These rights are not given to the communities and the communities we talk about are not seen as religious communities. They are seen as cultural communities. In India, we have rights given to the religious minorities. That is all that is required. You do not have to give excessive rights to people and people should not demand excessive rights.
Religious communities, of course, must demand rights, and those must be given to them. They have those rights in India. In Berlin now, contruction of mosques is being allowed. There may be Hindu and Jain temples as well. There was a time when contruction of mosques was disallowed there as that would have not fitted their landscape.
In India, we have mosques in every corner. These mosques could be next to a Hindu or Jain temple or Sikh gurdwaras. We don't deem these as untoward. In Berlin, at one time, people objected to the construction of mosques arguing these would spoil their landscape.
They were not used to seeing minarets. Over time they have learnt to accept the reality and mosques that look like mosques have been allowed to be constructed. This is one example of how people are learning from religious diversities.
There will still be people who will object to this, saying it should not happen. That is the case within any society. You cannot grant citizenship and then tell the same people you cannot have a right to vote or you do not have a right to worship in your traditional manner. That does not work anymore. People will not accept it. If there are any kind of inequalities between citizens of one country, people have to strive to have those inequalities removed.
Image: MNS leader Raj Thackeray speaks to police officials outside a city court after being granted bail in one of the cases against him in Mumbai on October 21, 2008. Thackeray was arrested in connection with the attacks on north Indians who had come to the metropolis looking for jobs.
Photograph: Pal Pillai/AFP/Getty Images
Also read: Bigotry and Prejudice: the Depiction of Hinduism in the West
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