Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living has worked tirelessly to unite the region’s diverse communities, striving to create a peaceful and harmonious Northeast India. Published: September 21, 2024 11:15 AM IST By Northeast India, which is known for its beautiful landscape and varied traditions, has been marred with issues such as insurgency, interstate border conflicts, and the growing drug menace since the country gained independence in 1947. For years, the region, which consists of 8 states namely , was overlooked, neglected, and often subjected to discrimination by the rest of the country.
Despite its humongous potential to become a hotspot for tourist destinations, the northeastern states lacked the required attention from the Central government. The absence of economic and infrastructure development played a huge in the rise of insurgency, with each state facing its unique challenges. Addressing these issues has long been crucial to fostering unity and building an inclusive nation.
In response, Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living has worked tirelessly to unite the region’s diverse communities, striving to create a peaceful and harmonious Northeast India. Based on Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s ideals of “Inside every criminal, there is a victim crying for help,” the rehabilitation program aimed at stress elimination and bringing inner peace through the Art of Living Sudarshan Kriya and the Youth Leadership Training Program since the early 2000s. The Art of Living convinced one hundred twenty-eight militants from KCPMC Lallumba to laid down their arms on August 6, 2010 and subsequently rehabilitated them by undergoing a 90-day intensive spiritual, behavioral, and vocational rehabilitation training.
A diverse group of 700 guerrilla fighters surrendered their arms and received a month-long rehabilitation training in Bengaluru in 2014. Two hundred thirty-one of these belonged to the dreaded outfit United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA). 68 armed militants from PLA, KPL, and KYLA in Manipur surrendered on August 14, 2017.
Twenty-eight militants from the surrendered groups completed their Youth Leadership Training Program with Art of Living on September 4, 2017. In a first-of-its-kind event in the history of Northeast India, a unique day-long conference titled “Strength in Diversity – Northeast Indigenous People’s Conference” was organized on September 7, 2017, in Guwahati. The conference saw the participation of leaders from all walks of life, including underground leaders led by Anup Chetia, General Secretary of United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA).
On October 2, 2018, UPLA Chairman Wellesley Terang, General Secretary Longki Bey, and a few others visited the Bangalore ashram to meet Gurudev. They surprised everyone when they announced a unilateral ceasefire following their meeting with Gurudev. Apart from these efforts, the Art of Living has been working tirelessly in electrifying remote villages with solar lights.
In 2012, the Art of Living inaugurated the ‘Light a Home’ project under which more than two thousand lamps were distributed in some of the remotest villages of North East; some of them requiring 6-7 hours of treks and on foot journey. The organization has also constructed the country’s largest solar battery charging station in December 2016, which powers 287 households in the remote island village of Mukul Gaon in Dibrugarh District. The project, reaching out to and connecting so many households simultaneously, is the biggest of its kind in India.
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