Religion for unity: Prez
President Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday gave a strong message of religious tolerance as he refered to the teaching of Mahatma Gandhi and quoted him more than once saying “religion is a force for unity” and “we cannot make it a cause of conflict” as wisdom of India always teaches “unity is strength, dominance is weakness.” Pitching for making the country safer on the eve of the 66th Republic Day celebrating the theme of ‘Nari Shakti,’ the Presid- ent said only a nation that respects its women can become “global power”.
Speaking about terrorism, Mr Mukherjee said that “adversaries” would at nothing to disrupt India’s progress.”
President Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday made a veiled reference to Pakistan as he refered to the repeated ceasefire violations along the LoC saying the country’s “adversaries” will stop at nothing to disrupt India’s progress .
“Repeated violations of the ceasefire along the Line of Control and terrorist attacks must get an integrated response through incisive diplomacy and impregnable security mechanisms. The world must join India in fighting terrorism,” he said.
Without directly refering to the raging controversy over religious conversion and reported hate speeches being made by political leaders time and again, the President said, “The freedom inherent in democracy sometimes generates an unhappy by-product when political discourse becomes a “competition in hysteria that is abhorrent to our traditional ethos. The violence of the tongue cuts and wounds people’s hearts.”
In his address to the nation on the eve of 66th Republic Day, Mr Mukherjee also cautioned the government against the Ordinance route to bring legislations saying enacting laws without discussions “breaches the trust” reposed by people and is not good for democracy. Mukherjee said that after three decades, people have voted a single party to majority for having a stable government. “The voter has played her part; it is now up to those who have been elected to honour this trust. It was a vote for clean, efficient, effective, gender-sensitive, transparent, accountable and citizen-friendly governance,” he said.
On the menace Of terrorism, the President said, “While peace, non-violence and good neighbourly intentions should remain the fundamentals of our foreign policy, we cannot afford to be complacent about adversaries who will stop at nothing to disrupt our progress towards a prosperous and equitable India.’’
Asking countrymen to take a pledge to ensure women’s safety ,”Atrocities of rape, murders, harassment on the roads, kidnapping and dowry deaths have made women fearful even in their own homes,”
Quoting Benjamin Franklin, he said: “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are”. He said the country’s future will remain both visible and elusive “if we do not discover the ability to continually cleanse ourselves of retrograde habits and social ills”.
He said while the country is rightly focused on celebrating, this year, the centenary of Gandhiji’s return to India from South Africa in 1915, perhaps we should cast a glance on what Gandhiji did in 1901 when he picked up a broom .