Question - 1 : -
Do you think that a change towards a peaceful world, needs a change in the way people think? Can mind promote peace and is it enough to focus only on the human mind?

Answer - 1 : -

A thought process of persons requires a positive attitude to promote peace because mind controls the way of thinking and behaviour of human beings.

Mind promotes peace but a wrong mind or attitude can create war.
Gautam Buddha also stated that all wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?
The UNESCO also observed since wars begin in the minds of humans, it is also in the mind of men to make an approach in a peaceful manner.
To facilitate such an endeavour various spiritual principles like compassion and practices like meditation perform peaceful approaches.
Though violence does not originate only in individual psyche but deeprooted also in certain social structures.
Peace is process involving an active pursuit of the moral and material resources needed to establish human welfare.

Question - 2 : -
A State must protect the lives and rights of its citizens. However, at times its own actions are a source of violence against some of-its citizens. Comment with the help of some examples.

Answer - 2 : -

Human beings created state for one’s own protection of honour and property.
State maintains law and order.
State protects the rights of its citizens by providing them a constitution, laws, police, judiciary and armed forces.
State make efforts to end any type of violence created by social injustice and inequality based discrimination’s like untouchability, etc.
A state should avoid those actions which may be a source of violence against some particular groups.

Some examples are:

In 1984, a huge massacre of nearly 4,000 Sikhs took place in Delhi and the government could do nothing and even today, the victims feel that the guilty were not punished.
Khalistan movement also forced Hindus to leave Punjab, Haryana and Delhi and Sikhs were forced to move to punjab and Hindu Kashmiri Pandits. Sikhs were also forced to leave Kashmir Valley. And they could not return their home.
Several Hindus and Muslims were massacred in Gujarat in 2002 and still today these members could not go back to the villages in which they lived.
During the communist rule in USSR, peoples faced violence not to like the authoritarian policies of state.

Question - 3 : - Peace can be best realized when there is freedom, equality and justice. Do you agree?

Answer - 3 : -

Yes, I agree with the statement because:

Peace has occupied a central place in the original teachings of religions which has been advocated by various philosophers like Mahatma Gandhi, etc.
Peace is an essential ingredient to establish democracy with two basic principles freedom and equality and justice and human rights.

Social inequalities and wrong practices of caste, religion, language may produce large scale evil consequences:

Sometimes, traditional caste system treats some peoples ‘untouchables’, hence ‘peace’ is meaningless for these people.
Discrimination against women also given birth to female foeticides, inadequate nourishment and education to girl child, child-marriage, dowry, sexual harassment at the workplace, rape and honour killing.
Racial discrimination also continues in the west and directed against immigrants from Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The labour class which face the conditions to be paid low wages and ill-working conditions also no meaning for peace.

Question - 4 : -
Use of violence does not achieve just ends in the long run. What do you think about this statement?

Answer - 4 : -

Sometimes violence is justified to be used as liberation struggles to bring a peace.
But once violence is resorted it tends to spin out of control, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction.
The pacifists advocate mobilization of love and truth to win the hearts and minds of the oppressors.
Sometimes people consider non-violence to be the methods of weak which has been rejected by Mahatma Gandhi who articulated different philosophy of non-violence.
Gandhiji gave idea of non-violence in a positive way which required an element of conscious compassion.
Violence should not be used to counter violence because peace can only be brought with the stress on peaceful means.
Non-violence does not refer just referring from causing physical harm, mental harm or loss of livelihood and it also meant giving up even thought of harming someone.

Question - 5 : -
Differentiate between the major approaches, discussed in the chapter, to the establishment of peace in the world.

Answer - 5 : -

The first approach:

It accords centrally to states, respects their sovereignty and treats competition among them as a fact of life.
Its chief concern is with the proper management of this competition and with the containment of possible conflict though inter-state arrangements like ‘balance of power’,
Such a balance is said to have prevailed in the 19th country when the major European countries fine-turned their struggle for power by forming alliances that deferred potential aggressors and checked the outbreak of a great war.

The second approach:

It grants the deeprooted nature of inter-state rivalry with positive presence and possibilities of interdependence.
This approach underscores the increasing social and economic cooperation among nations to temper state sovereignty and promote international understanding.
Its example may be given the post-World War II Europe secured durable peace by graduating from economic integration to political unification.

The third approach:

It considers the state to be passing phase of human history to envisage an emergence of a supra-national order and sees the fostering of a global community as the surest guarantee of peace.
The seeds of such a community are found in the expanding interactions and coditions across state boundaries to involve diverse non-government actors like multinational corporations and people’s movements.
The ongoing process of globalization is further eroding the already diminished primary and sovereignty of the state, thereby creating conditions conducive to the establishment of world peace.

Hence, united nations may be said to embody elements of all above mentioned approaches. The security council also reflect the prevalent international hierarchy. The economic and social council promotes interstate cooperation in many areas. The commission on Human Rights seeks to shape and apply transnational norms.

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