we hear of many of the interfaith groups i myself have gone to the south old park a couple of times
at the interfaith uh sort of get together once a year they have and it's a nice uh
sort of initiative but is it really effective what do they do and how does hinduism fit
into this whole thing wonderful way to you know address that is address the issue first of all
you see i've been in this country for 55 years and since we had this atrocities terrorism etc
the government decided to promote interfaith groups the government plump you know pumping a
lot of money to try and somehow resolve the issue of homegrown terrorism this is the foundation of
interfaith groups it's nothing we've been really truly friendly and truly and trying to understand
each other's religion and he was to simply calm down the kind of more violent lobby in the
united kingdom so they don't don't we don't have homegrown terrorism this was the foundation of
interfaith work in the united kingdom the government promoted it the local councils
promoted it this was kind of in a way but when i i it look as to belong to four
interfaith groups and i was main contributor to the london interfaith center for many many years
let me give you tell you my experience you see these are purely tokenistic groups i
said meant to try and calm down the violent elements so that we don't have homegrown
terrorism simple as that and the governments i suspect pumped a few million pounds into this
and of course there are certain lobbies they're very keen to take on the money
and say of course we are going to make sure that we don't have terrorism in our group
but then you see the this was you know kind of money vested because the people who are going to
be terrorists aren't going to belong to this group at all they don't belong to interfaith group at
all so their company invested money so the whole thing was a sure complete you know showmanship
there's nothing you just get together have cakes and tea and pet each other on the backs you're
high like you in your heart you're saying this guy's wrong but let me just play ball with him and
make him feel comfortable give him a piece of cake and cody and so this is the only thing
they were doing tea and cakes nothing else they can't do certain events together and i
participated many and gave give lectures that many but when i look at the reaction that the in fact
the final outcome it was very poor none of these interface groups were prepared to kind of in a way
you know in you know in a way try and embrace the idea that is central in hinduism pluralism many
pathways to be spiritual if the interfaith groups would have listened would have embraced this idea
then terrorism would stop automatically you don't need to kill each other because this is my way
full stop there's no need to convert kill or to try and score points but this was not allowed
to happen i'm telling you bluntly because the establishment in this country is highly strongly
christian oriented highly exclusive based in this agenda i'll give an example you see the
biggest interference group was interfaith network in the united kingdom and the way they're going to
choose the participants very interesting because this is done by politicians they're purely a
political ploy so the politician was asked to kind of decide how to set up the interfaith network and
give a lot of money paid a lot of huge salary for somebody who would then pick and choose the person
from another tradition that he feels comfortable with somebody like me he would run away he knew
me extremely well he heard me speak at many venues he would run away from me because then i present
the idea of pluralism he doesn't want that he wants some kind of exclusivist movement within
hinduism to be presented as part of the hindu hindu contribution to the interfaith network
he did this repeatedly and i kept pushing but he would not in a way allow me to interact at
one part of particular meet i must point this out it was very interesting there was a meeting
where they said the elderly people from this various different faiths will talk to youngsters
from other faiths just talk and convince them and try and talk about what is how we relate
to each other and i went with my daughter she was much younger by the way and the two chief
executives sat down with because they knew my daughter comes from the pluralist tradition
they sat down with sita this is really true story and they quizzed her no to no extent they kept
quizzing her quickly you know kind of pushing her and trying to tell her to give up pluralism
and they tried every trick they were really winding my poor daughter up she was about to cry
they were really nasty people nasty so they're trying to push her and finally their trick they
use is sir sita uh suppose you know you decide one of these days that you don't like vivekananda want
to join the hindu group what will your father say they expect to see that to say my father said no
you can't remember viewers that means i became exclusive too my daughter was up to the mark she
said if if i tell my father i don't like viva ghana i want to move on he will say go ahead my
daughter you say go ahead this is pluralism and they were really you know knocked out