Aaryan Ahuja

Attached is Aaryan’s podcast. He broke it down into two segments with individual interviews as he thought it would be easier to explore the interviewees’ viewpoints. Another reason was time conflicts that were difficult to address. The podcast was conducted with two participants: Siddhaarth Chakravarthy (from Dubai, UAE) and Aarav Chhabria (from Mumbai, India). Below are the questions asked:

• Introduce the topic of how diversity plays an impact on the solidarity of religious beliefs and ask interviewees to introduce themselves
• What impact does religious diversity have on the unity of beliefs within a community?
• Can different theological viewpoints encourage more tolerance and understanding among believers?
• What difficulties can occur in religious communities if there is diversity in terms of cultural backgrounds, beliefs, and practices?
• In a diverse place like Dubai, what strategies do religious leaders employ to deal with the complexity of diversity among their followers?
• Can the large variety of religious views today enhance the profundity and richness of spiritual experiences?
• How might cooperation and communication between different religious communities be facilitated by interfaith dialogue? What are the positives of this?
• How does the media affect how religious communities view diversity–both favorably and unfavorably?
• What can people and groups do to encourage harmony and support among people of different religious beliefs?

Observations:
Firstly, both participants agreed that religious diversity has its positives and it actually strengthens beliefs to some extent given an open-minded environment. Certain drawbacks of religious diversity were mentioned as a diverse group of people can’t always co-exist. Both interviewees gave a solid response on the value of interfaith dialogue in promoting societal harmony. The role of the media was also outlined as a major stakeholder that could present different religions in a positive light and solve major conflicts across the globe. Both interviewees were hesitating slightly to answer a follow-up question on the Israeli-Palestine conflict. However, an important takeaway was that both interviewees supported the idea of religious diversity. Nevertheless, Siddhaarth mentioned that in a place like Dubai, religious leaders have a more significant role in creating harmony amongst diverse groups and solving the issue of red tape.