The document discusses using Kabir's teachings as a model for social intervention to address communal violence in India. It provides background on Kabir and discusses the country's social structure, including the caste system and religious/ethnic factors. It analyzes some past incidents of communal violence and suggests applying Kabir's message of harmony, peace, and understanding differences as a way to prevent future incidents and help people live together amicably. Kabir's poetry is presented as a means to reduce suffering and spread awareness about the true meaning of life.

1. TITLE:
KABIR’S REFLECTION: SELF-ANALYSIS and SOCIAL INTERVENTION IN
INDIAN CONTEXT.
ABSTRACT
This paper is about the communal riots/ethnic crisis occurring in the Indian context from time to
time n the author tries to apply Kabir’s thinking in such unfortunate incident as a message to give
harmony and peace in each n every sections of society and the author kept such message as a social
intervention programme. The main objective of this paper is “ not to happen such unfortunate
incident with relate to communal riots or ethnic violence in the near future to live peacefully with
each other with full awareness”. To do such study, the author collected some unfortunate incident
already occurred in the Indian context.Thus,the author’s self analysis is based on the communal riots
or ethnic crisis occurring from time to time. The author is trying to use Kabir’s poem as a social
intervention programme in the analysis of one’s suffering or misunderstanding among the people
who belong to the different layers of the social structure, different religious groups, different ethnic
groups, different class groups so on and so forth. The author tries to narrate a lit bit about the
Kabir’s life n she tries to analyse the social structure existing in Kabir’s time till now. Again she tries
to point out misunderstanding among the different religions n ethnic groups etc that leads to
unfortunate incident to the masses. When such incident happened, the author thought that due to
the lack of awareness level among the people n meaning of life has a main cause of such things. So
she tries to bring n used Kabir’s message to give the meaning of life to the masses/people. She
found very interesting Video-tube inwhich Pralahad and others try to spread the message of the
meaning of life to the masses/people in a very natural and spiritual dimension. The author suggested
that Kabir’s message can be used as a model for bringing a change in one’s society if the leaders of
different political parties, leaders of different religious groups, leaders of different activists
belonging to different ethnic n religious groups,etc gave the message of harmony and peace to their
own people. Here the author pointed out that health professional and others who can heal one’s
mind can take a major role to reduce the suffering, pains, anxiety, stress etc. in one’s life. The author
uses some of the collected unfortunate incident as a problematic area in one’s society n such
incident gave trauma to for such communal riots or ethnic violence. She uses some of the selected
poem from Kabir. In concluding part, she mentioned that yes, it can be used as a social intervention
to the masses/people through the medium of music/oral lecture to the people existing in this
Universe.
Keywords:
Self-Analysis, Kabir, Unfortunate Incident, Ethnic groups, Religious groups,peace, harmony.
BY:
MS NAOREM BINITA DEVI,
Assistant Professor,
Department of Psychology, MZU.

2. CONTENTS:
1. Introduction;
2. About Kabir;
3. Indian Social Structure: self-observed by N.Binita Devi;
3.1. Caste System;
3.2. Religion factor;
3.3. Belief system; : based on belief system of each religion.
3.4. Ethnic factor;
3.5. Class factor;
4. Unfortunate Incident relevent In India.
5. Selective voices of Kabir’s poem and social Intervention to the Incident;
6. Suggestion by NBD with regards to Incident.
7. Conclusion.
8. References.
Introduction:
“when communal riots or ethnic violence come up, what happened? Many people died due to such
communal feelings, like he is Hindu, she is a Muslim, she is a Christian so on, what do you think in
that moment? Feel yourself. The moment when such things comes up the masses/people are under
the state of confusion, anxiety, fear, etc. n trying to run in a safer place. Why such things happen? It
brought a feeling of hatred and spread just like a wild fire n started killing in the name of religion, in
the name of racism, in the name of community or you can fill up what others are involved in such
incident”.
I am trying to say something about selective voices given by Kabir and trying to use as a social
intervention model in relevant to those unfortunate incident not to happen again such things again
in again.
About Kabir:
I think my colleagues knew about Kabir. So i am not repeating again here orally.
Kabir, the most popular of Bhakti poets, was probably born in the 15th century in the general area
of Benares, and earned his living as a weaver. Many legends have attached themselves to his

3. name — that he was born of a Hindu mother but brought up as a Muslim, that he was influenced
by Sufi or Kundalini practices, performed miracles and lived to over 100 years of age — but little is
known for certain: even his occupation is supposition, from frequent allusion in his poems. In all
probability, Kabir was born into poverty and stayed poor.
His name appears in stories from Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bengal, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh,
suggesting that Kabir or his disciples travelled these areas, teaching and propounding his sayings.
For Kabir, life was an interplay of two spiritual principles, of the personal soul and of God:
salvation comes by bringing these two together. From Hinduism Kabir accepted reincarnation and
the law of Karma. From Islam he took the affirmation of the single god and the rejection of caste
system and idolatry. Kabir's thought has influenced Sikhism, and his sayings are still very much
loved and quoted.
Kabir was illiterate, but his transcribed sayings may have numbered 2,000 songs and 1,500
couplets. The impression is not the sonorous impersonality of Kalidasa, or the pithy good sense of
Bhartrihari, but spiritual truth expressed in the most simple and direct language. He espoused
honesty, conviction and simplicity, renewed continuously by inner experience and propelled by an
unceasing detachment from the web of physical and intellectual realities. How the sayings were
transcribed is not known, and Kabir seems to have been much more concerned with changing
hearts and minds than with poetry per se, suggesting that much attributed to him has been
embellished and added to.
Kabir’s great contribution is his down-to-earth metaphors and examples: comparing God to a
weaver, body to a cloth, Guru to a washerman, ignorance to a crow, cosmic experience to the
ocean, senses to the deer, humility and steadfastness to the tree, grace and beauty of solitude and
completeness to a swan, longing for God to the longing of a newly-wed bride. The experiences
have to be lived, when his words flower into a variety of experiences that are not immediately
obvious. The words are suggestive, as in all poetry, but it is what is gradually unveiled that is truly
significant.
Thousands of bhaktas or saint-poets appeared in India from the 6th century AD onwards, in most
religions and languages. Each expressed his or her devotion to a particular deity or, as in Kabir's
case, to a more generalised divinity, when they were often critical of dogma, rituals and the caste

4. system. Like the Sufis, bhakti poets sought union with or inspiration from the divine, and took as
authority their own visions and immediate experience. Though the poetry was often based on
literary i.e. Tamil or Sanskrit models, it was also urgent, personal, colloquial and inspired,
speaking directly in a way all could understand.
In time, bhakti poetry became somewhat institutionalised and conventional, particular verse forms
being associated with various genres and areas: e.g. the mangalakabya with Bengal, the vacana
with Virasaiva poets of Kannada and abhanga with the Marathi poets of Jnanesvar. Some genres
cut across languages, however: pada or song, padavali or string of songs, gatha or anthology of
poems modelled on Sanskrit, Pali or Prakit forms. Later bhakti poems became entangled with folk
stories of love, romance, work and battle, and many were adapted for performance or integrated
into dance, music, theatre or dance-drama. Some are immensely long, and interweave medleys of
classical texts, court and devotional poetry, vedic stories and contemporary matters: unashamedly
directed to a popular audience, and still played on radio stations or told by travelling actors.
Kabir's sayings have been transcribed into all the major languages of India, most notably Urdu and
Hindi, and appreciation will be helped by being able to read if not fully master these tongues.
Several Kabir anthologies have been published in the west, and more can be ordered through
abebooks or alibris from India, or through specialist outlets. Scholarly works include: R.D.
Ranade's Mysticism in India (1933), C. Vaudeville's Kabir (1974, L. Hess and S. Singh's The Bijak
of Kabir (1983), and R.S. McGreggor's Hindi Literature from its Beginning to the 19th Century
(1984). As always, The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (1993) provides useful
summaries and references.
Social Structure of India:
India is a country with diverse cultures. Customs and traditions vary from region to region.
Yet, of course, some commonality does exist in the social structure, which is an unifying
force.
Let us try to understand the various social formations that provide the unifying force as well
as distinct characteristics to the Indian society.

5. 1.1. Caste System;
2.2 Religion factor;
2.3 Belief system; : based on belief system of each religion.
2.4 Ethnic factor;
2.5 Class factor; ( based on classless society n class society, poor vs rich etc.)
Besides these we have to keep in mind patriacal or matriacal family system existing in one’s
society.
The social structure is based upon the caste system.
The society is divided into four major castes- the Brahmans, Kashtriyas, Vaisyas and the
Sudras.
The Brahmans are the priests and are considered to be the uppermost caste.
The Kshatriyas are the warriors, Vaisyas are the business class, the merchants and the Sudras
are the working class.
Inter-caste marriages are not permitted as a rule, although now it has become quite common
in the urban areas.

6. Each people possess one religion groups n is guided their belief by their own way of praying system.
Sometimes misunderstanding comes out n religion hatred surrounded to the people. People started
looking in a narrow way n guided wrongly by their own people sothat they can spread more
prejudice regarding another religion groups. When religion crisis comes up, what happens? You
know more than me. They try to kill each other. When one person belonging to one religion group
started killing to another person, the news was spread just like wild fire that brought more tension
among the two religious groups. What is your opinion regarding on this matter? Then it brought a
chaos atmosphere that leads to confusion among the people n started killing each other without
knowing the reason behind that. So the whole community brought an anxiety,stress, fear, tension
etc. in front of the opponent religious community.
If you remember such situation, just remember such incident which you encountered in your life.
Still i remember one such unfortunate situation in my life. But the reason behind such unfortunate
incident has nothing when looked back after the situation is calmed down. Then the human error or
trying to hatred each other religious groups are reasons behind such unfortunate incident. So what
should we need to do? We need to give a lot of awareness to the masses regarding on this matter.
People need to understand the meaning of life how to live together even though we belonged to
different religious belief system. In such context, i am trying to bring “KABIR’S” strong message to
the masses through the medium of Pralahad ‘s way of singing. As you observe the Video Tube of
Pralahad singing and interacting to one village to another village is a good example to heal up one’s
mind from the day to day suffering, tension ,anxiety, doubt etc in one’s life. As i observe the 15th
century ideas given by the KABIR in poetic form seems to me to be applicable in present scenario
also in the form of community/social intervention in one’s psychological and spiritual dimension.
I never knew who is KABIR, from where he come etc. but when i read his poetic message i found n
realised it that it can be used in the healing purpose in one’s social dimension to reduce the
differences among the people using the medium of songs/oral form in spiritual dimension. The

7. messages Kabir uses concerned with one’s way of living, one’s way of thinking, one’s way of
dedicating life as one,so on. As you observe your own mind, you can cope with such answer like that
the ultimate goal of life is “DEATH”. Do you think that beyond that life is over there? But to be
honest, sorry from my viewpoint. In this journey of life and death, what you noticed in your own
like? Whatever happened it is within this journey. Your behaviour, your thoughts, n your actions are
totally involved in this journey. What happened when you are disturbed by external or internal
influences and you are unable to cope with all those influences? Just observe and feel your
behaviour, thought, n your actions. Hope totally disturbed. Such disturbance also depends on the
intensity of influences n one’s trait. Perceived disturbances differ from one to another but when you
could not able to cope up such disturbances ,what should you do? Do you surrender to God? Or
anything else? In such context, i try to read again and again KABIR’s strong message n trying to
interpret in spiritual way that gives a level of consciousness.
In an analysis of class formation in India, anthropologist Harold A. Gould points out that a
three-level system of stratification is taking shape across rural India. He calls the three levels
Forward Classes (higher castes), Backward Classes (middle and lower castes), and Harijans
(very low castes).
According to Kathinka Fr ystad, “Despite their brutality, communal riots in India constitute
a far more short-lived form of political violence than civil war and state terror. To make this
point is not so commonsensical as it may seem, given the scarcity of reflections regarding this
fact in the scholarship on riots in India. Therefore, in thematizing temporality, transience and
recurrence, this article aims to broaden the study of communal riots and relate it more closely
to general discussions of political violence. Beginning with the three most common
approaches to communal riots in India within social anthropology and its neighbouring
disciplines - namely the bird's-eye view, agency and everyday life approaches - I suggest how
each can be extended or employed to make riot temporality clearer. This focus may also

8. nuance the way we conceptualize the role of the state and encourage reflection on how we
classify instances of political violence”.
Saha, S. (2009), (Sudhir Kakar and the Socio-Psychological Explanation of Hindu-Muslim Communal Riots in
India. ),Concentrated principally in four of twenty-eight Indian states, there have been more than 33,000 Hindu-
Muslim riots since 1947. Scholars have differently explained communal violence. Some have argued that there
are innate qualities in Indian society which encourage what Donald Horowitz calls “deadly ethnic riot”.
Psychoanalysts have wondered if proneness to violence is ingrained in India's religion-based culture. After
assessing several existing explanatory paradigms, I examine the legitimacy of psychoanalysis and some
selected aspects of other explanations, arguing that both the rational and psychological theories help explain
Hindu-Muslim conflict. I submit that Sudhir Kakar, who worked with Erik Erikson at Harvard and trained at the
Sigmund Freud Institute in Frankfurt, unduly follows the elitist French social psychologist, Gustave Le Bon
(1895), to present violent communities as undifferentiated masses. Specifically, Kakar's contention that Hindu
males are psychologically socialized by confrontational religious values deserves close scrutiny.
Methodologically, drawing on the postmodern thesis of the de-centered subject and minimizing the significance of
the master narrative, I conclude that primordial ancient hatred is not programmed in India, arguing that Kakar's
insights do not speak to religion's truth, but do help us understand its manifestation and political psychology.
The main objective of this paper is “ not to happen such unfortunate incident with relate
to communal riots or ethnic violence in the near future to live peacefully with each other
with full awareness”.
To do such study, the author collected “some unfortunate incident already occurred in
the Indian context”.
Selective voices of Kabir’s poem and social Intervention to the Incident:
“Main na hindu na musalaman mujhe jine do
Dosti hai mera iman mujhe jine do
Koi ehasan na karo mujh pe to ahasan hoga
Sirf itana karo ehasan mujhe jine do
Sab ke dukh dard ko apana samajh kar jina
Bas yahi hai mera araman mujhe jine do
Log hote hain jo hairan mere jine se
Log hote rahen hairan mujhe jine do” .Kabir.

9. Between the Poles of the Conscious

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11. SOCIAL INTERVENTION:
Psychology and Social Intervention is to prepare action scientists to work in a variety of
settings in order to understand, transform and improve the contexts and systems (ranging
from families, small groups, schools, community-based organizations, and neighborhoods to
public policies) in which people develop across the lifespan. The program has a strong
emphasis on analysis and prevention of psychological, social, educational and health
problems, as well as on the promotion of well-being in these domains from a systems
perspective, including organizational, community, and policy levels.
Social Intervention Programs are activities by government, social agencies and volunteers
designed to change and improve the social situation of individuals, groups and communities,
strengthen social bonds and encourage internalization of social control.
Such policies can include provision of charity or social welfare as a means to alleviate social
and economic problems of people facing financial difficulties; provision of health care;
provision of education; provision of safety regulations for employment and products; delivery
of food aid or recovery missions to regions or countries negatively affected by an event;
adoption programs; etc.
Current challenges in psychology of social intervention:
According to Casas, Ferrán. and Psicol (2005),
psychologists involved in social intervention programs are often focused in micro-social
assessment and personal or family change. Social psychology has often underlined the
importance of contexts. In our present societies the macro-context has some unique

12. characteristics, which never existed before: we live in an ever-quickening changing society.
That raises a set of new challenges to practitioners of the welfare systems, particularly that of
taking more into account the new macro-social dynamics’. From that perspective reflections
about the need to change social representations of social groups, of their social problems and
of the way to cope with such problems are proposed. The importance of non-material
dimensions of social life in social change processes are pointed out. The new perspectives
and goals involved with the quality of life concept are discussed. Media influence in the
processes of social change are also considered. And finally an scheme to reflect and debate
some outstanding challenges for social intervention are offered.
Why do we need intervention in one’s society?
Again the author wants to reflect social structure in one’s society. In one society many conflictual
scenario can be visible that brought a lot of issues i.e., communal riots, child labour, child abuse,
health issues etc. Trying to reduce such issues, the government and many institutions existing in
one’s society whether academic institution or other institution carved out a way to bring a better
society to live.
Besides these, health professionals like Health psychologists, counsellors, social scientists,
psychiatrist,etc. takes a major role for the consequences those issues.
Consequences of the issues like anxiety, depression, fear,etc.
Intervention programme is related to bring a positive changes in one’s country
In Intervention Theory and Method Chris Argyris argues that in organization development
effective intervention depends on appropriate and useful knowledge that offers a range of
clearly defined choices and that the target should be for as many people as possible to be

13. committed to the option chosen and to feel responsibility for it. Overall, interventions should
generate a situation in which actors believe that they are working to internal rather than
external influences on decisions.
Suggestion and self-analysis by NBD with regard to Incident:
When any type of communal violence or ethnic violence happen in the Indian context or
International context, what happen in that moment? People remain in a state of confusion,
anxiety n trying to save their near and dear ones due to such sudden outbreak. At that moment
people never investigate what is right and wrong. Instead their mindset was clouded by their
own groups belief system and started building up stereotype towards other ethnic groups or
religion groups. I have such experiences in Manipur also. When such incident was happened
a generalize way of fear factor given to the lesser groups of people whoever existing over
there n started recalling all the historical story about the hatred of such unfortunate incident.
So people are totally guided by such feelings of hatred again and again.
In any type of communal riots or ethnic violence, the author wants to share the following points in
her mind:
1. First and foremost, the administration people have to take exercise their power to control
the situation;
2. The leaders of the any religions groups, psychologists, Leaders of the political Parties, Media
person, famous actor and actress belonging to different religion groups etc. have to take

14. part to spread the message of harmony and peace to the masses taking any Kabir’s way of
message;
3. The investigator asks question herself and wants to reflects from the people who belong to
different religion and different ethnic groups regarding the existence of religious places in
one area. For example, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Sikhism, etc, have to build up in one place.
How do you think regarding on this matter? In such area, giving message everyday by the
religion leaders belonging to different groups using the medium of any Kabir’s song form.
What would you say?
In conclusion, i want to emphasize that due to the existence of diverse cultural aspects, one
has to keep in mind the feelings of the differences in positive way. We have to learn more
tolerance learning, more absorbing skills, more optimistic thinking, etc. Besides these, we
have to keep in mind the social structure existing in each and every parts of our country, and
according we have to communicate to them. so at last i want to say, “ when you enter in a
new cultural aspects, observe silently, deep analysis their level of communication, write it
down, and shared with them to see their feedback.” Hope it may bring something to change in
this society in the midst of differences.
References:
Burns and Grove (2007).Understanding Nursing Research, pp 281-3.
Chris Argyris (1970). Intervention Theory and Method: A Behavioral Science View (Addison-Wesley
series in social science and administration), Addison-Wesley,
Casas, Ferrán. Psicol.(2005), “ Soc. [online], vol.17, n.2, pp. 42-49. ISSN

15. Colton, Ethan Theodore(1970). Four Patterns of Revolution: Communist U.S.S.R., Fascist Italy, Nazi
Germany, New Deal America. Ayer Publishing. Pp. 56.
Hoffmann, David L (1917-1941). Stalinist Values: The Cultural Norms of Soviet Modernity, Cornell
University Press. Pp. 7
Kathinka Fr ystad. “Communal riots in India as a transitory form of political violence: three
approaches” Ethnic and Racial Studies3725700000000,University of Bergen.
McClelland, J. S. (1996). A History of Western Political Thought. Routledge. Pp. 481
Mark W. Lipsey1 and David S. Cordray. “1Department of Psychology and Human Development,
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, Vol. 51: 345-375 (Volume publication date February
2000)
Saha, S. (2009), Sudhir Kakar and the Socio-Psychological Explanation of Hindu-Muslim Communal Riots in
India. Australian Journal of Politics & History, 55: 565–583. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8497.2009.01534.x
Website : www.google.co.in
E-mail : binitadevi@hotmail.com