GUWAHATI: Delhi-based International Human Rights Council has announced the “Ambassador for Peace” Award for retired Archbishop, Thomas Menamparampil of Guwahati Archdiocese.
The award will be conferred at the national capital on December 9, 2019 in the presence of invitees from all over the country and abroad. Recipients of the award in the past include the Dalai Lama, among many other internationally known figures.
Eighty three-year-old Archbishop Thomas took up office in 1992 as the first Catholic Bishop of Guwahati. Prior to that, he had been the Bishop of Dibrugarh for 11 years. Earlier, he had served in the field of education, having worked for many years in Don Bosco Technical School, Shillong and St. Anthony’s College.
Several of his students have emerged as prominent leaders at northeastern and national levels.
Asked about his initiative for peace, the Archbishop said he was drawn into it in 1996 when almost two-and-a-half lakh people fled to relief camps around Kokrajhar having lost their dear ones and property.
“Fortunately, like-minded people came together from different Churches and communities to help. With the encouragement and support of the state government and people, relief work made progress and an atmosphere for peace was created,” he said.
Archbishop Thomas says that subsequently he was called to help in several other instances of conflict in the region where ethnic violence had taken away several lives, destroyed houses, and caused immense suffering to people. The conflict areas include Churachandpur, Haflong, Diphu, Udalguri, Mendipathar and Sarupathar.
He insists that his contribution was small, but those who were working for peace in those contexts have greatly valued his initiatives. “A certain measure of peace has come to the Northeast, and hopes it will last,” he said.
Of late, he has been invited to several universities in India and abroad to speak on themes like inter-community understanding, healing of historic memories, and the arduous path to peace. Last year, he made a very useful contribution at the World Congress of Philosophers in Beijing.
“Archbishop Thomas Menamparampil is one of the tallest leaders of the Church in Northeast as well as in the country. He is also a writer, thinker, anthropologist and a peace builder,” United Christian Forum of North East India spokesperson, Allen Brooks told The Shillong Times here on Monday.