Minutes of the General Membership Meeting of the Indian Renaissance Institute (IRI) held at Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi on 20th April 2022

 

The following members attended the General Membership Meeting:

  1. Dr. Ramesh Awashti
  2. Sh. N.D. Pancholi
  3. Sh. Vinod Jain
  4. Sh. Sheoraj Singh
  5. Sh. Gumma Veeranna
  6. Sh. Debatrata Pal
  7. Sh. M. Chandrasekhar
  8. Sh. Surajdeo Prasad
  9. Sh. Madan Bharti
  10. Mahi Pal Singh

 

Dr. Ramesh Awasthi presided over the GM Meeting.

 

  1. First of all to pay tributes to the departed colleagues, namely Sh. Narottam Vyas, Sh. Kiran Nanavati and Sh. Satish Chandra Varma, all the members stood up and observed silence for two minutes.

 

  1. Then Dr. Ramesh Awasthi delivered his inaugural speech in which he observed how under the present rule of the BJP led NDA government destruction of democratic institutions has taken place and the Constitution of the country is being undermined. Attacks on Muslims and progressive organisations by the fringe groups of the RSS and the BJP as well the government have increased and all the people have to stand up to save our democracy and the Constitution.

 

After this, the Secretary’s following Report of work during the last three years was presented:                                                                                         

“Dear Friends,

 

The last General Membership Meeting of the IRI was held at GPF, New Delhi on 6th and 7th April 2019 and due to the spread of Covid-19 in the country, it has not been possible to hold a meeting of the General Membership of the IRI since then. Because of the same reason, meetings and other activities involving physical presence of the members of the General Body have also not been possible.

 

    However, whatever activities were possible were continued during this period also as detailed below:

 

  1. Except for a few months when complete lockdown was in force and printing and posting of The Radical Humanist was not possible, the magazine has been coming out every month and its PDF copy was circulated to all the people on our mailing list as well as to our subscribers. Except for the complete lockdown period, The Radical Humanist has been printed and posted regularly. We have started sending the magazine to four universities and a few colleges in Uttarakhand, including Dehradun – Uttarakhand Open University, Uttaranchal University and its Law College, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna University.
  2. All the issues published during these three years have also been posted on the website lohiatoday.com on regular basis so that more and more readers can read it there.
  3. After the untimely and unfortunate demise of our colleague, Mr. Satish Chandra Varma who was the Treasurer of IRI and also the Publisher and Printer of The Radical Humanist, Mr. Sheoraj Singh was appointed as the Treasurer as well as the Printer and Publisher of The Radical Humanist in his place. He has handled these responsibilities so well that the work of the IRI and publication and posting of The Radical Humanist has been going on very smoothly.
  4. It was suggested by Mr. Narottam Vyas that in order to reach out to the Hindi speaking readers also, some portions of the RH should also have a Hindi section. This has, however, not been possible due to the conditions laid down by the Registrar of Newspapers of India.
  5. Two volumes of ‘Selections from The Radical Humanist’ were prepared and they were launched during the last General Membership Meeting in 2019. These two volumes were also put on the website lohiatoday.com. Besides this website, they were also put on www.academia.edu. The two volumes have been accessed at this website by a very large number of readers: Volume I by 1256 readers till 12 April 2022 and Volume II by 2829 readers till 5 April 2022 from 220 cities in India and 441cities across the world. That way, The Radical Humanist and its ideology has reached a total of 661 cities in the world, a big number by any standards, including almost all the European countries, America, Canada, South Africa and other African countries, Arabian countries, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, etc.
  6. As you are aware, books written by M.N. Roy are prescribed as text as well as reference books in almost all the universities in India as well as in foreign universities. But they are out of print. We keep receiving inquiries regarding their availability but there has not been any progress in their re-printing. Renaissance Publishers could also not undertake the work on the agreed terms. However, we have been able to get scanned copies of ‘Selected Works of M.N. Roy’ – Volumes II, III and IV prepared. Till we are able to get them re-printed, we have put them on www.lohiatoday.com and made them available for the benefit of readers, students and researchers from all over the world. Work is in progress on the First volume also and we shall be able to put that volume also on the website very soon.
  7. It was reported three years ago in the meeting in 2019 that typing work of the 5th Volume of the ‘Selected Works of M.N. Roy’ had been completed and proof reading work was in progress as reported by Mr. N.D. Pancholi at that time. Even after three years, there is no progress in the work which has been pending for the last 14-15 years. This needs to be viewed seriously and necessary action in the matter needs to be initiated so that we can edit it and are ready with the typed copy in case we are in a position to get it published.
  8. It was suggested in the meeting that efforts should be made to get transferred the amount of IRI lying in the Bank Accounts of Bank of Maharashtra at Mumbai. A member had volunteered to contact the bank officers and find out how we can do so. However, we have not received any report of any such effort. In this regard, I wish to report that I have written an e-mail and also sent application through Speed Post addressed to the Manager of the Bank requesting him/her to suggest ways in which we can get the funds transferred to the main account of the Indian Renaissance Institute, New Delhi. However, there has been absolutely no response from the Bank. We are still making efforts in this regard and making inquiries from the local branches of the bank regarding the procedure to be followed to get access to the IRI Bank Accounts at Mumbai.
  9. There has still been no positive development in the matter of our case regarding 13 Mohini Road and the matter requires urgent and serious action on the part of the IRI if we have to take possession of the property during our life time.
  10. Ajit Bhattacharyya had proposed that a Research Director for IRI should be appointed to promote research and publication of humanist literature and he proposed the name of Mr. N.D. Pancholi for it. Mr. Pancholi was requested to submit a proposal paper regarding the task to be undertaken and the finances required for that. Mr. Pancholi agreed to do so. It was decided that after receiving the proposal of Mr. Pancholi, the task of appointment of the Research Director will be undertaken. No such proposal has since been received and in view of that the matter of such an appointment was not considered.
  11. It was proposed to organize seminars on important issues facing the country. One such seminar was organized at Kolkata in August 2019. However, after that no such seminars could be organized due to the spread of Covid-19.
  12. The membership of the IRI with the Humanists International (previously known as International Ethical and Humanist Union) had become due and Dr. Ramesh Awasthi volunteered to undertake the task. With his efforts, we were able to renew our membership of the Humanists International.
  13. Through our editorials, articles and statements in The Radical Humanist, we have been strongly protesting against the rise of communalism and polarization on religious basis and also attacks on democratic institutions to undermine them by the ruling party, the BJP, to promote its narrow electoral agenda.
  14. We have been supporting the Humanists International in their efforts to protest through our statements in The Radical Humanist against incarceration of atheists under various blasphemy laws in various countries. The latest is the jail term of 24 years awarded to Mubarak Bala in Nigeria.

 

             Mahi Pal Singh

             (Secretary, IRI)”       

 

  1. Then the Minutes of the last General Membership Meeting of the IRI held on 6th and 7th April 2019 and the statement of accounts were presented respectively by Mr. Mahi Pal Singh and Mr. Sheoraj Singh and the same were confirmed and passed.

 

  1. Next, the membership of the IRI of the following persons was sanctioned by the GMM:
  • Saurabh Kumar Life Membership
  • Surajdeo Prasad Life Membership
  • Saurabh Chaudhary Life Membership
  • Rati Pal Tyagi Life Membership
  • Madan Bharti Annual Membership

 

  1. Proposal for an amendment to Rule 6 (a) under Rule 15 of the Constitution of IRI was presented, but withdrawan.

 

  1. Then the Election of the 7 Members of the Board of Trustees was held and the following members were elected unanimously:
  • Sheoraj Singh
  • Rajender Kumar Sharma
  • S.K. Nazimuddin
  • Anjali Chakraborty
  • Apurba Dasgupta
  • Debabrata Pal

 

  1. The following Resolution was passed unanimously:

 

Resolution on the Political Situation of the Country

 

(Passed in the General Membership Meeting of the Indian Renaissance Institute at Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi)

 

This General Membership Meeting of the Indian Renaissance Institute (IRI) notes with concern that since the coming to power of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and headed by Mr. Narendra Modi in 2014, the country is deterioting from a secular-democratic state that was envisaged by our Constitution makers into a Hindutva based theocratic-authoritarian state. Members of the minority Muslim community have been targeted, persecuted, beaten up and even lynched in the name of cow-vigilantism and love jihad. Communal hatred and divide has been encouraged and spread by even the highest party leaders during its election campaigns for their narrow electoral benefits, even at the cost of the risk of dividing the nation and the society on communal basis. Hate speech by almost all the leaders of the party and Hindutva elements belonging to the BJP and the RSS taking to the streets with arms indulging in arson, looting and killing whether it is against hijab, use of loud speakers at Mosques, Muslim shops and businesses in the vicinity of Hindu temples etc. have become a new normal with active connivance of the leaders of the BJP running the central and the state governments.

 

Instead of the Prime Minister and his ministers focussing on good governance to make the country a strong and cohesive society, and the problems faced by the people like high rising prices of petrol, diesel, LPG and other essential commodities of daily need of the people, high unemployment, equitable distribution of wealth, education and healthcare facilities, they focus on winning elections through communal divide and hatred. Dissenters, journalists and intellectuals protesting against the anti-people policies of the government are hounded, persecuted and incarcerated under stringent sections of the IPC, NSA and even sedition laws and the goons belonging to the Hindutva fold enjoy a free run and tacit as well as open support of the BJP leadership. The latest move of putting up loud-speakers, helped and financed by BJP leaders, at every crossing and communally sensitive areas to blare out Hanuman chalisa and taking out religious yatras shouting slogans against the other community to incite the communal and anti-social elements from the other community to protest and indulge in violence, perfectly suits the ruling BJP in diverting the attention of the people from the real issues and the failure of the government in controlling price rise and unemployment and at the same time keeping the communal pot boiling always ready to fulfil its communal agenda.

 

This meeting calls upon every section of society to get together to save the secular-democratic character of the country and its Constitution and protect it from deteriorating into a Hindu rashtra and a theocratic-authoritarian state, and protest against the divisive policies of the ruling regime as the people of the country belonging to all communities want to live in peace and harmony.

 

At the end of the meeting, Mahi Pal Singh proposed a vote of thanks to the members who participated in the meeting and the Chairperson, Dr. Ramesh Awasthi, who presided over the meeting.

 

Mahi Pal Singh

Secretary (IRI)

  1. 04. 2022