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Report of
Workshop on ‘Peace and Communal Harmony’
18th to 21th April 2011
Varanasi, UP
‘Centre for study of society and Secularism’ in
collaboration with ‘Gandhian Institute of Studies,
Varanasi, organized a four day workshop on ‘Peace and
Communal Harmony’. There were 44 participants from in
and around Varanasi who are already engaged in social
work through various NGOs working in the related field.
The workshop was held in a quiet venue, Nav Sadhana,
which is 8 km away from Varanasi. Resource persons were
from CSSS, Gandhian Institute of Studies, Banaras Hindu
University and from Latin America.
 The
workshop started with an inaugural session in which
Prof. Dipak Malik (Director, Gandhian Institute of
Studies) and Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer (Chairman, CSSS)
were present. Dr. Rafi Manjari, Bishop Varanasi was the
Chief Guest. The rationale and objectives of the
workshop, an introduction about both the organizations
etc. were given in the inaugural session.
After the inauguration the first input session was by
Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer on ‘Meaning of Communalism and
its Development’, which dealt origin and development of
communalism in Indian context.
After the lunch Prof. Dipak Malik had his session on
‘Gandhi & Nehru on Communal Harmony’. In this session he
discussed the views of Gandhi and Nehru regarding
communalism, secularism and communal harmony.
This was followed by two lectures by Dr Asghar Ali
Engineer on ‘Medieval history of India’ and ‘Syncretic
culture’. How the medieval history is often misread and
misinterpreted by the communal forces is been discussed
in this session. The great
 tradition
of syncretic culture of India is also dealt in this
session. Both the sessions were followed by a number of
questions from the participants and the resource person
cleared all their doubts regarding the subject.
The second day of the workshop started with the session
by Dr. Engineer on ‘Religious Conversion’. He analyzed
myths associated with religious conversion in India with
examples. The Individual choices and socio-political
backgrounds behind religions conversion were also
discussed in detail.
This was followed by the two sessions by Prof. Ram
Puniyani, ‘Terrorism in India’ and ‘Religion and
Politics in India’. In his interactive session Prof.
Ram Puniyani de-mystified the popular concepts related
with terrorism. The communal force’s propaganda to tag
terrorism with one particular religious community is
discussed in detail. The role played by religion in the
Indian politics is also discussed in detail.
 Prof.
B N Juyal in his session ‘Secularism and Social Work’
dealt with how the values of secularism can be applied
in social work practice when the activists are in the
field. In the session he discussed the practical
difficulties and its solutions for secular activists.
This was followed by the screening of documentary film
‘From Hindu to Hindutwa’. The film made by Debaranjan
Sarngi on Kandhamal riots was very effective to make the
participants realize the terror created by communal
forces during and after the Kandhamal riots.
After the Film the participants were taken to another
lecture coincidently took place in the same campus. It
was by Swami Sachidananta Acharya, who spoke on
religion, religious conversion, religious values and
related topics.
The third day of the workshop was started with a session
by K Anuradha on ‘Communalism and Women’. She explained
how women are being more victimized in
 communal
riots. He shared many of her experience as an activist
in the field.
Next four consecutive sessions were by Shri Sanjay
Asthana on ‘Role of Media in creating perverted
perspective’, Shri. Umakanth Chathurvedi on ‘Women Peace
Brigade’, Porf. Sadanand Shahi on ‘Themes of Harmony in
Hindi Literature’ and Prof. Qamarjahan on ‘Themes of
Harmony in Urdu Literature’.
In the evening the Feature film ‘Parzania’ was screened
which was followed by a discussion.
 The
last day of the workshop started by two session by Adv
Irfan Engineer on ‘Secularism and Indian Constitution’
and ‘Caste and Communalism’. The session started with
question from the participants and the discussions were
developed on the basis of these questions. The
constitutional measures taken to safeguard secularism
and how deep rooted casteism in Indian society were
discussed in these two sessions.
This was followed by Valedictory session in which the
Valedictory address was given by Dr. Luis Brito Garcia,
a leading thinker and writer from Latin America. His
speech was very informative for the participants to
attain first hand information about what is happening in
Latin America today. Certificates were also distributed
in the session to the participants.
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