Peace by Peaceful Means? A Preliminary Examination of Buddhist Peacebuilding in Post-Conflict Nepal

Authors

  • Anna King University of Winchester Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.v8i3.28340

Keywords:

Buddhism as a ‘Culture of Peace’, Buddhist faith-based I/NGOs, Buddhist peacebuilding, Buddhist sites of peace, Dalai Lama, Maoism, Nepal’s civil war, Nepal’s peace process, religious peacebuilding

Abstract

This article reflects the growing interest of governments, international development, peace and interfaith organizations, and academics in the link between religions and conflict, and in the fact that religion often serves as a vehicle and language for protest and conflict. It is often deeply implicated in national, ethnic, cultural, and/or geopolitical considerations. The article also reflects the fact that religious studies as a discipline is increasingly required to demonstrate public relevance and impact in debates concerning the role of religion in conflict and conflict transformation. It grows out of a research project which explores the potentially constructive role of religions in active peacebuilding, postconflict reconciliation and restorative justice while acknowledging that there are multiple interpretations of religious traditions that can relate to militancy, chauvinism and nationalist ideologies. The project is focused on post-conflict Nepal, and works horizontally and vertically with grassroots and local organizations as well as with transnational institutions and international bodies. This article is a preliminary contextualization of one strand of the project, Buddhist contributions to the peace-building and post-conflict recovery. It draws a broad picture of the ways in which Buddhism has been constructed politically as a universalist culture of peace, but is also associated with competing ethnic identities and ‘nationalities’. It considers how far Buddhist organizations, communities and leaders have been able to engage with the immediate causes of the civil war (1996–2006), and the deep structural issues, inequalities and injustices which drive grievance and violence.

Author Biography

  • Anna King, University of Winchester

    Anna S. King is Reader in Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Winchester, and attached to the University of Winchester Centre of Religions for Reconciliation and Peace. She trained as a social anthropologist at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford. She is the contributing editor with Professor John Brockington of The Intimate Other: Love Divine in Indic Religions (Delhi: OrientLongman, 2004), and contributing editor of Indian Religions: Renaissance and Renewal (London: Equinox, 2006). Anna has published in the areas of contemporary spirituality(ies), and global Hinduism and Islam. She has a long-standing interest in Vaishnavism and ISKCON and has two articles, ‘For Love of Krishna’, and ‘Thealogising Radha’, in The Hare Krishna Movement: Forty Years of Chant and Change (ed. Graham Dwyer and Richard J. Cole; London and New York: I. B. Tauris: 134–67, 193–29). Recent articles on ISKCON include ‘Vedic Science and Modern Science’; ‘Krishna’s Cows: ISKCON’s Animal Theology and Practice’, and ‘Krishna’s Prasadam: “Eating our Way back to Godhead”’. Anna was consultant to the 2012 ethnographic film LEAP directed by the Finnish director, Jouko Aaltonen. She is Convenor of the annual Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions, and founder and joint editor of Religions of South Asia (RoSA).

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Published

2015-09-16

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

King, A. (2015). Peace by Peaceful Means? A Preliminary Examination of Buddhist Peacebuilding in Post-Conflict Nepal. Religions of South Asia, 8(3), 339-368. https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.v8i3.28340

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