ABSTRACT
The Government of India has a poor record of conflict management, while the number of issues requiring resolution has grown and the fault lines have deepened. While the headlines highlight Hindu-Muslim conflicts in Kashmir, Ayodhya, and Gujrat, the three conflict zones deserve attention: India's northeastern region, Jammu and Kashmir, and India's eastern and central region, where Naxalite-Maoist insurgency is ongoing. In adopting the parliamentary road to power, Indian Marxists abandoned their commitment to armed struggle. S. D. Muni has listed several features of ethnic diversity in India. Claiming Punjabi as their religious language and looking upon the northwestern Indian state of Punjab as their homeland, the Sikhs have developed a very strong subnational identity. The theory of divide and rule was applied to India by the British India government, and this theory became the basis for partition as well as communalism in India.
