If Gujarat is a state that considers itself as a trading state which is globally integrated with the rest of the world, then of course Gujarat's number 1 agenda should be peace, said director of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, professor Errol D'Souza. D'Souza was speaking at the peace proposal symposium based on Soka Gakkai International President Daisaku Ikeda's 2018 peace proposal titled 'Toward an Era of Human Rights: Building a People's Movement.' Each year since 1983, President Ikeda has been writing peace proposals that diagnoses the core issues of the day and suggests concrete solutions.
The symposium held at Ahmedabad Management Association had Bharat Soka Gakkai chairperson Vishesh Gupta, Dr Bhushan Punani, Executive Secretary, Blind People's Association, Preeti Shroff, Dean, MICA and Kartikeye Sarabhai, Founder and Director, Centre for Environment Education apart from D'Souza as speakers.
"Peace is a global phenomenon and one of the important things is to talk about it at the global level. Peace can only happen with interaction and dialogue."
"The peace proposal this year includes issues of hate speech, refugee rights, xenophobia, discrimination, right to live, etc," Gupta chairperson said.
Addressing the audience, Errol said, "The proposal talks about how migrants are denied basic human rights. States want migrants who are talented which would lead up to welfare gains and fill up tax revenue. A typical state would like migrant who provides taxes and takes little social welfare. So many states had a very clear policy about migrants. Low skilled migrants are not welcomed in most countries.
He added, "If they give equal rights to migrants as equal as a citizen, there will be no advantage of hiring a migrant and it will build prejudices. The economy divides mental thought. Hence, there is a huge debate between access and human rights and it is not an easy debate. Only foresight, hard resources and dialogue will help us."
Kartikeye Sarabhai said, "We are working on a pedagogy to imbibe non-violence in our children through schools so that a child when becomes an adult is less likely to be violent. We do not have answer to violence. Buddhist thinking says that each person has goodness and badness in them. Peace and violence are in the same person. If you look at Gujarat, it is a very peaceful state from outside but at the same time violence is happening in this city."
"Talking about Gujarat, message of non-violence began from here and Gandhiji inspired us to lead. We should be influencing the world for peace building but we all are struggling. Violence has become so prevelant or gets triggered so easily and digital communication has contributed to it. We do need to intervene and I believe role of education is extremely critical. We all are thinking how can we bring learning about non-violence as a way of life", Preeti Shroff, Dean, MICA said,, speaking about role of education in peace.
