Program
9.30 am - 10.15am Tea - Registration
10.15 am 12.00 Session I
Methods and Models of Social Healing
Welcome- Introduction: Dr. Manindra Thakur
(Associate Professor, Centre for Political Studies, JNU)
Dynamics: Prof. John Chathanatt
(Former Principal, Vidyajyoti College, Delhi)
Chair: Prof. Manoranjan Mohanty
(Distinguished Professor, CSD, New Delhi)
Keynote Address: Prof. Ashis Nandy
(Honarary Fellow, CSDS, Delhi)
Speakers: Dr. Syeda Hameed
(Former Member, Planning Commission, Govt. of India)
Arfa Khanum
(Senior Editor, The Wire)
Prof. Apoorvanand
(Professor, Hindi Department, University of Delhi)
12.00 - 1.30 pm Session II
Methods and Models of Social Healing
Chair: Prof. M M Verma
(President and Founder of Interfaith Foundation, New Delhi)
Speakers:
Prof. Purushottam Agrawal
(Former Chairman, Centre for Indian Languages, JNU)
Amrita Rai
(Prominent Television Anchor)
Dr. Hilal Ahmed
(Associate Professor, CSDS, Delhi)
Prof. Akhlaque Ahmad
(Professor, School of Languages, JNU, New Delhi)
Lunch
1.30 pm - 2.15 pm
2.15 PM-4.00 PM Recapitulation & Discussion
Chair: Dr. Manindra Thakur
Speakers: Dr. Binish Myriam
(Assistant Professor, NMCPCR, JamiaMiliaIslamia, New Delhi)
Mr.Varun Wighmal
(Ph.D. Scholar, CPS, JNU, New Delhi)
Towards a Model for Social Healing: Prof. Manoranjan Mohanty
Prof. T.K. John
(Former Principal, Vidyajyoti College, Delhi)
Vote of Thanks: Dr. Nalini Abraham
4.00 pm Tea
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Concept Note
Wounded History and Social Healing
Looking at the situation in general in the world and observing closely the happenings in India in
particular, a need is felt to actively work for peace, harmony, reconciliation, conflict resolution and
conflict prevention. Our history is a wounded one. And some of the events of history today,
especially the actions of hatred and violence, are wounding it yet further. Crude forms of violence
(sexual, caste, communal, racial…) with massive loss of life and property has become very
common. Normal fellow-feelings are becoming increasingly numb to the plight of the enormity of
these ugly irruptions. Fundamentalism is on the increase threatening our civilization and our right
to exercise our freedom and diversity. Rapacious national and international corporates subtly
keep scheming to scramble for larger portions of global wealth. The sense of the ethical and
moral is declining in the public square. This could drive the nation and the world to uncertain or
even dangerous direction.
Working for Healing and Reconciliation
A time has come to actively work for peace and reconciliation, as all of us are yearning for peace and happiness. We need to work for conflict resolution, and through a process of dialogue, work for harmony, creating an atmosphere of living not only “side by side” but “with” each other in serenity, peace and harmony, accepting one another as equal other. A utilitarian outlook of the other for personal benefit is no longer a paradigm of enrichment and progress. We need to develop an outlook that it is by helping each other we can grow and mutually enrich, achieve integral development and attain authentic progress in an atmosphere of peace and harmony. It is through inter-relational activities that we can grow as a nation marked by the peaceful co-existence.
India is going through a new phase of her history today. The way she channels the course of history will determine the future of our country and the destiny of the nation. A person oriented – implying each and every one – culturally diverse, religiously free approach is the need of the hour. So a socio-relational and corporate atmosphere of mutuality and togetherness ought to be created. An Indian citizen should be able to live in any part of the country with dignity and acceptance.
How can we heal the social and structural woundedness? We need to initiate a conscious process of social healing. The social healing paradigm utilizes the framework of woundingandhealing instead of good versus bad. Violent conflicts around issues of the wounded past due to language, culture, religion, ethnicity, territorial expansion, control of natural resources, human rights abuses, and oppression mark our history. These conflicts leave behind individual and structural wounds. Unhealed trauma can permeate memory and get passed down for generations, getting woven into personal and cultural narratives and creating a distorted relationship to current circumstances, which become viewed and experienced through the lens of past traumas. Finally, it all too often results in revenge, creating new victims and new cycles of hatred and violence. Thus, the question of how wounds heal is central to the work of social healing. We need to seek to arrive at a paradigm of healthy and peaceful social living.
Our Initiatives
We have been working on this issue since the demolition of Babri Masjid as we thought it was a challenge to the social fabric of Indian society. We have been attempting to develop a perspective for social healing in order to meet this challenge. We have organized conferences andundertaken projects for social healing since last many years so thatwe can understand the nature of conflict in these areas and use thecreative tension to articulate new theories of peace and justice. We have edited a book on "Wounded History: Religion, Conflict, Psyche and Social Healing" based on the papers presented in our first conference in the year 2004. Thepapers of a South Asian conference on 'Wounded History and Social Healing:South Asian Experiences' (organized in the year 2006) are with us and we need to publish them as a part of another volume. We are alsohaving the papers of another conference "Indo-South AfricaDialogue on Human Rights" (organized in the year 2004), which we are planning to publish soon. This conference was organized to reflect onthe applicability of Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa in the Indian context after the Gujarat riots. Gandhian philosophy of Satya and ahimsa has definitely contributed to South African initiative. However, after the partition violence we could not innovate a similar model despite the need.In 2010, a daylong seminar was organized on ‘Identity, Alienation and Violence in India’ in collaboration with Indian Social Institute. Apart from major seminars we orgainsed several discussions on the contemporary issues related to conflict and violence. Scholars and activists from Kandhmalwere also invited to reflect upon the possibilities of social healing after the major communal conflict in this region.
Nowwe would like to undertake a project on Mapping Conflict Zones inIndia and try to explore the methods and institutions based on localpractices of dialogues in Asian society for social healing. Along with this a survey is being planned for mapping the mindset of the school going children and developing inter community sensibilities and understanding. We have taken cognizance of the prejudices taking deep roots in the subconscious mind based on religion among the children in the Delhi schools, particularly after the recent episodes.
The idea behind these attempts is to develop a perspective on violence in which emphasis is given not on the fixing of responsibilities but on the healing process to eradicate the mentality of violence. We believe that there are intellectual resources available in Asian society which could help us in our efforts of peace building. We plan for developing and disseminating theories, methods and models of social healing, along with developing a network of institutions for social intervention to sustain peace and harmony.
Round Table planned for March 30th 2019
We do think it is possible to carveout models of peace building based on the Asianexperiences. Hence the proposal for a Round Table Discussionon Wounded History and Social Healing. It aims at identifying methods and models for social and structural healing keeping the contemporary contexts of escalating violence based, especially, on religion in our society. We all know that on a personal and individual level we have, in our cultures and religions, mechanisms of healing process in one or another form. However, they are not automatically transformed into models for a healing process at the social and structural level. Therefore, we need to identify intellectual and cultural resources in Asian cultural context, undertake experiments and consciously develop them into models and mechanisms for healing. We need to learn from the experiences of South African Truth and Reconciliation method of addressing the social and psychological wounds produced by the apartheid violence, the German unification after a prolonged period of separation, etc. in our search. The forthcoming Round Table is a step in this direction.
The Round Table is planned for Saturday, March 30, 2019, from 9.30.00 am to 4.00 pm, to be held in the Seminar Room of Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), 29 Rajpur Road, Civil Lines, Delhi – 110 054.
Organizers:
Foundation for Creative Social Research (FCSR), Interfaith Foundation of India,
Indian Social Institute, and Peace and Dialogue Initiative.
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