To the Tip of South India!

This is Huberto Pimentel…. We arrived at Kanyakumari at the very tip of South India. This is the place where the Arabian sea, Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal meet. For the Hindu the ocean is divine and sacred. And so this place is very important for Hindus. With the rise of Hindu nationalism, there have been some challenges in the area in Hindu, Christian and Muslim relations. Christians in the region celebrate conventions at the same time that the Hindu festivals were held without any type of friction for many years. Sadly at one point the Hindus who were in political power banned the Christians from holding their convention during the festival time. With the closure of this convention, the Christians started new conventions at different times in each congregation. In addition to this an aggressive evangelistic approach by some of the fundamentalist Christian groups in the area were abusing the Hindus over loud speakers calling them idol worshipers and ignorant. It was in this context that during the Temple festival in Mondaikad that there was a clash between the coastal Christians (mainly Roman Catholic) and the Hindus in which 11 Christians were shot dead. The unity, peace and humanity that had prevailed for many years was gravely threatened. (This all happened in the 80s) Dr. Gnana Robinson (our host in Kanyakumari) called together at the time a number of like minded friends who were Hindu, Muslim and Christian. They began to talk to one another and work on strategies for peace and reconciliation. These first meetings were the seeds for the Peace Trust (originally called the Centre for Justice and Peace). In a special meeting between Hindus, Muslims and Christians an affirmation of agreed beliefs on God emerged: We affirm that God is one, who is the creator of the universe and that God is love, justice and truth. We agree that every religion affirms that this God is concerned with the welfare of all peoples. Since that meeting a centre for inter-religious studies and joint action was created. The motto of the centre is One God, One Humanity. Fundamentalism in religion in the extreme creates tension and tension creates violence and violence creates death and death creates hatred… and the cycle of extreme continues. We thank God for the leadership of Dr. Gnana Robinson in the creation of the Peace Trust Cenre which has had an impact on this region where the Hindus, Christians and Muslims live in relative harmony. Shalom!