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Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (ACHA) Articles of the Month *Inter-Religious Dialogue – Its Significance and Rules, Asghar Ali Engineer, Centre for Study of Study and Society and Secularism, Mumbai In democracy all citizens, whatever their culture, religion or ethnicity, enjoy equal rights and such misconceptions about the ‘other’ come in the way of other’s equal rights. IN fact in democratic pluralist society, three Ds become necessary i.e. democracy, diversity and dialogue. Diversity strengthens democracy and dialogue strengthens diversity. Many tend to think that uniformity is necessary for democracy. It is a mistaken notion. In fact uniformity can lead to dictatorship and diversity can become a power4ful force against dictatorship. So diversity and dialogue become important. Also, it is important in a democracy to accept the ‘other’ as the ‘other’ is and no one has right to prescribe how the other should be which we often do, especially for minorities be they cultural or religious. It is often demanded of religious and cultural minorities that they should become part of ‘mainstream’ culture and not maintain their distinctive features. All minorities come under such pressure. And it is religious or cultural majorities who define what ‘mainstream’ culture is Often, cultural or religious majorities also become political majority which is against the spirit of democracy. One should not confuse between cultural or religious majority and political majority. Both are different things. It is sheer arrogance on the part of religious and cultural majorities to equate it with political majority. It is happening even in advanced western democracies and even in these democracies minorities are coming under severe pressure to conform to majority cultural norms. It is through inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue that one can understand the distinctive features of other’s religion or culture. The basic thing about such dialogue is the capacity to listen to the other than to speak. Listening is much more important in dialogue than speaking. There should be proper balance between speaking and listening otherwise we can never understand the other. Better if we minimize speaking and let the other speak. There is one more tendency in dialogue which tends to deprive the dialogue of its importance i.e. to bring out best features of one own tradition and point out worst from that of the other. In fact one should be very honest and objective in dialogue situation. One should bring out critically what are weaknesses of one’s own tradition and readily appreciate what is best in other’s tradition. Of course best way to appreciate the other is to be participant-observer which many sufi saints did in Indian subcontinent by adopting local culture and language. Thus they became closer to the masses of people and influencing them than if they had written only in Persian or Arabic. Also, one should not only quote scriptures but also evaluate critically ones historical practices. What is written in scripture is often quite different from historical practices. We often take best from our scripture and worst from the other’s historical practices and then tend to ‘prove’ our superiority. In fact it is downright dishonest comparisons. Scripture should be compared with scripture and historical practices should be compared with historical practices. What scripture prescribes is ideal and historical practice depends on various factors like interpretation, pre-existing cultural traditions, selfish interests of practitioners and so on. For example what is stated in Qur’an about women’s rights was never practiced in Islamic societies as these societies were patriarchal in structure and their cultural traditions could not accept gender equality and hence they found out various ways of violating gender equality. Thus it would be unfair to blame gender oppression in Muslim societies to Qur’an. In all inter-faith dialogues the idea should be to understand the other rather than convert the other to one’s own point of view. The inter-faith dialogue should be carried out in the spirit of acceptance of the other rather than rejection of the other and for this it is necessary that both sides should be well rooted in their respective traditions. Deep conviction is necessary in one’s own tradition before one is able to appreciate the conviction of the other. However, this does not mean one should be rigid about one’s own position or that of the other. Tolerance and respect for the other is the very basis of dialogue. One should not condemn the other even if one cannot accept the others point of view or practice. A good example is of Mazhar Jan-i-Janan respecting the Hindu tradition of idol worshipping and its justification from Hindu’s viewpoint though he himself would not do so. Intra-faith dialogue is also very important for co-existence of various sects of the same religion especially if the sect happens to be in minority. Many sunni friends believed few decades ago that one should not drink water in any Khoja’s house as they spit in the glass of water before giving it to any sunni Muslim. In pre-independence days there were riots between Bohras and sunni Muslims in Patan when a sunni boy was found missing and it was believed that he was slaughtered and his blood mixed with rice by Bohras and ate it. It was on Jinnah’s intervention that riots stopped and peace established. Thus both inter-religious and intra-religious dialogue is very important and necessary for peaceful co-existence. ARCHIVE:
Link to December 2010 Article of the Month |