The debate about religious harmony and the sacredness of difference in parts of South Asia brings to mind the late Yogi Berra’s observation on the desirable balance between speaking and listening. “It was impossible to get a conversation going,” the legendary American baseball player once complained, “everybody was talking too much.”
Something similar may be said to be happening in India and Bangladesh. Too much talking, especially on social media, is preventing real communication about shared values – what to keep, what to junk and what, more crucially, to do about what matters. Both are constitutionally secular countries but seem unable to decide if secularism, the policy of each state, should be allowed to promote secularisation, which is a social process. Is the secular becoming too foreign and profane for South Asia?
Read Full Article »