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27 Nov, 2015

Victims of war, apostles of peace – The Hindu

By Shiv Visvanathan

Yet the message of these women needs to be listened to. They are suggesting that the official answer to genocide, the security discourse, is inadequate. It leaves nations, corporations, warlords and even the security discourse untainted. It is ordinary people, NGOs, women’s groups, spiritual leaders, trade unions like SEWA, ecology forums dreaming sustainability that have to lead the new discourses on peace. Peace is more than the absence of war and a theory of non-violence has to produce more innovative sites than the Silicon Valley.

The day’s proceedings made me realise that India has talked too much of war, security, development and terror and has no proactive theory of peace. It is almost as if the new managerialism and the machismo of our technical elites see peace as a passive endeavour. Women in Black and other peace endeavours seek to put peace back on the agenda. All they have is their body, their silence, their voice appealing to the world to listen to the voices of sanity and peace. It is time India listened and responded to them.

Read the rest: Victims of war, apostles of peace – The Hindu