Paradox of Tolerating Intolerance

Social issues, inherently, are neither paradoxical any more than they are contradictory. It is the formulation of these issues that gives birth to paradoxes, contradictions and such like. (For the simple reason that ‘paradox’, ‘contradiction’, etc. are properties of statements, not of objects and events.) If there is a ‘paradox’ of freedom, then it lies not in the situation where one tradition (or even a set of traditions) meets another: that is to say, it is not the situation of Indian traditions meeting religions like Christianity and Islam that gives birth to the ‘paradox’. Rather, it is by describing this meeting of the Indian traditions with religions like Christianity and Islam as an issue involving freedom (i.e. conceptualizing this meeting in terms of freedom) that one generates the paradox. There exist other descriptions that do not give birth to this ‘paradox of freedom’.

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