Like every country, India wants to be a nation of peace, tolerance and prosperity. Like all nations, India wants to prove that it has always been a tolerant and peace-loving nation. And like every nation on the earth, its history can at the most be described chequered with long periods of wars and internal struggles along with abundant examples of peaceful existence in various parts of the country and in various periods. Like all the communities of the world again, all the communities of the country — Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and atheists, boast of being inherently tolerant, and the truth on the other hand is that individuals and groups belonging to almost all of them have had their share in violence and oppression of one kind or the other. The tendency to indulge in violence is almost always more in the groups that hold the reins of the power. The weak too often indulges in violence in retaliation to widespread oppression or discrimination. The amount of the violence caused by the weak is almost always much less compared to the violence against them, but the powerful tends to highlight it so disproportionately that they appear to be the culprit rather than the victim.
