Peace is vital to the cause of mankind. All people everywhere want peace.
They do not adore war or love violence. This obviously does not mean that they will always accept peace of any kind at any cost. A just peace cannot be an imposed peace.
Sometimes peace is a regressive and passive state of affairs, eroding all moral dividing lines. In the face of injustice and tyranny, people will opt out of an imposed peace. Peace is not a subterfuge to continue the domination of the powerful.
It is not a sheep’s submission to oppression, or a consent to be led like a lamb to the slaughterhouse. Indeed, virtually all traditions enjoin us to demolish an unjust and tyrannical order. One cannot allow the tyrant to prevail.
That said, we all want peace. It is the basis for the enjoyment of every other value in the good life. A question then arises as to what is it that gives us a lasting peace, whether within or between the nations.
If we examine the issue deeply, we will find that it is the habit of tolerance and respect for diverse points of view that brings peace. I know that for some tolerance is a bad word, loaded with seeds of discord and alienation, leading to ruptures. It signifies the act of putting up with something, even if one finds it distasteful and unacceptable, inculcating an attitude of non-engagement.
In this sense, tolerance is a pallid caricature, and I would venture a form of moral isolation or aloofness, because it is a withdrawal from dealing with others. However, tolerance is more than putting up with something which is distasteful. It is not just passive coexistence without violence.
It is just not a sterile separateness but fruitful togetherness, enriching cooperation. It is accepting the diversity of the world as something to be celebrated and not shunned, not even as something to be accepted reluctantly. In the most profound sense, it is an engagement not only with others but also with oneself.
In the face of something distasteful, the truly tolerant person is one who asks, why is it distasteful? True tolerance is in the first place a self-questioning. Why does one find a practice or a viewpoint or a custom distasteful? What does the feeling of the distaste say about one’s own values and preferences? Tolerance is based then on a reasoned inquiry into the validity of one’s own likes and dislikes. It is not enough simply to say, I find this habit or belief distasteful but I shall accept it.
It is the ability to overcome the blindness and deafness to see or listen to people who hold the different viewpoints and to question one’s own. The second necessary attribute of tolerance is to go further and to ask, why is the other person or group or community or nation behaving the way it is? What values or ideas do they hold which has led them to do and say certain things which I find distasteful and offensive? In other words, true tolerance rests on a real attempt to comprehend others, to understand their worldviews, their motives and intentions. As I begin to comprehend them, I may well begin to find their ideas and actions less objectionable.
I should see at least that what they are doing and saying is not arbitrary or irrational or malicious but consistent with the traditions and modes. Surely nobody is exempt from the requirement of logical rationality. But people live their lives in situations already structured for them by others.
One cannot rob life of this human condition, which lends life its many diversities and accounts for contradictions. You have to think of them with compassion and with gentleness. After all this, it may be that I still find the ideas or practices in question distasteful.
But now I am in a position to begin the third movement of an act of true tolerance. I can now initiate a real meaningful dialogue, interaction with others as part of an attempt to bridge differences and combat the legacy of intolerance. Having turned inward to question my own values and beliefs, having then made an attempt to comprehend the others’ point of view, I am in a position to awaken the same curiosity in others to do the same.
Every tradition has its own doctrines and systems of tolerance. I think if one were to investigate the matter thoroughly, one would find that they would be in agreement with the three-part argument I have made here—self-questioning, even self-criticism, comprehension of the other, or what might be called empathy, and dialogue. This is a worthy notion of tolerance, and it is one that we in India, with our many religions, communities, castes, sects, and groups, have a history of practicing.
It is a fact corroborated by our history that in the Indian subcontinent for centuries, men and movements laid the foundation for interaction and communication between various religious communities. More than two million years ago, Emperor Ashoka evoked a liberal version and carved it on a rock. In these words, one should honor another man’s sect, for by doing so, one increases the influence of one’s own sect and benefits that of other men’s, while by doing otherwise, one diminishes the influence of one’s own sect and harms the other man’s.
In the medieval centuries, the classic tradition of religious tolerance in India was powerfully reiterated by the bhakti saints, who subscribed to the principles of tolerance, leading to a harmonizing process which sprang from needed articulation, explanation, and reconciliation. The bhakti movement emerged in India when people were lost in dogmatic controversies, when religious people became sectarian and exclusive. It called upon people to look upon all human beings as kindred, belonging to one family.
In the Islamic communities of India, the liberal tradition was echoed by Sufi saints. Sufis began to come to India from faraway places around the 11th century A.D. and made India their home. One of the first to arrive in our country, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, remains as one of the most loved and respected by people of different persuasions.
It was their humanistic philosophy which wove the social fabric of our country and defined the basis for day-to-day interaction among people. They regarded all the human beings belonging to whatever belief and in living whichever part of the world as the creation of one God and as such worthy of one’s love and respect. Loving the creation was one of the most important ways of expressing one’s love for the creator.
They held the world by synthesis of ideas, values, and idioms, which metamorphosed religious philosophies, which had taken birth in diverse social circumstances, into a set of values which was conducive to the social environment of the subcontinent. Dara Shikoh translated Upanishads and wrote a book called The Beating of the Two Oceans of Sufism and Vedantism. He propounded that these two philosophies revealed the same aspects, an emphasis on the transcendental remoteness of the divine as well as the loving intimacy of the supreme and that all men of any disposition are a potential candidate for the divine status.
Figures like those of Guru Nanak and Kabir, epitomizing the blend of ethos and values, became part of India’s folklore. The name of Guru Nanak evoked deep respect and reverence among the common men of India who sung for centuries Baba Nanak, Sant Fakir, Hindu ka Guru, Muslim ka Pir. Kabir linked Hinduism and Islam in a deep relationship of respect and understanding and thereby enabled a powerful coming together of these two communities.
Kabir put it thus, God asking the devotee, O saviour, where dost thou seek me? Lo, I am beside thee. I am neither in the temple nor in a mosque. I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash.
O sadhu, God is the breath of all breath. The love, reverence and popularity of these holy men has remained as fresh as ever in the hearts and minds of common Indian people irrespective of religion, caste or sect. These have stood the test of time and proved their worth.
Their gospel of tolerance, love and understanding brought peace to people, triggered off a wave of creativity which enriched the society and filled the hearts with contentment and joy. What is important to remember in this context is that the synthesis of value system evolved by the Bhakti and Sufi movements was not at the expense of the basic tenets of Hinduism or Islam. People belonging to these communities continued to observe their fundamental religious precepts independent of any social or political obstacles.
What these movements taught Hindus and Muslims was that it was possible to interact with each other, to live together peacefully, to learn from each other, to enjoy life to its full, to contribute to social life together without abandoning one’s faith. Poet Mir Taqi Mir has expressed this thought eloquently in a beautiful couplet thus: “It is the splendor of His beauty that illuminates everything, be it the flame in Kaaba or the damp in the temple of Somnath.”
Today, in fact, it is precisely this fear of losing one’s religious identity, one’s faith and belief system that has created a fear psychosis among communities which leads to further mutual suspicion, dislike, hatred and eventually to violence.
We have got to get rid of this misperception, misunderstanding and fear if we need to build a modern nation around the plurality of our culture by channelizing this diversity into greater national good by creating unity through diversity. And there is no better way of doing this than to remind ourselves of our past in which sharing social norms and values was not at the expense of one’s faith. Swami Vivekananda looked upon all religions as different means provided for imperfect mankind to reach completeness.
He firmly held the Christian is not to become a Hindu or Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian, but each must assimilate the spirit of others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth. He propounded the virtue of tranquility, patience and hope that would make for the homogeneity of the world along with the riches of its variety. Each man, he said, shall then sparkle like a flame in a lamp in a windless place that does not flicker.
Today’s psychological and physical ghettos which we have erected between communities and people stand as blatant distortions and shameless lies in the face of this aspect of shared experience. We need to remove this cancer from our society by learning from our history that tolerance was not merely meant to be an uneasy coexistence but rather a shared, sympathetic, well-understood experience and a conscious decision to enjoy life together. Adversarial relationships should be replaced by mutual understanding in which men would learn to live in peace and harmony for otherwise, in the event of intolerance, as we know of human nature, aggression and violence rather than peace is likely to be the cause. Societies would get splintered, countries would get divided.
The shared experience of life among communities had actually pervaded all walks of life while a common man’s day-to-day life was defined broadly in the terms which we have mentioned above. Other sections of society too had similar experiences.
We know that there were many able Hindus who served in high administrative positions for even religious-inclined Muslim rulers and vice versa. There were also Muslim scholars who studied Hindu philosophy and Hindu men of high learning who acquired deep knowledge of Islamic culture and religion. It was this value of close interaction and amiability going much beyond mere acceptance of each other’s existence as fate had complied, which defined relations between not only Hindus and Muslims but among the other Indian communities.
Today, in a country that remains diverse and differentiated and in the midst of economic, social, political and international turbulence, we would do well to remind ourselves of this history. Now, it may be objected that ordinary men and women in their daily lives do not have time or not well informed enough to engage in this three-part exercise of tolerance. This is a valid objection.
Our daily lives demand much from us in India. However, while we cannot all be expected to undertake this kind of rigorous analysis required of true tolerance, this is not the case for our leaders, our intellectuals, our artists or educated and professional classes. I do feel that we have been let down by these vital sections of our society and I urge that there is still time for them to own up to their shortcomings and stand up to meet the challenges of intolerance.
They have an obligation towards the younger generation. It should not be let down like a lost generation. It is the responsibility of these classes to think on how to handle some of our contemporary differences where intolerances surface all too often.
Peace dwells and harmony flourishes where compassion, tolerance, sensitivity and understanding exist. The vision of the good society thus involves not the repetition of dogma or observance of ceremonies but the transformation of one’s nature. We must behold the truth and become what we behold.
There is in human nature a desire for beauty, for moral aspirations, the regard of fellow human beings, reverence for something greater than oneself in the universe and so on. These impulses give warmth and colour to life’s fabric, its richness, fullness and diversity. We need to see this as our true nature and to control our lower passions.
All of our philosophers and statesmen have emphasised that we are in a nightmare world because we do not realise sufficiently that good life consists in making of the self, in the refashioning of our nature and not in the repetition of hymns and observance of ceremonies. The individual is a self-making process. Man is not pinned down like a stone.
Man has a great ability to change the quality of his life by the way he thinks, by the way he lives. A strict discipline which binds our nature is the demand of our age. Through tolerance, India has always been able to provide to its sons of different faiths unity, togetherness and a life of love and peace.
Great teachers have shown us how this can be done. It is for our intellectuals, artists, educated and professional classes to weave this noble vision into our everyday and collective life. The creativity of the world of diversity and peaceful coexistence can be the basis of unparalleled human progress.
In India, this task has to be approached not merely as a political challenge but also as a spiritual pilgrimage. All over history was a preparation for this great act of dedication and fulfilment, evolving a system of peace based on shared goals and a common vision. Throughout the ages, endless inundations of men of diverse creeds, cultures and races have come to this land from distant regions and different climes.
India has welcomed them all. They have met and gathered, given and taken, and got mingled and merged. India’s tradition has thus been epitomised in the following noble lines of Rabindranath Tagore.
“None shall be turned away from the shores of this vast sea of humanity, that is, my India.”
India has never been exclusive but inclusive. Its culture is based in accepting and enlightening the self as it would grow with contacts with the best from outside.
Indeed, India has sent out to the world a message of goodwill, again enshrined and proclaimed in one of Rabindranath Tagore’s verses, which reads as follows. “Day and night, thy voice goes out from den to den, calling Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains. Round thy throne assemble Parsis, Muslims and Christians.”
“Offerings are brought to thy shrine by the East and the West to be woven in the garland of life. Thou bringest the hearts of all peoples into harmony of one’s life. Thou dispenser of India’s destiny, victory, victory, victory to thee.”
It is thus that the genius of India has been able to find unity in diversity by assimilating the best of all creeds and cultures. We have to rededicate ourselves to this if we have to keep India of Sardar’s making strong and united.
This is part of ThePrint’s Great Speeches series. It features speeches and debates that shaped modern India.