WORKING TOGETHER FOR PROGRESS

Instead of labelling a situation as ‘oppression’, view it as a challenge. Then, as per the Laws of Nature, your capabilities will be awakened, and your latent potential will come to the fore.

Once, I visited a certain city in India, where I met two men, one a Hindu and the other a Muslim. The two men were once friends, but later, they quarrelled. Finally, after several months of trying to patch up, they still were not on talking terms; the Hindu man said to the Muslim man, “Come, let us set aside our differences and work together on issues we do not have differences about.”

I feel this is how Muslims, Hindus, and others should relate as communities.

There was another case of this sort that I heard of from Mumbai. A Muslim and a Jew were business partners. At the very outset, the Jew had told the Muslim, “There are no differences between us on business matters, but there is one issue we do not see eye-to-eye—the question of Israel. So let us both decide that we will never talk about the issue of Israel.” Moreover, that is what happened. The two men never raised this contentious issue, because of which their joint business venture was very successful.

Religious communities living in a plural society should use the same formula, working together in harmony and focusing on what brings them together, including their shared issues. They should be inspired by the common concern that their country should progress.