International Peace Day 2024: How Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living leading peace efforts in Northeast India

New Delhi: Northeast India, which is known for its beautiful landscape and varied traditions, has been marred with issues equivalent to insurgency, interstate border conflicts, and the growing drug menace since the usa gained independence in 1947. For years, the region, which consists of 8 states namely Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and Mizoram, became left out, left out, and now and again subjected to discrimination by remainder of the usa. In spite of its humongous potential to alter right into a hotspot for tourist destinations, the northeastern states, for years, lacked the specified attention from the Central government. The absence of business and infrastructure development played a large role within the upward thrust of insurgency, with every state facing its unique challenges. Addressing these issues has long been an exceptionally powerful to fostering unity and building an inclusive nation. In response, Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living has worked tirelessly to unite the region’s diverse communities, striving to create a peaceful and harmonious Northeast India.

In line with Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s ideals of “Inside every criminal, there is a victim crying for help,” the rehabilitation program geared toward stress elimination and bringing inner peace during the Art of Living Sudarshan Kriya and the Youth Leadership Training Program since the early 2000s.

The Art of Living convinced one hundred twenty-eight militants from KCPMC Lallumba to laid down their arms on August 6, 2010 and as a result rehabilitated them by undergoing a ninety-day intensive spiritual, behavioral, and vocational rehabilitation training.

A a collection of group of Seven-hundred guerrilla fighters surrendered their arms and received a month-long rehabilitation training in Bengaluru in 2014. 2 hundred thirty-such a belonged to the dreaded outfit United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA).

sixty eight armed militants from PLA, KPL, and KYLA in Manipur surrendered on August 14, 2017. Twenty-eight militants from the surrendered groups completed their Youth Leadership Training Program with Art of Living on September four, 2017.

In a first-of-its-kind event within the history of Northeast India, a novel day-long conference titled “Strength in Diversity – Northeast Indigenous People’s Conference” became organized on September 7, 2017, in Guwahati. The conference saw the participation of leaders from all walks of life, including underground leaders led by Anup Chetia, General Secretary of United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA).

On October 2, 2018, UPLA Chairman Wellesley Terang, General Secretary Longki Bey, and a couple of others visited the Bangalore ashram to fulfill Gurudev. They surprised every person when they announced a unilateral ceasefire following their meeting with Gurudev.

Except these efforts, the Art of Living has been working tirelessly in electrifying faraway villages with solar lights. In 2012, the Art of Living inaugurated the ‘Light a Home’ project lower than which more than two thousand lamps were distributed in tons of the remotest villages of North East; tons of them requiring 6-7 hours of treks and on foot journey.

The organization has also constructed the usa’s largest solar battery charging station in December 2016, which powers 287 households within the faraway island village of Mukul Gaon in Dibrugarh District. The project, reaching out to and connecting so many households simultaneously, is the biggest of its kind in India.

“We are ready to now not stop until the last gun is laid down within the region,” says Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar