Good Society

basic building block of the society. The day we reform individuals in their thousands and tens of thousands, we shall have set ourselves well and truly on the path of successful social reform. The solution to our problems lie in Muslim-Hindu meeting, instead of Muslimruler meeting. The most urgent need of today is to hold a Hindu-Muslim dialogue at an All India level. Serious minded and influential people from both the communities should participate in this meeting. Its goal should be the securing of peace on the basis of purely non-political grounds. The representatives of both communities should hold discussions with open hearts. They must strive to put an end to controversial situation on both sides and they should discover a common basis by adopting which, both the communities can live together as good neighbours. A dialogue of this kind is exactly in accordance with the Islamic shariah. The Hudaybiya peace treaty in Islamic history is an instance of a successful dialogue of this nature. After the Prophet’s emigration in 622 the relations between Muslims and non-Muslims had been considerably deteriorated in ancient Arabia. A number of battles and skirmishes ensued, walls of prejudice and hatred barred one another coming closer. Finally the Prophet Muhammad œ had to stay for about two weeks at Hudaybiyya near Makkah in 628. Here began negotiations with non-Muslims Makkan leaders. And then according to most of their conditions a peace treaty was signed between Muslims and non-Muslims known as Hudaybiyya treat in the Islamic history. If such a dialogue is held with full justice and sincerity, a new chapter will be opened in the history of India. It is this point of Hindu Muslim relationship where the history of India is standing still. Once this problem is solved and the relations between the two communities normalized, nothing else will come in the way of India’s progress. The dialogue, if it has to succeed, should not take the form of polemics. They should not become spokesmen of their respective communities during the discussion. What should be uppermost in their minds is the vaster national interest and the path of betterness for all the communities. Both the parties will have to commit themselves for differentiating between issues and non-issues that they will not hold any matter as prestige issue; that they will not adopt the way of claim and counter claim; that they will say