The Lucknow-UK Dialogues

SUMMARY OF PROJECT PROPOSAL

 Who we are

TOUR REPORTS
(a) Mr Jagdish Gandhi, Founder-Manager, City Montessori School, Lucknow (India)
(b) Mrs W. B. Shamama, Vice Principal, CMS Chowk Branch
(c) Master Alok Dutt, Student, Class XI, CMS Mahanagar (N.B.) Branch
(d) Master Kiri Atri, Student, Class XI, CMS Kanpur Road Branch
(e) Ms Francesca Cerletti, Peace Direct, London (U.K.)

MEDIA COVERAGE
(a) Indian media
(b) United Kingdom media

PICTORIAL REPORT
(a) At Slough
(b) At New Hampshire
(c) At Keighly
(d) At Bradford
(e) At New Castle
(f) At Loughborough

The Lucknow-UK Dialogues

An initiative of the Keighley Interfaith Group and peace direct

Summary of Project Proposal

The Lucknow-UK Dialogues is the name given to a series of meetings which aim to promote dialogue and non violent ways to deal with interracial tensions. These events provide an opportunity to learn from the experience of others living in situation of communal tensions. We plan to invite the headmaster and two students of the City Montessori School in Lucknow (India) to the UK. The school, including the pupils and their parents, played a prominent role in preventing deaths during the violence that erupted in their city after the Ayodhya Mosque was destroyed in 1992¹. Today they have several projects aimed at fostering peace and interfaith relationships.

The Lucknow-UK Dialogues will be a series of events and meetings between members of communities in the UK which have experienced or are experiencing racial and religious tensions, and the Lucknow team. Participants will be able freely to exchange their experiences, ideas and discuss ways to engender and sustain peaceful relations.

We plan to organise events in: Keighley, Bradford, Leeds, Loughborough, London, and Dover.

Why This Needs to Happen

There are communities in the UK which have seen riots between ethnic groups. Others are beginning to experience increasing intolerance towards new immigrants. The media more often than not is happy to fan the spark, leaving us with negative images. We need to know what is working. Our communities will benefit from learning and discussing how this kind of conflict is successfully being dealt with in other parts of the world.

City Montessori, with over 29000 students, is the biggest school in the world. Their experience is extraordinary. When the Ayodhya Mosque was destroyed in 1992, violence and death occurred throughout the state of Uttar Pradesh, of which Lucknow is the capital city. In the capital, however, because of the initiative of the school, no one was killed. Religious leaders were invited to the school each evening to agree an interfaith statement designed to calm the violence; students and parents then toured the city with loudspeakers proclaiming theses messages of tolerance.

Keighley Interfaith Group and peace direct believe that it is important to promote learning opportunities between areas of conflict and areas of peace around the world. Establishing links with those who have transformed similar situations will reinforce the feeling in our and their communities that something can be done to resolve conflicts.

Who We Are

The Keighley Interfaith Group developed out of Keighley Millennium Interfaith project, which organised a major event with 1000 people _ Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh - at Keighley Cougars Stadium on July 1^st 2000.

The aim of the group is to foster harmonious relations between and among the diverse communities which make up the population of Keighley and district. In particular, to foster good relationships between faith communities, and to foster inter-faith dialogue and understanding.

The group planned a "Walk for Frie ndship" in July 2001, which was cancelled at the request of the police after the Bradford riots. Walks from a Church to a Mosque and on to Cliffe Castle Park for multi-cultural entertainment were held successfully in 2002 and 2003.

Following the events of 11^th September 2001, a series of interfaith meetings for Peace and Reconciliation were held at various venues. These helped defuse the tension between white and Asian communities then, and also at the time of the Iraq war. In particular, the Muslim community was made aware that the war was not a modern-day crusade by Christians against Muslims, but only an inter-governmental dispute.

It is hoped to continue and increase our activities, e.g. getting speakers over from Bradford, and meetings to exchange views and information on matters of mutual concern.

peace direct is an initiative of the Woodstock Research Trust.

It was founded in 2002 to promote nonviolence by:

· supporting directly groups in conflict areas, by linking them with UK groups and developing a strategic grants programme.

· raising the profile of non-violent conflict resolution among the public _ to show how peaceful solutions can work, do work and where they work

· collecting data on the value and cost-effectiveness of war prevention in order to influence government policies and the allocation of public resources.

While we oppose violence, we strive to be a force for practical and constructive solutions to conflict.

Our work builds on two decades of research into conflict prevention, resolution and transformation. We are a "needs led" organisation taking our cue from grass roots experience and make this comprehensible at policy level.

peace direct is a registered charity run by a small team of committed professionals under the guidance of Dr. Scilla Elworthy.

Please Contact: Francesca Cerletti

Email: francesca@peacedirect.org , Website: www.peacedirect.org

¹ As described in War Prevention Works: 50 Stories of People Resolving Conflict, published by Oxford Research Group.

mostly of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin. These riots have taken a heavy toll of human life and property. People are killed for no fault of theirs and houses and property burnt or destroyed in desperate attempts to wreak vengeance upon each other in the name of race or religion.

The government as well as sensitive organisations in the United Kingdom are deeply concerned about the increasing incidence of communal riots. The British National Party, a strong racial group wanting Great Britain exclusively for the British people, has made matters worse by inciting racial riots against people of Asian and African origin. The appearance of Al Qaeda on the scene further threatens to tear society apart, turning it into a conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims. A most dangerous situation is thus emerging in an otherwise peaceful and orderly country. An NGO called Peace Direct has taken the initiative of fostering communal harmony in UK's big cities having a concentration of people of Asian or African origin.

Peace Direct had learnt about CMS peace activities and peace campaigns and sent a peace worker, Francesca Cerletti to visit CMS and study its peace education curriculum. Peace Direct was particularly interested in CMS peace activities at the time of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992. It wanted us to share the CMS experience with them and hence it invited me to address audiences in cities like London, Keighley, Newcastle, Loughborough, Slough and Bradford where communal riots and tension are the most vicious. The tour programme spanned 11 days from the second week to the third of October 2004.

We told the audiences that we hold no magic wand to quell communal riots, but we do appeal to the better sense of the people by reason and logic. We told the people, who had turned up in large numbers to listen to me, that every religion in the world has one common belief that God is one and that the entire creation including human beings are his creation. When each of us is a creation of one Almighty God it is foolish to fight one another in the name of God and the religions revealed by Him. We further told them that God does not reside in temples, mosques or churches for they are simply places for praying, when a large number of the faithful gather to pray together. Unfortunately, the gullible, misled by religious bigots with an axe to grind, think that God resides in these structures.

This was the reason why tempers flared when the Babri Masjid was demolished in Ayodhya. Our Muslim brothers and sisters residing at Chowk and Asharfabad localities did respond to this simple reasoning put forth by CMS students and teachers and agreed not to create problems that would provoke communal riots despite widespread disturbances elsewhere in the country.

We told the gathering that we should treat one another as members of one human race, as members of one global family according to the grand design of the Creator. Would God be pleased if we live a segregated life and maintaining social distance from one another despite our belief that we are all children of one God? Therefore, would it not be futile to fight in the name of God? Whose God? The God whom we all have equal faith?

The people of all religions and races to whom we spoke were visibly satisfied with our simple approach and reasoning. So were our organizers and sponsors, namely Peace Direct and the Keighley Foundation. It is seen that communal disharmony begins when we recognize others by their religious or racial symbols rather than by the label of being human. All communal problems tend to cease when we accord one another the dignity of a human being rather than that of a communal being.

It was, what I would call, my spiritual pilgrimage to UK.

Mrs. W. B. Shamama

Vice Principal, CMS, Chowk Branch

The Founder Manager of the City Montessori School, Mr Jagdish Gandhi, two students and myself were invited by an NGO — "Peace Direct" — for `One World Week' Programme London in United Kingdom from 17^th—23^rd October,'04. The mission was to share our experiences of the 6^th of December 1992 riots on the occasion of the demolition of Babri Masjid in Uttar Pradesh, India. The role that our Institution had played and still plays in fostering inter-community peace was the topic of discussion. How we keep peace between the different groups. How we build bridges of unity and peace between various communities. What types of obstacles we face. How children are actively involved in peace activities. What they learn and how they learn.

We visited Keighley, Bradford, Newcastle, Oldham- Loughborough, Slough, Newham. The problems that these cities face are:

1. Social/religious groups live separately.
2. There riots between Asian and White youth
3. There is segregation of the different communities,
4. There is presence of extremist groups, then the BNP
5. There are economic difficulties and unemployment
6. There are community tensions and many more related problems.

We gave a series of talks. Our Founder Manager Mr Jagdish Gand hi told them about CMS' philosophy, mission and vision. I shared my experiences of the year 1992 while the students spoke about what they had learnt through the various activities of CMS. How they participated. What their role was. This was followed by a question and answer session and interviews.

The participants in each of these meetings were highly impressed by the school curriculum. They were amazed to know that Mr Gandhi was running an Institution with a total strength of 29000 students in 20 branches organizing 18 International activities each year without any conflict and confusion. They found the working of the Institution very interesting especially the concept of Total Quality Person. They said that they are encouraged to keep up their endeavour.

Almost in all the places we visited, we found that people from all faiths, races and sects were working with utmost sincerity in bringing about peace and harmony. Organizations like

1. Keighley Interfaith group under Rev. Peter Mott
2. The Department of Peace Studies at Bradford University
3. The North East Council of Peace chaired by Bill Midgley and Hari Shukla
4. The Charnwood One World Week co-ordinating team- organized by Bob Bailey along with Mike Jones _ the Mayor of Charnwood
5. Aik Saath in Slough
6. Conflict and Change in London under Ms. Ruth Musgrave.

We also visited two schools _ Westgate Hill School, Newcastle and Cobden School, Loughborough. Both these schools are also working in building bridges of unity and peace.

Inspite of all these efforts, tension still prevails; the organizations are not able to have any impact on the society basically because these feelings can best be infused in the minds of students in schools by involving parents and community leaders in various Schools' divine and Peace activities.

At places we were really shocked to see few people on one side struggling to bring about social transformation whereas on the other side there were elements making use of the same platform to convert people to a particular religion. In one of the schools when Mr Gandhi shook hands with one 9 year old white child he immediately pulled his hand away and wiped it on his trousers.

All this shows that the basic unit of the society i.e., family is not stable. The family is considered the fundamental unit of the society, so proper attention should be paid to the ties between the husband and wife, parents and children and brothers and sisters resulting in a cohesive structure based on love, harmony and reciprocal respect.

Efforts being made by the Peace Direct _ Project Manager, Ms Francesca Cerletti and the Chief Executive Ms Carolyn Hayman will definitely bear results in the years to come. We wish them all the very best.

Master Alok Dutt
Class XI, CMS Mahanagar (N.B.)

We had been invited by a British NGO known as Peace Direct from 14-24^th October on a visit to UK. We were a team of four members. We went through a series of about seven conferences in about five cities viz. Keighley, Bradford, Newcastle, Loughborough, Slough and New Hampshire. We landed at Heathrow airport on the 14^th of October and the very next day we had a meeting with the financers of Peace Direct. We (Kiri and myself) were interviewed by a British reporter on telephone while another reporter interviewed Mr Gandhi. We explained the City Montessori School philosophy and its history to them. Later, we went to see the British Museum.

Our real mission started on 17^th of October when early morning we headed for the outskirts of London to visit the small but beautiful town of Keighley. We discussed different issues and propels with people we met on our way. Most of the people we came across were mainly interested in knowing two things. One, the activities undertaken by CMS during the 1992 Babri mosque demolition incident due to which we were able to prevent violence and killings in Lucknow and two, what are the peace promoting activities by which we have been successful in creating a peaceful environment among different communities. The peace curriculum of CMS too evoked a lot of interest.

At Keighley we had a small gathering of about 25 people headed by Peter Mott. The meeting focused on the work carried out by CMS in 1992 with Mr Gandhi explaining the philosophy of CMS and Kiri and I summing it up with a brief account about the activities of CMS. It was followed by a question-answer session. Some very good questions were put up and our answers seemed to satisfy most of those present. We winded up our day with a sumptuous Italian dinner.

We moved to Bradford the next day. We were interviewed by a BBC reporter there. Next, we met some staff members of Montessori School. The teachers and principals appeared fascinated by the massive strength of a montessori school like CMS. There was even a teacher who had come from Argentina to meet as. They wanted to know the ways by which they can bring about harmony among communities so that they can build a multi-religious school because such a concept has not been successful there due to opposition of fanatic groups.

Later that day we went to the Interfaith Group. There we had a multi-religious audience of about 50 to 55. We told then about our all-religion prayer, peace marches and our objective behind organizing 18 international events and other peace activities. Most of them evinced great interest in the CMS philosophy and appeared really impressed by our ideology and activities. We had a question-answer session here as well. The questions posed by them showed their high interest in our activities. Shopping and an Indian dinner was the final highlight of our day.

We moved to Newcastle the next day. There we met Greg and Hari Shukla. We had a conference in the Northembria University attended by about 100 people. We even showed the CD about CMS here. Soon after, some questions were fired; most of them being related to the ways and means of treating a secular child. We even went to see Angle of North later that day.

The next day we headed towards Loughborough. It took us a good six-hour ride amid torrential rain to reach Loughborough. There we met Bob Bailey. He was a very interesting person. In the evening, we had a meeting with the MAYOR. As always, we carried some CMS banners along with us. We had a very good session there marked by interesting questions and equally interesting peoples. The MAYOR joined us and we gifted quite some CMS literature to him. The next day, we had a meeting at a community school, Cobden Primary School. Only Kiri and I were supposed to be speaking there and we kept preparing our speech till late night. We began our speech with the questions `what is peace' and `what is religion' and then proceeded to explain in a very interactive way. Then we went with the Mayor to the Queen's Park and Chainwood Museum and after a community lunch that afternoon we headed back for London.

Our next day at Slough proved to be most exciting. Our meeting was organized by Aiksaath, a youth organization. They first took us for a tour of the riot-hit areas. They basically wanted to know about some of our practical ways so that they could use those ways at Slough in order to restore communal harmony. We four were divided into groups. I was with Mr. Gandhi who went through a 45-minute photo session and two interviews. I met three reporters and about five school teachers who were quite amazed to see a young child speaking much about what they considered a very complex subject. One of the teachers even had a very heated discussion with me but was satisfied in the end. Kiri and Ma'm too faced an interview. On our way back to London, we discussed a lot about the day's event. The condition in which we have been working and the condition in which they have been working were entirely different so questions regarding facing of opposition and other things were obvious. To my utter shock, few teachers had even asked me whether I discriminate between students of different religions in my class.

A worker of Peace Direct, Madeline took us to New Hampshire the next day. The people there belonged to different faiths. Though they have never faced any communal riots but communal harmony is missing — they would not even talk to each other amongst themselves. On our way we were joined by Mohammad and few others who work for mediation. Post-lunch, we were divided in groups once again and had some interactive sessions. Ma'm focused on increasing women's contribution in peace promoting activities. It was sort of a workshop and we even saw a small skit prepared by them. It was our last conference as also our last day in UK. On 24^th morning, we were ready with our bags. First we went for some shopping to Kilburn Street and then to Madame Tussauds and then Heathrow. With a heavy heart I bid good bye to London as we boarded our flight around 10:30.

Visiting UK has been a lifetime experience. It gave me international exposure. We were all highly appreciated for our ideas and specially English. I liked everything about UK, its weather, its streets, its peoples. It was like a dream come true. It will remain a cherished memory. Thanks to CMS, WUPED and all those who made this happen.

Master Kiri Atri
Class XI, CMS Kanpur Road

"There is one thing common in all of us and that is our differences." This sums up, in short, my experience in London.

We had been invited by a British NGO, Peace Direct to deliver a series of lectures on communal harmony in and around London from 14-24^th October 2004. The project was named `Lucknow-UK Dialogues.' It was the 13<sup>th</sup> of October when we started our journey with an aim to unite the world. We reached London on 14<sup>th</sup> evening where we were received among others by Francesca, the Project Manager. On the 14<sup>th</sup> of October we left for Keighley, about 250 miles from London to attend a meeting organized by the Keighley Interfaith Group. We decided to put up our posters and charts in the room where it was to take place since pictures have a better impact on the minds of people. Our posters comprised of the CMS prayer, a boy holding a globe with a caption `one day I will unite the world.'

Before I start talking about the meeting itself, let me tell you something about the background of Keighley. Keighley has a mixed community. However, all groups tend to live separately. There is a strong BNP presence here including some councilors. This was an open of meeting of the Keighley Interfaith Group where participants and we had to share our experiences about communal harmony in Lucknow. We spoke about two types of experiences. One, when the Babri mosque was demolished, Lucknow being only about 150 km from Ayodhya did not witness violence because of, what many ascribed to, the CMS peace initiative. CMS took out several peace marches and called a meeting of the leaders of the various communities. It was emphasized that violence would only result in death as `violence breeds violence' and that nothing can be achieved by indulging in violence. CMS efforts proved fruitful since communal riots did not take place in Lucknow. The second experience was related to the continuing projects of CMS aimed at promoting communal harmony, world peace and world unity. The audience at this conference included about 15-20 people. Peter Molt began with a brief introduction about CMS by Peter Molt followed by our presentation for about 15 minutes. Shamama ma'am began the presentation by reciting the prayer "May God shower His mercy and benevolence on all of us present here and to humanity in general." She narrated her experience when the Babri mosque was demolished in Ayodhya, activities conducted by CMS to promote communal harmony. Speaking next, Mr Gandhi explained the philosophy of CMS and its aim to unite the world. Alok followed with his experiences in various CMS international events like Macfair, International Conference of Chief Justices of the World and others. I spoke about practical ways of implementing peace projects. The subject matter of my speech included peace floats, all-religion prayer, world peace ceremony, CISV camps etc.

The audience here was interested in knowing what role an institution like CMS can play in fostering good community relations. People were also interested in knowing how to maintain their own identity as well as relate to the wider community at one and the same time. Mr Gandhi told the audience that "wars begin in the minds of man and it is the minds of men where the defences of peace need to be constructed." The seeds of peace can be planted well only when the minds are young, so institutions like CMS help in changing or shaping the minds of tomorrow. The first question highlighted their curiosity about how 30,000 students can be managed; one man even asking me how I manage so many boys in my capacity as the Head Boy of my school.

After the meeting, we went out for dinner with Peter Molt in an Italian restaurant where we were offered a pizza which was so big that I could only eat one-third of it. We then proceeded for a home stay with Rev John Hudson, who took us to a youth gathering at his friend's house. There were around 8-10 people there and they were very curious to know the purpose of our visit and even amused to know about the large numbers of pupils in our school.

The next morning (ie.18^th October) we left for Bradford by car. I being the navigator was all the time glued to the maps of roads. As for the background of Bradford in general, the summer of 2001 in Yorkshire or, more precisely, Bradford Oldham and Burley had witnessed riots between Asian and white youths. There has been a lot of peace work done among the population and some stability in relationships has been achieved now. However, a real sense of bonhomie and inter-group exchanges are still lacking. This event was hosted by the student's liaison office at Bradford University. Our presentation was similar to the one made at Keighley with a Question & Answer round. Here we were interviewed by BBC Radio before the conference started. They were interested in knowing about the CMS experience of community building and peace education. The questions which people asked were more or less the same — they were interested to know how to deal with people or, rather students, who are secular. We told them that religion teaches us to live in peace and values of love, compassion, truthfulness etc. We told them to teach children themselves. We also told them that religion is some thing very personal and that it should not be a handicap in societal interaction. We also told them school must be the lighthouse of society providing meaningful education and direction to one and all. We had lunch at Fair Trade Café in the university campus, during which we had some informal discussion too.

Our next event in Bradford was hosted by Education Bradford by Ms Joyce Miller. Our pattern of presentation was similar as before. The work done by CMS in bringing Hindus and Muslims closer interested the people. The questions asked here were basically about or revolved around how to enable different groups to engage in dialogue. This interfaith organization was really impressive, they had books of different religions kept together and they have also undertaken to teach young children in schools to write.