Prabha Prabhakar Bhardwaj, HPI correspondent
DELHI, INDIA, December 20, 2005: (HPI note: Prabha Bhardwaj attended the last two days of the conference and files her notes on the several workshops and sessions she attended. Her report is not intended as a comprehensive overview of this complex event with dozens of worshops and sessions, but to give the flavor of individual presentations.)
The final day of the Second International Conference on Religion and Cultures in the Indic Civilisation was vibrantly full of enthusiasm and activities. Visit their website here. In the morning session, “Contemporary Relevance of the Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads,” the panelists discussed the issue and concluded that, “satyamev jayante,” the truth prevails and transcends the boundaries of space and time, thus these scriptures are always relevant. Truth is the law of nature and it must win. Another factor is of “Sav-dharma,” “own dharma,” which is an offshoot of truth.
Ms. Swati Biswas presented the paper of Mr. M. K. Sridhar and she explained that there are total of eleven Upanishads. The concept of consciousness, matter-mind, etc is explained in the Upanishads. The Mind becomes the object of experience like happiness, etc., which in turn transforms into samskara i.e. mental impressions. The conclusion is that the mind is an instrument of perception.
The theme of “Hinduism and the Subaltern,” [“subaltern” means in this context, “people of lower status”] was tackled from different points of view. Ms. Jyotsna Bapat talked about urban migration. The rural construction workers shifted to urban areas in search of livelihood. They brought with them a part of their village. They slowly planted their religious symbols such as a sacred peepal tree; later a Hanuman temple or a Siva temple was erected in the vicinity. With time, these were recognized as “Sacred Canopies,” (which could not be demolished by the civic authorities, afraid of religious riots) in the Delhi slums. With the mere presence of these religious symbols, the slums gained legitimacy. Followers of different sects settle in separate clusters and erect temples, mosques and churches.
Mr. Ramdas Lamb described his experience of Chattisgarh, where the low caste chamars (a term no longer valid in India) gradually made themselves more acceptable by following the Kabir Panth, which was established in 14th – 15th century in that area. Kabir was a Muslim, so he rejected the cast system. Kabir Panthi Hindus understood Nirgun-bhagti and became vegetarians and continued traditional practices like worshipping Tulsi plant. After several generations, the so-called Dalits could claim to be Rajputs. Ultimately they could be taken as Vaishnav Hindus. The third speaker, Ms. Sandhya Jain, traced Hinduism to tribal/folk symbols. She explained the process by which nature’s elements of sun, fire, forest trees & herbs, like peepal and tulsi, became essential to the Hindu religion. She talked about various devatas like isht, kul, etc. which gave rise to territorial elements in religion. She elaborated the origin of forms of various devatas from their very elementary shapes to modern sophisticated Deities.
In the panel discussion, “Dharma Yuddh, Jehad and Holy War,” Prof. Mukund Lath spoke on the Mahabharta War, and termed it as dharam sankat. The whole philosophy of justice and righteousness was emphasized. He also mentioned that Krishna propagated avadh, not killing, and prabhav, holding all life sacred.
Non-Hindus were also in attendance. Prof. S. A. Ali mentioned that the Quran was only written about 1,500 years ago. He explained the intricacies of translation where original matter can be lost in the process; but he affirmed that no religion advocates War and he translated Jehad as struggle. He even recited the Hindu Shanti Mantra, Om shanti, shanti, shanti, and rejected the concept of aggression, violence, etc. He mentioned the case of East Pakistan, the part of Bengal, which acceded to Pakistan on the basis of religion, but could not sustain its identity purely on the grounds of religion. For a society, cultural factors can be more over riding. His last comment was, “Religion has to be interpreted with time, or it shall become fossilized.” Father T. K. John emphasized the concept of universality and peace.
A special cultural program Anandam was presented by Ms. Rita Ganguly and her troupe. She has a very powerful voice and very young, very talented artists playing stringed instruments as well as drums and piano. In her opening comments she mentioned that the “Universe is being created through music.” She covered the whole spectrum of Sufi music. She sang from the collection of Kabir, Ghalib, Tagore and finished with modern young artists Jai Goswami and Abhijeet. The program ended with the lyric, “life goes on….”
In the closing session Ms. Madhu Purnima Kishwar, the organizer, expressed her gratitude to all categories of people involved in the process from donors to volunteers. In her remarks, she talked about the feed back she had received vis-a-vis the format of the conference. One choice is to continue with the current format of many workshops and the other is to take on one topic and have in-depth continuous discussion. She gave the example of the topic, “The Ethics and Politics of Conversion,” around which several round table sessions were held. Another conclusion was recognition of the role of Non-Resident Indians, who gave all sorts of support to this conference, including a grant from the Infinity Foundation. Amidst great applause, conference ended with a sense of achievement, joy and continuity.