India, Dec. 29 -- India is fortunate to have given birth to Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda, and Mahatma Gandhi, who inspired generations not only in India but across the world. Apart from their liberal thinking, their thoughts on religious freedom were monumental and therefore serve as the basis for this very idea in this country. The world revered them as champions of universal religion. Today, when religion is used as a political tool to enforce unity through similarity rather than through diversity, the views of Tagore, Vivekananda, and Gandhi, particularly on religious tolerance and freedom, are what the country badly misses.

Rabindranath Tagore was a liberal thinker who strongly emphasised the philosophy of man-centric unive...