‘Without engagement we can’t achieve success and protest democracy’: Pranab Mukherjee

President Pranab Mukherjee.

Calling for debate and greater elbow room for unorthodox views, Vice-President Hamid Ansari on Friday said that a plural society like India “needs to develop a mindset to move beyond tolerance to acceptance of diversity”. He was speaking at the launch of his book, Citizen and Society. The event was also attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The book, which is a collection of lectures delivered by Ansari on issues ranging from the role of women in a multicultural society to dynamics of a democratic nation, was released by President Pranab Mukherjee, who also reiterated the need to nurture the diversity of the Indian society.

“We cannot forget that without effective engagement we cannot achieve success and protest democracy. Democracies are noisy, maybe ours is a little too noisy. But it always pays if we engage ourselves with the issues,” Mukherjee said, after releasing the book published by Rupa.

Admiring the fact that 128 crore people, 1,800 dialects and more than 6.5 lakh villages co-exist under one flag and one Constitution, Mukherjee said, “This model of democracy has to be nurtured.”

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Modi underlined the importance of family. “Technology has turned citizens into netizens, traditional boundaries are being obliterated and our thinking is fast changing. Still, between the citizens and society, we have a unit that we call the family, which traditionally has been our biggest strength,” he said.

“We should be proud to be a country of so many dialects and languages, and so many different faiths, living in harmony. We have this legacy which we need to protect and promote,” he added.