Similarly, the caste system was all-pervasive. Untouchability for instance: the labourers working on my grandfather’s land were mostly bonded labourers. I have been fighting for the cause and liberation of bonded labourers for years, and can remember so clearly their faces, darkened by the sun, half naked, standing in the courtyard after the sunset. Whatever food would be left by the family, I was told to go and give them, without ever touching them, just throwing it at them. So I would dutifully go, throw it and come back. This untouchability was not confined to them. My mother and older sister would be untouchable a few days a month. I wanted to ask why my uncle or grandfather were never untouchable, and was always told to be quiet.
At night I was afraid of ghosts and would chant the Hanuman Chalissa. My siblings would ask me to chant it for them. So very early in childhood I learnt that in religion you can delegate things. And I realized over time that this whole industry of religion rests on this: people are praying for the soul of others, not for their own. I call it the multi-billion dollar soul-saving industry, all those religions.
There were also so many superstitions: crossing a black cat’s path, sneezing were considered inauspicious. All those taboos, dogmas, rituals were enmeshed in my childhood and I was never allowed to question. It felt so suffocating. Then, when I went to Calcutta for my college education, I encountered the Arya Samaj movement, of Swami Dayananda, which influenced me tremendously. He was a rebel against orthodoxy, Brahmanism, idol worship, casteism and so on. And he laid a very strong foundation based on a rational approach to understand God, the soul etc., based on the Vedas. There I imbibed the three D’s that I celebrate in my life: doubt, debate, and if necessary dissent. I consider these three the spiritual pillars. To be really spiritual, one should never accept anything as the given truth. No one should be allowed to walk away with the monopoly of truth. I have to decide what my truth is. I cannot mortgage that autonomy to anyone else. It means I am responsible. So praying has no place. Prayer at best should be preparation for action, to be strong and do things. Chanting and thinking that there will be peace in the world does not work.

... contd.