By: Parmanand Pandey
The news of clash between Muslims and Buddhists in Myanmar and Sri Lanka seems to be quite strange because it is alleged that Buddhists are leading the attacks and vandalism. If it is so—it is really condemnable and needs to be curbed with iron hands. It is strange in the sense because Muslims across the world are known for picking up the quarrels and taking advantage of the troubled waters. It is all the more surprising because Buddhists are known for their placid, meek and docile behaviour. It is the culture of tolerance and non-violence that is inculcated among them from the cradle and they carry it to their cremation.
Muslims, on the contrary, refuse to gel with any other community. They consider it an onslaught on their religion and refuse to compromise their identity to live with others following the philosophy of co-existence. It may be remembered that many years ago the Kashmiri Hindus had requested the Muslims to observe one day in the year as non-meat eating day on Krishna Janmashtami. This gesture of Muslims could have gone a long way in cementing the ties between both communities. A Muslim clergy (leader) took offence to this appeal and he responded to it by openly slaughtering a cow on the chauraha (the cross road) of Lal Chowk of Srinagar. They (Muslims) defied the appeal of Hindus in other parts of the state also because they thought that paying any heed to the request or entreaty of other religionist is nothing less than an insult to their credo or belief. If this is their belief, it needs no comment because it is self-speaking about their religion and character.
This is the reason that they have become a thorn in flesh of most of democratic countries of the world, be it America, England, Canada, France or Germany.
This religion is a closed religion. It refuses to amend or reform with the passage of time. Muslims think and remain complacent in the sufficiency of Quran as far as the knowledge is concerned. Enquiry and interpretation is anathema to it. This is possibly one of the main reasons why Islamists are at loggerheads with every other religionist around the world. Wherever they are in majority, they consider it their duty as ordained by their religion to convert the minority religionists to their fold by force, fraud, cheating and duress. But wherever they are in minority, they make hue and cry of human rights violation and also of the ‘Islam is in danger’. This double edged policy of theirs has made them suspicious in the eyes of the other religionists. Moreover, they say that there is no concept of nationhood in their religion. They owe allegiance to the Islamic brotherhood without caring even two hoots for their neighours, co-linguists and compatriots. They will denounce the science if it infringes even a little bit in their beliefs but never hesitate to use it for aggravating the crisis for others with the help of modern weapons and equipment.
However, all said and done, Muslims must enjoy their freedom to the hilt and any curtailment in their religious rights must be deprecated. At the same time Muslims must also understand that like them others freedom need to be honoured and protected and not to be interfered. Once they understand this spirit, there would hardly be any scope of clash and harassment of any one in the society irrespective of the religion. But Muslims must go for self-introspection and learn to live in peace and harmony with others.