Ethnic conflicts and political developments | Anthropology Optional for UPSC PDF Download

Introduction

• Ethnic conflict has been an important factor in the making and unmaking of governments and domestic strife in many parts of India. With people of some ethnic communities spilling into other countries adjoining India, ethnic overlap has also been a factor in interstate disputes in South Asia. At the same time, ethnicity and ethnic mobilisation have also played an important role in the rapid expansion and deepening of democracy in India. 
• In this unit, we will briefly examine the growing interest with issues relating to ethnicity and ethnic conflicts, describe the major approaches to the study of ethnic conflict and then proceed to analyse the features of ethnic conflicts in India and the issues and challenges they throw up.

Aims and Objectives

• After going through this unit, you will be able to: l Define ethnicity l identity dominant approaches to the study of ethnic identity formation and ethnic conflicts, l describe the dominant features of ethnic conflicts in India, and l explain the strategies adopted by the state to deal with ethnic conflicts.

What is ethnicity

• The study of ethnicity and ethnic conflicts is a relatively new theme in social science research. Although a few studies were undertaken in the context of the social conflicts in the United States in the 1960s, it was only in the 1980s that the study of ethnicity and ethnic conflicts emerged as a subfield in social sciences. Its emergence can betraced to the critique of modernisation and development theory that emerged in the 1980s. Modernisation and development theories  which came up in the post-war period in response to the challenges of nation building in the post-colonial societies had regarded ethnic identities as one of the traditional obstacles to development. 
• Theyposited that with industrialisation, urbanisation and the spread of education, ethnic consciousness will decline and that universalism would replace particularism. The other dominant approach to development, Marxism, also associated ethnicity with pre-modern values and described ethnic mobilisation and conflicts as class struggle in disguise. Proponents of this approach believed that socialism would end ethnic consciousness and ethnic tensions that existed in pre-capitalist societies. However, by the 1970s, it became increasingly clear that the process of ‘modernisation’ and ‘development’ in practice had stimulated rather than combated ethnic consciousness. It is in this background that the studies on ethnic conflicts emerged on the agenda of social sciences. 
• These studies acquired added importance in the 1990s,when a number of ethnically informed conflicts and secessionist movements emerged in former communist states and elsewhere (Sri Lanka, East Timor, Sudan, Afghanistan etc), some of which resulted in mass killings and brutal violence. Different disciplines of social sciences-history, political science, sociology, anthropology etc., began to search for answers to the persistence of ethnic identities and causes for the outbreak of ethnic conflict and ethnic violence. The findings and explanations for ethnic violence will be explored in the next unit.Here, we will focus on the broader phenomena of ethnic conflict in India.
• Before we proceed to examine ethnic identities and conflicts in India, it will be helpful to keep in mind that some of the key terms such as ‘ethnic’ and ‘ethnic conflict’ mean different things to different people. This is not only because of the subject is still in its early stages of development, but also because the subject is being approached from different disciplinary perspectives with each discipline focusing on different dimensions or aspects of the subject. In popular usage, the term ‘ethnic’ group is used to refer to racial or linguistic groups.Ethnic conflicts are thus conflicts between racial and linguistic groups. In India, it is this narrow construction of the term that is widely accepted.
• We do not generally use the word ‘ethnic’ to refer to religious groupings. Instead we use the term ‘communal’ to refer to conflict between religious groupings. In recent years, however, the term ‘ethnic’ is used to refer to a variety of politically mobilised social groups. In this broader usage, the term is used to refer to all ascriptive (birth-based) group identities- race, language, religion (including loyalties to sects within a larger religion), tribe or caste. Over the last couple of decades, this broader definition has gained wider acceptability in social sciences although in India a number of scholars prefer to treat politics and conflicts revolving around religious and caste identities as distinct from ethnic conflicts.
• The term ‘ethnic conflict’ also does not seem to have an acceptable meaning. In popular usage, ethnic conflict is associated with violence. It conjures up images of riots, pogroms, genocide or war. The word thus has a negative connotation. However, both from the Gandhian perspective as well as in scientific vocabulary, the word conflict is a neutral category and a part of normal political life. Ethnic conflict is a regular feature of any plural society, whether governed by democratic or authoritarian systems. 
• In plural societies, there are always some conflicts between ethnic groups because these groups often compete for the same goals-power, resources, recognition or territory. In democratic systems, these conflicts generally get channelled and get resolved through negotiations in parliaments, assemblies, and bureaucracies or on the streets through strikes and other forms of nonviolent demonstrations. Only on rare occasion do these conflicts end up in ethnic violence. In authoritarian systems, on the other hand, coercion and violence are more widely accepted as legitimate means for resolving political conflict. The decisions imposed by the political leadership result in either violent conflict or temporarily suppress conflict, without addressing the root causes of conflict. Given that conflict is endemic to plural societies,it will be useful to make an analytical distinction between the two terms, ethnic conflict and ethnic violence, for a better understanding of conflicts.

Approaches to ethnic conflict

• Why do ethnic conflicts occur? Broadly, there are three schools of thought on the formation of ethnic identity andtheir transformation into ethnic conflicts. The earliest school of thought known as the primordialist approach explains ethnicity as a fixed characteristic of individuals and communities. Ethnicity is embedded in inherited biological attributes, a long history of practicing cultural differences, or both. According to this school of thought, ethnic divisions and ethnic conflicts are inherent to multiethnic societies and a common phenomenon.
• The second school of thought, the Institutionalist school, argues that existence of ethnic differences is not sufficient to explain ethnic conflict. The root causes of ethnic conflict are not ethnic per se but rather institutional, political and economic factors. Ethnicity is a device used by the elite of an ethnic group to unify, organise, and mobilize populations to achieve larger goals. Those goals are mostly of a political nature and include, among others, demands for self-governance, autonomy, access to resources and power, respect for the group’s identity and culture, and minority rights. Ethnic conflicts are thus not different from conflicts that involve political interests.
• The third school of thought, the social constructivism, argues that ethnicity, in contrast to political affiliations, cannot be wilfully decided on by individuals and is instead rooted in and regulated by the society as a whole. Ethnic identity is created over time by social interactions between individuals and groups and remains therefore beyond a person’s choice, though it is subject to change along with changes in the social conditions.
• Constructivism is useful in explaining the formation of ethnic identities in a society. But because of its thrust on national level explanations, it is not useful in understanding ethnic conflicts and their various manifestations-whether peaceful or violent. Given the limitations of each of these schools of thought, scholars engaged in explaining ethnic conflicts and civil wars have introduced theories that draw insights from two or more of these schools of thought.

Ethnic conflict

• After achieving independence from colonial rule, India embarked on a massive project of nation building which had to be carried amidst ethnic diversities. Apart from caste, religious and tribal groups, the diversities in India ranged in terms of culture, languages and regional development. With different levels of development and histories, the wide variety of ethnic groups present could pose a challenge to nation building. In order to govern and achieve over all development of its heterogeneous and diverse society, the founding fathers adopted two-fold strategy, (i) they adopted a Constitution which provided for a democratic and federal set up based on the principles of secularism, liberty and equality, and (ii) they recognised diversities as central to the nation. This approach to national identity which came to be called ‘composite nationalism’ emphasised on ‘unity in diversity’ allowing each group to maintain its distinct identity without merging into a homogenous culture.
• In the last seven decades, the stability of post-independence India has depended largely on the balance between the need to build a unified nation-state (unity) and the demands of ethnic groups (diversity).
• The demands of the ethnic groups have not only challenged the forces of unity but also strained the relations between one and the other groups of diversity.Before we proceed to analyse the manifestationof ethnic conflicts, it would be useful keep in mind that ethnicity and ethnic conflicts in India are characterised by dispersed ethnic system and ethnic fluidity. There are a plethora of ethnic identities specific to a location or region of the country. As a result of this, ethnic unrest remains localised, that is, confined to a region or State. For instance, the ethnic conflict in the Northeast remains confined to the region and Sikh and Hindu conflict is largely confined to Punjab. Similarly, caste and language conflicts are confined within a locality, though sometimes, concessions given to one ethnic group have led to demand for similar concessions from other groups.
• Thus, the demand of the Sikh groups for a separate state triggered counter demands by the Hindu population of Punjab resulting in the creation of the state of Haryana, carved out of Punjab in 1966. Similarly, the creation of Nagaland in 1963 triggered demands for political autonomy from other groups, and led to the division of Assam into several new states in 1972. The significance of ethnic dispersal is that while democracy may be suspended in one area, the rest of the country continues to function under normal democratic processes without causing systemic breakdown.
• Closely related to the above feature is the fluidity of ethnic identity, i.e., the absence of a strong and permanent attachment to a single identity. Unlike people of most other societies, in India, people tend to shift their preoccupations, readily and often from one identity to another and then another in response to changing circumstances. James Manor, who has highlighted this character of ethnicity, illustrates this with an example from Andhra Pradesh. In the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh, a strong sub-regional movement had taken shape against the alleged unjust treatment by the state government.
• It succeeded in securing ten parliamentary seats in the 1970 elections. But bargains were struck with the leaders of the movement, and the Congress party, a national party, won all the seats in Telangana region in the parliamentary elections of 1977. In 1983, the people of Telangana region shifted their preoccupations again and backed a regional (as opposed to a subregional) party, the Telugu Desam, protesting about affronts to the dignity of the Telugu speaking people of the state. In early years of the 21 century, sub-regional identities once again asserted. Though the fortunes of the Telangana movement for separation from Andhra Pradesh, waxed and waned, it was eventually granted statehood in 2014. 
• Thus, in a span of three decades, people have passionately shifted their preoccupations from sub-regional, to national, and then to regional and again to sub-regional identities. There are a number of other examples of this kind of shifting of identities. People in Punjab, for instance,  have shifted their preoccupation with  linguistic identity (demand for autonomy based on language in 1960s) to regional (conflict with the Center in the 1970s), religious (demand for separate state of Khalistan in the 1980s) and national identities in a span of two or three decades. It is therefore important to note that social tensions in India do not result in prolonged and intractable conflicts that might tear democratic institutions apart.

 Manifestation of Ethnic Conflicts

• The challenge posed by ethnic groups in India have taken the form of (i) autonomy movements, (ii) secessionist movements, (iii) insurgency and (iv) violent conflicts on the basis of identity markers such as language, religion, tribe, caste, etc. The first three forms listed above are also called self-determination movements and have occurred in places where there has been a rough correlation between ethnic identity and territory. Possessing many of the features of a nation, ethnic communities in different parts of the country at different times, have sought political autonomy. 
• The demand for the creation of states on the basis of language soon after the country’s independence is a good example here. With the Telugu speaking population of the Madras Presidency and adjoining regions demanding a separate state and similar demands emanating in other language groups, the Central government set up of the State Reorganisation Commission and created linguistically discreet states within the India federation in the mid 1950s. In the subsequent years, ethnicity has been the dominant factor in the internal reorganisation of states of the Indian Union. 
• The creation of Punjab and Haryana in 1966, the division of Assam into seven new states in 1972 and the creation of three new states in 2000, carved out of Uttar Pradesh (Uttaranchal, now renamed as Uttarakhand), Bihar (Jharkhand), and Madhya Pradesh (Chhattisgarh) are instances of states formed to accommodate the demands of ethnic groups, even though non-ethnic forces- regional and cultural factors- too have contributed to this process.
• In the Northeast region of India, ethnic conflicts have assumed secessionist and insurgent proportions. Historically, ethnic communities in the Northeast had very little contact with India during the colonial period. When India became independent, the entry of the modern Indian state into these areas created tensions and fears that their ethnic way of life would be lost. As a result, a number of groups in the region have waged a protracted violent struggle for secession from India.In the early 1950s, a section of the Nagas declared independence. Later, the Naga National Council and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland launched an armed struggle for establishing sovereign state of Nagaland.
• Although these groups have turned down several offers of negotiated settlement since the mid-1990s, negotiations between some sections of Naga society and the Indian government have been going on. In a landmark agreement in 2015, the Indian government and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland have agreed to arrive at political settlement.
• Another secessionist movement in the region was the one launched by the Mizo National Front under the leadership of Laldenga. After independence, the Mizo Hills area was made an autonomous district within Assam. But some Mizos believed that they did not belong to India as they were never a part of British India. In the late 1950s, a strong secessionist movement took shape among the Mizos when the Assam government failed to respond adequately to the great famine of 1959. In 1966, the Mizo National Front launched an armed campaign for independence.The MNF got support from government of Pakistan and secured shelter in the then East Pakistan. This was countered by the Indian security forces with a series of repressive measures which affected the common people and alienated them.After two decades of MNF insurgency and counter measures by the Indian government, both sides realised the futility of armed struggle and negotiated a peace agreement in 1986. By this agreement, Mizoram was granted full-fledged statehood with special powers and the MNF gave up armed struggle and joined the mainstream politics.
• Besides secessionist movements, the region has experienced a number of autonomy movements. At the time of independence, the Northeast region comprised of Assam, Manipur and Tripura. A number of tribes living in Assam felt that the State government was imposing Assamese. The unrest from this gradually led to the demand for political autonomy. These demands were accommodated by carving out several States- Meghalaya, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh-out of Assam, at different points of time. Even though the reorganisation of the Northeast region was completed in 1972, this has not ended the demand for political autonomy from different communities like the Bodos, Karbis, and Dimasas. Instead of carving out smaller and smaller states, the Indian government has sought to address these demands by granting autonomy under District Councils or Autonomy Councils.
• While a number of ethnic conflicts in the northeast region have been resolved, many remain unresolved. The inability and reluctance of the Indian government to resolve these secessionist and ethnic conflicts with adequate political measures is reflected in the extension of the AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Power Act) which was passed 1958 as a short-term measure to allow deployment of the army to counter an armed separatist movement in the Naga Hills, to all the seven states of the Northeast region in 1972 (with the exception of Mizoram).

Inter-ethnic Conflicts

• Quite distinct from the conflicts between the forces of unity and diversity, that is, between the Indian state and the ethnic groups, there are a number of inter-ethnic conflicts. In Unit 3, we have already examined different aspects of the conflicts between religious groups and sects as well as between castes located at different levels of social hierarchy. The conflict between the Hindus and the Muslims has been widely analysed not only because it is a litmus test to the national leadership that had rejected the ‘two nation theory’ that had led to the partition of the subcontinent, but also because of intermittent violence in the form of communal riots. 
• What factors contribute to riots and why some parts of the country are prone to communal riots have been the subject of analysis of a number of recent studies. The findings of these studies suggest that communal conflict is an outcome of competing political interests of the elite. They, however, differ in explaining why some communal conflicts end up in communal violence. While Vershney and Breman attribute the outbreak of communal violence to weak civil society, that is, absence of networks of associational and everyday life between the members of the two communities, Brass, Hansen and Wilkinson,on the other hand, attributeit to political actors and the electoral incentives of political parties and leaders.
• It is important to note that such incitement of ethnic groups for narrow political gains is not limited to their elite or State leadership, though it is here that the riot mechanism is put in place.Some communal riots between the Hindus and Muslim as well as those between Hindus and Sikhs since the late 1970s have been attributed to political leadership at the national level which stimulated and manipulated ethnic awareness for short term political advantages.
• Inter-ethnic conflict between the Sikhs and Hindus is a good illustration of communal politics of the secular centre. Faced with a challenge to its dominance from the Akali Dal, the Congress Party in the 1970s began to use Sikh religious symbols to mobilise the Sikh voters. In the 1980 election to the Punjab Legislative Assembly, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, the leader of the Congress Party, took the help of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a Sikh religious leader to get the support of the Sikh voters. This had two consequences. In the first instance, it encouraged the religious leaders, especially, Bhindranwale to act independent of the political leadership and become belligerent. 
• With the support of Sikh diaspora outside India, he was able to rally a large number of youth and demand a separate Sikh homeland-the Khalistan. The Khalistan movement resulted in a chain of disastrous eventslarge scale violence by the Sikh militants, counter operations by the central forces (Operation Blue Star), assassination of Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi and anti-Sikh riots in 1984 in which thousands lost their lives in Delhi and other states. Secondly, the use of Sikh religion and the imposition of Sikh code of conduct on the Hindus created the communal divide between the Sikhs and the Hindus in Punjab resulting in conflicts and riots between the two ethnic groups.
• Another inter-ethnic conflict that has persisted in urban Indian politics is the one between the locals and the migrants. This conflict essentially arose from the competition for limited resources-employment and educational opportunities-actual or potential. Here, the dominant linguistic or regional group subscribes to the ‘sons of the soil’ doctrine which tends to regard the state/province as the ‘homeland’ of its main language speakers and all others who live there or settled there as ‘outsiders’. In the 1960s, the ‘sons of the soil’ movement in Maharastra took a violent form when the Shiv Sena demanding preference in jobs and small business to Maharastrians, organised a violent movement against Tamils who were declared to have a disproportionate share of office jobs and small businesses.
• In 1969, it organised arson and terror against the ‘outsider’ South Indians. In the later years, as the Shiv Sena was unable to get support beyond the city of Bombay or support of major political parties, it shifted its base to Hindu communalism and gained wider political constituency. While local–migrant conflicts are largely confined to urban places, in Assam it assumed a wider and serious proportion. Relatively better economic opportunities available in Assam had attracted people, from Bangladesh as well as the adjoining states. In the late 1970s, a strong movement against migrants, mostly from Bangladesh, took shape in Assam.
• The Assamese mobilized in protest against these new migrants and have accused the Central governments of deliberately ignoring their loss of jobs, overcrowding, and political shifts unfavourable to the local Assamese. A coalition of Assamese groups that led this agitation accused the central government, largely dominated by the Congress Party, of seeking migrant vote and therefore ignoring the Assamese demands. In 1985, the movement came to an end with signing of the Assam Accord between the central government and the Assamese leaders. But the movement had given a boost to the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), a militant organisation that sought to establish a sovereign socialist Assam.
• Moreover, the migrant issue continued to dominate the politics of the state. The movement for the creation of Bodoland on the norther bank of Brahmaputra in Assam that emerged in the late 1980s has often resulted in attacks on migrants and other ethnic groups.

Managing Ethnic Conflicts

• At the time of independence, fears of fragmentation propelled Indian leaders to adopt policies that emphasised unity over diversity. Although the Indian National Congress has supported linguistic organisation of provinces since the 1920, after independence the Congress party revoked its support for linguistic states. The Jawaharlal Nehru, VallabhaiPatel and P.Sitaramayya Committee (popularly known as the JVP Committee) that was set up in 1949 argued that ‘language was not only a binding force but also a separating on’.
• Now, when the ‘primary consideration must be on security, unity and economic prosperity of India’, ‘every separatist and disruptive tendency should be rigorously discouraged’. Despite such fears, the Congress leadership conceded statehood demand of the Telugu speaking people of Madras Presidency in 1953 and set up the State Reorganisation Commission. In the subsequent years, the pulls of electorate mobilized along ethnic lines have since forced Indian political leadership to cede greater autonomy to linguistic regions and ethnic communities. 
• In the first two decades after independence, Indian society was more self-regulating and less prone to conflict. There were fewer challenges to caste and class hierarchies. The situation underwent a change in the late 1960s. Electoral campaigns and mobilisation of people on the basis of ethic loyalties during the parliamentary and the State elections made people aware of their rights. Once this happened, people became more assertive.
• The disadvantaged and the marginalised sections of the society, women, tribal and dalits etc. began to challenge the existing social hierarchies. They began to apply pressure on politicians to give them benefits and were even ready to confront them when the response was inadequate. While this political awakening made India more genuine democracy, it also made it a difficult country to govern.
• In response to the rising aspirations of the people, political leadership at the Center, Indira Gandhi in particular, began to concentrate power in their hands and weaken political institutions in the interest of personal and dynastic rule.An unfortunate outcome of this excessive concentration of power was that it damaged the instruments, which politicians had once used to gather information, distribute goods and services and mediate social conflict. The weakening of the ability of the political leadership to manage ethnic conflicts is reflected in the aggravation of ethnic tensions in many parts of the country in the 1980s-autonomy and separatist movements in Punjab, Kashmir, Nagaland, Tripura etc. and conflicts between ethnic groups as in Assam over the issue of migrants and communal conflicts in Uttar Pradesh over Uniform Civil Code and Ayodhya temple. The political leadership initially treated these movements and conflicts as law and order problems, but eventually came round to accommodate these groups by negotiating settlements with them.
• An important factor that facilitated the settlement of these conflicts has been the flexible federal system adopted by India. The Constitution of India, while ensuring equality among states, nevertheless provided for special provisions for some States like, Jammu and Kashmir and the States in the Northeast. The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution allowed different tribes complete autonomy to preserve their practices and customary laws. As we saw, these provisions have proved crucial in resolving some complex problems in the northeast.
• Since the 1990s, however, with economic reforms and the growth of prosperity, the balance has again tilted in favour of unity and accommodation. However, the steady rise of Hindu nationalism at around this time has had implications for ethnicity and ethnic conflicts. This is because the avowed aim of Hindu nationalism is not only to emphasise the centrality of Hinduism in India but also to build Hindu unity. As an ideology, Hindu nationalism is opposed to composite nationalism and prefers assimilation over accommodation. The steady rise of this form of nationalism has generated tensions and sporadic violence between the Hindu groups on the one hand and the minorities and the marginalised lower caste groups on the other. Even though the Bharatiya Janata Party, a party representing this ideology has captured power in the national elections in 2014, it had not been able to push its ideology in the face of resistance, not only from the minorities and marginalised groups but also from other civil society organisations.

Conclusion

The Nature-Man-Spirit Complex concept, proposed by L.P. Vidyarthi, emphasizes the importance of understanding the constant interaction between man, nature, and the spiritual world in tribal societies. This concept is particularly useful for applied anthropologists working on development programs in tribal India, as it illustrates the need for a sensitive and well-informed approach to introducing changes in these communities. By acknowledging the strong connection between the environment, culture, and spiritual beliefs, anthropologists and development planners can better design and implement programs that respect the existing cultural ecology and ensure that development efforts align with the values and needs of the community. This approach ultimately aims to achieve development with happiness for these tribal groups, while preserving their unique cultural identity and maintaining the equilibrium of the Nature-Man-Spirit Complex.