 Guwahati, Thursday, December 22, 2005 Call to include peace studies in academics By A Staff Reporter GUWAHATI, Dec 21 Jnanpith awardee and peace facilitator between the ULFA and the Government of India, Dr Mamoni Raisom Goswami, today stressed the need for incorporating peace studies in educational institutions, including universities. The relevance and need for peace is now being felt as never before, and targeting peace should be the aim of education. Peace should be included in the curricula of all universities and educational institutions, Dr Goswami said, while presenting her paper on North-East India: The Education, Militancy and Peace Linkage at the seminar Road to Peace and Progress in South Asia: Learning from the Neighbourhood. Dr Goswami revealed that she, together with some other academics, was working on a peace curriculum for the universities of the North-East, and a proposal would soon be submitted to the University Grants Commission (UGC) in that regard. Asserting that peace was the only weapon against violence, Dr Goswami regretted that the teachings of Gandhiji had not been accorded their rightful status in the country even as many other countries, such as Thailand, were falling back on Gandhijis ideals in a bid to attain amity and harmony. Gandhiji has never been seriously discussed in India in the past three decades, whereas his teachings have the potential to change the thinking of our youths for ever, she said. Dr Partha S Ghosh, a research director at the Indian Council of Social Science Research and Head of the Centre for Northeast India, South and Southeast Asia Studies at the OKD Institute of Social Change and Development, Guwahati, said that Assam would be exposed to further bifurcations in the next ten years. He felt that the trend of granting autonomy to tribes one after the other would lead to dangerous consequences in the future. This is only rigidifying the tribes and there would be no end to it, he said and said that reconciling group aspirations with political capabilities posed a great challenge to peace building in the North-East. Dr Ghosh further said that Assam was not gaining anything by being a part of the North-East. The North-East tag does not help Assam. Politically and financially, Assam is a loser with the North-East tag, he said. Stating that the issue of identity has been perpetual in Assam, Dr Ghosh said one of its biggest challenges stems from the fact that Assam is a State of minorities. |
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