Genuine Hindu-Muslim unity will be possible only when Islam stops proselytising and upholding the doctrine that it is the final word of God and the perfected form of every other religion on earth which are, by implication, fractional representations of the supreme spiritual truth. For friendship between individuals is built on mutual acceptance and not exclusive stance adopted by one and universal stance by the other, and so with communities and faiths governing them.
Hinduism accepts Islam as a valid way to God but Islam does not accept Hinduism as such. Hence, the problem. Fanaticism stems from exclusiveness and so long as such dogmatic assertions, unsubstantiated by reason and attempted to be validated solely on the basis of arbitrary articulations and assumptions, continue to hold centre-stage in community life, it is puerile to expect much of social amity or communal harmony between opposed ideologies obtaining in the same society. That does not mean that we must specifically aim for communal conflict but it simply is a statement of fact that inharmonious conditions off and on will spur the radical elements in both communities into engaging in uncivil activity. This is regrettable in a secular democracy but is the result of electoral appeasement that has set the fiends of faith loose to carry on the destruction of our civilisational values in inertial flow of over a thousand years of Islamic domination.
Robust governance must restore the Hindu culture and set the nation's narrative right in line with the age-old principles of the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Puranas. Only then can communal harmony subsist and not until then, for the continuous wounding of our dharma by unholy activity consequent on demographic change brought about by conversion, immigration and population boom can only threaten the Hindus and instigate radical elements of both communities to confront each other in violent combat. Thus had I affirmed at the very outset of this essay that exclusive Islam will necessarily promote social unrest and the universality of Hinduism will not be sufficient buffer against it.
The necessary scriptural changes in Islam being impossible, it remains to be seen how Muslims go about interpreting their sacred texts in their bid to promote communal harmony. Passive witnessing of extreme Islamism will hardly mend matters and it is up to the moderate Muslims by the millions to carry forward the agenda of peace without putting up the pretence that they have thus far been doing so. Their muteness has thus far been unproductive and it is high time that they lend credibility to their claim of being active citizens for peace in a world torn by Islamic violence.
Written by Sugata Bose
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