Marching towards peace edited by Ramesh Yadav & Talwinder Singh
Folklore Research Academy, Amritsar. Pages: 144. Price: not mentioned
Imperiled peace has become a hot topic among South Asia’s eggheads. As this volume points out the entire region has fallen prey to variegated conflict situations caused by different factors, viz., ethnic, religious, ideological and socio-economic. However, the specter of ever lengthening shadows of terrorism has overshadowed other forms of conflicts. Although terrorism is as old as history its modern form is a reaction to propagation of secular ideologies and nationalism in 18th and 19th centuries. Thus, after the departure of colonial rulers from South Asia and formation of nation states terrorism began to make its presence felt in India’s northeastern states and Kashmir. Later on Punjab and, now, the entire country is facing it in one form or another. Other countries in similar situation are Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In this volume various thinkers have pinpointed communalism, maladministration political intrigue, ethnic and socio-economic divides as causal factors. And, since this discourse reflects leftist worldview, the villain of the piece has to be capitalism with the United States as arch-villain. Interestingly, the Maoist brand of terrorists – PWG, Naxalites etc – has not been factored in as threat to peace. This book also contains articles on promoting Indo-Pak peace, but, in today’s context, it would be like lighting candles in a raging storm.
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