Tolerance, Intolerance and Aamir Khan

Indian media’s been calling Indian society ‘intolerant’ for a while now, following the Kalburgi case, the Dadri incident, various beef-bans and the death of a street vendor in Mangalore.  In protest, many eminent Indian personalities have been returning awards, and this has both been criticized and praised to high heavens.

Aamir Khan made a statement a week back, and it goes like this-  “When I chat with Kiran at home, she says, ‘Should we move out of India?’ That’s a disastrous and big statement for Kiran to make. She fears for her child. She fears what the atmosphere around us will be. She feels scared to open the newspapers every day.”

As expected, all hell broke lose. People hated his comments, and personal attacks on him went viral all over Indian twitter and whatsapp communities. Here are some tweets that try to prove him wrong-

 

(Oh and you’ll find these all over the internet 😛 )

Is this the right thing to do, really? Aiming deeply hurting personal attacks at Aamir Khan’s wife and son just because he said India was becoming intolerant- doesn’t it prove that maybe he was right?

Why do we Indians make everything a communal issue? Aamir Khan’s religion was literally of least concern here. Why can’t we see each other as Indians first, and then (-insert religion here-)?

It is my opinion that Aamir Khan, being a citizen of India, has a right to say what he feels. It is our duty  to respect this, and not cement his suspicions about society by criticizing his right to express his opinions. We’ve lived in a vibrant democracy for 68 years and we’re yet to learn to honour the ideals of free speech and free opinion that our forefathers stood up for.

So is India really intolerant? Yes, it is-India’s been intolerant from a long time. Since Independence, we’ve seen religion related brawls, and communal riots every year.

But we’ve also seen religions living side by side, celebrating each others’ festivals and living with each others’ customs for years. We’ve seen Muslims celebrate Holi and Diwali, and Hindus keeping the Ramzan fast with their brethren. We’ve seen Christians invite their friends and neighbours for lavish Christmas feasts.

So now, is India intolerant?

 

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☮ Peace! ☮

 

By-

Arya