The New Indian Express ·
Belief, practice and the many ways of seeing
As the world remembers the horrific Islamist terrorist strikes against the United States on 9/11 twenty-five years ago, we in India also remember how, in 1893, Swami Vivekananda addressed the World’s Parliament of Religions on the same day. The two represent opposite ends of religion’s role in our lives.
While Vivekananda advocated pluralism and the end of fanaticism, the threat of religious extremism is still very much a concern in today’s world. According to verifiable figures compiled by the Fondation pour l’innovation politique (Fondapol), close to a quarter million people have been killed by Islamist terrorism and violent extremism since September 11, 2001.
Given these facts, controversy over the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) monks’ avoidance of women is rather unfortunate. It not only gives BAPS, but Hinduism itself, a bad name. Even though BAPS adherents and Swaminarayans in general are a totally peaceful sect, they do not restrict or curtail the liberty or dress of women in the manner in which many Muslim clerics, whether in India or elsewhere, do.
