INTRODUCTION OF GFCH INDIA AND THE BOOK ‘GLOBAL HARMONY’ BY DIRECTOR SHRI K G SURESH

Cover page of GFCH India Publication "Global Harmony"

INTRODUCTION OF GFCH INDIA AND THE BOOK ‘GLOBAL HARMONY’ BY GFCH INDIA DIRECTOR SHRI K G SURESH AT THE VALEDICTORY FUNCTION OF THE HINDU SPIRITUAL AND SERVICE FAIR 2009

 

Most revered Pujya Swami Gauthamanandji Maharaj, Respected Shri R Natarajji, Shri Gurumurthiji, Prabhakarji, brothers and sisters and friends from the media,

As the Director of GFCH India which is headquartered in Delhi, I have been asked to introduce the book to the audience but my task would be incomplete without providing an introduction to the GFCH itself, which has organized this five day Hindu Spiritual and Service Fair, which has been a great exhilarating and rejuvenating experience the lakhs who visited the fair, not to talk of my own overwhelming experience. My heartiest greetings and congratulations to all the office bearers and activists of the Chennai chapter of GFCH India for their excellent work and the people of Chennai for their warm and enthusiastic response.

What is GFCH? How it came to be established? What are its objectives? Who founded it? Who are the people behind it? How does it plan to carry forward its tasks? Can one become its member? These are among the many questions that many participants and visitors asked me during the course of these five days. Hence, this brief introduction.

After almost two years of intensive discussions among concerned individuals across the country about conflict and violence in the post cold war era, about 150 thinkers and intellectuals from across the globe gathered in Ahmedabad on 31st December 2005 and for three continuous days, they deliberated among other things the conflicts of different faiths, societies and leaderships. They felt that the world was inevitably hurtling into a self-destructive and increasingly conflict-prone mode in which all civilizations, and particularly the non-aggressive ones, stood seriously disadvantaged.

The informed individuals felt that the inherent strength and experience of non-aggressive civilizations, lay in their potential and capacity to promote conflict avoidance and offer conflict resolution models. If imaginatively strategized and effectively executed, the non-aggressive civilizations, as Swami Vivekananda had envisioned at the World Parliament of Religions in 1893, could provide a solution to avert the apparently inevitable man made calamity. They concluded that a strategic initiative from the Hindu, Buddhist and other civilizations could be a unique experiment in promoting global harmony pursuing the twin goals of conflict avoidance and conflict resolution.

The GFCH was visualized as a platform that would endeavour for a paradigm shift in thinking from the now prevailing notion of tolerance of other faiths as the ideal to the ideal of acceptance of all faiths as valid and sacred to its adherents, with a view to achieve peace and harmony based on mutual accommodation. The GFCH was conceived as a global platform which would prepare the non-proselytizing, non-conflicting faiths for a global dialogue among themselves and also between them and others.

Subsequently, on January 22, 2008, GFCH India was launched in Delhi at a function attended and addressed by great religious and spiritual masters belonging to all faiths including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, founder of Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha Swami Dayananda Saraswathi, founder of the Art of Living Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, renowned Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev, the then Chief of the Akal takht Jathedar Joginder Singh Vedanti, founder of Dhyanapeetham Paramhamsa Swami Nithyananda , the President of Chinmaya Yuva Kendra Swami Mitrananda, Archbishop of Mumbai Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Chief of Darul Uloom Deoband Maulana Mahmood Ali Madani, Rabbi Ezekiel Malekar of the Delhi Jewish Synagogue, Swami Pragyanamitrananda of Mata Amritanandamayi Math, Jain Muni Sumermalji, GFCH was launched by His Holiness the Dalai Lama while former President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam delivered the presidential address and blessed the initiatives. All the leaders present also released ‘Transcending Conflicts-Indian and Eastern Way’ published by GFCH India.  All the spiritual masters and religious scholars who attended the function are now the patrons of GFCH India.

In this volume being released today by the revered Swamiji, we have tried to recapture those historic moments by including the speeches delievered by the eminent dignitaries on the occasion along with their photographs and briefly encapsulating the history, concept, envisioned tasks and organizational structure of GFCH India.

The success of GFCH India’s mission within a short span of two years is not only evident from the two successful fairs organized by it but also the various civilizational initiatives taken by it, which were explained by Shri Gurumurthyji at the inaugural ceremony and which also find a mention in this volume. In fact, I am happy to inform all of you present here that recently we have become a partner organization of the United Nations’ Alliance of Civilization in their Education about Religions and Beliefs programme.We are grateful to our founder Trustee and former MP Shri Dina Nath Mishraji under whose guidance this volume has been brought by the GFCH Secretariat.

With the blessings of Swamiji and the good wishes of each one of you, I am hopeful that this publication would go a long way towards creating awareness about GFCH India and its noble mission and making it a grand success in the days to come. Thank You.