The World Conference on Religion and PeaceInterview with Mr. T.S. Nandhra
Wajibu: Mr Nandhra, for how long have you been involved with interfaith dialogue and how did this involvement get started? It had its beginning in the early 1970s when the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) initiated a Committee on Interfaith Dialogue. At the time I was one of the chairmen of the Sikh community in Kenya and was invited to participate in this committee. Mr John Kamau was then the Secretary-General of the NCCK and people like Joe Kadhi of the Daily Nation and Zarina Patel, the granddaughter of Jeevanjee (the person who bequeathed the Jeevanjee Garden to Nairobi City) took a keen interest in the committee. It was an opportune time for the start of this committee. This was the period when Asians were being expelled from Uganda and on account of my involvement with the Committee I was able to intervene on their behalf when some of them arrived at the Nairobi Railway Station. This is what happened: people who were British, American or Canadian passport holders had no problem for these countries could absorb them fairly quickly: they airlifted them from Uganda. The problem was with the Indian passport holders. There was an announcement on the radio that India would send a ship to Mombasa but on the way the people had all kinds of problems. Some of the women were even molested before they came to Malaba at the Uganda/Kenya border. When the train carrying them arrived in Nairobi, the Hindu Council, wishing to help them, was only allowed to take some tea to them in the station. However, since I had got to know John Kamau, I spoke to him about the plight of these refugees from Idi Amin. He intervened with the then President of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, and managed to get permission for the people to be allowed to leave the train for some days and be cared for by the Asian community in Nairobi. So this was a real, practical benefit of the work of this Interfaith Committee. I saw the advantage of personal contact and of good relations with people of other faith communities later, at the time when I had become a president of the World Conference on Religion and Peace. This was in relation to the Muslims living in Bosnia. They had to flee their homes but it was dangerous for them to do so because of the animosity of the Christian Serbs towards them. One of the leading Muslims had built up a good relationship with a Christian bishop and it was through the intervention of the latter that the Muslims were guaranteed a safe passage. When did your involvement with WCRP start? It started when WCRP became interested in opening an office in Nairobi in the early 1980s. They wrote to John Kamau at the NCCK and asked him to organise a small meeting. I had by that time become the chairman of the Hindu Council and was invited in that capacity. A commitee was formed of which the then Anglican bishop, Henry Okullu, became the chairman and I took charge of finance. Professor Norbert Klaes of WCRP Europe was sent to Kenya for two months to help in the organisation of the Kenya Chapter. The Chapter was officially opened in 1982 by the then World President of WCRP, Archbishop Fernandes of India. This Chapter opening was attended by some 45 people from Kenya as well as from other parts of Africa. The Kenya chapter then invited WCRP to hold its Fourth Assembly in Kenya. This was a major meeting, attended by 604 delegates from all over the world, a number of them senior religious leaders. When did you become a president of the organisation? I was nominated as a WCRP President in 1986 in Moscow and was elected as such at the 5th WCRP Assembly held in Melbourne, Australia in 1989. I was re-elected at the 6th Assembly which was held in Italy in 1994. Your background is with the Sikh community in Kenya. Would you say that this religious community is in general open-minded towards people of other faiths? Our community is very open-minded. For example, I invite the students in interfaith relations at the AACC (All Africa Conference of Churches) Training Centre to our temple and show them around. The Sikh community is also a very progressive community. This may be seen in their treatment of women. A woman can be the head of a temple; in fact, women are not barred from any function in our religion. As a body, what actions has the WCRP, Kenya Chapter taken to promote the goals of WCRP in this country? In 1984/85 WCRP donated Kshs 1,000.000 to Somalia and the same amount for the drought victims in Ethiopia. We also helped some women groups in Kenya. Apart from that, we can, unfortunately not boast of great results. Although the Hindu community has shown openness towards the goals of WCRP, the same cannot be said of some of the other religious communities in Kenya. And those that have been active have at times not had the right motives. They have sometimes wished to enhance their standing in their own religious community by participating in WCRP activities. Having achieved this goal, they had no further interest in WCRP. There is also the problem of friction between various groups within the religious communities. For example, the person who represented the Muslims on the Committee belonged to a minority Muslim sect. And since this community is very small in Kenya, he did not have the support of most of the other Muslims. Among Christians, the ethnic factor plays a role in preventing dialogue and so does the Protestant-Catholic divide. For example, because the WCRP's Secretary-General was a Protestant for quite a few years, there was less enthusiasm for the organisation among Catholics than at the moment when this post is held by a fellow-Catholic. It is also my feeling is that the top and middle levels of a religious group must opt for dialogue before the people at the grassroots will come together. But among Christians, it seems that people at the grassroots are often more open towards working together than those at the top. There is a difference between Christianity and other religions as far as this is concerned. Christianity is like a tree. The root is Christ and this is the basis of unity for all Christians. However, there are divisions at the top, among the branches. But other religions are like rivers, they have different sources, which, like rivers, end up in the same ocean.
How can there be progress in co-operation among the various religious communities in Kenya? By working together on some social problem in the country. For instance, on the problem of street children. A very good example that this is possible was seen after the recent bomb blast when people from many religious communities and races banded together to assist the victims of this disaster. I hope this sense of unity will continue for a long time.
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