Unlocking Interfaith Harmony with Urmi Chanda

• Urmi Chanda shares challenges in interfaith dialogue and bridging secular-liberal and faith-based communities.
• She explores Hinduism’s pluralistic nature and practical strategies for peacebuilding through her project “Hinduism Paradox”.
• Insights on women’s role in peace efforts, indigenous interfaith models, and mentorship in the field.

Introduction

Urmi Chanda is a journalist-turned-peacebuilder committed to interfaith dialogue, pluralism, and social justice. As India Programs Manager at Seeds of Peace, she navigates the intersection of religion, culture, and conflict resolution, creating spaces for dialogue in a polarised society. 

In this interview, she shares her unconventional journey, the challenge of engaging both believers and sceptics, and the need for indigenous peacebuilding frameworks in post-colonial societies. Her insights offer a rare, practical perspective on fostering harmony in divided spaces—essential reading for anyone invested in social change and conflict resolution.

You’ve spoken on “Tools to Build Peace in a Broken World”. Can you share a few practical strategies or thought initiators with our readers?

In my four years with the American non-profit organisation Seeds of Peace (where I am the India Programs Manager) and my engagement with other peacebuilding organisations, I have come across many useful theoretical frameworks and practical strategies, each important in its own way, depending on the context and the stakeholders. 

You see, ‘peace’ is a very abstract term and can mean vastly different things to different people. So, the journey to peace often needs to start with understanding what it means. 

Two frameworks that are my favourites are the violence triangle and peace types proffered by the Norwegian sociologist and father of Peace Studies, Johan Galtung. Galtung first says that there are two kinds of peace – negative and positive peace. Negative peace is one when there is an absence of violence and fear of violence. However, positive peace refers to conditions and structures that support the flourishing of societies. 

The model of 8 Pillars of Positive Peace, created by the Institute of Economics and Peace (IEP), offers great practical indicators of a ‘positively’ peaceful society. If you want to build peace, contribute to or ensure one or more of these pillars, viz., Well-functioning Government; Sound Business Environment;  Equitable Distribution of Resources; Acceptance of the Rights of Others; Good Relations with Neighbours; Free Flow of Information; High Levels of Human Capital; Low Levels of Corruption. 

Galtung also educates us about three kinds of violence, viz., direct violence, structural violence, and cultural violence. Direct violence is visible, but structural violence, referring to oppressive structures and cultural violence, referring to violence-legitimising narratives, are invisible. Being aware of and pushing back against all three types of violence are also practical ways of building peace. And last but not least, peace is an inside-out process. The first step and intervention has to be with yourself. If you aren’t at peace, chances are you won’t be able to create much of it either.

Your essay, ‘The Hinduism Paradox,’ has sparked much interest. Can you share what inspired this project and the key ideas it explores?

I was connected to the team that commissioned and created the ‘Pluralities Dossier’ at one edition of the Fireflies Dialogues. My essay, ‘The Hinduism Paradox, ’ is one of the many in that anthology which explores the idea of pluralism from various lenses. 

I chose to write about Hinduism because it isn’t a monolithic religion but a complex and diverse faith system, which is both inclusive and exclusive at the same time.

I am keenly aware of my identity as a Hindu, stand firmly in it, and own both its gifts and faults. I do so especially consciously at a time when the ideology of Hindutva threatens to dismantle the legacy of diversity and pluralism of the Hindu faith.

The essay was born out of these needs to protect and critique a religion I live and am endlessly fascinated by. The Heinrich Boll Stiftung Foundation published it in May 2023 and can be found online.

You’ve been deeply involved in interfaith dialogue and harmony projects. What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way? Were people generally open to having meaningful and honest conversations?

Much before I became an interfaith researcher and peacebuilder, I was a journalist with strong leftist leanings. Although I moved away from journalism, the bit about my political ideology still holds true. I’m not much of a (religious) believer myself, and I’m primarily interested in religion as a social scientist. Ergo, my community was and continues to be comprised of liberals and intellectuals, many of whom are atheists or even strongly anti-religion. 

This presents a unique set of challenges for me, which I think are quite unlike the ones faced by most other interfaith practitioners. 

When I am asked this question about challenges, I believe the assumption is often about communities of believers, some of whom can be orthodox and, hence, not open to dialogue. However, as I mentioned earlier, I am rarely among those for whom faith (or interfaith) is a primary concern; my struggle is to get the buy-in of those who are modern, secular, and often, religion-averse. 

My attempts at organising interfaith forums and events, though admired, seldom find real support or sponsorship. My biggest challenge is to get the intelligentsia to stop being squeamish about it and engage with the people of this country using the language they are most comfortable with: faith. 

So, to answer your question, not many people (my kind of people) are willing or interested in talking about interfaith harmony. But over my 5 years of practice, I have slowly discovered a tribe of liberals who do indeed care, and I work with them as much as I can. The most recent example is the ‘Fireflies Dialogues’ in Bangalore, which was a conference-style event on interfaith peacebuilding and climate action.

Many interfaith initiatives seem to have their roots in Western societies. Is there a colonial hangover in interpreting interfaith dynamics in South Asia or other post-colonial societies? How important is it to create indigenous frameworks for addressing these challenges?

Oh certainly! The interfaith frameworks that are most commonly used in peacebuilding initiatives around the world are Western and not always a good fit for the Global South. In India, for instance, the lines between religion and culture are blurred, if they exist at all, and any interfaith initiative must factor in many other cultural components. 

Western interfaith paradigms, like so many other things, are preferred because of the formalisation of the field. Efforts in interfaith dialogue were led by the Catholic Church post the Holocaust, and a systematic discourse has emerged since then. On the contrary, Indigenous efforts, even when persistent and prolific, continue to suffer from a lack of systematisation and documentation. That said, there is an increasing amount of interest and effort among the academic and practitioner communities in understanding, adapting, and encouraging local interfaith initiatives that empower local peacebuilders and community leaders.

My hope is that in another decade, we’ll see more Indigenous voices and solutions in mainstream interfaith forums.

Can you share your journey of becoming a peacebuilder? Do you believe peacebuilding efforts lack a critical dimension when women are not actively involved?

I landed into peacebuilding rather serendipitously once I started my PhD journey in Interfaith Studies. I was doing the PhD part-time and wanted to work in a space that would complement rather than compete with my academic inquiries. I chanced upon Seeds of Peace, which had its India office in Mumbai, and wrote to the country director asking for work. What started as a project-based undertaking eventually turned into a full-time opportunity, and I’ve been working with the organisation since 2020. In my five years with the organisation, I have had the opportunity to work with hundreds of youths across lines of conflict. 

I created and curated my own interfaith arts and dialogue event in 2023 called IN SYNC, in which I brought together artists and citizens to engage in interfaith ideas via art and conversations.

I am also part of the South Asia Peace Action Network (SAPAN), the Inter-Religious Solidarity Council, the Network for Traditional and Religious Peacemakers, and other similar organisations, and through them, I engage with all kinds of demographic sets, and I find women everywhere. 

The truth is that women are natural peacebuilders and exist in all kinds of contexts, but they tend to be more at the grassroots.

The patriarchal glass ceiling that exists everywhere else does so in the interfaith and peacebuilding domains too, and shattering that needs a collective push.

For young women aspiring to contribute to peacebuilding, what core skills or areas of expertise should they focus on developing to make a meaningful impact?

Women, while being victims of patriarchy and violence, often become their unwitting mouthpieces and carriers, and the first thing all women can do to contribute to peace is to develop self-awareness. The single greatest lesson from my career as a peacebuilder is that peace begins with the self. Understanding the violence that permeates our structures and cultures is the first step to building peace. Speaking out against domestic violence isn’t enough; there are dozens of stereotypes and prejudices that we all carry and inflict upon the world that need challenging. 

Challenge yourself, challenge the normalisation of violent language, challenge the way our sons are brought up and what is allowed of our men. Understand that peace is a path, a perpetual process rather than an end goal. Peace is learning to pause and make mindful choices, peace is refusing to intentionally hurt another, not laughing at jokes that are made at the expense of others, peace is recognising the complexity of human nature and practising patience and forgiveness, peace is also being okay with not being able to do all this at once. 

This attitude and mindset is the greatest expertise one can aspire to build, and once that is created, peace can be built in any situation one finds oneself in. 

As for professional avenues, one can start by volunteering with organisations that work for peace and social justice, understand the needs and motivations of these organisations, build connections, and then ask for work, just like I did five years ago.

Are there any mentorship opportunities or networks you recommend for young women entering this field?

I have found that cracking the international non-profit space (professionally) is hard, especially when it comes to organisations like the UN and all its allied bodies, but there are hundreds of smaller networks, initiatives, and organisations around the world where one can make a start. 

My absolute favourite resource for everything peacebuilding is Everyday Peacebuilding, run by my friend, Taylor O’Connor. The website has lists of causes, organisations and resources – anything that a beginning could need. In fact, I’d recommend this to even the most seasoned peacebuilding professionals.