Value-based education recommended to counter religious violence
BANGALORE, India (APEN) – Building social and human rights awareness among students and youth to counter religious violence was recommended by a seminar-cum workshop organized here by the Indian Social Institute.
More than 100 participants from different part of India who attended the national seminar-cum-workshop on “Resurgence of religious identity and violence: Causes, consequences and responses” also recommended to initiate peace camps at the local community level and to provide training in counseling, social analysis and conflict resolution to youth.
Training programs in relief, rehabilitation and reconciliation was another action program suggested by the 25-28 February seminar-cum-workshop.
The mission of the ISI is to reflect and create awareness on social realities and to make resources available to grassroots groups.
The objectives of organizing the seminar-cum-workshop were to provide a forum for the participants “to critique and deepen their understanding of the current communal situation” and to explore action plans for reconciliation and peace building, Jesuit father M K George, director of the Bangalore ISI said.
Historian K N Panikkar in his keynote address said that religious violence is perpetrated by people who use religion for commercial and political interests.
India’s “composite culture…which is a product of an environment of reconciliation, co-operation and co-existence, is under severe threat due to hatred and violence particularly because of a resurgence of various forces of religious identity and religious fundamentalism,” the ISI in a note explaining the context of the program said.
Periodic communal violence taking place in the country is a threat to the secular and pluralistic ethos of this country,” which the ISI note termed as “a very dangerous development.”
Among the action plans recommended by the participants were value-based education in schools and dialogue with like-minded people to counter religious violence.
Promotion of self-help groups irrespective of religious affiliations at the grassroots level and setting up of peace committees of dalits and tribals were also recommended by the participants who comprised students, youth, social activists, lawyers, intellectuals, academics and religious people.
The participants felt that women in the church could play an important role in building peace and harmony in communities, and programs to organize and mobilize women must be initiated in the church.
Training of NGOs, civil society groups and peace activists to build a society based on democracy and equality was suggested as measures to counter religious violence in India.
