Random Thoughts

Intolerant Indians

Do you know that Constitution of India itself has nurtured and fastened the intolerance among its citizens towards other religions and casts? I had no clue of this until the other day when I was attending a get-together at a friend’s place in Mumbai.

During a casual chat, he said that the housing society where he lives in one of the flats on rental basis, has all the Christian flat owners. This is because the flats are not sold to people of any other religion. When we raised eyebrows over this, one of our other friends said that legally a housing society can observe such segregation based on race and religion and there is a provision in the country’s constitution to have such ghettos.

No wonder why the flat owners in Walkeshwar, an uptown area in Mumbai dominated by people of Jain and Gujarathi communities can prevent the nonvegetarian people from staying in that area. Both the communities strictly follow vegetarian lifestyle.

While I knew that Mumbai does have such ghettos, what surprised me was the constitutional support to such demarcation. And, if there are people who observe and promote the system of ghettos, what moral right do they possess to raise their voice against the fundamentalists? Do the Christians in the apartment where my friend stays and those who sell their property only to other Christians have any moral right to protest against the intolerance of people of other religions towards Christians in other part of the country?

As a kid, I used to hear my father saying that we Indians are hypocrites. I now realize what he meant by that.

Labels: Society

posted by Ranjit @ 12/25/2008 12:19:00 pm