India allows its citizens to express different opinions: MoS V Muraleedharan

Union Minister V Muraleedharan on Friday stated that India is one of the only country's that allows an individual to express diverse views. Addressing an inter-faith conference in Aluva area of the city, he pointed out that India does not figure in the list of countries where hundreds of people are killed because of religious conflict.

"In our country, we use a lot of words like religious harmony and riots. But when it comes to the number of countries that lose at least one thousand lives a year in the number of religious conflicts globally, India is nowhere near that. Nowhere in the world would we have the freedom to express different opinions, as in our own country. " he said.

He also rejected the relevance of Manusmriti in the modern era. "I am not a supporter of Manusmriti. I think that Manusmriti has no relevance today. A situation in which each of us is free to put forward our own perspective. That's what makes India special," he added.

He further stated that the constitution of the country was derived from the culture of the nation. "If anyone says that our culture was made by the Constitution. No, we created it after independence. I do not think that would be completely correct. It has nothing to do with freedom or the Constitution. It is part of our culture, part of our way of life. It is dissolved in our blood. It has been recognised since prehistoric times," he added.

Aluva is a municipality and a northern suburb of the city of Kochi in Kerala. Situated around 15 km from the city center on the banks of Periyar River, it is one of the major industrial centers of the state.