AN INTERVIEW

The pandemic has sort of brought people to think about the reality of life, the purpose of our existence, opened our eyes towards being responsible citizens, an alertness in us and brought lessons on how to be sensitive to the issue of taking care of the environment and not to exploit its resources in an irresponsible way, contribute to taking nature seriously and making people aware of our role. Maulana always emphasized on the harmony and how nature works at tandem with human beings. What are the future directions in the work being done to further the goal of interfaith peace, dialogue and spirituality? Our Ideology is based on: • Win the mind and you have won the battle • addressing the individual because after all a group of individual constitutes a society • promoting our peace literature in every way possible • Conducting one-to-one session to help people understand the importance of peaceful coexistence Often the problem occurs when the so-called religious leaders misinterpret the scriptures and mislead people. Their motto is usually “Bulldoze them all”. Maulana Wahiduddin Khan gave us the future direction by giving the right slogan “Impress them all”. His approach is to present the teachings of religion with the positive and right perspective. Just like UNESCO dictum says ‘violence begins from mind’, so, peace also begins from mind. Similarly, the same scripture which these so-called leaders twist to mislead, we use the same scriptures to bond with people of faith by presenting its true interpretation. All we have to do is to address the minds of the youths and across gender to inculcate it in their daily life. Once a person transforms oneself, then they automatically begin to exude interfaith qualities and become giver members of the society. o