Two URI Cooperation Circles, Beyond Sarhad and CC Sadbhavana, organized the following programs in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India, on Interfaith Cooperation and Peacebuilding.
On the birth centenary of Bhagat Singh, we organized a discussion at Devi Ahilya University, Indore. In that discussion, our speakers talked about the role and responsibilities of media in conflict situations. In these talks, they covered global as well as national aspects of media.
Media is a powerful instrument to perpetuate religious orthodoxy and an often narrow caste and religious outlook. How every caste, communal and ethnic group riots: media often plays very negative and biased because of media provocations, violence gets greatly intensified. So media has a potential to effectively intervene in the public discourse during times of communal conflict. When infused with secular voices and with a realization of its responsibility, the media plays an important role in diffusing myths, misconceptions, and hatred that is propagated society by communal forces.
‘Gandhi Bhavan’ and ‘Musakheda’ were inaugurated at The Peace Center in Indore. There, our Cooperation Circle members talked about the peace initiative taken by URI. We talked about the role of the peace center amongst the community and how it will work.
One program was organized in Ulfala Urdu School at Khajrana among Muslim teachers. There, our speakers talked about the importance of education in religion. They discussed education systems. As a teacher, if it is to really be an education in a true sense, it must create a critical rather than conforming mind and spirit of cooperation and compassion rather than competition. A teacher is a great source to spread secular ethos and humanitarian values among their students. See more photos here.
Our Parwaaj CC, along with other organizations, went as a fact-finding team to Vadavali Village, in the Patan District of North Gujarat. They surveyed and took personal interviews of victims where communal violence had occurred. See photos here.
URI West India is making all efforts to support our CC members for maintaining peace and communal harmony. They had submitted appeal and applications for law and order.
