New Delhi, November 23: The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of six millions Tibetans and a global icon of peace and inter-faith harmony, was Tuesday conferred an honorary doctorate by Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia, a government-funded central university with a 90-year-old rich history. The honour had the nod of the Indian government.
The university vice chancellor, Najeeb Jung, awarded the degree to the Dalai Lama in the presence of Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal and thousands of students and members of the faculty, besides diplomats and leading lights, at the university campus.
“I feel highly honoured to get this degree from an Islamic university. One of my main concerns is religious harmony,” the Dalai Lama said.
Addressing the students, the Dalai Lama gave the message of making the 21st century a century of peace.
“The 20th century was a century of bloodshed, but nothing was achieved out of that bloodshed. The 21st Century must be a century of peace and you will shape it,” he said adding that education should go along with morals and ethics to achieve this aim.
Sibal congratulated the university for honouring the Dalai Lama in “keeping with its secular traditions”.
Emphasising on the value of higher education, Sibal said that the future of India depended on its education sector.
“India will emerge as the international hub for education and what the BPO and IT sectors are today for India, education will be in 2010,” he said to loud cheers from the student audience.
The Dalai Lama Tuesday hailed Islam as one of the great religions of the world, saying true jihad was about fighting “negative emotions” within oneself.
Speaking after receiving an honorary Doctor of Letters (D. Litt) degree from Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia university, the Tibetan spiritual leader said that some mischievous elements were bringing a bad name to Islam.
“I defend Islam,” the Dalai Lama said, “we should not generalize Islam due to few mischievous people. Such mischievous people are there among Hindus, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and all religions”.
“Islam is one of the very important religions for many centuries, in the past, present and future it is the hope of millions of people,” he said.
“Some Muslims in this country (India) told me genuine Islam practitioner must extend love and compassion to all creatures. If a person creates bloodshed they are not Muslims,” he said adding, “the meaning of jihad is a struggle within ourselves against all negative emotions like anger, hatred, attachment, that creates problem in the society”.
He said though he received similar honour from many universities around the world, he was particularly honoured to receive it from a renowned Islamic institution of higher learning in India.
–IANS–