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The 20th lecture in the Democracy Dialogues series was delivered by Dr. Vinod Mubayiat on 30 October 2022 where he spoke on "Partition Split Us Up: Can We Live in Peace as Neighbors ? "
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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