1. A Unique Programme  

The significance of a human rights and peace education programme on the inter-linked phenomena of massive forced migration, racism, and xenophobia cannot be underestimated in the current political, social, and cultural climate of India, South Asia, and the world in general. There has been an increase in attacks on civilians, atrocities on individuals and groups mostly belonging to minority communities, public espousal of national chauvinism, sexism, and masochism, intolerance, majoritarianism, and wars and war hysteria. The scenario is marked by less tolerance, increase of hatred against foreigners, immigrants and refugees, a reduction of the civic-cultural space for discussion, debate, and dialogue in a context dominated by globalisation and a concomitant reduction of capacity of the states to listen to public voice for democracy, tolerance, and inter-cultural understanding. The situation is compounded by two trends: on one hand, education is becoming more nationalistic, majority-centric, consumerist, and is littered with hate-words and hate-speech, which impact on mass culture and reinforce the mass populist basis of war and militarism; on the other hand, there is a general decline of human rights standards, erasure of human rights protection mechanisms, and an increasing contempt and derision for appeals to heed to human rights laws and humanitarian laws in public life and follow the ethics of considerations for vulnerable sections of society. Never before in this region was there such dire need to work for peace education that would be based on the ethos of culture of peace so as to foster respect for human rights.

Population displacement has taken alarming proportions and has become most conspicuous in recent times due to conflicts, developmental policies, environmental hazards and climate change, and the victims of forced displacement are becoming targets of xenophobic frenzy, inter-state rivalry, suspicion, and hate speech and hate acts. The flows are of mixed and massive types calling for greater attention to human rights standards and humanitarian protection – across boundaries and within nation-states. In short, the situation calls for greater mobilisation of the civic-political space, of human rights, peace, and humanitarian institutions and activists, greater dialogue among all concerned on the related issues of rights, justice, and protection. 

Developed through last few years as a programme on human rights and peace education, the annual winter course on forced migration organised each year by the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (CRG) has come to be recognised in the region of South Asia as one of the most well known educational programmes on issues of rights and justice relating to the victims of forced migration. In the from of a certificate course, certified by the UNHCR and supported by the Government of Finland and the Brookings Institution, the winter course is aimed at scholars and educationists working on issues of rights and justice, functionaries of humanitarian organisations, national human rights institutions, peace studies scholars and activists, and minority groups, refugee communities, and women’s rights activists. Participants come from all over South Asia, with some joining from Africa, Australia, Europe and the USA. The course attracts a renowned