised business model. 

The sad part is that society never questioned the mindset behind it. 

Education was supposed to create knowledge, discipline, curiosity, and wisdom. But somewhere along the way, many people reduced it to a status symbol. 

A degree became more important than actual capability. Parents wanted “graduate” children, companies wanted “MBA” employees, and students wanted shortcuts to both. 

Now fast forward to 2026. 

The scam industry has evolved again. 

What once looked like fraud has now grown into a full fledged cartel.

Today, many online universities and low quality institutions conduct exams that barely test understanding. Both assessments & exams feel like open-book tests with no real monitoring. 

Students no longer need middlemen standing outside exam centres. 

They now have AI tools sitting on their laptops & mobiles. 

Why pay a scammer when ChatGPT can write assignments, solve case studies, complete presentations, and even help during online exams? 

Technology that was meant to assist learning is now often being used to avoid learning itself. 

At the same time, MNCs continue demanding graduates and MBAs because degrees are still used as filtering tools in a country with massive competition.  

Everyone need qualifications, but only on paper.

The real crisis in India’s education system is not technology, AI, or online learning. 

The real crisis is that we stopped valuing education for education itself. 

This system eventually starts producing graduates without knowledge and professionals without skills. 

And once a society reaches a point where nobody trusts degrees anymore, rebuilding that trust becomes far more difficult.

Not sure how we can overcome this when our leaders claim master’s degrees in subjects that reportedly never even existed.