Guwahati, May 3: A centre for peace studies, which will mainly focus on the Northeast and its diverse communities, is likely to come up at the University of Science and Technology Meghalaya (USTM).
“We are considering developing a Centre for Peace Studies at the University of Science and Technology Meghalaya (USTM), particularly focusing on the Northeast states and its diverse communities,” said Prof Yasmin Saikia, an eminent historian and the Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies, Arizona State University, USA, while addressing a workshop on “Humanism, Peace and Youth in Building Northeast India,” at USTM.
“Despite the exclusive focus on human well-being, whether West or East, global North or global South, peace is not a constant in our lives. It is something wished for but unrealised. Research on related fields of labour and social issues, social justice, gender and minority rights and refugee study and so on produce new scholarships on peace history.” Prof Saikia, who hails from Assam, said.
Deliberating upon “people’s peace”, a concept developed by Arizona State University, she referred to the concept of “xanmihali” in Assamese language and said that xanmihali was an alchemical process in Assam’s history, which produced a fused culture created by different groups over time.
“The Ahom kings created positive peace in the region through the process of xanmihali. However, xanmihali should not be confused with hybridity but it is a capacity of creating a possibility of continuously expanding the limits of inclusion,” the historian said.
“What enables xanmihali? As a historian, I have found that the royal policies of the Ahom kings facilitated the process of creating a blended ‘we’ or ‘us’ community accorded by ‘morom’ and ‘sneh’ guided the movement towards the other and laid the strong foundation of societies in the North East built on the capacity of assimilation, to give and take, recognising differences without subsuming everyone within the flatten and homogenised unity,” Prof Saikia said.
She further said people talk of the importance of the emotion of ‘morom’ and ‘sneh’ enabling peaceful living with their neighbours and through dialogical processes of exchanges, enabling connection that allow for accepting separation while living side by side.
“Separateness is not an unbridgeable gap. Rather, it helps in forging relationships and respecting differences,” the historian said.
The workshop was organised jointly by the Political Science and English departments of USTM in collaboration with Arizona State University.
Apart from the faculty members and students, the workshop was attended by Prof Chad Hanes, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, Arizona State University.
An interactive session followed the workshop.