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Implementation of governance initiatives in conflict settings in

India1

Sumona DasGupta, Rajesh Tandon, Amit Prakash2

Introduction:

Conflicts in India, as elsewhere in the world, are present in different regions and locales.

Some of these conflicts have been alive in some form or another since Indian

independence in 1947 and have manifested violence with varying intensities either

continuously or intermittently. Post colonial India’s democratic state has attempted to

deal with these conflicts in several ways, with different types of outcomes. In analyzing

the responses to conflicts the framework of governance has been applied with the

understanding that while any form of intervention can sometimes ameliorate, manage, or

resolve conflicts, it can also fuel them further or generate new ones. Sometimes the

processes occur simultaneously as every governance intervention unleashes a set of

intended and unintended consequences that impacts multiple actors at different levels.

The relationship between governance and conflict in the Indian context can be seen to

be two-way. An intervention can change the context and the dynamics of the conflict or

impact the drivers of the conflict. At the same time the changing trajectory of the conflict

can itself limit or alter the nature of intervention whether by government, the market or

other societal actors acting on their own or in some combination thereof.

India’s restive borderlands along the Northeast, the former princely state of Jammu and

Kashmir bordering Pakistan, as well as the central Indian states of Jharkhand and Bihar

have all been sites of violent conflict at different times following independence in 1947.

The contexts are of course very different.

1 This version of the paper has been written under the three-year project Cultures of Governance and

Conflict Resolution in Europe and India (http://www.projectcore.eu/), which concluded in December 2013, funded by the European Union under the 7

th Framework Programme.

2 Sumona Dasgupta was the lead researcher on the project at Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), New

Delhi; Rajesh Tandon is President, PRIA, New Delhi; Amit Prakash is Professor at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

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The Northeast3 has been at the vortex of a cycle of violence characterized by

insurgencies with demands ranging from outright sovereignty to greater political

autonomy. Jammu and Kashmir has been the site of competing nationalisms overlaid by

clashing sub regional aspirations since 1947 with demands for the right of self

determination from the Kashmir valley taking the form of an armed insurgency from

1989. In both the ecologically fragile tribal dominated state of Jharkhand and social

cleavages ridden state of Bihar, resource politics linked closely with the rights of and

justice for the marginalized communities has engendered a conflict that is variously

termed as left wing extremism, Maoism or Naxalism.4

Despite these contextual differences and the fact that the drivers of the conflict are

different in each of these cases (and for each of the conflicts within the Northeast itself)

they are all located within the overall democratic institutional arrangements of the Indian

state. In governing these areas the Indian state implicitly or explicitly also ‘governs the

conflicts’ unleashing a set of intended and unintended consequences into the conflict

dynamics every time it makes an active intervention. These interventions range on the

spectrum from persuasive to coercive and include for instance special economic

packages, autonomy arrangements, as well as special legislations that place severe

restrictions on people’s democratic rights in order to facilitate counter insurgency

operations.

We begin this paper by clarifying how we use the term governance given the changing

discourses and explosion of literature on this subject and move on to exploring the

implementation of governing measures in addressing endemic militarized conflicts in

India. We identify and analyze four important thematic rubrics, around which, we submit,

3 The term Northeast is commonly used in India to designate the seven “sister” states of Assam,

Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura – since 2003 Sikkim has also been included in the regional north eastern council. It is connected to the rest of India by a sliver of land called the chicken’s neck which is 33 kms wide on the eastern side and 21 kms wide on the western side- this constitutes only one per cent of the boundary – the remaining boundaries are international ones – with China, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar. 4 In common Indian parlance the term Naxalism and Naxals are used to denote the Maoist

ideology and ideologues respectively. These are derived from a place called Naxalbari in West Bengal where the Maoist movement first took off in the 1960s. The Planning commission of India prefers to use the term left wing extremism to describe this movement that has swept through tribal dominated parts of central, east and even south India across a belt that is often described as the “red corridor.”

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governance and instruments of governmentality coalesce in these conflict spots -

namely, electoral democracy, security, ‘developmentalism’ and peace accords. We

discuss the governance measures in each of these thematic clusters in terms of their

viability, accountability, legitimacy and efficiency and in that context reflect on the nature

of sustainable peacebuilding in India.

Changing discourses on Governance and India’s Experiences

As Frederickson (2004: 6) indicates, the term governance has dozens of meanings and

is presently a power word, a dominant descriptor. Because it has a strong intuitive

appeal and is used to characterize both global and local arrangements, formal and

informal norms it is not always used with precision. Invariably when authors use the

word governance “ it may be unclear whether the reference is to organizational structure,

administrative processes, managerial judgment, systems of incentives and rules,

administrative philosophies, or a combination of these elements” (Lynn, Heinrich and Hill

2000: 1). While a discourse analysis of governance and its changing trajectory is outside

the purview of this paper what is relevant for us is to note those salient features of its

usage that would enable us to understand not just how structures and functions of

government operate in conflict areas but how governments actually “do their job” there.

We begin by noting with Bevir (2009: 3) that the language of governance has

increasingly become implicated in discussions of changes in the nature and role of the

state particularly after the public sector reforms of the 1980s and 1990s which resulted in

a greater shift towards markets, quasi markets and networks especially in the delivery of

public services. This led to a widespread belief that the state increasingly depends on

other organizations to deliver its policies and consequently forms of power and authority

can supplement state action or secure order even in the absence of state activity. In fact

some theories of governance suggest that the notion of a monolithic state in control of

itself and civil society has always been a myth (Ibid: 4). Articulating this even before the

reforms of the 1980s and indicating that the difference between private and public

organizations were increasingly going to become blurred Cleveland (1972: 13) had

predicted: “The organizations that get things done will no longer be hierarchical pyramids

with most of the real control at the top. They will be systems—interlaced webs of tension

in which control is loose, power diffused, and centers of decision plural. “Decision-

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making” will become an increasingly intricate process of multilateral brokerage both

inside and outside the organization which thinks it has the responsibility for making, or at

least announcing, the decision.”

In India writing in the post liberalization era, Tandon (2002) had defined governance as

“the joint responsibility of the state, market and citizens to mobilize public resources and

promote public decision-making towards the advancement of common public good.”

Clearly the nature of what constitutes public good will remain contested – some would

argue too contested to make this the centerpiece of a working definition - but what is

significant in this definition is the acknowledgement of the presence of multiple

stakeholders in determining what this might be. This implies as Debroy (2004) points out

that “governance is distinct from government, and is the process through which various

stakeholders articulate their interests, exercise their rights, and mediate their

differences.”

In practice therefore the “state always has to negotiate with others, policy always arises

from interactions within networks, the boundaries between the state and civil society are

always blurred, and transnational links and flows always disrupt national borders” (Bevir

2009: 30).Understood in this way, governance leads to what Prakash (2012) describes

as a pluralization of actors as well as levels of governance and makes the political

process within which social power is constituted central to any analysis of governance. It

also draws attention to the process in which actors and institutions both state and non-

state play a role in governance.

This pluralization and the tensions arising from this are evident not just in “mainstream”

India but also in conflict spots that are sometimes described, using Agamben’s words, as

India’s “areas of exception.” Governance from the top may appear to be stamped across

conflict spots if one surveys the plethora of government schemes, government jobs,

central legislations, special legislations and there is no doubt that the writ of the central

government is prominently etched through economic and security governance

mechanisms. However it exists side by side with what can be described broadly as

autonomy arrangements. Paradoxically these autonomy arrangements – notions of

federalism, devolution of power, minority protection, rights of indigenous people and

legal pluralism - were typically seen as exceptional measures bestowed by the central

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government to make democracy palatable in these “trouble” spots (Samaddar 2005).

Once brought into existence however they acquire a momentum and direction of their

own and are not always amenable to top down manipulation simply by dint of having

been mooted, legalized and validated by the government at the top.

As noted above, the market and the private sector have emerged as important players in

the process of governance since service delivery is no longer seen as the task of the

government alone. This is particularly significant in India’s conflict spots. Whether it is

Jharkhand or the Northeast or Jammu and Kashmir marketization has been seen as a

natural part of liberal governance and virtually as a panacea to violent conflict

particularly since the 1990s. As Samaddar (2012) points out this has been the

mechanism for establishing ‘social governance’ or ‘governance of peace’ with former

insurgents, resisters and opponents all acquiring a stake in the growth of capitalism. As

money became available, the trading class emerged, society became market oriented,

the salaried class increased, insurgency at least in its older incarnation crumbled. While

this may well have been the story of capitalism everywhere in the Northeast and other

conflict areas it has left a significant impact on old patterns of conflict and insurgencies.

There is also a space that is occupied by elements outside of both government and

market. The top down government power is also challenged by what Partha Chatterjee

(2004) calls “politics of the governed” who form part of “political society.” They are

distinguished from civil society in Chatterjee’s formulation by the fact that they often act

outside the purview of the law. Such politics cannot be disciplined by governmentality

and in spite of the overwhelming nature of governmental power it can break free and

claim autonomy of its own. The actions of political society even when they are not strictly

speaking legal has to be accommodated because of a moral claim to justice for the

marginalized which no democratic government can ignore. Though Chatterjee was not

writing with specific reference to India’s conflict zones his argument has a special

resonance there because of forced migration due to conflict. It is in evidence for instance

in “camps” in and around Jammu where the conflict displaced population who have not

been provided government accommodation have built dwellings on empty lands. The

government does not have the moral right to evacuate them as they are in no position to

go back due to the sporadic violence in their villages yet by the tenets of law the

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occupation of land is illegal. In such cases the government “governs” by “not governing”

– it simply looks the other way.

The space for organized civil movements may be restricted in the conflict spots due to

special legislations that can curb the fundamental rights guaranteed otherwise to Indian

citizens under Chapter 3 of the constitution but that has not always been able to stop

street protests, and dharnas. From the “naked protest” in Manipur in northeast India

where women disrobed outside the historic Kangla fort in July 2004 to protest against

the rape and killing of a woman, Manorama, allegedly by Assam Rifles personnel, to the

stone pelting youth in Kashmir valley in 2010 protesting against arbitrary killing and

detentions, to the silent protest of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons

(APDP) in Srinagar’s Pratap Park every year, to the people’s agitation that forced the

Koel-Karo hydro Electric project to close in Jharkhand, a tableau of resistance has been

scripted in a variety of ways across these conflict sites in India. Some have been non

violent others have been marked by degrees of violence. The legal monopoly over

instruments of coercion in the hands of the state has not always been able to stop these

from playing themselves out.

India’s conflict spots have witnessed both centralizing and decentralizing forces of

governance, and multiple actors and processes have come into play. By the 1990s

several changes were already taking place in the larger Indian polity from which the

“areas of exception” could not be completely buffered. First India was beginning to

experiment with a new constitutional system of Panchayati Raj (1992) that created for

the first time in Indian history a constitutionally recognized institutional mechanism called

Gram Sabha (the village council). The downward accountability of democratically elected

representatives to the collectives of citizens was being asked for the first time. Second

several social movements and citizen protests had begun to question the “unilateral

decisions of the government at the district, state and national levels.” Civil society voices

had gained voice and visibility. The growth of the independent media, especially the TV

had enabled this dynamic. Third the popular participation of hitherto excluded

communities - tribals, scheduled castes and women - had become more assertive and

vocal. Supported by several long term efforts at conscientization and mobilization by

some political parties, trade unions and civil society groups, this rise in popular

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participation was an expression of the need to alter the state-society relations from its

historical traditions.

Recognizing the dual pull between centralizing and decentralizing forces and between

persuasive and coercive mechanics Samaddar (2012) has summarized the cardinal

principles of governing post colonial conflicts in India. First, sovereignty could never be

shared and the state had to be seen as strong by formulating police and administrative

measures though a balance had to be worked out between suppressive and civilian

measures. Second, till this balance was found conflicts would be allowed to linger and in

the meantime limited grant of autonomy was the best solution. Third, borrowing a page

out of the colonial book of statecraft, struggles of justice were to be treated as inter

group conflict for parity. The ultimate question was one of ratio- how much to govern the

conflict spots and how much “not to govern.”

Using Samaddar’s principles as a starting point, we submit that post independence India

has utilized four dominant strategies to respond to conflicts within its national boundaries

– the electoral democratic framework, governance through special security legislations

and counterinsurgency strategies, using development as a vehicle for peace and finally

dialogue and peace accords with different groups in the conflict spots.

First India adopted an electoral democracy framework of national and provincial political

authority that later moved to local levels through a constitutional amendments in the

1990s. Elections are assumed to mediate between conflicting interests and the politics of

negotiated settlements emerges in the electoral process. However for this approach of

governance to succeed the election process has to be fair and free and constitutional

mandate for each tier of governance has to be respected. Moreover if the legitimacy of

the election process itself is questioned at a substantive level, regardless of whether it is

procedurally fair and free, the population can face increased risk of violence. The threat

of violence can be from non state actors including militants who oppose the elections in

principle as well as from coercive instruments of the state which is bent on going through

with the process. Elections are therefore a double edged sword in areas of conflict –

they are an essential feature of representative democracy and the primary mechanism

for establishing systemic legitimacy but the same instrument can also produce conflict

and violence.

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The second strategy is coercive and is undertaken to protect the “security” and “territorial

integrity” of India from those internal forces who seek to challenge its sovereignty. It

involves counterinsurgency operations by the Indian Army and other paramilitary forces

against militant groups and those who had adopted the path of armed movements

supported by “special laws.” This is a classic law and order approach and came with the

caveat that negotiations were possible only if armed resistance against the Indian state

was abandoned. This strategy has been adopted in all the conflict areas- in Jammu and

Kashmir, the Northeast and Jharkhand. Given the axiom that counterinsurgency is also

about winning the hearts and minds of the people the Indian army has also engaged

publicly with humanitarian and civic action work both in the northeast and in Jammu and

Kashmir to change the public perception among an alienated population that it is an

army of occupation.

The third governance strategy is peace through development where an attempt is made

to promote public infrastructure, services and jobs in the conflict spots so that former

(and new potential) militants have alternative avenues for gainful work. Special

economic packages and incentivizing the private sector in conflict areas has been the

path that has been followed to implement this strategy. Again this has had two sides-

while it has changed the conflict dynamics in some cases by making the market more

attractive for some conflict actors it has also created a political economy of violence

where new ‘conflict entrepreneurs’ acquire a vested interest in keeping the violent

conflict alive.

Finally the fourth governance strategy has involved a mix of negotiation, mediation and

dialogue that has sometimes culminated in the signing of official “peace accords.” In

many ways this can be seen as the other side of counterinsurgency operations designed

to “soften” up opponents before bringing them to the table for talks. While this has been

a strategy in all the conflict spots the northeast stands out as a veritable laboratory of

peace accords highlighting both the opportunities and challenges it presents. Again this

strategy has intended and unintended consequences that can both mitigate direct

violence on one hand and exacerbate new conflicts on the other as groups excluded

from the peace talks and the accords then enter the conflict arena more prominently.

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Before we examine how these strategies of governance are implemented in the conflict

spots we briefly overview each of conflicts since their contextual differences will

determine the nature and process of implementation.

India’s Conflict Spots:

India’s Northeast is typically studied as a theater of insurgency and counterinsurgency

as it has been the site of the longest standing insurgency movement that has come out

of the Naga Hills from the time of Indian independence in 1947. Following the creation of

Nagaland in 1963, there has been considerable redrawing of internal boundaries and

creation of new states in this region between 1971 and 1987. The region is

characterized by extraordinary ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic diversity.5 British

colonial rulers may have annexed the region over almost a century but exercised control

over the hills primarily as a loosely administered “frontier” area. This historical legacy

spilled over into post-independence with the Nagas6 petitioning the British government

for independence in 1947 on the grounds that no Indian power had ever conquered

them. The British did not see this as feasible and the Indian leadership refused to

entertain this idea. Following this, a Naga insurgent movement commenced in 1952.

Another major rebellion - the Mizo rebellion took off in 1966. Multiple conflicts broke out

from the 1970s and today every one of the states except Sikkim is affected by some

form of insurgent violence. While several of the rebel groups including the United

Liberation Front Assam (ULFA), questioning Assam’s inclusion into the Indian Union and

the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) of Manipur, questioning the merger

agreement that the king of Manipur signed with the government of India, have trained

their guns on the Indian state, it is also important to note that there are several

intergroup and intra group violent conflicts in the region as well, based on rival

“homeland” demands. These include for instance the Bodos and Non Bodos, the Karbi

5 About 30% of the population in this region belong to tribal communities mostly concentrated in

Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland. There are more than 160 scheduled tribes but a large non tribal population is concentrated in Assam, Manipur and Tripura as well. An estimated 220 languages are spoken in the region- the largest concentration of languages in the Indian subcontinent. 6 The Nagas are a group of heterogeneous tribes belonging to Mongoloid and Indo-Burman

stock- they claim common ancestry despite having different languages and social and cultural practices- they have a fiercely independent history with each village having existed as independent sovereign republic.

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and Dimasa in Assam, the Nagas and Kukis in the hills of Manipur, the Mizos and the

Brus/Reangs in Mizoram to mention a few. These have also sparked their own set of

conflicts and displacements. As Rajagopalan (2008: 79) observes “the multiple forms of

resistance in the exceptionally diverse ethnic landscape have produced politics and

struggles with multiple competing agendas.”

Like the Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir is also a border state with a restive population

in the valley of Kashmir many of whom remain deeply alienated from India and who

demand the right to self determination. The strategic heights of Kashmir and its location

as a gateway to Central and South Asia made it a strategic asset to both India and

Pakistan. Moreover two mutually exclusive ideologies – India’s secular and Pakistan’s

two nation one – made Jammu and Kashmir into an ideological battleground. Pakistan

felt that the Muslim majority state should rightfully fall under its jurisdiction according to

the logic of partition whereas for India the accession of Jammu and Kashmir was seen

as an acid test of its secularism. The outbreak of the armed insurgency in the Indian-

administered part of the Kashmir valley in 1989 shifted the terms of discourse from the

problem “of” Kashmir to the problem “in” Kashmir. It forced an acknowledgement of the

internal dimension of the problem in addition to the external Indo-Pak dimension (over

which four wars have been fought till date). Internally, the Indian administration felt

challenged by the widespread alienation among the population of Jammu and Kashmir.

This along with the internal-external nexus to the problem (emanating from Pakistan’s

overt and covert support for Kashmir’s armed insurgency) and the plurality of voices and

identities within Jammu and Kashmir has complicated the search for a solution that

would be perceived as just by all parties and stakeholders. Despite the fact that the

ferocity of the armed rebellion has died out the ebbs and flows of violence continue with

street protests, curfews and shootings continuing to be a part of everyday life particularly

in the valley.

The state of Jharkhand represents a different picture altogether but like the Northeast

and Kashmir has become yet another site of militarized conflict. Jharkhand was carved

out of Southern Bihar on November 15, 2000 essentially as a ‘tribal state.’ Rich in

mineral resources and with sound agricultural potential the major developmental debate

in Jharkhand at the time of its inception was anchored around whether it was the mining

potential or the agricultural potential that could be used as a natural launching pad to

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initiate a decade of development. The existence of a substantial tribal population in

Jharkhand who had not been part of the post independence mainstream development

story meant that the growth also had to be harnessed to meet the goals of poverty

alleviation and equity. Under these circumstances a violent Maoist/ Naxal movement in

India has swept through Jharkhand whose self definition is in terms of a pro poor

movement that aims at social justice for the marginalized. The Naxals run their own

parallel system of governance in areas controlled by them in Jharkhand including their

Jana Adalats (People’s courts) and People’s Police and exercise control over all matters

related to jal, joru and zameen (water, marriage and land). The military wing the

People’s Guerilla Army (PGA) conduct ‘operations’ against all perceived ‘class enemies’

including police, paramilitary forces and their informers. The state forces on the other

hand have carried out their operations in ways that have been severely criticized with

allegations of custodial deaths, false encounters and arrest of people under anti terrorist

laws.

The present contours of the State of Bihar emerged after the bifurcation of the older

State of Bihar into Bihar and Jharkhand in 2000. While complex contestation of

resources in this area no longer correlates to the tribal issues, other forms of conflict and

violence have not disappeared. While such contests in Jharkhand are primarily premised

on tribal issues, similar questions in the present-day Bihar take the form of caste-based

contestation. The two-decades of politics of recognition and representation under the

RJD-led government has altered the contours of such caste-conflict, which has since

acquired new forms. The commonality thus between Bihar and Jharkhand is a twin,

inextricably linked issues of recognition (tribe in Jharkhand while caste in Bihar) and

redistribution (in terms of ability to access, structure and control resources). Further, in

both States, these twin contests often acquire the form of politics of participation,

anchored on PRIs. This process becomes central in understanding the processes of

conflict and contestation in these two States – at once, generating avenues for

addressing some forms of conflict while exacerbating and generating other forms.

Given this backdrop we now turn to governance in the Northeast, Jharkhand and Bihar,

and Jammu and Kashmir drawing attention to how governance measures, initiatives and

schemes take on a life of their own in conflict zones altering the way we think about

electoral democracy, security, development and peace accords.

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Governing Conflicts through Electoral Democracy : Elections, representation and

Autonomous councils :

In this section we examine how conflicts are sought to be managed through electoral

democracy and its associated mechanisms and innovations including various autonomy

arrangements. It is important to note that even in the militarized pockets of conflict

within India – whether it is the north East, Bihar and Jharkhand or Jammu and Kashmir –

the formal procedural aspects of democracy officially operate. Unless the conflict area is

placed under President’s rule under article 356 of the Indian constitution which enables

the framework of the state apparatus to be temporarily suspended,7 the state legislature

continues to function, elections are held, new governments and representatives are put

in place following this. Currently in all the conflict areas, elected representatives come

from three categories as in other parts of the country namely those elected to the

central parliament (members of parliament or MPs), those elected to the state legislative

assemblies (Members of Legislative Assembly or MLAs) and finally elected

representatives to local urban and rural bodies. Many of the states under study have

their own regional parties that compete with the national parties for seats to the

legislative assembly and the central parliament.8

However elections to state legislative assembly in conflict areas, unlike their

counterparts in other states in India often come under the scanner, because they are

more likely to be susceptible to manipulation by the central regime in power. They have

in the past been used by the centre to retain control of state level politics or wrest control

using unfair means. Sometimes this has been done by openly rigging elections or by

7 Article 356 of the Indian constitution lays down that the President may assume to himself all or

any of the functions of the state in the event of the constitutional failure of the state machinery. In Jammu and Kashmir however President’s rule cannot be invoked directly and in the first instance and has to be preceded by a six month period of Governor’s rule as per the provisions of section 92 of the Jammu and Kashmir constitution. The uses and abuses of article 356 is not confined to the states with active violent conflicts but this clause has been used in these areas- for instance Jharkhand has been placed under President’s rule three times, Jammu and Kashmir was under President’s rule from 1990-1996, in the north east article 356 has been used sometimes when movements turned violent – for instance in Assam in 1979 8 For instance Jharkhand has Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), All Jharkhand Students Union

(AJSU) and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM) and many more; Jammu and Kashmir have the people’s democratic party (PDP) and the National Conference

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entering into pre poll or post alliances and deliberate power sharing arrangements to

avert an immediate crisis or by invoking article 356 to impose President’s rule.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the state of Jammu and Kashmir where rigging and

alliances have been used to leverage politics and ensure dependence on the central

government in New Delhi. In Jammu and Kashmir state level elections have been openly

rigged – something that reached in zenith in the elections of 1987 where the blatant

manipulation was arguably the final trigger for the eventual armed insurgency that broke

out in 1989. Though the state elections of 2002 and 2007 were deemed free and fair the

long history of manipulation of the elections as a governance control mechanism

remains a legacy that cannot be wiped out so quickly from public memory.

Apart from state level elections, a three tier system of rural local self governance called

Panchayati Raj Institutions (henceforth PRIs) was given a constitutional status through

the 73rd amendment Act of 1992 – it reached Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir in

2011 while variations of this had been operational in the Northeast from the 1950s.

While constituting these institutions of local self governance was primarily intended to

ensure decision making and participation in local development plans and issues these

have inevitably emerged as sites of contestations in about and around the larger conflict

in Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar and Jharkhand and in the Northeast.

In Jammu and Kashmir there was a clear divergence in the attitude towards the local

government elections held amidst a huge turnout of over 75% in 2011. While the local

populace wanted to clearly distinguish their participation in these elections from being

conflated with their endorsement of the stand of the Indian government on the larger

Kashmir issue, key policy makers including the Foreign Minister of India did not hesitate

to appropriate the fact of the large turn out for local elections in 2011 to assert that this

was a “referendum against Pakistan and terrorism.”9 This added to the trust deficit and

gave an impetus to the United Jihad Council (UJC) to issue threats to the newly elected

representatives. The trust deficit between the government and the people was in any

case building up in the post local election phase with the state government being unable

to deliver on their promises of devolution of functions, functionaries and funds to the

9 Cited in Ahmed Ali Fayyaz, “ MHA weighing option of Providing Arms to Panches in J and K”

http://aafayyaz.blogspot.in/2012/11/mha-weighing-option-of-providingarms-to.html

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newly elected representatives within what the latter deemed as a reasonable frame of

time. The initial euphoria over the local elections and the goodwill generated by notifying

and constituting the local bodies at the village level soon gave way to disillusionment

and anger among the people as the dialogue gap between local newly elected

representatives on one hand and the bureaucrats and the state officials, the MLAs, the

state government increased rapidly in the months following the elections.10 Since then

the discourse has veered towards the agenda behind the elections with hitherto quiet

militant groups publicly articulating that the elections were a diversionary tactic to draw

attention away from the larger conflict. At one level the institutional and functional

challenges of the panchayat system in Jammu and Kashmir may be seen as teething

problems which were no different from the ones faced by other states in India when they

had initially embarked on this path. But as DasGupta (2013) points out the fact that

Jammu and Kashmir has been the epicentre of a violent, militarized conflict carries with

it the legacy of broken trust and thwarted promises. And squandering opportunities in

such a scenario exacerbates old wounds.

In Jharkhand the site of left wing extremism/ Naxalism, PRIs may be relatively new but

the office bearers have asserted and realized their importance not just as key players in

planning and executing the development agenda but also in seeking a role beyond

development. As a tribal dominated state some areas are governed by Panchayat

(Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) of 1996 which among other provisions

makes it mandatory to seek the approval of the village council or Gram Sabha for use of

community resources – the Gram Sabha is also to be consulted before making

acquisition of land in the scheduled areas for development projects and before resettling

of rehabilitating persons affected by such projects in the scheduled areas.11 The

enabling provisions of PESA if implemented in letter and spirit is a potential instrument of

conflict prevention in an ecologically fragile state endowed with rich mineral resources

but ironically inhabited by some of the poorest and most marginalized sections of the

Indian population. Though cases where PESA provisions have been ignored, bypassed

10

This was the central finding of the PRIA team in the fieldwork conducted in Jammu and Kashmir in 2012. 11

Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act of 1996 provides that the legislature of a state cannot make laws in that part which are inconsistent with the customary laws. Social and religious practices and traditional management of community resources – it gives a special role to the gram Sabha- the village council- to preserve the cultural identity of the community, manage natural resources and be consulted on land acquisition. For the full text of this act see http://hppanchayat.nic.in/pdf%20files/Pesa.pdf

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and sidelined abound, the central role given to Gram Sabha in this act implies that PRIs

have by and large emerged as the site of contestations for all political actors involved; a

space where MLAs, MPs, activists, the bureaucracy, police and the Naxals all jostle to

maintain their control over the Gram Sabha. Unlike Jammu and Kashmir where the idea

of the Gram Sabha has not been operationalized (despite its statutory provision in the

Jammu and Kashmir Panchayat Act of 1989) in Jharkhand this institution has emerged

as a viable instrument of control.

The centrality of the PRIs is evident from the fact that even the Naxal leadership with an

avowed goal of setting up a parallel administration is keen to partake of it by contesting

elections to PRIs, and through this channel, enhance their legitimacy vis-a-vis the

state.12 The PRIs have emerged as central actors of dispute management even when

there is no explicit legal provision for the same. The Naxals owing to their ability to

exercise violence often play a role in ensuring the outcome of local conflicts to suit their

ends. The reservation of seats at this level for marginalized sections especially women

has fuelled the view among male members that “deserving candidates’ have been

ignored by this policy.13 Despite this view the reservation of seats has led to the inclusion

of many hitherto marginalized sections into the PRIs which bodes well for increasing

popular participation and legitimacy. The fieldwork conducted in Jharkhand suggests

that women PRIs have been extremely effective but in non tribal areas women are

relegated to the background despite the fact that reservation of seats for women apply

both in tribal and non tribal dominated areas. 14

12

Interview conducted by JNU research team with PRI representative in Lohadaga district on 12 November 2011 and state official in Chatra district on 17 November 2011. 13

Interview in Hazaribag district on 3 November 2011 and 6 November 2011; in Lohardaga district on 12 November 2011 in Ranchi district on 12 November 2011 and Chatra district Jharkhand on 17 November 2011 all in Jharkhand conducted by the JNU team. 14

While females representative from lower caste in Chatra have used funds for tomato cultivation and poultry, tribal in Kisko have taken up sewing. However, respondents in Hazaribag and Gaya were mostly represented by their male relatives. The tribal women Mukhiya (village panchayat's head) in village in Ranchi went on to warn the men to mend their ways of domestic viloence or they feel the collective wrath of the women. Interview in Hazaribag district on 3 November 2011 and 6 November 2011; in Gaya district on 8 November 2011and 10 November 2011; in Lohardaga district on 12 November 2011; in Ranchi district on 12 November 2011 and 13 November 2011; and in Chatra district on 17 November 2011.

16

While in Jammu and Kashmir PRIs are yet to emerge as a potent force and in Jharkhand

they are asserting their rights and have understood the importance of controlling the

Gram Sabha, nowhere in India have institutions of local self governance been used

more creatively to manage conflicts as in Northeast India. These are not restricted to

PRI only. They include the sixth schedule councils, village self governance in the tribal

Northeast and tribe specific councils.

The sixth schedule adopted under article 244 of the Indian constitution was essentially a

conflict resolution mechanism that sought to address the political aspirations of the

Nagas which laid down the framework of autonomous decentralized government in

certain predominantly tribal areas of undivided Assam with legislative and executive

powers over subjects like water, soil, land, local customs, and culture (though this was

rejected by the Nagas as too little and not accepted by them). The original areas under

the sixth schedule included the present States of Meghalaya, Nagaland and Mizoram,

North Cachar and Karbi Anglong (originally known as Mikir Hills) districts of Assam. In

these areas local governance was essentially entrusted to the largely elected

autonomous District Councils. In fact the sixth Schedule councils have been given more

powers than the local bodies that were constituted after the 73rd amendment act in India.

It may not have prevented turmoil and violence in these areas but has brought a degree

of equilibrium within tribal societies particularly by bringing dispute resolution including

matters around land boundaries under customary laws. It is important to ensure that

these are duly codified (Seventh Report Second Administrative Reforms Commission

2008: 156-157).

The experiment with autonomous councils in the Northeast has however not been an

unmixed blessing. While it may have been a conflict prevention mechanism at one level

at another level it also generated a new type of conflict. This emanates from the rising

disparity between the autonomous councils and the local bodies established as a result

of the 73rd amendment which are now being liberally funded by the State Finance

Commissions. This is particularly becoming important in Northeastern states like Assam

and Tripura where the two categories of local bodies co exist. Another layer of

discontent is added with comparisons being made between the “older” councils of

Assam vis a vis the preferential treatment being given to the “new” autonomous council

17

such as the Bodoland Territorial Council in the matter of procedures relating to funds

and budget allocations (Seventh Report of the Second ARC 2008: 159).

The current arrangement of local governance designed as a conflict prevention

mechanism has however muddied the waters with regard to mandates and jurisdictions

of different local bodies. In six tribe specific councils straddling twelve districts of Assam

the three tier Panchayati Raj institutions have been established along with

corresponding village councils. The jurisdiction of such Council is often spread over

geographically ‘non-contiguous’ areas. The seventh report of the second ARC (2008:

163) appreciated the fact that compelling socio-political and administrative reasons had

weighed with the State Government in establishing these bodies. Aspirations of tribes

not dominating a geographically discrete area could perhaps be met only through

imperfect solutions like these. The arrangement however, gives cause for concern as to

its long-term viability and apprehension that this conflict resolution measure could spawn

more conflicts. The report cautions that it should be kept in mind that in areas of mixed

ethnic composition, existence of bodies with overlapping jurisdiction could exacerbate

conflicts.

By 1989, having acquired considerable experience in governing conflicts through

autonomous councils in the Northeast, the government of India yielded to the demands

of the Ladakhi Buddhist Association (LBA) in Jammu and Kashmir to set up an

autonomous Hill Council in 1989 following tripartite talks between New Delhi, Srinagar

and LBA leaders. The balance of power between the three geographical regions of the

state of Jammu and Kashmir- namely Kashmir valley which had been the epicenter of an

armed insurgency in the 1990s, Jammu and Ladakh had often led to Jammu and Ladakh

demanding better devolution of powers within the Jammu and Kashmir state and the

demand for union territory status by Ladakh was part of this process. As a result of the

1989 agreement the LBA agreed to give up its demand for union territory status.

The Act provided for an Autonomous Hill Council each for Leh and Kargil, and an inter-

district advisory council to advise them on matters of common interest. This Hill Council

was envisaged as a dynamic instrument for empowering the Ladakhi Buddhist

community especially for deciding their local development priorities (Behera 2000: 51-

52). Institutionalization of the Autonomous Hill Council has proved to be a successful

18

experiment to the extent that it has validated the principle of creating alternate and

intermediary layers of governance for meeting the political and developmental

aspirations of the people of a specific region through constitutional measures.

Establishing the Autonomous Hill Council have shown how transforming governance

mechanisms and processes can help ameliorate a conflict and bring about substantive

changes both in terms of redressing the alienation of particular communities and

changing the situation on ground as well. The Autonomous Hill Council has empowered

the local stakeholders—both Buddhist and Muslim communities—to decide their own

development priorities. It may be noted though that in the first decade of the AHC’s

working, the new governance mechanisms had failed to meet popular expectations both

because, from above, the state government was not quite willing to share powers with

the newly elected councilors of AHC and, from below, the district-level bureaucracy was

reluctant to accept the new framework of accountability that had posited the elected

councilors as their new political masters.

Side by side with the autonomous Hill Councils newly elected panchayats were

conbstituted through out the state including in Ladakh in 2011. Though it is still too early

to tell whether the kind of conflicts generated by overlapping jurisdictions in Northeast

India will be repeated in this part of Jammu and Kashmir it appears that overall, the

elected representatives both at the level of the AHC and the village councils (halqa

panchayats) in Ladakh are more focused on finding ways and means of putting Leh and

Kargil on the fast-track path of development. According to the field research conducted

by Delhi University in Leh, they appear to have realized that the real challenge lies in

ensuring that its dividends are equitably shared among all the communities at the

grassroots level.

Overall the picture that emerges is one where electoral democracy in spite of its stresses

and strains is in the process of carving out its niche at the local level in all the conflict

spots. The experiments in the northeast in particular with Hill councils and Tribal councils

have been exercises in innovation and creativity for managing conflicts – while it carries

the danger of exacerbating some forms of conflicts it has been successful in militating

and managing others. In Jammu and Kashmir while the institutions of local self

governance at the panchayats level are still embryonic and the cause of much angst at

what people perceive to be tardy delivery on tall promises, the Hill Council in Ladakh

19

appears to have found its unique position and has the potential to play a role in conflict

resolution. In Jharkhand the scramble to control the Gram Sabha or village council may

carry the germs of incipient conflict between stakeholders but is nonetheless a testimony

to the importance of this institution in making decisions around conflict issues. Conflicts

cannot be resolved for all times to come – as old ones mutate and change their forms

new animosities and faultlines appear. The institutionalization of local bodies carries the

potential of greater local ownership of the peacebuilding process in all these conflict

spots. And of course as we have seen autonomies may clash and contest – the

challenge of governance is therefore for autonomies to co-exist and for the central

government to treat them as the bedrock on which democracy is built rather than as

exceptional measures to keep unhappy and restive populations temporarily quiet.

Governing conflict through Special Security Measures:

In this section we examine how governance is implemented through special security

mechanisms in conflict spots. In the midst of high levels of militarization of state and

society the question of security becomes paramount. A plethora of governance

measures are anchored around protecting “national security” from internal security

threats in the conflict spots under scrutiny. However a key question that emerges from

the by now well known discourses and debates around national and human security

paradigms is: security for whom? What happens if the governance measures for

protecting the “territory of India” end up making the people living in those areas feeling

unsafe? What is the way out if macro security ends up creating a web of micro

insecurities (Banerjee and Samaddar 2010). A survey of the governance measures for

security in these conflict spots indicates that this security dilemma remains unresolved.

As Margaret Blanchard (1996) points out, perceived internal threats often create far

greater repressive reactions than when the nation is at war. In India the governance

innovation to deal with the internal security threats in the restive border areas in the

Northeast and in Jammu and Kashmir was to introduce a set of laws that cracked down

on political movement, enabled the Indian army to be brought in for counterinsurgency

operations and facilitated these operations by allowing the Armed Forces extraordinary

powers through special laws that overturn the law of evidence. The army has been used

20

for counterinsurgency in the Northeast from the 1950s and in Jammu and Kashmir in the

1990s. Calling in the army to conduct counterinsurgency operations is a task that is

qualitatively different from its traditional role of safeguarding the borders from external

aggression and one that brings in new equations between the people, the army and the

civilian elected representatives.

At the centre of the debate on special laws is the one around the Armed Forces Special

Powers Act (AFSPA) that was brought into the statute book by the Indian parliament in

1958 and provided omnibus protection to any soldier or officer who may have violated

the rights of a citizen by forceful entry into a house, damage to property, detention

without warrant or custodial deaths (Chasie and Hazarika 2009).

Less than two years later the AFSPA of 1958 was enacted embracing some of the

clauses of the earlier Assam Disturbed Areas Act of 1955. It empowered soldiers to

shoot to kill and then protected them against prosecution other than by the central

government. Far from it being a short term legislation as was the initial proclaimed intent,

its operation was enlarged in 1972 and it remains in operation till date. This

extraordinary law specifically enabled the military to play a role in counterinsurgency. As

Chasie and Hazarika (2009: 11) highlight: “This was a turning point in policy formulation

and field action for it represented the moment when civil power to deal with a political

challenge was transferred to the army and paramilitary forces. A military response to a

political problem became embedded in the system and in Delhi’s approach.”

As a prominent commentator on the northeast India Sajib Baruah (2007: 3) posits, the

AFSPA gives “authoritarian trappings” to India’s democratic institutions and this and

other laws have tried to provide a “permanent counter insurgency capacity” since

“insurgencies and counterinsurgencies have become a permanent part of life in the

Northeast India.” The legacy of the Indo China war of 1962 where China claimed territory

in the Northeast Frontier Province (now Arunachal Pradesh) and continuing fears of

renewed hostilities with China over this border implied that politics in Northeast India

would always be looked at through a national security lens. Governance measures in the

Northeast have never been able to lose sight of this ever since.

21

Banerjee and Dey (2012) have pointed out that AFSPA has militarized the entire region

particularly Nagaland and Mizoram. Drawing attention to its wide-ranging social impact

they point to the fact that “a result of this act is that it has caused an inflow of men

working within the security structures of the government. Hence in many parts of

Northeast India infrastructure work such as roadbuilding for safe movement of troops

necessitated the presence of skilled labour and technical hands and so it mostly

attracted men. Also the flow of security personnel in the region increased the share of

male migrants. Such a situation affected the sex ratio negatively. It coincided with the

growing violence against women in the region.”

In the 1990s the provisions of this extraordinary legislation reached another site of

insurgency – Jammu and Kashmir through the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir)

Special Powers Act that mirrored the provisions of the act in the Northeast. It too

empowered commissioned and non commissioned officers to arrest, seize without

warrant and shoot to kill under section 4 of the act. The other piece of special

legislation in Jammu and Kashmir is the Public Safety Act that provides for detention of a

maximum of two years without trial in case of persons acting in any manner prejudicial to

the security of the state. It also allows for preventive detention upto one year where any

person is acting in a manner prejudicial to maintenance of public order. Writing in the

context of Jammu and Kashmir Manecksha (2011) points to the difficulty of securing

justice in a context where special laws are used to supplant the ordinary criminal justice

system which has its own procedures and human rights safeguards. The lack of respect

shown by state authorities and security personnel can be gauged from the fact that court

directives are pointedly ignored or circumvented by them.

These “exceptional” laws in the Northeast and in Jammu and Kashmir operate side by

side with the other civil and criminal laws creating a complex legal mosaic where an

average citizen is not always sure which law will be invoked under what circumstances.

What has emerged consequently is not a system of parallel laws but interlocking laws

that has created a web of physical and psychological insecurities in the minds of the

people. As Singh (2006, 120) argues through a “subtle process of symbiosis” laws

pertaining to the so called ordinary crimes and those dealing with extraordinary

situations intertwine in specific contexts to the point where the two no longer exist

independently.

22

The special laws also have to be seen in the backdrop of the huge government and

security apparatus that also exists. The overwhelming presence of bureaucratic and

security structures intrude into everyday life which intentionally or unintentionally

interface all governance arrangements.

Apart from the use of the army in counter insurgency operations in phases both in

Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir the state’s paramilitary forces also operate – for

instance the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Rashtriya Rifles (RR) and Border

Security Force (BSF) are used in Jammu and Kashmir while in the Northeast

paramilitary forces include the Assam Rifles, CRPF, Indo Tibetian Border Police (ITBP),

Sarashtra Seema Bal (SSB), and BSF. Jharkhand which has not yet seen the

deployment of the Indian armed forces or the use of the Armed Forces special Powers

Act however uses special paramilitary forces such as Indian reserve battalions, Combat

Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) unit of CRPF. As Naxals targeted government

and private property, the security forces are increasingly deployed to protect these – the

protection of the poor and marginalized segments of the population is not only neglected

they are even seen as the source of the threat. In Jharkhand the perception from the

field has been the excessive use of the special paramilitary forces limits the scope for

the development of the local police forces which is deemed to be central for security

from the Naxal threat. 15

Mohammad Ayoob has argued that most security problems in the developing world arise

from the imperatives of the state building process (Ayoob 1995). Banerjee and

Samaddar refer to the security conundrum where the macro security architecture causes

molar forms of insecurity or micro insecurity and argue that security has to be

understood as a dyad in/insecurity where someone’s security is always another’s

insecurity. As they point out “…in ensuring comprehensive security or macro-security,

what emerges is a perennially insecure nation, a schizophrenic world made up of circles

of insecurity” (Banerjee and Samaddar 2010: xxvi). Any form of state formation or state

15

Interview with Deputy Commandant of CoBRA Battalion at Barhi, Hazaribag on 6 August 2012 by JNU team. In fact the fieldwork conducted by JNU indicated the complex relationship between the paramilitary and local police forces. One one hand the paramilitary forces depend on the police owing to the latter’s better contextual knowledge. Thus unless local police acquire competence paramilitary forces can have only a limited role. On the other hand if local police acquire the necessary professional competence, paramilitary forces may not be needed at all.

23

restructuring- such as the recasting the boundaries of states in the Northeast, granting

statehood to new units - reassures the security of one group but may enhance the

insecurity of others. The conundrum continues.

The overall picture that emerges is one where people’s security gets the short shrift in

the name of national security whether in the Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir or

Jharkhand. The armed deployments are used to protect territory and private or

government property while non-combatant civilians feel neither safe nor secure as they

are caught between the guns of security forces and armed militants. If “freedom from

fear” is one of the twin pillars of human security (the other being freedom from want)

clearly special legislations and deployment patterns of security forces do nothing to

serve that purpose and in fact generates a further circle of insecurity.

Governing conflicts through ‘Developmentalism’:

In this section we turn the lens on how the Indian government has sought to manage

violent conflicts through the ‘development mantra’ which has unleashed several

unintended consequences. There is of course no doubt that there are economic causes

that drive the conflict in Northeast India, Jammu and Kashmir as well as in Jharkhand

that need to be addressed through creative governance initiatives. Sidestepping the

question of peace for development or development for peace for the moment, we focus

on the question of what kind of development is aligned with peacebuilding. A

governance model that is growth rate obsessed and pays inadequate attention to issues

of social equity and justice can only drive the conflict, not transform it. Moreover as Das

(2012:2) indicates governance that creates dependency through doles in insurgency

affected states in the name of development is not just pointless but dangerous.

Partition left both the border region of the Northeast and the former princely state of

Jammu and Kashmir cut off from their traditional trade links. In Kashmir partition became

an impediment to renewing the traditional silk route that had connected Kashmir with

central Asia and Middle East. From 2008 onwards two transitory points on the border

with Pakistan were opened through which cross border barter trade on selected items

could take place on specified days and under heavy security though this did not of

24

course come close to renewing the traditional silk route.16 It was nonetheless an

important governance measure to build confidence between India and Pakistan the two

sovereign parties locked in a dispute over Kashmir. According to a study by Kira (2011)

trade in agricultural commodities increased significantly but not that of handicrafts which

is the backbone of the region’s economy. However as he points out (and which is also

borne out by the PRIA field trip to Uri) there are numerous impediments to trade such as

the barter system lack of communication, absence of banking, limit of tradable goods,

and structural difficulties in free movement.

The Northeast which had till the 19th century been placed along the Silk Road also

became land locked and though the impact of disrupted trade ties on the extent of

poverty in this part has not been estimated there is little doubt that the impact was highly

regressive (Verghese 2001). An attempt to link the economy of the Northeast with the

power economies of south east Asia through the look east policy (LEP) was seen as

another governance measure to offset the geographical disadvantage of being

landlocked. Despite the promise of this new policy the manner in which it has been

implemented by the mandarins in Delhi did not give much scope to the people of the

region to mould it in their favour because it emphasized a flow of goods rather than

geographical and cultural contiguities which would have benefitted the people of the

region (Das 2010:351). An editorial in the Economic and Political Weekly (2010: 8)

cautioning against defining national self interest in terms of special interests of business

groups and corporate points out, “India’s Look East policy does not lead to greater

people to people contacts but brings Indonesia’s Salem group to Nandigram, South

Korea’s Posco to Orissa and cheap imports of palm-oil to Kerala, while it strengthens

military rule over democratic forces in Burma.” In this process the Northeast simply

serves as a flyover rather than as a point of either economic or cultural engagement.

The current manner in which the LEP has taken off may in fact set off another round of

ethnic conflicts in the region, warns Das (2010).

The violence of the insurgencies and counterinsurgency operations in both these regions

resulted in destruction of vital infrastructure. As the armed conflict spread to the rural

16

A two member team from PRIA visited the trade transit point on the Indian side of the Line of Control at Uri and interviewed truck drivers, trade facilitation officer, customs personnel, and local traders to find out the opportunities and challenges of this confidence building measure.

25

spaces of the Kashmir valley in the 1990s for instance schools, roads and bridges were

wantonly destroyed. Though estimates are hard to come by, one estimate cites a loss of

private and public property worth Rs 20,000 million upto 1998 because of the violence

(cited in Mahendra Lama 2005). Public utility installations in the Northeast have also

been a major target of insurgent groups and the ULFA attack on the petrol storage depot

of the Indian Oil Corporations’ Digboi Refinery in East Assam in March 2003 itself led to

burning of five million liters of motor spirit estimated at Rs 200 million (Lama 2005).

One of the most important strategies of pacification in India’s conflict areas, particularly

in the Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir are the special economic packages and funds

that are bestowed by the centre from time to time. One of the problems of the ‘economic

grants as panacea’ formulation is that a key question remains unaddressed – namely the

ultimate destination of these funds. Evidently these special packages typically delivered

by bureaucrats and instruments of public administration do not reach the people for

whom it is meant (DasGupta 2012). A complete focus on economic issues to the

detriment of other issues also results in sidestepping matters related to dignity, rights

and justice (Ibid).

Pointing out that the huge grants and subsidies have not generated any substantial

growth in India’s Northeast, Bezbaruah (2009) uses the term “kleptocracy” or rule of

thieves to describe the various projects that exist on paper and benefits none except

those who manage to steal the government allocated funds to fill their pockets. He also

argues that siphoning of money has remained so easy year after year despite mandatory

audits because this is precisely what the providers of the funds want given that they too

seek to benefit from this corrupt order.

In Jammu and Kashmir the strategy of pumping in central funds and creating non-

productive jobs creating huge outflows on salaries and pensions (not to mention the

unaccounted for expenses to maintain security) on a revenue base that is already limited

because of the conflict dynamics. This creates a Catch-22 situation. In fact, the salary

and pension component of Jammu and Kashmir is greater than its total revenue

generation. Therefore, it is not surprising that while the ratio of central transfers to total

revenue at 78.6% may be twice that for all other states (except for the north-east where

it is 67.6%), as much as 50% of Jammu and Kashmir’s own revenue goes into debt

26

servicing and into reducing the overdraft of the government with the J&K Bank

(Navlakha 2009). Navlakha also argues that this is no unintended consequence but an

intended one. It suits the national elite in New Delhi to device pacification strategies of a

kind that keep the dependency syndrome alive because of the opportunities it affords to

control the lives of a disaffected and alienated population and keep the power balance

firmly in its favour (Ibid.).

In Jharkhand one of the reasons for the slow development of the state is the reported

nexus between the politicians, bureaucracy and the Naxal organizations. The evidence

from the field across five districts shows that many development projects that were

approved were either not constructed or not in a functioning mode due to two reasons.

The funds for the project are either reportedly siphoned off by officials at the district and

block level or by members of the panchayats or the constructions are obstructed or

stopped mid way by the contractors because they have failed to pay the share of the

bribe to the variant organizations of Naxals. The Naxals ask levy only from those

projects which have big enough means from whom a share can be more than 2-3 lakhs.

Levy is not asked from projects of schools or health centres. 17

Clearly therefore the central government policy of ‘transfer of money’ to the disaffected

states has done little to address the conflict. Parachuting a series of special economic

packages that do not take into account the specific needs of the land and the people, far

from addressing the problem ends up breeding a political economy of violence where a

new class of ‘conflict entrepreneurs’ emerge with a vested interest in keeping a violent

conflict alive (DasGupta 2012).The so called special package funds find their way into

the hands of timber mafias and land mafias and do little to ameliorate the lot of the

people living in the region. This has been true of both the Northeast and Jammu and

Kashmir. In Jharkhand increased funds have actually allowed the extremists to sustain

themselves through a “levy economy” while in the Northeast the ULFA routinely imposed

“taxes” during the Assam agitation in the 1980s.

Increasingly however, and especially since the 1990s, there has been a change of

governance strategy. While special packages in conflict spots continue to be announced

from time to time and governance policy is still driven by the expectation that

17

Fieldwork carried out by JNU in Jharkhand

27

marketization of resources will make the conflict economies competitive and free

markets are the locomotive of economic development (Sachdev 2005: 191), much of

the central funds for development are now being channeled through the PRIs. The

predominant role of the PRIs in specific choice and implementation of a wide range of

governance initiatives – such as MGNREGA , IAY18 - is now increasingly becoming a

norm in all states including the Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand. In fact in

Jammu and Kashmir one of the reasons why panchayats (village councils) were finally

constituted and notified in 2011 was because of the implicit threat that the government of

India would not channel funds unless this was through the institutions of local self

governance.

The resultant governmentality of participation if implemented in letter and spirit certainly

has the potential to reshape the development discourse. However charges of corruption

the rise of “shadow contractors,” proxy voting at the Gram Sabhas, using women’s

reservation to perpetuate rather than fight patriarchy continue to beset the

implementation process.

The general picture that surfaces across the conflict sites is that the active interventions

made by the central government in the name of development particularly through grants

and doles has fuelled rather than mitigated the conflicts – in all cases the ultimate

destination of the funds remain shrouded in mystery – but clearly they have not

generated productive employment opportunities for the marginalized and vulnerable

sections. In all cases the expectation that free markets will provide a magical antidote to

the conflict has resulted in the unbridled growth of the corporate sector acting in close

cooperation with the government. While this may have led to the flow of easy money for

some and the conflict may have changed and mutated because of this the root economic

causes of the conflict remain unaddressed through these governance interventions.

18

MGNREG stands for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee id the largest welfare programme run by the government of India. Enacted as a law in August 2005 it provides 100 days of paid employment to adult members of a household willing to do unskilled manual labour related to public works at the statutory minimum wage. IAY stands for Indira Awaas Yojana, which aims at helping rural people living below the poverty line in construction of dwelling units and upgradation of existing unserviceable houses by providing assistance in the form of a full grant.

Th

28

Peace Accords: Negotiations and Dialogue around conflicts:

In this section we draw attention to the manner in which conflicts are attempted to be

governed or managed through negotiation and bargaining tangibly manifested by the

way specific peace accords are hammered out. Northeast has in fact become the

veritable laboratory for such accords in India. While it involves processes of negotiation,

mediation and power its dialogic content often appears to be compromised in the interest

of quick solutions.

As Samaddar (2004) points out the language of international politics has failed to discern

modes of power and the political technology of rule in post colonial regions like South

Asia where “plural dialogues carry seeds of power and resistance and contested

conversation and may lead to accommodation, reconciliation and peace.” Yet the studies

of post colonial regimes have not taken dialogue seriously because they saw themselves

as embodying the highest will of the citizens. Following decolonization, the political class

became a reserved club and having entered into what it saw as a transactional

relationship in the interest of governance it replaced a genuine process of dialogue with

command, silence and juridical language. The state discourse of constitution,

parliament, election, party, law and above all national security replaced the earlier

associational oriented conversation in politics.

Even as the spirit of genuine dialogue was seriously compromised in the post

independence period, the more limited processes of negotiation and bargaining

continued to be a part of the strategy of governance in the ‘trouble spots.’ For instance in

Jammu and Kashmir power sharing electoral agreements between the state parties and

the national parties have been used for political trade offs from time to time. Sheikh

Abdullah and Indira Gandhi’s accord of 1975 in Jammu and Kashmir paved the way for

the National Conference, led by the former, to return to power after it dropped its

demand for plebiscite. Again following President’s rule in 1986 an accord was signed by

National Conference’s Farooq Abdullah and the then PM Rajiv Gandhi of the Congress

(1) which was defended on the grounds that it would ensure greater flow of central funds

into the state indicating that central aid was conditional and a political tool.

29

However it is in Northeast India that a wide ranging system of negotiation and bargaining

has ensued and has typically manifested itself in a series of peace accords that have

been much wider in scope than the ones in Jammu and Kashmir. In fact among all the

conflict spots in India the Northeast represents the most wide ranging attempts at

“managing” conflicts through a plethora of governing measures incorporated in a series

of accords.

Rajagopalan (2008) in her study on peace accords in the Northeast has mapped no less

than 13 prominent ones between insurgent groups, state governments and government

of India in the period 1949-2005. The limited interaction between Northeast India and the

rest of the country to which it is joined by a 37 km sliver of land has translated into an

emphasis on peace accords as a means to stem violence, resolve conflicts and

restructure social relations. These have included redistribution of authority by creating

territorial or non territorial means of representation and self governance, which we have

already discussed at length. While this is a time tested conflict resolution mechanism

the devolution of power remains a real problem in the region and creating new

administrative or territorial units is not a guarantor of viability, resource independence or

autonomy. In fact as we have seen overlapping and intersecting powers and functions

have been serious administrative limitations.

Consequently the key question is: as a governance strategy what has been the efficacy

of such accords in bringing an end to violent conflict? To answer this we need to

understand what a peace accord is and what it represents. As Rajagopalan (2008: ix-xi)

points out “peace accords are usually regarded as formal agreements between conflict

parties, and can take many forms: from the minimal form of a ceasefire agreement to the

scope of a mini constitution.” Whatever be their scope – and the range is considerable -

if the expectation is that they are endpoints that would bring a permanent end to the

conflict then disappointment is likely to follow. On the other hand if they are regarded as

frameworks for further negotiations, as “bookmarks in the peace process” that work

towards the creation of an inclusive platform for dialogue then they acquire a different

kind of value. Unfortunately different stakeholders have different expectations from the

same accords and this does not always lead to sustainable peace.

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We need not look beyond the three accords signed with the Naga rebel groups in 1949,

1960 and 1975 to illustrate some of these points. The 1949 accord promised Nagas a

measure of autonomy; the 1960 accord paved the way to statehood; in 1975 undefined

“underground groups” who were waging an insurgency surrendered. Yet the conflict

continued. One of the reasons was that each of the negotiations engaged a subset of

those who were fighting (Rajagopalan 2008: 2). On the other hand the Mizo accord of

1986 is considered much more successful – uniquely so in fact – because the ethnically

inclusive mobilization of the Mizo National Front centred around a regional rather than a

ethnic identity. However even this accord did address a single group’s concern over

others and cracks in this unified front resulted in further accord making with the Bru and

Hmar ethnic groups. Accords signed in Tripura appear to have made no difference to the

escalating violence because militant groups there have morphed into transborder

criminal organizations (Rajagopalan 2008). In the case of the Assam accord there was

an attempt to genuinely address the root causes of conflict - illegal immigration, nativism,

citizenship but the provision of the accord has been very difficult to implement. The

challenge as Rajagopalan (2008: xii) points out is “to facilitate the incorporation of the

peace process into the practice of everyday politics and over time the impulse to

articulate interests through violence and simulate peacebuilding through accord signing

are both rendered redundant.”

Experiences from India’s conflict spots particularly from Northeast therefore clearly

indicate that while peace accords can help bring down direct violence they are not

inherently transformative in nature. They emphasize processes of bargaining,

negotiation and mediation by the more powerful stakeholders. Unless they are preceded

and followed by a more dialogic process, the achievement of social peace will continue

to remain a challenge. On the other hand if the reduction in direct violence following a

peace accord is used as an opportunity for addressing issues of justice and rights for all

a transformative opportunity may well open up.

Assessing Governance in conflict areas: An Overview

In this paper we have drawn from experiences across three conflict sites in India to

engage with the question of the implementation of governance measures in these areas.

Clearly any discussion of these measures in terms of legitimacy, accountability,

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transparency and efficiency will have to take into account the conflict contexts. As

bunkers, roadblocks, armed forces and paramilitary occupy the landscape along with

electors, bureaucrats, local politicians and the new elite an unusual scenario is created

which make it more challenging to assess the actual impact of governance initiatives on

all segments of society.

Elections, its associated institutions including the legislature, the Election Commission

and electoral politics are closely tied with the institutional and procedural democracy –

elected representatives provide the system with legitimacy. As our analysis has

indicated in all the conflict spots under study (barring the periods they were under

President’s rule) elections and the electoral processes are technically in place through

allegations of rigging and elections at gun point persist in some cases. Despite the cloak

of legitimacy the electoral process provides, the actual question of accountability of

these elected representatives to the people who have elected them remain questionable.

Allegations of corrupt politicians in league with timber and land mafia and with the

bureaucrats abound in Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir and in Jharkhand as we have

seen and despite elections the political class is regarded as part of the problem rather

than the solution.

At the grassroots level, PRIs are the primary bodies entrusted with the functions of

fostering participation in, and transparency and accountability of developmental policies

and their implementation. One of the ways in which accountability can be encouraged is

by making the Gram Sabha an enabling institution. Though it is not an elected body it

comes close to simulating an institution of direct democracy. Given the community ties

within the village it can be an effective forum for ensuring accountability of elected

representatives at least at the panchayat level though the problem of unscrupulous

elected representatives at higher levels remains out of its ambit. As we have seen Gram

Sabhas have been given a special status in areas where the tribal population is

dominant through an enabling legislation (PESA) but the evidence base that it is being

implemented in letter and spirit remains weak. Yardsticks of efficiency and viability have

to be balanced against the importance of ensuring legitimacy and accountability and

even if the process of decision making slows down creating participatory institutions at

the grassroots level is paramount for any conflict transformation.

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The experiment with autonomous councils has been an innovative tool of governance –

in so far as it tries to provide representation to different groups and communities in

society. However in terms of overlapping mandates and jurisdictions with the regular

PRIs it does not necessarily result in efficient decision making. As experiments with this

governance innovation in the Northeast and in Jammu and Kashmir show it opens up

the space for competitive demands and the claims. In the Northeast particularly rival

tribal and kinship groups make it difficult to settle competitive claims. The answer is to

find ways of increasing their viability and efficiency and recognizing their role in conflict

resolution.

The principle of participation is particularly important in conflict spots where violence

typically results in further marginalization of grassroots voices. However there are a

number of challenges and trade offs here. Since participation has become the buzzword

it is important not to mistake the shadow for the substance. Instances of ‘coerced

participation’ specially of women and tribals have been known to happen only to satisfy

the participation criteria on paper. Also the limited autonomy of the PRIs is a serious

challenge to its legitimacy – often there is a huge gap between the promise and the

practice when it comes to the actual devolution of functions, funds and functionaries.

Due to the legacy of violence in these areas and the destruction of infrastructure such as

roads, bridges, schools the pressure to rebuild quickly and efficiently is ever present and

participatory development while promoting parity is necessarily time consuming and in

that sense not always considered efficient.

Governing conflict through special security legislations as we have seen is highly

controversial and has resulted in many abuses. It has bred a culture of impunity and

excesses and allegations that these special laws are “lawless laws” that actually violate

the right to life guaranteed in article 21 of the Indian constitution. By overturning the law

of evidence and allowing the right to imprison and shoot on suspicion it makes the

armed forces unaccountable for their actions – in the eyes of the people their actions are

seen as illegitimate. In terms of viability and efficiency there are question marks because

there is no evidence base to indicate that armed manifest violence has come down as a

result of the special laws.

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Pumping in development funds as a mechanism for conflict governance is neither

efficient or viable and as we have seen create a culture that erases even the trappings of

accountability. Added to this are the huge accounted for security expenditures whose

ultimate destination remains unknown.

Finally peace accords as a mechanism for governing conflicts can be viable and efficient

especially to end direct violence but cannot be a substitute for keeping the language of

dialogue alive thereafter. Accords duly signed have the seal of legitimacy and if carefully

worded and negotiated can ensure accountability. However it is easy to fall into the trap

of looking at peace accords as ends in themselves rather than as benchmarks of a much

longer transformative process.

In Conclusion:

The narratives from India’s conflict zones indicate two things. First we see that

governance particularly in conflict areas is always in a state of flux as new rules of

engagement emerge through the various combinations of private and public authority,

the emergence of markets sometimes in collusion with the Indian state as a major player

in these conflicts, the shifting interests of powerful non state actors in the central, state,

regional and local levels and the creative responses of social actors on the ground who

can also find ways to recombine and reprocess institutional resources in response to

new challenges. It follows therefore that governance in conflict areas is always a political

task not a technical one and it generates a continuous political expansion that happens

at every level and every stage.

During the past decade the meaning of governance has been considerably altered in the

imagination of ordinary citizens. Popular participation in decision making about issues

that affect the lives of the people has become a constant demand. Therefore the

discourse in India as well as its practice has begun to influence the state to reform itself.

The Right to information Act is one example of ensuring transparency in the way the

government functions. The modern information technology is being used to share more

information about the norms, criteria and process of decision making that governments

at all tiers adopt. Likewise the accountability of government officials for non performance

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of their duties is being fixed in several legislative provisions like NREGA, service

charters etc.

In some fundamental ways therefore the business of governance of society is no longer

exclusively in the hands of national governments alone. The provincial governments,

PRIs and municipalities are all mandated to govern the affairs of India today. In this

process of transition effective division of labour across different jurisdictions is yet to

stabilize. Contestations about devolution of authority and resources are continuing.

Therefore what India’s discourse on governance suggests particularly in conflict spots

are two contending sometimes colliding forces at work. Despite the top down

governance measures that are put in place and the visible hand of the central

government much more participatory processes and forms are also simultaneously

being invented through actual practices on the ground. As citizens become more

assertive and vocal as civil society becomes more involved and as media, despite

allegations that it acts irresponsibly and is guided more by the market than by journalistic

ethics, continues its overall watchdog role, the meaning of governance in India is

gradually becoming more inclusive bottom up and with this also more contested.

Notwithstanding the central government’s attempt to keep the conflicts “under control” it

is no longer a simple public administration approach or the colonial law and order

machinery that will be equated with emerging meanings of participatory and democratic

governance in India today. Viewed in this sense governance in India is about state-

society relations. Participatory governance conceptions include the administrative and

public management instruments and institutions but are not limited to them.

Understanding governance in conflict spots in India today entails understanding how

bottom up processes of popular participation interact with the formal institutions of

governance in Indian democracy. This interaction brings into the discourse what

Stepan, Linz and Yadav (2011) have described as a state-nation framework. The

Westphalian nation-state frame makes the state the centre around which different

communities, sub cultures and ethnic nationalities define themselves. In the state-nation

frame that state has to accommodate multiple nationalities communities and subcultures

as well as their diverse aspirations. This perspective reinforces the principle of

subsidiarity in governance arrangements and requires much more authentic and

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sensitive devolution to sub regional and regional institutions of governance, not as a

pacification strategy, but to create a peace based on what Das (2012) has called “the

traiadic principles of rights, justice and democracy.” A quiescent state-managed

suspension of violence based on pacification cannot be the basis of sustainable social

peace.

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