INTOLERANCE

INTOLERANCE

By Parichita Basak

Intolerance is the unwillingness of accepting beliefs, behavior or practices of someone different person related to other cast, religion or custom. It may give rise to the high level hate, crimes and discrimination in the society. It gives rise the property of refusal in the mind and heart of any person to refuse, disallow or deny something (action or practice) happening against his/her will or practice. It does not allow people to live with equality, indiscrimination, freedom, or other social rights. Intolerance in the society generally arises due to the cast, culture, gender, religion or any unbearable practice. On the other hand, tolerance is the quality which appreciates equality in the society even after the existence of diversity. It appreciates people for the ability to live as well as let others live whether the person belongs to any religion, cast or custom.

Intolerance disallow a person to go together, follow or bear the practices or opinions by the people of different religion, cast, or nationality from one’s own. 

"Tolerance is not just agreeing with one another or remaining indifferent in the face of injustice, but rather showing respect for the essential humanity in every person.” 

Tolerance is considered as the good quality of a man and it is most necessary to make a society. However, intolerance leads a person, people or society to the worst disaster. If we have a look in the history and mythology, we will see variety of horrible acts of intolerance. People develop the feeling of jealous and then intolerance just because of simple things like someone cannot bear the importance of his/her close one’s in the eye of most effective person. One of the historical intolerance acts is Aurangzeb killed many Hindu people under feet of elephants as he developed intolerance to the Hinduism, etc. Some people quarrel to each other as they cannot tolerate each other’s behaviors, beliefs and practices. Intolerant people become unable to take right decision to someone just because of intolerance to hear the views of someone different.

Intolerance is a bad quality which leads a person, society or country towards disaster. On the other hand, people with tolerance can live in the society with equality even after being different in cast, religion, opinion, and practice. Tolerance is a power which makes people able to do justice by hearing and accessing the different views of others. Democratic countries have tolerance as an indispensable quality. Being a tolerant person helps in tolerating any bitter condition in the surrounding areas. Habit of tolerance is the individual culture of every citizen in India. Tolerance is an essential quality of painless life. India is a democratic and developing country where people develop habit of tolerance from their childhood under the guidance of elders so it is rare to see intolerance in India.

We cannot say that there is intolerance in India as this country is the best suited example of an idiom called “Unity in Diversity”. It is the fast growing country because of its unique quality of having unity in diversity. It is the country where people of different cast, creed, religion, custom, culture, tradition and practice are living together for years without any difference. They celebrate their fairs and festivals with great enthusiasm and without any interference of people of different group. They have proper understanding and respect to each other’s beliefs, custom and practices. Citizens of India have the quality of tolerance which provides them ability to live and let others live.

A statement of a Bollywood actor, Amir Khan, about the growing climate of intolerance in India was very surprising to everyone as he has made such a serious comment over an unfortunate incident. India is a country where no one can blame that people here are developing intolerance as everyone has proper understanding to each other’s religion and practice.

Intolerance (especially religious intolerance) separates people living in the society and it acts as divider of the nations. It creates the condition of disrespect, enmity and war in the society between people of different cast, religion, opinions and practices. It puts neighbor against neighbor by creating disbeliefs to each other.

The situation of intolerance may occur because of economically depressed and politically charged situation among the people of different groups. In such situation, people find hard to tolerate those different from themselves. It harms everyone badly and most importantly the nation. The country where intolerance exists may be the home of discrimination, repression, dehumanization, and violence.