Our freedom fighters had one dream—to create an independent, secular and democratic India where all citizens live in peace, practise their respective faiths and lead a comfortable life. The founding fathers of the Indian Constitution laid a lot of emphasis on it.
I grew up hearing stories of the freedom struggle and the sacrifices made by millions of people from villages, talukas and towns to drive the British out of India. When the British realised they were losing, they created communal riots and succeeded in their aim of dividing India and creating Pakistan. This last act by the British before they left for good, inflicted permanent damage on India’s soul. The East Pakistan freedom fighters received support from the Indian armed forces, which eventually led to the birth of Bangladesh. The security problems of at least one side could be reduced by having a friendly neighbour.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a great statesman and has maintained good relations with Bangladesh as well as other Asian countries.
During the partition, millions of Bengalis—who lived in erstwhile East Bengal—and the people of Punjab lost everything and came to India to save their lives. A few days ago, I met an industrialist from Mumbai. He had fled during the partition to save his life. His father had a prosperous business in Lahore. He stayed in Kingsway Camp in Delhi in a house which had no toilets; he lived in utter poverty. His education ended abruptly. But today, he has a thriving business of Rs 1,500 crore.
There are many such champions in India, who went through the horrors of partition. I have spoken to quite a few of them and none of them wants a Hindu-Muslim divide. They all want peace and harmony. It is clear that those who create polarisation are doing it for an ignoble purpose. What the now-suspended BJP leader Nupur Sharma said about Prophet Muhammad is unpardonable and it has hurt the sentiments of Muslims all over the world. She did it for a purpose. The BJP did the correct thing by expelling her. However, after 10 days, when we see well-orchestrated protests happening all over India by the Muslims, we know it is also by design and not by default.The essence of the Vedanta, the most revered Hindu scripture, says: “Ekam Sadvipra Vahuda Vadanti.” It means there is only one God who is worshipped in different names.
Swami Vivekananda’s guru Sri Ramakrishna practised Islam, Christianity, Vedic methods, and dualist methods. He said: “As all rivers lead to the sea, so all faiths lead to the one God which is the universal consciousness.”Jesus Christ, too, said,
“God made himself in the image of Man”, pointing to God as man, and serving the poor as serving God. “Tat Tvam Asi”, is a line in the Upanishads which means all living creatures are Gods. We all have a God within us. Hindus call it the atman and Christians call it the soul. Therefore, if our nation has to prosper socially, economically and spiritually, we need unity in diversity and not divisiveness. We need to focus our attention on development and not divide. India has the capacity to grow its economy at 8%, if peace and tranquility prevails. Communal disharmony comes with a huge economic cost as normal life gets disturbed. It is far easier to control the pandemic than communal disharmony. The government may like to focus on seven areas of development:
Have a zero-tolerance policy for using religion for political gains, conversion, and creating communal unrest.
Provide social security to all those who earn less than Rs 10,000 as total family income per month.
Request public and private-sector industries to provide skill-building education on their premises and hire good students.
Dismantle the National Skill Development Corporation, which has low impact and is wasting money on training the wrong partners.
Provide efficient primary healthcare facilities and ambulance services to the poor.
Offer quality primary education to those in need by providing mobiles, telephones and computers.
Provide proper equipment and cattle to the poor so that their agricultural activities thrive and help them avail fair prices through electronic auctions.
The government and private banks should provide funds to the poor and set up enterprises. They must not levy any taxes on them. Institutions such as the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh need to be managed by NGOs.
NGOs need to be rated by CRISIL or CARE. Thereafter, we must identify and ban all spurious NGOs.
The government should empanel highly rated NGOs and make them development partners for implementing government schemes. This will provide necessary funding for the NGOs and help enforce these schemes.It is time for everyone to realise that we should focus on social, economic and sustainable development so that our country can reach greater heights and become a superpower.
Ashoke K Maitra,
Founder, Sri Ramakrishna International Institute of Management
(ENDS)
(ashoke.maitra@gmail.com)