Civil Society Conflict Index and its Tool Kit

Abstract

My interest in the area of Civil Society Conflict dates back to 1978 when I joined the newlineIndian Police Service as a probationer in the Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel National Police newlineAcademy, Hyderabad. It was here that I was exposed to the various aspects of conflict in newlinesociety which was dealt with as law and order problem by the police. After my training, I newlinejoined the State of Tripura and started working as an Assistant Superintendent of Police newlinein the South Tripura district. newline newlineThis Study has led me to formulate the following basic questions with regard to the Civil newlineSociety Conflict: Is it possible to predict Civil Society Conflict? Is it possible to resolve newlineCivil Society Conflict if predicted? Is it possible to find out the reasons for conflict in newlineCivil Society which is prevalent in certain parts of the World and in our country? Is it newlinepossible to analyze the on-going conflict and come out with solution? newlineThe above basic questions led me to formulate the hypothesis (i) Comprehensive Civil newlineSociety Conflict Theory (ii) Civil Society Conflict Index to measure the conflict and Civil newlineSociety Conflict Index Tool kit which can answer the basic questions formulated by me newlineto assess the society in predicting conflict, identifying reasons for on-going conflict and newlinecome out with the solution. newlineThe formulation of this hypothesis was a moment of great excitation for me. The tool kit newlineformulated gave me an opportunity to carry out a field survey in three areas of interest newlinenamely; J and K, a State which is in a phase of eternal conflict, the State of Tripura where newlinethe conflict is on the verge of resolution and Old Delhi City where the conflict is latent newlinewhich more or less proved my thesis much to my satisfaction. The findings I believe have newlinea lot of potential for further study in the area of Civil Society Conflicts where the concept newlinecan be further fine tuned along with the Toolkit, to be of practical use to the society.