SSRE represented at Australia India Youth Dialogue

Society for Social Regeneration & Equity (SSRE) was represented by its secretary, Dr Navras Jaat Aafreedi, at the third annual conference of the Australia India Youth Dialogue (AIYD) held in Hyderabad and New Delhi in India from 27^th to 30^th January, 2014. He was one of the fifteen Indians selected to indulge in a dialogue with fifteen selected Australians from different walks of life. Dr Aafreedi was selected for it in recognition of his work to promote peace, harmony, amity and understanding through dialogue. During the two years, 2008-2010, when he was a Fellow of the Centre for Communication and Development Studies (CCDS), Pune, under its youth outreach programme called Open Space, he organized a series of dialogues in his hometown Lucknow, called Diversity Dialogue, involving youth from fifteen different countries. The dialogues organized by him went a long way in breaking stereotypes, removing misunderstandings, eliminating misconceptions and building trust between foreign students resident in Lucknow and their Indian peers. His work finds mention in an article that appeared in the prestigious Indian news magazine Outlook.

During the discussions, Dr Aafreedi drew attention to the unpleasant experiences Western women in particular often go through in India. He attributed the problem to the widely held misconceptions about Western women in India. According to him, Indian perceptions of western women are formed not as a result of any direct contact with them, but by the images they see in films and magazines. Indians generally fail to realize that those are pictures of women in glamorous professions and not of the common women, and end up perceiving them to be of easy virtue because of their being dressed in attires which are not considered modest in contemporary India. It is beyond their comprehension that the understanding of modesty varies from one region to the other, from one culture to the other, and that instead of being judgmental about other cultures they ought to appreciate and celebrate the cultural diversity of the world. 

Dr Aafreedi divulged how the Society for Social Regeneration & Equity (SSRE) intends to rope in the foreign students enrolled at institutions in India to speak about their culture, values and family life at campuses across the country with the aim of breaking the stereotypes of Westerners as adulterous people with no moral values that thrive among the Indian masses, as part of the massive awareness campaign it plans to launch.

SSRE Free Medical Checkup and Medicine Distribution Camp

A Free Medical Checkup and Medicine Distribution Camp was organized by the Society for Social Regeneration & Equity (SSRE) in Village Sing Gaon (Udali Dev Block) in District Nagaon in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, on 18^th January, 2014, under the supervision of Dr. Reshma Talukdar, MD Physician [Ukraine, Certified by IES (London), Registration Number AMC 21630], a Medical Officer of Grade A with the Government of Assam. Dr Talukdar saw the patients in large numbers without charge and distributed free medicines to them. Before becoming a Medical Officer with the Government of Assam, Dr. Talukdar worked for Guwahati Medical College in Guwahati, Assam, and at North Eastern Indira Gandhi Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) in Shillong, Meghalaya. 

SSRE honours the Only Hindi Novelist from the Jewish Community

 Sheela Rohekar (right) receiving a memento from Shuma Talukdar, President, SSRE

True to its commitment to raise awareness of religious minorities with the aim of breaking the stereotypes that exist about them, Society for Social Regeneration & Equity (SSRE), on Friday, 3^rd January, 2014, honoured the only Jewish novelist writing in Hindi (the most widely spoken and understood language in India) today, Sheela Rohekar, by presenting an award to her for her depiction of the Indian Jewish life in her latest novel Miss Samuel: Ek Yahudi Gatha (Miss Samuel: A Jewish Saga). The novel was published last year by the Bharatiya Jnanpith, a state body that gives out the most prestigious award of literature in India every year.

The only other Hindi novel that depicted the Indian Jewish life, Apna Ghar (A Home of One’s Own), was published fifty-two years ago in 1961 by Meera Mahadevan, ne Miriam Jacob Mendrekar, who is no more now. The event was significant as Rohekar suffers from a considerable degree of neglect in the Hindi literary world testified by the fact that she was invited neither to any of three literary festivals held in Lucknow (the city where she lives) last year nor to the literary festivals held in other Indian cities in spite of the recent publication of her novel, whose importance cannot be overemphasized.

Sheela Rohekar speaking about her novel

The award function took place at the headquarters of the SSRE in Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, India. A memento was presented to Sheela Rohekar by the President of SSRE, Advocate Shuma Talukdar, Managing Partner, DroitINDIA Legal Services. 

Devki Nandan "Shaant"

A panel on the “Portrayal of Religious Minorities in Hindi Fiction” was also organized on the occasion, in which several eminent personalities of Hindi literature took part.

 Dr. Tukaram Varma

While Dr. Tukaram Varma, Retired Lecturer of Lucknow Christian College spoke on the portrayal of Christians in Hindi novels and short stories, Hindi poet and Buddhist intellectual Dr. Danda Lakhnavi drew attention to the portrayal of Buddhists in Hindi fiction.

                     Dr. Danda Lakhnavi speaking about the portrayal of Buddhists in Hindi fiction

SSRE’s secretary and Indo-Judaic Studies scholar Dr. Navras Jaat Aafreedi, who is an Assistant Professor at the School of Humanities & Social Sciences, Gautam Buddha University in Greater NOIDA, gave an overview of the literature produced by Jews in Hindi and also spoke on their portrayal in Hindi and Urdu fiction. Eminent Urdu poet and writer Anwar Nadeem emphasized the importance of the depiction of religious minorities in fiction.

 

Eminent Urdu writer and poet Anwar Nadeem emphasizing the importance of the depiction of religious minorities in fiction

Dr. Padmini Natu, Associate Professor of Sanskrit at Nari Shiksha Niketan Post-Graduate College spoke in general on the portrayal of religious minorities in Hindi fiction.

                                                                             Dr. Padmini Natu

                                                   Sheela Rohekar and Ravindra Varma
 
Dr. Manju Sikarwar, former Head of the Department of Arab Culture, Nari Shiksha Niketan Postgraduate College and eminent Hindi writer and Rohekar’s husband Ravindra Verma also took part in the discussion. 

                                                    Dr. Manju Sikarwar and Anwar Nadeem


The panel discussion was followed by a poetry recitation in which eminent Hindi poet Devki Nandan ‘Shant’ also recited his poems in addition to the panelists mentioned above.