NEW DELHI, INDIA, December 26, 2001: The World Congress for the Preservation of Religious Diversity was held at the Intercontinental Hotel, Delhi from November 15 to 17, 2001. Sri Swami Dayananda Saraswati headed the Commission to preserve and protect the world’s ethnic religions and to give them a collective voice in all matters relating to their well being. The new Commission was the primary outcome of a three-day international conference comprising representatives from some fifty religious and ethnic traditions from around the world. It was inaugurated by Atal Behari Vajpayee, Prime Minister of India and His Holiness, The Dalai Lama. Once established, the Commission will provide a buffer zone, a forum and a collective voice to ensure the world’s religions, cultures and the traditions of ethnic groups are propagated and preserved. “We met Mayan and Buddhist leaders and we saw how desperately they were trying to keep alive and to revive their spiritual traditions,” Dena Merriam, Vice Chairman of the Millennium Summit told the Congress. The Congress also noted that billions of dollars were spent annually for aggressive conversion programs which targeted economically vulnerable tribal and ethnic groups. And a clear message came out that such conversion programs were acts of violence. The Commission intends to initiate dialogue with the proselytizing religions of the world to have such practices stopped. R.Venkatraman, former President of India, was chairman of the Congress organizing committee. P.M. Atal Behari Vajpayee said that in the light of the terrorist attacks on the United States and subsequent retaliation in Afghanistan the congress could not have been more timely. “At the very core of these familiar developments is religious intolerance of the most extreme and violent kind,” he said. The resolutions included that the freedom of religion as promulgated in article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights means freedom to practice one’s own religion without interference or denigration from any group or individual; that proselysation is an act of violence; that conversion of children along with family groups is a violation of their rights; that defense of one’s religious tradition from proselytizing is a legitimate exercise of religious freedom; that preservation of religious diversity is imperative and that appropriate legislation should be passed to protect diversity in religion and culture through the world. The honored guest was Jagadguru Sri Sankaracharya of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham who addressed the need for individuals to follow their own dharma and not be induced by money and political considerations to change to other religions.
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