Quite a lot of people in this country feels that a lot of cases filed these days in the name of ‘hurting’ religious are things which can be easily ignored. The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court recently made a similar observation in a petition filed by a Nanded resident, Ganesh Pensalwar, who found a Facebook post of a person from Parbhani, offensive. The court said that “in India, the absence of humour the tolerance level of people has sunk to a shocking low”.
It was the post by Ashok Deshmukh which showed the photograph of Lord Parshuram along with a photograph of a hero from the hit Marathi film Sairat whose character name was Parshya that apparently offended Ganesh Pensalwar. In the post, two pictures were posted together with a question — “Tumcha aavadta parshya kon?” (Which Parshya do you like more?)
Ashok’s Facebook friends Kundalik Deshmukh, Ravi Sawant, Gajanan Hendge and Subhash Javde from Parbhani and Latur had liked the post and posted a few comments which the court noted were referring to superstition present in Hindu epics and the Puranas. Pensalwar hated these comments and he felt that his friends had “hurt the feelings of Hindus”.
Pensalwar soon went ahead and registered a case with the Vazirabad police station in Nanded.
In the order passed earlier this month by the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court, the court said, “We live in a world based on rationality and there is no escape from it. Rationality has stood the test of time. We cannot return to the medieval age. We also need to keep in mind that the political revolution, the industrial revolution and urbanization have affected religion profoundly. Many may be religious but still be critical.”
The court further added, “In a democracy, all such persons are required to live together and there is no other alternative to it.”
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