To imitate Balkanization: The Insurgencies of India

 India as a nation throughout its inception to this very point has carefully curated its image as a nation, which champions itself as the stalwart of peace and global cooperation, though this image stands firms on the outside, internally it has been plagued by violent and gruesome religious and ethnic conflicts in the form of insurgency, before a deep dive into these said insurgencies and their status, it’s important to understand that insurgencies have the end goal of uprooting the current status quo, which it tries to achieve through armed guerilla tactics which are mostly based out of rural or underdeveloped areas, another prominent reason why insurgents use guerilla tactics is because in most cases ( especially in the case of India ) they are inferior both in terms of quality and quantity and in most cases ( especially true in the case of India) these tactics have proven to be immensely effective in a way that these tactics make it immensely hard for the regular forces to crack down on insurgents, throughout all this the most basic element of insurgency is fear, through these acts of brutality and violence fear is instilled in the hearts and minds of the general masses, so even if the will of the masses does not match the desires of the insurgents, its through fear that forces like these coerce general ratification of the masses

Insurgency in the most colloquial sense of the word is understood and viewed as an internal conflict but this is a rather skewed perspective, this perspective doesn’t take into account that subversive activities like these are heavily influenced by external forces, which often are responsible for using these forces to meet a certain geopolitical end or create a situation, which makes their exercise of power easier and more efficient.

The phenomena of armed rebellion in the form of insurgency is as old as the country itself and though its really difficult to point out fundamentally what are the causations and said reasons behind insurgencies as in the context of India, all instances of insurgency are unique in themselves, as they portray different geographies, different social and political contexts and fight or claim to fight for entirely different and varied reasons, but even despite all these different and highly complex differentiations the following general factors are observed.

1)      Determination for greater independence and autonomy

2)      Preservation of local, ethnic or religious identity

3)      Territorial Disputes

4)      Grave underdevelopment and socio-economic inequality

Determination for greater independence and autonomy

-          Fundamentally the goal of any ardent secessionist movement is an escape from the contract which it has to keep with the state, which bounds it to the autonomy and the will of the state as according to their perception, the state in itself is a foul entity, which exercises its own will over the will of the general masses, this can be done either through legal or legislative means, such as the abolition of article 370, the act which was responsible for giving the state of Jammu and Kashmir its special status or it can be done through military means such as the enactment of Armed Forces Special Power Act ( AFSPA) which gives the armed forces the special power to maintain public order in disturbed areas especially the north east provinces of India, an insurgent movement views all these attempts as intervention to clamp down on their liberty and free will, Kashmir is also a prime example of the same, at its core it stems from the issue of autonomy and independence, the primary demand has always been the demand of either greater regional autonomy or complete independence, of course there is no denying that these demands were also heavily influenced by religious and ethnic reasons, hence why the subsequent argument.

Preservation of local, ethnic or religious identity

-          Most insurgencies in India are or were driven by the desire to preserve local, ethnic or religious identity, this can be understood also by citing the example of the contemporary religious rejuvenation movement in India, at its very core it’s a movement which aims to perverse the Hindu religious identity and to protect it from external influences, such as the forces of secularism and the prevalence of western ideals, similarly this is/was the case with many insurgent movements in India, this is especially true in the context of North East India, for example the Naga insurgency was driven by the desire to preserve the distinct Naga culture and tribal ethos, this was also exacerbated by the fear that the new emerging union of India will try to assimilate them in a common fold of Indianness to secure and bolster its integrity as a nation, the fear of this forceful assimilation can also be observed in the ongoing Kuki insurgency in Manipur, I would refrain from adding Kashmir to this fold entirely/ uniquely for one reason, that ever since the rise of insurgency in Kashmir, the essence of fighting for Kashmiriyat has been made subservient to the Islamist agenda of the insurgents and the foreign influence of Pakistan, another great example of this can be the Tamil Insurgency, though the implications of that were drastically felt in Sri Lanka, it still embodies the violent and armed struggle to preserve lingual identity of the Tamilians.

Territorial Disputes

-          During the inception of any nation state, contract is established between the state and the constituencies which form the said nation, that contract aims at preserving the integrity of the nation and making it more robust in nature, however at times the idea of that territorial contract is deemed unfair for one party involved, this leads to the development of resentment and of loss, Territory or land in itself is an integral factor as it forms the other subsequent factors or causations, which may lead to insurgency, its important to understand territory and disputes relating to it forms a prerequisite ground work for all other factors to work upon and influence, Many factors when combined led to Punjab Insurgency of the late 80s, resentment against the government, external influence, policy blunder by the government, preservation of Sikh identity, but all these causations would have had negligible or zero effect if a pre-existing territorial dispute didn’t exist, the insurgents demanded the state of Khalistan which would carve up a large chunk of the nation if it actually came to fruition.

Grave underdevelopment and socio-economic inequalities

-          Social hierarchies and inequalities are undesirable in nature but they are the inevitable truth of any nation, but it becomes a problem when these inequalities are so persistent that these hinder on the basic survival and means of living of the general masses, India in this case is in a highly problematic situation, what the state and the masses fail to understand that if insurgencies can arise due to foreign intervention and resentment, it can also arise through the negligence and the failure of the state to provide people with the most basic of amenities to sustain a life of dignity and respect, Maoist Insurgency is the best example to understand the above mentioned, it is indeed a movement which is based on a certain political ideologue, which professes violent overthrow of the state to establish what the defenders of Maoism view to be an egalitarian state, the influence of Maoism and the Chinese revolution by no stretch of the imagination can be denied, but to analysis this critically we can easily land to the fact that grave economic inequality which exists in the red corridor ( area effected by Maoist Insurgency) provides an enabling factor to an attempt at a total Maoist overthrow and revamp of the state, hence Socio economic disparities are the causing factors of a violent and the dissatisfied Populus and in this case the Populus chose to adopt the Maoist form of opposition as their preferred mode of resistance against the state or the government.

Conclusion

INSURGENCY AS A PHENOMENA IS A SERIOUS AND A COMPELLING ISSUE AND UNLIKE MANY COMPLICATIONS, IT HAS CONTEMPORAY IMPLICATIONS, THOUGH THE GOVERNMENT FROM LEGAL AND MILIARY HAS DONE A FINE JOB AT NEGATING THE EFFECTS OF INSURGENCY AND SUBSEQUENTLY PUTTING A HUGE DENT ON ITS EFFICIENY, IT STILL CANNOT BE DENIED THAT INSURGENCY EXISTS IN THE WAY IT EXISTS DUE TO MANY REASONS AND CAUSATIONS, WHICH MOST IN POLICY MAKING EITHER IGNORE OR FAIL TO UNDERSTAND ACKNOWLEGDE, TO DEAL WITH A ISSUE SO OVERLAPPING THE SOLUTION IN ITSELF HAS TO BE SOMETHING HOLISTIC AND COMPREHENSIVE IN NATURE, AS INSURGENCY NOT ONLY POSES A GIGANTIC THREAT TO THE STATE AND ITS INTEGRITY IT ALSO POSSES AN ENORMOUS THREAT TO THE LIVELYHOOD OF PEOPLE DIRECTLY CAUSING IT, PEOPLE BEING EFFECTED BY IT OR PEOPLE FIGHTING AGAINST IT.