The Dynamics of Conflict and Peace in Contemporary South Asia: The State, Democracy and Social Movements

217 Pages·2021·3.628 MB·English

by  Minoru Mio, Kazuya Nakamizo, Tatsuro Fujikura

The Dynamics of Conflict and Peace in
Contemporary South Asia
This book engages with the concept, true value, and function of democracy in
South Asia against the background of real social conditions for the promotion of
peaceful development in the region.
In the book, the issue of peaceful social development is defined as the con-
ditions under which the maintenance of social order and social development is
achieved – not by violent compulsion but through the negotiation of intentions
or interests among members of society. The book assesses the issue of peaceful
social development and demonstrates that the maintenance of such conditions for
long periods is a necessary requirement for the political, economic, and cultural
development of a society and state. Chapters argue that, through the post-colo-
nial historical trajectory of South Asia, it has become commonly understood that
democracy is the better, if not the best, political system and value for that purpose.
Additionally, the book claims that, while democratization and the deepening of
democracy have been broadly discussed in the region, the peace that democracy
is supposed to promote has been in serious danger, especially in the 21st century.
A timely survey and re-evaluation of democracy and peaceful development in
South Asia, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of South Asian
Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies and Asian Politics and Security.
Minoru Mio is a professor and the director of the Department of Globalization
and Humanities at the National Museum of Ethnology, Japan. He is one of
the series editors of the Routledge New Horizons in South Asian Studies and
has co-edited Cities in South Asia (with Crispin Bates, 2015), Human and
International Security in India (with Crispin Bates and Akio Tanabe, 2015) and
Rethinking Social Exclusion in India (with Abhijit Dasgupta, 2017), also pub-
lished by Routledge.
Kazuya Nakamizo is a professor in the Graduate School of Asian and African
Area Studies at Kyoto University, Japan. He is the author of Violence and Democ-
racy: The Collapse of One-Party Dominant Rule in India (2020).
Tatsuro Fujikura is a professor in the Graduate School of Asian and African
Area Studies, and the director of the Center for South Asian Studies at Kyoto
University, Japan. He is the author of Discourses of Awareness: Development,
Social Movements and the Practices of Freedom in Nepal (2013).
Routledge New Horizons in South Asian Studies
Series Editors: Crispin Bates, Edinburgh University; Akio Tanabe, Kyoto
University; Minoru Mio, National Museum of Ethnology, Japan
Democratic Transformation and the Vernacular Public Arena in India
Edited by Taberez Ahmed Neyazi, Akio Tanabe and Shinya Ishizaka
Cities in South Asia
Edited by Crispin Bates and Minoru Mio
Human and International Security in India
Edited by Crispin Bates, Akio Tanabe and Minoru Mio
Rethinking Social Exclusion in India
Castes, Communities and the State
Edited by Minoru Mio and Abhijit Dasgupta
Modernity and Spirit Worship in India
An Anthropology of the Umwelt
Edited by Miho Ishii
Sustainable Development in India
Groundwater Irrigation, Energy Use, and Food Production
Edited by Koichi Fujita and Tsukasa Mizushima
The Dynamics of Conflict and Peace in Contemporary South Asia
The State, Democracy and Social Movements
Edited by Minoru Mio, Kazuya Nakamizo and Tatsuro Fujikura
For a full list of titles please see https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-
New-Horizons-in-South-Asian-Studies/book-series/RNHSAS
The Dynamics of Conflict
and Peace in Contemporary
South Asia
The State, Democracy and Social
Movements
Edited by Minoru Mio,
Kazuya Nakamizo and Tatsuro Fujikura
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2021 selection and editorial matter, Minoru Mio, Kazuya Nakamizo
and Tatsuro Fujikura; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Minoru Mio, Kazuya Nakamizo and Tatsuro Fujikura to
be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors
for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Nakamizo, Kazuya, 1970- editor. |
Tatsuro, Fuzikura, editor. | Mio, Minoru, editor.
Title: The dynamics of conflict and peace in contemporary South
Asia : the state, democracy and social movements / Edited by Kazuya
Nakamizo, Tatsuro Fujikura and Minoru Mio.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon, ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021.
| Series: Routledge new horizons in South Asian studies | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020037655 | ISBN 9780367470579 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781003038528 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Democracy--South Asia. | Social movements--South Asia. |
South Asia--Politics and government. | South Asia--Social conditions.
Classification: LCC JQ98.A91 D96 2021 | DDC 303.6/60954--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020037655
ISBN: 978-0-367-47057-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-03852-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Times
by SPi Global, India
Contents
List of Contributors vii
List of Figures ix
List of Tables x
Introduction: Dynamics of conflict and peace in contemporary
South Asia xi
MINORU MIO, KAZUYA NAKAMIZO AND TATSURO FUJIKURA
PART I
Democracy, state and religion 1
1 Democracy and vigilantism: the spread of Gau Rakshaks in India 3
KAZUYA NAKAMIZO
2 Creating majoritarian democracy: Bharatiya Janata Party in
the 2017 Legislative Assembly election in Uttar Pradesh 20
NORIO KONDO
3 Practicing the right to indifference: Secularism, toleration, and
Islamophobia in Indian and American National Subjectivities 41
PETER GOTTSCHALK
4 State and violence in Burma/Myanmar: The Rohingya crisis
and its implication for South and South-East Asia 55
KAZI FAHMIDA FARZANA
PART II
Democratization and social movements 75
5 Manifestation of Dalit rights, justice, and Dalit-ness in
the post-Mandal era 77
MAYA SUZUKI
vi Contents
6 Homogenization of social movement dynamics under
a “clever” Nepali state, 2007–2012 93
LOKRANJAN PARAJULI
7 Abul Sattar Edhi: The modern incarnation of a pacifist Sufi 113
TAHIR KAMRAN
8 Movements of flats and citizens: Notes on spatial politics in
Mumbai 127
YOKO TAGUCHI
PART III
How does a conflict end? 141
9 Life beyond the paradox: Peace, ethnic conflict, and everyday
realities of Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh 143
RANJAN SAHA PARTHA
10 Communities and mediation in post-conflict Nepal 163
TATSURO FUJIKURA
11 Maps, migration, melancholia 174
PRADEEP JEGANATHAN
Index 185
List of Contributors
Kazi Fahmida Farzana is an assistant professor in international relations at
the University of Sharjah, UAE. Her teaching and research interests include
nationalism and ethnic conflicts, diplomacy, forced migration, and stateless-
ness with an emphasis on South and Southeast Asia. As a peace and conflict
specialist, she has published not only several articles in prominent journals in
her field but also book chapters with leading publishers around the world. She
also has an authored book titled, Memories of Burmese Rohingya Refugees:
Contested Identity and Belonging (2017).
Tatsuro Fujikura is a professor at the Graduate School of Asian and African
Area Studies, where he teaches South Asian Studies and Anthropology. He is
the author of Discourses of Awareness: Development, Social Movement and the
Practices of Freedom in Nepal and co-author of The Noodle Narratives.
Peter Gottschalk is a professor of religion at Wesleyan University (Connecticut,
USA). His research investigates cultural interpretation and conflict at the inter-
sections of Muslim, Hindu, Christian, secular, and scientific traditions. He has
explored these themes in South Asia in Religion, Science, and Empire and
Beyond Hindu and Muslim.
Pradeep Jeganathan is a consultant social anthropologist in private prac-
tice in Colombo. Formally, he was Professor and Head of Sociology, Shiv
Nader University, Delhi NCR, India. He is the author of Living with Death
(2006), At the Water’s Edge (2004) and co-editor of Unmaking the Nation
(1995/2009/2017) and Subaltern Studies X1 (2002) and has written articles on
violence, grief, subaltern nationalism, and cyber subjectivity.
Tahir Kamran currently is a professor in the Department of Liberal Arts,
Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. He has authored several books
and articles on historiography, religious extremism, minority rights, colonial
Punjab, and the history of Pakistan.
Norio Kondo is a senior research fellow at the South Asian Studies Group, Area
Studies Center, Institute of Developing Economies in Japan. His main research
areas include contemporary Indian politics, contemporary South Asian politics,
and comparative politics, among others.
viii List of Contributors
Minoru Mio is a professor of the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan,
interested in popular Hindu religious practice and social change in India. He
has been conducting intensive field researches in Rajasthan and Gujarat for
30 years and has co-edited several English collection papers on contemporary
South Asian studies.
Kazuya Nakamizo is currently a professor in the Graduate School of Asian
and African Area Studies, Kyoto University. He specializes in socio-political
research of South Asia, with an emphasis on the relationship between poverty,
violence, and democracy. His publications include Violence and Democracy
(2020), and ‘Dismantling Democracy’, Asian Studies, Vol. 66, no. 2 (2020).
Lokranjan Parajuli is a historical sociologist based at Martin Chautari,
Kathmandu. He has written about education, libraries, politics, and the media
in Nepal. He has edited/co-edited several books. He is also an editor of the
journal Studies in Nepali History and Society.
Ranjan Saha Partha is an associate professor in anthropology at Jahangirnagar
University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. His doctoral research examined the practice
and discourse of Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord 1997 of Bangladesh. His
areas of specialization include anthropology of development: gender, poverty,
and health; peace and human rights; migration and diaspora studies; climate
change and local livelihood, civil society, and good governance; and agriculture
and peasant society.
Maya Suzuki is an associate professor in the Faculty of International Relations
at Daito Bunka University, Japan. Her research focuses on contemporary Dalit
movements. She is the author of “Justice and Human Rights at the Grassroots
Level: Judicial Activism by the Dalits” in Tatsuya Yamamoto and Tomoaki
Ueda (eds.) Law and Democracy in Contemporary India Constitution, Contact
Zone, and Performing Rights (2019).
Yoko Taguchi is an associate professor at the Prefectural University of Hiroshima.
She has done anthropological fieldwork in Mumbai, focusing on middle-class
activism, politics, and personhood. Her publications include Between Civil
Society and Political Society: Middle-class Citizen Movements in Mumbai
(2018, in Japanese).
List of Figures
1.1 Cow-related hate crime in India (2012–18). 4
1.2 Classification of militant groups in India. 6
2.1 Percentage of votes polled by major parties in Legislative
Assembly and Lok Ssabha elections in Uttar Pradesh after 1989. 21
2.2 Scheduled Castes population (%) and votes polled by BSP (%)
in 2017 Legislative Assembly elections. 32
2.3 Muslim population (%) and votes polled by SP and Congress (%)
in the 2017 Legislative Assembly elections. 36
11.1 Ruined Gatepost, Saravana Villa, Kaddudai, Manipai, Jaffna. 175
11.2 “All is falling.” mixed media on canvas. Thamodarampillai
Sanaathanan, Artist. 176