The Man Who Froze Fire
True Stories of Conflict Transformation by Sanjay Kumar, Guided by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
True stories of conflict transformation in Bihar, Kashmir, and the Northeast, where former militants were brought back to society.
Overview
Between 2000 and 2017, Sanjay Kumar — working under the guidance of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar — walked into some of the most violent conflict zones in India: the Ranvir Sena versus CPI(ML) war in Bihar, insurgency-torn territories in the Northeast, and villages in Kashmir living under the shadow of terror. His task was not peacekeeping in the conventional sense. It was something harder: bringing killers back into society, and persuading communities shattered by structural violence to share space with those who had destroyed them.
Suraj Duseja reconstructs this work through the stories of the people involved — the combatants who surrendered their arms, the communities that had to decide whether to accept them back, and the backstage negotiations that made any of it possible. The Man Who Froze Fire does not present these transformations as miracles. It shows them as difficult, contingent, and sometimes incomplete processes, driven by specific individuals making specific choices.
The book raises a question that conflict resolution rarely puts so directly: when genuine change does occur in people who have committed violence, what does society owe them — and what does it owe itself?
Would you forgive a killer? A terrorist? What of those who repent, surrender their arms, and wants to go back to their families and society? Is genuine change possible for those who have killed and borne the brunt of killings? The Ranvir Sena-CPI (ML) conflict in Bihar, insurgency in the Northeast, and terror-prone villages in Kashmir. Pulling off peace in such conflict zones, between deadly warring factions known for killing one another and those caught in the crossfire as well, can seem tumultuous. Bringing the killers back to society seems downright impossible. The Man Who Froze Fire chronicles true stories of conflict transformation facilitated from ground zero by Sanjay Kumar, under the guidance of Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Suraj Duseja brings to you the exciting and intriguing backstage action of many such paradigm shifts in contemporary times. The book brings to the fore the crucial works that happened from 2000-2017 in bringing together and transforming conflicted communities whose lives and regions were destroyed by structural violence ranging from militancy, terrorism, insurgency to Maoism.
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