On October 9, 2015, members of SOCH-beyond the imaginational had another interactive session with foreign delegate ?Mr. John L. Iskander, PHD; chair North East & North Africa Area Studies & Mr. Dinesh Dubey (Senior Political Counselor) at Palm Tree, Aligarh. Mr. Iskander came to meet SOCH team to know about the issues & problems that the youth of India is facing due to communal violence. He also asked about the reasons & impact of religious and ethnic conflicts in day to day life.

Dr. Saleem Mohammad Khan, President of SOCH started the discussion and said Indian society is pluralistic in nature. Society is composed of people belongs to different religions, customs & traditions. Hindus & Muslims are the important part of India from ancient time. Hindus present in bulk whereas Muslims are in minority. But due to some unacceptable reasons the adjustment failure happens between Hindu & Muslim causes violent communal riots. Nowadays communalism is very common in India and it can be define as blind loyalty to one’s own religious group. It is described as a tool to mobilize people for or against by raising an appeal on communal lines.

He further added that communal tension mostly affects the marginalized or poor people. Elite classes have sources and their security system. Most of the problem is faced by normal being. Communal violence propagates in society due to orthodoxy & obscurantism that hampers the mentality of people for accepting the feeling of secularism & religious tolerance.

Dr. Danish Suhail, Secretary of SOCH continued the reasons of communalism and said there are a number of causes which are responsible for the prevalence of communalism like weak economic status, sometimes due to geographical causes, historical causes, social causes, psychological causes. Nowadays negative impact of mass media also creates lot of misunderstanding among people of different religions.

Mr. Amood Gulzar, member of SOCH, said “I belong from Jammu & Kashmir & I live in Aligarh and I never feel any discrimination by any of my fellow mate. We live like a family and help each other in every possible way. But during such communal tensions, few of people refrain themselves from talking or attending calls from me. May be they have doubts about me but that’s their perception I never bother about their behavior. I am also an Indian and have same patriotic feelings”.

After discussion over communal violence in India, Dr. Saleem Mohammad Khan gave some details about the current projects of SOCH- beyond the imagination like Sir Syed Literacy Centre which is going to start by SOCH in Urban Slums of Aligarh.

Miss Yusra Khan, (Project Manager) member of SOCH said our NGO- “SOCH- beyond the imagination” is going to start an educational project for children live in slum and other backward areas of Aligarh. The slums of Aligarh are a breeding ground for poverty, exploitation, negligence, destitution and disease. Children living in these slums have poor access to schools; there is a high dropout rate from school by grade 8, often because slum children are employed in the labor sector at a young age. Many of them, seeking to supplement the family income, work in distant locations which make regular attendance at school impossible.

Project for slum children will consist following opportunities:
1-To educate underprivileged children in urban slums.
2-Special emphasis on school dropouts.
3-Achieve the goal of Right to Education.
Trying to help children stay in school by providing remedial education and other services and supporting them to go to mainstream schools.
Further she said, shortly our NGO going to work on Skills Development by providing vocational training to community people at centre of SOCH in Shehanshabad so that they can earn daily wages for better survival of life.
After all this much of discussion Mr. Iskander was immensely impressed by team SOCH views and its work. At the same time was agitated with the present scenario of India. People slaughter each other for irrelevant reasons. He said despite of democracy and secularism in India, still the country facing such riots in different parts. Serious steps should be taken by Govt to cease such illegal actions in country.