Social groups plan Gandhi-Edhi campaign for I-Day celebrations

Mumbai: Several social groups plan to launch a Gandhi-Edhi campaign to promote India-Pakistan peace ahead of the Independence Day celebrations on August 15, an official said here on Monday.

A pre-Independence Day meeting will be held here on Saturday for communal harmony, service to humanity, India-Pakistan Peace and SAARC Solidarity in which many social organisations, NGOs and individuals will participate.

"The meeting will take a pledge on several points to promote peace between India-Pakistan which are united by our shared civilisational and cultural heritage with all our neighbours in South Asia to joyously celebrate India's 70th Independence Day," said Jatin Desai, general secretary of the Pakistan-India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy.

Besides the forum, the meeting will have representation from Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal, All India Memon Jamat Federation, Muslim Intellectuals Forum, Save Our Land, Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan and All India Milli Council etc.

They will also strive to strengthen communal harmony, national unit and integration, safeguard secularism, social, gender and economic justice and other basic ideals of the Indian Constitution, Desai added.

The groups would salute all the martyrs and heroes of freedom struggles in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other SAARC countries, and work for realising their dreams in firm conviction that the destinies of all South Asian countries are intertwined.

All like-minded groups and individuals would rededicate themselves to service of humanity in the best traditions of Mahatma Gandhi, Abdul Sattar Edhi and others who believed that serving poor and needy is the highest form of worshipping God.

The participants would urge for peace, normal and good-neighbourly relations between India, Pakistan and among all the countries in South Asia, call for end to eliminate terror and religious extremism from the sacred soils of both India and Pakistan -- and rest of South Asia -- and reaffirm that non-violent acts of love, compassion and humanitarian service without discrimination are the best ways to defeat hate and violence, Desai pointed out.

The PIPFPD also urged the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan to immediately resume bilateral talks on all outstanding issues, focus on ending terror, find a lasting solution to the Kashmir problem, reverse the costly arms race and remove all hurdles in people-to-people contacts and cultural exchanges.