This article was first Published on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at – :
http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2008/04/indian-muslims-amity-road.html
BOOK REVIEW – A road to Amity by Dr. Rafiq Zakaria
Thanks to Rafiq Zakaria for writing this book and thanks to Sreeram Chaulia for encapsulating the essence in his review so well. These are the very words I have written and talked about in bits and pieces all my life. I hope this book gets wide circulation and discussed through out India.
I strongly believe that justice, [also balance or equilibrium] is at the core of a secure, peaceful and a prosperous nation. The Bill Gates Model, where one’s success translates to the success of all can be seriously looked at. The traditional words like Charity and Alms must be dropped from daily usage as they bond the disadvantaged to the dependency; instead we need to start talking about investment in human development. Bringing every one up on to a level playing field and let them compete from that point forward. It is investing in the sum total of each human being into a productive and contributing citizen to benefit her/him and that which benefits to the nation as a whole.
GROSS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
It would be like GDP of a nation, a sum total of goods and services produced in a nation. We can call is GHD – Gross human development which would factor in the sum total of all contributions towards the security and peace of the society, they very ingredient that ensures and sustains the economic prosperity of a nation.
This would include every effort to mitigate conflicts and seamlessly convert them into Goodwill to our words and actions would focus on getting along rather than harp on conflicts; it would be an institutional change. Just as the Japanese find it difficult to sit and do nothing, we would become a society where we would relentlessly work on building goodwill and would not sit quite until we resolve societal conflicts – without blaming and without score keeping, a requirement of Good will building.
I do hope that book also factor in the positive efforts made by Muslims in India today for a better India. The mainstream media can stoke this positive aspect of Indians into enhancing the Gross human development.
Jai Hind
Mike Ghouse is a Speaker, Thinker, Writer and a Moderator. He is a frequent guest on talk radio and local television network discussing Pluralism, politics, Islam, Religion, Terrorism, India and civic issues. He is the founder of the World Muslim Congress, a group committed to building bridges and nurturing a world of co-existence. He also heads the foundation for pluralism, an organization committed to studying religious pluralism and pluralistic governance. His personal website is http://www.mikeghouse.net/ and his writings are on the above websites as well as several of the ancillary Blogs listed on the sites.
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