Peace and Development are the two sides of a same coin. Both compliment each other, generally. In simple words, both reinstate each others for the sustenance of a civilized ‘people –friendly’ society.

Peace needs development needs peace—is a vicious cycle which is in continuous process since the first breath of human civilization. It has universal application.

Peace needs development

If we interpret the word ‘ development’ in a narrow sense, it signifies economic or material development .But in broad sense, development envelopes material, political, cultural, intellectual ,spiritual, social and technical aspects. Invariably, each country is developing in its own pace, right from USA to the third world countries. It is a continuous process and one stage of progress necessitates the further step.

When it comes to development, it signifies the development of whole population irrespective of artificial barriers and not simply of a particular population under status umbrella. In the Indian context, before the arrival of British and development of democratic psychology , the concept of development could be interpreted by the elite section , that is , the monarch , aristocrats, minister while masses were deprived of the basic amenities of life.

After the attainment of independence, our newly enacted Constitution guaranteed for an egalitarian society, which enshrined for equality of status and opportunity for all .It also envisage for a ‘welfare state’ as one of the directives of the state, in which privilege for betterment was guaranteed to all.

However, when it understands for a developed society, it refers to perfect scope for the utilization of the available resources. Various factors restrict development like unemployment, illiteracy, poverty, corruption, etc.

India is a federal country with unitary bias. So decision of the center in granting aid is the determining factor for the development of a region. Distance from center, lack of access by the needy to the privileges (due to involvement of some middle man grasping the lion’s share) is responsible for the regional imbalance and uneven progress in India.

As remarked, “Poverty is the mother of all crimes”; so separatist movements in North Eastern region, Jammu and Kashmir, Naxalist uprising and subsequently the Salwa Judum movement as its bye- product from Pashupati to Tirupati are some of the consequences which could have been solved if the policy of “equality of status and opportunity ‘ would have been uniformly applied without any ’second thought’. Unfortunately, for all these uprisings, innocent civilians suffer the most.

Development needs peace

Separatism and sub-nationalism have contributed their negative impact by discouraging industrial growth and thereby, reduction of opportunity for useful utilization of available resources.This leads to gross unemployment that again fuels insurgency. The neighboring countries get ample scope to manipulate this crisis in their own interest and feed terrorism from their own soil.

Such centrifugal tendencies leading to mass movements has nourished another ‘ ism’ after Nazism, Fascism and that is ‘Terrorism’ , that is , rule of terror .Terrorism encourages the fact that human resource, having superior skill and intellect , which could have used for progress , has been rather utilized in a negative direction.

It has maligned the right to live without fear and thoughtlessly attacked the basic human right to survive without fear. Thoughtful considerations promote terrorism as an anti- thesis for peace and thus, it cannot breed a resourceful heritage for the unborn generation.

Thus, development needs peace

Hence, peace and development maintain a bilateral relation. Both backbones each other and cannot be isolated .Peace without development is temporal and development without peace is brittle.