The one word which have engaged news channels in the recent past is intolerance. The debate on intolerant India has cropped out of two disturbing developments, viz, the murder of an Indian writer and second an increasingly violent reaction to Indians who consume beef. As rightly said by Chetan Bhagat "Ok, wrong to label Islam as violent after stray terror attack. But why did you label my entire country intolerant after a few stray incidents?" It has been portrayed, what has skulked into Indian living now is a certain level of ruffian aggression and anger which is awfully new. India, despite having a huge history and legacy of insolence and hostility, is now debating rising extremism and the dwindling tolerant space.
Intermittent occurrences don't change India's history of tolerance. In today’s times, when Intolerance is being sermonized to India, let us look at the very concept of tolerance, and the Indian way of acceptance. In 52 AD, St Thomas, one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, landed in Palayur, Kerala to spread the word, in short, to spread Christianity. The Viceroy of Goa, Antonio de Noronha issued an order for inhabitants of Portuguese rule whereby nobody under the law was allowed to construct a temple or repair one without permission and by 1567, 300 Hindu temples had been destroyed. Rituals of Hindu marriages, sacred thread wearing and cremation were banned by law. The Islamic entry into India happened via Malik Deenar in Kerala who constructed the first mosque in 629 AD and after that, via the Arab traders, Islam came to the Malabar coast and many of the locals were converted. Despite all the ridicule, the driving out of the natives, and myriad racial killing, every religion survived and moreover flourished.
Incidences of communal violence continued in the recent history and in August 1947, across the Indian subcontinent, communities that had coexisted for almost a millennium attacked each other in a terrifying outbreak of sectarian violence, with Hindus and Sikhs on one side and Muslims on the other. In 1960s Freedom of Religion Acts encouraged Hindu efforts to stop Christian conversion. Christians in India faced a wave of violence between 1964 and 1996 where church graves were despoiled. The anti-Sikh killings of 1984. The 2002 Gujarat riots which caused deaths, thousands injured and tens of thousands displaced and the haunting 1992 blasts in Mumbai. The memories of the horror continue, as do the scars, but the desire to go on keeps an Indian tolerant. The religion has been able to adapt all these other religions into an umbrella. India loves it's diverse Gods which makes us a beautiful tolerant nation.
So now, is politics the culprit or is it the media which is sensationalizing events and forecasting them as national shame? When people are lynched, massacred, face blackened, abused, it is a serious failure of the law and order but in no way denote that we are becoming an intolerant nation. It is the social media, the vigilant media, activists and the political parties sensationalizing events and playing the blame game. Riots have taken place in the Congress-led government both at the Centre and the state. The 1984 riots against Sikhs, The Muzaffarnagar Riots, the killing of Kashmiri pundits, all happened during the Congress rule. The smearing of ink on Kulkarni's face and the cancellation of Ghulam Ali's concert in Mumbai are just instances of playing politics.[1] All the government and municipal resolutions ordering meat bans were issued by Congress-led governments in the year 1964, 1994 and 2004 respectively[2]. The catch is that the beef controversy and the returning of the awards ploy has disappeared post Bihar elections. So, what and why was the brouhaha all about?
India, from ages has been multicultural, multiethnic and multi dimensional with a vibrant democracy and as rightly said by the Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley can never be intolerant. Though religious intolerance is an undeniable reality to all religious groups but the essence is to coexist serenely. Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are 5 of the biggest religions in the world. Over the decades, these religions have shaped the course of history and had a reflective influence on the trail of the human race and these sundry occurrences is nothing but sporadic intolerance. Lastly, it can rightly be said that the Islamic world and the Hindu world and the Christian world are all on the same side and if we fall prey to the media and the political gimmick, we will soon be against them all.
[2] http://scroll.in/article/755111/meat-ban-irony-how-a-congress-imposed-order-was-cut-to-size-during-bjp-rule
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