TOLERANCE : Need of the hour

All the world needs today is tolerance. Specially now more than it ever did.

Why , I will explain in a minute.

In recent years or decades, distance between people has virtually reduced because of better means of communication, which has led to increase in inter-dependance of people. People are now-a-days compelled to look at a broader perspective. Although the concept of loyalty and patriotism towards the nation still prevails people have been forced to have a more global perspective. As a lack of it can adversely affect business or social harmony,

The phenomenon has many names. You may call it globalization or ‘World is Shrinking ‘ or ‘World is a global village’. The fact is in today’s world the gamut of situations that people experience, the variety of people that we meet, the extent of things we hear or see is far more greater today than what it used be. All of it we owe to the globalization phenomenon.Here I have used globalization as a much general term.

Coming back to need of tolerance. Since people of different groups, ethnic backgrounds, religion interact more with each other , their dependencies on each other also increase. For harmony to prevail what is required is an increase in the level of tolerance by every individual. Consider an example of India as a country. For the muslims and the hindus and the Christians, the Sikhs etc to live together we need some amount of religious tolerance. For the people with a more conservative attitude(some may say fundamental ideology) and for people with a more modern attitude , some amount of ideological tolerance is required. For the people of different states a more cultural tolerance is required. In short for everyone to live in harmony tolerance is a must.

Until now people have somehow managed to muster enough tolerance to live as one nation. Although a lack of it is always displayed in the form of racism, casteism, etc.

However now globalization calls for higher amount of tolerance to tackle today’s well known enemy ‘terrorism’ may be it of any form.

People today are required to tolerate people with different colour, religion, caste, nationality, even sexual orientation. People should not take tolerance as encroachment or acceptance of new values but simply take tolerance as acknowledgement of the fact that other values exist.

A greater amount of tolerance will bring a lot of peace and harmony into this world. I may sound like a staunch Gandhian but his principle of tolerance still stands…..