President Mukherjee hails India as 'the land of tolerance'

Dubbing the importance of free thinking and debate in India, President Pranab Mukherjee asserted that India's strength is its ability to manage diversity and forge unity in divergence.

Addressing the 52nd Annual Convocation of Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, West Bengal, here on Saturday, President Mukherjee said that Indians can be termed as argumentative, but not intolerant.

Lauding the efforts of educational institutions in the country towards becoming a confluence of civilisational thoughts and ideas, President Mukherjee said that the atmosphere in our institutions should be free from both physical as well as mental violence.

Quoting Mahatma Gandhi in his address, he said "I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. If our feet are firmly on the ground, we will not be blown off by ideas from outside. India is a land of tolerance. We adopt, embrace and absorb but never reject. Let there be debate, disagreement and dissension but not intolerance."

He also urged that those institutions of higher learning in India, should find their place in the top global rankings as per rating agencies.

IIM Calcutta was established on November 14, 1961 to give shape to the vision of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. The IITs and IIMs were envisaged by Nehru as national institutions of excellence in engineering and management education that would mould high caliber of human capital.