Indian Empire (and the Case of ) Author(s): SUVIR KAUL Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 46, No. 13 (MARCH 26-APRIL 1, 2011), pp. 66- 75 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41152287 Accessed: 11-01-2020 21:56 UTC

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This content downloaded from 134.114.107.39 on Sat, 11 Jan 2020 21:56:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Indian Empire (and the Case of Kashmir)

SUVIR KAUL

This essay asks what the history of modern empire and and Kashmir, 15 August 2010: Writing an of state formation within it can teach us about the formsSrinagar, of governance essay in post-colonial on the India persistence while living in a of colonial modes of thought and formation and functioning of the state in decolonised, city under constant curfew, where 57 demonstrators have been independent nations like India. It also considers killed and many morethe injured in police firing in the last two converse of this question - can an analysis months, of brings the to the crisis many of the certainties that usually centrality of a particular kind of state formation inform post-colonial to analyses the of an independent nation like India.1 There is first the startling realisation that the key terms of making of empire help us understand some of the anti-colonialism articulated by Indian nationalists (and 20th deeply undemocratic imperatives and neocolonial century movements for decolonisation generally) provide the in- ambitions of the postcolonial nation state tellectualtoday? and political frameworkIt of activists for the Kashmiri argues that crucial modes of governance, particularly cause - India is the colonial power; thethe Indian army and para- military an occupation force; members of the elected state relation between the militarised state and its subject government are collaborators and stooges of the central govern- populations that characterised colonial empires, ment; and senior bureaucrats,extend who are members of all-India civil to the present moment. In addition, it examines services, are administrators the whose job it is to deny any avenues situation of Jammu and Kashmir to show forhow Kashmiri self-determination. the Further, Kashmiri nationalists make it clear that their move- government of independent India has renewed both ment is not simply concerned with economic betterment. In colonial legislation and colonial attitudes to response deal to both thewith prime minister's and the chief minister's challenges to its authority, particularly from promises ofpopulations more jobs in the government and in the private sec- at its peripheries who wish to choose their tor,own they argue thatform their goal is political of self-determination and that they do not mobilise, and sacrifice lives, for bread alone. national political formation. Their movement is for azadi (freedom), a word once so dear to Indian anti-colonialism, except that it is now the Indian state that thwarts freedom. Kashmiri newspapers sympathetic to the desire for azadi are happy to reprint the work of Indian (and Pakistani) revolutionary poets - where once Sahir Ludhianvi and Faiz Ahmed Faiz spoke out against imperialists, their poems now pro- vide sustenance for the Kashmiri movement as it struggles against Indian domination. Conversely, the response of the Indian state - the central and state governments and the army and paramilitary forces whose highly intrusive presence warps civilian life in the - has been to treat the sustained protests as a law and order prob- lem and to respond with military might. Even when the prime minister and the home minister have spoken of Kashmir's "unique" status within the Indian union and of the need for an equally unique resolution, their promises lack purpose and con- viction, and in any case are treated by Kashmiris as only the latest attempts to mollify widespread political protests and thus enable This essay has benefited from discussion by the Race anda fraudulent, Empire Groupuneasy peace, as has happened repeatedly in recent at the University of Pennsylvania as well as from comments years. "Mainstream"by Tariq politicians, that is, elected officials who Thachil, Ania Loomba, Rohit Chopra and Sanjay Как. believeIt also in draws Jammu on and Kashmir's accession to India, lack credibility conversations with Parvaiz Bukhari and Aijaz Hussain. and are absent from public life. The only political figures who Suvir Kaul ([email protected]) is at the University matter today are members of the separatist Hurriyat alliance, of Pennsylvania. and Syed AH Shah Geelani is the most conspicuous among them.

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Further, ideologues of Kashmiri independence formation (or in eventhe independent those nation has been the development who favour achieving the autonomy guaranteed of a bymassive Article security 370 apparatus of ostensibly to guard international the Indian Constitution) have developed denseborders, historicalbut in effect to ac- act internally against restive populations counts of the long Kashmiri struggle against contained,colonisers by thethat force goes of historical circumstance, within those back to the 16th century (first the Mughal conquest, borders. Indeed, then oneAfghan might argue that this security apparatus, rule, then Sikh, then Dogra, and now Indian). developed In sum, under themany cover ofof an aggressive, celebratory nationa- the political and ideological features of classic lism, is an20th important century element of the post-colonial state's claims anti-colonial movements are in place in the Kashmiri to legitimacy. struggle for self-determination. This essay will ask what the history of modern empire and of This reversal of India's post-colonial credentials state formation is why within other- it can teach us about the formation and wise progressive Indian intellectuals and politicians functioning ofhave the statefound in decolonised, independent nations like it so difficult to respond to the challenge posed India. by It willKashmir also consider (and the converse of this question - can an have been so slow to condemn the near-daily analysiskillings of theof centrality unarmed, of a particular kind of state formation to stone-throwing protestors by the Central Reserve the making Police of empireForce, help or us understand some of the deeply CRPF, and the state police). We have long undemocraticassumed theimperatives ethical and neocolonial ambitions of the post- gravitas of being inheritors of a proud anti-colonial colonial nation nationalism, state today? It will argue that crucial modes of and even though we have developed critiques governance, of the state particularly and ofthe relation between the militarised the functioning of democracy in India, we assume state and that its subjectthe state, populations that characterised colonial warts and all, is fundamentally post-colonial empires, in its extend self-concep- to the present moment. European imperial tion and functioning. That is, we are convinced nations that established the coloniesactions via battle and conquest, as the British of politicians, bureaucrats, and police and (East military India Company) officers did after 1757 in India, and held and vis-à-vis particular communities, no matter expanded how polarised,their territorial are holdings by building large armies using comprehensible within an analysis of the problems revenues and of taxes a fledge-raised from the subjects they ruled over. This ling democracy. Thus we document the travails territorial of andsignificant military legacy was inherited, in a "transfer of sectors of our democracy very well - our newspapers power", by the and government maga- of a newly independent India, which zines are not only full of exposés of corruption renewed and both official colonial mal- legislation and colonial attitudes to deal feasance, but also of substantive debates on with the challenges misappropria- to its authority, particularly from populations at tion of natural resources, tax revenues and its the peripheries developmental who wished to choose their own form of national capacities of the state. (or even sub-national) political formation. Further, as India However, in other areas of governance, the achievesself-righteous global economic and heft, the policing functions of the state, aggressive nationalism bred by our anti-colonial far from beinghistory whittled has down, are being rapidly enhanced to blunted our critiques of state functioning. dealPrecisely not only becausewith problems we at the borders, but also with any struggled against and dethroned an empire, we form believe of resistance that inde- mounted by mobilised citizens within, pendence inaugurated a fundamentally different whether form these of be sover-communities protesting large-scale industri- eign, constitutional rule that safeguards the statealisation from that displacesassuming them and alienates them from their any of the attributes of the colonial state. No livelihood, longer ordo people viceroys who wish to call attention to the age-old rule subjects; now elected officials rule in the socio-economic name, and withstructures the that are responsible for their electoral consent, of citizens. In key areas, historicalhowever, dispossession. the Indian state has confirmed and enhanced the doctrines and methods it India's Neocolonial Ambitions inherited from British colonial law and policy. Prime among these is the dogma that once the departing British I will had begin defined not with the matters at home, so to speak, but with an external boundaries of the nation (however explanation opportunistically of the appropriateness of a phrase I used earlier, and inexactly), the populations within them India's were "neocolonial not toambitions". be I take my cue from an essay by allowed the right to self-determination. These С Raja boundaries Mohan, the "strategic were affairs editor" of Indian Express and to be defended at all costs, not only against externala former holderenemies, of the but Henry A Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy also against secessionist movements or movements and International seeking Relations at the John W Kluge Center, us different forms of autonomy. That is, rather Library than theof Congress. state func- Mohan outlines a remarkable vision of mili- tioning as the prime agency that encourages tary citizens cooperation to betweenevolve the us and India. He argues that "the more progressive and equitable power-sharing Obama arrangementsadministration needs to elevate the bilateral military across the nation, it acts primarily to preserve engagement the boundaries with India of to a strategic level", because "a rising the union in the form inherited from the British India" empire.will be "a This more was credible and sustainable partner" than true even when there were reasons to believe that this carto- western Europe or Japan in "coping with new international graphic inheritance had been crafted without considering thesecurity challenges". If both the us and India "can shake off the needs and particular histories of local populations, and even remaining if historical baggage that has kept them at arm's length the policing involved the suspension of fundamental principles for of most of the past 60 years, we may see something remotely democratic functioning. Thus one of the cardinal features of state like the return of the Raj" (Mohan 2010).

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The "Return Indians the confidenceof to find theirthe place within an internationalRaj"? But before we examine the many assumptions techno-managerial about and commercial rulinghistory class. In the last two and colonialism that make the revival of that political decades, Indians participating incondition the global networks of capital imaginable, leave alone desirable, we might briefly have also consolidated theirsummarise power at home. The process of eco- the historical developments that encourage an nomic liberalisation Indian initiated in 1991 - and the creation security of a mas- strategist to reach for that quite astonishing sive andphrase. deeply uneven consumer economy - required Mohan's the formal ideas about such "bilateralism" are no longer singular.repudiation of the institutional mechanisms of nationalistThe or unprecedented growth of the Indian economy in socialist the modes of economic lastorganisation. decade and the rise to global prominence of Indian multinational In effect, in this process of "globalisation", the economic enterprises agen- has encouraged political theo- rists and policy das and protocols dictated by once-colonisingplanners capitalist nations to imagine a world in which India emerges as becamea the stateregional doctrines of once-colonised nations. Multi- power, with the military capacity (par- ticularly a blue lateral agencies such aswater the World Bank, the International or Mone- expeditionary navy) to enforce its for- eign policy tary Fundagendas (imf), the General Agreement on Tariffs and and Trade economic interests, as well as play a more visible (gatt) and therole World Trade Organisation in (wto) playedinternational a crucial "peace keeping". This model of regional role. authorityThey legislated and enforced particular mechanisms ofhas eco- been developed in tandem with, and in imagined nomic and oppositioncommercial development, while denying the legiti- to, the even more prominent rise of China as an macy economicof public sector or state-managed enterprises, andpower.2 state- There is of subsidised course programmes for poverty alleviation oranother the redistribu- crucial longer-term geopolitical development tion of wealth.that Globalisation has of courseexplains taken some surprising Mohan's invitation to India to func- tion as a regional turns. Few could have predicted satrap the rise of multinational capi-of us global power. After the formal dis- solution of taliststhe and corporations fromSoviet countries such as Russia, China Union and in 1991, regional alliances built by the us and India,the or the spectacular ussr, recent growth rates of theincluding Indian and those represented by the "non- aligned" nations, Chinese economies, particularly at abegan time the most powerful to redefine themselves. Nations that shifted their economies inaffiliations the west are struggling. Economists now believe included some of the constituent repub- lics of the Sovietthat China will be the largest nationalUnion, economy and that Russia, nations in Europe that had belonged to the Council Brazil for and India will play rolesMutual in the global economy larger than Economic Assistance (Comecon) and the Warsaw Pact, that played byand the European Union nations (eu) well before 2050. In 2010, in Africa and Asia that had communist governments after two yearsor of recession were in the west, the world wasrecipients changing of aid from the Soviet Union and who often followed rapidly, with new centres of economic power itsin view and realign- lead at the United Nations (un). This dec- ade also saw ments ofimportant economic relations across the globe. milestones in the formal decolonisation of the globe, particularly the 1994 general election in South Africa that Unipolardemolished World the last bastion of racist white European empire in Africa. However, all these developments Inare taking placethis in the context new world, empires of the most visible sort (those basedof a unipolar world, with a singleon "superpower", direct the us, continu- territorial control, the subordination of majority ing topopulations, intervene diplomatically and militarily in situations and the extraction of surplus to enrich colonisers or deemed a challengethe to its authority.3 colonising We now have what seems to nation) seemed a thing of the past. For a brief be a confusingmoment, scenario - the us maintains its ability to fightit two also seemed as if empire as an ideal of governance, overseas or wars and keepas its ring ofa military desirable bases across the globe model of economic organisation, no longer had currency functioning, while at the same time struggling or to revive legitimacy.its However, the domestic economy. intermeshed As several commentators have noted, these world that modern European impe- rialists had developmentscreated suggest that at this moment in itsbetween history, the us is the 17th and 20th centuries, based on hierarchical inevitably slipping intoeconomic, the decline that defined its precursor political and cultural relations between colonisers and empire, the υκ,those where the contradiction betweencolonised, its blighted did not alter quickly or consider- ably. Once-colonised post-second world war economy and its military capacity contrib-nations now controlled their political futures (though uted to the success of the anti-colonialtheir movements that broughtcolonial masters were prone to influence developments, about the end of empire.or even intervene), but they certainly were not welcome to entirelyBut the model of "informal" empire represented rewrite by the us is trading arrangements bequeathed to them by their different, us powererstwhile across the globe has been based not so much rulers. Indeed in most cases the nationalist elites, who onhad territorial acquisition led overseas as on economicthe and diplomatic struggle for political independence, saw no reason at power backedall by the ability, to and the will, abrogateto intervene militarily. ways of doing business that would continue to enrich them. This was the case even in India - its For more than a century now, from the Spanish-American War of economy, for three decades after independence, was centrally 1898 to Iraq and Afghanistan today, the us has fought wars across planned and most of its key sectors closed off to foreign capital. the globe and has carved out spheres of influence that it polices Given protected and captive markets, indigenous capital grew in from its bases and embassies overseas. By one estimate, in 2001 volume and this growth, coupled with the successful develop- the us had bases in more than 60 countries and overseas territo- ment of technically skilled engineers and managers, allowed ries.4 As the editors of the Monthly Review put it,

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us global political, economic, and financial power . . . require the peri- induced a collective national amnesia about the country's rich pre- odic exercise of military power. The other advanced capitalist coun- independence military traditions. Its foreign policy establishment still tries tied into this system have also become reliant on the United pretends that India's engagement with the world began on 15 August States as the main enforcer of the rules of the game. The positioning 1947 of (2010). us military bases should therefore be judged not as a purely military phenomenon, but as a mapping out of the us-dominated imperial Administrators of the British empire used troops from India, sphere and of its spearheads within the periphery (2002). paid for by Indian taxpayers without any mechanism to ascertain Even as 20th century decolonisation movements across their the approval (we are talking about empire here) to police, as globe spelled the end of modern European empires, and towell that as gain and hold, colonial territories ranging from Egypt and extent the decline of empire as an ideology of international Iraqpoliti- to Malaya and South Africa, as well as to fight in Europe and cal and economic organisation, the us informal empire continues elsewhere in both first and second world wars.8 Rather than pose to thrive and has become the (much debated, to be sure) aexem- problem for Mohan, this fundamentally undemocratic exercise plar of international power and authority. in imperial warmongering provides an argument for the future. So, to return to Mohan's essay, it is scarcely surprising that He confidently the asserts that were Obama to upgrade the us' strate- "imagination of empire", as it were, still holds security analysts gic alliance in with India, he will find in "Manmohan Singh a part- its thrall. And not just security analysts, for as is well known ner who by is ready to work with the United States in constituting a now, a number of historians and economists have gained post-colonialpublic Raj that can bear the burdens of ordering the Eastern notice by advocating an aggressive role for the us and its surro- Hemisphere in the 21st century" (2010). In his argument, a "post- gates across the globe. Military intervention, policing and colonial the Raj" not only entails the extension of Indian power over- management of economies and populations are all seen seas, to bebut also the willing addition of Indian military resources to part of the renewed mandate for empire. Niall Ferguson the wasus arsenal (even a "post-colonial Raj" needs a raja, or king, some years ago the poster boy for such neoconservatism, particu- after all). The post-colonial future thus reiterates the colonial larly in his insistence that the us, as a leader of a coalition past,or on except that a sovereign India now acts in strategic accord- its own, ought to occupy and manage countries that are not ance quite with the foreign policy and commercial imperatives of the amenable - for any number of reasons - to Washington's view global of military power, the us. the world (see, for example, Ferguson 2003) .5 This and similar attempts to get the us to formalise its informal empire were The re- Legacies of Empire markably short-lived - though Barack Obama's administration The historical legacy of empire, as well as its perpetuation in the has not undone George Bush's adventure in Iraq and has enhanced present moment in an imperial formation like that maintained by its troop levels in Afghanistan, neoconservative imperialists the us do across the globe, continues to structure international rela- not have direct influence on it. However, us foreign policytions in spite of the rise of other national or collective centres of remains committed to the unilateral determination, and the economic pro- power (such as the eu). In any case, the mode of "devel- tection, of us interests, particularly its access to commodities opment" and that has allowed the economic growth of China or Brazil markets, and there is no sign of a scaling-back of us bases or or of India its in the last two decades is largely an extension of the military presence overseas.6 capitalist forms of resource exploitation put into place by impe- In this scenario, Mohan's priorities are clear - India shouldrial European nations between the 18th and the late 20th centu- have a special bilateral relation with the us, which will entail, ries in(China of course was never colonised, but crucial sectors of part, functioning under its aegis as a regional power. But its whyeconomy were "internationalised" by the sea-borne power of would Mohan reach towards Raj revivalism (he calls it a "creative Britain, as, for instance, in the first and second Opium wars). renewal" of the "Raj legacy") to vividly illustrate his sense Today, that transnational corporations originating in any of these India, and its army and navy, should be put at the service ofnations, the or indeed anywhere in the world, operate in similar us, and to be sure, of parallel Indian interests? Is this ways,just anand are backed by national governments in their search for idiosyncratic and attention-grabbing formulation or is there resources, more labour and markets. As human populations and needs at stake here? For Mohan, the in India demonstrated grow and consumer economies deplete resources worldwide, the what he identifies as the '"India Centre' that organised peace future and seems increasingly competitive and fraught, particularly stability in much of the Eastern Hemisphere during the given 19th that there is no international effort to bring into being and 20th centuries".7 To claim British imperial history ascooperative the or more equitable forms of development. The earth's precedent for an Indian future, Mohan resorts to a rhetorical ecology cannot support the extension of the standard of living of sleight of hand. For him, it is always a national entity the called former colonial powers to people everywhere, and it is clear India, not an imperial state, British India, that acts to that police technological solutions today cannot enable anything like a colonial territories. Where others might see a fundamental reasonable standard of living across the globe. Yes, there are now political and foreign policy break between British India "middleand an class" populations in most nations that share in a global independent Republic of India, Mohan offers seamless consumerconti- culture, but this level of consumption simply cannot be nuity. He even claims to redress the unfortunate legacy madeof an available to all the world's population. In this scenario, the anti-imperialist post-colonial politics, future suggests greater class polarisation within nations and It is not just the west that is ignorant of the security legacy greater of the antagonism between nations as they compete inter- British Raj; India's own post-colonial political class deliberately nationally for resources and markets.

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The compact between trading corporations and states waspost-colonial a democratic nations, where the electoral system product, and indeed an enabler, of modern European empire. that grants each adult a vote does not compensate for other his- After the territorial gains made by Spanish conquistadors intorical the forms of marginalisation suffered by large sections, occa- Americas and the establishing of commercial silver mining sionallythere, even a majority, of their citizens. European colonialism and capitalism were both enabled by char- To that extent, independent India's security establishment has tered companies (the Dutch Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compag- been built not only to counter Pakistan (with which it has fought nie, the English , and the Royal African three Com- wars) and China (one war), or - and this is a recent possi- pany). These early national companies with transnational bilityinter- - to extend its power across oceans, but also to coerce its ests and power were legally authorised to act militarily ownin the population into maintaining the borders drawn precipi- name of the state. They were also the precursors of modern tously, trans- inexactly and often unfairly by the departing British colo- national corporations - many of the most powerful contemporary nial administration. For instance, in October 1947, when the transnational corporations began their international operations Indian army and air force flew into to repel tribal irreg- and grew to their enormous scope as extensions of European ulars and from western Kashmir and Pakistan (and thus incorporat- us colonial power. Colonial control offered resources, labour ing and sections of the of Jammu and Kashmir into markets that these companies exploited; profits were repatriated India), the Indian state extended its frontiers, but also put into to Europe.9 place systems that denied large sections of the Kashmiri popula- Decolonisation complicated matters for these corporations, tion but the right to determine their own political identity, a problem their global power overrode their dubious, occasionally criminal, that continues to fester.11 In "border" campaigns in the north- legacy, and in some key cases when democratic regimes east,made the Indian state continues to deploy the army and paramili- attempts to nationalise their operations, they were destabilised taries by against tribal populations who wish for sovereign and a combination of corporate and ex-colonial state power.10 In independent any homelands in , Mizoram and Manipur. In case, over time transnational corporations and decolonised nationsthe last three decades, state boundaries have been redrawn in have established relations that are simultaneously symbiotic that (the region to accommodate local demands, but any attempts to former need the legal cover and access to land made available carve by out independent or even autonomous homelands have been the latter, the latter need technology and skills as well as tax put reve- down, often brutally, by the army and paramilitary forces nues) and contentious (as in the past, questions of sovereignty (for are an overview, see Hazarika 1994). In each case, political proc- often at stake). The terms of this coexistence are becoming esses more and civil governance have been routinely marginalised to complex as even small corporations internationalise their allowsupply military "solutions".12 Most recently, rather than imagine chains and their markets; and now nations like India too are viable read- political options, the union home ministry has initiated ying to back "their" transnational corporations both in terms combat of operations against the Naxalite movement operating in strategic foreign policies and, if it comes to that, militarily. central The India. Within the government, the primary debate seems nation, far from receding as an actor in an world of transnational to be whether these operations should be conducted by central capital flows and increasing globalisation, now plays an even paramilitary more and state police forces or if the army and the air active role in generating domestic and foreign policies to suit force cor- should also be inducted into the combat. porate trading and industrial interests. As this account suggests, India is no stranger to the use of the army and the paramilitary against its own populations. If the υκ Products of Empire and the us, the two dominant imperial powers of the last two The nation state as a political formation and as an actor oncenturies, the offer any precedents, they are that empire building is a world stage is a comparatively recent phenomenon, and it is processworth that requires the suppression (the forced amalgamation) remembering that the bulk of nation states across the globe of populations are within as much as elsewhere.13 The bloody history products of empire. (This is true even of many imperial nations. of the expansion of the us across the north American continent, For instance, the υκ came into being in the 17th and 18th centuries which entailed the destruction of Native American and Spanish- via the forced and unequal assimilation of Ireland and Scotland, Mexican a communities as well as the systematic abuse of African process Daniel Hechter [1999] has described as "internal colonia- slave labour, are too well known to require retelling here. Eng- lism".) In the Americas, Africa and Asia, there were interlinked land established its colonies in Ireland in the late 16th century forms of political and economic collectivity before European (see colo- Canny 1988, 2001), and held them for the next 250 years nisation, but the boundaries of nations as they exist today (parts are of Northern Ireland are still part of the υκ). The 1706 Act more often than not the creation of imperial governance, of or Union of united Scotland and England into an Anglocentric king- corresponding processes of decolonisation. Given this provenance dom, but the highlands of Scotland still needed brutal "pacifica- of the nation state, it is extraordinary how much power it exerts,tion" via the anti-Jacobite campaigns of 1715 and 1745·14 One of both materially and ideologically, to define, limit and mobilise the consequences of the systematic dispossession of the Irish and populations. However, it is perhaps even more extraordinary the destruction of the Scottish clan system was that dispropor- how much effort nation states expend to police elements of tionate their numbers of Irish and Scottish peasants emigrated to the population who do not identify - or are not allowed to identify uk's trans-Atlantic- colonies and provided the manpower for its with the nation, and who, for a variety of reasons, are not armies em- abroad. In many ways then, the uk's colonialism, like that powered as full citizens. Ironically, this is the case even withinof the us, began at home.

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The political mentality and methods of the modern imperial by mining or other industrial corporations that dispossess peas- state are a product of these twin processes - the state hones antsits and tribais of their traditional livelihoods without offering capacity for military violence at home even as it projects it across corresponding benefits.16 Peaceful protest movements, as well as its borders. Further, these nation states offer their marginalised the constitutional process that recognises their moral legitimacy subjects (particularly those who have resisted their territorial and and political authority, are collateral damage to the onslaught of political authority) a simple bargain - accept the suzerainty of thethe twinned powers of the state and multinational capital. state and centralised control of economic development (including The Unfinished Business of Kashmir those made available by access to opportunities in captive markets abroad) or be constantly at the receiving end of state surveillance The terms and claims of this analysis so far have been sweeping and military action. (This is one of the purposes of raising larger and this essay more a polemical overview of historical develop- and more numerous paramilitary forces, where the local and re- ments and state formation rather than a particular instance of the gional identities of recruits are subordinated and transformed into methods of governance of the colonial/independent state. In what a highly disciplined form of nation-centricism. Equally important, remains of this essay I will call attention to Kashmir, in particular recruits from one state or region are used to police populations thein muscular forging of its recent history by India (and to a lesser others; cultural, linguistic, and occasionally, religious differences extent by Pakistan). Kashmiris have at best been reluctant partici- between paramilitaries and locals enable more militaristic and un-pants in crucial episodes of supposedly democratic politics and caring forms of intervention.) The logic and history of the colonial governance after 1947, and in important ways their opinions have state inform the structures of post-colonial governance to a point been disregarded in the same way as they were during the auto- where they stunt any possibility of political thought and action cratic rule of the Dogra , who ruled as vassals of the that respects modes of collective being other than those defined Britishby Raj. Kashmiri history in the 20th century features largely a coercive form of national belonging. But this cannot be under- poor peasants, pastoralists and forest dwellers ruled by feudal stood simply as a problem of inheritance. Post-colonial governance landlords (, and Sikhs) with little interest in alle- takes the forms that it does because the state's developed capacity viating the poverty or illiteracy of their subjects. Dogra rule for violence is crucial to organise the exploitation of economic favoured Hindu and Sikh administrators and confirmed the gap resources at home as well as abroad. Colonial forms of territorial between them and the mass of Muslim (and Hindu) peasants (Rai control and trade reshaped the globe to make resources and prod- 2004). Only after 's National Conference (nc) ucts available in ways that disproportionately enriched imperia- came to power was rural landholding restructured in favour of the lists and enhanced socio-economic distortions amongst colonised tiller. School and college education was made free, and in its "Naya peoples; post-colonial governance refines these methods, only Kashmir" manifesto, the state government articulated (if not now in the name of national development.15 always enacted) its progressive social vision. The point here is that the advocacy of India's potential global In 1947, the 's forced and precipitous accession (which, power, or at least regional military authority (the "India centre" apart from anything else, denied the principle of the merger of theorised by colonial administrator Olaf Caroe), is an advocacy ofmajority populations in contiguous territories that supposedly the power, and the right, of the putatively post-colonial state governedto the demarcation of borders in the Partition process) led insist upon quintessentially colonial territorial, political and eco- to the de facto partitioning of the erstwhile princely state into nomic arrangements. The mentality and methods of empire liveIndian (Jammu, Kashmir and ) and Pakistani (Kashmir, on and political processes that might subject them to local self- and ) sectors. It also created a political situation determination are delegitimised ideologically and denied militarily. where relations between India and this new Indian state were There is a great irony here, for most 20th century anti-imperialism mired in suspicion. For Indian (and Pakistani) administrators, movements recognised that decolonisation demanded not only Kashmir remained unfinished business. For India, this meant that political independence for colonised nations but also a fundamen- any Kashmiri politician who spoke in the name of self-determination tal rethinking of local sociocultural and political practices that hador acted to confirm the autonomy granted by Article 370 of the been historically distorted by imperialism. In practice, however, Constitution an was deeply suspect. Thus the Indian state would independent nation state like India acts on lessons in governance countenance no political arrangements other than those premised taught by the empire of which it was once a part - the writ of theon the heavily militarised line of Control functioning effectively as centralising state is forcefully extended over all populations within a border between India and Pakistan. That this border, as other its (often poorly defined) borders, even if those populations hadUnes on the map drawn in 1947 to demarcate India from East Paki- never participated in creating, or have never acknowledged thestan and India from Burma and China, disrupted traditional com- legitimacy of, those borders. An India with global power aspira- munities and trade routes in Ladakh, Kashmir and in Jammu was tions, indeed an India that plans to translate its economic power of no consequence. The post-colonial state was determined to and large population into the capacity to police its neighbours enforce the boundaries it inherited from its colonial predecessor. across the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, is a nation that is not For a precarious new Indian government, battered by the enor- predisposed to allow equitable arrangements within its borders. mous challenges of Partition violence and the need to resettle This is true even of peaceful mass movements to resist centralised, massive numbers of displaced people, among other more routine hierarchical decision-making, whether these involve people dis- problems of governance, one of the bases of its legitimacy became placed by big dams that bring no value to their communities, orits ability to police its borders as well as any population that did

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This content downloaded from 134.114.107.39 on Sat, 11 Jan 2020 21:56:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms REFLECTIONS ON EMPIRE not see those borders as sacrosanct, but as contingent, as theto be largely fair and a Farooq Abdullah-led nc retained power. products of political chicanery and compromise. Over time - and But the return of Indira Gandhi as prime minister meant the re- Pakistan played its own parochial role here - the borders newal of of unabashed central intervention in Jammu and Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir provided a powerful rationale for the devel- and she dismissed this government a year later, installing one that opment of a massive (and for a nation that contains the largest she preferred. But worse lay ahead. Even though Farooq Abdullah number of the world's poor, unconscionable) security apparatus. and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had signed an electoral pact be- Since independence, the army, air force, Border Security Force tween the nc and the Congress, they were so fearful of the Muslim (bsf) and CRPF have seen a vast (and largely unquestioned) ex- United Front (muf), a new political alliance that included pro- pansion, and more specialised units such as the Assam Rifles and Pakistan parties, that the election of 1987 was massively rigged. the Rashtriya Rifles (raised in 1990) are dedicated to fighting se- Sumit Ganguly provides a succinct comment on these elections cessionist insurgencies in Assam and its adjoining areas and andin their consequences.

Jammu and Kashmir, respectively. The ill-equipped army's igno- In this election, voters were intimidated, ballot boxes tampered with, minious retreat in the face of Chinese troops in 1962 and wars and candidates threatened. Whereas previous generations of Kash- against Pakistan in 1965 and 1971 meant that military and para- miris, whose political consciousness was low, had long tolerated all manner of electoral irregularities, the generation that had emerged in military budgets became disproportionately large well before Kashmir during the long years of Sheikh Abdullah's incarceration did India began to aspire to regional power status. This was the case not have the same regard for the Abdullah family, nor was it willing to even in the years when India claimed Gandhian pacifism and tolerate such widespread electoral fraud. Indeed, it is rather telling non-alignment as crucial pillars of its foreign policy. that several key insurgent leaders, Shabir Shah, , and Javed Mir, were polling agents for the Muslim United Front in the 1987 Farcical Elections elections. ... The extensive electoral malfeasances that they witnessed in 1987 convinced this younger generation of Kashmiris that the national Between 1948 and 1989, Kashmiris rode a political roller-coaster. government in New Delhi had scant regard for their political rights and Elected governments, led largely by Sheikh Abdullah's nc, came reckless to disregard for democratic procedures. With no other institutional power, but neither they nor the Indian government made anyrecourse open for expressing their disenchantment with the flawed attempt to find an equitable solution to the structural problem of political a process, they resorted to violence (1996). polity brought into being by a disputed accession and enforced It is also worth noting that Syed Salahuddin (then known as borders. India's fig-leaf lay in its stated position, argued before Mohammed the Yusuf Shah), the present Pakistan-based head of the un, that it would conduct a plebiscite, but only once Pakistan Hizb-ul-Mujahiddin, had was a muf candidate in this election. He withdrawn from what India called Pakistan Occupied Kashmir was so arrested from the hall where votes were being counted and that all the people of the Dogra maharaja's kingdom could partici- jailed for the next nine months for protesting against the rigging. pate. (The irony here is immediately obvious - a post-colonial On his release, he crossed into Pakistan, and into the leadership state arguing that the only democratic political action it could of con- a militant group financed and trained by Pakistanis. template was one based on respecting the territorial contours of This a brief account of election history in Jammu and Kashmir is feudal regime authorised by the British empire.) In 1953, on of the course not meant to be an adequate explanation for the events first occasion that Sheikh Abdullah, the elected prime minister, of 1989 and after, when pitched battles began between militants sought to explore the possibility of a Kashmir less tied to India's (both Kashmiris and non-Kashmiri recruits from the Afghan war political and economic control, he was arrested (he was to spendagainst the Soviets) and the Indian army, paramilitary and police almost 20 years in jail). At each point the Indian bogey was forces. that My attempt here is simply to underline that elections, which any moves towards autonomy were covert moves towards an are alli- the guarantors of democracy and thus of the legitimacy of state ance or amalgamation with Pakistan, and that inchoate threat power, was were routinely suborned by the Indian central government enough for the Indian central government to intervene undemo- (and its Kashmiri collaborators, to be sure) in pursuit of a mallea- cratically. There were of course several political parties that blewere state administration. All this was done in the name of national pro-Pakistan and stood for union with it, but none of them security,were of safeguarding the mainland's territorial interests by fore- allowed any significant presence in the state assembly or closingthe the possibility of Kashmir becoming either effectively Indian Parliament. On the obverse, there was no shortage of Kash-autonomous and independent or a Pakistani state. In effect, the miri politicians and people of influence who decided, opportunis- state's location has caused its people to be held hostage to the Indian tically or out of conviction, that their future lay with India. government's sense that, post-Partition, no more territory was to An electoral system did emerge, fitfully in many areas (there be ceded to Pakistan or indeed to be allowed to define itself differ- were elections to the state assembly in which administrative ently from the nationalist conception underlying the Indian union. officials decided on the single candidate, who was then Thereduly is also the question of demography - as the only Muslim- elected), more robustly in others, but elections were always majority state in India (with a sizeable Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh supervised to try and make certain that no anti-India politicians population), an Indian Jammu and Kashmir is supposedly a shin- were elected.17 ing instance of the secular values enshrined in the Constitution. In 1977, for the first time, free elections were held, and a Sheikh Since India's independence, prolonged mass agitation or Abdullah-led nc won a majority (47 out of 72 seats, with the Janatachanging demographics have led to the demarcation of new Party and the Congress winning 13 and 11, respectively, largely states (, Nagaland, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttara- from the Jammu region). The 1983 elections were also considered khand, , Jharkhand, and now perhaps Telangana)

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This content downloaded from 134.114.107.39 on Sat, 11 Jan 2020 21:56:42 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms REFLECTIONS ON EMPIRE but no argument for independence or functional autonomy wasautonomy in the state or indeed federalism in India. Communist (or is) allowed to stand. Indeed, the forms of autonomy prescribed parliamentarians have called for a reassessment of India's secu- for Jammu and Kashmir by Article 370 have slowly been whittled rity regime in Kashmir but they too have not encouraged any full- down, resulting in the even greater alienation of Kashmiris andblown debate about centre-state relations, especially if the the revival of mass mobilisations demanding not just functional centrepiece of this debate is to be a border state like Kashmir. autonomy but azadi. Further, for more than two decades now, In each case, one of the unstated assumptions that guides Indian Kashmir has suffered the consequences of an oppressive military political thinking on Jammu, Ladakh and Kashmir is that this re- and paramilitary presence.18 To take two instances of the way gionin represents a palimpsestic history, where the confluence of which democratic processes and ordinary codes of policing are sus- , Hinduism and has created a cultural texture that pended, we might consider that the state police is quick to invoke is particularly "Indian". This certainly is a laudable religio-cultural the Public Security Act, which allows them to incarcerate citizens ideal, but not when it is asserted to repress the socio-economic his- for up to a year in jails outside the state. Similarly, the Indian army tory of a state since at least the mid-i9th century - a period that has operated since 1990 under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) features the struggle of the impoverished majority for their eco- Act (afspa), which has allowed the military great latitude and vir- nomic, human and political rights. And, if anything, the last two tual impunity in its dealings with the local population.19 decades have meant that many Kashmiris, if not the largest mass Even though the army announced that the armed militancy ofof them, have looked anywhere but to their south for cultural, reli- the 1990s had dwindled down to sporadic skirmishes, recent gious and political orientation. If idealised notions of a syncretic attempts to withdraw or amend this very repressive, even uncon- past supposedly anchor the Indian political imagination, visions of stitutional, Act are met with immediate opposition. In a deliber- the future make it clear to Indian planners that Kashmir is crucial ately provocative statement, one senior general insisted that the for their access to central Asian nations as well as to their geo- afspa was the army's "holy book" and must not be lifted even strategic if links with Afghanistan and (and to their "contain- some army officers and soldiers misused its provisions (ndtv; see ment" of Pakistan to the north and west and China to the east and also "Demand for..." 2010). In practice, this Act places army ac-north). It is the case that the borders (or rather, the lines of con- tions outside civilian legal review. Not surprisingly, it has its ori- trol) between India, Pakistan and China in that region are unset- gins in British colonial law, which regulated subjects, not citizens. tled and provide repeated occasions for posturing, sabre-rattling In August 1942, in the face of the Quit India Movement, Lord and skirmishing. These borders are among the most heavily mili- Linlithgow, then Viceroy, enacted the Armed Forces (Special tarised in the world, which means that civilians in the state bear Powers) Ordinance to allow the police and army exceptional the full weight of this military presence, even when it is ostensibly powers against civilians. This is the ordinance that became the directed across international borders. basis for independent India's enactment of the afspa, 1958, to We should also remember that there are also very powerful ma- provide legal cover for inhumane army operations in Assam andterial reasons for India to possess Kashmir (or for Pakistan to hold Manipur.20 In sum, a colonial ordinance designed to legalise what its sections of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir). I will were considered, even by colonial standards, extraordinary mili- not elaborate on these here as many of these details are under- tary methods to quell a nationalist anti-colonial movement wasresearched or hidden in official secrecy, but will call attention to revived and strengthened by independent India to legalise some salient issues. There are hydrocarbon deposits - oil and gas extraordinary military methods to repress political movements - though there has not been much exploration or drilling in the among sections of the population at its peripheries.21 last two decades because of violence in the state (Narayan and Jayaswal 2010; Suri 2009). Ladakh is likely to contain rare miner- Kashmir in the Nationalist-Ideological Imagination als of a variety of sorts, though it is not yet clear whether these are But the "problem" of Kashmir for independent India should notextensive enough to reward mining ("Uranium Deposits . . ." 2007). be understood simply as a failure of democratic governance or However,of as India expands its investments in nuclear power and the punitive deployment of colonial policing and military weaponry, the importance of exploitable uranium and thorium de- methods. I have mentioned some of the ideological (that is,posits cannot be underestimated. Perhaps most important at this nationalist) reasons that make different constituencies and polit- moment is the question of water resources. Ever since Partition, ical parties in India insist that Kashmir is an inalienable part Indiaof and Pakistan have quarrelled over the use of the waters of the nation. For the Bharatiya Janata Party (в jp), the primary pro- the five rivers that flow into . The i960 Indus Water Treaty, ponents of hardline nationalism, no territory must be ceded signedto under the aegis of the World Bank, achieved a tenuous secessionists, centre-state relations (no matter how iniquitous) accord - which seems to have worked so far - as regards water must not be rethought, and no limits should be imposed on thesharing (for an overview from the Indian point of view, see Sridhar power of the army or paramilitaries for fear of damaging their 2005). In recent years, Indian hydroelectric projects (and the de- morale (any amendment of the afspa, for example, will be seen velopment of catchment areas and water-control mechanisms) as a tacit admission of its misuse by the army). The Congress, have polarised matters again, and Pakistani leaders, aware that perhaps only because it leads the central government, is less pub- the origins of rivers in the Indian region of Kashmir gives India licly committed to such an unyielding response, but it also treats great strategic leverage, have protested vociferously (Mirani Kashmir as a problem in governance rather than as the occasion 2009). As Mirani points out, India is clear about the "geostrategic for any sustained rethinking about the political forms ofand foreign policy implications" of its hydroelectrical projects in

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Kashmir. Mirani I will also notpoints suggest to a further possible wrinkle solutions - India - anhas entire refused army of politi- to allow the Jammu cians, andadministrators Kashmir government and experts to build continue and operate to work on what dams like the seemsKishenganga to be an and intractable Baglihar projects,polarisation which between have thebeen state and the commissioned people, and built Indian by thenationalism National and Hydro Kashmiri Power self-determination.Corpora- But tion, thus ensuring I will remind central us, control as concerned over the citizens, production that andwe havedis- a proud his- tribution of electricity, tory of progressive to the detriment ideas, those of both that the fed state the politicsexcheq- of decolonisa- uer and its consumers tion, to ofdraw electricity.22 upon, ideas that insisted that the evolution of our In all these ways, independent, Kashmir representsegalitarian ademocracy fundamental was political an ongoing process, challenge to open-endedthe democratic in its functioning possibilities, ofand the constantly post-colonial aware of the need nation state (but to developcertainly and not respect a unique modes challenge, of self-determination, as the histories including of Naga and Manipuri those at self-assertionodds with conventional illustrate). politicalSo far, the wisdom. state's Such openness response to this - an challenge openness has to beena genuinely twofold post-colonial - to make central future - will be of funds available great in an consequence effort to demonstrate not only to to India Kashmiris but also the the ben- world commu- efits of affiliation nity inwith which India it andplays to anmaintain increasingly a massive consequential repressive role. If we are apparatus whose to continueviolent actions to desire warn and of bringthe futility into being of indepen- democratic and egali- dent thought tarianand action.23 forms ofThe human former development has not worked, across certainly the globe, we should not entirely orrealise convincingly, that that effortand the too latter begins has at beenhome. disastrous.

notes withdraw from its base in Okinawa, in spite of the and that they "fought and died in France and election pledge of Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Flanders, in Mesopotamia and Palestine, at Gal- ι This number keeps mounting. On 20 September Hatoyama of the Democratic Party, who resigned lipoli and Salonika, and in Egypt, the Sudan, and 2010, in protest. In a commentnewspapers on the US denial of East Africa" (Omissi 2007: 74). Daniel Marston reported 108 people killed in the Japan'slast sovereignty, Mitra writes, points100 out that between "1939 and 1945, the [Indian] days. They seem to have stopped counting the numbers shot and maimed. Getting rid of the American base in Okinawa has army expanded from 2,00,000 to more than 2.5 2 China's turned out to be a different story. ... neither [Ja- ambitionsmillion men and officers", who destroyed the are clear from its state-sponsored investments pan's] economic prowess nor its formal political Imperial Japanese Army in Burma,in fought against commodity-rich nations in Africa, its development sovereignty has been of any avail. ...The US re- the Italians and Germans in North and East Africaof the deep-water port of Gwadar in south-west sponse to the notice served on them by the new and Italy, and took and Pakistan,held important oilfields in and its enhanced trading rela- tions with Latin American nations. China has also Japanese administration to quit Okinawa... Iraq and Iran (Marston 2007: 102). invested enormous resources in its nuclear subma- [was]: no, the United States will not oblige; 9 A highly readable, humane account of the brutal rines, new aircraft carriers and bases that are able Okinawa may be Japanese territory, Japan may imperial adventures of even a tiny European prin- to shelter and service them, with the result that be- be a fully independent and an economically pow- cipality - in this case the Belgium of King Leopold lievers erful nation, the Americans couldin not care less; - realpolitikis available in Hochschild (1999). insist that it is only a matter of time before China challenges the domination of the never mind the electoral verdict of the Japanese 10 A signal instance is the 1953 CIA-backed coup US in sea-lanes and territories ranging from Africa people, Okinawa will remain an American naval d'état that deposed Mohammad Mosaddegh, the to Australia. See, for instance, Thomas Handing's base, maybe for eternity, just like the one at Guan- democratically elected prime minister of Iran, (2008) tanamo in communist Cuba.report when he moved to nationalise the British-controlled on the Sanya base on Hainan Island. India's help in developing the Iranian port of 7 Mohan derives his sense of "the 'India Centre' Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (the precursor of Chabahar, which allows easy access to the Indian concept in the British imperial defence" from British Petroleum, now branded BP). Ocean, is seen as an attempt to outflank the Chi- Brobst (2005). Brobst's book elaborates ideas 11 For analysts of post-colonial history, two other nese and Pakistani development of Gwadar, and to about geopolitical security centred on the military campaigns that moved to incorporate allow the unhindered movement of goods and nat- geographical landmass of India, as well as the territories within the "landmass" of India, so to ural resources from Iran, Afghanistan and the Cen- sea lanes it might control, that were developed speak, are less controversial - the "police action" Asian Republics. most fully by Olaf Caroe, who was foreign secre- that annexed another princely state, Hyderabad, 3 Ironically, one of the symptoms of the weakened tary in the colonial Government of India during to India in September 1948, and the liberation of US economy second world war and then its last governor of Goa from Portuguese colonialism in Decemberis the high percentage of its public debt the North-West held Frontier Province. Caroe's think- 1961. Goans had inby any case struggled for years central banks in China and Japan (and several other countries), who have made ing, forged by the priorities of the UK's empire, against the dictatorial regime of António Sala- massive looked beyond its end to a time when, as "a investments zar, and in Hyderabad, the Nizam's equally auto- in US Treasury Securities. Such investments reflect confidence in the ability counterpoise to Soviet and increasingly Chinese cratic regime had alienated the majority of those of the power consolidated in the AsianUS heartland, India he ruled, towith sections of the peasantry, repay particu- its debts over time but they are also wouldmade remain pivotal in the maintenance of a larly in Telangana,for already in revolt against other pragmatic reasons (China, for instance, global balance between land and sea power" landownersneeds owing fealty to him. Once incorpo- US consumers for the burgeoning export-driven (xiv). Brobst argues that there is today afoot a rated into India, there have been no secessionist sectors of its economy). 4 Estimate '"New Great Game' for control of ['s] movements in eitherby territory, as opposed to the the editors of the Monthly Review. For a map oil and gas", in which the showing"United States has sustained attempts made by large sections of these locations, see http://www. monthlyreview.org/docs/o3o2map1.pdf assumed many of the attributes of Britain's Kashmiris to determine their political future (Monthly Review 2002). former role in Asia, but the subcontinent remains outside the status granted to them by the 5 Ferguson expounds on empire at length in his the central strategic space" (147). Indian Constitution. Empire and Colossus. See Chibber (2005) for a 8 While historians of empire have recorded the 12 Punjab saw equivalent moments, as for instance precise rebuttal of Ferguson's historical claims adroit use of Indian soldiers by the East India in 1984 when during Operation Bluestar (the and historiographical methods. Ferguson's celeb- attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar to wrest Company and then by the British imperial admin- rity, based equally upon his egregious claims for istration to gain territories and extend their con- it from Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his the great benefits the British empire enabled for trol within India, it is only recently that scholarly followers), all civilian administration, including their colonised populations and for his insistence analysis has detailed the extensive deployment of police authority, was suspended. Even when the that the US should be equally unembarrassed Indian soldiers outside of the boundaries of Brit- army was not deployed, the movement for an about claiming the "civilisational" burdens of ish India and examined the consequences of such independent Khalistan was destroyed primarily empire, has proved productive for political think- deployment for politics in India and in the UK. As by police and paramilitary power rather than via ers across the globe, if only because they have this scholarship makes clear, these forces were a political process. been forced to rebut his historical arguments and not simply a perk of empire, but crucial to its ex- 13 China provides a contemporary comparison - the his vision of the imperial future. For an Indian in- tension and maintenance, particularly during military has been used to suppress Tibetan and stance, see Chari (2008). first and second world war. David Omissi points Uighur movements for self-determination. This 6 In an article in the Calcutta Telegraph, Ashok out that by the end of first world war, more than mode of forced "assimilation" complements Chi- Mitra (2010) calls attention to the US refusal to 9,00,000 Indian troops were serving overseas na's global ambitions. As the history of modern

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imperial nations suggests, any nation that aspires are occasionally blocked by undefined security Hechter, Daniel (1999): Internal Colonialism: The Celt- to superpower status cannot countenance demo- considerations, and the free movement of villag- ic Fringe in British National Development, 2nd edi- cratic self-assertion among minority populations ers impeded (see Navlakha 2007). tion (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction within its borders. 19 That Indian security officials have been liaising, Publishers). 14 Ireland wrested its independence from the British and learning from, their counterparts in the Hochschild, Adam (1999): King Leopold's Ghost: empire in 1923 after a long and occasionally bloody Israeli Defence Force (IDF) is no longer news; A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial struggle, with six counties in Northern Ireland still however, it is still startling to hear an ex-official Africa (New York: Mariner Books). under British rule. More recently, there has been a of the IDF Advocate General's Corps describe hisКак, Sanjay (2010): "Personal Communication", 5 August tenuous devolution of power in Northern Ireland surprise at the belligerent rules of engagement Marston, Daniel Ρ and Chandar S Sundaram, ed. too, which has allowed for peace after many years (vis-à-vis civilians suspected of links with mili- (2007): A Military and of conflict between Irish Catholics and the pro-Brit- tants) laid out for him by generals of the Indian (Bloomington: Indiana University Press). ish Protestants. The Scots have moved towards a army (Nayar 2010). Marston, Daniel Ρ (2007): "A Force Transformed: The redefinition of their place in the UK and since 1998, 20 Since 1972, an amendment gives the central gov- Indian Army and the Second World War" in have their own parliament in Edinburgh. More sur- ernment the right to declare an area "disturbed", Marston and Sundaram, pp 102-22. prisingly (given that they were conquered and col- even over the objections of the state government Mirani, Haroon (2009): "Race to the Death over Kash- onised by Edward I in the late 13th century), the concerned, and thus to apply the Act. For a very mir Waters", Asia Times Online, 13 January, Welsh have also moved to recover their separate useful history and assessment of the AFSPA, see http://www.atimes.com, accessed on 12 August political identity. Since 1999, a Welsh assembly "Armed Forces ..." (2010). 2010. with substantial budgetary and legislative powers 21 For a disturbing reminder of the implications Mitra,of Ashok (2010): "Eye on the Main Chance", The meets in Cardiff. In these ways, the UK has moved the recent advocacy of the AFSPA by serving Telegraph, 21 June, http://www.telegraphindia. towards a more "post-colonial" conception of the armed forces personnel, see Noorani 2010. com, accessed on 21 June. power relations between centre and provinces than 22 Mirani (2009) writes, "NHPC, sometimes referred seems possible in India. Mohan, С Raja (2010): "The Return of the Raj", The to as the East India Company of Kashmir for the American Interest Online, May-June, http:// 15 Bloomberg BusinessWeek has recently reported on a imperial manner in which it exploits resources in www.the-american-interest.com, accessed on pledge made by the Indian Home Secretary to ena- the region, is strongly disliked as most of its 15 June. ble $80 billion in investments in heavy industry by income comes from its Kashmir-based power Narayan, Subhash and Rajeev Jayaswal (2010): "Border defeating, within three years, the Maoist rebels projects, while Kashmir itself reels in darkness." Tensions Hit ONGC's Exploration Work in J&K", The who now defend the largely tribal and forested ter- 23 A great deal of central government funding goes ritories where minerals are to be mined and indus- Economic Times, 5 January, httpy/economictimes. into the maintenance of the security infrastruc- indiatimes.com, accessed on 21 September. tries located (see Pradhan and Kumar 2010). ture at the borders, as well as the massive logisti- Navlakha, Gautam (2007): "State of Jammu and Kash- 16 For an account of the new "commodity frontier", cal apparatus required to service that infrastruc- see Padel and Das (2010). mir's Economy", Economic & Political Weekly, ture. For an argument that suggests that Jammu 6 October. 17 В К Nehru, once Governor of Jammu and Kashmir and Kashmir is able to utilise only 30% of these NDTV Correspondent (2010): "Army Defends Armed has this to say in his autobiography, "From 1953 to central grants on social spending because 70% is Forces Special Powers Act", 14 June. http://www. 1975, Chief Ministers ofthat State had been nomi- tied up in salaries, security expenditure, power ndtv.com/news/india/, accessed on 9 August. nees of Delhi. Their appointment to that post was and interest payments, see Talib (2010). legitimised by the holding of farcical and totally Nayar, Κ Ρ (2οιο): "Israeli Colonel Spills Kashmir rigged elections in which the Congress Party led Beans - Barak Policymaker Quotes Indian Offic- by Delhi's nominee was elected by huge majori- ers on Use of Force in the Valley to Counter Terro- REFERENCES ties" (Nehru 1997: 614-15). 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"Won" is too facile a description of what Defense of World War,Asia 1914-18" in Marston and (Akron,Sundaram, Ohio: University of Akron Press). happened, because only two out of the 75 seats pp 74-87. were actually contested. The rest had a walk-over. Canny, Nicholas (1988): Kingdom and Colony: Ireland Padel, Felix and Samarendra Das (2010): Out of This (The opposition, such as it was, was simply not al- in the Atlantic World 1560-1800 (Baltimore: Johns Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminium lowed to file their nominations.) This happened Hopkins Press). Cartel (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan). with the active concurrence of the Government in - (2001): Making Ireland British 1580-1650 (Oxford: Pradhan, Bibhudatta and Santosh Kumar (2010): Oxford University Press). New Delhi, because in these early days of India's "Pillai to End Maoist Grip on $80 Billion Invest- freedom, with the world looking over his shoulder, Chad, Chandra, ed. (2008): War, Peace and Hegemony ments", Bloomberg BusinessWeek, 17 September, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru desperately in a Globalised World: The Changing Balance of http://www.businessweek.com/news/, accessed needed to demonstrate the legitimacy of India's Power in the Twenty-first Century (Abingdon: on 20 September. control over Kashmir. Sheikh Abdullah, at that time Routledge). Rai, Mridu (2004): Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: a personal friend of Nehru, took over as the Prime Chibber, Vivek (2005): "The Good Empire: Should Islam, Rights, and the (Delhi: Minister of Jammu and Kashmir ...When the next We Pick Up Where the British Left Off?", Review Permanent Black). election came by in 1957, Nehru may have had of Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of Ameri- Sandars, Christopher Τ (гооо): Americas Overseas some second thoughts about what he had started ca's Empire, Boston Review, February-March, off. He is said to have written to Bakshi Ghulam Garrisons: The Leasehold Empire (Oxford: Oxford PP 30-34· University Press). Mohammed suggesting that he generously lose a"Demand for Changes in AFSPA for Political Gains: few seats, so that the image of the world's largest Sridhar, Subrahmanyam (2005): "The Indus Water Army Chief" (2010): The Daily News and Analysis, Treaty", Security Research Review, Vol 13, http:// democracy was not tarnished. But such cosmetic Mumbai, 26 June, http://www.dnaindia.com,- niceties cut little ice with the National Confer- www.bharat-rakshak.com/SRR/, accessed on accessed on 10 August. ence. It was unstoppable, and won 68 seats. Half 28 August 2010. Ferguson, Niall (2003): "The Empire Slinks Back", of these were uncontested. In 1962 the National Suri, Vivek (2009): "Geo-scientists Recommend Resum- New York Times Magazine, 27 April, http://www. Conference repeated this strategy, and won 70 ing of Oil, Hydrocarbons Exploration in Kashmir", nytimes.com, accessed on 7 July 2010. seats. Again half were uncontested. A twisted Ground Report, 21 May, http://www.groundreport. template had been set, and democracy had - (2003b): Empire: The Rise and Demise of the Brit- com/MediaandTech/, accessed on 22 Septem- ish World Order and the Lessons for Global Power become an early victim. ber 2010. (New York: Basic Books). Как also reminds us that in the 1967 assembly Talib, Arjimand Hussain (2010): "J&K's 'Dependency elections, held after G M Sadiq had merged the - (2004) : Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Syndrome' and the Unknown Facts", Greater Empire (New York: Penguin). National Conference with the Congress in 1965, Kashmir, 21 July, http://www.greaterkashmir. the Congress won 61 seats, of which fully 53 were Ganguly, Sumit (1996): "Explaining the Kashmir com/news/, accessed on 21 September. uncontested. In the first four elections, "voter Insurgency: Political Mobilisation and Institu- "Uranium Deposits Found in Ladakh, DAE Cautious" turnout ... was consistently low, never more than tional Decay", International Security, Fall, 21: 2. (2007): Rediff India Abroad, 28 August, http:// 25% of the electorate." Harding, Thomas (2008): "Chinese Nuclear Subma- www.rediff.com/news/2007/, accessed on 30 Au- 18 This is not only a question of aggressive, even rine Base", The Telegraph, 1 May, http://www. gust 2010. murderous, forms of policing, but also of an telegraph.co.uk, accessed on 18 June 2010. "US Military Bases and Empire" (2002): Monthly Re- expansion of bases into large swathes of farm Hazarika, Sanjay (1994): Strangers of the Mist: Tales of view, Editorial, March, http://www.monthlyre- land and orchards that are now denied to their War and Peace from India's North-east (New Delhi: view.org/0302editr.htm, accessed on 19 June owners. Access routes to adjoining working areas Penguin). 2010. See also Sandars (2000).

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