By: Dr. Mohammad Aleem, Editor, ICN Group
Colours can’t be categorised as demonic and barbaric. It is the most beautiful thing gifted by God. But we humans have surely made it dreaded things in the eyes of others.
NEW DELHI: In every religion, some colours command greater significance. In Hinduism and Buddhism, saffron has that reverence and respect and, among Muslims, it is green, black and white (as we have seen the flag of the most dreaded group at present on earth as it has been projected by the Western Media, ISIS). Likewise, some dresses and flags and the ways of bearing like wearing beard and skull cap, either by a Muslim, or a Jew or a Christian also instil fear among the non-believing people.
It means that these sacred colours have lost its sacredness with the passing of time or the people who wear and use such colours have defiled the sanctity of these colours.
Colours can’t be categorised as demonic and barbaric. It is the most beautiful thing gifted by God. But we humans have surely made it dreaded things in the eyes of others.
These things raise another some pertinent questions like, are we living in an age where violence has gained power to rule over every other thing? Have we diminished ourselves from a civilised people to a rogue one?
But who are responsible for such drastic deterioration?
Have our political leaders and religious heads have lost their sanctity to guide us? Recent incidents show the same. Almost, on the daily basis, such news come that zealots and bigots have shown their ugly face near an institution, university, mosque, church and temple. And it seems that they have no fear of any law.
It forces us to ask to ourselves that, is this nation our forefathers had aspired for? Is this our real identity which we carry to the world?
Sometimes, we fight over a portrait of a historical figure. Sometimes, we fight over restoring a place of worship which has lost the glory as a sacred place of worship.
Unfortunately, this is not the case only with our beloved country, India, but violence has its upper hand in almost every part of the globe, either it is so-called civilised nations or non- civilised nations. Is it not a bitter truth that these so called civilised nations have ruined a great part of the Arab world, especially, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia and many others and killed millions of people and displaced many more than that figure? It is also very surprising and unfortunate that most of these ruined nations are a Muslim one. So, can it be assumed that these Muslim countries have lost their moral and ethical rights to be ruled in a civilised way? Have they forgotten the teachings of their own religion, Islam, which glorifies peace as its core teachings?
It is not so. Islam will remain as a symbol of peace and love as it was manifested during the holy Prophet’s time. It means that the basic fault line is not with the religion, but with its followers. Likewise, all other great religions like Hinduism, Christianity and Buddhism have same core values to embrace love and humanity towards others and discard the animosity and hatred towards others.
Of late, we see a mass killings and exodus of Muslims in Myanmar and Sri Lanka due to the misrepresentation of the Buddhist teachings. Christians are killing innocent Muslims wherever they find them as an easy prey. The followers of the most peace loving religion, Hinduism have also become wild that they now find pleasure in killing in the name of some irrelevant issues like protecting the cow and other religious symbols and issues. Nobody knows that who will be killed when in the name of these holy signs and so-called holy wars.
If the sanity did not prevail and our basic human values couldn’t be protected, I fear, we will soon loss the identity of the most spiritual and peace loving land.
I have also some serious complains with the common people. Have they surrendered themselves completely to their narrow-minded, selfish and arrogant political and religious masters and gods? If we did not become cautious and alert and learn to differentiate between right and wrong, they will surely keep herding the innocent people towards the perilous destinations without any inhibitions and fears just to serve their own vested interests.
Let’s take a pledge that we will make ourselves intellectually matured and sound. It is the sacred duty of every conscious citizen to educate and guide to others also in a proper way, which have no such cognitive power to understand.
