Democracy Dialogues Lecture Series (Online )
Organised by New Socialist Initiative
20th Lecture
Topic: 'Partition Split Us Up: Can We Live in Peace as Neighbors ?
Future Challenges and Reflections'
Speaker: Dr. Vinod Mubayiat
Date and Time: 30th October 2022 at 6 PM (IST).
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Dr Vinod Mubayi, Public
Intellectual, Scientist and Activist will be delivering the 20th Lecture in
the Democracy Dialogues Series, organised by New Socialist Initiative on
Sunday, 30th October at 7 PM (IST)
Theme :
Partition Split Us Up: Can
We Live in Peace as Neighbors? Future Challenges and Reflections
75 years have passed since
Partition and the prospects of peace between the two largest countries of the
region, India and Pakistan, whose conflict impacts the entire South Asia region
look dimmer than ever. The reasons and justifications offered by the
protagonists for the separation, such as the two-nation theory, have been
discussed at length in various forums and while the past is commonly understood
to be prologue to the future it behooves us to imagine a future without all the
baggage of the past.
This talk will refer at
times to the past and the misdeeds of the present but focus mostly on
possibilities for the future. A good amount of experience has shown that
despite the most fraught and tense relations between governments, common people
of south Asian countries, whether in the diaspora or while visiting each
other’s countries, are able to establish bonds and friendships very quickly and
easily. Perhaps 75 years cannot easily extinguish long standing cultural and
linguistic bonds established over millennia. Dialectics also teaches us that
opposing and contradictory views and ideas can co-exist within a society or
group and which will prevail depends on the context in which the opposites
interact.
Groups such as South Asia
Peace Action Network (SAPAN), whose founding charter states that its minimum
common agenda is reclaiming South Asia, have attracted members from all South
Asian countries. SAPAN calls for soft borders and visa free travel between
countries in the region in addition to demands for human rights, peace and
justice. The talk will discuss possibilities of expanding the activities of
people-to-people groups that can create civil society pressures for peace and
prosperity as well as joint actions to counter existential threats like climate
change.
About
the Speaker :
Dr Vinod Mubayi is a
reputed American Physicist of Indian origin.
PhD in Physics from
Brandeis University, taught at Cornell University and was a research fellow at
TIFR, Mumbai before joining Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York.
A member of the American
Nuclear Society, the American Physical Society and the American Association for
the Advancement of Science, he was also a Consultant to agencies of the United
Nations on Energy Issues ( 1981-1985)
He joined INSAF bulletin
as co-editor in 2004. A keen observer of
socio-political events in India, Mubayi has been close to progressive groups,
espousing human rights issues and the cause of the downtrodden
His book 'Where is India
Headed ? - An Historical Critique ( 2021, Media House) which chronicles the
contemporary Indian History during the last few decades has also been
translated into Hindi
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