It seems religious fanaticism is like a plague in South Asia. In India, attacks on Christians in certain parts of the country is increasing. In Bangladesh, the Government is becoming a mute spectator as well as a direct supporter of religious fanatics. I am talking about the Islamic fanatics' attack on a Statue of Baul Folksingers at Dhaka airport, because statues are haraam in Islam. Appeasing the fanatics, the military-led government quickly removed the statue.

Pakistan has barely six more weeks of Forex to feed its population and recently it is residing in a "red zone" in the U.N. hunger index, indicating more than 50% of the Pakistani population already slipped into one meal a day. Bangladesh, is no better and is ensuing in a financial crisis would curtail foreign aids to Bangladesh severely.

With this background of hand-to-mouth situation faced by South Asian countries, it should surprise everyone that, instead of a concerted effort to alleviate poverty and hunger, we are plunged deeply into a myriad of religious fanaticism, which severely diverts our attention, time and efforts away from planning for food production and industrialization. This is true for all major South Asian countries, prominently the two Islamic nations: Pakistan and Bangladesh. What a shame on our people and our civilization!

Lalan Fakir, the father of Baul folksong aka Lalan Giti, is deeply revered in Bangladesh and West Bengal. Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore had once said, "Lalan Giti is the best philosophical gift from Bengal to the whole mankind." Lalan's philosophy and humanism is the greatest treasure of Bengali culture; great Bengali poets, Tagore and Nazrul Islam, had reaped rich harvest from Lalan Giti. It's a tragic twist of fate that the Bengalis, particularly Muslim Bengalis, have never pursued jingoistic feeling to protect their culture. As a result, medieval  Islamic Arab culture today is determined to destroy best of what Bengal has to offer to the world!

The hatred of statues in Islam emanate from Islam's intense hatred of Idol-worship, over which Muslim never fail to point fingers at Hinduism. In reality, true Hinduism, the Sanatan Dharma, is monotheistic like Islam. There was no Idol-worship in Hinduism before the 3rd century CE. It was brought to India by the Hun invaders, who were good at making Idols. As Huns gradually assimilated in Hindu society, Idol-worship gradually entered the body of Hinduism as a synthesis between the aboriginal and invading cultures.

A careful study of religious scriptures reveals that the oppositions to Idol-worship in monotheism stemmed from various reasons:

1. Idol-worship was a fulfillment of one's material greed and not spiritual offering through action or knowledge.

2. It created people with vested interest, who were simply doing business in the form of religion by fooling common people.

3. Idol & demi-God culture were promoting a material society with lust, drugs and disintegration, which is despised in the path of spiritual quest.
   

In reality, even the  followers of monotheistic creeds are indulged in 1 & 2. And regarding their objections to polytheism vis-à-vis point 3, let us ask a few simple questions:

• Is the culture of Lalan Giti against spiritual quest?

• Does a Fakir promote a society full of lust and drugs?

• Then why a sculpture of him, who is an embodiment of the best practice of humanism from Bengal, it would violate any of the 1–3, which are given as essential reasons against the demi-God worshipping?

This incident in Dhaka is another glaring proof that religion is practiced by fools only. Otherwise, why would the essence of a practice would always take a backseat while the fanatics would impose it by force?

Let me repeat: practice of religion is for the fools and fanatics while the essence of a religion is a myth created by the Prophets to gain power and wealth misleading its followers as the seekers of truth???