CHAPTER 1: Introduction

A stark reality of South Asian politics and civil society, is that it is characterized by an increasing level of violence. In the fifty years of post-colonial existence there has been a weakening of social and political cohesion and the societies are progressively moving towards a violent socio-political order. The relationship between the State and civil society is exemplified by violence, exhibiting a lack of faith in the normative mode of political bargaining. Increasingly, ethnic groups and social classes are negotiating with the State in the idiom of violence as a means of articulating their demands. The rise of this phenomena is largely an outcome of the socio-political and economic processes.

Violent Political Action Under Colonial Rule

Ironically, colonial rule in the subcontinent was not subjected to so much of violence as is the case today with the post-colonial states. Though colonial history in the subcontinent was marked by uprisings, rebellions and mutinies, they were a localized and short-lived phenomenon or a response to specific issues. Probably the 1857 mutiny, often characterized as the first national war of independence, had a wider dimension and included various ‘nationalist’ forces in an armed uprising against the colonial power. India’s subsequent history of freedom struggle is replete with sporadic acts of violence with the intent of terrorizing the colonial rulers to relinquish power.¹ 

However, these events were largely limited to geographical regions like Punjab and Bengal. Although the nationalist leaders who believed that the colonial powers could be forced to give up power were very popular, they failed to build a mass base. Since there was no common programme of action, attempts to coordinate activities of various revolutionary nationalists also did not succeed. Moreover, this belief was subsumed under a much more dominant ideology of non-violence and pacifism propounded by Mahatma Gandhi.

Notwithstanding these uprisings, the British were able to consolidate their political and military hold by the latter part of the 19th century. However, after the Second World War, they could no longer sustain this control and transferred political power to the indigenous bureaucratic and bourgeois class. Thus in South Asia, India and Pakistan (with a common pre-independence history) and Sri Lanka gained independence without any militant or armed struggle, unlike certain other Asian and African countries. In fact, Sri Lanka was granted independence without even a semblance of a national movement.

Background and Objectives

The indigenous rulers were not able to exercise the same political and military control as the British did. Soon after independence, most South Asian states were faced with various kinds of domestic conflicts. Some conflicts were resolved and some lost momentum, but some took the shape of insurgent movements, which predominantly made use of violence to articulate their demands. Sporadic outbursts of violence by peasants, tribesmen, religious groups or guerrilla movements took place. Communist-led peasant insurgency was initiated shortly before and after independence in North Bengal known as the Tebhaga uprising, and in Telengana, in the former princely state of Hyderabad, during the uncertainties of the transition of power. These were, however, localized actions, confined largely to particular tribal or low caste groups or to a narrow range of peasant classes. Over the years, violence arising from ethnicity and sub-nationalism have become the main challenge to the creation of a national identity in these states and has dominated the political space. Post-colonial history is replete with violent movements arising from the demands of secession by the Bengalis, Baluchis, Nagas, Mizos, Assamese, Sikhs, Kashmiris and Tamils. Peasant insurgencies charged by ideological fervour have been far more infrequent and of lesser intensity.

Violence as a subject of political inquiry has been a complex issue. The treatment has been mainly normative. Even within the realm of politics, analysts invariably take recourse to socio-psychological, cultural and anthropological explanations to understand the phenomena.²  This problem is much more pertinent in the case of South Asia. Despite the increasing use of violence, whether in the assertion of an identity or for the purposes of structural change, as a dominant mode of political action in the subcontinent, enough attention does not seem to have been given to this problem.

The purpose of this study is to give salience to political and socio-economic explanations in understanding the causes and nature of violent political action. While it cannot be denied that psycho-cultural primordialist explanations do add to our understanding of violence, such explanations cannot delve into the roots of political violence as it exonerates the material bases which nurture such action. In this study an attempt is made to analyze whether the roots of such actions can be located in the nature of the state structures and political economies.

Being post-colonial States, South Asian States are still trying to adjust to new political institutions and socio-economic structures. In a situation of scarce resources the State becomes the principal means of access to and control of resources. In such societies politicized social groups arrive at the view that their everyday struggles for livelihood have to be fought not only in the market and within civil society but also in the arena of the control of the state. The state and its resources thus become objects of considerable political attention. Its only when the politicized social groups fail to manoeuvre, negotiate and bargain within the political space that they resort to violence.

Thus, the process of identity formation and assertion are enmeshed in secular economic interests. The demands for political autonomy to fulfil developmental aspirations are, therefore, being articulated in the language of ethnicity. While most separatist violence in South Asia is based on the assertion of a distinctive identity, the question that needs to be addressed is whether the underlying causes were economic exploitation, economic neglect, and relative deprivation. The objectives of this study is to establish linkages between the developmental processes and political violence. How uneven development and underdevelopment have resulted in the increasing use of violence in the articulation of demands?

While the development process has engendered violence, in a paradoxical way violence in turn tends to be dysfunctional in the development process and retard the pace of economic growth. This happens in two ways. Firstly, by a deliberate strategy of economic disruption followed by the insurgents. This strategy involves damaging State and private property, disrupting the public sector economy, and disorganizing public transport and other essential services and militarily targeting development projects which might erode the support base of the insurgents. Secondly, the State is compelled to divert limited resources to counter the challenge posed by the insurgents. The environment created due to the use of violence on the other hand acts as a major constraint on the growth of the economy to enlarge the economic cake for further sharing and redistribution. This process further retards socio-economic development. Thus in a cyclical way one process generates the other.

Scope of the Study

The empirical focus of the present study is only on the four post-colonial States of South Asia — India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The Himalayan Kingdoms — Nepal and Bhutan — were not a part of the colonial experience and have not inherited the colonial state apparatus. Even though they are also undergoing the processes of development and modernization, they still retain many characteristics of traditional societies. However, the apparent tranquility in these two Himalayan kingdoms is already shattered — much earlier in Nepal³  andmore recently in Bhutan.⁴  The modernization processes have already caught up with these societies and they are also confronting their share of violence. The minuscule Maldives in the Indian ocean is excluded, simply because it has hardly any experience of organized violence arising from the socio-political process. This atoll State has received considerable attention for the number of coups that have been attempted in that country but they have been more of a personalized affair and some of them have been generated externally.⁵ 

The reason for attempting to study the four South Asian states within a single framework is that the constituent States of this region have shared historical, cultural and economic features. Not only are India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka located in the same geographical region but their pre-colonial cultural and political heritage stems from common, though quite variegated, ancient and medieval roots. Moreover, they owe their origins to the processes of change and transformation — uneven but interconnected — wrought by the same colonial power. The nationalist elites who took over power at the time of British withdrawal envisaged modernization and development as essential components of their respective nation-building projects.

Even within the four post-colonial South Asian States, studying political violence is not without its complexities. The range of manifestations of political violence in South Asia can be wide-ranging and at times perplexing.⁶  Therefore, the scope of this study has been deliberately confined to only manifestations of political violence which have had or have the potential to seriously effect the State structure, either by a structural transformation of the State itself or decapacitating the territoriality of the State. The concern here is with violence that is directed against the State and central power. It does not take into consideration violence against local actors with the intention of having a localized impact. Most of the empirical cases taken into consideration in this study, have taken the form of insurgencies or are close approximations of insurgencies.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. However, one must take note of the Ghadar revolt around the First World War, which was fairly organized. According to this plan, the Indian immigrants abroad were to return to India and wait for a signal for a general uprising. Arms and ammunition were to be mobilized from Germany. Indian troops in the British imperial army, outside and inside India, were to revolt against the British. It was hoped that these plans in conjunction with the First World War would paralyze the British administration and free India. See, Saleem Qureshi, “Political Violence in the South Asian Subcontinent,” in Yonah Alexander, International Terrorism: National, Regional and Global Perspectives (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1976), pp.160-163.

2. For an interesting interpretation of Sikh militancy see, Veena Das, “Time, Self, and Community: Features of the Sikh Militant Discourse,” in Veena Das, Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp.118-36; Veena Das and Ashis Nandy, “Violence, Victimhood, and the Language of Silence,” in Veena Das (ed.), The Word and the World: Fantasy, Symbol and Record (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1986), pp.177-95; On communal violence, see, Sudhir Kakar, The Colours of Violence (New Delhi: Viking, 1995); On various aspects of violence, including the ethnic violence in Sri Lanka, see, Sasanka Perera, Living with Torturers and Other Essays of Intervention: Sri Lankan Society, Culture and Politics in Perspective (Colombo: International Centre for Ethnic Studies, 1995). 

3. Nepal was also faced with a Naxalite movement in the early seventies. See, Tribhuvan Nath, The Nepalese Dilemma 1960-1974 (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1975). More recently, a Maoist guerrilla group called the United People’s Front has been waging a self-declared “people’s war” in the poorer parts of the country, from the mountainous districts of Rolpa, Rukom and Jajarkot, about 475 km west of Kathmandu. See, “Maoist Guerrillas killed,” Hindu, 13 August 1996; and Return of the Maoists: Midnight Knocks and Extrajudicial Killings in Nepal, Occasional Publication Series (New Delhi: South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre, n.d.). For an analysis of conflict between the high caste Hindus and ethnic minorities in Nepal see, Thomas Cox, “Land Rights and Ethnic Conflict in Nepal,” Economic and Political Weekly, vol.25, no.21, 16 June 1990.

4. For the simmering ethnic conflict and violence in Bhutan see, James Clad, “Bhutan: Nepali Influx Threatens the Hermit Kingdom,” Far Eastern Economic Review, vol.150, no.51, 20 December 1990; S.D. Muni, “Bhutan in the Throes of Ethnic Conflict,” India International Centre Quarterly, vol.18, no.1, Spring 1991; Parmanand, “India-Bhutan Friendship and Bhutan’s Problem of National Integration,” Strategic Analysis, vol.13, no.12, March 1991; Brian C. Shaw, “Bhutan in 1991: `Refugees’ and `Ngolops’,” Asian Survey, vol.32, no.2, February 1992; Farzana Hossein, “Bhutan’s Ethnic Problem: A Case of a Fragile Ethnic Mosaic in South Asia,” BIISS Journal, vol.14, no.1, January 1993; Sarbari Majumdar, “Bhutan: The Divide Deepens,” India Today, 30 June 1993; Kalyan Chaudhuri, “Bhutan in Ferment: With a Growing Pro-Democracy Movement,” Frontline, 27 August 1993; Sanjoy Hazarika, Strangers of the Mist: Tales of War and Peace from India’s Northeast (New Delhi: Viking Publishers, 1994).

5. The last coup attempt that took place in November 1988 was engineered by an exiled businessman, who had hired Sri Lankan Tamil mercenaries to execute it. 

6. For a representative sample one may refer these studies: Veena Das (ed.), Mirrors of Violence: Communities, Riots and Survivors in South Asia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990); Dennis Austin and Anirudha Gupta, “The Politics of Violence in India and South Asia: Is Democracy an Endangered Species,” Conflict Studies, no.233, July-August 1990; Dennis Austin, Democracy and Violence in India and Sri Lanka (New York: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1995); K.S. Subramaniam, “Political Violence, Social Movements and the State in India,” Institute of Development Studies Discussion Paper (Sussex), no.308, August 1992; Ajit Roy, “The Changing Role of Violence in Indian Politics,” in T.V. Sathyamurthy (ed.), Class Formation and Political Transformation in Post-Colonial India, (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996); Sumanta Banerjee, “The Politics of Violence in the Indian State and Society,” in Kumar Rupesinghe and Khawar Mumtaz (eds.), Internal Conflicts in South Asia (London: Sage Publications Ltd., 1996); Uma Singh, “Internal Violence in Pakistan,” International Studies (New Delhi), vol.32, no.2, April-June 1995; Imran Ahmed, “Political Violence and Developing Nations,” Strategic Studies (Islamabad), vol.12, no.2, Winter, 1988, pp.16-37; B.K. Jahangir, Violence and Consent in a Peasant Society and Other Essays (Dhaka: Centre for Social Studies, 1990); Monirul Islam Khan, “Violence in Bangladesh Society: Fallout on Democratic Transition,” in Iftekharuzzaman and A.K.M Abdus Sabur (eds.), Bangladesh: Society, Polity and Economy (Dhaka: Progoti Prakashani, 1993).