NEW DELHI, Oct 25:
The political leadership must engage people in dialogue over rising intolerance, social reformer Sri M has said stressing that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have “expanded” on his post-Dadri lynching remarks on the need for Hindus and Muslims to jointly fight poverty.
Sri M, who is on the Bhopal-leg of his 15-month-long foot-march ‘walk of hope’ from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, said many political disturbances are put into the “communal mould” which is used by some sections to their advantage.
The 67-year-old spiritual leader, a native of Andhra Pradesh, said that he considered Modi’s remarks at an election rally in Bihar as a “beginning” and expected more from him.
“After President Pranab Mukherjee spoke he (Modi) also spoke. We have to expand on it. If that was considered as a beginning, I thought some more things might come out but they haven’t,” Sri M told PTI in an interview.
Asked whether the Prime Minister should speak more, Sri M said, “he should”. “He is a grassroots politician unlike Manmohan Singh. So why can’t he do it?”
‘Walk of Hope’ was flagged off on January 12 at Kanyakumari and has so far traversed the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat and is currently crossing Madhya Pradesh, after having completed 3,656 kms in 254 days.
“Post Madhya Pradesh, we will cover Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab before ending at Srinagar in April next year,” Sri M said here. On a private visit to Delhi, he had recently called on Modi and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Sri M, who was born as Mumtaz Ali, also spoke out against the commercialisation of Yoga. He said the good thing about Baba Ramdev was his efforts towards popularising Yoga. “But that he has commercialised it and money is coming…He need not have done it. That big empire is not required.”
Author of best-selling autobiography ‘Apprenticed to a Himalayan Master—A Yogi’s Autobiography, Sri M, said there was a need for a new dictionary with the correct interpretations of terms such as Secularism.
“Secularism is not the denial of religion. Left thinking has taken over this concept. And the concept is not alien to India. When the jews came into Kochi the Maharaja of Kochi welcomed them.
“And a secularist can’t be pseudo if he is really secular. Very many words we use are wrong,” Sri M said decrying the increasingly popular use of the term pseudo-secular.
He said the ‘Walk of Hope’ has exposed him to a different side of the country where people generally want to live together but when somebody instigates and it becomes a “raging flame”.
“And later these are used by people to their advantage. Many communal disturbances to me are political disturbances put into communal mould. People have to learn how to express their displeasure even if the issue is religious.
“Extremist elements must be sidelined…Do you think we should also become like the Taliban? What are we going to do in this country?” he asked. (PTI)
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