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Many great philosophers all over the world have favourably commented on the tolerance that exists in Hinduism, which has enabled it to he an assimilative system. At the ,,Citric time. some have said that the concept of tolerance in Hinduism is a myth. Prof Robert Baird, an American academic, considered to he an expert in Hindu-Christian studies, wrote:
“The myths of ‘Hindu tolerance’ and ‘Indian inclusiveness’ have been questioned before.. Those familiar with Indian myths know that destruction as well as creation and preservation has been a recurring theme. If the god Bramha is thought of as the creator and Vishnu as the preserver, it is also true that Siva and Kali are thought of as destroyers. In the Bhagavadgita, Arjuna is instructed by Krishna that it is his duty as a kshatriya to fight and that it is better to do that, however poorly, than to someone else’s dharma well.”
So where lies the truth? To answer the question we need to properly define the term tolerance. In context of spirituality, it means that I accept that someone else may have a different path to moksha or salvation that is not the same as mine. The other person is tolerant if he reciprocates this sentiment of acceptance. Every person exists in a different set of circumstances, and thus people seek separate paths. While accepting the difference, tolerance permits a debate on the various paths. The discussion is held to make a person understand his own path better, and perhaps to modify it. It is not with an intention to make a person change his path. This understanding is a two-way affair, and each party should leave the table enriched by the experience of the other. This tolerance is embodied in the famous shloka: “ Ekam Sad, Viprah Bahudda Vadanti”. Swami Vivekanand made it popular during his sojourn in America. It can be translated as follows: there is one eternal truth, sages have identified multiple paths to achieve it. The Hindu seers have been propagating it for thousands of years. Philosophers like Arnold Toynbee got attracted to the Hindu thought because this message is the essence of what Hinduism is all about.
He said: “When we pass from the plane of social practice to the plane of intellectual outlook, Hinduism too comes out well by comparison with the religious and ideologies of the South-West Asian group. In contrast to these, Hinduism has the same outlook as the pre-Christian and pre-Muslim religions and philosophies. Like them, Hinduism takes it for granted that there is more than one valid approach to truth and to salvation and that these different approaches are not only compatible with each other, but are complementary.”
Toynbee has predicted “Today we are still living in this transitional chapter of the world’s history, but it is already becoming clear that the chapter which had a western beginning, will have an Indian ending, if it is not to end in self destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in human history, the only way of for mankind is the Indian way - Emperor Ashoka’s and Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of non-violence and Sri Ramkrishna’s testimony of religions.”
Prof Baird, quoted above, is confusing tolerance with ahimsa, which means that one will not indulge in violence as an instrument of first resort to solve one’s problems. But ahimsa is not an option that is available to the weak. If a strong person smites a weakling, the latter has to meekly submit, and the former knows it well before he took his foul action. However, when a weakling smites a strong person, the latter has an option to retaliate, which the weakling is aware of. Under these circumstances. if a strong person does not strike back, that too is ahimsa.
The advice given by Lord Krishna to Arjun on the battlefield of Kurukshetra has to be seen in context of the events preceding it. Lord Krishna made strenuous attempts to avoid a war, even suggesting that the Pandavas be given five villages, instead of half the kingdom. Only when they failed did he ask Arjun to fight. For Lord Krishna, war was the last option.
Three groups of people left their homelands due to religious persecution in the land of their birth - the Jews, the Parsis and the Syrian-Christians. It is only in a Hindu land that the Jews were never persecuted. The holy places for the Zoroastrians are in India and not in the place where it was founded. The Syrian Christians were given an honourable place in the society by the Hindus. All of them not only maintained their religion, but also prospered socially and economically. In all the cases, the refugees reciprocated the goodwill shown to them by the Hindus.
When Islam and Christianity came here with the power of the sword, Hindu society resisted. Though some tracts have become non-Hindu, the rest of the society is sufficiently vibrant to ensure that the civilisation is still largely intact. While all the other ancient civilisations have been destroyed, the Hindu civilisation has lived on to become today the oldest surviving civilisation in the world.
An attempt to correct a past wrong is not being intolerant. The party who refuses to correct the wrong are at fault. And the ones authenticate the refusal are also at fault. Of course, past wrongs should not and need not, be corrected wholesale. But, these wrongs have to he acknowledged, and the ones that have hurt the sentiments the most have to be corrected.
Hinduism provides space
for many diverse philosophies to be propagated simultaneously. None
are seen as threatening another When it comes to other religions, Hindus
have proved that they are willing to co-exit with them. The problem
is that the proselytising religions do not reciprocate the tolerance required
for developing harmonious relations.
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