"Religious fundamentalism is nothing new," said Mr Patnaik.  "Whenever a people found the social changes frighteningly confusing, they reacted by going back to the 'fundamentals' of their religions, often in negative ways."

"Today the changes are so radical and so rapid that it's not surprising if people are confused thoroughly," added Sachin.

"Exactly.  But before we come to today's situation, I'd like to tell you something about the past.  Just to draw a parallel.  Have you heard of the Axial Age?"

"I'm afraid not."

"It's a phrase coined by Karl Jaspers in his 1949 book, The Meaning and Goal of History.  It's the years from 800 BC to 200 BC that Jaspers refers to as the Axial Age.  It was an age of immense social changes.  Prior to this period agriculture was the basic source of income for most people.  The lands were fertile, the crops were good, and consequently the surplus food was marketed.  A market-based economy soon developed.  That's somewhat similar to today's situation.  Jaspers argues that the Axial Age was the culmination of a long period of economic, and hence social and cultural, evolution.  This economic progress led to the development of the arts, cities and even empires.  In other words, civilisation advanced much in this period.  There was also a power shift.  Power shifted from the king and the priest to the market, at least partially.  When money speaks no one checks the grammar, you know.  Economic progress changed many of the traditional values.  Even the traditional gods underwent changes.  When the changes became drastic many sensitive people began to highlight the problem of the less privileged.  The peasants, for example, produced the crops that brought huge profits to the traders in the markets; but the peasants themselves remained poor.  There were also other social problems, no doubt, due to the erosion of traditional values. The sensitive thinkers of the period started thinking of new religious and philosophical solutions.  Buddhism was born in India during this period, Confucianism and Taoism in China, Zoroastrianism in Persia, and a whole lot of new thinkers emerged in Greece.  They were all reshaping the age-old values.  They were positive responses to the situation at hand."

"Not reactions."

"Right, you are.  Today's fundamentalism is meant to be a similar religious response.  In many ways it is a rejection of the dominant culture of the day, which is Western.  But the response has become extremely negative."

"Has it something to do with the subconscious minds of the people?"

Mr Patnaik was happy to note that his student was connecting the threads of his argument quickly.

"Of course, it does.  It was easier for the thinkers of the Axial Age to respond positively.  They lived in a comparatively easier world.  Their world was not as complex as ours.  The changes were not as rapid as in ours.  They didn't have to see their reality change minute by minute.  Today a whole technology is rendered obsolete by a new one within days.  Policies change day by day.  See the economic restructuring carried out by our Union Finance Minister since the last annual budget."

"I have noticed the changes in Delhi itself in the last few years.  My place, Dwarka, wasn't like what it is today. The arrival of the metro rail has changed the whole of Dwarka," said Sachin.

"Yes, the metro rail, the flyovers, the rising traffic, the decreasing living space, increasing corruption in all spheres, decreasing water supply, power cuts, and above all the change in moral values - all these are so rapid that man stands helplessly staring at an incomprehensible juggernaut that's moving towards him, determined to roll over him."

"And then the politicians will roll out their juggernauts demanding the demolition of some religious place in the name of history in order to win votes."

"The politicians are another problem.  They have mastered the art of fishing in troubled waters.  But the troubled waters play havoc with the minds of the people and leave their scars in their subconscious.  These scars come back as monsters haunting the civilisation."

"I understood," said Sachin as if recapitulating the discussion, "that fundamentalism can be positive and creative as it happened in the Axial Age, or negative as it is happening today."

"Right."

"It is negative today because people are unable to absorb the changes which are too rapid."

"Right again."

"But what has it all got to do with the subconscious mind?"

"The subconscious mind is the seat of our emotions.  Earlier religions could give answers that satisfied people's emotional turbulence.  But as we became more and more rational and scientific in our thinking, religions lost their hold on man.  Religions still exist.  But they fail to answer the problems.  That's why people go to new religions like Art-of-Living, modern versions of yoga, cults, and so on.  The more rational will go to the psychiatrist.  All these are attempts to tackle the problems in the subconscious minds.  Those who don't tackle them through these but want to stick to the obsolete religions may go back to the fundamentals of those religions.  But when they find that there's no answer there to their problems they turn violent."

"Have traditional religions really become obsolete?"

"That question will take up longer time than is available to us now.  So the next time..."