A national coalition of voluntary agencies has urged India’s Catholic Religious to join as partners to promote peace in the country.

“There are toys of war, but not of peace,” lamented Vikas Gora of the Sphere India on Sept. 29 while addressing the triennial national assembly of the Conference of Religious India (CRI) in New Delhi.

He said incidents of violence have increased in the country in the past few years and the worst affected are children and women.

Some 550 major superiors are attending the assembly on the theme “Towards a harmonious India.” Gora and three others from the Sphere India highlighted various peace initiatives around the country to foster love and unity.

Caritas India and other agencies launched the Sphere India after the Gujarat riots in 2002 as a collaborative partnership between government and voluntary agencies involved in humanitarian services in the country. It strives to build up capacities of members of voluntary agencies and improve their quality and accountability.

Subbha Rao, a noted Gandhian who addressed the gathering, stressed the need to train children to prevent violence. Rao, who has been organizing youth rallies around the globe since 1946, said several families could go back to their homes in Orissa’s Kandhamal district after his people started working among the villagers.

According to him, only action can make peace more solid and not talks. He urged the Catholic Religious to help form citizens of characters. “Let us establish the spirituality of wealth instead of material wealth,” he pleaded.

Rao also said spiritually-developed individuals would recognize the divine spark in humans and refrain from killing others in the name of religion. He wants people to spend one hour to maintain their physical body and another hour in community service.

Another way to foster peace is to promote all religion prayers. People, he said, are hungry for religion and God experience. “We not only tolerate other religions, but also accept all religions as true,” he said. He said founders of all religions belong to humanity, not just to a particular religion.

He said the world lacks peace because people follow only the outward signs of their religions and neglect the sublime values of love, peace and harmony religions teach.
Roy Alex, another Sphere India partner, wanted the Religious to sow “the seed of peace” in people’s mind. He suggested using classrooms and modern technologies such as internet to spread peace.

“We cannot work for peace alone, but we can do much collectively,” he said and added peace initiatives to include all people involved in a conflict.

“Let us make peace between houses at grassroots level and between states on macro level,” he

Father Varghese Mattamana, Caritas India director, noted that the Church is already involved in peace initiatives through some 600,000 grassroots people’s movements.

He said Caritas India was among the agencies that piloted Sphere India to promote rights of the people and to maintain minimum standards in disaster response.

CRI national secretary Brother Mani Mekkunnel said the Sphere India has shown a new way to future by enlightening people on the power of networking. “Let us change our mindset and modus operandi,” he told the major superiors. He also said the Religious have to find new strategies to encounter the present reality.

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