COLLECTIVE ACTION FOR DIALOGUE AND SOCIAL HARMONY

With growing instances of communal violence in the country, an inter-religious meet of leaders from Muslim, Jain, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Catholic faiths was held at Ravindra Bhavan on 5^th April 2018, to call for building goodwill and social harmony. Around 44 students of Don Bosco College Of Engineering attended this event.

President Of The Bhartiya Sarv Dharm, Sansad Sushil Goswami Maharaj; Chairman of Bangla Sahib Gurudwara ,Paramjeet Singh Chandok; President Of Imam Council Of India, Imam Umer Ahmed Ilyasi; President Of International Mahavir Jain Mission, Vivek Muni; Founder of The Mahabodhi International Meditation Centre, Ladakh Bikku Sanghasena and Secretary General of The Catholic Bishops Conference Of India (CBCI) Bishop Rev. Theodore  Mascarenhas were on the panel of speakers at the meet.

The leaders of all the six faiths signed a declaration condemning the violence, urging authorities to take speedy action and the society to stand up for social harmony.

Bishop Mascarenhas said, “India was built a secular multi-religious peaceful society. This was not an accidental decision but was a choice that Indians made. Today there is a certain tendency to look at ourselves different from others, thereby destroying the unity in diversity model and making it intolerable.”

The chief guest Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrao said that “there are many social problems the country is facing including unemployment, crime, child marriage, violence against women and corruption. But communal violence is dangerous and builds on distrust.”  The Archbishop said the country is facing threat of terror and extremism in the name of religion that creates a climate of fear.

The speakers at the meet called for unity and social harmony and urged people to put the country first and not religions and called for more dialogues of the kind to “sit alongside brothers of other faiths and build the spirit of love, peace and brotherhood.”