Ethnicity and Nation-Building in South Asia: Case Studies of the Baluch Movement in Pakistan and the Khalistan Movement in India
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ETHNICITY AND NATION-BUILDING IN SOUTH ASIA: CASE STUDIES OF THE BALUCH MOVEMENT IN PAKISTAN AND THE KHALISTAN MOVEMENT IN INDIA by Rajshree Jetly A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Of The Australian National University March 1999 Declaration I hereby declare that this is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge, it contains no material previously published or written by another person. Nor does it include material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma of a university or institute of higher learning, except where due acknowledgment is made in the text of this thesis. I hereby also certify that the work contained in this thesis has not been submitted for a higher degree to any other university or institution. /2•/J I,>< c 7<C'~ Rajsb{.ee Jetly j Date: 16 March 1999 ii Acknowledgments There are many people who have contributed to the completion of this thesis. First of all, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Amin Saikal, for his guidance and invaluable support throughout the period of my study at the A.N .U. His incisive comments have helped greatly in the development ()f this thesis and the refinement of some of my ideas. "Where's your chapter" was often Amin's way of greeting me and even though I dreaded the question then, I now reminisce with some nostalgia our meetings down the corridor. I am immensely grateful to Amin for that constant reminder to focus on my work. Indeed, I wonder if I would have completed my dissertation without his gentle prodding and encouragement. I am equally grateful to my advisor, Dr Ron May, at the Research School of Social Sciences, whose affable nature and cheerful disposition made thesis writing a less ardous exercise. Ron served as a valuable "sounding board" in the formulation of some of my ideas. I am thankful to him for his support, forbearance, and constant reassurance during the final stages of writing my dissertation. I am also indebted to Dr Sandy Gordan who even after having left the university never hesitated to give me his time and offer suggestions which were very novel and constructive. I would also like to thank Rashpal Malhotra, director of the Centre for Research on Rural and Industrial development, Chandigarh, Satish - iii Sahni and Jagmohan Malhotra for providing useful contacts during my field trip to India in 1996. I remain grateful to the staff at the Teen Murti Library and the Jawaharlal Nehru University in assisting me with my research. I would like to acknowledge my debt to Selig Harrison for his time and introductions to some Baluch expatriates during my visit to the US; and Dr Robert Wirsing for our long animated discussions. At a personal level, a special mention to Kumar for his friendship and unfailing support for all the four years of my stay in Canberra; and to Andrew for being the best neighbour and friend at University House. Jacinta, Yasmin, Mathew, Steve and Daryl helped in their own special way to see me through the thesis. I'm grateful to Kirrill for patiently reading through my chapters and offering valuable suggestions. Finally, I'd like to thank my family for their love and support without which I would not have been able to embark, much less complete, this journey. Needless to add, all the errors and shortcomings in this work remain my own. iv Abstract This thesis examines the process of nation-building in South Asia, with particular reference to the Baluch in Pakistan and the Sikhs in India. The two movements stand in stark contrast to one another. The Baluch, a closed tribal community with low levels of socio-economic development represent a small ethnic group in Pakistan; while the Sikhs, a small religious minority, are a robust people with high levels of socio-economic development in India. But both desired a separate homeland for themselves. The thesis pursues two objectives. First, it analyses the factors responsible for the growth of separatist sentiments among the Baluch and the Sikhs, as well as the causes contributing to the decline of the respective movements. It explains these dynamics with the help of three variables: the nature of the movements, the policies of the Pakistani and Indian state, and the role of external powers. The period selected for the two case studies coincides with the rise, operation, and decay of the two movements. For the Baluch it ranges from 1971, the beginning of the civil war to 1981. In the case of Khalistan, it concentrates on the period from 1978 to 1992. Second, it examines the phenomenon of separatism in the larger context of state-building in South Asia, but more specifically India and Pakistan. It looks at the policies of both the Indian and Pakistani states in dealing with their ethnic minorities. The study does not subscribe to any one theory to explain the rise of the Baluch and Khalistan movements. Instead it adopts a trans- v disciplinary approach using various schools of social anthropology and political science to understand separatism ii\ the subcontinent. vi Contents Declaration ii Acknowledgments iii Abstract v List of Tables viii Introduction 1 Chapter I Theories of Ethnicity. 16 Chapter II Ethnicity and Nation-Building in South Asia. 53 Chapter ID Socio-Economic Bases of the Baluch in Pakistan 111 and the Sikhs in Indian Punjab. Chapter IV Strategies of the Federal Governments in Pakistan 164 and India in Dealing with the Baluch and the Punjab Crises. Chapter V External Dimensions of the Baluch Movement in 221 Pakistan and the Khalistan Movement in India. Conclusion 270 Bibliography 282 vii List of Tables Table 2.1 Population of Jammu and Kashmir State, 1981 72 Table 3.1 Percentage of Household by Language Spoken and 123 Rural/Urban Areas, 1981 Table 3.2 Distribution of Economic Power between the 125 Provinces in Pakistan Table 3.3 Province-wise Distribution of Hospitals, Maternity 126 and Child Welfare Centres, and Dispensaries Table 3.4 Officer Grades 16-22 in Pakistan's Federal 133 Bureaucracy, 1973-83 Table 3.5 Number of People Gone Abroad During Last Ten 135 Years - Pakistan and Provinces, 1981 Table 3.6 Religious Groups in India, 1991 139 viii INTRODUCTION Ethnicity and ethnic conflicts have dominated much of the discourse in contemporary politics in recent years. The salience of ethnic conflict can be measured from the fact that there is hardly any part of the world that has not witnessed it in some form and magnitude. The importance of ethnicity as a force shaping human affairs is unquestionable. A ubiquitous and pervasive phenomenon, it has, as remarked by Donald Horowitz, fought and bled and burned its way into public and scholarly consciousness.I Though not unique to South Asia, the assertion of separate identities remains the biggest challenge to the stability and integrity of states in the subcontinent. In fact it has been a critical variable in the formation and re-demarcation of boundaries in the region. Almost all the countries in the region face cleavages and conflicts along cultural and religious lines. They have also inherited asymmetrically developed social structures and political and economic institutions. Efforts at nation-building have tended to create further imbalances within the polity, with federal governments in most states grappling with problems of integrating different groups. The clash between the ever-increasing clamour for nationhood and sovereignty on the one hand, and the notions of indivisible statehood on the other, have created a fundamental contradiction in contemporary times. There are 1Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985) p. xi. 2 two major views on the contested concept of sovereignty. The first is a conceptualisation which emanates from a centralised state apparatus while the second view is that sovereignty resides in the social base of a nation, the essence of which is a psychological bond that joins people and differentitates them, in the subconscious conviction of their members, from all non-members in a most vital way.2 The failure of the state to articulate a viable national identity and the simultaneous politicisation of ethnic identities have complicated the process further. The main objectives of this thesis are two-fold. It examines the process of nation-building in the comparative context of South Asia, but more specifically India and Pakistan. Second, it looks at the Baluch and Khalistan movements, and studies the failure of the two in the larger context of the strategies of nation-building and governance in their respective countries. It does so by looking at the nature of the respective movements; the role of the state; and patterns of external involvement. Most Third World state systems are legacies of colonial conquest and partition. According to Anthony Smith, the new states in Asia and Africa came under considerable pressure to create nations such as those that existed in Europe and America. Their commitment to nation-building implied that they created a national cultural and political identity that could differentiate them from their neighbours.3 To this extent, most post-colonial Third World countries have embodied some aspects of the Western model of the nation-state in 2Walker Connor, Ethnonationalism, The Quest for Understanding (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) p. 197. 3Anthony Smith, National Identity (London: Penguin Books, 1991) p. 112. 3 that they have all aspired to political unity and to the capability to prescribe rules of social behaviour.4 A nation-state can be defined as one in which the state's boundaries coincide with the nation's and the total population of the state shares a uniform culture.