SAPRI brings eminent international panel for colloquium on ‘Challenges to Pluralism in South Asia’
Saturday, 4 January 2014 00:00
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The lack of pluralism in the different facets of a country has impeded the progress of many developing nations. The people and places that have overcome their differences are seeing the most progress to date and stand in the vanguard of development in their communities and nations.
As part of a broader initiative to sensitise the Sri Lanka’s citizens on issues of religious tolerance, peaceful coexistence, secularism and pluralism , the South Asia Policy and Research Institute (SAPRI), chaired by former President Chandrika Kumaratunga, is bringing together an international panel of four eminent persons to discuss the ‘Challenges to Pluralism in South Asia’.
The colloquium to be held on 7 January at the BMICH from 3 to 6 p.m. will see Prof. Rajeev Bhargava from India and Sri Lanka’s Prof. Radhika Coomaraswamy discuss ‘Religion and Politics in South Asia’, while Dr. Christophe Jaffrelot from France and Ms. Asma Jahangir from Pakistan will discuss ‘Secularism on Trial in South Asia’.
Asma Jahangir is a Pakistani human rights lawyer who chaired the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and was the first woman president of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan. She has fought to defend the human rights of women, religious minorities, labourers and children in Pakistan for over 40 years, both in and out of the courtroom.
On the international level, Jahangir has served as U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Arbitrary or Summary Executions for the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief for the U.N. Human Rights Council. Jahangir received the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the UNIFEM Millennium Peace Prize among others and was one of the 1,000 women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.
Prof. Bhargava is a renowned political theorist formerly of the Jawaharlal Nehru University and University of Delhi whose works in multiculturalism, identity politics and secularism has evoked sharp debates. He is now Senior Fellow and Director with the CSDS which studies developing societies.
He holds a DPhil from Oxford University and has been a Fellow at Harvard University, University of Bristol, Jerusalem’s Institute of Advanced Studies, Berlin’s Wissenschaftskolleg, and Vienna’s Institute for Human Sciences. He has also been Distinguished Resident Scholar, Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life at Columbia University, and Asia Chair at Sciences Po, Paris.
Sri Lanka’s own Deshamanya Dr. Coomaraswamy is an internationally known human rights advocate who has held vital positions in the UN relating to children in armed conflict and violence against women. A strong advocate of women’s rights she has intervened on issues of ‘comfort women’ in Japan and Korea, violence against women in war situations in Rwanda, Haiti, Colombia and Indonesia, on human trafficking in Poland, India, Bangladesh and Nepal, women in prisons in the USA, domestic violence in Brazil and Cuba.
She was formerly chair of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission. She holds a LLM from Harvard and a JD from Columbia University. She was has received many awards for her work in the field, plus several honorary PhDs, and travels to New York and Oxford on university teaching assignments.
Dr. Jaffrelot is a French political scientist specialising in South Asia. He is currently Research Director at the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and teaches South Asian politics and history at Sciences Po, Paris. He was formerly Director of CERI (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales) at Sciences Po.
His research interests include nationalism and democracy, mobilisation of the lower castes and untouchables in India, the Hindu nationalist movement and ethnic conflicts in Pakistan, and he has published several books on India and Pakistan.
The event is open to the public on registration with the SAPRI office which can be contacted on 0112 576 666, 0112 576 555 or email [email protected].
