Internal security strategy in India

ABSTRACT

The conventional wisdom among many analysts and policy-makers is that India’s central government has followed a fairly consistent internal security policy by deploying an “iron first in a velvet glove” that attacks irreconcilable armed groups, while holding open the door to mainstream politics for moderates. This article argues that this wisdom is incorrect. It instead offers a more political explanation of government strategy, showing that Delhi cares much more about some kinds of groups and conflicts than others, leading to a diverse pattern of strategies toward armed actors. Central government strategy is driven by varying political resolve for crackdowns and varying political space for either deal-making or neglect. Rather than a shared general approach, there is a far more selective and complex pattern of strategy. The paper examines both counterinsurgent conflicts and the murkier realm of private armies and armed political parties that blend “normal” politics with violence.

Notes

1. Sumit Ganguly and David P Fidler, Eds. India and Counterinsurgency : Lessons Learned, Asian Security Studies. (London, UK: Routledge, 2009); Vivek Chadha, Indian Army’s Approach to Counter Insurgency Operations (New Delhi, India: Institute for Defence Studies & Analysis, 2016).

2. Paul Staniland, “Armed Politics and the Study of Intrastate Conflict,” Journal of Peace Research 54 (2017): 459–67.

3. See Bethany Lacina, Rival Claims: Ethnic Violence and Territorial Autonomy Under Indian Federalism (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2017) for an account that focuses on electoral incentives as a driver of accommodation and repression.

4. On the Congress’ political project, see, among many others, Ramachandra Guha, India after Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy (New York, NY: Ecco, 2007); Sumit Sarkar, Modern India, 1885–1947 (Delhi, India: Macmillan India, 2002).

5. Paul R. Brass, Language, Religion and Politics in North India (London, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1974); Giovanni Capoccia, Lawrence Sáez, and Eline de Rooij, “When State Responses Fail: Religion and Secessionism in India 1952–2002,” The Journal of Politics 74 (2012): 101022; Steven Wilkinson, “Which Group Identities Lead to Most Violence? Evidence from India,” in Order, Conflict, and Violence, edited by Kalyvas, N. Stathis, Ian Shapiro, and Tarek Masoud (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

6. For an overview of the internal security system, see V. Balachandran, Keeping India Safe: The Dilemma of Internal Security (New Delhi, India: HarperCollins, 2017).

7. Ian Talbot and Gurharpal Singh, The Partition of India (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

8. Charles Chasie, The Naga Imbroglio : A Personal Perspective (Kohima, India: Standard Printers & Publishers, 1999); S. C. Dev, Nagaland, the Untold Story (Calcutta, India: Gouri Dev, 1988); M. Horam, Naga Insurgency: The Last Thirty Years (New Delhi, India: Cosmo Publications, 1988).

9. Anubha Bhonsle, Mother, Where’s My Country: Looking for Light in the Darkness of Manipur (New Delhi, India: Speaking Tiger Books, 2016); John Parratt, Wounded Land: Politics and Identity in Modern Manipur (New Delhi, India: Mittal Publications, 2005).

10. For historical background, see Marcus Franda, Radical Politics in West Bengal, 1^st ed. (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1971).

11. Prabhash Dutta, “Kerala: How Cult of Political Violence Became New Normal in God’s Own Country.” India Today, March 3, 2017, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/kerala-rss-cpm/1/895908.html.

12. Paul Brass, “The Punjab Crisis and the Unity of India,” in India’s Democracy: An Analysis of Changing State-Society Relations, edited by Atul Kohli (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 169–213; C. Christine Fair, “Lessons from India’s Experience in the Punjab, 1978–1993,” India and Counterinsurgency: Lessons Learned, edited by Sumit Ganguly and David P Fidler (London, UK: Routledge, 2009), Chapter 8.

13. Sumantra Bose, Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003); Sumit Ganguly, The Crisis in Kashmir: Portents of War, Hopes of Peace, Woodrow Wilson Center Series (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1997).

14. Paul Staniland, “Kashmir Since 2003: Counterinsurgency and the Paradox of ‘Normalcy’,” Asian Survey 53 (2013): 931–57.

15. Assamese politicians had vigorously resisted autonomy-seeking movements in the hills after independence. On the rise of ULFA, see Sanjib Baruah, India Against Itself: Assam and the Politics of Nationality (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999).

16. Prakash Louis, People Power: The Naxalite Movement in Central Bihar (Delhi, India: Wordsmiths, 2002); Rabindra Ray, The Naxalites and Their Ideology, Oxford India Paperbacks, 2nd ed. (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002).

17. Ashwani Kumar, Community Warriors: State, Peasants and Caste Armies in Bihar (New Delhi , India: Anthem Press, 2009).

18. Thomas Blom Hansen, The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999); Christophe Jaffrelot, India’s Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in North India (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2003).

19. Paul Staniland, “Armed Politics and the Study of Intrastate Conflict,” Journal of Peace Research 54 (2017): 459–67; Paul Staniland, “Militias, Ideology, and the State,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59 (2015): 770–93.

20. For broader research on government responses to armed mobilization, see Barbara Walter, Reputation and Civil War: Why Separatist Conflicts Are So Violent (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Vincent Boudreau, Resisting Dictatorship: Repression and Protest in Southeast Asia (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Scott Straus, Making and Unmaking Nations: War, Leadership, and Genocide in Modern Africa (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015).

21. Brass, Language, Religion, and Politics in North India.

22. Javier Auyero, Routine Politics and Violence in Argentina: The Gray Zone of State Power (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

23. For an overview of India’s counterinsurgency campaigns, see, Anit Mukherjee, “India’s Experience with Insurgency and Counterinsurgency,” in The Routledge Handbook of Asian Security Studies, edited by Sumit Ganguly, Andrew Scobell, and Joseph Liow (New York, NY: Routledge Publications, 2009).

24. Paul Staniland, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place Insurgent Fratricide, Ethnic Defection, and the Rise of Pro-State Paramilitaries,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 56 (2012): 16–40.

25. Sanjib Baruah, Durable Disorder: Understanding the Politics of Northeast India (New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 2005).

26. Sanjoy Hazarika, Strangers of the Mist: Tales of War and Peace from India’s Northeast (New Delhi, India: Viking, Penguin Books India, 1994).

27. Bhonsle, Mother, Where’s My Country?

28. Baruah, Durable Disorder.

29. Subir Bhaumik, Troubled Periphery: Crisis of India’s North East (Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2009).

30. Prakash Louis, People Power: The Naxalite Movement in Central Bihar (Wordsmiths, 2002); Rabindra Ray, The Naxalites and Their Ideology, Oxford India Paperbacks, 2nd ed. (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002).

31. See, for instance, Ministry of Home Affairs, Annual Report, 1983 (New Delhi, India: Government of India, 1983).

32. Cf. Fidler and Ganguly 2009, Rajagopalan 2008.

33. On the various factors influencing groups’ decisions about how to position themselves, see Wendy Pearlman, Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement, 1st ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Peter Krause, Rebel Power: Why National Movements Compete, Fight, and Win, 1st ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2017); Stephen John Stedman, “Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes,” International Security 22 (1997): 5–53.

34. On the origins of these politics, see Atul Kohli, Democracy and Discontent: India’s Growing Crisis of Governability (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

35. On Mumbai, see Thomas Blom Hansen, Wages of Violence: Naming and Identify in Postcolonial Bombay (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).

36. Hansen, The Saffron Wave; Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1996).

37. On other cases, see John Sidel, Capital, Coercion, and Crime: Bossism in the Philippines (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999); Patrick Barron, Sana Jaffrey, and Ashutosh Varshney, “When Large Conflicts Subside: The Ebbs and Flows of Violence in Post-Suharto Indonesia,” Journal of East Asian Studies 16 (2016): 191–217; and Gayer, Laurent, Karachi: Ordered Disorder and the Struggle for the City (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014).

38. On the distinctive attributes of medium-capacity states, see Shivaji Mukherjee, “Why Are the Longest Insurgencies Low Violence? Politician Motivations, Sons of the Soil, and Civil War Duration,” Civil Wars 16 (2014): 172–207. On weak and failed states, see Roessler, Philip, Ethnic Politics and State Power in Africa: The Logic of the Coup-Civil War Trap (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

39. Straus, Making and Unmaking Nations, notes the historical construction of threat perception.

40. Paul Staniland, “Armed Groups and Militarized Elections,” International Studies Quarterly 59 (2015): 694–705.

41. Nazih Richani, Systems of Violence: The Political Economy of War and Peace in Colombia (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2002).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul Staniland

Paul Staniland is an Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.