OneJAIN organisations meet to discuss Jain Identity
Saturday 29th June 29, Ekta Centre, Kingsbury, London, UK. Presidents, Secretaries and committee members of the major Jain organisations in the UK met at the 4th annual OneJAIN conference to share ideas and discuss the issue of Jain Identity in Britain.
The delegates heard from The Mayor of Harrow, Councillor Nitin Parkekh on the importance of civic duty. The Mayor gave an inspiring account of his own journey and encouraged others to become involved in politics as a duty to the local community in which we live.
The Chairman, Nemubhai Chandaria OBE shared his vision for OneJAIN and the great strides taken by the Jain community by working together with a single voice. This was reiterated by many of the speakers, including Gareth Thomas MP member for Kenton West and Chair of the Jain APPG, who described how the OneJAIN platform had helped him and the Jain APPG to raise the visibility of the Jain community in parliament and secure the first-ever debate on Jainism in parliament. Gareth Thomas offered his support to the members of the OneJAIN organisations in their endeavours.
Highlights of OneJAIN activities described by Jaysukh Mehta, member of the OneJAIN advisory board, included the attendance of a Jain representative for the first time at the Remembrance Sunday event in November 2018, examples of OneJAIN co-ordinated Seva activities, including support for Crisis at Christmas, the support for Jain representation at the International Interfaith Conference at the Vatican, the Mahavir Janma Kalyanak celebrations in March at the House of Commons, the OneJAIN community service and lifetime awards, the annual meeting of the Jain APPG and the petition for a Jain tick box on the next ONS census. OneJAIN members were encouraged to increase participation in Interfaith Week activities and participate together as OneJAIN where possible.
A series of short talks were delivered by five organisations. Nemish Mehta, vice-chair of JITO UK underlined the role of entrepreneurship in building community wealth that can create community infrastructure for generations to come. He encouraged OneJAIN organisations to participate in JITO networking events and to support businesses in offering mentoring services to young businesses. Jai Shah CEO of Enviropack provided an insightful presentation on the scale and impact of plastic waste in the environment and encouraged Jain organisations to take the lead in moving to recyclable plates, cups and cutlery at their events.
Nitin Mehta, the trustee of Animal Interfaith Alliance, spoke passionately about the revolution now taking place in the UK around the Vegetarian and Vegan diet, and how Jains should be taking an active part in this process by engaging at all levels with wider society and reinforcing this message.
Chandan Shah and Komal Doshi of the Shrimad Rajchandra Love & Care programme of SRMD UK spoke about their work and how they found Sewa a great way of engaging young people, cross-community collaboration and bridge-building.
A lively panel discussion was chaired by Mehool Sanghrajka MBE, Managing Director or the Institute of Jainology, with panellists from Navnat Association of the UK (Sunil Sanghani) Oshwal Association of the UK (Kaushik Shah), Mahavir Foundation (Vinod Kapashi), Young Jains (Kavit Shah) and Veerayatan UK (Rajeev Shah). The discussion covered a wide range of topics relating to Jain identity, with key outcomes including: the need to come together more often, the potential of the Raksha Potli as a physical identity, the potential to bring the community together with a common annual event, the need to encourage participation of women and young people at leadership level, increased dialogue with young Jains to establish their requirements, the potential of integrating sports, sewa and religious education, opportunities to make religious practices more “kid-friendly” and the idea of a shared narrative on Jainism in modern-day Britain.
The event was brought to a close with a series of announcements of forthcoming events by OneJAIN members and by a vote of thanks by Dilip Shah, member of the OneJAIN advisory board, to the speakers, supporters and contributors to the event.