What a year of violence this has been. The burning of the train in Godhra. The carnage in Ahmedabad. The attack on the temple. The deaths in Kashmir have become a constant. A day after the attack on the Akshardham Temple, the prime minister asked “How long will this bloodbath and violence continue? This should stop now.” This, indeed, is a question that millions of people have. How long will this continue?

That people were burnt in the train at Godhra was heinous. What was worse was the anger it caused in thousands across India. That thousands were brutally murdered in the post-Godhra carnage was inhuman. What was worse was that tens of thousands of children were witness to rape and pillage of their families. They grow up with anger and hatred. And the cycle continues after the attack on the temple. When will it end?

There is immense grief over the deaths and anger over the violence that led to these deaths. Grief and anger that should neither be trivialized nor brushed aside nor politicized. But the cries for retaliation that are already rising will ensure that the cycle of violence continues. Why will retaliation end the violence? How will it end the anger and mistrust? When we retaliate, will we annihilate an entire community? An entire nation? Surely we must concede that such a plan of action is neither moral nor practical. All it will do is to temporarily weaken a people who will later find strength and justification to retaliate. We see this cycle at work in the Middle East, in Bosnia and here in South Asia. Is this the cycle of violence that we gift to our children, our future?

And what kind of society will exist during such times? A volatile society? An insecure society?

It is in this context that Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas of non-violence become relevant. Non-violence is not pacifism. It is not cowardice. After all, it brought an empire to its knees and propelled India to independence. It is an ideology based both on moral as well as mental strength. Pacifism cannot resist – non-violence can. Non-violence is not about walking away because one cannot resist or because one is afraid. It is about resisting without committing violent actions in the face of violence. Non-violence is the only hope we have to end this cycle of violence.

During the post-independence riots, western India, despite immense troop mobilization experienced inhuman riots. With Gandhi present, the eastern front, despite its history of riots and killings, remained much quieter. In the face of violence, Hindu communities were working in Muslim neighborhoods while Muslim communities protected Hindu neighborhoods. That was the strength of non-violence.

After the attack on the temple, priests from the Swaminarayan sect prayed for peace for all. That is the only way out of this cycle. It is necessary for the Hindu community to work in the relief camps in Godhra with the children of those burnt in the carnage so that those children may realize that the pillage was perpetrated by inhumanity, not by the high ideals of Hinduism. It is necessary for the Muslim community to work in Hindu neighborhoods – not to prove their Indian-ness – but to assuage a tidal wave of mistrust and hate that threatens to wash us away. It is important that our communities ignore calls of retaliation that ‘leaders’ in both communities have made.

This is the kind of effort that a group of between forty to fifty individuals from the Twin Cities has been discussing at meetings since the violence began in March. It has acted as a forum to talk about the violence, and a support group to those frustrated by the violence. The group has passed resolutions condemning the burning of the train, the violence that followed as well as the shootings at the Akshardham temple. More significantly, this group has begun to come together and relationships are being built across communities.

While it is all right to speak of what needs to occur in India, it is perhaps as important to ask what we can do as we live here. Establishment of these relationships is the first step in ridding ourselves of stereotypes.

Living in the USA, most of our interactions with fellow South Asians are along religious lines simply because many of our social ‘get-together’s occur during festivals. Nothing wrong with that – only, there are few opportunities to build relationships across religious lines. Thus, some members of the group suggested that we must make an effort to create occasions for interactions between members of different communities. Others have suggested that a forum such as School for Indian Languages and Cultures in the Twin Cities be used to expose children from various communities to the diversity of that region.

This is only a beginning. Given the baggage of mistrust that we have today, it will not be easy. There will be more carnages and more attacks before we can end this cycle. Our strength lies in continuing our efforts through non-violence. That is the only way to end this violence.

- Sanat Mohanty