Who is sacred is sacred. Whose religion is religion?

What is the argument of religion? Contentious, personal, not of the rational order – as various voices may echo. Another set of voices could believe in and subscribe to religion as a definite principle of ordering life. At the same time there could be some who would want everyone else to see the world through the lens of their own religion. They want others outside their religion to completely agree with their own principles. Differences and opinions may not be tolerated. Yet there could be others who may practice religion as a system of their own faith and belief. They would embrace every other set of principles and faith for what it represents. We do what we do and others do what they do. Contention over religion and religious belief is probably as old as socialisation itself.

Today, one set of principles – a modernistic non-religious principle of “progress” and “development” seems to have overlooked people’s religious belief and faith. The dams in North Sikkim are coming up in an area subscribed to by a set of people as their “holy land.” The river being dammed is “sacred” as claimed by the same set of people. The land and river in contention – Dzongu and Rangyong do not matter in terms of their religious symbolism as much as it does in terms of their potential economic returns. The contention here is directly one of the rational versus that which seems emotional and irrational. Sacrifice of an “intangible” belief in the name of greater common good seems to be the logical rational choice. But does this contention merit any discourse? Is there a point of view in the non-rational, personal argument of faith that people of this land and river have put forth in the wake of these dams? Are personal religious arguments of faith and belief worthy enough to stop modern day symbols of progress and growth? The Lepcha tribe of Sikkim – the community in question, whose faith is being eroded by damming their rivers, drilling their mountains and overtaking their land have tried resisting the onslaught of dams in their holy land, using the argument of faith and as some have said “right to religion.” But is this point of view valid, or more so can it be considered a point of view at all?

One of the holiest symbols of the Lepchas is the mountain, Kanchenjungha. All Lepchas revere Mt. Kanchenjunga and worship it as their guardian deity that protects them from all evil. They believe the Rangyong river is the carrier, the river of passage of the Lepcha soul to the peak of Kanchenjungha. A young man from a village in Dzongu pointed this fact out to us and asked if he did not have a right to his religion. “How can they dam my holy river, would it have been the same if tomorrow they decide to dam the Ganga. Will the Hindus allow it?” This young man’s recourse to religion to explain what he felt is not in the line of asking others to believe in his faith or belief. All that he seems to be saying is to try and understand his rationale of what he considers to be his belief. Similarly a high monk in a monastery in Gangtok told us that the hidden land of Dzongu contains many secret caves and treasures, which are a source of power for not only their religion but all of humanity. He said that you from the outside do not need to believe this if you don’t want to, but what gives you the right to deny me my belief?  The sentiments echoed by the young man in Dzongu and the monk in Gangtok do not seem to be about religion and safeguarding people’s religion as much as it is about appreciating and trying to understand another point of view. The question of religious argument may not always be about religion. It may actually be about our failure to recognise that which is different from what we are used to thinking. What is after all the rational and the logical? That which is normal may not always be in opposition to the pathological. There could be various states of defining what constitutes the “normal.” The holy land of Dzongu and the sacred river of Rangyong may not be holy and sacred for us but that cannot be a ground to deny that it may be holy and sacred for anyone else.