Topic Of the Day:-“Cause for unease”
History has taught us a bitter lesson. If a political movement is successful in tapping deep structures of sentiment in a society, these sentiments must already be there, lurking under the skin of a shallow modernity expected to usher in a secular age. After all, religion cannot be harnessed to the cause of communal mobilisation until it has some grip on people’s minds and psyches. Yet, this neat formulation — customised prejudice translates into murderous assaults on the ‘other’ community — gives us cause for unease. People may or may not be inclined towards religiosity, and yet might hesitate to dine or socialise with members of another community. But this does not mean that they ritually inflict harm on the bodies of other people. We can believe that others have their own reasons for thinking and doing what they think and do, and we have different reasons for thinking and doing what we wish to do. For many reasons, people construct symbolic and spatial barriers between themselves and others. Note, however, that the bracketing-off of identities is a social phenomenon. Despite these social barriers, forms of cooperation can and do arise in the workplace, in social and political organisations, in and through movements, and through associational life. When these identities are transformed into political weapons in pursuit of symbolic or material gains, a sociological phenomenon translates into a political movement that lays exclusive claims upon the body politic. The politicisation of identities leads to open and ruthless competition for all sorts of power, invariably at the cost of human lives. What is important is that the transition from, often, hidden animosities to violence involves a trigger. The trigger is provided by organisations that belong to the religious right and/or entrepreneurs and merchants of hate who excel in excavating unarticulated sentiments of resentment against other communities, and in playing up incidents that otherwise can be easily passed off as minor. The trigger stokes and evokes hellfires of hatred, devastating violence, and eternal damnation. When politicised religious identities compete for the same spatial and material resources, communities are motivated to inscribe in-erasable injuries on others, and on the polity.
MEANINGS AND WORDS
1) Lurking
Meaning: Be or remain hidden so as to wait in ambush for someone or something.
Example: “a ruthless killer still lurked in the darkness”
Synonyms: Loiter, Hide
24) Usher
Meaning: To show someone where they should go, or to make someone go where you want them to go.
Example: She ushered us into her office and offered us coffee.
2) Psyches
Meaning: Mentally prepare (someone) for a testing task or occasion.
3) Murderous
Meaning: Capable of or intending to murder; dangerously violent.
Example: “a brutal and murderous despot”
Synonyms: Brutal, Violent
4) Religiosity
Meaning: Strong religious feeling or belief.
Example: “a resurgence of religiosity among younger voters”
5) Dine
Meaning: To eat the main meal of the day, usually in the evening.
Example: I hate dining alone.
6) Spatial
Meaning: Relating to space.
Example: “the spatial distribution of population”
7) Animosities
Meaning: Strong hostility.
Example: “he no longer felt any animosity towards her”
Synonyms: Antipathy, Hostility
Antonyms: Goodwill, Friendship
8) Excel
Meaning: Be exceptionally good at or proficient in an activity or subject.
Example: “she excelled at landscape painting”
Synonyms: Shine, Surpass
9) Unarticulated
Meaning: Not mentioned or coherently expressed.
Example: “previously unarticulated anger”
10) Resentment
Meaning: Bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly.
Example: “his resentment at being demoted”
Synonyms: Bitterness, Irritation
Antonyms: Contentment, Happiness
11) Damnation
Meaning: Condemnation to eternal punishment in hell.
Example: “sins that risk eternal damnation”
Synonyms: Perdition, Doom
