Biography Narrative

Samanta Surya is a young professional in communications, and earned his bachelor’s degree in communication science at the University of Indonesia in 2008. His expertise covers public and government relations in bilateral cooperation and publications. For nearly two decades, he has been a member of Parisadha Buddha Dharma Niciren Syosyu Indonesia (NSI), an inclusive Buddhist organization with that cooperates with faith-based organizations, governments, and NGOs in Indonesia to promote harmonious life. Surya is a youth coordinator and regular speaker at NSI’s youth division meetings and is also the editor of NSI magazine and cooperated with the Ministry of Environment and Forestry of the Republic of Indonesia in 2014 to publish the book Buddhism and Environment.

Surya has been engaged with various interreligious forums in local, national, and global levels since 2008 co-organized by governments of Indonesia, the Asia-Europe Foundation, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, and the United Nations. In 2014 he made a short film about interreligious life in Indonesia which was presented in Myanmar by the government of Indonesia with the goal of reducing tension on the issue of Rohingyas in Myanmar. Surya loves to travel, experiencing new insights, walking and photography. His motto is “sincerity, propriety, and equity”.

Interreligious Activities and Initiatives

Seminar: Enhancing Wisdom and Citizenship Among Religious Preachers

Year of 2019 marks Indonesian’s maturity in religious understanding and practice, political stance, and coexistence which is further challenged. During the presidential election period, religion has been utilized by some “bad apples” to provoke people and mass-mobilized them to pursue political goals of the “bad apples”.

There are a lot of people that affected by logical fallacy which is propagated by those “bad apples” claimed to be religious people. Their preach’s material is provoking people to favor a certain political party or politician instead of propagating religious teaching and manifestation to promote harmonious life also humanity. With this obvious practice of particular “bad apples” to utilize religion teaching as a political tool in Indonesia, it is crucial to provide (literate) religious preachers with correct insight; a constructive and promotive religious view.that aligned with Indonesia’s national vision and ideology (Pancasila).

Through this seminar “Enhancing Wisdom and Citizenships Among Religious Preachers” we expect religious leaders and preachers could get a supplement and insight to their foundation in promoting religious teaching that aligned with citizenships, improving their awareness toward tendentious speech and avoid it, keep their preach’s content moderate in a constructive and meaningful way. We hope preachers from headquarter organizations could relay the message and material gained from this seminar to outreach their members nationwide and to the grass root level.

Integrated IRD Training & Workshop on Religious Moderation

This program is intended to provide a dialogue space for religious leaders/preachers of six major religions in Indonesia (Buddhism, Catholic, Islam, Confucianism, Hindu, and Christian) that aims to produce a moderation guidelines (manual book, multimedia contents). It is also designed as a platform to promote SDGs particularly SDG 4, 5, 16, and 17.