Wednesday 24 / April / 2024
New Delhi: Supporting India's candidature for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council, Professor Robert AF Thurman, Co-founder and President of the Tibet House in New York, said that the five permanent members of the UNSC are unable to resolve conflicts diplomatically and engaged in wars while India has the potential to bring peace in the world.
He said, "Today in the United Nations, the five permanent security council members are the five big arms dealers on the planet so they naturally will not make peace and that has to change for example India, a huge country should be in the permanent member of the Security Council. Brazil, you know, Germany, Japan and not just the five people who think they won the world war." He asserted that India has every right to be the centre for the congregation of all the Buddhists as it has been following the principle of non-violence and shown the path of peace to the world rather than the war which some countries have been adopting to invade another country.
He is also a recipient of India's Padma Shri Award.
Terming India as the land of Lord Buddha, Lord Mahavira and Mahatma Gandhi, Professor Robert AF Thurman said that India has been promoting peace through Buddhism.
"Well, I see it in the terms that Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid out earlier yesterday where he mentioned that India has the principle of non-violence and peace rather than war or as many countries, their major effort or expense is defence and which they call it defence and then one of them invades another country for eg United States foolishly invaded Iraq the second time and Afghanistan occupied."
He went on to say that attacking the enemy in another country to defend your country is admissible but to invade a country or occupy the country is "terrible".
He said, "They (US) had a right to attack their enemies in Afghanistan who bombed in New York but after that to occupy a country was a terrible mistake as obviously...and now Russia has invaded Ukraine and that is really terrible,"He made the remarks as he came to attend the Global Buddhist Summit in New Delhi.
The two-day summit is being hosted by the Ministry of Culture in collaboration with International Buddhist Confederation (IBC). The theme of the Global Buddhist Summit is 'Responses to Contemporary Challenges: Philosophy to Praxis.'
He said that India is a land where Buddha took birth and it has every right to be the centre to assemble all the Buddhists. Speaking to ANI, he said, "India has never done an invasion on anybody not perfect of course but they had to defend themselves of course on the other hand and so India has a right because of Gandhi, Buddha, Mahavira, Jains to say non-violence is the principle of the country and that makes sense. And also it happens to be the land on the subcontinent where Buddha took birth although the modern country of India ofcourse didn't exist at that time, there were many small countries. So, they have every right to be the centre to assemble all the Buddhists and to stand for the principle and even not to give up the hope that the world can be the world at peace."
Speaking about the Dalai Lama's remarks at the Global Buddhist Summit, he said, "His Holiness The Dalai Lama who also blessed this conference enormously by coming today. He always says and has been saying for 30 years that the 20th century was the century of terrible violence as the world wars marked the end of colonialism worldwide and the 21st century has to be a century of peace. Unfortunately, in the first 23 years of this century, there have been terrible wars and the US is guilty to some extent and my country (US) is guilty of unprovoked wars."
He said that every person in the world needs freedom and called India a free country. He said, "Freedom is a thing that people need, that is what human people need, human beings need. India is a free country, a bit chaotic like the US is, but we have to be partners in seeing that the whole planet is like that."
Responding to a question regarding China following expansionist policy, he termed dictatorship dangerous as the dictator has to suppress their own people but the Chinese nationals like freedom.
"Well, you see that the danger of dictatorship is that the dictator has to suppress their own people because it is not true that Chinese people are not the same human beings who do not like freedom because they are. There are some theories.... that Chinese people don't want democracy and they pretend some Western... or some nonsense like that. Actually, Chinese people are just people and every people even in a family like to be free," he told ANI.
"They don't want to be completely under one person and also their talent can't come out unless they are free and they won't be creative...So, the point is I see that dictatorships are dangerous because their own people resent being bossed around by the dictator. So, the dictator has to push that there is an enemy out there, they try to deflect resentment of the people against them, against some foreigner and they awake a war and that is an age-old principle that people that everyone can observe in history. So, we don't need governance where people can have their say right at home and if you are free to say it, they will disagree, and there will maybe be local squabbles and fights because humans are like that. But, overall they are not estranged to an enemy, to a neighbour that's really important," he added.
He emphasized that Buddhism can play a part in spreading peace and harmony in the world.
"Buddhism can do that, Dalai Lama has a slogan in which he says 'world peace through inner peace' which means that if people learn to control themselves and be friendly and loving and peaceful with each other. Then, they won't have violence and conflict." Professor Robert AF Thurman further said that if the world sees other people of the world as a family, then there would get along and will not have issues with each other.
