Diggy Raja: Mughals allowed Hindu religion to grow

by Guest Fri Dec 04, 2015 8:44 pm

We have to talk about intolerance and remind the country about tolerance. Tolerance has been the basic ethos of this nation. We have never attacked any country. There has been no religious war in this country. Islam came here and it got absorbed in the Indian system. Christianity came here before it went to Europe and it got absorbed in this system. It happened because the spirit of accommodation of India and its ideology is based on “live and let live” concept. Therefore, we have never had people with fanatic bent of mind. By and large, if you examine the Mughal rule in India, you will see that they have allowed the Hindus to grow; they have allowed Sanatan Dharam to grow. If they wanted to turn this nation into an Islamic nation, they could have done that because they ruled this country for almost 500 years. But they did not do it. They had Hindu generals in their army, they had Hindu advisers. If you see the nine great people around Akbar, you will find that most of them were Hindus. So this is the greatness of this country which is unfortunately being destroyed by the way the BJP is allowing its cadre in the fringe to take law in their hands and to divide people on the name of religion. And that is the matter of serious concern. If you allow this polarisation to grow, it will create a fanatic fringe in the minority communities, which it will, as the reaction to the extremist elements of the majority community. That socio-political dynamic poses a greater danger to the country than any other issue. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had rightly said the majority communalism is more dangerous than the minority communalism.

What happened in Pakistan? Zia-ul-Haque allowed Jamaat-i-Islami and its fanatic leaders to be inducted in the governance which resulted in a situation where Pakistan stands today. It is almost like a failed state now. We fear that this may happen in this country, if these fanatic elements among the Hindus, which the BJP promotes but cant control, do not subside. The BJP takes full advantage of these people to create the polarisation but once they do it they loose control over them. It is like a Genie, which once taken out of a bottle is difficult to put back in. So the genie of the communalism is something which we are all scared of. That is why we want this issue of intolerance to be debated.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/exclusive-interview-with-senior-congress-leader-digvijay-singh/article7945824.ece