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Round The World
New Delhi, 28 March 2025
A Peace
Manifesto
INDIA AND
THE WORLD
By Dr.
D.K. Giri
(Prof.
NIIS Group of Institutions, Odisha)
The crying need of the world currently is peace and
security, without which life and living are untenable. Violent conflicts across
the world and two bloody wars have disrupted politics and economiesand have
made life insecure. What is worse, the world leadership as a whole has failed
to stop these two wars – Gaza and Ukraine. Only recently, since the end of
January 2025, American President Donald Trump took a bold initiative, albeit
controversial, to stop the war in Ukraine. There are multiple interpretations
and reactions to Trump’s initiative, but what is noteworthy is the
determination displayed by him to end the war in Ukraine.
In international theory, it is established that absence
of war does not necessarily lead to peace. To ensure durable peace, appropriate
social, economic and political structures have to be created. It is high time
the international community engaged in constructing those structures. The
existing inter-governmental organisations mainly United Nations have failed to
generate any momentum for peace in the world, let alone stopping conflicts and
wars.
Out of six thematic sessions in just-held Raisina
Dialogue 2025, there was one dedicated to peace, but except for wrangling by
European countries and their desperation against Trump administration, nothing
substantial emerged towards peace building.This should have been the focus of
the Raisina Dialogue this year. Trump’s ‘whimsical’, approach to peace would
have been supported by a structured dialogue on peace.
Out of all the countries, India, the biggest democracy,
without history of intervention or aggression against any country, can initiate
the peace-building process in the world. This should be a part of the new world
order that is likely to emerge after the ‘Trumpian assault’ on the existing
one. Russia and China have been trying to transform international politics to
their advantage. America, ‘the current superpower’, was consolidating the
Western dominance.
The West was defined as America plus Europe. That has
dramatically changed. The American Vice-President has strongly advocated
withdrawing from Europe. He just said in a strategy meeting at Oval Office
that, “I loathe the idea of bailing out Europe again”. Defence Secretary of US
Pete Hegseth shared Vice-President’s ‘loatheness’. So, Trump’s new world order
may throw up new issues and equations of power. At any rate, the desire for
peace will be a priority.
Keeping the emerging scenario in mind, can we draft a
peace manifesto for one world? This resonates with India’s fundamental
spiritual philosophy, VasudhaivaKutumbakam. The premise is, a peaceful
one world is the end, and a universal welfare system backed by a common
security is the means. One world concept is derived from thousands of years of
Indian thought, like the Advaita and the VasudhaivaKutumbakam embedded
in the Vedas and Upanishads. They proclaim the indivisibility of the humanity
and featured the earth and its inhabitants as one grand family. These ideas and
wisdom remained submerged until Shri Shankaracharya presented them to the world
of knowledge in the 8th Century A.D. In modern times, Swami
Vivekananda elaborated their content and meaning to the wider world about a
century and a half ago. Remember his legendary speech in Chicago to the World
Parliament of Religions when he addressed the gathering as, “Brothers and
sisters”.
But today, we are living in a divided world, composed of
nation-states, driven by nationalism and often daggers drawn at each other in
the name of national security and under the influence of doctrines like
deterrence. This mindset has led the world to wasting a lot of resources which
could have been used for the welfare of the people everywhere in the world.
Today, we are living in not only a divided world but also
a shrinking world. The communication technology has drastically reduced
distances between places, countries and continents. Yesterday’s distant
countries are today neighbourhoods. Also, the inter-dependence between
countries has grown phenomenally. Lot of people miss this point. But the
management of world affairs and inter-country relations is being managed in a
confrontational mode. This has to be replaced in a peace structure by a
solidarity mode, imbued with the spirit of one world.
Why did the League of Nations and United Nations fail to
deliver their declared objective of preventing wars in the world? Let us
elaborate as we declare UN as a failure as of now. The main reason of their
failure was the built-in dichotomy between the de facto objectives of those
international peace structures and of their national components. It has been
found that, while keeping the League of Nations and the UN largely as talking
shops of international peace, the system did not stop their national
constituents from building up war machines. They wanted to fight wars with
neighbouring countries in order to meet their unfair national ambitions to
concur and expand.
As a result, under the nose of the League of Nations,
Hitler of Germany pursued his policy of aggression by use of violent force
which ignited the Second World War. In the current epoch, under the very nose
of the United Nations, People’s Republic of China is pursuing an expansionist
policy by use of force, which, unless effectively halted, has the potential to
instigate the Third World War. What Russia has done in Ukraine is another
example.
Admittedly, there is a fundamental flaw in the way the
world is organised and governed today. It is based on confrontation and
competition. Instead, it is important to create structures of equality, freedom
and solidarity. The earth has enough resources, if mobilised prudently, for
everyone to live in peace and prosperity. But it is necessary to organise the
societies and countries in a cooperative and a solidarity mode. This is
possible under national and universal welfare state systems. For external security,
there has to be a common security system for national defence.
If the guiding principle in organising world governance
is ‘one world’, the result inevitably will be universal peace and security. The
nuts and bolts of this can be detailed out as there are good experiences across
the world. One can draw on the welfare state systems practiced in the
Scandinavian countries. These countries are at the top of the list for having
peaceful and contented societies in the world. A world survey has repeatedly rated
Finland as the happiest country in the world.
The slogan in the welfare system is caring from cradle-to-the
grave. They call it so, because the welfare system protects an individual from
their birth until their death. Since the child is born, the family gets an
allowance for childcare, as they grow; they get free education and free medical
care. After the education, the state is responsible for providing a gainful
employment failing which it has to provide unemployment allowance to them. And,
finally, when a person dies, their funeral/burial expenditure is met by the
state. Thus, social security for everyone is guaranteed.
The second component of this manifesto is the common
security system which would cut down the defence expenditure of all countries
of the world and help them spend on welfare and development. The idea of a
peace manifesto is thus mooted here for discussion in the thinking world. There
is alternative to war, but no alternative to peace which everyone seeks. Let
peace prevail. ---INFA
(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)
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