Accident of Birth poses problems of Religion.

What happens when the accident of birth places you in one religion and your experience of the world contradicts the religion of your forefathers? Such a thing happened recently to Aashish Khan who was born a Muslim but after fifty-years plus experience of life decided to embrace hinduism. Aasish Khan is the son of sarod maestro Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, 84. Akbar khan has termed his son’s decision as a action to defame the family’s reputation.

Aasish has changed his surname to Debsharma. He claimed that his family is initially Brahmins. His great-grandfather Sadananda Debsharma had started using the title ‘Khan’. He, further, claimed that his family never converted to Islam.

However, Ali Akbar said that his family has been Muslims for generations. His son shamed and hurt the past generation of our family.

Aasish is making several claims that his family even prayed to goddesses Kali and Saraswati, never followed Islamic rituals and offered namaz. He also claimed that his grandfather had opted the names, Dhyanesh, Pranesh and Amaresh for him and other kids.

A similar experience befell Harilal Gandhi many years before but it was clear that this weak headed youth chose to become a Muslim merely to spite his father who gave him less attention than he gave the nation. Later on he reconverted to Hinduism. He was also an alcoholic and came into the limelight merely due to his father who was more of a Father to the Nation than to him. He fell into the hands of unscrupulous elements who manipulated him for their own ends and turned him against his own father taking advantage of his alcoholism.

Both these cases featured in the national press because of the rich and prominent personalities they showcased. It is clear that only the rich can afford to change their religion while the rest of us are largely stuck into whatever our forefathers believed.

Both would have been better off if only they had realised that religion whether Hindu Christian or Muslim is only a method of uniting people and synergizing their energies and converting from one to another does not really change anything.