10 things you can get away with if you are religious.

Scared of being an outlaw? Well you do not have to be if you do it in the name of your faith. Here are 10 things you can do in India and no one will dare to call you a criminal as long as you have a religious aura. So have no fear and enjoy :

1 ) Evade Tax :  Okay the first one is pretty much obvious. It happens legally as well as illegally almost everywhere in the world. Religious organizations and personalities consider it their birth right to swindle the public out of the revenue due to them. By a rough estimate almost 5000 crores of Rupees flow in to India. The largest receiver of the booty is a religious trust run by a late godman who among other things has been accused of child abuse.According to the law none of the money that is received as a donation can be diverted towards a profit making effort, well it would be safe to say that no one really follows that. Oh and the fact that religion is not taxed in the first place directly and only donations for wholly religious purposes are taxed at 50% but most faith based trusts can get wholly tax exempt status. You only have to turn a few pages of a daily paper to read about anonymous donations of diamond studded crowns or ornaments, donations of bullion or other things to realize that people are effectively donating their ill gotten untaxed income to seek forgiveness in their next lives.

2 ) Be a perv : Okay this one is going to touch a few nerves. In a country that looks down upon public nudity of any sorts it is funny that if you are naked in the public for religious purposes. It is quite alright. God forbid if you just want to frolic around in your birthday suit for your own pleasure. There are whole type of fierce mendicants, yogis, monks etc etc happily walking about butt naked. The police will not dare touch them for the fear of being lynched by their angry and equally fierce devotees. However a touch of innocent public nakedness is not all that happens in the garb of faith. Sex orgies in cremation grounds, hanging things by your genitalia and kidnapping minors  for forced sexual acts is quite common. One would be forgiven almost every depravity, in fact you might even get a governmental minister or two to protect your arse depending on who you are just as long as you have them on your followers list. Oh and one of the perks of being a religious leader in India is that you can always release a sex tape. If you do it as a lay person you will be ruined forever but no one cares after a while if you are holier than everyone else.

3 ) Encroach Land : Whether it be private or whether it be government land. Religious organizations of all shapes and sizes are sitting on billions of dollars worth of land in India. Some of them have been doing so for eons and really have no titles to these properties. Some have raised structures over these properties and if the government ever tries to demolish these there is always a danger of a riot or two. Any emerging yoga guru or mini godman’s first act is to open an ashram or 30. Where they get the money to buy this land is seldom investigated. Some of them genuinely get donated patches of land and yet some others decide to just take over a piece or two. No questions asked.

4 ) Start a riot : Even in normal circumstances, Indians are easy to offend. Bring in religious matters and they get quite testy. Strangely they are seldom tolerant of views that differ from theirs. One community openly makes fun or says disparaging things about the others. Various animals are invoked in internet chat rooms to torment each other. Blasphemy after blasphemy follows. Sometimes though things go out of hand and a riot ensues. So far the Hindus have fought the Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs. Its usually Majority VS. Minority though there can be other instances. Several people die, billions are lost in business and many political leaders emerge after every such instance.

5 ) Suppress individual choices : You can get alcohol banned, you can get beef banned, hell one town even managed to get eggs banned. Depends on the geography and the religion but you can get things that you do not endorse banned entirely. It does not matter that there may be people around you that do not share your beliefs. Please adjust. Its ridiculous how religion has managed to elbow its way in to a secular state and impose its will through legislation passed by the state. They do not consider for a second how the laws will affect the broader populace except the community that endorses such a law. The right to live your life the way you want….Forget about it.

6 ) Sell miracle cures : Prayers can heal. Well in some cases they might actually. In others though its more doubtful. We have yoga gurus who make ridiculous claims of healing AIDS and Cancer. In any other country these people would have been stopped from making such claims unless they could demonstrate the efficacy of their claims in a scientific manner. No sir in India you can actually buy TV time to go on air and sell your magic potions for ridiculous amounts of money. Just turn on any channel after midnight and you can buy yourself a cure for everything from Arthritis to Zadik Barak Levin Syndrome.

7 ) Waste public money : The amount of tax payer money that goes in to overtly religious events is ridiculous. Not only does the government spend millions on sending people to pilgrimages, it spends more still on providing security and transport. It effectively is providing subsidies in a secular state for people to practice their faith which is a private affair. Our leaders spend precious public resources attending religious events using transport paid for by the public, security paid for by the public and of course they donate public land to some pretty rich religious organizations.  No one ever dares to question these actions because everyone is afraid of starting a riot anyway.

8 ) Silence all free speech : There are some pretty nasty laws in India that were enacted to keep a semblance of communal harmony. Well if everyone minded their own business anyway there would be communal harmony but in any case these laws prevent free speech which is a fundamental right under the constitution. Politicians and their religious overlords can often use these laws to intimidate people who speak their mind. Banning books should be unheard of in a democracy but its quite usual in the worlds largest one.

9 ) Bring life to a halt : Well this can be both literal and otherwise. Every day or if i dare say every moment there is one faith or another taking out a procession in some city in India. At all times of the day or night. When this happens people choke narrow streets or even highways and block all traffic. God help you if you are an ailing patient in an ambulance or if you are waiting for an emergency crew to rescue you some place when one of these events take place. Although God will probably not be able to. These processions happen and all traffic laws that exist anywhere in the world are put aside. Why? Who gives permissions for these events? Hold your breath. The Police do, they even provide them with escorts…

10 ) Do Drugs  and get drunk: This is a fairly innocent one in my mind but all anti narcotic laws in India can not stop you from doing drugs if you do it for a religious high. Cannabis, opium whatever it may be, you name it. There are events where alcohol is distributed without any regard to public drunkenness laws However if you want to get high on your own you will end up behind the bars pretty quickly.