Report
By
Jayanti
FLAME University, India recently organized a Case Study conference at its Pune Campus on July 10th and 11th. FLAME University offers International curriculum for various disciplines. As such the conference was first of its kind to be organized at Pune as per the University authorities. Also within India we rarely come across such case study conferences. This conference was organized in collaboration with ET cases, wing of Economic Times, a leading newspaper of Times of India publication. It was indeed an honor for members Jayanti Chavan and Suhas Chavan to present their case study on the Journey of a Peace Ambassador which got selected for presentation after rigorous scrutiny. We were told, a total of thirty five cases were selected following a rigorous two stage blind-review process from the eighty four case abstracts initially received and forty eight full cases received in stage two of the review process. The authors were affiliated to thirty five different institutions/IIMs/universities/firms from across India and were present for two days.
What made us choose the topic?
In the present time of escalated unrest and violence, Peace being an important area for deliberation and application, we arrived conscientiously on the title of case study under the domain of Humanities and Social Science. With the passing of years, Peace has become an essential and costly commodity today. Today there is shortage of Peace everywhere even amongst the literate or wealthy group. Fortunately Peace cannot be purchased with one's material prowess; else it will cease to be called as 'Peace'. Naturally Peace has to be practiced through the association and guidance of advanced souls whose life's journey is meant only for the cause of Peace. So we thought of presenting a journey of a Peace ambassador to encourage the audience/reader to take up the cause of Peace at sometime in his/her life. And also we wanted to guide them in identifying a genuine peace maker as well a genuine peace process.
We thought of several esteemed Peace Ambassadors like Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Dr. Abdul Kalam and so on. But within a given time, it was not possible to gather volumes of data and information for case study analysis. Simultaneously we felt, there are so many great silent heroes in India and around who are selflessly working for Peace sans publicity and recognition and it becomes our duty to acknowledge them in public. And we realized closely known amongst us was our own Dr. T.D. Singh. His life's journey from witnessing World War II as a child to experiencing terrorism towards the end was strangely packed with calamities, challenges and achievements and what enthralled us was under the hard situation, qualities like excellence and humanness stood apart and was sustained throughout his life.
The case study format had so many parameters to be obliged. It needed an objective analysis of quantitative and qualitative data gathered. It wanted analysis of problems, challenges and opportunities in the journey and data/information supporting them. And the challenges authors face while working on the case study and relevance of this case study in today's environment etc. etc. Each case study was allotted 25 mins. for presentation including discussions.
We prepared a chart which summarized the events of Dr. T.D. Singh's life between 1942-1976 covering problems, challenges and opportunities and finally how he dreamt of a vision based on 'New Science' for world Peace. His vision based on 'Meaning and Purpose of Life' and its relation with Peace was emphasized. Here we quoted his primary approach towards Peace, "Peace is a key ingredient of meaning, purpose and fulfillment of life and without peace there will be no happiness and value in life. But a false meaning to life will never be able to bring lasting peace in the world."
His journey from 1977 till his final days was encapsulated under section, translating vision into reality for world peace. It was here we introduced URI through two slides under inter-faith exploration for Peace and Dr. T.D. Singh's role during initial days when URI was founded. Gradually we introduced the purpose of URI and their activities and how they have grown today. One of the slides that we displayed was of recent 15th anniversary celebration with UN and how URI supports the cause of the purpose for which UN was established in 1945 (Establish Family of nations).
We read out the excerpt of Rev. Bishop Swing's significant speech delivered during the celebration.
They are as follows:
".......Here we are seventy years later, and a former commander of US nuclear forces tells us in San Francisco, that there are 10 million hacking attempts launched daily at the United States agencies in charge of nuclear weapons. We, who have hundreds of missiles on hair-trigger alert, could be hacked and the missiles could be launched and detonated without authorization. If a United Nations was necessary in 1945, it is 10 million times more important today.
Today, you can throw in climate change, species depletion, resource depletion, overpopulation, and on and on. This world's survival is bigger than the security needs of one nation. A United Nations...the only place in the world where the nations can meet....a United Nations is necessary.
At this cathedral, we have a 12:15 service around lunchtime every day. Usually, 10 or 15 people show up. But.....on the day after 9/11, 6,000 people showed up. 4,000 more came to an evening service. When our world is threatened to the core, we need each other, we need to reach higher, we need to get beyond our arrogance, we need the help of powers beyond ourselves."....."
Besides the above we also stated about imminent dangers from Robot Killers. There was recent news that said several elite nations are at an advanced stage of its development. And this has left UN seriously worried. While the developing nations has rightly expressed out of concern that machines lack any compassion and intuitions to make life and death decisions and this can make war even more inhumane.
Based on the above we emphasized what the world need today is many more true Peace Ambassadors. A true Peace Ambassador is he who is concerned at the planet level, to heal the planet and from there all concerns within the planet are looked into. He/she explores every field only for the cause of Peace.
We further highlighted that URI is one of the best platform to nurture towards this cause.
I added URI works at broader level and local grassroot level and introduced URI website and told them to read for themselves and become part of it, if interested.
Peace is a broad cause, including working towards Peace with sacred Nature......
As an example we highlighted on water and showed the movie UPLIFT by URI Chairman, Kiran Bali, "Creating global awareness around water". It was well received.
In conclusion, considering the audience of educationists and researchers, we summarized Dr. T.D. Singh's Peace journey as a life of sustained Humanness progressing towards Human excellence and finally culminating into enlightened personality.
Thus we conveyed that Peace is not some theoretical thing or always about demonstrations and social activism, but the birthright and destiny of every being. Irrespective of one's background like caste, creed, nation, religion etc., one's life's journey must move towards Peace and hence every individual has intrinsic responsibility to help oneself and others towards this cause. And Peace Ambassadors come from time to time for this special mission to help each one of us and we must study their life and take advantage of it by being part of Peace making mission.
We requested them to deliberate on this fact that if a society is constantly affected with violence, then one question arises about the nature of civilization that man will hand over to the future generations. How safe is this planet going to be for future generations to live? Does our literacy teach us to be selfish?
We added, besides we need to ask, how to practice Peace while living in this complex society which is facing turmoil now and then?
It is hear Peace Ambassadors come to our rescue as our real torch bearer and practically demonstrate through their illustrious life.
Overall it went well, as for us too it was a first experience of case study conference of this kind that gave us a good learning and transformative experience.
