The Peacemakers review: Stories of courage, hope, and kindness in the face of conflict in India

The absence of conflict does not guarantee peace, writes Ghazala Wahab in the Introduction to her latest book, The Peacemakers (Aleph Book Company). Peace, she adds, is a “state of mind”; inclusive of justice, security, honour, but most importantly, a sense of being at home. Caste, class and community have been common grounds for conflict in India since time immemorial; oftentimes becoming the fuel that starts a fire — the fire of latent anger, spite, discrimination and, eventually, violence.

An anthology of 12 essays on 12 continuous and pressing areas of conflict in the country, The Peacemakers echoes the words of Austrian-American economist Ludwig Von Mises (1881-1973): “Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peace-making. Peace and not war is the father of all things.” It is this spirit that Wahab — and the contributors in her book — fight to keep alive. The result is a true book on conflicts and conflict resolutions, and pacifiers from modern Indian history, or as the book calls them — the peacemakers.

Diverse perspectives

As the author of Born a Muslim: Some Truths About Islam in India — winner of the Tata Literature Live! Book of the Year (Non-fiction) Award, 2021 — and as the editor of FORCE Magazine — Wahab strives to speak up on crucial issues of national importance, such as terrorism, border management, internal security, defence, vices of extremism, among others. Her proactive and vocal method of journalism attracts the attention it deserves, especially with a book like The Peacemakers, where people with diverse credentials, backgrounds, and ethnicities share their struggles of maintaining peace in the face of violent disputes — territorial, religious, economic and political.

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The essay by Rajmohan Gandhi – historian, academician and Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson — on his grandfather’s legacy of non-violence features first in the anthology, and rightfully so. He writes of the last four years of Gandhi’s life, before and after partition, and his faith in restoring peace and brotherhood in the states of Bihar and Bengal, burning in the aftermath of new-found independence.

Human rights lawyer/activist Nandita Haksar  recounts her time documenting one of the oldest armed resistances in the country — the Naga insurgency — and the challenges of “fostering peace in a conflict zone”. She writes of the loss of tribal identity as a by-product of identity politics, and the need to protect the idea of inclusivity.

Journalist Rahul Bedi witnesses and reports the horrors of the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 in the “lawless” capital city — a rampant and violent response to former Prime Minister Indra Gandhi’s assassination — while mentioning and honouring the few “exceptions”. The old axiom, he admits, sadly still holds true: “there is no greater tyranny than which is perpetrated by the state under the shield of law.” In contrast, journalist Uttam Sengupta marvels in surprise at a “peaceful Bihar” in the wake of Babri Masjid demolition and its aggressive consequences. For this, he credits the then Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav’s active and precautionary sensitivity for identifying communal tensions and minimising the risk of violence.

On the western end, journalist Jyoti Punwani quotes incidents of Gandhian experiments (and experimenters) and recalls the extraordinary valour shown by ordinary people — of people whose only religion is humanity — as the early ’90s Mumbai (then Bombay) was gripped by rage following the Babri Masjid demolition.

Journalist-activist Teesta Setalvad, while stating the principles of “parens patriae” (Latin for ‘parent of the nation’), goes on to elaborate the role of State agents in fuelling the poison of communal polarisation. She, too, quotes instances of “everyday heroism” despite the burning cities of Gujarat in 2002 — enough to give us lasting hope.

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Sunil Kumar, “a long-term observer of Maoist violence” in Bastar, Chhattisgarh (previously a part of Madhya Pradesh), writes about the decades of “bureaucratic and social exploitation” of tribals, the resultant Naxalism, and the failed attempts of peace-dialogues at either end. He discusses the socio-economic as well as law and order aspects of the Naxal conflict, and concludes with social activist Bela Bhatia’s message: “Peace is possible if you want it” — only if all parties want the “same peace” instead of pieces of it. Award-winning journalist Teresa Rehman shares inspiring stories from an Assam-based non-government organization ‘ant’ (Action Northeast Trust), of women empowerment overcoming the Bodo-Muslim conflict in the region. “The legacy of violence is more dangerous than violence itself,” she underlines in her essay.

The common, collective good

Wahab, the editor of the book, narrates the hopeful vs hopeless state of Kashmir — struggling between small windows of ‘normalcy’ and ‘normal’ — in the “halcyon years” of 2005-2008, and beyond. She also questions the meaning of the autonomy of the Kashmiri identity and its political implications. Shivam Mogha, a JNU research scholar, shares his personal dilemmas when modernity arrived in his hometown Muzaffarnagar “but only in the form of technology and not ‘thinking’.”

He writes about his encounters with the RSS values and ultimately, finds his way to Ambedkar and becomes aware of his own Dalit-identity. Writer and filmmaker Natasha Badhwar and human rights researcher Oishika Neogi write about the multiple layers of injustice – in forms of state apathy, complicity of the police, medical bias and negligence — and the role of social media in aggravating vs containing the rage that followed anti-CAA protests in Delhi, 2020.

Finally, Ramani Atkuri — “practitioner of community medicine” — joins, not once but twice, Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra of 2022-23. She talks about the hope of unity that this walking protest brought to the youth and changemakers of today, what she calls “the beginning of change” — an apt ending to this book of essays.

There are recurrent themes — rather, concerns — raised by the contributors, such as the systematic dehumanization of vulnerable sections of the society, justifying violence in the name of law-enforcement and the absence of justice (and accountability) in peace offerings. The Peacemakers dwells on restoring the lost faith in governmental authorities and in reversing the paralysis of law-enforcing authorities in time of conflict, the first step to which is practising and investing in secular governance.

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One will find names of social workers, organisations or people working in individual capacity for humanitarian causes in abundance; names that one will most likely not remember. It is the stories that shall remain with us, for long. Stories of courage, hope and kindness; of faith, independent of the narrowing bounds of caste, class or religion. And in the end, only one goal remains: the common, collective good.

The book stands as an ideal example of walking peace instead of talking it. While these are instances that we have known (and often, feared), the book expects at least a rudimentary understanding of post-independent Indian politics from its readers.

The context of past and ongoing conflicts becomes important in assessing their meanings today and knowing why, once the violence has multiplied uncontrollably, it becomes the prerogative of the aam aadmi (common man) to step up and fight for unity and peace. Dedicated to all of us “who believe that a nation is not just a piece of land, but the people who inhabit it”, it becomes the responsibility of readers — as citizens and society’s caretakers — to fill the shoes that walk through the essays, across State boundaries and into the hearts of the people.