Love, not hate-I

Whatever the situation, life goes on. No matter what happens we have to continue to live. But it is important to learn from our mistakes in order to make this world a better place to live in.
In 2002 Gujarat witnessed an unprecedented violence carried out by Muslims and Hindus against each other and seeing such a sight even God would have felt sorry for creating human beings of diverse religious faiths.
Even after more than half a century since independence, communal problems still haunts India in its violent forms. This is in spite of the fact that we are a secular nation. At social level there are Human Right groups, peace builders, educationist, social workers, and policy makers attending to the serious challenges of violent communalism. But, we can never remove the black stain of Gujarat riots from the history of one of the largest democratic country of the world.
Official Indian estimates, given to Parliament on May 11, 2005 by the UPA-Congress government of Dr. Manmohan Singh based on Gujarat government statistics that 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus dead, 223 missing and 2548 injured. The report placed the number of riot widows at 919 and 606 children were declared orphaned. Human rights groups believe that the death tolls were higher. The Congress Research Service (CRS) under the U.S. House of Congress, also places the figure at “up to 2000, mostly Muslim”. These figures are however uncorroborated by the Indian government. Tens of thousands were displaced from their homes because of the violence.
The ruling BJP party at that time maintained that this was in retaliation for the burning to death, on February 27, 2002 of 58 Hindu pilgrims, mostly women and children, by a Muslim mob. This attack also resulted in the injury of 43 Hindus. It then started the most brutal phase of independent India and within 24 hours 100,000 citizens storm into Ahmedabad and slaughter Muslims making the day one of the largest acts of communal violence.
Whatever happened is a thing of past but it gives a vivid description of how human beings can transform completely into monsters and the shocking part of this is that it was just because the people believed in different religions. As if the concept of Humanism does not exist anywhere? Hence the main goal of every educational institute, every parent, and every preacher should be to teach people humanism because this is what forms the basis of every religious faith. No religion teaches hatred and discrimination for the people of other religious faiths.
But as a matter of fact there were many people who proved that communal battle can be won by letting human values prevail. This shows that love has the power to build bridges between hearts and only love and humanity can defeat persecution and hatred.
The lasting harmonious relationship among various religious, cultural and social units of our nation can come through social initiatives for trust building and through cultivating a sense of common national purpose and ideals. Every citizen aspires to be a functional and honorable part of the larger nation. He/she aspires to see an authentic reflection of his/her identity in the totality of the national identity. Our problems of violence largely arise from the need to hold on to identity, negotiate identity, and /or resolve conflicts among varied and competing claims of identities.
Dialogue and reconciliation will not be possible until our people re-discover nationalism that does not provoke exclusion, bigotry, and violence. Mahatma Gandhi stood for that culture of nationalism in his struggle for Swaraj and continues to be a symbol of national unity. We as a nation cannot stand so long, as our communities do not share all-inclusive perspectives on citizenship and nationhood.