BeyondHeadlines News Desk
New Delhi : An emergent meeting of the Governing Body of the Society for Communal Harmony (SCH) was held at Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi in which Prof Anand Kumar was unanimously elected as President of the Society for Communal Harmony to fill up the vacancy caused by passing away of Shri Kuldip Nayar last month.
Prof Anand Kumar, a well known activist academician, Fellow of Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla; former President, Federation of Central Universities Teacher’s Association, National President, Indian Sociological Society had many other respectable positions in the academic field.
The SCH condoled the death and paid tribute to its past presidents namely Shri Rabi Ray, Shri Somnath Chatterjee and Shri Kuldip Nayar besides Justice Rajindar Sachar and Prof C Laxmana. The SCH also decided to organize a memorial lecture shortly at Constitutional Club in association with other prominent organisations on the ideals of Shri Kuldip Nayar. The Society chalked out program for organising conferences on regional basis on current situation of the country and for concrete action in this direction.
The Society was setup in 1990 soon after the Bhagalpur Riot. At the initiative of Dr BN Pande, Maulana Syed Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi aka Maulana Ali Miyan and Mr Surendra Mohan, a national convention attended by the top leaders of various political parties of the country, intellectuals, media personalities, social activist, religious leaders was held at New Delhi in March 1990. It was resolved to form a national level organisation to fight against communal forces and promote amity, peace and egalitarianism among different communities.
The Society for Communal Harmony was headed by 6 presidents namely Dr BN Pande, Mr PN Haksar, Mr Sadiq Ali, Mr Rabi Ray, Mr Somnath Chatterjee and Mr Kuldip Nayar. The most important two days national conference in September 1998 held at Vigyan Bhawan on the theme of “Regeneration of India: Its Imperatives”.
Five Vice-Presidents elected by the Society are Shri CK Jaffer Sharief, Dr SN Subba Rao, Dr Syeda Saiyidain Hameed, Shri CB Tripathi and Dr Sandeep Pandey. The other elected office bearers are Shri Abdul Mannan, Treasurer-cum-Acting General Secretary, Smt. Manjoo Mohan, Joint Treasurer, Prof Jagmohan Singh, Secretary (North), Shri Abdul Majeed Parekh, Secretary (West). The members of the Governing Body include eminent persons from various walks of life including Ven’ble Lama Lobzang, Prof VK Tripathi, Dr Prem Singh, Shri Rajesh Mehta, Dr AK Merchant, Dr S Farooq, Dr Mohd Haneef Khan Shastri, Shri Qurban Ali, Shri Ramesh Sharma, Shri Surendra Vikram Singh, Advocate Mujahid S Khan and Prof Atiya Habeeb Kidwai.
