New Delhi: Vice President Mohammed Hamid Ansari while releasing a book titled 'Fikr' brought out by National Institute of Faith Leadership on Tuesday said that Indian experience of a large Muslim minority living in secular polity having a composite culture could be a model for others to emulate.
The Vice President said that the book is an effort to remove the popular and prejudiced impressions about Islam as a faith and Muslims as a people.
"This is a beautifully produced volume. It is a work of art and brings to mind the Prophetic Saying: Inna Allah hu jameel-un uhibbul jamal Allah is beautiful and loves beauty. It should be welcomed for its aesthetic presentation as also to its content", the Vice President said.
"I do feel there is a crying need to look at the unexplored or inadequately explored requirements of all segments of the community particularly women, youth, and non-elite sections who together constitute the overwhelming majority who remain trapped in a vicious circle of a culturally defensive posture that hinders self advancement and well being", he said.
Quoting the Algerian-French philosopher Mohammed Arkoun, the Vice President said that it was the challenge of our times to rethink modernity so that, critical thought, anchored in modernity but criticising modernity itself and contributing to its enrichment through recourse to the Islamic example could open up a new era in social movements.
The Vice President suggested that thinking minds should look beyond questions of identity and dignity in a defensive mode and explore how both can be furthered in a changing India and a changing world.
He added that this would necessitate sustained and candid interaction with fellow citizens and the actual implementation of the principles of justice, equality and fraternity inscribed in the Preamble of the Constitution and the totality of Fundamental Rights.
"I do feel there is a crying need to look at the unexplored or inadequately explored requirements of all segments of the community particularly women, youth, and non-elite sections who together constitute the overwhelming majority who remain trapped in a vicious circle of a culturally defensive posture that hinders self advancement and well being", he said.
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