Violent Punjab,quiescent Bengal,and the partition of India

Why did the Punjab bear the brunt of the mass violence and the migration that accompanied the partition of India? This paper makes the case for analytical eclecticism by showing that the following three explanations – centred respectively on democratisation, nationalism, and ideas; the commitment problem; and the security dilemma – account for the violence/migration in the different stages in the run-up to the partition of India. Instead of arguing that ‘everything mattered’, this paper elucidates the complex causality at work by demonstrating how these factors interacted with one another during the different stages leading to India’s partition.     

Public health as an agent of internal colonialism in interwar Czechoslovakia: shaping the discourse about the nation’s children

Shmidt’s text discusses the specifics of internal colonialism in the discourses and practices of the dominant group (Czechs) concerning Slovaks and Rusyns, ethnic groups from the peripheral, eastern areas of interwar Czechoslovakia. By targeting the reproductive patterns of these groups, seen as undesirable by the authorities, internal colonialism shaped the discourse about children by consistently opposing the normalized childhood inside the nation to the supposedly abnormal child development outside the civilizing process. Shmidt focuses on three interwar projects aimed at introducing new public health practices as an ‘infrastructure of dependence’ with regard to the peripheral groups. Being directly supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, these projects contributed to building the new Czechoslovak nation and securing its international legitimacy.     

Influence of Voter Demographics and Newspaper in Shaping Political Party Choice in India: An Empirical Investigation

Choice of political party is an important decision a citizen faces in a democracy. In recent times, as democracies in many countries have matured, a number of studies are focusing on party and candidate choice and their various determinants. India, being the largest democracy, provides a fertile ground for such research. Accordingly, in this paper we concentrate on demographic characteristics, newspaper-reading habits of voters, and their political choice. To study this we have considered a very unique data set collected just before the watershed elections in the state of West Bengal in India, where the ruling Communist coalition was defeated after thirty-four years of power in the state. The survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire to collect information on demographic characteristics of voters and their political choice. The respondents were asked to indicate their party choice from among the three major political parties. As the literature shows that gender, age, education, income levels, marital status, occupational status, and choice of newspaper have significant impact on political choice, we have considered these as predictor variables for our study. From our study it is seen that among the demographic determinants, gender, marital status, and income of the respondents do not influence the choice of political party in our sample. However, occupation and newspaper choice of voters have significant impact on political party choice in our sample. In addition, we have observed that certain categories of age of voters significantly influence decision making of voters along with occupation and newspaper choice categories.     

Bodo ethnic self-rule and persistent violence in Assam: A failed case of multinational federalism in India

Indian federalism has been credited in the literature on comparative federalism for having successfully resolved many of its ethnic conflicts (in a country of immense ethnic diversity) since 1956 by conceding varied forms of statehood. In most cases, the resolution of ethnic conflict has entailed self-determination for ethno-nationalist groups. There are however cases when the experiment has failed and the institutional arrangements for recognition of ethnic self-determination have given birth to more conflicts and persistent violence. In this article, we argue that the Bodoland Territorial Authority (created in 2003) in Assam is a failed case of multinational federalism in India. We argue that the case of Bodoland illustrates the limits of territorial management when groups are intermixed and highlight the need for power sharing in government and/or non-territorial representation as a better method for managing ethnic conflict in such cases.     

安倍政府印太战略及中国的应对

安倍政府印太战略的形成有一个逐步演进和明确化的过程,基本成型于安倍政府宣示的“自由与开放的印太”战略构想,背景是其“亚太战略”受挫、印度洋地缘板块抬升、中美战略态势更新等。其战略的主要目标有三：政治层面上维持西方主导的国际规则和地区秩序;经济上确保日本利益,对冲中国“一带一路”倡议;安全上主要是保障海洋秩序和海上通道自由,制约中国的实力拓展。实施办法则是以日、美、澳、印间的双多边合作为平台,综合采取政治、经济及安全等各种举措。安倍政府通过深耕日印、引美入“群”、补齐多边、宣介推广来促进其印太战略,态度在相关四国中积极而突出。日本推动印太战略创新面临挑战与不确定性,中国对此应加大引领、趋利避害,塑造有利于中国新时代发展所需的良好环境。     

‘Ringleaders and Troublemakers’: Malawian (Nyasa) migrants and transnational labor movements in Southern Africa,c.1910–1960

The article examines the transnational role of Malawian (Nyasa) migrant laborers in the emergence and development of African labor and proto-nationalist movements in Southern Africa. Using both archival and secondary evidence mainly from Southern Rhodesia and South Africa, it argues that the history of Southern Africa’s labor consciousness from the early to mid-twentieth century can be enriched by exploring the place of Nyasa migrants in shaping anti-colonial processes across the region. Nyasa migrants, a product of the colonial labor migration system (chibaro/mthandizi), laid the foundations for, and influenced trade unionism in the region, especially between 1910 and 1960. The colonial wage economy created ambiguities of dependence for Africans forcing many into a migrant and capitalist world laden with dilemmas, tightropes, and frustrations that fueled social movements. Malawian migrants who were at the core of such movements within a regional colonial economic system, gained a reputation for being ‘ringleaders and troublemakers’ to the colonial governments. Existing literature has not fully historicized the centrality of Nyasas in molding this critical episode of Southern African history. The historiography has dealt with these dynamics in an ad hoc manner, approaching this Nyasa ‘annoyance’ on a national basis, without drawing on the underlying regional connections.     

Internal borderlands: architectures of force and state expansion in India’s central ‘frontier’

India’s Maoist insurgency, a conflict in the geographic heartland of the country, is often portrayed as symptomatic of the underdevelopment and weak governance of the region. Rhetorically, the state has pursued a counter-insurgency strategy premised on a tandem of ‘security’ and development, while emphasising the conflict zone’s rootedness in the nation. This discourse ignores that historically the state has treated the region as a hostile ‘borderland’. This paper argues that the Indian state’s counter-insurgency is structured around a set of strategies of absorption. Drawing on James C. Scott’s examination of Zomia, as well as Henri Lefebvre’s theories of the state and space, this paper examines processes of militarised state expansion. Focusing on the construction of roads, government-controlled resettlement camps, forward operating bases and militarised schools, this paper conceptualises these particular state spaces as ‘architectures of force’: material manifestations of a larger project of highly militarised and acutely violent state-building.     

The Distributional Impact of Austerity and the Recession in Southern Europe

Southern European welfare states are under stress. On the one hand, the recession has been causing unemployment to rise and incomes to fall. On the other hand, austerity has affected the capacity of welfare states to protect those affected. This paper assesses the distributional implications of the crisis in Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal from 2009 to 2013. Using a microsimulation model, we disentangle the first-order effects of tax–benefit policies from the broader effects of the crisis, and estimate how its burden has been shared across income groups. We conclude by discussing the methodological pitfalls and policy implications of our research.     

The role of collective mobilization in the divergent performance of the rural economies of China and India (1950–2005)

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that the divergent performance of the rural economies of China and India after 1950 was a product of the different capabilities of the Chinese and Indian governments to mobilize the labor force and financial resources of the rural population. By mobilizing unpaid labor and the financial resources of the villagers through mediation by the collectives (before 1984) and local administrations (from 1984 to the abolition of agricultural taxation and compulsory rural labor mobilization in 2006), the Chinese state developed rural infrastructure and the quality of the labor force at a pace and geographical scope that was far beyond its limited fiscal capacity. Efforts by the Indian state to establish rural organizations with similar mobilization capabilities failed due to the effective opposition of well-entrenched political and economic interests in the countryside. Unable to mobilize the labor and financial resources of the villagers, the Indian government relied primarily on its limited fiscal resources, which produced a much slower development of physical infrastructure and labor force quality. These are the primary reasons why China’s rural economy developed much more rapidly than India’s, which contributed significantly to the divergence of their national economies in the post-1950 era.