I enjoyed the article by CB on ‘Numbers are important but not supreme’. It made fascinated reading.
I was astonished to read that some Hindus from India want to leave India as they fear increasing and strong influence of Muslims in the country. This is unusual when India is still a majority Hindu nation. Of course at one time during the Moghul times it was ruled by Muslims and latterly by the British Christians. As CB acknowledged, despite all this the majority Hindu’s survived.
I wonder whether all this is to do with the age of the various religions. Sanatan dharma is the oldest well over 5000 years old. This is followed by Christianity which is around 2000 years old and Islam is one of the youngest religions about 1400 years old. As we well know from our own lives, when you are young and vibrant, you tend to be more aggressive and risk taking. As you mature, you start balancing things and understand values of your religion and others too. And when you reach the full mature age, wisdom and peace comes in which is just like the Sanatan Hindu dharma. I see this dharma has a lot of peace and tolerance as well as good wisdom. Christianity is moving more to peace and less violence as well as tolerance. Both Hinduism and Christianity have also witnessed lot of violence in the past.
Islam is a young religion and has still to undergo the challenges of a young dharma. So may be Islam will also mature to more peaceful less violent dharma over time.
I also recently visited India and its interesting to see and experience a lot more Indian Hindus who do not actively practice Hindu dharma and are more secular. They seem to be not so strongly supporting the so called ‘hindutva’ momentum. Regrettably, they are not prepared to look at the way Islam is developing in India. Many Indian Muslims will still support Pakistan despite being residents of India. Indian Muslims enjoy special privileges despite being a ‘significant ‘ minority. The Indian Muslim population is more than the Muslims of Pakistan! Despite all the fairness and special privileges, the Indian Muslims do not seem to be satisfied. Its like Muslims of UK, who keep criticising all UK values and systems but will not uproot themselves and go and live in a dominant Muslim country.
Such is the irony of our society! Hindus of India are more and more tolerant and secular towards their Muslim citizens. Yet the Indian Muslims continue to unhappy instead of recognising their quality of life in India is much better than Muslims elsewhere.
Subhash Thakrar
