A man of principles should always keep his ideology above any other thing in life but at the same time should be tolerant towards the opinions of others, at least as long as they don’t harm our interests.
Being born in a pluralistic country like India and a simple middle class Hindu family, the two basic values I received was to follow and love your culture and NEVER disrespect someone else’s beliefs(religious in particular).
I believed all my friends were taught the same, until few months back. My belief shook when a schoolmate who never bunked even the most boring class at school, left the whatsapp group because some students were writing JAI SHREE RAM to express their joy over the Bhumi Pujan.
While I used to happily ask for Sevai from my friends on Eid and dotingly listened to the stories of their Holy sojourn, none of these people turned up to congratulate me on such an auspicious day of my life.
It is but natural in a democracy for people to have different socio-political inclinations amd hence politics was never a topic of discussion at school. Also I believed that it can never be a bar in friendship. But the myth seemed to break when I heard the most loyal and dedicated love-birds of our school are at the verge of breaking apart because of different political opinions. These two people who presented themselves as epitome of inter-religion love mow struggle to stay together. Things were perfect between them only until the girl did not put forward her political opinions.
Many other friends of mine have also reduced conversation with me after I started putting out Insta stories embracing my faith and political stand. Though this is not a generalisation as many of my friends are the same with me as they were despite their opinions on certain matters being poles apart to that of mine.
But what bothers me the most is that the people who one’s spent hours talking to me now hardly reply to my text (I tried finding other possible reasons but could not).
The only clauses in the contract of friendship were loyalty and unconditional love then how can religion or politics be the cause of breaking or ruining it.
