Legal & Religious Aspects Of Different Religions In The Film "Oh My God!"
Oh My God!, the movie which deals with many legal and religious aspects of our country in a very comical and virtual way. It shows that how a middleclass atheist businessman faces life crisis and believed by everyone that it’s because of his atheism. It was said that it is because he doesn’t believe in god that earthquake happened and destroys his antique shop and how he goes to insurance company ask them to pay for it and been refused to be paid on the basis of it being an ‘act of god’ which is a legal term and going to be discussed here later.
Now the question arises that how an atheist would deal with an act related to god. So, here film takes an interesting turn where he comes and sues god. Then how notice goes to all religious priests and we got to know the ugly truth of the various “god men” (who are referred as salesmen here) who aren’t in fact spiritual in the name of god. It shows the mirror to the society when it comes to the various radical and fanatical forms of worships and religion. It shows how religion and politics can go hand in hand and has become a business.
As we move ahead in the film we come across many legal issues. One of them goes like this it was shown in the movie that a man sues god. Legally, a jurist person can only be sued or can sue but clearly god is not a jurist person. This is applied on common law, civil law and in virtually every legal system. The competent in a suit must have a real name by which he can be known as juristic person. Another important issue that came up in the movie was act of god. If we pay attention on the plot of the movie we will get to know that this is the issue the whole movie revolves around. How the protagonist reaches to insurance company for the compensation of the damages but returns from there when they say that the event that occurred was an “act of god”.
An act of god is a natural disasters or calamities which are beyond human control and which cannot be caused by human beings. This term also includes that these events cannot be avoided by any use of caution or preventive measures. Damages caused by natural disasters such as, earthquakes, floods, etc. are usually covered by property insurance policies. But if policy doesn’t cover it, the policyholder will not get compensation. Clearly, the man in the film didn’t read the document so couldn’t be paid for the damages.
Moreover, as shown in the movie the protagonist was shown representing himself in the court because of vagueness in the case no lawyer was ready to fight his case because the defendant was uncertain and can’t be sued. Finally a handicapped Muslim lawyer asks him to fight his own case to which the man agrees. In real life as well if someone cannot afford to have lawyer. Heshe is provided a lawyer by court on the basis of different cases but if the court also couldn’t provide you lawyer you can represent yourself in court. If we put limelight on one more issue that was raised in the film was when his case was accepted in court, returning from there he was attacked by some goons who were angered by his suing of god. In the name of religion people forget that religion also teaches us not to use violence.
Legally as well, according to article 19(1)(a) of Indian constitution, all the citizens have right to freedom of speech and expression which was violated in the film as well. So, due to this right group violence against expression live in a democratic country and we should be free to express ourselves and we have laws made for it as well but when it comes to religion people go out of control and don’t consider law at all. The political as well as legal issue in the movie was that of religion as well. The film discusses this fact that religious charitable trust is exempt to pay tax which is also advantaged by rich god men who are rich only because of tones of money is deposited in the name of religious charity. Again just because religion is a sensitive issue people don’t pay attention that a large amount of money is deposited in the name of devotion but in reality is used to these god men richer.
This movie was a comical satire of many legal as well as political issues. The issues were fictionally hypothetical but are discussed because of its relation with legal issues. Legal issues like act of god, right to expression, representing yourself in courts, etc. are some of the issues that are discussed in this paper. There were more of the legal issues in the movie that are not discussed in here like defamation on the part of god men when they call the protagonist god when in reality he was not and he was offended by it as well.
At last, I would like to conclude by saying that some random individual comes into picture and can make you a completely different person who is afraid at every stance of life in the name of religion. In other words, god men in the name of religion is controlling the society as it is discussed earlier religion is a sensitive issue it makes people weak to think about the reality. Different religions are made not because they follow different god because they follow different ideologies, rituals etc. but as we are growing rapidly the religions are coming in our way and in somewhat way exploiting us by differentiating us from people on the basis of religion or bringing fear in us.
