(Bihar Times) Either one group kills the other, or one group moves out of the country, or both groups prosper together.  First option is impossible to achieve, second option is impractical, and the third requires commitment from both communities.  What we have been experiencing, for quite sometime, from north to south and east to west, is that a growing number of people, on both sides, is trying to accomplish the first option, at the cost of innocent lives, and a few are attempting the third alternative.  As a result, we have seen bloodshed, blown up body parts, broken properties, and bulged eyes of humans who have been weeping and wondering how to go on without the dead loved ones.
 
Will one community be able to eradicate the other?

Never.  Look at history.  Adolf Hitler and his army in Germany could not kill all the Jews.  Once both tribes lived peacefully in central Africa, and then in 1994 the Hutu tribe attempted to eliminate Tutsi tribe in Rwanda and failed.  The militias from Hutu majority killed Tutsi minority and moderate Hutus; in nearly 100 days of killing, what came to known as Rwandan Genocide, as many as 10 Lakhs humans were slaughtered.  The ethnic conflict between the Serbs and Croats and Muslims, what came to known as the Bosnian War, from 1992 to 1995, in former Yugoslavia, killed nearly 1 Lakh people, and no one group disappeared.    The ethnic and tribal conflict in Darfur region of Sudan has been going on since 2003 and has claimed nearly 4 Lakhs lives.  In primeval period, long before modern day communal conflicts, one tribe believed that the other tribes were its prey and should be captured, conquered, or killed.  But it did not succeed. 

Eradicating humans is like eradicating mosquitoes.  A swamp, for example, can never be made free of mosquitoes.  No matter how often you spray the chemicals or use other remedies to kill them, they keep on growing and multiplying.  Like mosquitoes humans, too, populate and cannot be eradicated.
 
Who do you blame for conflicts?

I believe our nation’s bad economic conditions have a lot to do with communal wars rather than the reasons we commonly hear like Hindus and Musalmans hate each other, they distrust each other, dislike each other, detest each other’s lifestyles, abhor each other’s religion, despise each other’s values, and so and on.

Our nation’s public as well as private institutions have failed to keep up with the essential things that our ever-rising population needs to survive.  They have failed to come up with enough food to feed the hungry, enough affordable clinics to treat the sick and disabled, enough homes to live in, enough schools and colleges to teach the kids, enough work to employ workers, enough means of production for people to produce goods, and enough resources to help the victims of disasters.  So it is no wonder that every now and then our country turns into a crucible of conflicts.

What are the harmful effects of conflicts?

One of the most harmful effects of communal violence is the anxiety level seen on faces of parents and children.  Parents worry if their children are safe and sound when they are away from home.  Likewise children when they are in schools worry about the safety of their parents.  Worries become reality when one hears about or eyewitnesses the scene of parents’ heart piercing cries near their injured or dead child, in some cases only child.  Equally heart breaking is a story of a child’s tears near the injured or dead parent or parents who got caught in the cross fires between Hindus and Musalmans.  And this is the tragedy of communal violence. 

Once the carnage is over it is hard to imagine how could the survivors of senseless killing continue with their lives.  They could never be adequately condoled, consoled, comforted, or compensated.  The holes in their hearts and wallets will remain unfilled.  And this is the tragedy of communal violence.

If one has to live in a nation that is embroiled in communal wars, one will constantly live in fear and insecurity.  Such environment may encourage people to get involved in planning the deaths and destruction of foes in order to protect the family causing the nation to drift into a period of no order and no stability.  And this is the tragedy of communal violence.

The communal wars cost money.  Somebody is going to have to pay for bombs, for medical services to treat those who are injured, for funerals of those who are dead, and for rebuilding of destroyed or damaged properties.  Not only human insanity kills or injures lives but wastes money and reduces rupees from purses of both people and governments – city, state, and central.  As such we are poor and communal clashes make us poorer.  And this is the tragedy of communal violence. 

The war – communal or racial or religious or civil – between men of the same nation is likely to be more costly, bloody and longer than wars between nations.    When we have a war within us how can we get ahead in life?  How can we gain happiness by killing citizens of our own country?  And this is the tragedy of communal violence.

When children see that grown-ups are involved in hating and killing members of the other community, they, too, will learn to harbor animosity and will carry on what their elders have been doing.  Which generation will come to a sense and end the communal wars?  And this is the tragedy of communal violence.

How to curb conflicts?

Some say Hindus and Musalmans should learn to live together, but this implies that they should tolerate each other, share things that support human lives, share poverty, share misery, share blames, set aside seats in schools and colleges for children of each community, set aside government-jobs for adults of each community, and so on. 

I say grow together. Economically.  Make the national economic cake bigger so everyone can have as much as one wants.  It is hard to imagine peace within our nation if we continue to ignore unthinkable, unbelievable, and unspeakable human sufferings.  Therefore, let the hands of both communities guard streets and peoples and properties, start anew shops and factories, replace useless policies, politicians and power-holders, remove outdated laws, and abandon socialism that has caused scarcity of everything: jobs, facilities, goods, and services.  After all peace and profit are desirable over the loot and loss.  Financially secured and physically safe Hindus and Musalmans will have no incentive to loot; they have nothing to gain from killing and a great deal to lose.

So it is not the eradication of enemies but protecting each other and producing together goods and services in a free market economy that is likely to safeguard individual rights and help us and our children and grandchildren live in peace, prosperity, harmony, and safety.  We the people must arise, awake, and stop not until we solve our economic problems, otherwise we shall never have a peaceful paradise.

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First and foremost things is that all abrahmic religion should stop preaching the canard that if you are not Christian?jew/Muslim then you are going to hell. It might come of harsh but that's what precisely they perpetrate. Once you preach this there is not much you can do to bridge the gap. In my view this is the cornerstone of all the differences.
It's high time now that preaching of sarv-dharm-sambhaw starts by non-hindu religions too. I have seen dharma Gurus preaching this in talk shows for public consumption but visit Church or Mosque the tone changes. You are hell-bound if you are not one of them. Time has come to bring consistency in what they say in talk shows and what they say behind public glare of camera. All that we are seeing is reactionary actions all emanating from this major conflict.

Anil Kumar

akanhaiya@yahoo.com