India as a ‘crypto-ethnic democracy’: the dynamics of ‘control’ in relation to peripheral ethnic minorities

Abstract

What type of democracy is multi-ethnic India, and how has it maintained territorial unity since Independence? I argue that India is best coded as a ‘crypto-ethnic democracy’, in contrast to traditional ‘consensual’ and ‘consociational’ interpretations, specifically in relation to its peripheral religious/ethnic minority groups. This argument is demonstrated through three interrelated themes: (1) nation/state-building, legitimating ideology and nationality construction; (2) ethnofederalism, regional political parties and ethnic peace accords; and (3) national security legislation, human rights and state-sponsored pogroms. The new conceptual formulation of ‘crypto-ethnic democracy’ integrates ‘control’ with both ‘consensus’ and ‘consociationalism’ within democracy. ‘Crypto-ethnic democracy’ also adds to existing typologies of multi-ethnic democracies, including differentiating the de facto dynamics of ‘control’ from the de jure institutions identified in traditional models of ‘ethnic democracy’. It is argued that the concept of ‘crypto-ethnic democracy’ has significant conceptual and comparative value for scholars.

Keywords:

• India
• ethnicity
• democracy
• crypto-ethnic democracy
• ethnic democracy
• control

Acknowledgement

I wish thank the two anonymous external reviewers of Third World Quarterly whose incisive and constructive comments helped refine my conceptualization and the empirical content of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The term ‘crypto-ethnic democracy’ was first mentioned by Smooha (2002, 430). With the exception of this single, brief mention, it has not been theorised further in any detail.

2 For a discussion of various forms of ‘control’, see Lustick (1979).

3 For an example, see Brass (1988).

4 The concept of ‘consociational democracy’ was first elucidated by Lijphart (1969), and was subsequently elaborated in his classic work Lijphart (1977).

5 For an example, see Kohli (2001).

6 For an example, see Das Gupta (2001).

7 A truncated Punjabi-speaking state, with a de facto Sikh majority, was created in 1966.

8 For more detailed analysis, see Das (2005).

9 For a political history of the Sikh separatist movement, see Chima (2010).

10 For details of the Naga case, see Baruah (2020, 100–26).

11 For a systematic analysis, see Amnesty International (2019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jugdep S. Chima

Jugdep S. Chima is Associate Professor of political science at Hiram College (Ohio, USA). He is the author of The Sikh Separatist Insurgency in India: Political Leadership and Ethnonationalist Movements (SAGE Publications, 2010) and editor of Ethnic Subnationalist Insurgencies in South Asia: Identities, Interests, and Challenges to State Authority in South Asia (Routledge, 2015). He is currently working on a book-length manuscript on ethnicity, separatism and nation/state-building in India’s Northeast.