The greatest
strength of Indian polity is its gravest
weakness. India is hailed by many as a
shining example of a multicultural,
multiethnic, and multinational democratic
state, which has successfully weathered many
internal threats of disintegration. But
still, the assertive face of multiple ethno
cultural identities has worried many
observers. Analysts have hinted at the
Indian state's1 diminishing capacity to
address the developmental aspirations of the
multiple ethno national groups, who have
begun to assert their right to autonomous
self-administration within the broader
framework of the Indian state. The unfolding
internal divisions, characterized by lack of
trust (if not distrust) among diverse ethno
cultural groups, have threatened to wreck
the Indian state from within. The assertive
diversity of Indian society is thus
perceived to be weakening the unitarian
fabric of the Indian state.
In addition to internal demands that seek to
redraw the internal borders, there have been
demands for secession from the Indian state,
which seek to redraw the external frontiers.
The state, in spite of its nuclear strength,
is thus confronted with problems that
threaten to redefine its territorial
configuration.
In this chapter an attempt is made to
present the cases of demands for autonomy
and analyze them critically. The demands for
secession will be dealt with separately and
comparison between the two will be made
toward the end of the discussion.
Autonomy in the Indian Context
The issue of autonomy changes its
connotation in the context of Indian polity
and in this sociopolitical milieu has to be
studied in a federal context. Autonomy in
the classical sense would mean a community's
legitimate, sovereign right to
self-determination or self-legislation,
unimpeded by any external intervention.
However, any attempt to study "autonomy" in
the classical sense in the Indian case is
bound to lead to conceptual delusions and
contradictory conclusions. Autonomy in the
Indian case has been primarily used to
denote the demands of plural
regional-ethno-national identities for a
greater degree of self-administration within
the larger federal framework of the Indian
constitution. The other form of autonomy,
which seeks to promote the idea of
self-determination outside the purview of
the Indian federation, is usually termed
secessionist, antistatist, and antinational.
For a clearer understanding, one could term
the former an "integrationist model of
autonomy" and the later a "disintegrationist
model of autonomy."
Integrationist autonomy within the Indian
union, without altering the central
preponderance in the federal domain—which
means dependence on (and not autonomous
independence from) the central
administration—has been accommodated, even
after initial hesitation. In many cases,
after the initial sanctioning of autonomous
councils, the Indian state has granted
statehood (status of a full-fledged
federating unit with representative
governance within the Indian union) to such
autonomous units. Demands for "autonomy"
within the Indian union but which seek to
redefine the center-state (federation-unit)
relations in favor of the states (units),
have been viewed with suspicion and as a
prelude to secession, which could lead to
the breakup of the Indian state in the long
term. This has often provoked the coercive
might of the Indian state. In cases of
demands for secession, the secessionist
forces have often agreed to demands of
greater autonomy, which would mean
redefining the center-state relations. But
the Indian state has not yet grown out of
the postcolonial inertia of unitarian
federalism to the degree that it can
accommodate such demands. The obsession with
a unitarian federal system has paralyzed the
state's capacity to tackle such problems
without violence. It is helpful to have a
brief historical overview to elucidate these
points.
Background
The Indian state was confronted with demands
for the reorganization of the states
(provinces or federating units) immediately
after independence. Upon the recommendation
of the States Reorganization Committee (SRC)
of 1953, headed by Fazal Ali, the provinces
were reorganized on the basis of language.
By the 1960s, the provinces seemed to have
settled down within the redrawn boundaries.
The larger province of Bombay was divided
into Marathi-speaking Maharashtra and
Gujarati-speaking Gujarat. Punjab was
trifurcated into a Punjabi-speaking Punjab,
Hindi-speaking Haryana, and Pahari-speaking
Himachal Pradesh. The Kannada-speaking areas
of Bombay were transferred to the state of
Mysore/Karnataka, and similarly,
Telugu-speaking areas of the Madras province
were transferred to Andhra Pradesh. The
linguistic reorganization looked complete
and the first phase of reorganization of the
states within the Indian union was over.
Then came the demands for autonomy in the
northeastern region. The aspirations of the
tribal groups were soon recognized by the
Indian state. The states of Manipur,
Tripura, and Meghalaya were formed in the
late 1970s. The North Eastern Frontier
Agency (NEFA) was granted statehood under
the name of Arunachal Pradesh in 1987. The
restive Nagas and the Mizos, however, were
granted statehood only after violent
encounters with the Indian state. The Naga
insurgency continues until the present day,
even after the formation of the state of
Nagaland in 1956. The Mizo insurgency
subsided after the 1973 agreement, which
declared the Mizo district of Assam as a
Union Territory. Mizoram was later granted
full state status after the 1986 agreement
with the rebel leader Laldenga.
However, this did not completely exhaust the
aspirations for autonomous administration or
statehood by many groups. The cultural
differences within the overarching
linguistic unity, in many cases, led to
demands for statehood within the primarily
language-based federating units of the
Indian union.
The Telengana movement raged on until the
1980s in the less developed Telugu-speaking
region in western Andhra Pradesh, which was
under the rule of the Nizam of Hyderabad and
was later merged with the more economically
developed, Telugu-speaking, coastal Andhra
Pradesh. The less assertive Kosala movement
in western Orissa still continues.
Similarly, the movements for Chhattisgarh in
Madhya Pradesh, the Jharkhand movement in
Bihar, Orissa, and Madhya Pradesh, and the
movement for Uttaranchal/Uttarakhand in
Uttar Pradesh, have been active since the
1950s until they were granted statehood in
2001. This has led to an intensification of
demands for autonomy from other ethno
cultural groupings within Indian society.
Recent forceful demands for statehood for
Vindhyanchal, Vidarbha, Haritdesh, Coorg,
Kamtapur, Gorkhaland, Madhyadesh,
Bundelkhand, and Purvanchal have
demonstrated the rising aspirations of
subcultural groupings to have their own
autonomous administrative units.
In the 1950s and 1960s, in the wake of the
movement for constitutional recognition of
Hindi as the national language, there was a
lurking suspicion in the minds of the
political elite in the southern states of
India that the elite of the northern
region—perceived to be mainly of Aryan
racial stock—were intent on subjugating the
predominantly Dravidian south through their
language policy. The anti-Hindi movement in
the south had assumed violent proportions
and there were demands for the secession of
southern states and establishment of
Drvidastan. The Indian state demonstrated
remarkable wisdom in accommodating the
demands of the southerners and recognized
English as an official language along with
Hindi.
However, this spirit of accommodation
gradually gave way to a statist-integrationist
zeal and all demands for autonomy were
treated with force, leading to complications
further down the line. The unwillingness of
the state to share its authority with the
constituent units was the primary reason for
this "siege" attitude. During the 1980s, an
increasingly closed and paranoid Indian
state adopted a siege mentality when
confronted by demands for autonomy, which
bordered on secession. The demands for
autonomous statehood within the Indian union
were also unfavorably received by the
central administration.
The 1980s saw the rise of secessionist
movements in Punjab, Kashmir, and some of
the northeastern states (Nagaland, Manipur,
and Tripura). The movements for autonomy in
several regions—Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh,
Uttaranchal, and Gorkhaland—also gathered
momentum and made their presence felt on the
political horizon. The response of the
ruling Congress Party under Rajiv Gandhi was
to negotiate with the leaders of the more
assertive movements. There were a series of
accords with the Akali Dal leadership in
Punjab, with the All Assam Students' Union
(which later became Assam Gana Parishad),
and with Gorkha leader Subhas Ghising in
1985. In all these cases, the central
government led by the Congress Party seemed
accommodating and granted some amount of
autonomy to the assertive units. In the case
of Jharkhand, the Congress tried to absorb
the assertive leadership and thus defuse the
movement.
However, during the 1990s when the movements
for Uttaranchal, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh
came to the fore, Congress was rather
undecided about the question of granting
autonomy to these regions. But the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP)—the party currently
leading the coalition in power in
India—during the days of its ascendancy in
the 1990s, exhibited a spirit of
accommodation and openly supported the idea
of statehood for aspiring groups. This also
helped it gain political footholds in areas
such as Jharkhand, western Orissa, and
Uttaranchal. The reservations of the
Congress leadership in December 1998 led the
BJP to withdraw the Vananchal/Jharkhand
Bill. However, the grant of statehood to
Jharkhand, Uttaranchal, and Chhattisgarh in
the year 2000 has conveyed an attitude of
sympathy toward such assertions from the
opposition as well as the parties in power
at the center.
Three New States within India
Jharkhand
The movement for the recognition of
Jharkhand or Vananchal, as it was later
called, had been supported for over fifty
years by the Adivasi people of the
Chhotanagpur Plateau–Santhal Parganas belt,
which included eighteen districts from
Bihar, four from Madhya Pradesh, three from
West Bengal, and two from Orissa. This
larger concept of Jharkhand was later
dismissed in 1998 by the BJP's principal
spokesperson for the cause, Babulal Marandi,
the then union minister of state for
environment and forests, as "politically
unfeasible." In December the BJP had brought
in a states reorganization bill to accord
statehood on Jharkhand, but under stiff
resistance from Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)
and noncooperation from Congress, the bill
fell through. In August 2000, Congress
support was unanimous and with its pressure
on RJD the bill was safely carried through
both the houses of the Indian parliament. In
November 2000, the state of Jharkhand came
into being. Ironically, Babulal Marandi was
one of the principal bidders for the chief
minister's post in the new state. However,
the present state of Jharkhand was carved
out of the state of Bihar and did not
comprise the districts from Orissa, West
Bengal, and Madhya Pradesh.
Chhattisgarh
The Chhattisgarh (literally meaning
"thirty-six forts") was formerly known as
Dandakaranya, Gondvana, Dakshin Kaushal.
Since Madhya Pradesh was constituted in
1956, at different times, various movements
have agitated for the creation of
Chhattisgarh state under the leadership of
several leaders. Finally, the Madhya Pradesh
state assembly, dominated by the Congress
Party, passed a unanimous resolution to this
effect on 18 March 1994. Subsequently, the
BJP also took up the issue and reaped their
political reward in the 1997 elections. In
August 2000, the region was granted
statehood by the Indian parliament.
Uttaranchal
The movement for Uttarakhand/Uttaranchal
began in the early 1950s and came up for
discussion in the States Reorganization
Committee in its deliberations between 1953
and 1955. It picked up recently after the
reservation policy of the Mayawati
government in Uttar Pradesh to reserve a
quota of 27 percent for "other backward
castes" in the Uttar Pradesh (UP) government
services. Uttaranchal has a majority of
higher-caste population (nearly 85 percent)
and they objected to this policy for they
feared marginalization of their share in
governmental services. The local BJP unit
promptly advocated the cause of a separate
state of Uttarakhand and surprisingly the
lower-caste parties such as the Bahujan
Samaj Party of Mayawati and Samajwadi Janata
Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav also supported
the idea. This state also came into being in
the year 2000.
The Apprehension
The openness of the political leadership to
the idea of the formation of smaller states
for electoral gains has led many analysts to
conclude that such steps will open up a
Pandora's Box and demands for autonomous
units will proliferate. This could well lead
to a "remapping" of the Indian federation.
In fact, the assertions by people of
Kamtapur in West Bengal and the renewed
demands of Gorkhas for a separate state have
strengthened such suspicions. There have
also been demands for statehood from other
regions (Vidarbha, Harit Desh, Coorg,
Vindhyanchal, Purvanchal). Many others are
in the offing: Malwa, Kutch, Saurastra,
Mithilanchal, Kosala (Western Orissa), etc.
It may be useful to outline some of these
upcoming demands for autonomy/statehood.
Vidarbha
Situated in northeast Maharastra, Vidarbha
is an economically backward region but rich
in mineral and forest resources. The
economic viability of the Vidarbha region as
a separate province was recognized by the
State Reorganization Committee in 1953–1955.
However, the demand for a separate state/
province for Vidarbha (which predates the
Chhatisgarh and Uttaranchal movements) was
subsumed in the Samyukta Maharastra movement
(a movement for unification of all
Marathi-speaking areas) in the 1960s and it
was absorbed in the state of Maharashtra.
However, the demand for a Vidarbha state
continued to be raised intermittently.
The Vidarbha Rajya Sangharsha Samiti
("Struggle for the Separate State of
Vidarbha") and Maha-Vidarbha Sangharsha
Samity ("Association for the Struggle for
Greater Vidarbha"), the organizations that
led this movement, gathered speed in the
1990s when BJP supported the idea of a
separate Vidarbha state. A statutory
development board for the region came into
existence in 1994 in recognition of the need
for developmental initiatives in the region.
The BJP's advocacy had a political motive—it
wanted to penetrate into the Vidarbha
region, traditionally regarded as a bastion
of the Congress Party. The BJP advocacy was,
however, contested by its ally Shiv Sena in
Maharashtra, which is still wedded to the
idea of preserving and nurturing "the
emotional and linguistic unity of all
Maharashtrians." In fact, in 1996, when the
Vidarbha demand was raised, Shiv Sena
supremo Bal Thackeray had vowed to lead the
movement for statehood himself if the
region's developmental backlog was not
cleared within two years. Since the creation
of three new states in August 2000, the
demand for the Vidarbha state has gathered
further momentum. The decision of the
Congress Party apart from other parties on
the issue will determine the course of the
movement in the near future.
Vindhya Pradesh
Since the creation of Chhattisgarh state, a
demand for "Vindhya Pradesh" has been raised
by the politicians from the region headed by
the speaker of the Madhya Pradesh
legislative assembly, Srinivas Tiwari.
Tiwari reportedly called twenty-five MLAs
(members of the legislative assembly) to his
residence in March 2000 to discuss the issue
of a separate state of Vindhya Pradesh. This
would comprise six districts of the Vindhya
region: Datia, Tikamgarh, Rewa, Seedhi,
Shehdol, and Satna. After the independence
of India from the colonial rule, Vindhya
Pradesh came into existence in 1948 and a
government was installed in the state after
the 1952 elections. However, it was merged
with Madhya Pradesh in 1956. Thousands of
people had protested the move and were
jailed. On 10 March 2000, the state assembly
unanimously adopted the nongovernment
resolution to carve out a Vindhya state. The
resolution had been forwarded to the central
government in New Delhi and the center has
yet to make a decision on this.
Coorg
The Kodagu Rajya Mukti Morcha (KRMM), which
roughly translated means the Movement for
the Liberation of the State of Kodagu, is an
organization led by N. U. Nachappa that has
campaigned for a separate state of Coorg to
be carved out of the present state of
Karnataka. The declaration by Deve Gowda,
the then prime minister of India, in 1996
that Uttarakhand would soon be granted
statehood, gave a further boost to this
movement. The Kodagu or Coorg district is
the smallest district in the southwest of
the Karnataka state. Until its amalgamation
into the Kannada state of Mysore (now
Karnataka) on linguistic grounds following
the recommendation of the States
Reorganization Commission, the Coorg
functioned as a Part "C" state from January
1952 to 1November 1956—slightly less than
five years. The KRMM sponsored the "Madikeri
Declaration" of 22 November 1996, projected
as the Cauveryland charter of rights,
followed soon after the "Gowda Declaration,"
which formed the framework and the
inspiration for the KRMM to lead Coorg to
the "liberation of Kodagu and its creation
as a separate Ethnic State." The KRMM was
later known as the Coorg National Council (CNC)
with Nachappa as its secretary-general. The
CNC also has a web site to promote its
cause.
Purvanchal
Purvanchal Mukti Morcha—roughly translated
as Liberation Front for Purvanchal—headed by
Raj Kumar Singh, first demanded a separate
state of Purvanchal comprising twenty
districts of eastern UP in 1996. This is a
relatively backward area, and the "green
revolution" that brought agricultural
prosperity to the western districts of the
state could not touch this area. The people
in this area speak a local dialect,
"Bhojpuri." The leaders of this area have
often held the discriminatory policy of the
Uttar Pradesh government responsible for the
backwardness of the area. This has led them
to demand a separate state. The Pragatisheel
Bhojpur Samaj ("Progressive Bhojpuri
Society") has made frequent demands for an
even larger Bhojpur, comprising twenty-five
districts of eastern UP and neighboring
Bihar, with Varanasi as its capital, and
inclusion of the Bhojpuri language in the
Eighth Schedule of the Indian constitution.
Harit Desh
The SRC of 1953 debated the possibility of
creating a separate state of Western Uttar
Pradesh (Paschim Pradesh) and 97 out of the
100 MLAs from this region then submitted a
memorandum to the SRC demanding the
separation of the western districts. But it
was discouraged by the Congress leadership
of the time on the excuse that there was no
public support behind the issue. This region
has benefited most during the green
revolution and the planned economy of the
Nehru era and is a prosperous area.
Recently, Ajit Singh, son of former prime
minister Charan Singh and leader of the
farmers, has called this region Harit Desh
(the "Green Country") and convened a meeting
of western UP leaders on 19 August 2000 to
forcefully put his demand for a Harit
Pradesh. Recently the BJP leadership
expressed its willingness to support the
demand purely for electoral advantage. The
issue of Harit Desh is being debated now in
India with great enthusiasm. The future of
this movement will depend on the political
mobilization of the people in the region and
the interests the leaders of the movement
take in the issue.
Bundelkhand
The Bundelkhand region of central India
encompasses twelve districts of northern
Madhya Pradesh (MP) and five districts of
southern Uttar Pradesh. The area once known
in history as Bundelkhand is identified with
the districts of Jhansi, Lalitpur, Jalaun,
Hamirpur, Banda, and Mahoba in Uttar
Pradesh, Sagar, Chattarpur, Tikamgarh, Panna,
and Damoh in Madhya Pradesh and parts of
Gwalior, Datia, Shivpuri, and Chanderi. It
is located in the central Hindi belt, south
of the Yamuna River, between the fertile
Gangetic plain stretching across northern UP
and the highlands of central MP. This region
has recently witnessed a movement for the
recognition of the separate state of
Bundelkhand led by Raja Bundela, a film
actor.
Kamtapur
The movement for creating a separate state
of Kamtapur from the state of West Bengal is
being spearheaded by the Koch-Rajbangshis,
who mainly inhabit areas in north Bengal and
parts of Assam. Besides statehood, they are
also demanding the inclusion of the
Kamtapuri language in the Eighth Schedule
and the propagation of the Kamtapuri
language and culture through
state-controlled radio and television. The
two organizations taking the lead in this
field are the Kamtapur Peoples' Party (KPP)
and the Kamtapur Liberation Organization (KLO).
The former is more moderate; yet its leader,
Atul Roy, reportedly said recently: "We will
not abandon our demand for statehood, and if
Rajbongshi mothers have to lose their sons
for achieving the goal of statehood, so be
it."2
The KLO is allegedly coordinating its
militant activities with the United
Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), which is
demanding formation of an independent Assam.
The fledgling KLO militants are reportedly
being groomed by seasoned militants from the
ULFA in the Dooars region (known for its
teas), the Buxa reserve forests, Cooch Behar
and North Bengal's bordering areas with
Assam, and Bangladesh. Recently, KLO
activists have launched a number of attacks
on Communist Party workers. The situation
became so critical that police teams from
Assam and West Bengal launched a joint
operation code-named "Operation Shadow" in
mid-November 2000 to arrest the activists.
On 6 November 2000, Kamtapur activists
descended in the thousands on the Nilmoni
Airport in Cooch Behar town in support of
the demand for a separate state of Kamtapur,
and held a hugely successful mass rally. The
movement for a Kamtapur state is progressing
quickly at present. The Kamtapuris have also
resorted to violence to uphold their cause.
Gorkhaland
Gorkhaland was granted autonomous council
status in August 1985. However, in the wake
of the recent formation of three new states,
the Gorkhas have renewed demands for a
separate state for the Gorkha people,
comprising parts of the hill subdivisions of
Darjeeling, Kurseong, and Kalimpong. The
Gorkha National Liberation Front and the
Gorkhaland United Front have recently marked
the renewal of their agitation for
Gorkhaland with a series of strikes.
Bodoland
Several Bodo insurgent groups have been
working since the 1960s for goals that range
from the establishment of a Bodo autonomous
council, to a separate Bodo state within
India, to total independence from India. The
Bodos were granted an autonomous council in
February 1993, but were unsatisfied with the
amount of autonomy in this arrangement and
demanded a separate state, which soon led to
demands for "a sovereign Bodoland." The
Bodos have taken to violence to drive their
points home. Their violent expulsion of non-Bodos
from the region has resulted in the
displacement of more than 87,000 ethnic
Santhals, and a smaller number of Bengalis
and Nepalis have been displaced by the
violent conflict between Bodo insurgents and
non-Bodos in western Assam. Ethnic tension
is rife in Assam, which is home to many
ethnic groups. Some groups, such as the
Assamese and Bodos, have lived in the region
for many centuries. Others, including
Bengalis, Santhals, and ethnic Nepalese,
migrated there during the 1800s.
The campaign for Bodoland and its attendant
violence continues unabated. However, the
government's initiative to bring the Bodos
to the discussion table is showing some
promise. The recent meeting of some of the
Bodo leaders with the Indian home affairs
minister showed that the center is powerless
as the Assam legislature would not approve a
separate state of Bodoland at present.
However, it may not be long before a
separate state of Bodoland is carved out of
Assam within the purview of the Indian
constitution. On 18 January 2001, Mainao
Daimary, publicity secretary of the Bodo
Liberation Tigers, expressed satisfaction at
the progress of peace talks between the
outfit and the Indian government.
Disintegrationist Autonomy
The unity and integrity of the Indian state,
mostly understood in the territorial sense,
has clouded the central government's
approach toward demands for confederal
autonomy. In some cases, the movements for
maximum autonomy have confronted the
coercive might of the state and have become
violent in nature. In such cases, the fear
of disintegration has often led the state to
react to such demands with a reflexive
statist attitude—with sweeping,
indiscriminate military aggression. In the
case of Jammu and Kashmir and some of the
northeastern states (such as Nagaland,
Manipur, Assam, and Tripura) external
support for autonomist-turned-secessionist
demands has further complicated matters,
compelling the defense mechanism of the
Indian state to resort to intense
counterinsurgency operations.
But research shows that in many cases, apart
from external intervention, unimaginative
handling of demands for "autonomy" within
the Indian union has itself led to violence.
Often it is this descent into violence that
has invited external forces to fish in
troubled waters. The unending cycle of
violence has assumed an "autonomy" of its
own and refuses to subside. The example of
Kashmir and many instances from the
northeast corroborate such a point of view.
The autonomy provision for the state of
Jammu and Kashmir that is written into the
Indian constitution via Article 370 and the
articles that seek to determine the relative
autonomy of the northeastern states have
time and again emerged as irritants for the
central administration.
Threats of Secessionism and the State's
Response
Threats of secession from certain sections
of the population in Jammu and Kashmir,
Punjab, and Nagaland in the Northeast played
a great role in legitimizing the
centralization of power throughout the 1980s
and even in the 1990s. The influence of
external forces in all these cases and the
tendency of such subversion to spread into
other autonomist movements in neighboring
areas (Manipur, Tripura, Assam) has further
strengthened the arguments favoring a strong
center in India in recent years. This has
pushed other evolving paradigms of
federalism onto the back burner.
On the other hand, the prejudiced response
of the Indian state has aggravated many
autonomist movements. Any assertion on
religious or ethnic grounds has been
regarded as inimical to the central
principle of unity and integrity of the
state and treated with disdain and force.
This has worsened matters in Punjab, the
Northeast, and even in Jammu and Kashmir.
Examination of the initial demands of the
autonomists (the Sikhs in the Anandpursahib
resolution, the Kashmir resolution for
autonomy, or even the demands of the ULFA
and Bodos) shows that "threats of
secessionism" were mostly made as a
bargaining chip. The reactive policies of
the state then prepared the grounds for
external intervention. The hostile
militarism of the state has either induced
militancy in some cases or sustained
preexisting militancy in some other cases.
It is important to note here that in some
cases, such as Punjab, the central
government has unwittingly nurtured future
militants. Congress Party patronage to
Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale is a case in
point.
The Case of Kashmir
Any demand for autonomy from the people of
Kashmir—the state that began as a special
federating unit in the Indian union—has been
treated as an act of disloyalty toward the
union. Ironically, such autonomy was granted
to the Kashmiris in Article 370 of the
Indian constitution and reinforced by the
Jawaharlal Nehru–Sheikh Abdullah accord in
1952 and the Mirza Afzal Beg– G.
Parthasarathy talks of 1977. The summary
rejection of an autonomy bill, passed in the
Jammu and Kashmir assembly by the central
BJP dispensation in 2000, suggests the
strength of the fundamental suspicion with
which the Kashmiri people are regarded.
However, the notion of confederal autonomy
initially granted by Article 370 has kept
the Kashmiri passion for autonomy alive to
the present day. In fact, "autonomy" has
cropped up as a safety valve on many
occasions. Seeking to absorb Kashmiri
disenchantment with the Indian union on the
one hand, and ignite the flames of secession
or independence on the other, the call for
autonomy has proved a halfway house between
irrevocable union with the Indian state and
complete azadi (independence). The recent
espousal of the autonomy cause by Farooq
Abdullah, the chief minister of Kashmir, and
the rise of popular support for autonomy in
the Gallup polls, prove this contention.
The saddest aspect of the whole
Kashmir-centric discourse on autonomy has
been the overwhelming resistance it has
evoked from various quarters to the idea of
such a confederal proposition, advocating a
rather loose union with the central
administration. Any idea of refederalizing
the Indian polity with the grant of a
greater share of residuary powers has been
rejected as an almost blasphemous
suggestion. In the face of shrinking
economic power with the onset of
globalization, perhaps the Indian state has
been reluctant to shed its political power
lest that would in the long term crystallize
disruptive forces at the peripheries and
weaken its bases of unity and integrity.
Analysis
It is useful to analyze the causes of rising
ethno cultural assertions in the Indian
case. The preceding discussion covers some
empirical cases and each case is unique and
deserves separate analytical study. However,
for the benefit of understanding such
autonomist and/or secessionist movements, it
is immensely helpful to draw upon the
analyses of various scholars and look for
the common strands of explanation. Various
studies on the movements covered here reveal
that the demands for autonomy arise out of
the following causes:
Decline of the capacity of the state to
cater to the rising aspirations of ethno
cultural groups and an attendant temptation
to legitimize violence/force as a means of
resolving crises arising out of demands
placed on the state.
The spread of political awareness naturally
leads people to make demands for their
rights. And such claims of rights have been
viewed with suspicion by the ruling elite in
many occasions, compelling the claimants to
adopt violent postures leading to subversion
and insurgencies.
Growing political awareness has also made
people aware of their socioeconomic
conditions and the causes of their
disadvantages or advantages. In many cases,
in the existing states there is a system of
what Marxist scholars of development would
call "internal colonization" in both
economic and cultural senses. Awareness of
real or perceived discrimination tends to
ignite aspirations for self-legislation and
autonomy among a marginalized population.
Rising economic insecurities that have
visited many developing and underdeveloped
states in the wake of globalization have
created the bases for popular disaffection
and expanded the bases of political
mobilization on grounds of primordial
loyalties.
Globalization has also weakened the capacity
of the sate to manage such socioeconomic
crises with competence.
The system of democracy that is practiced in
many of the developing and underdeveloped
societies in the Third World puts more
emphasis on the mechanism of democratic
governance than on values of democracy and
liberalism. The consequent calculus of
electoral politics has led to the growth of
an immensely stratified entrepreneurial
elite, especially in multicultural/pluralist
societies like India, who have sought to
build their constituencies on
ever-proliferating ethno cultural
identities. This has fractured the existing
civil society and ruptured the uniting links
and necessitated the introduction of fresh
and refined bonds of unity. The state with
its inertial status-quo-ism has failed to
take the lead by redefining its relations of
power with the constituent units. This has
led to systemic violence.
The Indian federation has temperamentally
behaved as a "union" and not a "federation."
However, the leadership in the country has
to take care to adopt federal principles to
judge such cases of autonomy and gradually
devolve powers (especially financial powers)
to the units if it is to contain such ethno
cultural assertions.
Among all these explanations there is a
common thread of argument that says that the
shrinking capacity of the state,
underdevelopment, and the politicization of
plural peripheral identities, together with
the search for power by neo-elites at the
margins, have snapped the interethnic and
intercultural bonds that have so far drawn
them together. This has created new
identities and led to an overwhelming craze
for autonomy or self-legislation. It is
interesting to note that the concessions of
statehood in the recent cases were
conditioned by sheer electoral calculations
and not by considerations of economic
viability. And these concessions in no way
altered the basic constitutionally
guaranteed relationship between the
federation and the units, which is lopsided
in favor of the federation. Creation of
"dependent" states will in no way improve
the conditions, and the passion for a
greater degree of autonomy will haunt the
Indian states until a genuinely devolved
refederalized system of governance grows out
of the present system of unitarian federal
democracy in India.
Notes
1. Unless categorically mentioned as the
Indian state, "state" will mean federating
units in the discussion.
2. See Atol Roy, quoted online in India
Abroad, 8 August 2000:
http://www.indiaabroad.com
*** The article was written sometime in
2002, but has been republished as it might
shed light on some of the issues that
Manipur faces with Naga integrationists'
demand for integration of Naga-inhabited
areas.
*** The
author is assistant director, International
Centre for Peace Studies, New Delhi. He has
a Ph.D. in international relations from
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and
has written extensively on India-Pakistan
relations, the autonomy issue in Kashmir,
refugees and human rights, and interstate
relations in South Asia. |
