Democracy in our times has become antithetical to peace particularly in the context of the global south.

Witness the wars waged in recent times in the name of establishing democracy in countries ruled by dictators in particular West Asia, Arab countries and Africa; wars that have been waged by the US in the name of regime change; in the name of war against terror; wars waged with impunity and without accountability for eg in Iraq, Afghanistan wherein democracy’s collateral damage have been the women, the children living in perpetual conditions of fear and starvation, displacement and exile.

Let us for a moment introspect both the idea of democracy and of peace.

Democracy as it is today is tied to a notion of market wherein powerful global nation states create and sustain conditions of conflict to have monopoly over a region’s natural resources, armed warfare the means to keep an entire country and its people in a state of flux.

If democracy has meant the upholding and ensuring the varied fundamental freedoms of individuals and groups how can one explain the increasing number of people deprived of their livelihoods and thereby life; the increasing number of refugees, internally displaced and migrants in democratic setups; and the increasing muffling of voices of dissent to mention a few.

It is important therefore to interrogate and revisit the idea of democracy and peace; to refind other notions of governance, perspectives of democracy that are relevant to each region and country; to ask if democracy is possible in the context of global capitalism and global terror, gross inequalities between and within nation-states? What are the yardsticks that we need to measure democracy? to challenge/critically look at ideas of nation, geographical boundaries, citizenship, security, rights and justice that are intrinsically intertwined with the notion of democracy; to move beyond the idea of Peace which implies a cessation of war? to look at Peace as the possibility of having access to resources, to survive with dignity.

Is it possible to differentiate state terror from wars of terror waged in the name of religion, protecting ones land and resources? Et al


Facilitators : Kalpana Chakravarty and Rajesh Srinivas.