Meriam-Webster defines pluralism as “a state of society in which members of diverse ethnic, racial, religious, or social groups maintain and develop their traditional culture or special interest within the confines of a common civilization or a concept, doctrine, or policy advocating this state.”

Over the past few decades the world has seen a lot of examples where the word ‘pluralism’ seems missing almost in every aspect of life. Though, there are some improvements, but not so much significant if we compare it with technological and economic development.

Agha Khan IV says, “Pluralism is no longer simply an asset or a prerequisite for progress and development, it is vital to our existence.”

One of today’s hot topics is the religious extremism. Luckily every news outlet and media organization has given significant coverage to it, but, unfortunately, religious pluralism has never got any coverage or importance because majority of the media outlet are run for business interest and this topic can’t draw enough business interest for them.

If we look at the some developing countries, we can find many examples where on the base of religion people are discriminated. They are not given proper care the way that majority religion has got. The minority religion’s people are always limited to several jobs and are always deprived of basic human rights and has been kept un-aware – that has ruined their lives and they are no improving since generations. Unfortunately, this trend is being shown in some developed countries as well.

When discriminating on the base of a religion we always forget that every religion teaches humanity and humans come first. Every religion has given priority to humanity, while the rest of the factors have always got a second priority. The bad luck is that many faith-based groups and religion dominant countries has taken benefit of it by keeping the public un aware of the most important issues and keeping them busy in religious conflicts and issues such as terrorism and extremism.

Our ethnicities, castes, race, culture, political views, socio-economic backgrounds, intellects, etc. have always miss used while it can be used for to make world a better place. But, who can be blamed, either our educational curricula or the industries who are taking benefit of keeping the humans far away from each other.

Since decades, and even today, the world is striving for peace, countering violent extremism, economic stability, social welfare, youth positive development for a better world, but ignoring the fact of pluralism. Almost, in every meeting, classroom and groups discussion, we feel proud that we have brought numerous level of improvement with respect to diversity – giving example with proud that we have people from different regions, of different ethnicity, caste, race, and religions, but one thing that is highly missing – is peaceful co-existing and understanding that diversity is natural, and we can’t fight against the nature because nature is very powerful.

James Dobson says, “It is very important to understand that pluralism is part of our system. We don’t all think the same thing and part of our strength is that we come from different perspectives. We have to respect one another even when we disagree with each other. There has to be a spirit of tolerance for the views of others, while also being deeply committed to the positions we hold. If we do that, I think we can coexist and learn to love each other better.”

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