Tragedy beyond words

The death of a schoolgirl, barely into her teens, after fasting for 68 days is a tragic event holding many lessons for the community of Jains. Their steadfast faith in a religious rite said to cleanse the body and focus the mind is a choice they consciously make. But if that tradition is so much as forced, particularly on young children with impressionable minds idolatrous of their parents, it becomes virtually a criminal act. It shows no respect for individual choice while holding a disregard for women who are expected to follow such practices without questioning them. If reports are true that the family may have forced such fasting on a teenager with the ulterior motive of inviting divine blessings for a mundane objective like the prosperity of the family business, the adults stand guilty of a grave sin against their own kind.

There is no arguing against the immense faith people place in a power above them and religion is only a formal way of channelling that faith. But then religion also brings with it certain obscurantist practices that go against the grain of scientific thinking. However, human nature is a mystery that logic alone cannot unravel. A rite like fasting, when observed within limits and with discipline, may even be physiologically good for the human body. However, blind faith that allows such practices to be taken to their extremes can be questioned. The saddest part of testing fiercely the limits of human endurance is the occasional tragedy carrying a very hard lesson about human vulnerability. If schoolchildren are being allowed to fast, it is only right that they do so only under strict medical supervision. In promoting even greater obscurantist beliefs in people becoming saints or martyrs in death we do a great disservice to an innocent soul thoroughly misled into idiosyncratic behaviour.