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The whole world is faced with conflict and violence today. In
fact there has been no period in history, which has not witnessed
violent conflicts. But at the same time there have been sages,
prophets, thinkers, religious personalities, writers, poets and
Sufis who always emphasised love, peace and harmony. Though both
trends i.e. of violence and of peace and harmony have gone together
violence and conflict remains predominant in our memory.
Peace is desired by overwhelming majority of human beings and it
is few who want to perpetuate violence, war and conflict. We must
remember that violence and conflict is perpetrated by powerful
vested interests whether they are local, regional, national or
inter-national. Conflict is product of clashes of interests, not of
religion or civilisation, as some theorists maintain. These
interests can also be divided into various categories i.e. economic,
political, religious or social.
It is also important to remember that vested interests often
invoke religion, language, nation or ideology to legitimise their
interests. It should not deceive us. A peace activist should be able
to see through these interests and not be deceived by an attempt to
legitimise. Because of attempt to seek legitimation by vested
interest we often think that conflict is religious or national
though it is not. Categories like religion or nation are not
fundamental causes of conflict or violence. They are instrumental
causes i.e. they are used as powerful instruments by the vested
interests. Thus we should distinguish between fundamental and
instrumental causes.
If we keep this in mind it will be easier to understand these
conflicts, if not resolve it. Resolving conflicts needs different
kind of skills. We will throw some light on this little later. When
one nation attacks on the other or one religious group attacks on
the other they use emotional national or religious rhetoric as a
strategy or even outright deception to mobilise support of their
respective countrymen or religious community. A peace worker should
never be deceived by such emotional rhetoric.
It is also important to remember that root cause of conflict is
often injustice with weaker sections of society and the weaker
sections may be poor, may be linguistic, cultural or religious
minorities or migrants from other countries. Justice and peace, it
should be remembered, are inseparable. Where there is injustice,
there will be conflict. Peace can never be established by using mere
rhetoric or exhortation. For peace to prevail one must first
establish justice.
For example, you cannot establish peace in Palestine unless
question of Palestinian territories captured by Israel in 1967 war
is resolved to their satisfaction. Similarly, one cannot establish
peace in Sri Lanka unless the question of Tamilian people and their
aspirations for autonomy is solved. The Kashmir imbroglio can never
be resolved if the Kashmiri people feel justice is not being done to
them. Appeal in the name of patriotism, religion or nationalism is
never going to resolve such complex issues.
The communal conflict in India is again very burning question. It
is not creation of Islam and Hinduism but creation of conflict of
interests between the Hindu and Muslim elite. Religion per se, as
pointed out above, does not lead to conflagration until the
political or economic interests use religious rhetoric and create
conflict. Even partition of our country was not caused by Islam. It
is very wrong perception. The causative factors for partition of the
country were political and economic, not religious, though rhetoric
was religious. Jinnah was a liberal constitutionalist, not a
religious fanatic. Yet it is Jinnah who led the Partition movement,
not religious leaders and scholars like Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani
and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, they opposed the partition tooth and
nail. This itself shows the conflict was political and economic
rather than religious.
Communalism is a political phenomenon, not a religious one. The
RSS and the BJP have been using Hindu religious rhetoric to grab
Hindu votes. The RSS and the BJP leadership is also in the hands of
those who can be described as 'political Hindus', not in the hands
of Hindu religious leaders like Shankracharya. The Ramjanambhoomi
movement was through and through political. It had nothing to do
with devotion to Lord Ram or even for establishing Ram Rajya but for
capturing power in the name of Ram Mandir.
Ramjanambhoomi conflict was not creation of Hindu religion or
even Hindu religious leaders. Only BJP politicians were mainly
involved so as to mobilise the Hindu voters in favour of their party
and they succeeded eminently in this project. But their 'success'
was at the cost of peace and communal harmony. They provoked
unprecedented communal violence in the country. And a new conflict
was created where there existed none.
Thus all these examples show that interests play a major role in
promoting conflict and violence and religions or ideologies play
merely an instrumental role. And peace cannot be established without
understanding the role of these deep rooted interests. The US
invasion of Iraq was supposedly to fight the menace of terrorism and
to destroy 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' (WMD) but the fact is that
it was only a cover. The real intention was to dominate Middle East
politics, as it is an oil rich area. After invasion no WMD were
found and instead of reducing terror it has increased many fold in
Iraq. One cannot establish peace in Iraq without understanding the
role of US interests in the Middle East.
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Conflict resolution is an extremely challenging job. It requires
not only correct understanding of the causes of conflict but also
inexhaustible degree of patience. To deal with the conflicting
parties great deal of objectivity and patience is needed. The nature
of the conflict differs from case to case. It is also necessary to
understand that every conflict is not necessarily violent.
Non-violent conflicts could also play a positive and creative role
in many cases.
But here we are mainly concerned with violent conflicts. Our aim
should be to resolve the conflict and bring reconciliation. To
attempt to resolve the conflict one should acquaint oneself
thoroughly with the history of the conflict and its historical,
political, social and economic roots, if any. One should also be
very clear that real resolution of the conflict can be brought about
only through a just solution what some people describe as 'win-win'
situation. Both the parties, if it is a bilateral conflict, should
feel that they have gained, and not lost or at least should have
spirit of give and take. And if it is trilateral or multi-lateral
conflict he ask gets even more complicated.
But as pointed out above justice should appear to have been done
to all the parties. Sometimes and attempt is made to coerce the one
or the other party to accept a solution. But such coercively imposed
solution can never be a lasting solution. A conflict can be said to
have been resolved only if it is freely acceptable by all the
parties concerned. Some conflicts have not only long history but
also extremely complicated like the conflict in Kashmir.
This conflict has an international dimension as it is between two
countries who have never been at best of the terms. And because of
hostile climate between the two countries solution becomes even more
difficult. Now that Indo-Pak relations are improving the Kashmir
problem has become more amenable to solution though by no means it
is about to be solved. But if the present climate of improved
relationship continues it may become possible to solve the
problem.
The ethnic problem in Assam is less complicated - though by no
means easy to resolve - as it is purely internal problem of India
and it has no international dimension. There is one more dimension
to the violent conflicts like the one in Kashmir or in North East in
India. Once a group takes to arms it aquires powerful vested
interest in retaining arms as arms empower them and enable them to
dictate terms. To lay down arms is to again disempower themselves
and such disempowerment is not easily acceptable.
Often resolution is not the problem but laying down of the arms
is. We see this in Sri Lankan Tamil-Sinhala conflict also. The LTTE
refuses to lay down arms and now they have acquired their own naval
and air force. In most of such struggles arms smuggling is a big
business and these smugglers often become stumbling block for
resolution of conflicts. Unless such powerful vested interests are
eliminated no conflict can be resolved.
As far as communal conflict is concerned it has a long history
since the British days and one can say communal forces have created
a communal psyche among a large section of people, especially urban
educated class both through informal propaganda and through
officially prescribed text books. The communal conflict has no easy
solution. First one has to strike at its very root i.e. the
education system. Our education system is being used by the communal
forces in perpetuating colonial conflict. The medieval history is
being taught on a divisive communal basis. Our education system also
lacks value base and without sound value base we cannot create
healthy mindset. Our education system is not doing enough to impart
secular values and our social environ is also far from being
secular. Thus communalism is flourishing and without striking at the
very roots it will be very difficult to remove communal conflict
from our midst. It requires prolonged and sustained efforts. We also
lack committed political leaders. Most of our political leaders are
in a hurry to capture power. They would do anything for capturing
power including inciting communal passions. Thus communal conflict
can be tackled on adhoc basis but only with strong commitment to
secularism and secular values.
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