Likewise, in Punjab, ethnicity figured prominently in the process of estrangement of Centre-State relations which culminated in a secessionist war that raged throughout the 1980s and extended into the early 1990s, in what was perhaps the most serious challenge ever to India’s national integrity since independence. According to very “conservative” official estimates it caused within the State the death of about 22,000 persons.The sporadic secessionist insurrections referred to by Ajuha and Varshney were no fireworks displays. Kashmir, for example, has remained the venue of one of the most complex and destructive conflicts in Asia ever since the late 1940s. If estimates furnished by Rasul Bakhsh Rais (1997) are authentic, its death-toll could well exceed 80,000. The conflict in Kashmir, though often perceived as a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan, has a pronounced dimension of ethnic conflict, especially in the political turbulences witnessed in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K, 39,600 sq. miles) – the part of the former Kingdom of Kashmir which is a State of the Indian federation. Indeed, as several scholars have shown, there has always been among the Muslims of J&K an ardent ethno-nationalist sentiment which seeks to disengage Kashmir from the Indo-Pakistan conflict and make “Kashmiriat” the basis of an independent Kashmiri nation-state. From about the late 1980s several Kashmiri Muslim rebel groups, initially united under an umbrella organisation named “Hurriat” (Independence), have been locked in fierce confrontation with the Indian forces.
Ever since the Maharaja of Kashmir signed the Instrument of Accession to the Indian Union in 1947, the integration of this predominantly Muslim kingdom with India has remained one of the cardinal objectives of Delhi’s Kashmir policy. The provision made through Article 370 of the Constitution of India for the State of J&K to exercise a substantially greater degree of autonomy than the other States of the Indian federation, efforts by the Centre to secure the collaboration of Kashmir’s ‘moderate’ groups towards democratisation of the institutions of government at Srinagar, and the substantially higher per capita levels of central government funding for the development of J&K compared to other states (Partha Ghosh, 1997), are among the devices that have been adopted in pursuance of this objective. Yet, it is undeniable that, in the long-run, Delhi’s rule over J&K has continued to depend largely on its military capacity to combat the challenge of insurrection alongside the external security threats.
Likewise, in Punjab, ethnicity figured prominently in the process of estrangement of Centre-State relations which culminated in a secessionist war that raged throughout the 1980s and extended into the early 1990s, in what was perhaps the most serious challenge ever to India’s national integrity since independence. According to very “conservative” official estimates it caused within the State the death of about 22,000 persons. It also reverberated outside the State in large-scale mob violence against the Sikhs, and outside India in terrorist attacks on civilian target.
Secessionism in Punjab, with its goal of creating an independent Sikh nation-state – Khālistan – was spearheaded by several militant groups some of which received strong backing from the Sikh diaspora and, allegedly, from Pakistan as well. The Khālistan ideal found qualified support from certain factions/leaders of the Akāli Dāl – the political party of the Sikhs in the democratic mainstreams, the declared policy of which up to 1984 was “maximum autonomy within the federal structure of India” (similar to that of our TULF?). However, by the early 1980s, with the militants establishing their hegemony over Sikh politics (like the LTTE did here from about the late 1980s?), the insurrection gathered momentum and became seemingly irreversible in the escalating ferocity of its violence.
The Khalistan insurrection has been attributed by certain critics to mismanagement of Centre-State relations. Paul Brass (1991: 210), for instance, reached the conclusion that “… relentless centralisation and ruthless, unprincipled intervention by the Centre in State politics have been the primary cause of the troubles in the Punjab and elsewhere in India since Mrs Gandhi’s rise to power.” He also noted, however, that the “bold and constructive initiatives” adopted by her successors, Rajiv Gandhi and V. P. Singh also failed to quell the rebellion. From the viewpoint of the present study what the long-term record of Punjab politics illustrates as clearly as the consequences of Indira Gandhi’s unscrupulous manipulation of politics at State-level is that the concessions offered by the Centre in response to Sikh demands (including the grant of statehood in 1966 to an area in which the Sikhs constituted only 62% of the population) only had the effect of whetting the desire of the Akali Dal leadership for further autonomy. Thus, some of the demands they incorporated into their ‘Anandpur Sahib Resolution’ of 1973 (and the later versions of it) included the restriction of Centre’s intervention in Punjab to Defence, Foreign Affairs, Currency, Post and Telecommunication, and Railways; annexation of the city of Chandigarh (where the Sikhs are a minority) to the State of Punjab; and an excessively large allocation of the Beas-Sutlej water for exclusive use in Punjab, were not of the type a central government could have conceded without placing the entire federation in jeopardy. The tragic story of this insurrection also makes it abundantly clear that its trail of destruction and anarchy ended only when it was crushed through an all out military effort.
A third venue of conflict – the ‘North-East’ – has also ranked among the most turbulent parts of South Asia. At the promulgation of India’s constitution in 1950, the ‘North-East’ consisted of (a) the State of Assam, (b) two territorial entities placed in Part C of the ‘First Schedule’ of the constitution (Manipur and Tripura), (c) the semi-independent kingdom of Sikkhim placed in Part D of the ‘First Schedule’, and (d) several ‘Tribal Areas’ listed in the ‘Fifth Schedule’. The devolution cum power-sharing measures adopted in this region, usually though ‘Accords’ between Delhi and the rebel groups since that time have involved, inter alia, the recognition of various areas within this region as fully-fledged ‘States’ of the Indian federation. Thus, at present, the region consists of the states of Assam, Meghālayā, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, Nāgaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkhim.
Devolution which the process of creating new States represents has undoubtedly had the effect of making certain insurrectionary movements in the north-east dormant, if not pacifying them altogether. Yet, intense political turbulences in the form of both inter-ethnic clashes as well as anti-Indian acts of destruction and sabotage have persisted. For example, the All Assam Student Union (AASU – the strongest Assamese militant outfit since the early the 1980s) has continued to engage in sporadic but deadly attacks on civilian targets, the most recent of which was staged in November 2006. In Tripura thousands of Bengali migrants have perished in attacks led by the guerrilla group ‘Tripura National Volunteer Force’, one of the most gruesome episodes of which occurred, coincidentally, in July 1983. In Manipur, the ‘People's Liberation Army’, the Maoist revolutionary group that provides leadership to an insurgency among the Meitei tribals of the Imphal valley, launched a campaign against “outsiders” (Assamese and Bengalis) mainly in order to whip up popular support for their radical cause. The prolonged and bloody campaign for the creation of a semi-autonomous ‘Bodoland’ embracing an area that stretches along the northern banks of Brahmaputra river has drawn strength from two sources – the resentment of the Bodo/Kachari tribes against Assamese domination, and their traditional animosity towards the so-called “ādivasi” (now outnumbering the Bodo/Kachari) who are believed to have migrated into this area in the 19th century. Finally, there are the frequent outbursts of violence between the Naga and the Kuki tribal groups in Manipur, each regarding the other as intruder. The Naga insurgents, meanwhile, have embarked upon a campaign for the creation of a “Greater Nagaland” that would extend well beyond the frontiers of the State of Nagaland as demarcated at present. To sum up, India’s hold over its North-East is certainly much more secure today than it was at independence, or even at the time of the Sino-Indian War of the early 1960s. Yet there is still a great deal of spatial variation in the effectiveness of the institutions of government in this region. Indeed, over some of its localities, government authority is either non-existent or is confined to what could be enforced by the armed forces.
Ever since the Maharaja of Kashmir signed the Instrument of Accession to the Indian Union in 1947, the integration of this predominantly Muslim kingdom with India has remained one of the cardinal objectives of Delhi’s Kashmir policy. The provision made through Article 370 of the Constitution of India for the State of J&K to exercise a substantially greater degree of autonomy than the other States of the Indian federation, efforts by the Centre to secure the collaboration of Kashmir’s ‘moderate’ groups towards democratisation of the institutions of government at Srinagar, and the substantially higher per capita levels of central government funding for the development of J&K compared to other states (Partha Ghosh, 1997), are among the devices that have been adopted in pursuance of this objective. Yet, it is undeniable that, in the long-run, Delhi’s rule over J&K has continued to depend largely on its military capacity to combat the challenge of insurrection alongside the external security threats.
Likewise, in Punjab, ethnicity figured prominently in the process of estrangement of Centre-State relations which culminated in a secessionist war that raged throughout the 1980s and extended into the early 1990s, in what was perhaps the most serious challenge ever to India’s national integrity since independence. According to very “conservative” official estimates it caused within the State the death of about 22,000 persons. It also reverberated outside the State in large-scale mob violence against the Sikhs, and outside India in terrorist attacks on civilian target.
Secessionism in Punjab, with its goal of creating an independent Sikh nation-state – Khālistan – was spearheaded by several militant groups some of which received strong backing from the Sikh diaspora and, allegedly, from Pakistan as well. The Khālistan ideal found qualified support from certain factions/leaders of the Akāli Dāl – the political party of the Sikhs in the democratic mainstreams, the declared policy of which up to 1984 was “maximum autonomy within the federal structure of India” (similar to that of our TULF?). However, by the early 1980s, with the militants establishing their hegemony over Sikh politics (like the LTTE did here from about the late 1980s?), the insurrection gathered momentum and became seemingly irreversible in the escalating ferocity of its violence.
The Khalistan insurrection has been attributed by certain critics to mismanagement of Centre-State relations. Paul Brass (1991: 210), for instance, reached the conclusion that “… relentless centralisation and ruthless, unprincipled intervention by the Centre in State politics have been the primary cause of the troubles in the Punjab and elsewhere in India since Mrs Gandhi’s rise to power.” He also noted, however, that the “bold and constructive initiatives” adopted by her successors, Rajiv Gandhi and V. P. Singh also failed to quell the rebellion. From the viewpoint of the present study what the long-term record of Punjab politics illustrates as clearly as the consequences of Indira Gandhi’s unscrupulous manipulation of politics at State-level is that the concessions offered by the Centre in response to Sikh demands (including the grant of statehood in 1966 to an area in which the Sikhs constituted only 62% of the population) only had the effect of whetting the desire of the Akali Dal leadership for further autonomy. Thus, some of the demands they incorporated into their ‘Anandpur Sahib Resolution’ of 1973 (and the later versions of it) included the restriction of Centre’s intervention in Punjab to Defence, Foreign Affairs, Currency, Post and Telecommunication, and Railways; annexation of the city of Chandigarh (where the Sikhs are a minority) to the State of Punjab; and an excessively large allocation of the Beas-Sutlej water for exclusive use in Punjab, were not of the type a central government could have conceded without placing the entire federation in jeopardy. The tragic story of this insurrection also makes it abundantly clear that its trail of destruction and anarchy ended only when it was crushed through an all out military effort.
A third venue of conflict – the ‘North-East’ – has also ranked among the most turbulent parts of South Asia. At the promulgation of India’s constitution in 1950, the ‘North-East’ consisted of (a) the State of Assam, (b) two territorial entities placed in Part C of the ‘First Schedule’ of the constitution (Manipur and Tripura), (c) the semi-independent kingdom of Sikkhim placed in Part D of the ‘First Schedule’, and (d) several ‘Tribal Areas’ listed in the ‘Fifth Schedule’. The devolution cum power-sharing measures adopted in this region, usually though ‘Accords’ between Delhi and the rebel groups since that time have involved, inter alia, the recognition of various areas within this region as fully-fledged ‘States’ of the Indian federation. Thus, at present, the region consists of the states of Assam, Meghālayā, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, Nāgaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkhim.
Devolution which the process of creating new States represents has undoubtedly had the effect of making certain insurrectionary movements in the north-east dormant, if not pacifying them altogether. Yet, intense political turbulences in the form of both inter-ethnic clashes as well as anti-Indian acts of destruction and sabotage have persisted. For example, the All Assam Student Union (AASU – the strongest Assamese militant outfit since the early the 1980s) has continued to engage in sporadic but deadly attacks on civilian targets, the most recent of which was staged in November 2006. In Tripura thousands of Bengali migrants have perished in attacks led by the guerrilla group ‘Tripura National Volunteer Force’, one of the most gruesome episodes of which occurred, coincidentally, in July 1983. In Manipur, the ‘People's Liberation Army’, the Maoist revolutionary group that provides leadership to an insurgency among the Meitei tribals of the Imphal valley, launched a campaign against “outsiders” (Assamese and Bengalis) mainly in order to whip up popular support for their radical cause. The prolonged and bloody campaign for the creation of a semi-autonomous ‘Bodoland’ embracing an area that stretches along the northern banks of Brahmaputra river has drawn strength from two sources – the resentment of the Bodo/Kachari tribes against Assamese domination, and their traditional animosity towards the so-called “ādivasi” (now outnumbering the Bodo/Kachari) who are believed to have migrated into this area in the 19th century. Finally, there are the frequent outbursts of violence between the Naga and the Kuki tribal groups in Manipur, each regarding the other as intruder. The Naga insurgents, meanwhile, have embarked upon a campaign for the creation of a “Greater Nagaland” that would extend well beyond the frontiers of the State of Nagaland as demarcated at present. To sum up, India’s hold over its North-East is certainly much more secure today than it was at independence, or even at the time of the Sino-Indian War of the early 1960s. Yet there is still a great deal of spatial variation in the effectiveness of the institutions of government in this region. Indeed, over some of its localities, government authority is either non-existent or is confined to what could be enforced by the armed forces.
Post a Comment