Via Desipundit, I caught a link to a post by Qalandar on a recent article in the Calcutta Telegraph by Mukul Kesavan.
For those who don’t know, Mukul Kesavan is a pretty accomplished writer — the author of Looking Through Glass, and an interesting little monograph that came out a few years ago, called Secular Common-Sense.
His latest column is about the lingering consequences of the experience of Partition on the thinking of the Indian government regarding its borders. Kesavan is pointing to a kind of paradox in the constitution of the Indian state — it was founded on a principle of pluralism across religious, linguistic, ethnic, and caste differences. But once it was defined as such and those borders were consecrated, if you will, in blood during the Partition, the possibility of allowing one or another territory to secede on the basis of ethnic or religious difference became an impossibility. If you do that, the whole justification for holding the rest of the country together could potentially collapse.
Qalandar raises some questions about the rhetorical stance taken by Kesavan in his piece, and Mukul Kesavan himself actually shows up in the comments to clarify some things. In fact, it’s in the comments to the post that he gives what might be the clearest account of his position:
Pakistan claims Kashmir because as a Muslim state carved out of British India it thinks it has a right to Kashmir as a Muslim majority province. Israel, as a Jewish state, wants to annex large settler blocs of Jews on the West Bank to Israel and in return would be happy to give away bits of Israel that have concentrations of Arabs. Other nations dispute or defend territory on the ground of language. Indian nationalism refused the temptation of a single collective identity; as a result, the republic it created had no way of discriminating between borders that were negotiable and those that were written in stone. Not only were its borders were colonial and therefore arbitrary, being an ideologically pluralist state it couldn’t claim or trade away disputed borderlands going by the nature of the populations settled there. So it decided that every inch of its border was sacred and what it had, it held. (link)
It’s an interesting thesis — one could argue that it might not hold in the case of India’s claims to the Kashmir valley (too much strategic and symbolic value to ever think of letting go). But the northeastern provinces, where secessionism abounds, seem more marginal. And just to reiterate in case anyone misses it: Kesavan isn’t saying that India should just let go of any territory (indeed, he comes out pretty clearly as saying it shouldn’t). Rather, Kesavan is trying to explain why India has held on — and will continue to hold on — so tenaciously.
There’s more to it, but I think I’ll leave it to readers to explore some of the other interesting points made in this discussion, by Qalandar, Mukul Kesavan, and Nitin Pai.
Red Snapper,
“Whatever.”
Yes, which is the fact that you believe that “for the greater good” it is acceptable to forcibly hold regions within a greater geo-political union if there is a risk of bloodshed via secession. Your own words.
My own point is that it is unacceptable to hold regions within such unions against the wishes of the majority of the respective potentially-secessionist regions’ inhabitants irrespective of the risk of bloodshed ensuing.
Quite a simple point on my part. It’s not rocket science.
Okay Jai, I can’t be bothered to get into a falsely polarised debate on this. I refute your caricature and extrapolations from my initial point and leave it at that. Peace.
The problem lies with the founding father of India who had a very socialistic outlook and followed the USSR model. What we’re discovering is that Central rule is not working – it failed for the USSR also. Gradual autonomy (not the same as secession or freedom from the union) for states should definitely help this situation.
Neal,
I’d actually oppose any kind of secessionist movement along those lines which would result in the human rights of some/all of the “new” state’s citizens being diminished in that way. In fact, I’d even support armed intervention against a (hypothetical) neighbouring state for the sake of such enslaved inhabitants, if all other peaceful methods to resolve the situation had failed.
The confederacy tried to break away from the United States not the republic of America. All the states had entered into a contract to become the united states. Each state had to ratify the constitution. Each and every state was within its rights to break away from the union if it saw fit. Lincoln was the one who expanded his federal powers to a near dictatorship to hold the confederacy at gunpoint to keep them from breaking away.
So I don’t see the parallels between the confederacy and the kashmir/khalistan issue. I’d like someone to point out that part in the Indian constitution to me.
maybe “red indians of Northeast India”? 🙂
Since India is a failed state that refuses to feed its hungry women and children despite having the resources to do so, some drastic actions are called for. Breaking it up into manageable pieces is one option.
I don’t think that’s quite true…the poorest states (Bihar, U.P., West Bengal, Orrissa, M.P.,etc) have no desire to secede. In the current set-up, they form a demographic anchor and are well-positioned to take resources from other regions. The states that want/have wanted to secede now or in the past, had differing reasons for doing so. Kashmir is pure religious fanatacism, nothing more nothing less (ok, the Congress Party made it worse with rigged elections back in the 80s). Assam wanted out for cultural/linguistic/religious preservation in the face of massive Bengali Muslim influx. The Northeast wants out for religious, economic, and cultural reasons. Punjab is probably the most complex of all, where SO MANY factors came together at once…economic, educational, linguistic, religious, division of farmland, the backdrop of 1947, the consolidation of a Sikh majority for the first time in history, you name it). But again, it was a rich state that wanted out.
Is that true? I thought the UK was drawing a lot more from India. What did India draw from the UK? Any money/resources spent on India during the Raj most likely came from India itself.
Punjab is probably the most complex of all, where SO MANY factors came together at once…economic, educational, linguistic, religious, division of farmland, the backdrop of 1947, the consolidation of a Sikh majority for the first time in history, you name it). But again, it was a rich state that wanted
Punjab is 40% Hindu. It is exceedingly unlikely that they would accede to Khalistan. Compare this to Kashmir, which is 95% Muslim.
Again India is not a failed state just because it fails to stand up to your socialist ideals.
Jai, if Kashmir was an island off the coast of south India and wanted to secede, that would be a different story. The fact that it borders Pakistan is what makes it more complicated. Also, i agree with Red Snapper. You comparing British rule over south Asia, with India and its states is disingenuous.
Truly callous arent you? Here’s Amartya Sen again:
“The counterintuitiveness — not to mention the inequity — of the history of this development is so gross that it is hard to explain it by the presumption of mere insensitivity — it looks more and more like insanity. […] What could explain the simultaneous presence of the worst undernourishment and the largest unused food stocks in the world (with the stocks being constantly augmented at extremely heavy cost)?”
A state as criminally insane as this that allows 100s of millions to starve while spending large amounts of scarce money to keep unused food rotting in godowns is not a failed state???
Whats your definition of a failed state then?
Thanks amardeep for blogging about my post, and thanks to all on sepia for taking the time to read it.
I am somewhat disappointed to see this conversation veer into the usual “justified secession” versus “unjustified secession” area. I think that sort of thing misses the point: the mania about 50 + 1% justifying most things under the sun is a majoritarian mania, and as such it is not easily consistent with “progressive” concern about minority rights. To put it another, the classic Anglo-American liberal concern with self-determination-as-determined-by-majority vote is a mechanism for creating new majorities, not for offering any solutions to minority “problems.” Thus Pakistan does not solve any Muslim minority “problem”, but creates new minorities (most obviously Hindus and Sikhs, but over the course of history other categories become salient, such as Ahmedi Muslims, Shiites to an extent, etc.); not to mention that India retains large minorities.
The Khalistan movement partakes of the same philosophical problematic (indeed because the Sikh majority is slight it presents an even greater problem). It isn’t at all clear to me why it is “just” to allow the Sikh majority to determine the fate of the Hindu minority; indeed operating from the presumption that few regional majorities are kicked around in “their” states, it would be truly democratic to worry about minorities, or especially disadvantaged groups such as Dalits, relevant castes, etc. This is of course one of the farcical “solutions” offered by the partition of 1947, namely that it offers majoritarian “protection” to (for e.g.) the Pashtun Muslim in the North Western Frontier Province, while doing little or nothing or worse for the Muslim in Meerut. [Aside: I note that as a practical matter, even leaving aside the justic — or lack thereof — of the notion, the pro-Khalistan could not, absent ethnic cleansing or disenfranchisement, EVER win a referendum in Punjab. 40% of the state is Hindu, and another 5% is Muslim; it is as safe as can be to believe that this 45% bloc would vote in favor of staying with India; which means that if roughly ONE out of every ELEVEN Sikhs voted to stay with India, the pro-Khalistan side woul lose the referendum, and we all know, based on the fact that the idea of Khalistan has never even attracted 50% support among Punjab’s Sikhs, that the result of any referendum would be horrendously lopsided].
My point is that this mania, ultimately a modernist mania, merely serves as a replication mechanism of the “us vs. them” problem, and does not offer a stable solution (to the extent it is stable, it is, as I grimly joked on the Kesavan thread, the peace of the graveyard), and certainly not an ethical one.
Kashmir offers us a very recent example highlighting the problem: the majority there (not 95% Muslim as someone above noted; the Valley is 85% or more Muslim, but the state as a whole is likely three quarters Muslim and no more) had understandable and justified grievances against their own government and the Indian government. But the tragic and atrocious consequence was that a minority — in this case Kashmiri pundits — suffered and became “the targeted minority”. On what ethical calculus can we say it’s ok for them to just live with it but not for the “majority”? And how is majority/minority to be defined? Why is it ethical to compute such majorities/minorities at a provincial or regional level but not on any other level? These are not problems amenable to a political logic that turns on mere computation (in the context of 1947 I highlight some injutices resulting from computational issues at http://qalandari.blogspot.com/2005/08/partition-blues.html)
Qualander: See #34 🙂 Of course, you fleshed it out and put it more eloquently. “Tyranny of the majority” and all that…..
Re: comment 10: Mukul you have hit the nail on the head; it’s the central problem here, and while I can’t say I have any easy solutions, we ignore the problem at our own risk.
Thanks MD, just catching up on some of the comments (they add up quickly on sepia!), so apologies if I have simply rehashed points that have already been made…
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a quick answer with web research, so I’ll have to rely on the “I read it somewhere” statement for now. So of course I may be wrong about that. Still, my point was (as you indicate in your post) self-determination isn’t just about unequal redistribution of wealth.
What often gets left out of these discussions is: what is the reason for the secession and what will the seceded state be like? To address grievances? Past injustices? Create a ‘homeland’ for an ethnic group or create a new political system with which to govern? How can you know anything about a secessionist movement if you don’t understand which y will replace previous x? And if Pakistan were governed differently, and India governed differently, would we even be having these discussions? Secessionist talk is often a proxy for, er, not so much failed states as failing states (of governance, etc). States loosely defined…..
MD: but secession is also the symptom of an unfortunate sort of identity politics, which sees as a state of “one’s own” as the only way to “happiness”, and the only legitimate way to be acknowledged as a “people.” A state that is “of” oneself, is identical to oneself, is a dangerous delusion, a fascist one indeed (in that in the fascist states we have the purest expression of this worldview), and thus the creation of disadvantaged minorities is not just the unfortunate consequence of these movements, it is inevitable. For if “the state” is “mine”, in my capacity as Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, whatever, it means that it is not another’s as long as the other does not possess those characteristics (whatever the relevant ones are; in Pakistan, Muslim; under Moditva, Hindu). This view is not only inconsistent with pluralism, it is the very antithesis of pluralism.
Agree completely. There is dangerous fantasy in thinking you can only governed well by your ‘own’ kind, which is an oversimplification of your argument, I know. I prefer the individual to be the center, rather than being granted rights simply because I am a member of a particular group.
To play devil’s advocate, though, how are historically disadvantaged minorities ever going to improve their living situations without group recognition?
It’s worth remembering that one reason why movements to split are still popular despite their obvious likeliehood of massive bloodshed is that pluralism is a goal not a reality in most states. Majoritarian ethnic parties in India must receive some portion of this blame as well.
Neal: I certainly didn’t mean to assign “blame” on group x or y here. My point is that “majoritarianism” and “secessionism” are flip sides of the same coin, and the latter shades into the former when the “right” majority is achieved. Ye sikka hi khota hai! 🙂
Really excellent comments Qalandar (both here and on your blog).
People always think their own pet causes are the most complex of all. What’s especially funny is how Khalistani-sympathizers see little similarity between themselves and “those crazy Muslim fundos” in Kashmir. Khalistan is as much or as little about religion (or more specificially, a certain kind of identity politics, as Qalandar so eloquently points out) as Kashmir – if it were more “complicated,” more Punjabi Hindus would be on board.
Re: “how are historically disadvantaged minorities ever going to improve their living situations without group recognition?”
This assumes that replicating the model that GOT everyone into the mess in the first place is the best way out of it. It is not. I am sympathetic to historically disadvantaged minorities who might feel like they have no other choice, but that a choice is understandable does not make it the best one under the circumstances. And at a minimum those who are at one step or more removed should examine the nature of the choices held out. Whereas the “majority rules” frame of reference has reflexively been imbibed by all, and under the guise of progressive politics at that!
73: yeda nath raises a good point. Kashmir is at least as complex as Punjab, and perhpas more so given the much larger number of ETHNIC groups involved, AND the international relevance with multiple countries laying claim to different pieces of Kashmir. I don’t see how the two present different analyses (I might add that Kashmiris are certainly nowhere near as represented in the Indian “mainstream” and levers of power as Sikhs are, one reason why the Khalistani has way more adherents in the “diaspora” than “back home”).
I’m not suggesting that disadvantaged minorities should all be given states so that they can go ahead and disadvantage others. I was responding to MD’s statement that:
When you’ve got historical situations where this was not the case, how do you move over to a paradigm of individuality? People are still going to treat each other as “just” a member of the relevant out-group, even if the government no longer discriminates on that basis.
To what extent is Modi Mania fueled by diaspora chauvinism?
Qalandar,
Unless the people making such decisions are democratically-supported Sikh leaders with the full backing of non-Sikh constituents, technically the notion of a region ruled-by-and-solely-for Sikhs is a violation of Sikh principles. Sikhs are supposed to live within the rest of society and hopefully be a positive influence from within — not to forcibly impose their values, their rule, or their religion onto everyone else from the top-down. They’re also not supposed to live in deliberately-created Sikh-dominated states separate from the rest of society — unless their fundamental human rights, freedom of worship and freedom of action as per Khalsa ideals are being undermined by the ruling authorities of the wider country they may be residing in.
It’s a different story if one is talking about a hypothetical previously-uninhabited region where Sikhs could settle and then live/govern according to their own values (or, for example, what happened during Guru Gobind Singh’s time, or the subsequent Misl period); this obviously doesn’t apply to “mixed community” areas currently within India with a large Sikh population. There is no mandate for forcible Sikh rule over regions & populations (yes, Maharajah Ranjit Singh’s actions were in violation of the faith’s tenets in this regard), and the concept of “ethnic cleansing” to achieve such aims is anathema to Sikh religious principles. And yes, the slaughters in 1947 were also a gross violation of these ideals.
Thanks Jai — although my comments really said nothing and do not apply to any religious teachings or doctrines, but simply people identified or self-identifying as member of a certain group (thus “Muslim” or “Sikh”)…
^^^I know, I was just responding to the comments referring to Khalistan — the hypothetical concept of which (either located within India or somewhere outside it) is only justified under certain conditions, as per my previous post. And certainly not as some kind of “ethnically-cleansed” Sikh state.
Unfortunately, people claiming to represent — and be a part of — various religious groups (whether Sikh, Hindu, Muslim or anything else) and asserting actions in their group’s name do not always think & act according to the teachings of the faith they claim to be affiliated to. sighs and frowns wearily
As an aside- the American Constitution is all the more awe-inspiring in light of its anticipation of problems caused by majoritarianism. The discussions about factions in the Federalist Papers (notwithstanding the argument that those discussions may have been more concerned with economic factions rather than religious/ethnic ones) remain sharply relevant today. India would be in a better position to address such problems if it was a republican democracy like the United States imo. On the other hand, I’m not entirely unsympathetic to Nehru’s approach to what must have felt like a very fragile union at birth, given the trauma of partition.
I’m sorry to come into this late, so apologies if I backtrack a bit.
While I think it’s interesting to look at how locality on the border and identity factor into conversations around whether or not self-determination is justified, I think Jai brings up a lot of really salient points. In my opinion, it is easy and reductionist to say “well X state is full of fanatics, and that’s why they want to secede.” I think we have to look closer at the idea of India, how the government operates, and the idea of a unified Indian identity. In many ways, India is a lot like what Europe would look like if people tried to draw borders around it – linguistically, culturally, economically, and politically diverse. I think we should ask ourselves, “Why do rich states want to leave? Why do poor states want to leave?”
Across the board, a good number Indian states at some point have seriously considered secession. I don’t think this is just about local nationalism, I think it stems from a fear of the central government. Whether this is the government reallocating riparian rights, minimize/agitate language rights to break apart states, adopting strict economic disincentives, or meddling in local government (which we have seen happen in Punjab), I don’t think people feel represented by the central government. Half the time I don’t think they even feel represented by their state government. And in the process of building this “unified pluralist Indian identity” there are other conversations at stake, like what does that Indian identity look like? If minority groups (whether by caste, religion, language, etc.) felt that their rights were protected, that their national identities valued, that they had the same playing field in life, that they had a say in their government, and that they belonged and were welcome in India, I think it would be harder for local groups to play at identity politics to shoulder up support for more extreme measures. I also think this would address a lot of the feelings of disconnection between different regions within India.
Also, I think it’s a really unique view to think that it is ok to militarize and terrorize a civilian population in a border standoff. Let’s say a part of the U.S. wanted to join a neighboring country (really far-fetched, I know), but can you imagine how people would react if the U.S. government sent the Army to occupy that state and keep its population under martial law? It sounds horrific and anti-democratic, and that’s mostly because it is.
Mukul Kesavan’s dirty dishonesty reads like a typical tyrant’s tract. That there was this endless cycle of military oppression and insurgency in J&K would come as news to the 400k Kashmiri Pandits who now languish in filth in Jammu and Delhi. They were hounded out of the Valley over a week in 1989 after decades of intimidation that sought to make the Valley “Pandit-free”. Compare Mukul’s strong language on this issue with his gentle description of the “repopulation” of Tibet. Ariel bombing, destruction of monasteries, extermination of the monks, destruction of the language and finally repopulating the area over four decades. Amardeep, it isn’t a pretty thing. Don’t be so blase about it.
Not far fetched at all. That’s exactly what happened to Maryland during the Civil War. I guarantee that the people of the North thought declaring martial law in MD and forcibly preventing the state from seceding was the right thing to do.
Re: ” I think it’s a really unique view to think that it is ok to militarize and terrorize a civilian population in a border standoff.”
Who is saying that it is? I don’t think that’s a fair reading of Kesavan’s piece, and certainly not of my views either.
Re: “Let’s say a part of the U.S. wanted to join a neighboring country (really far-fetched, I know), but can you imagine how people would react if the U.S. government sent the Army to occupy that state and keep its population under martial law? It sounds horrific and anti-democratic, and that’s mostly because it is.”
When the US and when most other countries have been TESTED (Spain vis-a-vis Catalonia, and the Basque region; the US during 1861-65) they have failed the test, and have resorted to brutal measures. No country “lets” its constituent units leave, that’s just not what the animal known as the nation-state typically does.
I found your post very interesting, but the central problem as I see it remains: conceding that people feel alienated from their national, and even their state, governments, even if their secessionist agenda were implemented the whole cycle would begin again no? What reason do we have for believing that ULFA would do a better job of runing Assam? More pertinently (and this is really the heart of my point) what RIGHT does ULFA have to run Assam, just because ethnic group x is in a majority? What about the (given this is Assam) several dozen other ethnic groups in Assam, why should they be subordinated to the Assamese-speaking just because of the accident of demography.
To put it another way: the points you raise are salient and go a long way toward explaining WHY people might be attracted to this or that secessionist movement — but it does not address the question of WHETHER a secessionist movement is a “good” (read: relatively ethical or just) solution, especially in multi-ethnic/multi-religious situations.
Re: “Across the board, a good number Indian states at some point have seriously considered secession. I don’t think this is just about local nationalism…”
PS– I’d add that we need to consider who “speaks for” the states you mention? In Kashmir, is it the Kashmiri Sunni from the Valley? The Gujjar Muslim? The Buddhist in Ladakh? The Pandit? The Sikh? Others? The “classic” secessionist movement pretends (just as much as standard narratives of nationalism) that all of these different Kashmiris would give us the same answer? That is almost certainly not true in Kashmir if opinion polls are any indication, and I don’t see why I ought to be victimized just because there aren’t enough of “those like me” around. That’s my point, that by persisting with this sort of identity politics, would-be-seceders from India do not address anything that’s heavy handed about the Indian state, but ensure that even if successful, we can look forward to MORE heavy-handed states. I don’t find that a cause for rejoicing.
Qalandar,
You are nearly there but not yet. The stirrings for autonomy/secession in India are simply a matter of rebelling against an assumed dominant Hindu identity, a mirage out of whole sand – why this happens is a much bigger question and beyond the scope of this discussion. It is enough at this point to say that this entity – of the dominant Hindu identity or form – is a creation of the colonial project, in which not only the colonisers, but also Indians and their friends everywhere have played a part. All this talk about autonomy, and identity is a farce. More autonomy for J&K? A state where citizens from the rest of India cannot own property? A state that has its own constitution? And that joke of Kashmiriat? A Kashmiriat that is stamping out the Kashmiri language, 400k Kashmiri speakers, and trashing Abhinavagupta?
I guess I should clarify: I do not necessarily think that secessionist or nationalist movements are the “answer” to feeling disaffected or disillusioned with the current representative government. Additionally, while I said “a number of states,” in many of these states you could divide the populations among a number of identities, and many of these are really close – e.g. a 60/40 split or 51/49 split – hardly a decisive majority, in my opinion. And even then, we could argue about whether a majority opinion should be the opinion we listen to, what this means for minority rights, etc.
However, I do feel that people do feel disaffected, and perhaps the issue at hand is not nationalism or identity politics, but rather underlying factors (economic/political/cultural/social disaffection). I think people use the politics of identity to rally people, often in a way that is as unjust as the previous regime. But why are they capable of rallying people to begin with? It’s because they are able to assign blame to groups for perceived “wrongs.” In general, I think any form of nationalism runs the risk of devolving into what many of us would see as extreme nationalism. A great example of “extreme nationalism” is of course the infamous National Socialist (Nazi) Party. Both local and country-wide nationalism runs this risk.
My point is that this need not be an either/or situation. At present, I feel that the way secessionist movements are dealt with is as “secede” or “coerce into staying,” the latter referring to the use of force – economic or military – to keep states from leaving. I’m just saying that maybe this is a simplistic and unuseful way to look at it. I would think that heightened militarization, etc., would make individuals disinclined to feel any great love for whoever was occupying their state, in addition to polarizing groups further. But aside from that, perhaps the government should focus on answering those other questions – why do groups want to leave? how do we contribute to this “problem”? why are perfectly “reasonable” people suddenly taken up with extreme groups? In my opinion, saying that people want to secede because they are fundamentalist crazies is like saying that Middle Eastern populations oppose U.S. foreign policy because they “hate our freedom.” It’s a non-answer that really appeals to political “quick fixes.”
Will there always be people screaming on the sidelines? I think yes, but the difference is in how much they have to work with.
I should have said this earlier, but I do not think that comparisons with the American Civil War are useful for a long list of reasons. Also, I agree that when push comes to shove the U.S. has historically failed its ideals/principles.
Since the US is unwilling to change a foreign policy goal because a majority of people in THAT country oppose (taking an example) its presence there, or is unwilling to vacate bases from Puerto Rico no matter what people there want, I find it HIGHLY unlikely that any state that wished to leave would be simply allowed to.
and just so I am clear: that’s not because it’s America, but because it’s a nation state. NONE do — if Quebec ever seceded from Canada, I’d have to say that’d be a first. The history of other nation states bears this experience out.
Personally, I blame the ghadar party, cranky people in the diaspora, for India and Pakistan’s desire to break away from the rest of the broader Empire.
Why can’t we all get along? Why do people always have to stir up trouble? Because it never ends, you know. People within India aren’t happy … etc. Don’t you know that the Queen always knows best?
Ennis: a cheap shot.
I’m pretty sure that letting the South walk off and form its little slave-run agricultural fiefdom would have been a far bigger failure of American principles than the tactics used in the Civil War.
But that’s obviously going into a total tangent…
I don’t think it’s inappropriate or even morally impure for a state to use military force to keep itself together. This is particularly true when the desire to split is only being advanced by a few factions in the region. The only way a state can function is if it is recognized as legitimate, and if its constituent parts submit to its authority. Once it starts letting those parts leave, all bets are off. Once the power of that central government has been proven illusory, what forces the powerful internal units to recognize its authority? What’s to keep other countries from ignoring its authority? What incentive do non-governmental organizations like corporations have to recognize the laws of the country? With a nation surrounded by enemies like India, I don’t see how letting a province go would be responsible to the millions of other residents who don’t want to leave.
Well, Neal, there’s the realist argument. I instead will rely on daisies and butterflies to support the legitimacy of other central governments in diverse countries 😛
Re: “I’m pretty sure that letting the South walk off and form its little slave-run agricultural fiefdom would have been a far bigger failure of American principles than the tactics used in the Civil War.”
Not that you’re saying this, but my point was not that the Union was wrong to wage war on the Confederacy rather than let it leave, BUT THAT IT DID SO, and that nation states virtually ALWAYS do this, whether in Europe or Latin America. The Union was right in 1861, but even had it been wrong, it would nevertheless have waged war. Any other nation state would have done the same.
In keeping with yeda nath’s comments above, On the level of the mundane I love the idea of a US-style Senate as India’s upper house of parliament (rather than the collection of nobodies, celebrities and sycophants who sit in the Rajya Sabha today). The symbolic value of a House where Manipur counted for as much as Maharashtra would be very powerful.
First: there is a middle ground between co-ercive centralism and secessionism — federalism, especially assymetrical federalism. Why should the governments of Kashmir and UP and Kerala have the same relationship to Delhi? Some want more autonomy, some want less. Give’em what they want.
(I’ll note here that an equal Senate is a bad idea – what’s so special about States? Why not a senate with one rep from every linguistic group. Or religion. Or climate-zone? or occupational group? Or, to choose a favorite SM topic, one Senator for every skin-tone — a kala Senator, a gora Senator, etc.)
Second: The national aspirations of a group of people are not necessarily illigitmate. More independent states just lead to more disaffected minorities, but there are ways of recongizing that some groups are in fact groups without full-blown secession. The different legal systmes for different states and different religious groups are a great example of the central government recognizing the unique circumstances of different collectives (i.e. national groups).
I’m not making that characterization of your opinion, Camille. But I honestly don’t see how there could even be a moral argument for the kind of secessionist impulses you’re detailing. This isn’t like colonialism, where you had a group that was geographically, culturally, and economically isolated (or at least insulated) from the fallout of another group’s self-determination. And this isn’t a situation where the ethnic minorities involved have no right of representation in the government (although it’s obviously imperfect). If any one of these states were to walk away, the quality of life for most Indians would likely get far worse as the country became less stable. And of course, where does self-determination stop?
I’m not opposed to internal movements for more equality or better representation. I just don’t think that drawing more arbitrary lines on the map will really solve the underlying problems here.
Neal, I don’t think I made an argument for secessionism, I think I was talking about democratization and improving the “world’s biggest democracy,” which in many ways has as many problems as any other democracy, plus the additional challenge of balancing its unique history and diversity. My argument is to take a closer and more critical look at what’s happening and go from there in terms of addressing solutions. I also argued that I don’t think the world needs to come down to “secede” or “force X to stay.” And further, while I understand that military force/borders are an element of a state’s autonomy and authority, I don’t think this is its core or end-all be-all. The last point, of course, is an ideological difference. I think making a diverse country work is hard. I don’t think hard-work should keep people from trying, though. That’s my point – try harder.
Why? The principal of self-determination started out as an anti-imperial one. If you wish to reject it, many of those same arguments then apply to earlier independence movements as well.
No Ennis, not because I reject it but because your comment was reductio ad absurdum. And it doesn’t address the issue of “the minority” — the latter is presented as the ground for secessionism, but yet secession itself creates minorities. If I am a Hindu living in Lahore on August 14 1947, how is it right (especially, when as in 1947, I wasn’t even given a vote and no referendum was held) for me to be coerced into Pakistan (or alternatively to flee my ancestral home)? i.e. the proponents of self-determination purport to be “solving” minority problems, when the cure is simply the replication of the disease — with different victims. That is not the same as opposition to imperialism, opposition to the notion that one may — as a group — rule over another.
Not to mention that the proponents of self-determination are almost always proponents up to a point: thus those in favor of the 1947 partition in West Pakistan were likely not amenable to East pakistan’s secession; and those who welcomed the creation of Bangladesh likely did not welcome the secessionist movement in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. At bottom the (unthinking) drive for a REPRESENTATIVE (i.e. an ideologically representative) polity (not just a DEMOCRATIC or a PLURALISTIC one) will always lead to the problem of “the other.” The Jew in Nazi Germany presents the most extreme manifestation of this problem, but its shadow looms large over the rest too. In your imperialism analogy, by contrast, the state was NEITHER democratic NOR pluralistic NOR representative. I do not make any fetish of the last point, but subscribe very firmly to the first two. Unfortunately it seems more and more that discourse begins and ends with the last point (“I am x hence my state must be x”), and while I am not suggesting indifference to such impulses I do believe we need to examine the embedded assumptions carefully.
Ikram: That would be a very interesting experiment in juridical pluralism. In limited contexts (though nowhere near “good enough”) the Indian Union does have different relationships to various states. Thus Article 370 has become very famous, but similar provisions are in effect for certain other states too, such as Arunachal Pradesh. I remember reading somewhere that w/r/t educational institutions, the Center has certain powers w/r/t Andhra Pradesh that it does not vis-a-vis other states.