Hope in India

Will Pretty

The largest religion in India is Hinduism, also the third largest religion in the world. The reason I felt the need to blog about something that I have no involvement with is due to the profound impact it has on the nation and its people. Having now spent 3 weeks travelling through India, seeing the vast contrasts this Immersion is designed to show, I have come to the conclusion that without religion the nation would be completely different. In India, religion stands for hope. Religion, or in the primary case, Hinduism, was described to me by our tour guide yesterday as a philosophy, rather than a rule of life that you get following most other religions. The philosophy being that because your body is 70% water, during this life, as long as you do everything to bring you good karma, in your next life you will move up a caste and be reincarnated to live a more wealthy and prosperous life by up to 70%.

Coming from the knowledge of reincarnation, this answered my question to why are the poor so happy? The answer being that these people who live in the slums, of which contain 7 people to a house the size of a bedroom, who work on a fishing dock from 5am-6pm going to sleep at 12pm day in day out for their whole lives are able to do it, due to their belief that they will be blessed with good karma and will be reincarnated to a higher caste in their next life, almost as a reward.

This then leads to a big question of India that if their religion was not so well adapted to their poverty-stricken situation, how different would the country be? With 70% of the population living below the poverty line, if the people did not have the belief of reincarnation, if they didn't have this hope of a better life would everything still be so happy and peaceful. My theoretical answer would be no. It is in the human nature to want to have financial security and a nice job. So the mass of Indian population, if they possessed the point of view that they were just going to be stuck in this cycle, working 12 day hour days for on average $1700 USD a year, the likelihood of social upheaval and mutiny would be massive. Yet, this is not the case and it probably never will be. Thanks to religion, this country possesses the ability to steer through the darkest of situations in a non-violent manner that should be admired not ridiculed.

Although India is not without its faults, the hope that religion is able to give people will motivate a man to work his whole life, for hours unimaginable by most westerners just to bring a few plates of food to his family and a small shelter for them to live in. If I was in this man's situation, from my western background, I am unsure if I would possess the same ability to work as he would.