Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
The Third International Conference on Peace and Conflict Resolution, Tehran, İran, 18 - 20 Ekim 2021, ss.1-2
External Actors’
Role in Trauma and Healing: The Case of India-Pakistan
Prof. Dr. S.
Gulden AYMAN
The causes of
the ongoing adversarial relationship between India and Pakistan could be
analyzed focusing on the root causes, proximate causes, regional and
extra-regional dimensions of the conflict. However one cannot easily recommend
meaningful remedies aimed at conflict resolution without understanding the
traumas experienced during Partition. After three hundred years when the
British finally left India in August, 1947 the subcontinent was partitioned
into two independent nation states: Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority
Pakistan. Immediately, there began one of the greatest migrations in human
history. Across the Indian subcontinent, communities that had coexisted for
almost a millennium attacked each other in a terrifying mutual genocide. By
1948, as the great migration drew to a close, more than fifteen million people
had been uprooted, and between one and two million were dead. Partition continues
to influence how the peoples and states of postcolonial South Asia envisage their
past, present and future.
The painful
memories and wounds of the Partition have left both parties with the experience
that each side is fundamentally unreliable and malicious. Moreover,
unfortunately efforts toward truth and reconciliation in the context of
India-Pakistan relations are characterized by “competitions for victimhood”.
Opposing historical narratives that are built upon individual stories of
massacres committed during the partition era still affecting the nature of the
two states’ relationships. At the societal level people who were affected by
shock, fear, ill-health and trauma often focused on their survival and tried to
cope with this tragedy by forgetting the horror of their experience. Yet the
consequences of such a coping strategy are not without further complications.
In order to
restore durable peace between India and Pakistan not only the psycho-social
impact of this tragedy has to be evaluated but the British role; a major factor
that contributed to the root causes of India-Pakistan rivalry has to be acknowledged
as well. On the literature on trauma,
healing, apology and forgiveness external actors’ roles often undermined.
However, true healing of several intractable conflicts at the international
arena can only occur when a dialogue focused on truth started with meaningful
efforts toward apology and forgiveness that include all responsible parties. In
order to understand conflict and conflict resolution comprehensively an
approach that can accommodate conciliatory mechanisms as well as remedies for
grievance is needed.