It’s our tradition to agree to disagree
social caste rigidities of the sanatan dharma to discover new paths of spirituality, metaphysics, and social organisation. Here is religious plurality created through dissent. Buddhism and Jainism are two religions in India which are not posited on the notion and existence of God. Also, sanatan dharma included Buddha as one of the ten avatars of God, along with Rama and Krishna.
Whether in traditions of creative expression or in the repertoire of intellectual articulation, in India dissent from faith or from the state has always been allowed to grow and be acknowledged. In fact, the plurality was inspired and expanded through dissent. For instance, when the classical tyranny of Sanskrit needed to be questioned and subverted, many modern Indian languages came into being as forms of dissent from the classical. The vernacular did not, as it were, demolish or aspire to occupy the hallowed space of the classical. Instead it became a dissenting parallel. Each Indian language embodies and sustains a worldview which deviates from the classical world view of Sanskrit. The presence of nearly 1,000 Ramayanas in India ranging from creative transformations in languages to different readings from the Jain point view for instance, are evidence that the domination of a narrative and the worldview it enacted and expressed was creatively challenged and transformed. A Kannada Ramayan or a Hindi Ramcharitmanas deviate quite substantially from the original in Sanskrit by Valmiki and all of them have validity and sanction.
Some satisfaction can be derived from the fact that in the present situation some writers-artists-intellectuals have refused to be silent and have protested. It could be claimed that they have stood by the glorious and unbroken tradition of plurality and dissent and hopefully would continue to fight through creative and intellectual means for democratic values of freedom, justice and equality as enshrined both in our traditions and the Constitution. All thinking and creative persons owe this much at least to Indian heritage, creative imagination and humanity. That they have many different points once again underlines the innate plurality of both affirmation and dissent in India.