The Human Cohesion Project

Written by: Rukmini Iyer

India 🇮🇳

The world was in the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic during the Ramadan of 2020 and I was safely ensconced at home in Mumbai, India, amidst a severe lockdown. While the world as we knew it was gone, I had the privilege of safety, health and intention to embark on an exploration of my relationship with Islam, as a Hindu, Brahmin woman living in India.

In my work as a peacebuilder, religion naturally comes up as a hotbed of conflict. The narrative in living memory often tends to be against Islam, given the unfortunate linkage with terrorism that media and the popular conversations continue to underline. Of course, terrorism has occurred and continues to occur in various other religious contexts; but we seem to collectively latch onto Islam as a scapegoat. As I stepped into The Human Cohesion Project, the intention was to confront this unfairness through self-work. 

Needless to say, what began that Ramadan never ended. It continues across faiths and festivals to date, as a way to look at integrating faith into the social change process.

Our world certainly needs to heal its relationship with religion. May be one way, is for each of us to deeply and fully, walk with our religion: with Islam, with Hinduism, with Judaism, with Christianity, with Buddhism, with Sikhism, with Shintoism, with atheism, with agnosticism, with capitalism, with science, with faith… when we become the path, they all lead within. The journey is the healing.