ISLAMABAD, Jan 30: Speakers at a seminar on Wednesday opposed use of force for conflict resolution in South Asian countries, and instead called for taking marginalized people into confidence for achieving lasting solutions of thorny issues.

The one day seminar on “Conflicts in South Asia: issues and solutions” was held at Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI).

A consensus developed among speakers that there is no direct links between democracy and conflicts. They say even India is the biggest democracy of the World but still conflicts prevail there because more than 77 per cent populations live on a less than a half dollar per day.

They say it is not democracy but the thorny issues of inequality, poverty, class system, which foster conflicts. They stressed for local as well bilateral and regional approaches and efforts to solve the conflicts in the region.

Rejecting the liberal developmental agenda, most of the speakers cited poor governance, poverty, inequalities, defective democratic structure, and unequal distribution of resources and lack of effective conflict resolution mechanisms as some of the major factors for conflicts in South Asia.

Acting Executive Director Dr Abid Suleri maintained the South Asian region was suffering from internal and intra-national state conflicts, poverty, marginalisation, inequality and scarcity of resources in the era of globalization. He said that these prevailing trends in the region have created social inequality and injustice, which was a direct root cause of conflicts.

Dr R. Ramakumar Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India, sharing the experiences of India, said the absence of democratically functioning state, lack of democratic space for people and heighten economic insecurities have been major causes of internal visible and non-visible conflicts and violence in India.

Giving a detailed analysis of alarming socio-economic conditions in India following the economic reforms under globalization, he lamented that economic liberalization and state’s obsession with fiscal deficit have tremendously diminished the role of state in public expenditures which have led to the social and human insecurity.

The state’s retreat from investing into public and community support structures has created huge space for intensified ethnic and fundamental trends in people.

Talking about the process of communalisation as another major cause of violence and conflicts in India, he said that efforts to convert every Indian citizen into Hindu under “Hindu Rashtra” ideology have largely resulted into the dissatisfaction of the people in the country.

Dr Bishnu Raj Upreti of South Asia Coordination Office of Swiss National Centre for Competence in Research (NCCR), Nepal said collective approach and concerted actions at the state, civil society and international level in addition to issues-based broader alliances at citizens’ level were essential to effectively tackle the South Asian conflicts.

He largely highlighted the main sources and complexity of conflicts in south Asia. He, however, identified increasing poverty, inequality, environmental stress, poor governance, trans-border issues, proliferation of small arms, laying of landmines, energy crisis and livelihood insecurity and human rights violations as main sources of conflict in the region.

Dr AH Nayyar of SDPI said that the livelihood securities, culture of equality and strong public and community support structures helps in managing conflicts effectively but absence of such mechanisms generate local conflicts with a potential of spilling over to intra-state relations, regional and global peace.

Talking of Pakistan, he said that the rulers have converted the country into a security state on perceived external threats from India and Afghanistan, where everything was seen in the security terms.

This approach coupled with the continued crisis of governance have resulted in two kinds of internal conflicts in Pakistan adding that the conflict in Balochistan is for the rights and autonomy while in tribal areas the militants are trying forcibly to impose their narrow ideology while the Pakistanis are experiencing deep psychological pressure and uncertainly due to these crisis.

He, however, suggested providing public and community support structures, democratic governance and addressing the insecurities to mitigate the potential of conflicts and violence in South Asia.