The SAPRA India Foundation launches a new research initiative to learn from coexistence failures and successes.
The failure to coexist is at the root of most contemporary conflicts both between nations and within them. As the world is becoming more global with mass migration of people and tight integration of economies, the urgency of learning to coexist is rapidly increasing. India is a unique experiment: it is perhaps one of the only nation-state held together not by any common ethnic, linguistic or religious factor but by the notion that heterogeneous people can coexist. Though there have been many failures of coexistence within India, there are many success stories as well. India also has a bewildering variety of people. It is urgently required to document the successes and failures of coexistence amongst these communities. India has to a large extent succeeded in developing a viable model of coexistence. We need to study this model carefully and examine whether it could hold lessons for mankind as a whole.
This project would have three aspects or parts:- Research on specific instances of coexistence successes and failures in India
- Drawing lessons or analysing coexistence successes and failures
- Disseminating these lessons through seminars, articles and TV programmes
Social discord is an issue that has exercised Indian rulers before and since the great Moghul emperor, Akbar, tried to reconcile communal tensions by proposing an entirely new religion for his country. Neither Akbar nor his successors managed to create any lasting solution. But it was clear from those times that this country needed social accord to endure. In contemporary times, however, it would appear that communal, ethnic and economic tensions have only been exacerbated. Despite notable economic achievements, India continues to be periodically haunted by atrocious instances of social barbarism. Each such wretched occasion leaves behind a scar on the nation's history. On each occasion much is written and promised – and eventually forgotten. These conflicts have generated a large body of journalistic, analytical and literary material. It is time, that such material is collected, collated and analysed. This endeavour, should it succeed, will produce a ready index of great value not just for posterity but for contemporary research and reference, which could be invaluable for writers, journalists, academics, experts and policy makers.
Clearly, the scope of this work is so vast that it cannot be accomplished by any one institution working in isolation. There needs to be a concert of participating institutions and individuals, who collectively could produce a comprehensive index of the kind required. Today, there are a variety of NGOs, libraries and documentation centres working fully or partially towards the overarching aim of reducing social tensions. They could be harnessed to help in reaching the objectives of this mission. Like minded individuals, particularly intellectuals, journalists and writers, could also be involved for help in all the three stages of the project.
Our research project would be divided into four sections:
Part I: Documenting Histories of Ethnic & Religious Groups in South Asia
Part II: Examples of Failures of Coexistence in South Asia
Part III: Examples of Successes of Coexistence in South Asia
Part IV: Lessons of Coexistence for the Global Community
In the first stage, our research would focus on a few specific instance of coexistence conflicts:
Please Participate
If you or your organisation would like to be involved in this project, please write to us at the address given below. Even without a committment to our project, you are invited to send us your inputs of the follwing kind:
Stories, anecdotes to illustrate any of the above themes
References to books, articles, whitepapers, documents etc on related subjects
Names and contact details of persons who could either help with this research, have a story
to tell or assist us in any other way
Photographs, movie snippets and any other graphical material to support our research
You could also support this initiative by donating money
Your inputs should either be sent to "The Coexistence Project, The SAPRA India Foundation, B 8 Alpha I, Greater Noida, Up 201308, India" or emailed to sapra@subcontinent.com
Churchill said India wasn't a nation, just an
"abstraction". John Kenneth Galbraith, more affectionately and
more memorably, described it as "functioning anarchy". Both
of them, in my view, underestimated the strength of the
India-idea. It may be the most innovative national philosophy
to have emerged in the post-colonial period. It deserves to
be celebrated-because its is an idea that has enemies,
within India as well as outside her frontiers, and to celebrate it
is also to defend it against its foes.
Salman Rushdie, novelist