By Barnes Mawrie
India is famously known for her policy of “Unity in diversity.” For that matter, our country is truly a land of great diversity. We have been living in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious context since times immemorial. We are proud of our unique situation and in fact, India is a model for the world when it comes to co-existing in diversity. Nobody can deny that the factor that has favoured such an existence is the philosophy of tolerance and non violence (ahimsa). The credit for this goes to the two great indigenous religions of our country, Hinduism and Buddhism. Both these great religions teach non-violence and tolerance. Buddhism as well as Jainism (an offshoot of Hinduism) has gone one step further by advocating “non injury” as their doctrine of faith. It was also the resilience and non-violent attitude of the Hindus that has enabled them to stand against the violent aggression of the Muslim caliphates between the 13th and 17th centuries. There were terrible Muslim rulers like Aurangzeb (1658-1707) who were extremely violent towards the Hindus while on the other hand there were some benevolent rulers like Babur, Akbar and Shah Jahan who were highly influenced by the Hindu philosophy of non-violence and tolerance.
Gone are the days when all religions in India were co-existing in peace side by side. In recent years, the ugly head of religious intolerance has popped up. In the past few days and weeks we have witnessed a lot of attacks on churches and a disruption of religious services in Christian churches by the Hindu fundamentalists. BJP ruled states have seen the enactment of the law against forced conversion and in that pretext even the charitable works of the Christian missionaries are being questioned and halted. We have witnessed how the likes of late Fr. Stan Swamy, are being targeted by the laws for the good that they are doing on behalf of the poor and marginalized people.
With the Lok Sabha elections approaching in 2024, the BJP seems bent on taking forward the Hindutva issue. Much to everyone’s guess the inauguration of the Ayodhya Temple is going to be a major election issue on which the BJP will try to bank for votes. Besides this, the all out attempt to intimidate the minority groups, namely, the Muslims and Christians and a deliberate policy to suffocate them, are part of a strategy to achieve their agenda. As the saying goes “religion is thicker than blood,” it is evident that the attempt to attack and suppress Muslims and Christians is bound to lead to violent reactions. Imposition of Hindu religious practices on non-Hindus is being done with impunity. Reliable sources tell me that in one particular elite central medical institution here in our city, non-Hindu students are forced to attend a Saraswati Puja and to pay a certain amount towards that. Those who try to impose this, should actually be brought to book for attempts at “forced conversion.”
India is so much concerned about threats coming from Pakistan and China (it is right to do that as a sovereign nation), but at the same time the Government is mindless of the silent war that is brewing within the country itself. With all the intolerance and hostile policies towards other religions, the BJP government is only brewing dissatisfaction and driving a wedge of division among Indians. Today, Muslims and Christians can no longer trust their fellow Hindu brothers and sisters as they used to. We seem to drift further away from each other. We can no longer celebrate our diversity because the Hindu fundamentalists who are in power, believe only in an absurd uniformity and so they are trying to suppress other religious groups and through their “ghar wapasi” programme they are making every effort to make every Indian a Hindu which is of course a stupid ideology and very much against the spirit of our Constitution. What we should be afraid of today is the fact that our country is imploding. God forbid that we do not witness a civil war in any near future. The enemies are within our own population. They are those who try to sow the seeds of division; those who are hell bent on destroying our diversity; those who deliberately try to belittle the secular nature of our Constitution. It is time that every right thinking Hindu in our country raises his/her voice against these aberrations and brings back a secular government to our beloved country.
(The writer is Director, Vendrame Institute of Culture, Mawpdang. Views are personal. Email: [email protected])