Address the Roots of Intolerance and Insecurity

“Each one prays to God according to his own light. Whom am I to judge and say that I pray better than you do? I don’t judge the Muslims, Parsis, Christians, and Jews. If I am a seeker of Truth, it is quite sufficient for me. I cannot say that because I have seen God in this way, the whole world must see Him in that way. All religions are true and equal. That, however, is not to say that they are equally true in religious terms or are absolutely true. Another man’s religions is true for him, as mine is for me. I cannot be a judge of his religion. That is my fundamental position”

The expression of insecurity by prominent persons right from the people holding high Constitutional position to the so-called celebrities and the arrest of radicalised, Islamic State inspired individuals by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) may be independent events, but there is a common thread that connects them, that the fundamentalism of ‘believers’ who do not consider other religious practices or sages who propounded different paths to be true. Unless we address this root cause, we cannot find the way out of the fabricated intolerance and insecurity.

Expressing insecurity and disdain for living in Bharat in the name of perceived insecurity and intolerance is in fashion nowadays. No act of violence can be justified in democracy on any ground, but when the same voices expressing concern over an incident and express their ‘insecurity’, simultaneously stand for terrorists, Maoists and criminals or justify their acts in the name of same insecurity, then their intention definitely comes under the scanner.

Take the case of recent arrests of eleven IS inspired radicalised Muslims by the NIA while bursting a module called Harkat-Ul-Harb-e-Islam. This is not the first incident of IS inspired modules being cracked by the top anti-terror agency. In 2015, as many as twenty individuals were arrested from Hyderabad for planning a terror attack in the country. In 2016-17, many individuals showing radicalised tendencies through another module called Omar-Al-Hind in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. If this was not sufficient, recently a French investigation team has visited Kochi to question two ISIS terrorists who were nabbed from the Kanakamala ISIS camp, in Kannur district, Kerala to examine their links in the Paris attack of 2015. From Bihar to interiors of Kerala many youths are influenced by this menace. On this background, the NIA action should have been a sigh of relief for every concerned citizen.

Unfortunately, being believers and not seekers of truth, the same ‘intellectuals and eminent’ people who talk of insecurity and intolerance either turned a blind eye towards this radicalisation or blaming ‘others’ (non-believers/seekers) for pushing these youths towards the IS. The sad ghettoised mindset is the root cause of radicalisation, insecurity and intolerance. For the sake of political correctness, nobody wants to talk about the same is the real menace.

The Believers accept a worldview given by a person and interpreted by others to be the only truth in all circumstances and therefore, there is no scope for exploration or exposition for seeking the Truth. In turn, they do not just deny but denounce any other path of Truth explored or explained by other Sages or Individuals. This binary of believer and non-believer leads to radicalised intolerance. This is applied to the religious believers and the ideological believers like communist likewise. If you except, as explained by Gandhiji, that all ways can be true and for that reason, should be treated and accepted equally, there is no scope for intolerance or insecurity. Therefore, celebrating diversity while realising the inherent unity all is the only way to be secure. For that, you have to accept others and be a real seeker of Truth. This is the intellectual challenge that should be accepted by the really concerned and ‘right thinking’ people.