KL News Network
SRINAGAR
The Art of Living (AoL) founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, brought together Kashmir’s multiple stakeholders in Jammu to deliberate and have a dialogue on the situation in Kashmir, an AoL spokesman said. He had organized a day long conference in Jammu that was attended by “ex-militants, families of victims of militancy, youth leaders, women, entrepreneurs, parents bodies, select Kashmiri NGOs, Sufi leaders, academicians, media, persons in art and culture, representatives of the Sikh community and dissenters including those who resorted to stone pelting.”
The spokesman claimed that their Kashmir Back to Paradise Conference was “the first time in recent months that such a diverse and large representation of stakeholders from J&K came together for a dialogue on peaceful and prosperous Kashmir.”
“Many of you have traveled 12 and 15 hours to get here because you are deeply pained by what has happened in the recent months,” the spokesman quoted Sri Ravi Shankar telling the audience. “I have not come here with a ready-made solution. We will all have to come together, sit together and bring out a solution. Solutions cannot be found in the streets, not with stones and guns.”
Ravi Shankar said that the conference was in response to the requests by Dr Ghulam Rasool Hami, head of the J & K based Karwan-I-Islami, and Muzaffar Wani, father of slain militant Burhan Wani, “to intervene in Kashmir”.
“The conference provided a platform for a more broad-based approach where a cross-section of Kashmiri leadership voiced their opinion and support for the need for peace in the valley,” the spokesman said. “By getting peoples voices heard, through working towards dispute redressal and opening channels of communication between different factions are various other methods being utilised in this process.”
“Kashmir has been a bastion of the intellectuals, artists, spiritual leaders, sufis, literary greats, Rishis and Munis. But unfortunately today, we are helplessly watching schools being burnt, schools and buses are being burnt, shops being gutted. There are many sane voices which are unheard. The common man is caught between harthal and curfews,” the spokesman quoted Ravi Shankar saying. “So there is a dire need for a platform where common people can express their opinions, ideas. So I thought we should come together and form a platform, South Asian Forum for Peace.”
