Kathmandu, October 2:

What the Nepali people need the most at present is non-violence, goodwill and tolerance just as the country is trying to rise up from a decade-long conflict and a peace process is in progress, speakers at a talk programme on ‘’Nepali Society and Diversity: Non-violence, Goodwill and Tolerance’’, organised by the Human Rights and Peace Society on the occasion of the International Day of Non-violence said today.

They said non-violence is neither relative nor non-relative. They stressed on the need for inculcating non-violence in our lives.

The United Nations, on June 15 this adopted a proposal for celebrating the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi on October 2 every year as the International Day of Non-violence.

At the programme, Speaker Subas Nembang said the country is united despite the diversity and the seven political parties which spearheaded the people’s movement should take the country on the path of peace and democracy by maintaining unity amongst themselves.

He said that the CA polls and the new Constitution to be formulated by the Assembly would resolve all the problems confronting Nepal at present.

Minister for Education and Sports, Pradip Nepal, said the politics as it is practiced in Nepal lacks honesty as a result of which written agreements are also breached. He underlined the need for the Nepali politics to give up the use of guns to achieve political end for the politics of coercion and violence undermines democracy.

Chief of the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), Ian Martin, said the violent incidents in Kapilvastu and Kathmandu posed a challenge to the situation and stressed communal goodwill was necessary for non-violence.

General Secretary of the Nepali Congress Bimalendra Nidhi said the fruits of peaceful activities and the people’’s movement would be sustainable.

Central member of the Nepali Congress Narahari Acharya said non-violence is not only related to arms and weapons, it is also caused by behaviour and mindset. He added that although the different political parties have raised arms from time to time in the political history of Nepal, the importance of non-violence would not diminish in their view.

Leader of the CPN (Maoist), Dinanath Sharma, said what his party wants was sustainable peace with forward-looking change. Stating that peace is relative, he said closure of Kantipur newspaper is a sad development, but also stressed that the welfare of the laborers, too, should be considered. Founder of the Society, Krishna Pahadi, said the tendency to draw attention of the whole world towards oneself by giving trouble to others has increased presently.