Outline: Two major communities – minority community – Muslims and the English immigrant children – mutual understanding will bring about harmony between the Hindus and Muslims.
There were various communities in India. The two major communities are the Hindus and the Muslims. Owing to unavoidable historical circumstances, the relations between the two communities have been embittered, and several communal riots have broken out. Those living today have nothing to do with what happened way back in history and yet because people are not willing to forgive and forget, thanks to the politicians, the anger continues.
The minority community feels insecure and is consequently dissatisfied. There is no reason why it should be dissatisfied since India is a secular country. The root of the trouble is lack of understanding between the two communities. But the causes of this lack of understanding are historical, political and economical rather than cultural or linguistic.
Muslims, for example, cannot be compared to the immigrant children in England. While the surrounding of immigrants are entirely unfamiliar, the surroundings of Indian Muslims cannot be said to be so. While immigrant children don’t know English, a foreign language, many Indian Muslims speak or at least know the language of the region in which they live. On the whole, language is not a great barrier between two communities.
But knowing or speaking a language is one thing, and studying it and its literature with a view to understand the cultural values embodied in them is quite another. Each community should try to understand the cultural values embodied in the languages of the community, whether they are Urdu, Persian, Sanskrit or modern Indian languages. Such a mutual understanding will facilitate the solution of the communal problem.
