Sectarian Violence and Ethnic Conflict in India: Issues and Challenges

Abstract

Human rights education is no longer considered an alien normative and discursive practice in the inter-governmental discussions and civil society actions because human rights have increasingly become more universal in the sense that they are held to be a guarantee of ideals of equality and enhance moral autonomy of rational human beings, irrespective of their own specific desires, identities or partial interests. Seen from this perspective, this chapter discusses ethnic conflict and sectarian violence in India in the context of human rights violations by the state and by non-state actors. Given the relative silence of discussion of sectarian violence in human rights literacy, we argue that interrogation of various types of ethnic violence is urgently required for understanding the evolution of universal and inalienable regime of human rights in varying institutional and cultural contexts across nations. Based on empirical data, we conclude that the case studies of sectarian and communal violence from a plural, diverse democracy like India have potential to contribute to reframing the discussion of human rights literacy in the universities and college/school class rooms.