"December 4th was the last meeting I attended at the SGI-UK." - Sumeet

"December 4th was the last meeting I attended at the SGI-UK. How could I be Indian and sit in a room with people who, like others, have gone into the homes of Indian people to discuss religion and have insulted their cultural beliefs? Whilst asking this question, I also ask Indian members of this peace organisation: How can you allow people to enter your homes and let them insult your culture? How can you sit and attend these meetings as they ask you to give up your cultural identity? Why should any of us have to give up our cultural identity?

The answer I received from members and faith leaders in this organisation was that ‘there is one single truth’. As a humanistic and liberal thinker, how could I sit there and hear people quote Buddhist texts to prove that ‘Christians can never be happy’, Hindus are deluded with multiple gods, others can also not be happy because ‘Buddhism alone’ leads one to the greatest truth in life. Fanaticism could not be expressed more eloquently.

Months later, as I recall episodes of trying to engage in a dialogue with local faith-leaders and members in the SGI-UK that Indian people have the right to maintain their cultural beliefs of wanting to pursue different spiritual paths, I realise that my efforts failed. Promoting dialogue and engaging in dialogue are two different exercises. This is an organisation where they allow Indian people to join first and then ask them to give up their cultural beliefs, a humiliation. In my experience, some Indian people have quit, whereas others create a façade where they agree to all that is being asked of them, but in private practise their culture. Surely, issuing a letter with terms and conditions that people have to adopt a new identity would be an honest disclosure.

I gave up my membership of this peace organisation in a nonviolent protest against the insult of Indian people and against the insult of diversity. The last meeting I attended, I was told ‘believe like the English do [that is, no other belief or faith can lead to happiness], or quit this group’. I quit. Having lived in England for many years, it is my belief and experience that the British society is more liberal than the British affiliate of the SGI.

What then is the purpose of me reflecting upon the SGI-UK and the race-relations disaster I have experienced? It is to say that fanaticism doesn’t belong to a particular religion; every religion is vulnerable to it. Religious groups, therefore, must be open in acknowledging and repairing their faults. After all, to experience our limitations, to acknowledge our flaws and to experience the vast potential of our lives is what makes us human. "