Vision 2020 or re-vision 1958: the contradictory politics of counter-insurgency in India's regional engagement
Insurgency in Northeast India has long been explained as an outcome of poverty and isolation that in turn produces further poverty and militancy. In order to break this cycle and achieve ‘peace and prosperity’, the Indian Government released North Eastern Region Vision 2020 in July 2008 – a comprehensive policy agenda to achieve ‘peace and prosperity’ in the Northeast. This is to be realised through deeper economic and political engagement with neighbouring countries and a ‘paradigm shift in development strategy’ that will be simultaneously more participatory and more infrastructure intensive. This paper argues that in practice the political manifestations of increased regional engagement are contradictory. Each measure designed to break the region's isolation is countered by measures to maintain control of borders, trade, and the movement of people. At the heart of this new development vision is a re-visioning of counter-insurgency underpinned by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (1958). Far from signalling a new era in the region, the measures contained in this new development vision appear more likely to exacerbate the grievances of people in the region and reinforce the ways the region has been governed through five decades of counter-insurgency.
The Breakdown in North-East India
This article tries to unravel the drivers of the protracted ethnic and secessionist conflicts, and the resultant disorder that have marred the north-eastern region of India. These conflicts have mostly been explained using the grievance narrative. But such explanations fail to account for the large variance in violence levels within the region. A rather more fruitful line of inquiry is provided by a state-society reading of the political history of the north-east that highlights the fact that conflicts there are accompanied by a contested and weak authority of governmental agencies and the fragmentation of society. Unpacking this causal connection demands that one delve into the region's history to study the process of state-making—how state leaders in colonial and post-colonial times established bureaucratic apparatuses, and constructed and mobilised collective identities in an effort at legitimacy. By focusing on the cases of Mizoram and Manipur, and their very divergent success with mitigating conflicts, and using qualitative sources of data, the paper demonstrates that in Mizoram the process of state-making was such that it consolidated the public legitimacy and authority of reigning institutions among all sections of society, resulting in the strengthened capability of government agencies to provide services, manage group contestations and avoid breakdown. In Manipur it was localised and traditional centres of power—tribal and ethnic associations—that gained in authority, in effect compromising the legitimacy of the government and the institutional capability of its agencies.
Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched
Chapter 1 1 Between the New Medium and the Old Chapter 2 2 The Promise of the Digital Revolution Chapter 3 3 Rediscovering Reality Chapter 5 4 The Kinder, Gentler Gaze of Big Brother Chapter 6 5 Access to the Real Chapter 7 6 It's All About the Experience Chapter 8 7 Reality TV and Voyeurism Chapter 9 8 Survivor and Uncanny Capitalism Chapter 10 Bibliography