The Splits and Tugs of Indian
Society. An Account of the Features in Indian Society which have, so far,
Stabilised the Ethnic Conflict-Ridden Country.
by Hansi Elsbacher, B.A.
This essay modifies the competition
model of ethnic mobilisation, in that it tries to point out the necessity
in distinguishing between mobilisation of ethnic or social movements and
the outright, often armed fight for the establishment of political or geographical
independence. The case studies have been the last decade’s ethnic movements
arising on the Indian subcontinent, all of them not exactly fitting in
the stereotype of what may count as an ethnic movement. Actually, such
talk is part of the rhetoric pervading the arena of social conflict, and
serves to legitimate or to delegitimise the mobilisation of other groups.
This rhetoric is to be taken ernestly, since it is in the discrediting
of neighbouring ethnies, that the own one is formed, the history and the
culture determine along which lines the ethnic recruitment will take place.
The structures of Indian society that have developed throughout the ages
serve mainly to stabilise, and it is in the imbalance of these that a crumbling
of the Indian Union may become real.
2 Methodology.
The competition model is a primordialist
view of ethnic conflict developed by Barth and others, which claims that
the competition for resources always constitutes the underlying reason
for ethnic, and therefore social, conflict. It draws on the rationalist
school of thought, and has been developed and extended through the past
two or three decades.
Max Weber, the German sociologist,
in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Economy and Society) stressed the importance
of that movements such as ethnic ones are based on a constructed, not objective,
reality as perceived by the groups mobilising. The belief, which I call
subjective, that an ethnic group has certain common points of reference
or features on which identity, therefore exclusion of others, has been
retained in the competition model. I will try below to try to show that
these marks of identification are determined by the competing ethnic groups
in particular, and society in general. In this, the history of ethnic animosities
plays a significant role in that it emphasises traditional splits and divisions,
therefore also the possible marks of identification.
Frederick Bart, a norwegian sociologist,
contributed to the theory mainly by his concentrating on boundaries.
In the rationalist school of thought, the number or the amount of possible
boundaries should be determining factors as regards both ethnic identification
and possibly also as regards the ethnic group’s success in achieving independence
from the nation-state to which they „belong“.
In its most recent form, Olzak and
Nagel claim that modernisation like industrialisation, urbanisation, and
an increase in the number and extent of opportunities to compete and organise
politically make up the main conditions for what they call ethnic mobilisation.
Industrialisation increases the inter-ethnic competition for jobs and wages,
through modernisation. Further up the road, we can add other collective
resources like education, housing etc. With modernisation follows migration
and urbanisation. With increased inter-ethnic contact, members of different
ethnic groups realise their membership, which may have so far been hidden
to them. Networks of contact, for instance, serve firstly to gain competitive
advantages in the hunt for these collective resources , and secondly, to
increase ethnic identification as well as distinguishing one ethnie from
the other ones. In Olzak and Nagel’s words, the ethnic boundaries get activated.
Increased scales of organisation help
mobilise the larger groups, at the expense of smaller ones. The smaller
get incorporated with the larger groups. Increased chances of cooptation
of interests therefore should help ignite mobilisation.
Expansion of the secondary and tertiary sectors
of the economy increase urbanisation and set an end to the segregation
of labour markets, thus increase competition.
Expansion of the political sector ignites
ethnic mobilisation by introducing ethnic questions into politics.
Supranational organisations take away power
from the state level, by giving it to ethnic minorities.
„(T)he presumed consolidating processes of state- and nationbuilding rest upon the same ideological base as a launching point for subnationalism - that of self-determination.“
Ethnicity is consequently to be seen
chiefly as an instrument, the use of which may provide members of the ethnic
group in question (perhaps only a few of them) with rewards like surplus
value, jobs, education, social benefits et cetera.
Some nation-states have more of a pluralist
character than others do. The more ethnicly homogenous or segregated the
society is, the less danger will there be that ethnic conflict gets ignited.
In a country which consists of many different minorities, the threat of
conflict will always be existing. Particularly so in times of modernisation
and deregulation of segregated markets.
„For conflict to be widespread and intense,
it must be social rather than interpersonal...“
It follows that ethnic mobilisation
is a social movement depending on increased interethnic contact.
According to the Split Market Theory,
developed a.o. by Michael Hechter, the existence of segregated markets
of labour hinders the outbreak of ethnic mobilisation. When the borders
between segregated markets then dissolve, interethnic competition will
call for mobilisation.
This leads us to the role of the state.
At the interior level, this is a stabilising one. All regimes have reasons
to defend stability. Turmoil only makes foreign investment impossible and
financial planning difficult, and certainly no Government wants to give
away regions which are lucrative from a budgetary point of view.
Internal colonialism refers to the
state of affairs, when one part of the country (usually the centre) is
accused by another (the periphery) of an extraction of the surplus values
extracted in that region. As we will see later, this is a regular topic
in the recruitment of members (perhaps in the strength of) for one ethnic
group, and in their identification (i.e. their prospects of in-group unity).
A definition of how exactly mobilisation
develops, is only vaguely hinted at by the authors, apart from the so-called
activation of boundaries which are seen as largely fluid. If it isn’t accordingly
defined, there will be no way of distinguishing between the different stages
of ethnic mobilisation. Because of this, I will suggest that mobilisation
could be seen as a first step in the fight for independence from a larger
state, a discoursive step, rather than one signified by concrete acts of
violence a.s.o. These may come later, as a second step, but will always
be preceded in a change of discourse in the direction of a more ethnocentric
view of the own culture, at the expense of the competing ones or the „state
ideology“.
The advantages arising out of this
are firstly that movements which haven’t become violent, still can be seen
as mobilising. The mobilisation, the transformation of discourse through
identification or ethnocentrism, and the continued armed fight for independence,
will thus be given a continuous pattern of transformation, usable for further
research on the topic. By either chopping up the path towards separatism,
or by seeing it as a continuum, it would be possible to examine both the
synchronic and the diachronic aspects of how ethnic mobilisation and separatism
work. Secondly, this also gives us the option to compare ethnic with other
forms of social conflict, like the oppression by the majority of one or
many of the minorities or, in everyday language „nationalism“ or „racism“.
Here, the term race will be replaced by ethnicism on the grounds of skin
colour, and nationalism and „nation“ seen as sentiments for one cultural
nation, one ethnie that is, without paying respect to whether this ethnie
has the status of majority (i.e. backed by a national Government) or not,
in which case it is a minority which may challenge the nation-state.
Thirdly, it will give us the chance to crystallise the competition model,
and to clarify some of the ambiguities present in the non-distinction between
mobilisation and actual and outright fighting for separatism and/or independence.
In the latter case, the claims for
a separate piece of land will have to be replaced by for instance increased
shares of job and education quotas or higher salaries a.s.o., but the question
of how social mobilisation based on ethnic identification develops will
nevertheless be clarified.
Susan Olzak means that the framework
of competition theory accent the changing economic and political rankings
and strategies favouring ethnic mobilisation over other possible ones.
It will however not explain to us under what immediate circumstances mobilisation
arises. By this I mean where the border between mobilisation and non-mobilisation
is drawn, or for that matter when mobilisation turns violent.
This is difficult, since the reasons
for ethnic mobilisation are subjective. It is, like Bèlanger and
Pinard and others point out, only when one group perceives itself as being
unfairly treated, that they mobilise. The link between the mobiliser’s
arguments and actual reality is rather arbitrary, or like Olzak and Nagel
put it:
„...ethnicity (is)...relational
and partly volitional.“
How then can we causally link modernisation
with ethnic mobilisation and violence? Fact is, without more careful scrutiny,
we can’t. The collapse of segregated markets and ethnic mobilisation may
only be simultaneous in time. Switzerland is mentioned as a telling example,
where many different ethnic minorities live peacefully together.
Here, the role of the state and its consociational politics is at work
in combination with a slow and steady growth of the economy. But if one
ethnic group managed to establish independence, would not the other groups
follow even in Switzerland? Modernisation therefore sets the stage for
likely ethnic mobilisation. If, and to what extent, ethnic uprising occurs
is largely in the hands of the state and society.
My aim is to try to develop this argument
further, using examples of Indian ethnic mobilisation, violence, and conflict
during the past decade - before and after the reinitiation of the reforms
of the economy - in order to see the connection reforms and ethnic conflict
may have. I will pay particular respect to the Indian state’s efforts
and strategies to incorporate ethnic minorities both by the use of secularism
and to quench social uprising by the use of force. We will see that Indian
society is divided along centre-peripheral lines, which could seem
to make political cooptation and therefore success in separatism easy.
But it is also bound together by various networks, which account for interdependence
and stability. The distinction between mobilisation and violent uprising,
which is missing in the competition model as developed so far, is vital
in studying the differences between different ethnic movements in India,
and it is, as will become clear in this essay, crucial for studying the
role of the State in ethnic conflict.
In this sense ethnicism is not just
subjective, but also relative to its surroundings in that the way an ethnie
mobilises will depend on how its members can both identify with the group
and distinguish themselves from other, „competing“, groups. The mark of
identification (language, history, religion etc.) should further have some
effect on the recruitment of members, hence the popular support it can
gather, implicitly seen in how successful it will be. But in this respect,
ethnicism isn’t subjective at all. It is instead aimed at creating unity
among the group members and excluding others from it. History, competing
groups, and the surroundings - a.o. the State - determine whether it will
draw on skin colour, religion, language, or historical sentiments etc.
What I call the second step is the outbreak
of violence in an armed fight for independence. Of course, there may be
in-betweens, like political organisation (like Olzak and Nagel claim),
demonstrations etc. But when all comes round, an ethnic group is an ethnic
group only as long as it seeks independence from the Government of the
nation-state (here the area administered by and under the jurisdiction
of the national Government) they „belong to“. This independence is to be
seen as both geographical and political. That is, it includes both claims
for a separate homeland and political freedom or independence for the group
(c.f. positive freedom from exterior restraints - and negative freedom
to do something). The Hindu nationalist movement, even if violently purging
Muslims, had claims to increased independence, really increased economic
and political power, for its members. Being the ethnic group in majority,
they cannot lay claims to a separate homeland. To do this, they need to
take to ethnic cleansing, as which the riots can be seen.
If the ethnic group can go through
the legitimate and established political channels it will not be an ethnic
movement anymore. Here I differ from the competition model’s advocates.
More often, the opposite is the case as seen below.
Since my definition of mobilisation
as a change in discourse could comprise almost all different ethnies in
any country, it is not very useful for research. My object of study must
therefore be the second step, the armed fight for independence.
Two of my case studies will be the
Punjab and Kashmir. These have been chosen because they have transcended
to violence, they occurred nearly simultaneously, and they challenge not
only stability, but also the Hindu majority’s religious grip on power.
In order to set these in perspective, I will compare them with the rightwing
Hinduism, erupting after the initiation of reforms, having no claims for
a separate homeland (a semi-ethnic movement?) and challenging secularism
(indicative of a split of the centre?). My fourth object of study is one
ethnic movement, which hasn’t (yet) resorted to violence, and therefore
within my definition, has only mobilised, not taken the second step. It
differs from the others in that it is situated mainly in the south (where
ethnic animosities have been scarce lately, whereas before independence
from the north was a feature). My intention is to compare these in order
to see firstly the differences in the grounds of mobilisation/eruption
of violence, which I see as determined by the surroundings, and possibly
contributing to the success of a separatist movement, secondly how these
instances of mobilisation or uprising may be related to each other and
society, and thirdly to see how the Indian scenario differs from or verifies
the competition model’s theses. All have to do with modernisation, and
that is what one could expect the financial reforms to bring about.
The reforms, brought about as parts
of the structural adjustment demanded by international money lenders, can
be seen as the expression of supranational organisations. The prime mover
in India, I will claim, is not primarily the reforms as such, but the weakening
of the State-level. In the next chapter I elaborate on this, reforms and
the erosion of the Indian State-class.
4.1 The State Class
The Indian State defends stability,
and central vested interest by means of a large bureaucratic elite. The
nation-building Congress party was part of the Indian independence movement,
and has been in power for most of the time since independence was granted
in 1947. Their large administrative apparatus was inherited from the British,
and it numbers up to 18 million state employees. An Import Substitution
Policy, which was started in 1957 was brought about by a lack of foreign
currency. This aimed at national self-determination and industrial development
in protection of Indian industrialists, employment, and the poor.
Industrial or technological stagnation occurred as a result of this. A
licensing system for imports and production decided in five-year plans
- or the License Permit Quota Raj as critics prefer to call it - was introduced
and it gave rise to the increased power of the administration by their
positions as rent-seekers extracting surplus values in a way that increases
inefficiency and corruption in the state sector and as receivers of bribes
and to the Congress party who, having governed the country for most of
the time since independence, appoint these.
4.2. The centre
The state-class is a universal phenomenon
and hard to define. The denominations range from state-class through
political hierarchy to establishment or social elite, or a combination
of these. Who the members are, varies even more. I suggest that it is a
structural power, not a concrete political body, which strives towards
the centre. It has a stabilising role in guarding Indian secularism and
therefore, as well as on the grounds of historical Hindu-Muslim animosities
dating as far back as to the first millennia A.D., stability. In
India the centre variably includes members of Congress, the administration,
parts of the middle to upper classes and castes, and more indirectly others.
In brief, everyone with a temporal or permanent interest in protecting
the „old“ Indian system and expressing it politically by uniting against
peripheral uprisings or what they see as other „threats“.
Being the defender of Indian unity,
the centre further has to oppose the tugs from the periphery. All these
challenge the reason why India is a nation. That reason is secularism,
and part of what one might call „the state ideology“. Indians from the
educated classes were early employed in the British colonial administration,
and as a result administrators today come from the same sections of the
population, which includes influential ethnic groups like the Sikhs and
the Farsis. Many have been employed in state-owned companies by means
of connections, i.e. nepotism, or maybe even by heritage. As protectors
of stability, the members of the centre have previously had an interest
in defending the Indian state’s secularism. The secularism of the Indian
state differs from that of Western democracies, in which it mainly means
a separation of the church from the state or vice versa. In India the principle
of Sarva Dharma Samabhava - „equal respect for all religions“ is an intention
to be able to incorporate believers of all different faiths, not putting
the majority Hindus in an advantaged position. Historically, it has served
to overbridge the gap between the Hindus, which account for 83% of the
929 million population and the largest minority group the Muslims, with
11%. .
„(T)he very idea that the State should
become the defender of one religion, or one sect within a religion, was
alien to the essence of Hinduism.“
4.3. The reforms and the erosion of the
centre
Until recently, the centre could be
said to have held India in a firm grip (not without challenge of course)
by the largesse of the state sector and the administration. One big part
has been the Congress party. But today Congress is ridden by interior splits
and personal mud-slinging and has been losing ground to other competitors
since the 1980s. The weakening of Congress is often ascribed to Indira
Gandhi, who in the eighties abolished in-party-democracy and introduced
nepotist appointment of ministers etc. But the centre has, with different
means, succeeded in keeping together the world’s second most populous country
as well as managed to quell the world’s largest ethnic movement, the rightwing
Hindu movement. Before, Singh claims, India’s ethnic minorities have
often allied with „secular Congress“ because they were minorities, not
because of ideology. If so, there should be a clear connection between
the decline of Congress and increased ethnic instability. Most likely is
that the two are mutually reinforcing.
Congress and their administrators have
lost a lot of ground to the Newly Rich Elite, the NRE, or the large and
growing middle class at present consisting of about 250 million people.
These didn’t arise as a result of the recent reforms, but out of the import
substition policy, which allowed a large number of small traders and craftsmen
to set up their own business, without being challenged by large-scale industries,
multinationals, and foreign competition. The group therefore arose
before the reforms of the economy were initiated. In the late eighties,
the group numbered 180 million. It is therefore reasonable to regard
the reforms as not (yet) having negatively affected the size of this group.
The end of the anti-multinational and
protectionist policy was brought about in the late eighties, but the initiation
of reforms (i.e. the deregulation of the licensing system for imports and
production) was started by P.V. Narasimha Rao in 1991. This was largely
because India - just like in 1957 - needed credit from the IMF and the
World Bank. The budget deficit was large due to the fall of trading partner
and military ally the Soviet Union, and left-out oil imports from Iraq
due to UN-imposed sanctions during the Gulf War in the early 1990s. The
conditions for credit liability were that India took measures against the
tariff- and non-tariff trade barriers, the large budget deficit, the inflation,
the huge state-sector and the corruption and inefficiency therein, and
that the borders were opened up to foreign investment and free capital
and market flows. In brief the reforms aim at deregulating government intervention
in as many areas as possible of the economy. Criticism of reforms
in general has mainly come from outside the political establishment and
opposition. Political parties seem convinced that reforms of the economy
are good in nature and only spokesmen for various vested interests debate
which sector to regulate next.
The reforms have not brought about
the arisal of the petit bourgeouis NRE group, but maybe challenged them.
Like in many other Asian economies, for instance China and Vietnam, the
middle class has become a strong political and economic factor. Of course,
Congress and the centre have lost a lot of support, mainly among the sections
of the population who previously gained from their privileged positions
as state-class members, but who have been able to make a fortune in one
way or another, who now sympathise with other parties. A rightwing Hindu
movement of middle-class supporters could be one possible consequence of
this loss of power that the centre has suffered. But Shankar Jha points
out, that this rightwing Hindu movement started before the reforms (in
the early eighties), and that it probably stems or has caught speed from
the Mandala problemacy, in which the middle to upper castes were involved.
The Mandala question was that of whether the quotas for employment in the
state sector should be reserved for the lower castes and the casteless
(the OBCs, other backward castes), like the Janata Dal or National Front
Government and its leader V.P. Singh claimed or whether the 27% of these
jobs should be reserved for the poor (which would also include middle-
to high-caste members), something which the middle to upper-caste student
movement vehemently argued. This led to the resignation of that coalition
Government, and possibly also to the strength of the middle-class supported
rightwing Hinduism.
Kolodner claims that this rightwing
Hinduism may now have come to a halt. Fact is, Congress has won back
some of the states lost in elections a few years ago to the Bharathiya
Janata Party, BJP, which was backed by the other groups in the rightwing
Hindu movement and which makes up their political wing. But this seems
a bit naive, since the history of India has been ridden with splits between
Hindus and non-Hindus. I cannot see one single reason for why this is supposed
to have come to a permanent end.
Nevertheless, the centre has been weakened
and secularism has begun to be seriously challenged by the middle class
- a relatively new and influential group in Indian politics.
5. Centre versus priphery
Not only the NRE challenges the centre.
There are tugs in India between the rich and the poor sections of the population,
between different regions, between rural and urban classes, between different
political decision levels, and perhaps between the north and the south.
But many of these seem dormant. At least they are not the conflict parameters
in Indian society which ignite violence today. The main conflict parameter,
I would say, is the centre versus periphery conflict in its essence. The
different actors striving in one way or other to preserve the Union Government’s
authority are opposed to the other, peripheral, groups who try to cooptate,
mainly on an ethnic basis. It is mainly because cooptation has failed,
that India still is one.
Lately, ethnic mobilisation has increased,
especially since the mid-1980s, before the reforms to deregulate government
intervention in the economy took speed. Even if the reforms and the arisal
of rightwing Hinduism started simultaneously, they cannot be verified to
be directly related. But since many things indicate an erosion of the centre
- ethnic movements, a challenge from Hindus to secularism, a splitting
up of Congress and a growing middle class a.s.o. - it seems tempting to
try to set these in connection with another.
Only increased ethnic competition for
collective resources or urbanisation and political organisation doesn’t
suffice for an explanation of why ethnic conflict arises. In the case of
ethnic Hinduism, the direct link between ethnicism and prospective gains
may be protruding, just like the competition modelists predict. But there
are other explanations. The Saffron Resurgence, as the Hindu nationalist
movement is also called, was preceded by protests, some of them violent,
against the use of English or local languages beside Hindi, by the demonstrations
against the Mandala job and education quotas, according to which more members
of the lowers castes should be allowed to get employment and higher education,
and also by an initially outspoken resistance by the BJP to an opening-up
of trade and capital borders. In all this, the ethnocentric discourse of
the Hindu movement was predominant. Shankar Jha means that the Saffron
resurgence had tried to mobilise in this way years before the actual outbreak
of violence. Like the competition modelists claim, when the segregation
of markets gets overturned, ethnicism increasingly mobilises. It is important
to set this in perspective to the splitting up of the centre, but it could
also be a reaction against other ethnic uprisings in north India in the
eighties. If the neighbouring group mobilises, insecurity will flourish
and therefore prospects of recruitment, perhaps cooptation with the other
mobilisers, will increase. Shankar Jha, Kolodner, and Gurharpal Singh all
see ethnicism as a response to the efforts of Congress to keep the strength
of the centre against the states, where other parties increasingly tend
to obtain power. I suggest that even if increased ethnic competition may
provide the basis for insecurity, ethnic „mobilisation“ (including the
fight for independence) should in fact be seen as reactions to the centre’s
and the rest of the periphery’s tugs, a joining-up for battle. One thing
which speaks for this is that a change in the type of Government control
executed and the taking of the second step, often seem to come together,
which I will show, and the authors mentioned above claim. It is therefore
vital for the ruption of ethnic violence that the State changes stance
in controlling prospective sources of unrest.
5.1 Regulating stability from within.
The centre takes measures against the
periphery’s strains in protection of Indian unity, which relies on secularism
of the state. Because of the nature of ethnic movements (they want to withdraw
from the State), they have a peripheral role as opposed to the centre.
Secularism is threatened by religious groups, and preferably by those who
distinguish themselves from Hinduism. As seen above, the split between
Muslims and Hindus has been existing since India’s period as a British
colony and even resulted in the creation of Pakistan. Hindu nationalism
has existed in India at least since the 1870s. Indian stability relies
therefore mainly on a balance between the different religious camps (and
the Hindu one). Cooptation among non-Hindu groups exerts a threat to the
centre and the Hindu majority. The State’s or the centre’s strategy in
this has been as follows:
The Union Government has imposed central
„President’s Rule“ and postponed elections to the state assembly in Punjab
(President’s Rule was imposed and held between May 1987 and February 1992)
as well as more recently in Kashmir, where the state governments had fallen
into the hands of the opposition (read the periphery).
In the Punjab, an anti-terrorist policy
by means of legislation and reorganisation of security forces has helped
the Union Government to keep the area in control.
Also, the centre has revitalised the
village council, the Panchayat Raj, in order to take away the power from
the many opposition parties in various state governments, and give it to
the poor. The concept Panchayat Raj has been existing in India for
centuries, and its first revitalisation (of the Ur-Panchayat in the early
stages of the Indian independence movement against the British) was a brainchild
of Mahatma Gandhi’s, and can therefore be said to apply to symbolic and
historical sentiments among Indians.
The centre has finally installed half
a million Paramilitary Forces, responsible to the Union Government in New
Delhi and not like the police to the state, in many areas of the nation,
particularly where separatism might be a threat. The misnomer Border Security
Forces is indicative of the fear that separatism comes from the periphery.
If it were directed against outside threats, the regular military forces
would be strengthened, now these are complemented with forces which could
in fact pose a threat to them. It is common in Inda, that new political
bodies are created by the Centre in opposition to the periphery, when the
old ones come to a standstill, and cannot function.
Gurharpal Singh means that there are
two ways which the centre uses to regulate stability; by hegemonic and
violent control.
„(W)hereas violent control resembles overt
domination, suppression, and open confrontation, hegemonic control combines
Gramscian elements of coercion with some degree of consent.“
Instances of violent control have been
mentioned. To hegemonic control we can ascribe all politics executed culturally
and politically by the Centre in order to create unity and consent with
opposition, including various features of the Hindu culture and media,
to which I will return.
5.2 Co-optation
There are many tugs between different
parts and groups in Indian society, and because of the federative character
also between Union Government and the states. The Union Government, Congress,
and the administration who make up the centre stand in opposition to the
state governments of the Indian Union, which sometimes work centrifugally,
i.e. with the periphery against the centre. It is therefore very
much up to ethnic movements in India to join sides with the state government
in order to secure or obtain an increased degree of independence.
If the ethnic movements, perhaps only
a few of them and perhaps with other peripheral interests, were united
against the centre their success would seem to be granted. But co-optation
is made difficult not only because of the centre’s stabilising role, violent
control, and so-far strong grip on power, but also because of systems of
hierarchy, control, and dependence imposed on India, in other words the
cultural hegemonic control. Three of the strongest of such systems are
corruption, caste, and servant structures.
6. Corruption, caste, and servant structures
as uniting features.
What these have in common is that they
are very hard to do anything about, because they tie up the majority of
Indians with each other in systems of control, hierarchy, and interdependence.
Only uppercaste Hindus benefit from the caste-system, but everyone in India
is involved in it. Corruption, here mainly bribery, serves the same goal
but accounts for an upward and centripetal distribution of income. Servant
structures and the informal market are based in caste and account for the
large informal sector, and distribution downwards through the caste system.
6.1. The caste system.
The caste sytem was brought to India
more than 4000 years ago by Indoaryan invaders from the north. The main
caste groups are the Brahmins (Priests), Vaishiyas(Soldiers), Kshatriyas(Merchants
etc.), and Sudras(Labourers etc.). Thousands of sub-groups or Jatis can
be defined between the Brahmin priestly or intellectual caste, through
public servants, merchants, traders, to the untouchables, the casteless,
the Harijans, or the backward classes, as the denominations go for those
below the caste system. In brief, it can be defined as an extremely rigid
and conservative system preserving the hierarchical structure of society,
not very different from the Confucian Chinese „Guanxi“ hierarchy according
to which everyone in society stands in special relationship to each other,
with the emperor as the man on top. By oppression of the darker skinned
southern Dravidian peoples, the pale northerners who in general belong
to the higher castes are favoured. Uprisings have indeed occurred
between these „races“, but been scarce lately.
Physical contact and the sharing of
food or water between people of different caste belongings are the media
by which the taboos are broken, and those of the higher „rank“ so to speak
could get befouled, and those of the lower rank could get punished, by
law or by their Karma, their fate.
Social immobility is non-existing within
terms of caste, since caste also decides which job, education, or employment
one is to have. In spite of the system being declared illegal many years
ago and despite its being (at least openly) denunciated by many, it still
holds human relations in India in a firm grip, especially in rural areas
of the country. The labour markets are therefore segregated in India as
in no other country.
Every living individual, which includes
animals as well as humans, might, according to the Hindu religion, be an
incarnation (a rebirth) of any other deceased being. One’s deeds during
one lifecycle or rebirth, make for which position one is to get in the
next one. If one’s deeds are at the end of one lifecycle pure and good
according to Hindu prescriptions, one will climb the ladder towards exclusion
from life and rebirth, which is pain, and finally reach the state of nirvana,
which means an end to pain and exclusion from the cycles of reincarnation.
If the deeds are found to be less good however, one descends to suffer
one more rebirth as a member of a lower caste, an individual hampered with
misfortune, a sick person, or a woman. In this life, change is as good
as impossible.
Stability is - however unfair this
might sound - one result of the caste-system. It is an ultimate tool for
keeping society stable, people dependent on each other, and the masses
in control. The caste system is both hierarchical and communalistic and
it involves and decides the occupation and place in society for everyone,
even if this is changing in urban, modernised, areas. A great deal of the
Indian State’s secularism can be derived from the communalism in the Hindu
caste system. The nearly complete absence of class-based animosities in
India can be deduced from the strength and intensity with which caste and
other structures operate on Indian society.
6.2. Corruption and nepotism
Even if the caste-system has been outlawed
for many years, it still holds India in its firm grip, and it is generally
seen as „bad“. This is true for corruption as well. Not many would dare
deny that corruption is inherent in the present structure of Indian society.
Bribes in India are paid by the public
to get the public sector work, and to cut down inefficiency and delays
in all sorts of errands. The public servants of lower position are those
who receive the bribes, and upward these through the hierarchy in a pyramidal
fashion. Many depend on this distribution of finances; families,
friends, low-paid state-employees etc.
In the end poverty and a very inequal
distribution of income contribute and add to that many people in India
make a living out of corruption.
The import substitution policy and
an unagile import licensing system may have reinforced the extent of corruption.
Baksheesh however, the Indian language expression for bribery, indicates
its very likely existence before the arrival of the Europeans. The existence
of an old, rigid, inefficient, and much-embracing state bureaucracy may
both be a cause and a result of bribery.
6.3. The servant structures
The inefficiency and corruption in
the state-sector, as well as in Indian society in general, make all errands
time-consuming. Everyone with a more or less regular income has in fact
to employ servants. Many have several ones. The caste the servant belongs
to decides which occupation he or she is to have. A normal household may
have a washerman or a Dhobi, someone who buys groceries, a handyman, and
one or more chefs. All depend on the income from those in the family who
lift regular salaries. Those who are poor and cannot afford servants, make
use of the large informal sector. Of the locals that is, who offer primary
and secondary goods and such services at low cost. In connection with the
vocational immobility imposed by the caste-system, servant structures have
a stabilising effect on Indian society by tying up different groups of
the population with each other.
India is, to sum-up, a stable continent
partly because of corruption, nepotism, and servant structures which make
a large number of people (rich and poor alike), and thereby very much the
system itself, dependent on other parts of society. At a higher level,
internal colonialism makes for a similar sort of interdependence between
different parts of the country. At the lower level, the hegemonic control
of the centre and its option to use violent control have made for balance.
6.4 Sum-up
The existence of the state-class or
the centre may be both a consequence of and a reason for these inextricably
linked and mutually reinforcing phenomena. The caste-system has given rise
to and reinforces social hierarchy, dependence on servant structures, and
social immobility. Stability is a result, and the centre does both benefit
from this system and reinforce it in order to stay in power.
With the reforms, the erosion of and
challenges to the centre have begun. The reformers have started to deregulate
State intervention but not been able to abolish State employees’ and workers’
secured positions (they cannot lawfully be fired), corruption, nepotism,
the servant structures, the existence of a large informal market, and inefficiency
in Government enterprises and in the administration.
As long as caste, corruption, and servant
structures have their firm grip on India and puts her population in mutual
dependence on each other, the peripheral, also the ethnic, groups cannot
successfully co-optate. Neither the political opposition’s constant anguished
cries about corruption, nor laws against the usage of caste have been efficient
in toppling the caste-imposed or -inforcing hierarchies.
Thus, we have once again confronted
the chicken-or-egg-type question; Which of these phenomena reinforces the
others? It would be appropriate to argue that these systems together impose
certain structures on Indian society, which live lives on their own. If
one of the components is swept away, the others will remain and if these
keep the structures of dependence alive, balance will not be challenged.
Ethnic uprisings will therefore as long as this dependence and control-system
exists fail, because of divided loyalties and a lack of popular support.
Further, the caste system has made
for segregated labour markets, particularly in rural areas, where most
of the population lives. This has, until now, largely hindered ethnic separatism
in India.
7. Outbreaks of ethnic separatism in Kashmir,
Punjab and doubtful ones in Tamil Nadu and the Hindu Heartland.
Even so, there have been outbreaks
of separatism, mainly in the North during the past twenty years or so.
As already mentioned, mobilisation cannot be easily measured, so we have
to focus on the second step, the outbreaks of violence. What is it, that
has made for their success/failure? How did they arise? And can their development
be related to any of the competition model’s hypotheses?
Kashmir
The outbreak of separatism in Kashmir
in 1987 followed accusations of centrally rigged state assembly elections,
the cancelling of these, and the subsequent imposition of central rule
on Kashmir by the Union Government. Kashmir’s mobilisation and the early
armed fight for independence were carried out with claims for a homeland
in a Muslim militant fashion. Today the movement’s previous pan-Islamic
image seems to have faded and left the stage for interior splits between
the different groups involved in the militant Jammu and Kashmir Liberation
Front, the JKLF, and the political All-Party Hurriyat Conference, which
comprises 32 parties. At present the talks between the Union Government
in New Delhi and the split-up separatist movement have come to a halt.
Some of the groups fight for separatism, some want an annexation to Pakistan,
and one guerrilla group supports a continued membership of the Indian
union.
Increased competition may have been
vital in spurring this movement, not as a result of reforms of the economy,
which were initiated earlier than the outbreak of separatism, but maybe
as a result of increased tourism in the area; a source for the highly valued
and deeply appreciated foreign currency. Urbanisation was not directly
necessary for the Kashmiris to mobilise.
Kashmiri history is very much the history
of Indian secularism. About 80% of the population of 3,2 million are muslims.
Even though political tugs between the state and the centre have always
been fought, predominantly about the degree of independence as regulated
in article 370 of the Indian constitution. India’s Constituent Assembly
had adopted this article shortly after independence in 1949. The article
states, that it can only be amended by the Kashmir Constituent Assembly,
which was dissolved in 1956. Herein lies the trouble. Kashmir’s specific
status within the Indian constitution cannot legally be altered, and this
has - in the long run - contributed to the eruption of violence.
Societal structures of dependence in
all India and religious diversity in the group may have contributed to
quench the uprising, as well as the immense number of army and paramilitary
troops set in by the Union Government. But where political negotiations
between the Union Government and the state come to a standstill, ethnic
violence erupts. It is therefore in this case not increased scales of political
organisation that contribute to ethnic violence, but a standstill in the
opportunities to work politically. Increased scales of organisation may,
like the competitionists claim, help in the discoursive mobilisation of
ethnic movements.
The Punjab
In the Punjab, the 1984 occupation
of the holy Golden Temple in Amritsar by the separatist group fighting
for an independent Sikh nation, Khalistan, was demolished by Indian Government
troops (operation Bluestar). Since then about 30,000 people have been killed.
This conflict started in 1984, so economic reforms (which were intiated
later) cannot be blamed for the uprising.
„...where ethnic groups have contested, often
violently, the nature of hegemonic control, the Indian (S)tate has resorted
to violent control.“
The Sikhs are distinct as a group and
ethnically aware, and Sikhism is nothing new to India - it has been around
at least since the late 19th century.
Many Sikhs are, like Kashmiris, closely
linked with the political establishment and many of them are successful
traders or have positions in the police and the armed forces. Therefore
they have much to lose in uprising and separatism. Both Sikhs and Kashmiris
have claims for a separate homeland. The Sikhs have a common culture and
a more homogenous religion and a longer history (all important grounds
of identification, recruitment and untiy) to a larger extent than do the
Kashmiris, and neither of the movements has mobilised in a predominantly
urban area.
The Sikhs are influential and organised
politically. According to the competition model chances of political organisation
increase the risk or chance of ethnic mobilisation. But at the same time,
the members of the ethnic group must not be too linked up with the social
or political establishment. Then they have no reason for mobilisation.
The case in the Punjab, according to Singh, differs from this part of the
competition model, which may only be applicable to new or emergent ethnic
groups. There, similar to Kashmir, the local, ethnic, party changed stance
versus the Union Government in the early eighties.
„...the Punjab unit of the Congress Party...has
historically accomodated Sikh political groups, provided they were prepared
to forgo ethnic demands. Since 1967 (!) the efforts of Akali Dal to challenge
hegemonic control have led to a campaign for autonomy...“
This campaign for autonomy led to a
reaction from the centre to implement an anti-terrorist policy with anti-terrorist
legislation, a reorganisation of the state’s security apparatus, imposing
President’s rule, and the cancelling of state elections.
The Indian Union Government (the centre)
and the separatists in the Akali Dal, the political party which during
the fight for geographical independence split up into several smaller fractions,
came on a crash course. Who bears the blame for this? Indira and Rajiv
Gandhi some claim, since they were the first to use President’s rule, a
induced by the fear of ethnic disintegration of the country.
Tamil Nadu
In Tamil Nadu, mobilisation is going
on, but no violence has as yet erupted, partly because of the lack
of a uniting and distinguishing religion. The Tamils have a common culture,
a longer historical heritage, a historical homeland, traditions of anti-Brahmin
sentiments and different skin colour and caste membership than the others,
but still.
India Today of November 15, 1995, claims
that Tamil Nadu is witnessing a resurgence of pro-Eelam (the Tamil homeland
in Sri Lanka) sentiment. Pro-Eelam parties have arranged fasts, made resolutions
for this Tamil homeland. But this is a protest against the Sri Lankan Government’s
offensive against the Tamil Tigers. Miss Jayalalitha, Chief Minister of
Tamil Nadu, hasn’t taken a strong stand against LTTE sympathisers in the
state, the Union Government has declared. But the military has been present
in the state. Even so, it is difficult to tell how strained relations
really are. Congress has never been strong in Tamil Nadu, and they continuously
utter suspicions about international conspiracies among troubled areas.
Both Punjab and Tamil Nadu (and the LTTE by their Government) have been
accused of being supported by Pakistani and/or Chinese militants.
In Tamil Nadu, this can be part of the preparation for the introduction
of violent control.
Closely connected with the Tamil question
is that of a north-south divide in India. Today the southern states Tamil
Nadu and Kerala are very wealthy as compared with much of the north. The
north depends financially on the south to a much larger extent than vice
versa, it is a clearcut example of internal colonialism. But so is the
case in Kashmir, where tourism has made for increased wealth, and the Punjab,
where economic growth followed the land reforms of the so-called Green
revolution. Internal colonialism and unemployment is to my knowledge
claimed to be the reason for all ethnic mobilisation everywhere. In Tamil
Nadu however, as in the south, growth has been slow but steady. Why there
has been no split between the northern Indoaryans and the southern Dravidians,
who distinguish themselves from the Northerners in many ways, can also
be traced to violent control. Especially since the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam, the LTTE, fighting for a Tamil homeland for the ethnic minority
on the Jaffna peninsula in the north and in the eastern parts of the island,
were discovered to operate training camps in Tamil Nadu. Hegemonic control,
because of strains between Congress and the AIADMK government of the state
as well as interdependence-imposing structural features of society like
the caste-system, corruption, and servancy may be present.
Ethnic mobilisation and violence has
been far more common in the North than in the southern parts of the country.
One reason for this may be the longer period of unity in the south. The
invasions from the North in earlier days were frequent and rarely reached
the southern parts of the country. Slow economic growth may have
made for a smooth transition across a possible critical point of ethnic
violence. Further the historical absence of ethnic uprising in the South
has so far, calmed this part of the country. It takes a lot to be the first
one out on a separatist mission. With improved communication channels,
ethnicism may become more geographically independent.
Hindu Nationalism
A Hindu nationalist movement - the
Saffron Resurgence - backed by the BJP, the Bharathiya Janata Party and
various organisations like Shiv Sena, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and the
RSS, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, has grown especially, since the late
eighties, and maybe fallen already. This movement distinguishes itself
from the others in that it has not had an outspoken claim for a separate
piece of land, but increased (religious) independence for the group members.
The other ethnic movements have been directed against the centre in general
and its authority to keep the territory together in particular. The Hindu
movement can be said to react against the secular role of the Indian state;
possibly it is a follower-up of the middle and upper caste movement reacting
against the government-imposed job Mandala- quotas for lower-caste members.
Other demands throughout the 1980s were that measures be taken against
the equal status of local and regional languages and English with Hindi
and the abolition of article 370 of the Indian constitution granting Kashmir
a status of its own as semi-independent.
Since this movement is not reacting
against the whole centre - the supporters and financiers are too much involved
in it themselves, being middle-class, partly state-class and partly NRE/middle
class, and supported by a few wealthy families - they have taken
it out on the ethnic groups in the periphery. The destruction of a Muslim
holy shrine the Babri Masjid Mosque in Ayodhya in December 1992, and the
following riots between Hindus and Muslims in which 1700 people were killed
were the main outbreaks of violence started by this movement. Following
my argument that ethnicism is relative to surroundings, it seems clear
that Hindus „took it out“ on the largest minority group, the Muslims, who
also constitute the bottom layers of the caste system. One of the VHP’s
calls in the early stages of mobilisation was a demand that the centre
withdraw article 370 from the Indian constitution, an article granting
Kashmir a certain degree of autonomy. Both Sikhs and Muslims have
been the victims of Hindu pogroms in the 1980s and 1990s.
It seems as if the middle class is
the driving force in ethnic mobilisation, and particularly sensitive to
increased competition. Why? Prem Shankar Jha explains this with their vulnerability
to interethnic competition. A small-scale manufacturer risks losing more
after competition has been increased (or if they perceive it as such) than
larger enterprises.
The Hindus have mobilised in an urban
area, but the causal connection cannot be verified. Prem Shankar Jha claims
on the other hand, that where Hindu demonstrations were frequent and violent,
Muslims also mobilised, even if this was on the obscure countryside. In
India, at least, places where clashes between different ethnic groups have
occurred before, seem to be those where ethnic animosities regularly get
ignited. Therefore urbanisation should be complemented or replaced with
a paragraph about increased inter-ethnic contact.
As a difference from Kashmiri and Sikh
militancy, can be mentioned, that the middle class Hindus involved in it,
react against the secularism of the Indian state, and not the whole centre.
It is could be doubted whether it can
really count as an ethnic uprising, because it does not have a claim for
land. They instead lodge claims for increased religious and therefore political
freedom. Other factors influencing their mobilisation may be growing corruption,
a fragile democracy etc but these are not group-specific.
Competition has had a more evident
role in this movement than in the other cases studied, since it followed
the reforms, the decision by VP Singh’s Janata Dal Government to implement
the mandala quotas, according to which 27% of all jobs in the state sector
were to go to members of the lower castes and the OBCs (the Other Backward
Classes, the caste-less). Not only the arguments for mobilisation
and uprising may differ from reality, but both may also differ from the
outlet of ethnic frustration and violence.
Like in the Punjab (Akali Dal), this
ethnic movement was taken up by one established political party (the BJP)
meeting populist ethnic demands from the electorate and changing stances
towards an increasingly nationalist (ethnocentric) discourse. They could
be related with each other in that once the Punjabis (as well as the Kashmiris)
had challenged the centre, the Hindu Right felt that they could challenge
it too.
We can therefore modify Olzak and Nagel’s
proposition that political organisation as a part of modernisation increases
ethnic mobilisation. A political institution will contrary to this claim
in many cases use the ethnic group’s aspirations for independence and their
mobilisation in order to get larger shares of the electorate. Like in Kashmir,
the movements erupt in violence, when the political channels seem used
up. Violent ethnicism is therefore, like war, politics with other means.
If political freedom is granted, ethnic sentiment and ethnic politics will
be expressed through the established channels.
Hindu, Kashmiri, and Sikh ethnicism
(if we can call them ethnic - all are in one way or another doubtful) share
the difficulties in keeping uprisings united against the centre, especially
so in the second armed step for independence. Co-optation may be easy in
mobilisation, but not later. Therefore the competition model’s increased
scales of organisation as ignitor of ethnicism rests upon a non-distinction
between mobilisation and armed fight for independence.
In the Punjab, the relative wealth
and the establishment of the Sikhs in Indian society work stabilisingly.
If this was not so, and interethnic competition was increased, more Sikhs
would feel tempted to mobilise.
8. Conclusions.
8.1 A challenge to the system?
The corruption, the informal market,
the caste system, and the interdependence of all India cannot simply be
abolished by decree, law, or credit liability conditions from international
money-lenders. Through the release of market forces and by the opening
up of trade and capital borders, the NRE and other challengers to the Centre
have gained strength. Subsequently Indian stability gets undermined
as a result of the splitting-up of Congress and in the increased challenge
to and the undermining of the secular Indian State.
The conditions for the various ethnic
uprisings mentioned differ enormously. One of the uprisings, the Hindu
nationalist movement, is directed not against the centre in general because
the nationalists themselves are tightly linked up with it, but against
secularism in particular. This is taken out on the periphery, and
quite naturally on the Muslims who form the largest ethnic minority with
12% of the Indian population and who further deny the caste-system (and
hence many of the structures mentioned) and distinguish themselves markedly
from the Hindus (80% of the Indian population of 929 million).
The relativity clause of ethnicism
means that, since the Hindus have mobilised on grounds of other, surrounding
ethnic mobilisations, they have done so in order to both identify themselves
with the group, and to shut out others, i.e. to discriminate against competing
groups. Because these have mobilised on religious grounds, the Hindu self-proclaimed
„defenders of the faith“ have done so likewise. Just as ethnic subjectivity
refers to the divergence between fact and reasons for ethnic mobilisation,
relativity accounts for the relationship between those two, but tries to
explain ethnic movements as reactions against other groups. The societal
structures soothe or ignite the eruption of ethnic violence.
Instances of resurgent mobilisation
based on tradition, history, and a long period of homogenous culture may
mobilise easier than other, emergent or „new“ ones, especially if the former
have a separate piece of land which they can lay claims to, but the success
of their continued armed fight for independence isn’t granted. But the
resurgent/emergent distinction isn’t that clear. Of course all ethnic movements
mobilising, like in the above mentioned case of internal colonialism, claim
themselves to draw on old sentiments, for instance the Sikh religion, a
Hindu heartland in the north, the Tamil culture, or the Dravidian history
of independence from the north. These belong to the rhetoric used in order
to attract members.
The Tamil absence of ethnic violence
- as opposed to the other ethnic movements studied - may largely depend
on the lack of a distinct religion which could serve as a strong unifyer
but also on slow economic growth.
All „second-steppers“, even if violent,
have failed partly as a result of divided loyalties arising out of dependence
on or links with other parts of society.
The ethnic movements in Kashmir and
in the Punjab have been able to mobilise because neither the Sikhs nor
the Muslims perceive themselves in terms of caste and therefore belong
to the bottom layers or below the caste-system. But their success has not
been greater because of this. Unlike the Hindu movement they have failed
in their separatist violence because of the Government’s hard way of handling
the conflict, apart from the normal lack of popular support in mobilisation
brought about by other sorts of dependence that exist in India. The
stagnation of the rightwing Hinduism is therefore the clearest indication
of that my thesis about interdependence-imposing structures in society
is right.
If one group manages to break free from
the nation-state’s hegemonic and violent control, other groups seem eager
to try this too. Many outbreaks of ethnic violence occur as reactions to
other groups. In India, where the main task of the centre has been to incorporate
Hindus and non-Hindus, many ethnic groups mobilise on these grounds, i.e.
pro or contra central secularism. The success in achieving independence
may to some point (in the amount of support they can gather) depend on
in what way the group mobilises. This, as seen, is largely determined by
society and other groups.
The structures of dependence, hierarchy,
and control serve to stabilise society and maintain the social hierarchy
in favour of non-lower caste, educated, male Hindus, preferably with connections
to the state-class or the Congress party. The more one ethnie fits into
this pattern, the more power is it likely to have. But as seen in the stagnation
of the Hindu resurgence, the more tightly will its members be firstly dependent
on other parts of society, and secondly linked to the state-class, therefore
also on the centre’s role as a defender of secularism and stability.
8.2. The implications for the Competition
Model
According to the competition model,
the ethnic competition for capital gains and political influence could
provoke ethnic mobilisation. Some of the Indian examples of ethnic
uprisings may fit into this on a case-by-case basis. But in order to challenge
the strong grip on Indian society that the centre still has and topple
stability, would mean firstly to be able to co-optate peripheral groups
(to overbridge all or many of the tugs) and secondly to erode the structural
servant and corruption networks making for dependence, hierarchy,
and control in India, which thereby have a stabilising ot hegemonic control
function.
The competition model is right in:
most of its presuppositions. Increased
competition for resources may have had a say in providing ethnicism in
the Punjab , the Hindu heartland , Tamil Nadu, and in the Kashmir valley
with subjective or rhetorical reasons for mobilising. They all lack, to
some extent, unity and popular support, which is seen in their stagnation
at various stages on the road to separatism.
Other aspects of modernisation, like
urbanisation and improved channels for communication may also make for
increased ethnic awareness. But all these things belong to the recruitment
(identification) rhetoric of ethnic mobilisation. The second step is determined
by the state of the nation-state. If it is falling apart, nearly any group
will take to arms. Even if the groups mobilise on grounds of identification
(religion as the Indian example), which are determined by society and other
competing groups, their second step’s success is determined by both the
State and how much popular support/unity they can gather.
It is not right in that:
the increased opportunity to organise
politically ignites. It may contribute to easify mobilisation just as any
other form of social debate. But in the cases studied, it seems to be normal
for the established political parties to take up ethnic sentiments on their
policy agenda. If this continues, the ethnic movement will dissolve in
the realm of politics, which is probably the case in Tamil Nadu, or break
out in violence, like in the three other cases. This it does, when the
political channels have been exhausted (or seem to be so to the ethnic
freedom fighters).
Supranational organisations may contribute
at the State level. In the words of Kolodner:
„The extraction of the
state from the economic sector undermines the image of the government as
the protector of citizens’ welfare, exacerbates the electorate’s dissatisfaction
with the ruling Congress Party, and produces an authority vacuum.“
Despice for politicians and accusations
of corruption go hand in hand with another and create a general sense of
distrust among the public and contribute to the centre’s dissolving.
The expansion of the secondary and
tertiary sectors, which is rapid in India, may also help in creating insecurity.
And increased inter-ethnic contact may make for increased ethnic awareness.
But these are only parts of a general
sense of distrust and insecurity, which may increase or easify ethnic mobilisation.
Even if the different ethnies will claim the opposite, these are devices
of rhetoric, which have nothing to do with outbreaks of ethnic violence.
The competition model lacks:
1) a clear distinction between mobilisation
and the second-step, the outbreak of an armed separatist fight. Mobilisation
for instance cannot fail. It goes on persistently and not all mobilising
ethnic movements take to arms, for example the Tamils. Their mobilisation
has not yet erupted, whereas the others have stagnated in their fight for
separatism. Hindu, Kashmiri, and Sikh ethnicism share the difficulties
in keeping uprisings united against the centre, especially so in the second
armed step for independence. Co-optation may be easy in mobilisation, but
not later. It is in the second step that movements fail, through interior
splits and/or because society has grown able to handle uprising more indirectly
by dependence structures in society. Mobilisation in India is directly
counteracted by the centre by hegemonic (of which secularism can be said
to be part) and violent control. Therefore the competition model’s increased
scales of organisation as ignitor of ethnicism (see below) rests upon a
non-distinction between mobilisation and armed fight for independence.
2) clarification in the question of political organisation and increased scales of organisation. What is the ultimate size of the ethnie? Increased scales are good at one point. But these may disintegrate, particularly so if the ethnic identification is „weak“, i.e. if it rests on loose grounds like in pluralistic Kashmir, or hinder the second step, like in Tamil Nadu. In India, the least loose instances, which also seem to become the most violent, are those resting on anti - or pro-Hinduism, since Hinduism defends the very pillars of Indian society.
3) a systemic framework for incorporating
the role of the state, which in India has been both hegemonic and violent.
According to Gurharpal Singh, Eric Kolodner, and Prem Shankar Jha, it has
been increasingly directed at violence whereas before it used to be hegemonic.
Singh claims that this has increased the Sikh ethnic nationalism. All „second-steppers“,
even if violent, have failed to establish separatism partly as a result
of divided loyalties arising out of dependence on or links with other parts
of society.
Discoursive mobilisation always goes
on, in every society. The surroundings shape the form of ethnicism, and
its success. The link between fact and rhetoric is sometimes perceived
as subjective, but the second step, whether mobilisation leads to an outbreak
of ethnic violence seems to depend on four factors: the role of the state,
the role of integration with society, and the preceding outbreaks of violence.
These factors clarify the link between increased interethnic competition
and ethnic „mobilisation“.
The causality between the competition
model’s propositions (seen as conditions under which ethnicism is likely
to mobilise, not erupt in violence) and the actual outbreak of ethnic violence
could be explained by this. The structures in India and the centre’s strategy
versus the periphery, have relied to a large extent on the mobilisative
change in discourse, or in Singh’s words, on hegemonic control. Once violent
control has been introduced, there will be no safety nets to fall back
on for the centre. The outbreaks of violent ethnicism elsewhere in the
region or country and in what state of disintegration the country is in.
If one group starts the armed fight for independence, others may follow,
either cheered by their neighbours, or (if they stand on different sides
of the religious barrier) as a reaction against these.
Central to this argument is however
that mobilisation and outbreaks of ethnic violence are distinguished, and
that the apparently arbitrary connection between the mobilisers’ arguments
and the targets for violence get clarified. This I try to explain with
what I have called „relative ethnicity“.
4) relativisation of the ethnic mobilisation
to other, competing ethnic groups. It seems likely that the three outbreaks
of ethnicism in the North, and the lack of one in the South, as well as
the timeframe during which they have occurred as well as their succession
are in some way temporally and geographically related.
„Identities are always relational and
what matters is not the representation of the Other as such, but the actual
nature of the difference that is constructed. The issue then is one of
diversity or division...solidarity or exclusion.“
Most protruding is the fact that ethnic violence and the grounds of mobilisation seem separated. Here too a clearer distinction between mobilisation and the second-step is needed.
Ethnicism is just one form of social mobilisation, fully comparable with other sorts of nationalism, racism, tribalism etc. It is partly the structure of society which decides which form the mobilisation is to take. In India the fundament for so much in society is ruled by Hindu prescription and the power of religion, that religious movements seem to inspire the largest amount of hatred and animosities. Those of other religions who challenge the Hindu pillars of India, are the main targets for the Hindu ethnic group.
The distribution of resources as a consequence
of reforms started too late to challenge the centre. The arisal of the
NRE began long before the reforms. But the centre is dissolving, and ethnoregional
claims for separatism seem to be increasing both in strength and in numbers.
Increasingly these take, Hindu versus non-Hindu stances. But India hasn’t
(yet) crumbled; the caste system, networks of corruption, servant structures,
and parts of the state-class are still there as assistance to the centre
and its secular unity.
If new (mainly media-imposed) values
in the wake of reforms and opened trade borders grow strong and common,
they could subjugate the caste-dependency in the Indian mind and thereby
threaten stability. It is however very much up to the centre and its strategies
against the periphery, if ethnic mobilisations will take the second step
and take to arms on their road to separatism.
Berlin, Germany, 29th Feb 1996
Literature:
Jörn Altmann: Wirtschaftspolitik, Gustav
Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart und Jena, Germany, 1992
Gunilla Andrae and Björn Beckmann: The
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Scholarly essays:
Hoshiar Singh, Constitutional Base
for Panchayat Raj in India. The 73rd Amendment Act, Asian Survey, Vol.
xxiv, no. 9, Sept. 1994.
L.K. Jha: The Role of Foreign Collaboration
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Arvind Panagariya, India: A New Tiger On
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und der Staat in der Dritten Welt, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Heft
2., Juni 1986, p. 133-158
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der Unterentwicklung?, PVS, H. 1, Mar 1986, p. 100-108
Shankar Bhaduri Paramilitary has become a
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Ethnic mobilisation:
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vol. 8, 1985
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Gruppe?, Berliner Debatte/Initial, 4/5 1995
Newspaper Articles:
Das Parlament, Themenausgabe Indien, Nr.
8-9, 19/26 Feb. 1993
Cover story, India Today, May 31, 1995
Sunil Jain: On the Edge Again, India Today,
30 Apr. 1995,
Changing Phase of Reforms, 31 Jan 1995,
Behind the Silver Lining, 31 Mar 1995
Torbjörn Petersson, Sjudande ekonomi
ger indier framtidstro, Dagens Nyheter, 21 okt. 1995
ibid., Indisk bostadsbrist drabbar alla,DN,
22 okt 1995
Duvvudi Subbarao: Reforms with a human face.
The Economic Time, 16 Feb. 1995,
Alok Muherjee, The Two-track Strategy, The
Hindu, 31 March 1995,
T.K. Arun, Reforming the Reforms. The Economic
Time, 17 Feb. 1995
Prabul Bichlai, Wages of Neglect- Economic
of Congress Defeat, Times of India, 24 March 1995
C.H. Manumantha Rao, Structural Adjustment.
Lessons from East Asian Experience, Times of India, 10 Feb 1995.
Gordon Crovitz and Hamish McDonald, Stability
for sure, Far Eastern Economic Review, 2 Feb. 1995,
The Hindu „Our correspondent“, India Warned
of Mexican-type Crisis, 26 March 1995
Hamish McDonald, Don’t stop now The reform
agenda and Reality Check. Opposition parties gradually embrace change,
FEER 2 Feb. 1995,Limited Express, 27 Apr 1995
Shefali Rekhi, Foreign Investors: Catching
Their Eye, IT 15 Mar 1995
Narendar Pani, Diminishing returns from reforms,
ECT 23 Mar 1995,
Sanjaya Baru, The lesson India can learn
from Mexico: Gradualism better than speed, Times of India 13 Jan 1995
Gabriele Venzky, Ein Gigant, der zur Reform
nicht fähig ist, Der Tagesspiegel, 23 May 1995
Vermeintliche „Wunderwaffen“ gegen Hochmut
und Armut, Der Tagesspiegel, May or June 1995
Bernard Imhasly Narasimha Raos Ochsentour,
die tageszeitung, 9 Feb. 1995
Zafar Agha, Congress(I). The Face Lift, India
Today 28 Feb. 1995,
Frankfurter Rundschau, Kongreßpartei
schließt zahlreiche Abtrünnige aus, 22 May 1995,
Rahman and Zafar Agha, Congress(I) Ifs and
Buts all the Way, ibid.
Yuburaj Ghimire, The Saffron Resurgence, India
Today, 31 March 1995
BJP: Brimming with Hope, IT 15 Mar 1995
India Today, November 15, 1995:
Ramesh Vinayak, Striking Terror, (Punjab),
Inderjit Badhwar, Why Rao’s Package is a
Sham, (Kashmir)
Harinder Baweja and Nirupama Subramanian,
Sri Lanka. The Danger at the Doorstep.
Vasant Sathe, India should be governed by
a directly elected President, Times of India 15 Feb 1995
Hannan Ezekiel, Reinventing Government. Accent
Should Be On Efficiency, T.O.I., 25 Feb. 1995
Bernard Imhasly, Der hohle Klang der Muschel.
Indiens Wahlkommissar versetzt die Politiker im Angst und Schrecken...,
die tageszeitung, 4/5 February 1995
Inderjit Badhwar and Charu Lata Joshi, T.N.
Seshan: „Narasimha Rao is hostile to me“, India Today, May 31, 1995
Thomas Avenarius, Kaschmirs langer kampf: Der Haß auf Indien wird immer größer, (caption very misleading from text contents), Süddeutsche Zeitung, Nr 119, May 1995
Unpublished material/own experience:
Hansi Elsbacher, Doing good things for the
people. A report about Panchayat Raj and political power in a village in
India, available in Swedish only at the Department of Political Science,
Stockholm University, Sweden, or from the author. The fieldwork was carried
out in Bommanampalayam, Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu, September 1993.
Other observations have been made during three other journeys mainly in
the south of India in 1987/88, 1989/90, and 1993.
Hansi Elsbacher, Kastsystemet stabiliserar
Indien, in Sydasien 1/96, Lund, Sweden 1996