India, the mother land of religious humanist M.K. Gandhi, is a land of heterogeneous racial, lingual, religious and social groups. It is regarded as a model for religious harmony. All the major religions practised in the world have their followers in India. Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism owe their origin to Indian subcontinent. Christianity and Islam were also given a warm reception and space to flourish in India. With the advent of these religions India became a multi-religious country. In spite of the diversity of religions, languages and castes, the people of India have continued to adhere to the basic ideas of humanism, tolerance and respect towards all religions, making India a model of secularism.
All the people of India are held together by a shared understanding and a bond of nationalism. There existed a notion of ‘one-ness’, ‘we-ness’ and indianness throughout the country. Every true Indian was proud to be part of India because of its feature of ‘unity in diversity’.
Unfortunately, the unity and communal harmony is being severely attacked by some religious and political fundamentalist parties. The religious and political fundamentalism and intolerance resurfaced with new vigour recently after the fundamentalist political parties got the driver’s seat in Indian temple of power.
Today, the notion ‘unity in diversity’ seems to have lost its grip. The occurrence of communal riots, political violence and ethnic animosity is disturbing our social peace. Many intellectuals return their awards back to the state, bollywood megastars are directed to leave the country, fans of opposite sports team are being booked, beef eaters are given advice to settle in Pakistan and even killed, secular minded people are painted black, people working for heavenly causes are deemed as antinationals, communal riots are being fanned, programmes like Ghar wapsi and Bahu Lao Beti Bachao are being patronised.
The back room boys of fundamentalist parties are tarnishing the image of democracy and nationalism by burning alive the nationals of the same country for pretty small issues.
These fundamentalists never tread beyond their own thinking. They never like to change what they think to be correct in spite of contrary evidence. They often break every rule in the book to keep their opponents mum. Those who think the other way are being cowed down. Their tongues are threatened to be cut out. Even, the elected members, having opposite opinion, are being assaulted by the leaders and followers of fundamentalist parties.
These incidents have created an atmosphere of mistrust and alienation among some sections of the society. Incidents like these, if continued, can give a severe blow to the nationalism and national integration.
Fundamentalists, whether religious or political, want to gain total control over everything in this secular democracy. Growing Fundamentalism can prove disastrous for this country having multiple diversities. Here no one can lord his word over the others because no one has authority to rule over others except under law.
Here the sin is to be hated if not the sinner. The evils like fundamentalism, religious or non religious, intolerance, prejudice and discrimination of any type must be rejected for the sake of national integration. It is only in a tolerant society , that man can prosper and work for the overall good of the nation and humanity. Hope that communal harmony and mutual trust will return to this secular and world’s most populous democracy otherwise the situation of India could be no different than the prevailing situation of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
So, we, the people of sovereign, secular and democratic India need liberty in every field of life and want to see unity in the country because, as always, the whole is more stronger than the sum of its constituent parts.
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