Communist terrorists angry at ‘gambling during Diwali’ planted a bomb outside a police training centre in northeastern India, killing 17.
IMPHAL, INDIA – What is it about choice that really pisses people off?
Religious holidays are interesting things when you think about it. The original ‘holy days’ (where the word ‘holiday’ comes from) were usually imposed on societies by high-ranking religious officials and traditions associated with them were strictly enforced. A good example would be mandatory fasting during the Christian season of Lent, leading up to Easter.
In many parts of the world today, however, ‘holy days’ have become secular holidays. For many, Christmas is about gift giving, not the birth of Jesus (despite the campaign to ‘put Christ back in Christmas’); Easter is about chocolate bunnies and Thanksgiving centres on eating way too much turkey. Interestingly, many ‘holy days’ were built on previous non-holy feasts (Easter is a good example: it was always about spring and re-birth).
And yet some traditionalists get all hot and bothered about the diminution of religious significance and seek to ‘bring back the old days’. It is one thing to hold placards and stage demonstrations; it is something else to kill because others are engaged in activities you feel are disrespectful of your faith.
On this day in 2008 at least 17 people were killed and more than 30 injured near a police facility in Imphal, capital of the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. A caller claiming to be a member of the People’s Revolutionary Party of Kamgleipak (PREPAK), a separatist group, said the outfit was behind the blast. They were angry at the gambling of some during the festival of Diwali, the Hindu ‘festival of lights’ which celebrates the spiritual victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance.
Police officers said severed limbs and body parts were scattered outside the police training facility.
Whether or not the decline in religious observance is a good thing or not we must not return to the days where we had no choice in whom or what to worship. Killing in the name of religion – check out my most recent book on this topic – is neither holy nor an expression of faith.
