The book explores many sided conflicts and their possible resolutions within the very notion of Peace. In the context of North East India, Peace has been elusive-as it never had been substantively achieved, although it had been procedurally justifiable. Moving beyond this paradigm of cessation of conflict and a limited operation of what is called ‘resolution’, the book for the first time unwraps the secret of peace from the politics of peace or dialogues of settlements and accords. It unwraps them from multiplicity of discursive formations, from inside and from outside. The sheer weight of such a multiplicity of interpretations and negotiations produce a many-layered critique of the very concept of peace and the implicatures to which it directs itself. The book is a simultaneous writing and erasure of peace in its ontologically unburdened sphere of ‘thinking from the other side’ and ‘thinking against the grain’. The book represents most of the shades of opinion and research on Peace that came from situated scholars, most of whom have developed essays of concern and commitment, instead of being guided by the fashionable diktats of Peace Studies carried out at metropolitan universities. The book mobilizes the meaning of peace in a constitutive sense only to confront the aporia that sits at the end of the road; while it tries to something other than itself to give rise to a fractured and dissipated language of peace best expressed in the form of metaphor in lieu of better expression-in all to put to trial the assured methods that tend to forget itself in the very process of peacemaking, a true spectre of the reign of fear versus the reign of fraternity. The book critiques the idea of peace as a construct that have been put to pragmatic uses and abuses. The book combines diverse intellectual, practical and critical theoretical perspectives on peace keeping in mind the ground reality of North East India. The book takes a fresh look at issues of connection between Peace and Culture and proposes an emergent order of Peace that never stablizes into mere absence of violence. The book is a must read for those who want to rethink the notion of peace, especially those who want to engage in live debate and polemics on peacebuilding. It is also an interesting reading for all those who are concerned with peace studies, international relations and dialogues.
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