AN OPEN LETTER TO KARUNANIDHI

You are an atheist sir. I am not an atheist. I am an agnostic. I am also a teacher and a scientist. Having seen even the scientific concepts crumbling and newer concepts taking their place, the best course for a scientist is to be open even about the accepted hypotheses – you never know which of the hypotheses by which you currently lay stock will crumble tomorrow all of a sudden and an entirely new hypothesis which now seems correct will seamlessly take its place. If this is the state in science which concerns itself with fact, it is better that we leave God alone. We can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God. I believe that it is better to be ambivalent about the existence of God. It is also good to not to scoff at people who believe in such an existence and to not to scoff at people such as you who do not believe.

The uncertainty is not just limited to the field of science. It is there in the field of History also. Till Heinrich Schliemann dug Troy up exactly where Homer had suggested it is, everyone thought that Troy was a mythical city concocted for literary purposes by Homer. Closer to home, everyone had written off Dwarka as a mythical city and the flood that sunk it to be as mythical till S. R. Rao found Dwarka exactly where it was supposed to be, sunk under the sea. Saraswati was an equally mythical river till scientists provided definite proofs for its actual existence.

You talk of any field of human enquiry, and the uncertainties are there. You talk of economics, you talk of the direction that economies of different countries will take in future, you talk about where the terrorists will strike tomorrow or will not strike, you talk about what course will politics take tomorrow, you talk about whether you yourselves will be alive tomorrow or not, there are uncertainties.

In the face of such glorious uncertainties, first of all how can any one be an atheist? Is it not better to be an agnostic? But let me not talk of that – that is your considered position having hardened from years of practice and adherence to it. Let me talk of Rama and his being a character imagined by Valmiki. You have imagined many characters in your novels. You say that they are totally imaginary. On the testimony of many writers more and less accomplished than you, on reading autobiographies of numerous such writers, I know that every single character they painted in their writings had a root in some real person somewhere. Only the name was changed or the character was lifted from one scenario and planted in another or the characteristics of the character were changed slightly. As philosophers say, we can only copy and not create – every character you describe in your novels is an altered image of some real character that you have come across in life or have heard about. In the face of this – you yourself being a writer – how can you say that even if Rama as a character was imagined by Valmiki, it was not an image, true or altered, of some real life person? Also, there is this chance that Valmiki wrote as Homer wrote, describing what he actually saw. Can you deny it?

You are not just an atheist. You are a politician too. You change your stance about issues at the drop of a hat when it suits you and gives you political advantage. You change your coalition partners when it suits you to do that. You are a politician and you know that you have to give in to public demand at times – when the tensions run high, when a thing becomes emotional, to douse the fires, you have to do this. You do not apply your rigid position as an atheist in these times.

My request to you is to look at the uncertainties all around you and reconsider your position as an atheist. My request to you is to convert yourself into an agnostic – that I think is the only thing a human being humbled by these uncertainties can be. But, as I said earlier, that may be your considered position having hardened from years of practice and adherence to it. My request to you is to at least reconsider your position on this one matter of Rama.

I am not asking you to reconsider your position that Rama is imaginary. All I am asking you is to keep silent on the matter.

Is it too much to ask?

Or is it that it currently suits you to wax eloquent on the issue?