Peacebuilders Forum is an independent, citizen-led network of practitioners, educators, activists, faith leaders, community workers and young people committed to advancing nonviolence and dialogue wherever conflict takes hold. It is not a single organisation. It is a forum, a living space to share tools, coordinate responses to conflict and build a collective voice for peace across communities and borders.
The Forum draws on the Gandhian principle that the means are as important as the ends. We believe that conflict can be transformed, not through force, but through understanding, patience and the courage to sit with those we fear or distrust. Our work brings together people who have spent years doing exactly that, in relief camps, in classrooms, in village communities, in government corridors and on the streets.
Since 2024, Peacebuilders Forum has gathered five times, in Madurai, Jaipur, Kannur, Dibrugarh and Jalgaon. Each meeting has built on the last: widening the network, deepening shared understanding and coordinating concrete action on live conflicts.
In Manipur, Forum members entered relief camps on both sides of the conflict, listened to displaced families, facilitated interfaith dialogue and began building channels of communication where there were none. In Kerala, peacebuilders worked with communities to reduce cycles of political violence. In Rajasthan, the Forum supported the creation of a Department of Peace. Across the northeast, Forum members coordinated relief, peace training and cross-community meetings during some of the most difficult periods of conflict.
At the fifth gathering in Jalgaon in March 2026, hosted at the Gandhi Research Foundation, the Forum launched a Women’s Peacebuilders Commission, constituted a Youth Peace Platform and set in motion plans for peace education, peace journalism and deeper international solidarity. The next assembly is planned for 2027.
Peacebuilders Forum exists because peace requires more than goodwill. It requires a movement. This is the beginning of one.
Peacebuilders Forum is guided by a small number of deeply held values. We believe in nonviolence as both a method and a way of life. We believe that dialogue, however difficult, is always preferable to silence or force. We believe in patience, because lasting peace is never quick. And we believe that every person, regardless of which side of a conflict they stand on, carries within them the capacity for understanding and change. These are not abstract ideals. They are working principles that our members bring into relief camps, classrooms, government offices and community halls every day.
The Forum is not a top-down organisation. There is no hierarchy. It is a peer network where practitioners share what they have learned, coordinate responses to live conflicts and hold each other accountable to the values we share. Decisions are made through conversation. Actions are taken by those who are closest to the situation and most capable of responding. This is deliberate. We believe that the people who live closest to conflict are also its most capable healers.
Since May 2024, Peacebuilders Forum has gathered five times across India, in Madurai, Jaipur, Manipur, Kannur, Dibrugarh and Jalgaon. Each gathering has built on the last, adding new members, new understandings and new commitments. We have responded to the conflict in Manipur, supported the creation of a Department of Peace in Rajasthan, worked to reduce cycles of political violence in Kerala and coordinated relief and dialogue across the northeast. The sixth assembly is planned for early 2027. This is a movement in the making, and it is growing.