Programs & Events
Give peace a chance, says Naropa University Professor Sudarshan Kapur
March 20-25: As part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the visit to India of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Professor Sudarshan Kapur, Founder of the Peace Studies Department at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, came to India to lecture on the long tradition of contact between African-Americans and Indians leading up to the King visit in 1959. Professor Kapur met with students, civil society and the media from March 20 to 25 at St. Joseph’s College, the Indian Institute of World Culture, and the American Corner in Bangalore; at Mysore University and the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in Mysore; and at the Gandhi Study Center, Madras Christian College and the University of Madras in Chennai. He discussed in detail the influence Mahatma Gandhi had on Dr. King and on many others involved in the struggle for civil rights in the United States. To those who asked Professor Kapur whether nonviolence is relevant today in the face of terrorism, his response was an emphatic yes. Meaningful social change and hope for a better life for all can come from nonviolent mass movements, not through the force of arms. The enemy, he said, is hopelessness.