'Love of human kind is the essence of living'

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE, JULY 7. The Anjuman Funkaran-e-Urdu, an association of Urdu writers and journalists, today organised a seminar on "Is Islam intolerant to others?" to remove certain misconceptions in the minds of other communities.

Speaking at the seminar, the former Chief Minister and MP, Mr. S.Bangarappa, said no religion propagated destruction of another one. In every religion vested interests existed, who perpetrated excesses for their own purposes, and that they were not guided by the "holy books."

He said since birth was an accident, there was no choice of religion before birth, and everyone should accept this and live in a peaceful manner. Not only this, but one should be secular, he said and pointed out how Tipu Sultan before he set off on a war, had offered prayers at the Ranganathaswamy temple.

Urdu, he said, was a rich language, and it should be spread to give the flavour of the language to all.

Mr. Allum Veerabhadrappa, Minister of State for Horticulture and President of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee, said that no religion propagated intolerance of an other. He said India was an example of how various religions, languages and so on had co- existed, and the frictions that arose now and then were the doings of "vested interests."

Moulvi Syed Shah Hasan Shamsul Haq of the Islamic Research Centre and the Institute of Arabic and Persian Learning, referred to the holy Quran stating that love of humankind was the essence of living.

The Secretary-General of the association, Mr. S.R.Khan, said that Urdu had been neglected by successive governments. He pointed out how some schools suffered for want of teachers.

He also pointed out that the doings Tipu Sultan and Aurangzeb were distorted by some historians, who termed them as religious bigots when they were actually secular. There was a need to rectify such distortions.

The Minister for Tourism, Mr. R.Roshan Baig, and the Minister of State for Kannada and Culture, Ms. Rani Satish, were present.

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