Research Paper
Year: 2023 | Month: May | Volume: 10 | Issue: 5 | Pages: 66-74
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52403/ijrr.20230511
Civil Society Organizations and Communal Harmony Building: Strategies and Dimensions
Dr. Sinjini Bhattacharya
Department of Political Science, St. Francis College for Women, 6, Uma Nagar, Begumpet, Hyderabad – 500016, Telangana
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the various dimensions of Civil society engagement in a country like India where low intensity conflicts between the two main religious communities in India. The paper uses Thania Paffenholz's categorization of the functions of civil society organizations work in peacebuilding to understand the role that organizations can play in a changed context. The paper looks at organizations in Hyderabad and Ahmedabad to examine each category in the functionalist approach. The paper is divided into three sections. The first section talks about the functional approach to peace building. The second section draws on extensive fieldwork conducted through in person interviews, participant observation and report analysis in the two cities of Ahmedabad and Hyderabad with four organizations. It highlights the importance of the context of peace building and the reasons why civil society activism for peacebuilding remains limited in capacity.
Keywords: Sustainable peace, civil society organizations, functional approach to peacebuilding, democratization of peace process
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