Born in April 1943 in Sibi, a small town in Pakistan, Savita Datt grew up with pre-partition, nightmare memories of burning fires; muffled sounds of rushing, nonstop foot falls followed by shrieking whistles piercing the stillness of the nights. Her early days and nights in the suburbs of Dehradun, India, after partition of the country were filled with fear, surrounded and entwined with scarcity for years on end. Educated in the Universities of Delhi and the Punjab, she mastered in Political Science in 1964. Marriage to an Army officer in 1965 provided her with an insight into security related issues the neighbours in the subcontinent faced. Life in the forces punctuated by long spells of field area postings left her alone with the children, offering both opportunities and challenges. During these long spells she began her search for answers to the dilemmas, the two countries she felt she belonged to, faced. She worked for a doctorate under the kind guidance of Dr. Pam Rajput who headed the Department of Political Science in the University of the Punjab in Chandigarh. She was awarded the Ph.D in 1991. Thereafter she joined the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses housed in the old Sapru House Building on Barakhamba Road, in South Delhi. She spent the next ten years researching Peace, Conflict Resolution, Nuclear Non-proliferation, Disarmament and Arms Control related issues. Her quest for answers took her to The Henry L. Stimson Centre, Washington D.C. on a Confidence Building Measures Programme where she got an opportunity to interact with her Pakistani counterpart and also to somewhat understand the influence of outside powers in the region. Her first book ‘To Chagai and Beyond’ was published thereafter.
Long hours of working on the book showed how futile her quest for peace and disarmament was. It took her ten long years and so much research to understand that peace was not just an absence of war. It suddenly extended its dimensions from nuclear disarmament to include freedom from hunger, freedom from want--it meant a place to live in safety, it meant acceptance of diversity--it meant education. And beyond that, peace needed love, understanding, empathy. It needed recognizing the soul force that ran through every organism, connecting the entire universe and beyond. Peace was a dream, a tall order, a multi-dimensional enigma indeed. But the quest had to begin somewhere. It had to….
Begin from the very beginning.
A Drop of Light--yet again--heralds that eternal quest for peace….
