Ramadan month, to me, is always nostalgic , fascinating and heartwarming all at the same time. Nostalgic because I came to Bahrain three years ago just four days before Ramadan month and I had faced obvious and comic challenges with my food. For the uninitiated, In the middle east, restaurants are not open during day day time for the entire Ramadan month. During off days, I neither had access to the office canteen nor did I know how to cook.
Back from digression, this month is fascinating as I try and understand the will it takes to survive a whole month without eating or drinking for more than 12 hours a day. It is also fascinating to see how everyone young, old, male and female follow it religiously. I tried, and really failed at not having water. Heartwarming because Muslims (like all other religions) believe in be good, say good and do good and they implement it wholeheartedly during this month. They are nice to everyone, they pray a lot and indulge in charity.
However, the month ended on a bit of sad note, because of the furore over a mosque being built near ground zero, the site where WTC existed. Pastors burnt/defaced Qurans on EID day which coincided the 9th anniversary of 9/11 attacks. It set me wondering if US government did enough to prevent these events. Compared to this, what was the failure of Indian government in not being able to prevent the Babri Masjid Demolition, where the crowd involved was much larger and the political stakes much higher.
When I Googled how big Islam is in USA, I was surprised to know only 0.6% of population, i.e., 1.6 Crores are Muslims. In contrast the Muslim population in India constitutes 13.43% or 15.5 Crores. Further India was the place of origin for four major religions of the world and cradle for four more religions from first millennium. And then we have innumerable sub beliefs in each of these religions. US speaks one language while India has 22 official languages and innumerable unofficial ones.
Yes, we did have religious clashes since many centuries including first millineum, but look at the number when compared to the number of religions we had. If we take the diversity into account, the relative number of flash points in India is really low when compared to the rest of the world. If we discount politically motivated instances, the number is actually negligible.
It is more of media rhetoric which gives us a feeling that India is divided on religious lines or otherwise. True, politicians are not sparing any efforts to do so, but in general we really are a tolerant community. As Sri Sri Ravishankar said even tolerance is a negative word, it is acceptance of the diverse beleifs and we are good at it.
On Eid day (Ramadan festival day), I was invited for a dinner to friends house, who happens to be a Pakistani Muslim. He invited only Hindus for the evening, because his Muslim friends were either back in Pakistan or were busy with other plans. While we were leaving, the hostess said "I called my mom in Pakistan and said I was inviting so and so, and she was surprised that I was inviting only Hindus. We don't really think like that, we think broader."
In India, it would have been a non event in the sense that Hindus are routinely invited for all Iftar parties and Eids. In fact in villages they celebrate the Hindu festivals with us and we celebrate the Ramadan with them. In fact as mom used to say, in my native village, when the processions of God are taken through village (like nagar sankirthan during gram seva) some of the palanquin bearers and the people breaking coconuts at each house used to be muslims. And no one found it even a weebit odd. It was just a festival for all villagers. This probably is the story across India, as I do not see any reason that my village had to be special.
We really lived together and we really do, excepting for the slight suspicions created by politicians. I find it strange when Europen schools make such a fuss over wearing a scarf, pagdi or other religious symbols to school. I fail to understand how that actually creates any issue, maybe because I have been brought up in such a tolerant country. I owe it to my country for making me a person with such acceptance. I owe it to the world to try and explain how to replicate this acceptance, though I am not really sure where to begin.