National Integration Forum of India - NIFI

On a Broader Sense National Integration is the feeling of togetherness or oneness towards one’s own country irrespective of the individual differences with regard to religion, region, race, culture or caste.
As quoted by Winston S. Churchill “When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.”
In the recent times, be it in national or international context, it has been observed that groups that are spreading hatred and violence are getting highly organized and managing to increase their popularity.
"An eye for an eye" can never be a real solution. Violence is becoming more acceptable and tolerance levels are dropping very low. However, the quest for violence is more for political reasons and personal vengeance and hence certainly can't be advantageous to Society. We the common people want to gift a peaceful and progressive future to our next generation.
However, such thoughts may be conflicting with present day politics and general environment in social media to a great extent. What can we do? We are common citizens without much authority or power. But it is also true that majority of people are still peace-loving, majority of people do not believe in killing innocent people in the name of religion or caste, majority of people want a peaceful and progressive society. In order to counter darkness we need light, similarly to counter the increasing spread of violence and hatred, we the sensible people of the society need to be more responsible and organized.
Though all the religions teach us about universal brotherhood and peace, but still some groups and individuals are trying to have their own interpretations of religions to suit their personal agenda.
Therefore, we need to have platforms and forums to spread the message of universal brotherhood and peace. We need to ensure that our future is safe.
Such thoughts and ideas have inspired to form this forum NIFI, through which love, peace and True National values will be spread.
Let all Indian citizen be treated as Indian only, and not differentiate anyone for their religious or caste identities.
Let all the children in India grow-up with true national values and ideologies. Let them grow-up to be such Indian who will glorify the Nation. Let us all together work for a better tomorrow and be proud Indians.
CORE VALUES: To promote peace, harmony and brotherhood. Motto: “Nation First”.

Activities

On 10th of August with launching of the official website of NIFI (www.nifionline.com) NIFI was formally launched at ICCR, Kolkata where eminent citizens like Padmasree Sri Chuni Goswami, Sri Shirshendu Mukhapadhyay (Famous Writer), Sri Gurbux Singh (Legendary Hockey Player), Grand Master Dibendu Barua, Sri Paritosh Sinha (Eminent Lawyer), Sri Imran Zaki (Educationist and Social Worker), Sharodindu Mukherjee (Cricketer), Arjuna Awardee Smt Soma Basu, Sri Sohail Dutta (Tollywood Actor) joined this movement as Honorary Members.

During the Durga Pujas NIFI members actively organized few events in Kolkata to promote Peace and Communal Harmony, Some of the significant events were,
“Rashtriya Ekta Sharad Samman” an award was started to promote organizers of Durga Pujas to use the festival to spread the message of National Integration and Communal Harmony.
This year the award was given to Rajdanga Uday Sangha Club near Acropolis Mall, Kasba for their beautiful theme and concept. The puja pandal had six separate entry points each in the form of different religious structures, …. Church, Mosque, Temple, Gurduara, Monestry and Jain Temple, each leading to one big central hall through which a path lead to one almighty power.
Sri Gurbux Singh, Sri Paritosh Sinha, Sri Dibyendu Barua and members of NIFI were present during the prize distribution ceremony.

During Pujas we also identified a forty-year-old local puja at Mansatal Sarbajonik puja near Fancy market Kidderpore , which was supported by local Muslim businessmen, and in fact the Puja Committee President and secretary are from Muslim community. We felicitated the organizers for such showing such wonderful example of unity and standing by each other at all times.

We also felicitated a local club near Mohammad Ali park, called Youth Foundation which is run my local muslim youths. These young boys distributed mineral water to all people standing in long lines to enter the famous Durga puja in Mohammad Ali park. These boys also cleaned the road every day early morning during pujas and distributed new clothes to the poor and needy in the locality during Durga pujas.

During Kali puja and Diwali, we had joined hands with a local club in Shibpur Howrah, Howrah Yava Sangha to distribute clothes to the poor people in the area on the eve of Diwali. We believe that lighting up our houses are not enough, we also need to light up the lives of all the poor and deprived people around us and bring happiness in lives of all, irrespective of any religious identities.

Our Regular activities:

We are sharing messages in social media on regular basis to counter the hate messages which are circulated in social media in huge volume and in most organized manner.
We feel that the best way to counter them is to share messages of communal harmony and all such messages which will promote National integration and Peace in our society, messages which will help to shorten the distance which is being created among people of different religions and communities, messages that will help people of one community to understand and trust the people from other communities.

We had got extremely overwhelming response from huge number of rational thinking and peace loving people of our society for our activities till now.