Country: Bangladesh
City:
Organizer
World Record Holder & URI
Location
Online
Bangladesh is a pluralistic society, with the people following many religions, faiths, norms, values
and traditions. The majority of the Bangladeshi population identifies as Muslim, while the other
religious groups are Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and few other small religious groups also co-exist.
Bangladesh is the brightest example of peace and interfaith harmony. Yet, religious issues are always
very sensitive and used as a weapon to create chaos. The most common problem sorted out is religious
misconceptions among the present-day youth where they easily get involved in identity and ego crises
and grow a tendency to break religious harmony. But today’s youth are future leaders to establish
peace. Educating children and youth about religious harmony will help them to mitigate chaos created
for religious purpose, bring resilience, increase tolerance, decrease divisions and make them
thoughtful about unity.
The program “Religious Gurus and Youth Dialogue Exchange” has been organized to clear the clouds
of misconceptions among different religious youth groups specially from Bangladesh and give them
a new perspective to bring deep thought for the importance of interfaith harmony and how to achieve
them.
We invited multi-religious gurus, free thinkers from Bangladesh and other countries to bring the
diversified thoughts and knowledge for youth. So that they know the purposes of religion and clear
clouds in their thoughts.
Invited Speakers were:
1. Md. Sazzad Hossain, who is a Bangladeshi Muslim Speaker for Removing Islamic
Misconceptions, Business Analyst, nTier Solutions
2. Mohammad Akhtarujjaman, who is a Muslim from Bangladesh, have completed Islamic
Studies, CEO, BDWEBS.com
3. Biswadeb Chakraborty (RDS), who is a Hindu from India and National India Team Coordinator
and Regional Coordinator for URI-Asia, India, East Zone.
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4. Rev. Kalyan Kumar Kisku, who is a Priest from India, eminent social leader and Global Trustee
of URI (United Religions Initiatives)
5. Dr. Junius Silva, who is a Cristian from Sri Lanka, distinguished public speaker, toastmasters,
strategist, political advisor, social worker and a businessman.
6. AMB. Faith Hung Lin Lin, who is a free thinker from Singapore and Goodwill Ambassador for
Singapore, Chairperson for SUNFO Global Federation, Women’s Wing International
7. Chandra Kishore Tripura, Buddhist Speaker, General Secretary, Biyarong Orphanage,
Dighinala, Khagrachhari, Bangladesh
8. Sourav Tripura, who is a Buddhist and Tripura tribal from Bangladesh, an advocate and
Khagrachhori District Leader of Global Law Thinkers Society.
Biswadeb Chakraborty said how important it is to include different religious people in the list of
friends. He suggested to the youth to make a list of 10 friends and find out if there are any other
religious friends present or not. If not present, he advised to include friends from other religions which
will help to bring understanding, love for each other and they can be resilient towards each other's
beliefs. He also said how he interacts with other religious people by talking to them whenever he gets
a chance and suggested doing the same to the youth. Love and respect can bring interfaith harmony
he mentioned.
Rev. Kalyan Kumar Kisku said that joining organizations like United Religions Initiatives and
interfaith programs help to bring mindset change regarding religious fanatic views. He also mentioned
that no religion talks about violence, so we should bring different religious children under a platform,
educate them about basics of different religions and guide them for interfaith harmony. If we can
arrange this our children will get a free mind and will learn to love people as humans, not based on
what their religious belief is.
Amb. Faith Hung Lin Lin said about the importance of interfaith harmony. She said interfaith harmony
enhances self-growth, strengthening our sense of identity by form of even deeper understanding of
what defines our faith. She mentioned that we have to accept that we are all unique individuals with
differences but we have to uphold collective interest for the human race. She said that interfaith
harmony can be achieved through community projects that serve common social causes such as
economic crisis, climate change and healthcare issues. This brings people together for joint
participation in taking common action.
Md. Sazzad Hossain emphasized on to clear misconception regarding religious beliefs. He suggested
religious harmony is not about following the beliefs or traditions of each other religions rather to
respect each other and create harmony. He has given an example of Bangladesh present misconception
“ধর্মমযাে যাে উৎসব সবাে” (Religion is everyone's festival) that created a big chaos in different religions. He
said that neither Muslim nor Hindu can follow each other rituals. In Hinduism the cow considered as
divine where Muslims are slaughtering cow in their religious festival, so a Muslim cannot invite a
Hindu to join the festival or a Hindu cannot come for their belief and respect. Same way, in puja
(worship) festivals Muslims cannot take part because this is prohibited in Islam. He mentioned Islam
suggested to respect others religions, not to hurt others, not to speak bad about other religions. He said
that we need to know own religion well because Islam taught about how to keep peace and in other
words religious harmony.
Chandra Kishore Tripura has represented their Tripura tribe and talked about the importance of
religious resiliency. He suggested that youth should meet different religious people, learn about
different religions and thus religious resiliency can be built.
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Dr. Junius Silva suggested interfaith harmony dialogue should be discussed all time. He said that
animals, nature and every creation are united where humans are fighting for no reason.
Sourav Tripura conveyed a message of peace.
Mohammad Akhtarujjaman said based on Quran, Hadith and the life stories of Prophet Muhammad
(PBUH) that how Islam restricted to harm other religious people, stop chaos in society and promoted
religious resiliency. He said to bring changes in mindset of Muslim youth, they should practice Islam
by knowing properly and follow the life style of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
After listening to all speakers and questions-answers sessions for youth, all agreed upon one point is
that religions are created to establish peace not war. The more we know each other the more we
understand each other. The more we feel and love each other the more we become tolerant towards
each other. To establish interfaith harmony, we need to organize more exchange programs, dialogue
exchange, awareness programs, workshops and most importantly our own religious studies. Because
no religion talked about division but to bring love and respect to each other for building a peaceful
world.