The mind behind such idea was a sociologist Descartes who said, ‘Cogito, ergo, sum’, which means ‘I think therefore I am’. It is not a negative idea but it certainly gave rise to individualism. However it is for the betterment of the individual in terms of health, education, longevity etc, it also helps in bringing peaceful co-existence.

But parochial interpretation leads to negative ideas. For example these days’ values are getting transformed but they are not deteriorating. New values are coming up. In the post modern knowledgeable society, which valued every culture it is called a phase of integration, in which various cultures dwell or live together.

On some aspects they remain integrated as one and on many aspects they remain separated. Whatever the case maybe, but they respect each other. They also keep on critically analyzing before arriving on any conclusion. This concept has been adopted by many countries.

Even by those who are blindly following the westernized countries. Still so many people face discrimination in terms of caste and religion. Religion is the main concern out here. Cultural pluralism needs to be kept aside if we cannot unite in terms of food, living and traditional habits then we can of course unite in terms of thoughts.

One way or the other, we are responsible for forcing people to lie and spread hatred. If I am a Christian they say ‘Oh? You are Christian!’ What do they actually mean by it? As I have encountered many people from different religions and regions, they discuss the problems they are facing. Whichever race has dominance in a particular area, automatically the lesser dominant race becomes a victim. Be it Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs or Christians. They would often say ‘My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist’.

If I am a Muslim that does not mean that I have been registered to do an illegal act. Neither people should be afraid of renting their property to me. If people of my religion are doing something wrong in other parts of the world, does it necessarily mean that they are provoked by me or allows people to look down on me? Wherever I go, whatever we do, people need to enquire a lot of questions from us! One of them narrates he is a media person, how police investigated him while he was returning from the office, asking questions such as, what is your name; prove your identity, what you are doing here during the night, where you work and blah blah! A Long array of questions!

This can be taken into consideration but does one ever think about the impact it makes on the minds of the people. If we see all this happening around ourselves, where is the education that has been given to us or where are the values, which say the world is one! Hence we are still struggling to adapt multiculturalism; we still prevail in a plural society, which never becomes one on any issue. It’s not bad to criticize but it’s also good to show empathy. People are homogeneous whereas thinking and adoption is heterogeneous. Let’s join hands, unite and become multicultural. Find the similarities and respect the differences.