The unity and brotherhood is again nurturing in the national capital on the special occasion of 26 January , the Republic day of India , the largest diverse democratic country of the world .

The school opened after a few weeks .Everything went back to normal . The exams got over and on the last day of school something peculiar happened .

The English teacher Miss Kaur asked Ayra's class to assemble in the classroom after lunch break.

Everyone including Ayra , Kabir , Jheel and Erica gathered in the classroom as instructed .

Miss Kaur came to the class and she said, "Today we will do something different . Everyone will now seat according to their respective religions. Students will now sit in four different columns according to their respective religions".

The class was baffled after listening Miss Kaur , some students openly protested this seating arrangement while others stayed tongue tied .

After 15 minutes everyone sat as instructed by Miss Gaur . Ayra , Kabir , Jheel and Erica sat in four different columns with sour faces because they had never sat apart from each other in the class.

Now Miss Gaur spoke out,"Children today we will play a game together . These four columns represents four religions . I have a list of student's name sitting in their respective column according to their religion.

In each turn I will call any two participants from any two columns/ teams . These two participants will ask a question from each other related to the opponent's religion , the participant who will get maximum votes from the class on his answer will win a point for his column/team ".

From column A , step out Kabir and from column B Ayra you come out .

Ayra and Kabir stood in front of the class .

Ayra asked Kabir ,"What are the focal points of your religion?"

Kabir replied ,"Dhyāna which means meditation ,Jñāna which means Knowledge and tyāga which means renunciation ".

Then Kabir asked Ayra , " What is love Jihad ?".

Whispers were heard in classroom after Kabir spoke out his question . Miss Gaur shushed everyone .

Ayra spoke out ," First we need to understand Jihad . Jihad refers to any work done to promote knowledge , to eliminate poverty , to establish social justice and equality ,to help others with compassion and care .All these things come under the concept of Jihad .

The media and various sections of society defines Love Jihad as a situation when Muslim person marries a person belonging to a different religion falsefully by hiding his own Muslim religion from his partner and later pressurising/forcing the partner to convert to Islam .

Everyone knows what love is and now I have also defined Jihad correctly before you all . So, now think logically that are these terms related to each other and is it correct to put these two words together ? Jihad is about selflessness , revival of humanity and intellect then how can anything which promotes injustice and inhumanity come under the category of Jihad ".

There was pin drop silence but then the whole class erupted into clapping . Clearly, Ayra got majority support and she won a point for her team .

Miss Gaur next called Jheel and Erica .

Erica asked Jheel ," Why is anyone belonging to any religion allowed to eat in the Golden Temple ? If you give food in langar (Community kitchen in Gurdwara) or seva (service) will you get Mukti(Salvation )?

Jheel replied ," The Golden Temple is known to have one of the biggest community kitchens in the world , serving thousands of people every day . By virtue of Sikhism's preaching , the Gurdwara has entry gates from all sides , signifying that everyone is welcome to visit it , regardless of caste , colour , creed, religion or sex .

The concept of seva has nothing to do with curing one's sins . Infact a seva done with a feeling to cure sins is no seva at all" .

Jheel asked Erica ," Some Christian missionaries has ruined many families by forceful conversions of people by offering money to poor people or by fooling people by fake stories what will you say in this context ?".

Erica replied," Yes I agree some fake missionaries are doing wrong work but still there are some missionaries who are working to help people without any expectations in return . Today students from different religion study in missionary run schools without facing any discrimination on basis of their religion , caste or creed".

Erica and Jheel both got equal votes for their respective answers .

After that Miss Gaur called Veronica and Karthik .

Karthik asked Veronica , "You people love the western culture more than the Indian culture ?".

Veronica replied," I am as much Indian as you are Karthik . If we differ in customs , eating habits and dressing sense that does not mean that we love western culture or western countries more than India . We love India from our heart and soul . India is not only about the Indian culture but it is also about diversity and secularism .

Veronica questioned Karthik , "Your religion supports caste system , it has led to reservations for the lower caste people in various jobs and institutions of the country. These reservations often makes intellectual people belonging to general/unreserved categories loose lose opportunities which in turn leads to conflict and caste based bias in the society , what will you say on this?

Karthik replied," In ancient times four different classes were made in Hinduism to innate properties and actions . Everyone was encouraged , trained and facilitated in whatever occupation best suited their nature . In this way everyone got employed , this was divine based caste system.

The demoniac caste system which is still going on in India , is based on one's birth . This exploitative system was introduced by unqualified and unjust people to forcefully make themselves the leader of society by suppressing other people ".

The majority now voted in favour of Karthik . Now all the four
teams/columns made a tie with each other having 1 point each .

Miss Gaur now spoke up , " So how did it felt to sit like this in the class ? I know you all must have felt uneasy .

I made you all sit like this because I wanted you all to realise that religion can't be criteria for creating differences among people or categorizing people publically .

Secondly ,I made you all play this game to make you all understand that no religion, caste, creed or people are bad in actual only the circumstances and misconceptions create fights , arguments and even violence between different religions or sections of society".

The whole class had amused faces , everyone understood what Miss Gaur wanted to convey . The academic session ended on a good note teaching them the lesson of unity , compassion , humanity and brotherhood .

Misconceptions create rumors , rumors create conflicts and conflicts leads to unrest in the society . The unrest ultimately leads to violence .

Note- I have no intention to hurt any religious sentiment through this chapter . No offence taken.