PEACE IN PLURAL SOCIETIES — Reflections

Srinagar in 1968. It called for making it a cognizable offence on the grounds of promoting hatred between communities. Some other steps were also mooted. A few laws and rules were also passed. But still, nothing practical came out of this. And so, even today, the situation in the country is about the same as it was in 1947 as far as the issue of communalism is concerned. The fact is that religion in itself is not a problem. Religion is an important part of human life. It is the political exploitation of religion by some opportunist people that is the problem. What was the reason for this failure? The basic reason is that this issue of communal conflict has been treated simply as a law and order problem. However, the nature of the issue is actually quite different. It is not essentially a law and order problem. Rather, it has essentially to do with the lack of intellectual development and social awareness. To solve the problem, what is basically required is to properly educate people and promote proper thinking and discernment. People should know what to do and what to abstain from. They should learn to think before acting. Only this sort of an 'aware' society is one where communal harmony can flourish. Religious Differences Some basic issues that relate to the vital question of properly educating people about the issue of communalism need to be clarified. One of these relates to the issue of religious differences. There are, in fact, obvious and clear differences between the different religions. For instance, some religions believe in Monism, and others in Monotheism. Some religions preach the discovery of truth by oneself, while others believe that such truth is revealed by God through messengers. Some people think that these religious differences are themselves the root cause for communal conflict. They believe that communal harmony can exist only when these differences are somehow destroyed. ‘Bulldoze them all!’ they demand, but of course this is so completely impractical that it is not even worth talking about. Faced with the reality of religious differences, some people seek to somehow or the other try to ‘prove’ that all religions are, actually, one