How children learn ‘hate’ from their surroundings

Stereotypes have been mainstreamed in the Indian narrative and accepted as facts, concluded authors Anuja Chauhan, Nazia Erum, Natasha Badhar and Andaleeb Wajib as they wound up their session on unlearning hate at the fourth edition of the Times Litfest on Saturday.
The four women agreed that children learn to hate from their surroundings, but also felt it can be unlearnt.“There is a reason why stories of syncretic India are shared so widely. We want to listen to these stories because they give us hope,” said Badhar, adding that sometimes all it takes to break stereotypes is “opening up your lives to people who do not understand nuances”. “My husband Afzal has changed the perspectives of many people just through his interactions with them,” she said.
Erum, who has a “four, almost five-year-old daughter”, said children in schools are being made aware of their identities as Muslims and being compartmentalised. “When Muslim kids are now asked what their religion is, they answer the question with a disclaimer. Yes, I am a Muslim. But I do not eat beef. That is a dangerous precedent,” said Erum, adding that teachers are complicit in this “othering process through their silence”.
Chauhan, who says she has reached a “post-religious territory”, emphasised that instead of raising children who believe that “one God is superior to the other, we need to raise them as kind individuals who interact with people beyond their backgrounds”.
“Children learn more from what they see, rather than what they hear. The trouble is that we seek people like us. As parents, we need to identify if our children just have friends like themselves, and step in if they do. We need to teach them to interact with people from different faiths, languages and socio-economic backgrounds,” she said.
The women agreed that hatred has no religion, and said the only way forward would be to teach children “not to just tolerate people different from us, but to embrace them”.