Social worker, columnist and director of New Delhi-based Centre for Equality Studies said here on Wednesday that the idea of India – that celebrates diversity and sense of fraternity — is deeply threatened.
Interacting with people in a programme organised by the city-based Samadarshi Vedike, Mr. Mander said the idea of fraternity had fallen apart.
Though this feature was not unique to India, the country was best known for its diversity, with every religion coming here, being accepted and growing.
The country, which had not only tolerated but also celebrated the idea of one being different from other, was now in a situation where Hintudva, expressed in programmes such as Ghar Vapsi, was trying to propagate ideas that were “un-Indian”.
There was a need to save Hinduism from Hindutva, he said, quoting the former editor of Jan Satta Prabhash Joshi.
In India, where accident of birth still determines what one does for the rest of life, it was a fact that an ordinary Indian could bow before a church, a temple and a mosque with equal reverence, he pointed out. Though a majority of people were secular, he expressed surprise of the result of the last Parliamentary elections won by the BJP.
He was critical of the media which, while highlighted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech on Tuesday about his government’s religious tolerance, had not pointed out that he had, years ago, made statements such as “ham paanch, hamaare pachies (We five, ours 25)” that had hurt sections of the society. Media was party to the design to reinvent Mr. Modi, he alleged.
Assailing the top-down approach of development where public funds went to the rich corporates, he said countries like China were investing in the bottom-up approach where they provided quality education and prevented malnutrition and were benefiting from it.
‘Hintudva, expressed in programmes such as Ghar Vapsi, is trying to propagate “un-Indian” ideas’
