www.hinducounciluk.org
UNITED KINGDOM, September 7, 2006: A director of the Hindu Council in the United Kingdom, Jay Lakhani, gave a speech at the Metropolitan Police Authority’s hearing with faith communities on September 7 in answer to the Hindu perspective on the fight against terrorism. Lakhani said, in part, “This issue has arisen in the name of religion and only a religious solution can diffuse the serious threat it poses for the whole of humanity. Religions are a very potent force, either we harness them for the greater good or they can run riot in our society. The way the authorities are trying to address this issue is by ‘toning down religions’ and asking people of faiths to put greater emphasis on ‘common humanity,’ hoping that this will diminish the threat of violence. Though this seems to be a clever thing to do it is guaranteed to fail. An issue that has arisen in the name of religion requires a resolution that comes from religion, else it will keep resurfacing and we have to resign ourselves to live from one critical alert to another! The resolution does not lie within the exclusivist ideologies of the Abrahamic faiths but within the Indic traditions. Religious Pluralism of the Hindus is the resolution. Hinduism does not like language like ‘tolerate other religions,’ neither is it too keen on the wordings often used in modern interfaith dialogue: ‘show respect for other religions’ as this is a patronizing approach. What we want to see is acceptance that there can be many different ways of making spiritual progress. These include theistic, non-theistic and even the non-religious modes. This is what pluralism means. Only when religious pluralism is invoked and infused in our society through the education system can we hope to make religions the cohesive force in our society. Such ideas have to be pro-actively promoted in the field of religious education. This is the only long term solution. We need to have faith. Not faith in a God, but faith in mankind’s capacity of making sensible judgments after receiving such wholesome education.”