Symposium on Peace and Security in India: An Introduction

The World Health Organization categorizes violence as including self-harm such as suicide, interpersonal violence such as domestic violence and violent crime, and collective violence such as inter-communal violence and international war. Peace and security issues in India abound in all of these categories. To name a few, they range from cases of farmer suicides, violence against women and female infanticide, religious, communal, and political violence, land-acquisition disputes, crime, policing, regional disputes between Indian states and other groups over scarce natural resources, separatist movements, military expenditure and policy, and territorial disputes and arms races with neighboring countries. This symposium focuses on points of interpersonal and inter-communal violence, largely restricting its attention to India¡s internal rather than external concerns.