World can learn from India on tolerance: Prez

President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday took to Swami Vivekanand’s message to urge “the world has yet to learn from India, the idea not only of toleration but of sympathy”.

At the same time, he also stressed that India needs to “reinforce the civilisational values that bind together the complex diversity” – a repeat of advocacy on virtues of tolerance and pluralism he had shared at least twice since the Dadri incident. 

President Mukherjee, inaugurating the first International Conference of Indologists on Saturday, said: “We are today witnessing events without precedent; when the world is struggling to deal with the worst impulses of intolerance and hatred that mankind has ever witnessed. At such a time, there can be no better recourse than to remind ourselves of the high values, written and unwritten samskaras (tradition) and duties.”

He told the gathering at the three-day conference that the values that keep us together should be promoted among the people in the country and abroad. Mukherjee, who has taken many new initiatives to make President’s House accessible to people, appealed to scholars to stay away from the narrative of harping too much and making people nostalgic about ancient times.

Instead, “highlight the manner in which pluralism and multi-culturalism are at the very core of the Indian psyche,” he said in his oblique critic of Hindutva forces sourcing, too, much from the archive to assert their identity in present times. 

“I am confident that your deliberations over the next three days will highlight the manner in which pluralism and multi-culturalism are at the very core of the Indian psyche. They will surely make an important contribution to our existing body of knowledge,” he said.
DH News Service