Here is a reality check for all you guys who hold candles at the Wagah border, send out emails containing messages of peace and communal harmony, roam around wearing peace tattoos or peace pendants, lie naked in the bed promoting peace or wistfully sing "give peace a chance". Peace never really had a chance, never did and it seems highly likely that it never will.
You could blame religion, region, nationalism, caste or race but like a water gushing out of a broken dyke, violence will find a way and a reason to break it and flood the plains, no matter how many hands you stick into the dyke. Why? Because human beings are not conditioned for peace - whether by evolution or by design (and you call it intelligent?).
You say that religion is the reason for all the violence? Then explain Shia on Sunni (or vice-versa) violence in Iraq and Pakistan.
You say that race or region is the reason for violence? Then explain the countless wars fought between people belonging to the same race and regions.
The bottom line is that as human beings, we always strive to find what separates and divides us and not what joins us - so Muslims will fight Hindus and if you wipe out all Hindus, then Shias will fight with Sunnis. Eliminate all Shias and you'd be surprised how fast Sunnis start fighting amongst themselves. That great defender of Hindus, Bal Thackerey did not think twice before attacking all those Hindus from South India and of course, the regional feuds between states in the South of India is nothing to sneeze at. Christians have been having a mighty go at each other since centuries, stopping only for short periods of time when they have a bigger pagan to fight.
You might find it depressing but the first step towards solving a problem is recognizing that it exists and realize the true cause behind the problem. By creating these red herrings of religion, region etc., we side track the real problem and start day dreaming. If only there were no religions, if only there were no national boundaries, if only the US would stop its arrogant hegemony, if only we could have democracy in the middle east, if only Israel would relinquish some land in the middle east.
Maybe there is no solution to this problem, this is how it has always been and this is how it always be. Sometimes a few reasonable people like Gandhi, King and Mandela come along and instill a short term rationality amongst their people but the operative term here is short term and in short order, we are back to our true selves.