By Saswat Pattanayak

Often times we are led to believe that the extreme religious fanatics oppose the prevailing administrations. The ruling governments condemn the extreme rightists and call for restrain. And the population is led to believe that the fanatical barbaric causes are espoused by a small minority of believers who have nothing to do with the political parties they are in support of, however right-wing or conservative they may be.

So the media often discuss in detail how former Indian PM Vajpayee used to be a right man in a wrong party, how the BJP (the right wing party) was in principle opposed to the extremist right wing bodies such as World Hindu Council, or RSS –even as the latter were bases which gave birth to the former! This brainwash goes to such an extent that people genuinely start believing that Advani (the alleged instigator of communal riots) now is being opposed by the extreme right-wingers for being soft on Pakistan.

Nearer home, the Bush administration is being criticized for being too liberal by the fellow right wingers. KKK is not yet dead, but we all were told that it was an organization of cowards who never got any administrative support. We were told that KKK were always critical of every government in power too, absolving them of any collaboration. Or that American Nazi Party has nothing to do with the moderate right wing politics at the Center. Or that McCarthy was an aberration, although communism was evil.

But all throughout these apparent oppositions of intra-right wing politics, what transpire are the victories of the right-wing agendas. Then what is portrayed is that with hesitations rife, things get acted out. Like India had a nuclear test done of the Hindu Bomb or America had an unfortunate war on Iraq. The reality is that, the fanatical aims are eventually fulfilled, albeit, amidst a more sophisticated public projection.

Why does it seem that complicated and not this simple? Are the religious fanatics really those wayward minorities that are disliked by the ruling elites? If that be the case, how is it that the administration finds no problem in endorsing much of the demands of the fanatics (on grounds of religious freedom, preaching, commandments at court, the war lobbies, propagating god’s words, incorporating religious practice within health sector, allowing religious parties to contest and lend supports, making issues out of abortion and gay marriage, etc &hellip?

If Martin Scorcese's “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988) was so successfully picketed by the right wingers across the country, a story to tell of it was never devised. Only recently, Ken Tipton’ own story was directed for “The Heart of the Beholder” (2005), a movie that has been dubbed as “the movie Hollywood was afraid to make”.

In no uncertain terms the film captures what no previously made English language film had ever accomplished. The reality of how a sense of freedom is always granted with religious sanctions is well juxtaposed with hesitations of the ruling elites to take up responsibilities for the ruckus. Going beyond that, the true story of Tipton’s reveal how the same elites feigning ignorance and publicly maintaining distance from religious bigots are actually very much hand-in-gloves with the latter! Still going beyond that, Tipton shows how he and his family go ahead to take revenge on the believers than sit tight, shit scared.


If there has been a film that tells the story in Hollywood, this is the one to watch. Made independently, this may not hit your theatres. But if you get read this story, do spread the word! One way or the other, folks need to understand that the religious fanatics have always ruled the world, after devising a God as a justification of their rule and install few political groups who mock-fight with each other in a so-called democracy as their instrument of rule. And we, as believers in Jesus not as a tempted man or Buddha not as an avowed atheist, view the lens as prescribed, according to the terms of fanatics, to differ only in degree, not in types. And we assume that the fanatics cannot be among us, within us, even without questioning our own godly beliefs and levels of intolerances!

Tags: Saswat, Film, Christianity, Atheism