One Another Test!!!

I usually stay away from politics but sometimes it becomes too tempting not to open my mouth. Criticising is easy but when good things happen appreciation is necessary.

I read in the news that few Indian states are going to introduce new laws to restrict religious conversion in the name of “love”. Because love can be (and mostly) fake, just like our politicians' promises. And, politicians too believe that love is as fake as their promises.

I support this move. There should be a restriction in marriages between people belonging to different religions.

Naturally, a question arises. If not for love, then for what people will move to another religion? My guess is - to seek an answer, to pacify the restless mind. But converting due to that also should be restricted because whatever answer a person searches may present in his present religion and that answer may not be present in the religion he is shifting to. Too sad if that happens. Many bureaucratic processes going waste if that’s the case. I can't imagine the disappointment of that person's state.

Therefore, to save that person, I suggest that there should be a test conducted for shifting religion process: NETRC (#1 to #2), which is,

National Eligibility Test for Religious Conversion, where #1 denotes present religion and #2 denotes desired religion.

Why present and future? The candidate might not have studied/understood the holy book(s) of the present religion. He may not even be aware of where to find his answers. He shouldn't do the blunder of moving to another side without understanding his present side up to a decent level.

Similarly, his future place should be having the answers he seeks. Otherwise, what's the point of doing this whole exercise? A question may arise here - if he knows that the other side has answers (meaning his quest is over - why to conduct this test. Well, that's the beauty of the human mind. It never gets satisfied. It may ask another question tomorrow and at that time this person should have the 'faith' that his questions will be answered there. 

It is all about faith. If you believe blindly, half of your question is already answered and this half will somehow convince the other half and ...voila, you are enlightened. 

Let's come to the procedures. See, I'm only trying to simplify the work. 

Syllabus:

The syllabus is simple to say and difficult to do. There's no syllabus as such but the person should read the holy books of both religions, any other books which are written by philosophers, and who consider themselves as philosophers, neo religious experts/advisers (they will be dressed differently from normal people, not that it ought to be like that but just to send the first impression that they're different), and any related books published from the prehistoric time to the time the exam hall bell rings.

Questions will be objective type, and answer sheets will have circles - the correct choice circle should be filled using a pencil. Why?

See, the manual correction may lead to malpractice. If the answer sheet is fed into the computer, we can be assured that the computer will not show any partiality just because-  the machine which the entire world depends for many critical jobs in almost every fields now - doesn't belong to any religion! 

If a person successfully clears the test (if at all), he will have to face an interview process. Interviewing panel will consist of two groups, one belonging to #1 and the other to #2. Appointed experts will question the candidate from their own knowledge. One point to note here is, the panel should question the candidate and should not involve in debate among themselves.

There is a major flaw, which you may have noticed. Yes, you guessed it correctly! Who would like to give away such a candidate, who had gained wealthy knowledge in multiple religions? Therefore both teams may give full marks to him and finally, he will end up in a tie or to say it in a more practical sense, he will end up in a dead-end!!

How sad! All that hard work goes waste. 

Don't worry. I have solutions for that too. In case of a tie, which will be the case, a rapid-fire round will be conducted, and hmm...that too will be biased and end up in equal credentials!

So finally he will undergo a very old test - flipping a coin!!

Heads - he stays in #1, Tails - he moves to #2!!!

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Thanks for reading,

R. Bharathram