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Lucknow Dialogue Tour

Lucknow, in North India, has traditionally been a very volatile city. With a 60/40 Hindu/Muslim population, every cause of tension between religions was amplified and inter-communal violence was a frequent occurrence. Yet when the Ayodhya mosque, only 80 miles away, was torn down by Hindu extremists in 1992 no-one was killed in Lucknow, while 900 people died in Mumbai alone. The prompt action and mass presence of the City Montessori School (CMS) was very largely responsible. We are familiar with the Montessori Method of teaching younger children, but with 28,000 pupils ranging from between 5-18 years of age and 21 campuses, it is the largest school in the world. In October 2004, during One World Week, Peace Direct organised the Lucknow Dialogues tour, in which a group from the CMS met schools and others in six English communities to explore how schools can bring communities together.

The CMS has a very strong philosophy about the centrality of religion to life, but also the belief that while religious observances differ, the core beliefs are one. This was the reason why in 1992 the District Manager of Lucknow called for its help. Religious leaders met with school staff every evening for several days agreeing messages to calm opinion, and then large peace marches of parents, teachers and pupils took to the streets promoting these messages. Although there was considerable tension and prolonged curfews, the strategy worked.

Clear differences of approach emerged in the English schools and groups that we visited. The Lucknow approach emphasises similarity to the point where the students from Lucknow do not know the religion of their friends. We found this approach mirrored in Slough in the work of the youth group Aik Saath. Aik Saath was set up in 1998 after violence between Sikhs and Muslims erupted. This was a particularly vicious period, with letters circulated claiming horizontal conversion of Sikh girls by Muslims. Even though there has never been any evidence for this, the letters are still referred to, seven years later, as though they were gospel truth. Aik Saath, a youth led group which brings together young people from different faiths, runs peer mediation workshops in which young people uncover the similarities in the way they feel, and the things they want out of life, as well as learning techniques to resolve conflict. These workshops started in secondary school but Aik Saath are now taking them into primary schools to try to prevent younger children developing attitudes that will harm them and may lead to racially motivated crime.

By contrast in the meeting with Education Bradford there was much more emphasis on recognising and celebrating diversity, but within a basically secular context. Our Lucknow visitors struggled with both ideas. They found it hard to see why people would emphasise difference rather than similarity, and struggled with the idea that religions cannot be understood without close attention to each one's history, culture and other circumstances. Even more alien was the idea that some people might have no religion - everyone should follow the religion of their parents - with the implication, what possible reason could there be not to do so?

We visited schools that were doing many of the same things as CMS. In Loughborough and Newcastle we saw primary schools celebrating different religious festivals such as Diwali and Eid with the whole school population. In Loughborough the schools are working explicitly with parents to develop inter-faith understanding, and there are posters on the walls about unity which would not look out of place in Lucknow. CMS is a 5-18 institution and naturally works with the whole age range and we saw recognition of the importance of this from Aik Saath, who are moving from secondary to primary, while in Loughborough the primary schools are looking for ways to ensure that the grounding in tolerance and understanding established in primary schools does not evaporate when children move to secondary education.

Another feature of the English education system which surprised the Lucknow group was the degree of ethnic segregation in schools in some areas. In Newham, estimated to be the most ethnically diverse education authority in the country, Somalis will tend to be in one school, Congolese in another and so forth. In an event organised by Newham Conflict and Change, who also run peer mediation courses in schools, this problem was discussed. The students from Lucknow floated the idea of adapting a programme they have developed whereby students from Lucknow correspond, in English, with students from schools in Pakistan, to develop better understanding and closer links. As lack of contact, rather than active hostility, is probably the biggest concern in relation to building more cohesive communities, ideas such as these, perhaps using email, are worth trying.

Lessons learnt from the tour


First, the Lucknow experience cannot be directly translated. The scale and longevity of the programmes are unique. But schools and communities here are using many of the same principles. What is needed is concerted effort over time, and the raising of the profile of this work in the community beyond the school, so that if tensions mount, the school or college is well positioned to take its message onto the streets. We hope that the Lucknow Dialogues have made a small contribution to achieving this.

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