Paper short abstract:

The paper examines the role of public business enterprises in peace building in Assam, North-East India. It shows that the promotion of business in the region through the government is additionally stirring conflict in the fragile region.

Paper long abstract:

While analyzing corporate engagement in peace, the paper identifies the enabling and constraining factors and motivation based on a number of public sector undertakings. Based on one-to-one interviews, focus group discussion and participant observations data was collected to inquire their role in the transformation process. The paper highlights that the local business sector is crucially important to address root causes of conflict and promoting peace but that much could be done in enhancing the conflict sensitivity with regards to the rule of engagement and different operational procedures.

This paper looks at three different aspects: the context, actors and activities. The context discusses macro‐political and economic constellations, entanglement of business in conflict and its impact. The second section covers actors, their needs and interests, tactics and strategies, linkages and networks. The third section assesses business actors in terms of their involvement and its effects on the conflict‐peace dynamics, timing and continuity of engagement and advantages and disadvantages.

This paper concludes that the economic issue is of less concern to the rebels, as they are focusing more on identity issues. In contrary, the government is promoting economy to pacify the rebellion and uses force to contain radicals. Hence, the promotion of small and medium-sized businesses to transform Assam from war to peace has been a one-sided agenda, triggering the conflict.