Indian society is at cross-roads. There is a growing intolerance among people, almost everywhere. The worst part of the whole thing is that the ruling party at the Centre, is pushed by its main force --- the RSS -- to simply play its own agenda.
There has been systematic attack on Churches, mosques and places of worship, not belonging to the Hindu religion. The RSS openly claims that India is a Hindu Majority Nation, and that all other religions should rather "obey" whatever they do, or their agenda - whatever that may be.
Sadly, the Prime Minister is never openly criticizing the RSS or whatever the leaders of RSS have said in the past one year.
Moe dangerous methodologies are seen. What has not gone unnoticed, is a brazen attempt to bring in huge streams of thought that reinforce the main agenda of the RSS, that only their so-called discipline and even Yoga, can be the Nirvana for the entire India and its people.
All this tamasha happens at a time, when the economy is sluggish, the petrol prices have gone through the roof, the price of every essential commodity is becoming so huge and is hurting the common man, and so forth. No one even thinks of doing anything meaningful here.
Some rather silly schemes are branded as great achievements. For example, an accident insurance scheme has been introduced, with very low premium. This is a really absurd way of fooling the people. The scheme is good, but this is touching the tip of the iceberg.
No systematic efforts have ever been made to reform the education system, through job oriented courses, skill oriented training, and so on. No one has even thought about methodologies to revitalize the nation, through some meaningful schemes, that will promote employment.
As if to cover up all these weaknesses, the Government is dishing out some statement or the other, trying to justify what the RSS is attempting to do. Even the President of the United States of America is on record, badly criticizing the agenda of the RSS.
Be that as it may, the consolidation of the Dalits is now being attempted in entirely wrong directions, with absolutely corrupted politicians pushing their own agenda. It is indeed a great achievement that there several hundreds of thousands of dalits, now studying in schools and colleges. It is also a great achievement that some dalits have even proved very good administrators and so on.
However, the politicians who seem to be advancing their rights are aligning themselves with political parties that do not even have an iota of faith in doing anything good for the dalits. This is intolerance of the worst order. How can we have a situation where every single leader, wants to push his own agenda?
What are the solutions? The only way in which this can be done, is to bring the public to openly debate the ill effects of the growing aspects of intolerance, in all social media, the press, television and so on. There should be no attempt to justify the culture of intolerance.
Each and every Indian has every right to practice his or her own religion. Even while remaining in his or her religion, he or she can do something good to people of other religions too. For example, fifteen years ago in Trichy, there was a sudden fire in a marriage hall. The entire place was burning. A group of Muslims were proceeding to a mosque, and upon noticing the commotion in the marriage hall, each one of them pounced into the marriage hall, made efforts to put out the fire and also helped save many lives. They also assisted the fire forces in their duties.
This is real patriotism. This is real tolerance, and this act was widely welcomed by millions of Hindus, around the world. Several articles written in the social media, helped the cause of patriotism. The act of the Muslims was so good. When questioned why they did what they did, they immediately said that doing good to others is a basic human trait, and even Allah would forgive them for having not prayed on time!!!
Why not take up such cases of good, of great tolerance, of help and kindness and make every single Indian understand that tolerance towards other religions is something that needs to be appreciated and should become a way of life?
Shri Abdul Kalam, the ex-President of India, was a great example of a person, who belongs to the Muslim community, but has reached out to people, irrespective of caste or creed or color, to do good to them. His speeches are even today a superb hit, with students who feel motivated after hearing him. All that he tries to do, is to help the vast majority of people to understand the virtues of hard work, sincerity and dedication.
This is exactly what is needed at all levels.
What is also needed are efforts to reach out to a huge number of people --- lakhs of them, by educating them on various aspects of other religions and what is seriously good about each religion, irrespective of what they preach, or try to focus as their main teachings. This can never be achieved if the people are not able to live in peace, and are divided. Professionals, like sociologists, scientists, lawyers, IT professionals and so on, should do something more dramatic and should spread the message of tolerance, more, like never before.
We need a huge movement to focus on peace, on good aspects of each religion and never encourage attempts to attack mosques, or churches. This is something that we, as Indians, need to systematically do, if we were to keep the RSS under check.
This task cannot be delayed any longer.