The Fearful State: Power, People and Internal War in South Asia 1856491226, 9781856491228

Citation preview

'Mahmud Ali analyses with devastating clarity the vicious consequent

Asian states’

London

Ali, S. Mahmud, 1952The fearful state

WITHDRAWN

DATE DUE

5 mn DEC 6 139*1 1 8

HIGHSMITH 45-220

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n Lanka Burma and Tibet; Pakistani quid pro quo in Punjab and Kashmir; Bangladeshi acquiescence in Naga and Mizo action. 27. S Geller, ‘State-building and Nation-building in W Africa’, in S N Eisenstadt and S Rokkan (eds.). Building States and Nations, vol. 2, (California 1973) p. 384.

Chapter 2 MONTAGNARD INSURRECTIONS IN NORTH-EAST INDIA

The many cleavages of a divided land NORTH-EASTERN India is organised into the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. The largely Tibeto-Burman, Mongoloid, tribal montagnard population, protracted warfare between various politically active groups since 1947, and Chinese claims to around 50,000 sq miles of territory along the Himalayan slopes in Indian occupation, have given the region a special position in Indian frontier and security policy-making. There is a tendency to make sweeping generalisations about the nature of conflicts that rage in this area. Such expansive treatment detracts from an objective analysis of the processes of change confronting the region. The name itself is misleading. North-eastern India is a convenient way of describing seven administrative units. But the political geography and administrative structures do not necessarily reflect tribal perceptions; so an element of conflict may be built into the current organisational matrix. Political arrangements are not based on montagnard concepts of socio¬ economic structures and this may partly explain why, unlike any other part of India, this region has seen an almost endless series of rebellions against central authorities, and an equally vigorous recourse to coercion by the state since the Nagas first took up arms in the mid-1950s. The montagnards are divided into 217 scheduled tribes1 i.e., their social organisation is recognised by the Indian constitution. The highly fragmented nature of the tribal populace is underscored by the fact that members of each tribe view themselves as belonging to a special network of kinship bonds, relations, rights, privileges and responsibilities that exclude those not within the particular network. Outsiders — plainsmen in control of political, economic and social decision-making — acknowledge that there are differences between the Indie plainsmen and montagnard Mongoloids, as well as between the various tribes. Competition for scarce resources, demographic pressures and the lack of any organisational and technological symmetry between the plainsmen and the montagnards, complicate relationships. In communities dominated by primary loyalty, religion reinforces

A DIVIDED LAND

23

existing cleavages. In Assam, tribal attacks on settlers followed the HinduMuslim divide, but the absence of Muslims in Tripura did not prevent tribal-settler hostility. The 1981 census suggested that of the 26 million residents of the area, 66 per cent are Hindus, 19 per cent Muslims, 9 per cent Christians and the rest are either Buddhists or animists.2 Hindus live mainly in Assam, Manipur and Tripura; Christians dominate Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland; while Arunachal Pradesh is largely animist. In relatively simple communities, language is another focus of identity. In a region where 420 languages or dialects are spoken, assimilation is hindered. The isolation imposed by difficult terrain and cultural differences has led to a fragmentation of immense complexity.3 A tradition of almost casual recourse to violence and the lack of mediatory institutions of compromise have contributed to the pre-eminence of terror in the dynamic of political interaction in north-eastern India. The region’s population is a mix of Aryan, Dravidian, Austric and Negrito stock competing with a range of Mongoloids. Some had been established in the area before the Aryan invasion of India around 1550 bc. Developments in upper Burma later brought waves of montagnard tribes¬ men into the region. Some of these later arrivals, the Ahoms for example, were more successful than others in staking a claim to political control over the region. This confluence of old and new has made north-eastern India into something of an ethnic smorgasbord. Meitis, Indo-Tibetans, Indo-Burmans, Kuki-Lushais, Chin-Kukis and Shan-Tais are the major strains. However, tribal fissures divide the montagnards to a greater degree than this list might suggest. Indo-Tibetans are the oldest group, having occupied Himalayan foot¬ hills for at least 3,000 years. Aryan invaders called them the Kirata people and Hindu scriptures, the Vedas, mention them as a group. Descriptions in the Vedas and the two Aryan epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata, are, at the same time, deferential, fearful and abusive, which underlines the ambivalence with which Aryans viewed the highlanders. The Ramayana describes them as: The Kiratas with their hair done up in pointed topknots, shining like gold and pleasant to look upon, bold enough to move under water, terrible, veritable tiger-men, so are they famed.4 Despite this ambivalence, Kirata kings allowed much intercourse between the hills and the plains. This resulted in a fusion of animist, Vedic and Buddhist practices, giving rise to the Tantric form of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs. Tantric Buddhism spread to the highlands from Tibet where it was

24

THE FEARFUL STATE

rooted in the Lamaist tradition; Tantric Hinduism was restricted to the Brahmaputra valley and foothills, with its medieval centres at Kamrup and Kamakhya. The Kiratas have been identified as the ancestors of the Bodos,5 a tribal group of the Brahmaputra valley that, in the late 1980s, emerged as a major source of political instability in Assam. The Kamrup kingdom broke up in the 12th century. Fragmentation let the Shan-Tai Ahoms enter the Brahmaputra valley and establish a power¬ ful monarchy in 1228. In an alliance with the Kalitas and the Koch, the Ahoms subordinated most other groups in the region. The Ahoms and the Koch ruled north-eastern India for six centuries. Secure in power, Ahom rulers turned to Mithila and Kanauj, ancient centres of Aryan political power, and Vedic learning. A syncretic superstructure was built in which Ahoms, Koch and Kalitas were given a higher ranking in the caste hierarchy than they would receive in the original Aryan order.6 Despite their non-Aryan origins, the Ahoms thus acquired a socio-religious and politico-economic pre-eminence that sustained their authority until 1819. When palace intrigues brought the Brahmaputra valley to the brink of a civil war, the kingdom was unable to resist annexation by Burmans from lower Burma. The Burmans extended their control over the region by reducing the Ahom’s paramountcy in the valleys, but the uplands remained free. The Burman imperium turned out to be brief; before it could make a lasting impression beyond the royal courts, the Burmans were subjected to the colonial expansionism of the British East India Company. At the end of the First Anglo-Burman war in 1826, the Company annexed Burma’s Assamese satrapy to its subcontinental colony. The region was now poised to experience a transformation.

Under the Union Jack THE British moved along the Brahmaputra and Surma valleys, taking control of inhabited areas by setting up military posts and by giving revenue-collection and executive responsibility to superintendents in the military initially, and then to civilian Company officials. Owing to the difficult nature of the region, administration beyond the valleys remained patchy. The motivational force was to secure the empire’s frontiers and to draw lines where political relations had been traditional, instinctive and unique. This encroachment met violent resistance. The EIC encouraged plainsmen from Bengal, Bihar and farther afield to settle the valleys, give solidity to the imperial frontiers, and furnish supervisory personnel to the

A DIVIDED LAND

25

area’s plantation economy. Bengali homesteaders and money-lenders, lawyers and clerks joined Austric and Negrito tribals, moved en masse by the British from the Chhoto Nagpur Hills to the sub-Himalayan slopes, where they provided subsistence labour as coolies. Soon, plainlander intermediaries assumed a considerable administrative, eoonomic and political importance in the region. Montagnard reaction was intense. The Nagas were the first to go on the warpath. A society governed by the tradition of manly defence of its tribal autonomy, Naga headhunters repeatedly ravaged settlements and planta¬ tions, posing a challenge to British authority. Calcutta responded with ferocity. In 1832, the Company began a series of punitive raids against the Nagas.7 In their determination to put down the rebellion, the British killed the montagnards, burnt their crops and destroyed villages suspected of harbouring militants. They set a pattern of behaviour that was followed until relatively recently. From 1835, the Nagas began attacking Company outposts and settlements on a regular basis. This raid-reprisal cycle continued for half a century. British military preponderance failed to change tribal attitudes or behaviour.8 Only when the British decided to give up combat and pacify the montagnards with offers of subsidy and local autonomy did the resistance die out. But the conflict of cultures between settled plainlanders, with their better grasp of proprietary rights and the British legal system, and huntergatherer tribals living communally, became a major preoccupation. In this, the Company was aided by the zeal of Baptist missionaries in search of heathen souls to be saved. The impact of concerted proselytizing on compact tribal communities was electrifying. The awareness of a distinct, if hybrid, identity emerged among montagnards and their head-hunting passions were transmuted into a fierce will to protect it. The raj not only encouraged this trend, it also made efforts to explore the specific tribal milieu that set each group apart. Features were identified to articulate differentiation not only between montagnards and Indie races, but also among the highlanders themselves. Like other groups, tribal communities came to see the images projected by imperial propagandists as the reality. As political acuity developed, montagnards were converted into ethno¬ cultural islands. In 1868, the British took Kohima, the principal Naga township. The following year they surveyed the region and proceeded to move deeper into the highlands. The Angami, the leading clan among the sixteen that identify with the Naga ‘nation’, rose up in revolt in 1878. The following

26

THE FEARFUL STATE

year they killed the Deputy Commissioner, Damant, and his 35-man escort, while the official was on his yearly ‘promenade’ to the village of Khonoma.9 Convinced, after reprisals, of the futility of force against the Nagas, the raj declared the Naga Hills a district with special privileges. The Angamis became friendly and, soon, all the Nagas were pacified. The British now demonstrated a remarkable empathy with the so-called ‘noble savages’.10 Plainsmen and montagnards shared a degree of mutual contempt which the imperialists exploited. Legal and administrative measures to protect the highlanders from exploitation and encroachment established ‘excluded’ and ‘partially excluded’ areas in which no native plainlander could seek opportunities. In addition, as the nationalists on the plains were given a greater measure of self-government, the British insulated the highlanders from its effects. This caused anguish among ‘mainstream’ nationalist leaders who saw the tribals as naive pawns in the hands of imperial manipulators. Strict enforcement of this divisive ar¬ rangement created the context in which the alienation of the highlanders from plainlanders found political expression. As the imperial tide waned, montagnard activism rose in opposition to Congress and Muslim League efforts to unify nationalist ardour under their respective umbrellas. The growth of nationalism was an outcome of social change. Patronclient networks established by the raj transformed relationships between the elements that made up regional polities. New incentives allied to disincentives altered behaviour, attitudes, expectations and allegiance. Benefactors were assisted in their rise to positions of privilege and autonomy. New patterns of primary loyalties took hold. As imperial patronage assisted a process of class formation, organisations articulating highlander demands sprouted. The Ahom middle class ran ahead of its regional counterparts in politicisation, forming the Assam Association in 1882. Class composition resulted in the covergence of its aspirations with mainstream nationalists; in 1920, the Association merged with Congress. Developments in the hills took a slower pace. The Jaintia Durbar was established in the Jaintia Hills in 1900 and the Khasi National Durbar was set up in the Khasi Hills (both in the present Meghalaya state) in 1923. The Khasi States Federation came into being in 1934. The British had set up the Naga Club in 1918. The establishment of the Naga Hills District Council followed in 1945. The Mizo Union was set up in 1946. British sponsorship and patronage of these organisations imbued the montagnard Elites with concepts of national identity and state formation. Imperial administrators also succeeded in projecting Indian nationalism as

A DIVIDED LAND

27

a threat to the montagnard way of life and liberty. Insecurities were thus built in. The growth of national identity was not uniform, and the uneven intensity of the raj’s social engineering led to different levels of political awareness among the various groups. The British were the first paramount authority to assert effective control over the centres of indigenous power and then to co-opt and modify local networks of relationships to their own advantage. This process continued through the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Only the Meitei and the Tippera kingdoms of Manipur and Tripura retained any autonomy. But, even there, suzerainty remained in imperial hands. Manipur was a Hindu kingdom occupying the valley of the Manipur river. Its tribal population had been converted to the Vaishnavite school of Hinduism in the 16th century. Settled cultivation provided sufficient surplus for the Meitei to create a sophisticated cultural tradition noted for refinements in the performing arts. Religious and cultural links with Bengal, and with India generally, earned Manipur special consideration from the British. Under pressure, the kingdom accepted a Resident in 1835 but retained internal autonomy. Over the years, the British sought to increase their authority and, by 1890, had succeeded by employing the simple expedient of quite literally decapitating the royal family.11 After that, Tripura accepted British paramountcy with far less trouble. The Mizo/Lushai Hills did not fall into British hands until the 1890s. In the latter half of the 19th century, Chin movement from upper Burma forced waves of Lushai tribesmen to seek new pastures to the eastward in the Chittagong Hills. The British had just pacified the latter, and were unwilling to let a century of investment come to nothing. Several Lushai expeditions followed. Aimed at containing the Mizo move eastward, the success of the enterprise made it possible, in 1892, for the imperial army to conquer the Mizo Hills. Once again, missionary activity leavened the ruthless nature of conquest and occupation. By the turn of the century, imperial occupation of north-eastern India was complete. The 1919 Government of India Act designated Assam’s Naga Hills district and several other borderlands as ‘backward tracts’. The designa¬ tion severed the highlands from a system that was gradually acquiring a representative tenor. Entry of plainlanders, hitherto encouraged, was now barred. When the Simon Commission [Viscount Simon, British statesman and lawyer] arrived in 1929, both the Congress Party and the Muslim League rejected its limited terms of reference. But, in Kohima, the district's administrative headquarters, the Nagas proclaimed: ‘You are the

MAP 1: The Nagas and the North-east, MRG Report No. 17

Courtesy Minority Rights Group

28 THE FEARFUL STATE

A DIVIDED LAND

29

only people who have ever conquered us; when you go, we should be as we were’. The 1935 Government of India Act designated the hill districts either ‘excluded’ or ‘partially excluded’. When the Act went into force in 1937, the Naga Hills district, the North East Frontier Tract (later, Agency or NEFA, and now Arunachal Pradesh), the Lushai Hills (now Mizoram), and North Cachar Hills were separated from Assam and administered by the Governor, effectively separating the hills from the plains. During the Second World War, the Japanese besieged the capitals of Manipur (Imphal) and Nagaland (Kohima) for several months. The 14th Army, commanded [1943-45] by Field-Marshal Slim, eventually turned defeat into victory. Many tribesmen entrusted by the British, especially Nagas, engaged the Japanese behind the lines in guerrilla fashion, a role that came naturally to them. This active collaboration was in stark contrast to the role played by Subhas Bose’s Azad Hind Fouz (Indian National Army, the INA). Organised with Axis support and recruited from PoWs taken by the Japanese, the INA joined the Japanese against the Allies. For much of 1944, the INA occupied a 3,900-km tract in Manipur until evicted by Allied forces with help from armed montagnards. This encounter served to worsen relations between Indian nationalists and the tribal areas. Against this backdrop, Britain partitioned the empire into the dominions of India and Pakistan.

The insurgent’s art in independent India THE transfer of imperial paramountcy to two hostile successor states, the advent of an assertive China, the contrived nature of frontiers straddled by tribal populations and transformation of East Pakistan into a Bangladesh which, itself, was in search of a national identity, are among factors that contributed to the environment of conflict. Other factors influenced events in the region. In India, the demographic pressures were perhaps the most significant — for example, the inability of the Bengal plains to cope with a population explosion, generating a steady flow of wet-rice farmers into the sparsely populated foothills and highlands. Assam alone is said to harbour four million such ‘foreigners’.12 The presence of military and paramilitary forces throughout the region since the 1950s, and the manner in which they have been employed to counter resistance are equally important. So, too, is the adversarial interaction between India and its neighbours that allows subnational rebellions to develop links across frontiers. These factors have altered the region’s political map, and affected the way in which issues of elite perceptions, national integration,

30

THE FEARFUL STATE

and the consolidation of the state’s authority are viewed. This dynamic, relational complex has provided a series of turning points in this story of national-vs-subnational struggle.13 International boundaries between Tibet and India, India and East Pakistan (later Bangladesh), India and Burma, and between Burma and China have frequently been crossed, either by dissidents in search of sanctuary or in response to an invitation extended by host powers, or in ‘hot pursuit’ by security forces. Demographic groupings overlapping artificial and poorly monitored frontiers have facilitated cross-border activities. Domestic dissidence has thus acquired an international flavour. This trend was strengthened by super-power involvement in proxy wars at the height of the Cold War. Although this involvement was modest by super-power standards it had a substantial effect owing to the relative weaknesses of the regional participants. As a result, existing adversarial relations were further embittered. Not until 1950, when the Chinese People’s Liberation Army occupied Tibet did officials in New Delhi realise that much of the NEFA was being admini¬ stered by members of a Lamaist clergy nominated by the Dalai Lama. Once the implications of the PLA’s occupation of Tibet became clear, Nehru demanded that these Lamas be deported to Tibet, giving Indian bu¬ reaucrats the opportunity to integrate the remote highlands into the Union. Not all the montagnards approved of these changes. The other development related to the lack of Indian institutional control over the region. Despite administrators being posted to remote districts, effective control was not easily gained. In the early 1950s, when the Kuomintang and then the CIA launched a covert campaign aimed at destabilising the Chinese writ in Tibet, both used north-eastern India as a base of operations — although Delhi and Beijing had signed the 1954 SinoIndian ‘Panchsheel’ treaty on Tibet. Despite solemn undertakings, India was either unable or unwilling to restrict foreign-power use of its territory against a treaty partner. This led to a Chinese response that, in turn, contributed to the evolution of the security dynamic in this region. In the late 1980s, some improvement was visible. Beijing admitted errors had been made by the Han Chinese in Tibet, and promised Tibetan grievances would be fully redressed.14 None the less, Lamaist protests against Han domination have continued. In the Indian states of Assam, Nagaland and Mizoram on the other hand, former dissidents and guerrillas attained power, first by negotiations and then through elections, but the outcome has been mixed. Mizoram calmed down while a breakaway faction of the underground Nagas, the National Socialist Council of

A DIVIDED LAND

31

Nagaland, continued the fight. In Assam, the student leaders who came to power in 1985 after spearheading a five-year campaign of agitation, themselves faced minority regionalist challenges to their authority and to the integrity of Assam. This picture must be balanced against the more virulent extremism of Tippera and Gurkha nationalists who proved to have been pawns in the hands of Delhi. Finally, it must be said that a large number of Ahoms, Nagas, Lushais, Tipperas and Manipuris have neither conceded defeat, nor accepted the compromises that promised to end organised violence as a political expression. The situation remains quite fluid. The sections that follow are a selective account of the more important subnational insurrections in north-eastern India.

The Nagas THE Nagas were the first montagnard people to take up arms in an autonomist struggle against the Indian state. Naga nationalism asserted itself shortly after the First World War (1914-18) when an end to the raj emerged as a practical possibility. In the 1940s, the Naga Club’s imperial patrons enlarged it into the Naga National Council (NNC), which provided a forum for the articulation of a Naga national identity. Although the British generally supported, and may have sponsored, the spawning of such an identity, the raj did not support the NNC’s demand for sovereign statehood. Congress leaders, already alarmed at the consequences of the Muslim League’s communalist separatism, could not countenance separa¬ tist demands from montagnards on the periphery. They feared that by conceding to such demands from any one group it could lead to a chain reaction resulting in India’s Balkanisation. They were determined to prevent such a conclusion to their protracted and painful nationalist struggle.15 In July 1947, the NNC leader, Dr Zapu Angami Phizo, led a delegation to Delhi in July 1947 where he met Jinnah and Gandhi and announced plans to make a unilateral declaration of independence on 14 August, the day before India became a dominion. Two weeks later Nehru told Phizo: ‘We can give you complete autonomy but never independence. You can never hope to be independent. No state, big or small, in India will be allowed to remain independent. We will use all our influence and power to suppress such tendencies.’ 16 Undeterred, on the day of Partition, nine NNC leaders sent out telegrams to Delhi and to the Secretary General of the United Nations, proclaiming

32

THE FEARFUL STATE

their independence.17 Neither the UN nor the outside world took any notice, but Congress leaders in Delhi saw this as an act of betrayal. Nevertheless, the Governor of Assam, Sir Akbar Hydari, began talks with the NNC the following year and reached a nine-point agreement which stated that ‘the right of the Nagas to develop themselves according to their freely expressed wishes is recognised’. Hydan’s death later in the year ended the brief honeymoon as Assam’s Chief Minister began inducting plainlander bureaucrats into the highland administration. None the less, the 6th Schedule of the Indian constitution made the Naga Hills an autonomous district of Assam with three seats in the Assam Legislative Assembly and one in the Loksabha. But the NNC rejected these measures and not one Naga voted in the first elections to the District Council held in February 1952.18 The following month Phizo again met Nehru, who simply reiterated his ‘autonomy-yes-independence-no’ position. Phizo now sought United Nations intervention but Delhi would not even agree that there was a dispute. In 1953, Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi escorted U Nu, the Burmese Prime Minister, on a visit to the Naga Hills. The Nagas responded by walking out of a rally as Nehru began to speak,19 and the government accused the remaining British officials and missionaries of sponsoring the Naga resistance. The Church, having converted head-hunting tribals to a peacable lifestyle, was an influential institution in the Naga Hills. The pacifist campaign that followed suggested some churchmen were playing an advisory role. The NNC borrowed from the Congress manual on civil disobedience by urging Nagas not to pay taxes. Village headmen resigned and both teachers and students began boycotting schools. Raids on police stations became commonplace. The government cracked down, deploying units of armed police and paramilitary forces. NNC leaders and activists were arrested; others went underground. The sixteen Naga tribal councils set up by the British just before Partition were disbanded. By the beginning of 1955, restoration of law-and-order had become a counter-insurgency operation. The NNC stronghold of Mokukchong was declared a ‘disturbed area’ giving security forces the right to search and arrest but attacks on government forces escalated. In January 1956, after the breakdown of civilian administration, Delhi declared the entire Naga Hills district a ‘disturbed area’. An iron-fisted military regime took its place but, far from being broken, the NNC leaders established the ‘Federal Government of Nagaland’ (FGN). With obsolescent arms and ammunition

A DIVIDED LAND

33

left behind by the British and Japanese, the FGN raised a Home Guard that became the Naga National Army (NNA). An outdated arsenal was supple¬ mented with weapons taken from ambushed soldiers in the Assam Rifles. Delhi increased its military involvement and, by the summer of 1956, more than a division of Indian regulars were engaged in combat. In the next two years, 1,400 Nagas and 162 soldiers were to lose their lives. Delhi was aware that there were Naga leaders who would be satisfied with tangible measures of regional autonomy. In 1956, T N Sakhrie, a leader of the moderates and a former Phizo aide was murdered. The NNC split into extremists and moderates, and separatists began an internecine campaign against those they viewed as traitors — a situation exploited by the central government. The second general election in 1957 was preceded by an open breach among Naga activists. A small group under the leadership of T N Angami declared its intention of participating in the polls. With Delhi’s encouragement, this NNC faction named itself the Naga Nationalist Organisation (NNO). Three NNO candidates were elected unopposed to the Assam Legislative Assembly and one to Loksabha. From that point, Naga activism was faced with a divided domestic front, which weakened its claim to be the sole champion of Naga interests. Delhi’s ability to divide the opposition strengthened its ability to rule. However, over the long-term, it intensified resistance by further embittering the extremists; they could never be sure who would fall prey next to Delhi’s overtures and betray the cause. It was a situation that invited interference from outside. Pakistan felt threatened by Indian ambivalence toward its claims to legitimacy, with many Congress leaders believing Partition was a temporary aberration. Pakistan’s ruling Elites, increasingly dominated by the civilian-military bureaucracy, suspected that national integrity was being threatened by Indian instigation of separatism in East Bengal and the North-West Frontier Province. Early in 1957, bolstered by its close association with the US,20 Pakistan launched its own covert operations against India. Training camps for Naga guerrillas were established deep inside East Pakistan’s Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence (IS I) took control of the region and offered sanctuary to Naga fighters. Material assistance to the NNA remained limited; Pakistan aimed to ‘bleed’ India without risking an escalation of its differences.21 As India deployed even greater resources to counter this new element in the conflict, the IS I carried out an operation that may have provided a dry run for the ‘springing’ of the Dalai Lama two years later. Naga guerrillas, under ISI

34

THE FEARFUL STATE

guidance, smuggled Phizo into their CHT sanctuary from where he directed the operations of the 2,500-strong NNA for the next two years. However, Pakistan was neither willing nor able to tip the balance in favour of the guerrillas, and Phizo felt that he needed help from other quarters. The ISI flew Phizo to London in 1960 where friends from Nagaland’s imperial past were sympathetic. Meanwhile, the jungle war continued unabated. The Sino-Indian border dispute led to a brief war in October-November 1962 when regular forces had to be redeployed along the McMahon Line, leaving the field to the NNA until the army returned to the fray in early 1963. This time, Delhi deployed the air force as well. Under pressure, Phizo sent the Rev Michael Scott, a long-time friend of the Nagas, with the offer of a ceasefire. But Nehru wanted to destroy armed resistance. Peace overtures failed, but NNO leaders persuaded Delhi to weaken the separatist FGN’s support base by establishing a state for the Nagas. In December 1963, the Naga Hills and Tuensang districts were joined into the state of Nagaland. By giving the moderates much of what the FGN had been fighting for, Nehru sought to render the separatists irrelevant, while building patron-client networks with a stake in the Indian Union. At this stage, the Nagaland Baptist Church offered to mediate between Delhi and the FGN.22 In May 1964, the two parties reached an interim agreement, and a ceasefire went into effect in September. The idea was to create an environment conducive to negotiations. But neither side showed the flexibility necessary for compromises. Scato Swe, the Khedage (Prime Minister) in the Naga ‘cabinet’, demanded a status similar to that of Bhutan, with Nagaland’s independence qualified by a treaty with India that would leave defence and foreign relations in the hands of Delhi. To Nehru, this smacked of secession with intervention by hostile neighbours. The danger lay in the possibility of a centrifugal chain reaction in Kashmir and other areas. Early in 1966, the talks broke off; the Rev Scott was arrested and deported, and the lull in combat ended. The concentration of Indian forces and encouragement to moderate elements were aimed at weakening the opposition and establishing Delhi’s writ. In the 1960s, this outcome was precluded by the intrusion of Pakistan and China. Resentful of increased Indian co-operation with the US over Tibet, China extended considerable moral support and material assistance to Naga and other montagnard rebels. In 1963, Pakistan communicated the Nagas’ request for assistance to Beijing, but China had not responded. Now, in May 1966, Scato Swu wrote to China’s President, appealing for help.23 Thuingaleng Muivah, the NNC

A DIVIDED LAND

35

Secretary General, led the delegation bearing this letter, travelling to Yunnan across north Burma escorted by the Eastern Naga Revolutionary Council. The ENRC was one of several revolutionary bands in the region being given aid by the People’s Republic of China. Muivah reached Beijing in January 1967 where he was introduced to Za Sein, founder of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), thus initiating a relationship that survived into the late 1980s. The Chinese also persuaded the Karens to help the Nagas. Muivah was sent to Hanoi to observe guerrilla warfare at first hand. By the summer of 1967, large groups of Nagas were being armed, trained and indoctrinated at three camps at Fu-Kung and Teng Chang in Yunnan. In November of that year, the Chinese deployed 3,000 irregulars to the Putao area of Burma to improve co-ordination between all Naga groups, through the ENRC. In March 1968, Isak Swu, the Naga ‘Foreign Minister’, and the NNA Commander-in-chief ‘General’ Gwizan Mowu Angami, led a band of Naga trainees to Yunnan. By September, more than 1,000 Chinese-trained Nagas were operating in Nagaland, another 3,000 were on their way back, and 1,700 en route to Yunnan.24 Beijing put forward several proposals. One was for the establishment of a montagnard federation bringing together tribes living in the trijunction of Chinese, Indian and Burmese frontiers. This did not find much favour. Another was to establish a Naga govemment-in-exile in China; while a third was to induct People’s Liberation Army advisers in NNA combat units in Nagaland. Foreign Minister Swu and NNA commanders liked the idea of establishing a govemment-in-exile, irrevocably linking China with their separatist struggle. But the FGN president, Mashieu, feared leaving the Naga masses on their own would cut the movement off from its popular support base; he favoured the induction of Chinese advisers. In the event neither option was taken up. Nevertheless, Beijing asked the NNA to send even larger drafts of trainees to Yunnan. The Nagas maintained the pressure on Indian forces throughout the late 1960s. With encouragement from the Governor, B K Nehru, the security forces became increasingly aggressive but failed to liquidate resistance and Delhi enlisted Rangoon’s aid in harassing Naga guerrillas in transit through Burmese territory. The Nagas also faced internal tension between Marxist dogma on the one hand and the devout Baptist faith on the other, which surfaced on New Year’s day 1968 when young ‘General’ Kaito broke with the NNA and threw in his lot with the moderates. His assassination later in the year deepened the schism. Internecine struggles also led to betrayal. There was a setback in 1969 when Indian forces intercepted Mowu, the Commander-

36

THE FEARFUL STATE

in-chief, and his 400-man detachment on their way back from Yunnan.25 The dismemberment of Pakistan two years later cost the Nagas their sanctuary in the Chittagong Hills and the friendship of the Pakistanis. India’s emergence as the pre-eminent regional power meant that Delhi was able to deploy even greater military resources and insulate the Naga insurrection from sources of external support. By 1974 the Indian military had established a clear dominance over Nagaland and the nationalists were faced with liquidation. Eventually, Phizo and the NNC decided that the FGN ought to negotiate with Delhi and, in November 1975, the two sides signed the Shillong Accord, which was hailed as a victory for reason. The accord formalised the acknowledgement by the FGN of its military defeat. It affirmed the Nagas’ ‘unconditional acceptance of the binding extent of the Indian constitution’, and laid down procedures for the Peace Council, rather than the army, to receive surrendered arms from the guerrillas. The accord assured the jungle warriors that they ‘should have reasonable time to formulate other issues for discussion for final settle¬ ment’. This face-saving device was intended to protect FGN negotiators from accusations of a sell-out. The treaty signified Delhi’s determination to negotiate from a position of strength, and the NNC’s acceptance of the realities of power politics. Six months after the signing of the treaty, the moderate NNO joined the Congress. An era had ended. The NNC/FGN was disbanded. Most of its members joined the Naga National Democratic Party (NNDP) to which power was transferred as an interim measure. The NNDP was led by Kevi Yallay, Phizo’s younger brother and an architect of the accord. However, the accord split the nationalist movement once again. Isak Swu and Muivah left the NNC and, accompanied by units of the ‘Alee Command’, retired to ENRC bases across the border in Burma’s Sagaing division. Despite the loss of Chinese support and the increasing effectiveness of Burmese military operations in the region, they reorganised and expanded the separatist movement. With ENRC leader Shangwang S Khaplang as vice-chairman, Isak Swu and Muivah organised the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) in 1980 with Swu as chairman and Muivah as general secretary. NSCN guerrillas launched a hit-and-run campaign of raids and ambushes. They intensified attacks on security forces and ‘traitors’ accused of selling-out, and on plains villages bordering Nagaland. Moreover, the NSCN abandoned the isolationist policies of the NNC. and forged close ties with two smaller revolutionary groups — Manipur’s United National Liberation Front (UNLF) and Poresh Baruah’s United

A DIVIDED LAND

37

Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA). Muivah claimed his army numbered 3,000 men, of whom 2,000 were engaged in political activities, the remainder being soldiers. A more credible estimate would be about 1,000 soldiers with about 500 weapons between them, and 300 to 500 men on non-combat duty.26 The NSCN group of extremists was willing to wait Muivah and his supporters felt betrayed when the NNC signed a treaty granting far less than the Nagas had fought for, and in the process sacrificed thousands of lives. They now believed that by consolidating their network of guerrilla operations with fraternal armies in the region, they could render Indian ‘occupation’ cost-ineffective. If and when such perceptions are shared by policy-makers in Delhi, NSCN leaders — slogan Nagaland for Christ — still hope to create a ‘Christian socialist’ state in ‘greater Nagaland’, believing that given the adversary, Nagas have no option but to fight to the end. Prospects for the NSCN’s military success look bleak. However, Nagas have fought Indian forces for more than three decades and, despite immense odds, continue to do so. The incentives for laying down arms are not tempting enough for hardened guerrillas to give up a way of life that, for many, is the only one they know. So, the struggle is likely to go on for some time. As long as Rangoon’s control over Burmese highlands remains tenuous, the Naga irredentist fight will have a base. But the NSCN cannot be accused of lacking political maturity and a negotiated settlement remains possible. In past state elections, NNDP candidates have often accused the state Congress organisation of joining hands with the NSCN as an electoral gambit. Neither Congress nor the NSCN has denied it. Muivah has gone on record as saying that the NSCN would help the Naga electorate to locate alternatives to Phizo’s supporters. If the focus of NSCN grievance shifts from the Indian state to local competitors, and if the NSCN shows a readiness to engage in the kind of political oneupmanship for which Congress has a reputation, a change of game plan cannot be ruled out Until then, the status quo i.e., low intensity insurgency and occasional military overkill, will probably persist. It is a state India can live with, and has done so for a long time.

The Mhos THE MIZOS, also called Lushais, have a less democratic social structure than the Nagas. Because the Lushai Hills were conquered in an extension of imperial control over the Chittagong Hills and not as a part of Burma s

38

THE FEARFUL STATE

Assamese satrapy, the manner in which British control was effected here was more coercive than was the case with other montagnard areas. The British were determined to transform the Mizo social structure so as to make it amenable to imperial interests. Social engineering successfully concluded in the Chittagong Hill Tracts was used as a framework. The British replaced the traditional Lushai chieftaincy (an elective office) by granting certain influential families the hereditary privilege to rule, a privilege backed with a substantial military presence. Opposition to domination by entrenched agents of an alien power found expression in 1946 with the creation of the Mizo Union, the first Mizo political organisation. The Union’s goal was to restore traditional elective processes. It developed close ties with the Congress, and welcomed the incorporation of the Lushai Hills into the dominion of India in 1947. The Union retained popular support and was able to maintain cordial relations with Delhi until 1959. In that year, particularly prolific flowering of bamboo groves contributed to a massive infestation of rats which, in turn, led to widespread damage to crops and the Mizos were faced with a famine. Administrative measures by the Assam government and the Mizo Union were thought inadequate and gave rise to allegations of deliberate neglect. As resentment against apparent governmental inaction and callousness grew, the Union's popularity and membership subsided. Amid increasing discontent, Mizoram’s most famous son, Laldenga, founded the MNFF (Mizo National Famine Front). By offering a political platform for the articulation of Mizo subnational tendencies, the MNFF accentuated them. The famine receded in 1963 and the organisation was renamed Mizo National Front (MNF), which campaigned for regional autonomy. Given the pattern of insurgency in Nagaland at the time, Delhi acted to nip a replica situation in the bud. As police and the Assam Rifles began hunting for MNF activists, Laldenga raised an armed cadre, the Mizo National Army (MNA). By the mid-1960s, the MNF had linked up with Pakistani and Chinese intelligence. With their help, the MNA, operating from its sanctuary in the Chittagong Hills, soon grew into a formidable fighting force, making the Mizo insurrection another ‘bleeding’ proxy war. In February 1966, the MNA destroyed the administrative headquarters at Aizawl, cutting off the Mizo Hills from the rest of India. Delhi rapidly reinforced its military presence and search-and-destroy operations soon secured control of the district headquarters. By the end of the year, military control over the larger towns and major road links was complete. But many hillside villages remained under MNA occupation. The intensity of Indian

A DIVIDED LAND

39

military operations forced Laldenga to seek shelter with the ISI in the Chittagong Hills. The ISI set up camps near Ruma Bazar, Balipara, Ali Kadam and Dighinala in the CHT for the MNA, and Laldenga was treated to military hospitality at ‘safe houses’ at Mirpur in Dhaka. Despite repeated requests, however, Laldenga was not granted an audience with President Ayub Khan. Although he was flown to Rawalpindi, his contacts in Pakistan remained at senior intelligence level. He may have realised that Pakistani assistance would be limited to a low-risk operation designed to debilitate India, and not the massive input of materiel that was needed to render Indian occupation of the Mizo Hills untenable. None the less, as long as Delhi remained intent on coercive measures, the MNF needed all the help it could get and even the ISI's limited assistance was welcome. The army began a pacification programme, relocating semi-nomadic tribesmen from scattered villages in a few large and controllable strategic hamlets. Its military strength gave Delhi an overwhelming advantage, but the Pakistani sanctuary and the Chinese supply pipeline allowed the MNA to continue its hit-and-run campaign almost indefinitely. The ability of the MNA guerrillas to disappear into the CHT with impunity caused much resentment in Indian military circles. But victory in the Bangladesh war of 1971 changed that. Indian forces swept through the CHT, mopping up Naga and Mizo units occupying suspected camps and securing ground of tactical importance. The 1972 Indo-Bangladesh treaty of friendship and co-operation provided a basis for Delhi to ask for Dhaka’s co-operation over trans-frontier counter-insurgency. After the withdrawal of its forces from Bangladesh, India stationed military helicopters in Chittagong to help to ensure the MNA did not return to the CHT.27 The reorganisation of north-eastern India in 1972 raised the Mizo Hills to the status of directly administered Union Territory, but administration stayed in the hands of pro-Congress Naga politicians and Indian bureau¬ crats. In the late 1970s, Indo-Bangladesh relations deteriorated. Disputes over several issues challenged Delhi’s regional pre-eminence and bilateral relations were frozen. MNA units began filtering back into the Chittagong Hills from Burma. Delhi frequently accused Dhaka of aiding the Mizos, while Dhaka charged with equal bitterness that India was sponsoring the Chakma Shanti Bahini guerrillas in CHT. Occasionally, Indian regulars crossed into CHT in hot pursuit of MNA raiders but, generally, both sides played down this particular dispute.28 The loss of its CHT sanctuary forced the MNA into greater reliance on Beijing. Initially, the Chinese agreed to take on added responsibilities.

40

THE FEARFUL STATE

Two groups of combat instructors were sent via Burma’s Kachin state to Meng Hai in Yunnan in 1973 and 1975; here they received indoctrination, training and military hardware for a medium-intensity guerrilla campaign. But after Mao’s death, Beijing was unwilling to sponsor insurgencies that remained tied to a tribal-feudal framework and were reluctant to take serious questions of ideology as a principal motivation for the armed struggle. In the mid-1970s, Beijing decided to restrict such assistance to only revolutionary guerrilla groups. Although many young MNA fighters found Marxist-Maoist revolutionary concepts attractive, Laldenga did not. Chinese aid to the MNF fell sharply. The Shillong Accord was another blow, with the Nagas no longer a source of moral or material support to the Mizos. Faced with an almost dry Chinese aid pipeline and an increasingly effective Indian army, the MNA had to rethink its options. In 1976, Laldenga travelled to Delhi and signed a draft agreement formalising MNF recognition of the Mizo Hills as an integral part of the Indian Union and laying down procedures regarding surrender of MNA arms to the army. In the end neither party was able to remove mutual insecurities and the Delhi accord was stillborn.29 MNA operations resumed fitfully. Delhi was able to divide the Mizos by establishing powerful new patron-client networks operating through the local chapter of the Congress Party, which wielded civilian administrative authority throughout the period of direct central rule, with the exception of the Janata interregnum. Congress patronage created a group of 20 leading Mizo families who gradually gained control of Mizoram’s modest economy. They ran most of the main businesses and agencies; they decided who got, or did not get, lucrative contracts. They were the largest source of private-sector employ¬ ment, capital and investment and many bureaucrats were related to one or other of these families. While the army confronted MNA guerrillas, the ‘Powerful 20’ kept socio-economic control in Congress hands. This coalition of opposing forces drove the MNA into the Arakan state of Burma from where its guerrillas entered India on occasional forays. Over the years, young fighters were reduced to growing maize, chillies and ginger, whiling away the time by watching Bruce Lee videos and waiting for better days.30 They were under increasing pressure from Burmese military operations against the Burmese Communist Party, Karen and Kachin insurgents. The stalemate ended with Rajiv Gandhi’s volte face when he declared his intention to negotiate from a position of strength, but negotiate none the less. Two decades of warfare had not gained the MNF a great deal and this offer presented a window of opportunity the Mizos

A DIVIDED LAND

41

were loath to throw away. Laldenga later admitted that the movement was losing its Christian character at the expense of unacceptable Communist radicalism. In June 1986, he returned to Delhi and signed a new accord under which an MNF-Congress coalition assumed power as Mizoram’s provisional government. Laldenga became interim Chief Minister. The twenty-year ban on the MNF/MNA was lifted and Delhi promised full statehood to Mizoram once it had elected a new, expanded state legislative assembly. The twenty-year war was over. Elections took place in February 1987 when MNF candidates took 24 of the 40 seats in the state assembly. The polls were described as the most gentlemanly in Indian history. In 1984, Congress won 20 seats in a 30-seat assembly, but this time it took only 13. The MNF victory was not over¬ whelming; its share of the vote was 36.5 per cent and that of Congress 33 per cent. The electorate had been divided by two regional parties, the Mizo National Union and Brigadier Thenphunga Sailo’s People’s Conference. Neither did well, the latter winning three seats, the former gaining none, but both drew votes from the major parties. However, the Front had actively cultivated Mizo youth voting for the first time, and this tipped the scales in MNFs favour.31 Peace was finally restored to ‘Zoram’. The Mizoram experience was remarkable. The Delhi accord in 1986 gave the state authorities a measure of autonomy with regard to the framing of local laws and the unprecedented freedom to conduct foreign trade with neighbouring countries. An amnesty for guerrillas ensured that there would be no repetition of the situation in 1976 when the proposed accord failed to materialise and Laldenga took to the hills.32 However, some strains appeared early on. Electioneering showed up the way in which political intrigues and vote-buying ideas and practices imported from India were gaining wider acceptance in Mizoram.33 But Mizoram was not to be denied its political honeymoon. Rajiv Gandhi flew in from Delhi and amid much pomp and ceremony installed Laldenga, the ‘Hnampa’, or father of the nation as many Mizos called him, as Mizoram’s first freely elected Chief Minister. In recognition of the Prime Minister’s contribution to the changes, Mizos honoured Gandhi with the noble title of ‘Thangchhuah’, an accolade the Lushais reserve for the bravest of the brave. However, despite Laldenga’s assurances that he would not return to the jungle under any circumstances, old fears and habits appeared to die hard in New Delhi. Having lost another state election. Congress was determined to weaken the MNF administration; it encouraged a split within the MNF ranks. In September 1988, nine MNF legislators broke away. Accusing the

42

THE FEARFUL STATE

Chief Minister of a dictatorial personal style, they formed the MNF (Democratic) to which Congress soon allied itself. As the MNF main¬ stream lost its majority in the Assembly, the Delhi-nominated Governor, H Saikia, declared President’s Rule. Congress made full use of the period of direct rule. The MNF administration had failed to keep the price of rice within the common man’s purchasing power. When rice rose to 16 rupees per kilo, Saikia arranged for supplies to be airlifted from Assam and distributed at subsidised rates. Laldenga had also sought to build a counterpoise to the ‘Powerful 20’ by granting liquor permits to a select group loyal to the MNF. This antagonised the church, hitherto loyal to the MNF and an important institution in a land where 90 per cent of the populace were practising Christians. Saikia also obtained Delhi’s approval for a 1,540-million rupee hydroelectricity project designed to make Mizoram self-sufficient in energy, and completed the greater Aizawl water supply system. These efforts suggested Delhi’s rule was better than Laldenga’s. Congress politicians cashed in on a rising tide of nationalist sentiment. They promised to introduce a Christian and Mizo curriculum for the state’s schools and colleges. They also pledged to secure 90 per cent of publicsector jobs for Mizos, a proposal dear to the heart of many montagnards. Faced with such challenges, the MNFs modest manifesto proved ill-suited to the jungle of Indian electoral politics. The party said that it would ensure food for all, replace slash-and-bum, shifting (Jhum) cultivation with more productive and environmentally less destructive settled agriculture, and distribute land to the landless. Many young Mizos saw the Hnampa as the legendary hero who kept the flame of national pride burning brightly and gave their nation a measure of self-realisation through two decades of civil war but, in times of peace, basic material needs assumed much greater significance. Therein may lie the ultimate irony confronted by successful insurgencies: once the war ended and the guerrillas had gained politically what they failed to win militarily, jungle warriors discovered they were unable to cope with the sordid challenges posed by multi-party democracy. Soon after the MNF lost power in Aizawl, a state minister at the centre accused Laldenga of having despatched a seven-man mission to Dhaka to acquire light arms and sanctuary to regroup the MNA.34 Laldenga could only deny the allegation, but the insinuations, reflecting Indian political tactics, would not die so easily.35 The postscript for a pacified Mizoram may be written by the vociferous People’s Conference, which demands that the Mizo nation be united into a Greater Mizoram, with all Mizo-inhabited areas collected into a single

A DIVIDED LAND

43

political unit. The exhortations of Brig Sailo, a man with considerable military-administrative experience within the Indian state system, are striking a chord among Mizoram’s youth, who provide the manpower for his uniformed but, at the time of writing, his unarmed Zoro Reunification Volunteers. Sailo points out that while only 500,000 Mizos'xall Mizoram home, another two million Lushais live in the region bordering the state.36 Unification of all Mizos is a popular idea; it may earn the party an increased share of votes and seats. But demands for a Greater Mizoram will challenge the present configuration of north-western Burma, as well as of north-eastern India. This slogan may cause far more disruption than that achieved by the relatively moderate MNF. But, having weakened the MNF and encouraged extremism. Congress has merely served to raise the spectre of another slow-burning conflagration in an area making the delicate transition from tribalism to sophistication.

Revolutionary warfare in Manipur THE outbreak of revolutionary warfare in Manipur in the 1960s under¬ scored the socio-political differences between this Hindu state and those of Christian Nagaland and Mizoram. Originally Indo-Burman Meitei in ethnic composition, an influx of East Bengali immigrants into Manipur after Partition resulted in Bengali Hindus making up two-thirds of the population by the late 1950s. Settled for centuries along the broad valley of the Manipur river in wet-rice, agricultural communities, the Meiteis had more in common with the Bengalis than with their montagnard cousins. Settled life and cultural acuity had made it easy for the Meiteis to be converted to Hinduism by Vaishnav proselytizers early in the 16th cen¬ tury. Religion forged the many ties that bound Manipur with Bengal. One effect of this relationship was the emergence of a Bengali Hindu elite that assumed dominance across the socio-economic spectrum. It also made it convenient for Hindus leaving East Bengal to migrate to Manipur as to West Bengal. Even in West Bengal, which shared common roots of ethnogenesis with the eastern half of the Bengal delta, these immigrants were looked down on for a long time. But, this influx of Bengalis provoked stronger resentment in Manipur. As the Meiteis were steadily relegated socially and numerically in their own state, a resistance movement was forged involving educated and resentful Meitei youth, who were inspired by events in China in 1949, events that shaped the revolutionary struggle of the Manipuris.

44

THE FEARFUL STATE

Marxist-Leninist opposition to the bourgeois-dominated Indian state was not unique to Manipur. The strength of local revolutionary groups had brought socialist coalitions to power in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura. They were allowed to take control on the understanding that practical interpretations of Marxism would be qualified by the inviolability of India’s territorial integrity, and the pre-eminence of the capitalist econ¬ omy of the bourgeois state. As with other radical groups, for example the Naxalites of Bengal, Bihar and Andhra, Meitei revolutionaries did not seek to alter local power structures within the Indian framework; they rejected both the structure and the framework. Manipuri revolutionaries also sought to create a sense of Manipuri nationalism that was independent of wider Indian nationalism, and they struggled to establish a primary set of power relations independent of India. This was a challenge that Delhi could not ignore. Guerrillas formed the Revolutionary Government of Manipur (RGM) in the early 1960s when attacks began on administrative centres, the immi¬ grant majority and other soft targets. According to the guerrillas, these initial attacks were expressive of Meitei ‘fanaticism, chauvinism and revivalism’. The revolutionaries were driven as much by Manipuri nation¬ alism as they were by Marxism-Leninism. Their approach to the state’s demographic imbalance posed a challenge to the essence of the Indian federation, making conflict inevitable. The tiny band of revolutionaries faced overwhelmingly superior opposition, but despite being consistently outnumbered and outgunned, they fought on. After India’s victory in 1971 giving independence to Bangladesh, Delhi was able to concentrate its military forces against the guerrillas of the RGM. As the pressure mounted and casualties became heavy, the revolutionaries came to recognise the impracticality of their campaign. Survivors of the original group dis¬ banded the RGM, and the movement dispersed. However, by 1975, Meitei activists had regrouped and the conflict escalated. They established contact with Chinese intelligence operatives, and, convinced of the youths’ revolutionary credentials, Beijing agreed to help. Whereas the Nagas, Mizos and myriad Burmese dissidents had been trained by special PLA units at camps in Yunnan province, the Meiteis were invited to Lhasa where they were instructed at great length on the thoughts of Mao Ze Dong (chairman of the Chinese People’s Republic) for nearly two years. In addition, whereas montagnard tribals had been asked to send large numbers of trainees, with batches of 300 to 400 being standard and eventually totalling thousands, Manipuri numbers were much

A DIVIDED LAND

45

smaller. Fewer than twenty ‘seed personnel’ (leaders and instructors) were trained at Lhasa.37 These core revolutionaries who went to Tibet in 1976, returned to Manipur in 1978. They established a sophisticated organisation with the People’s Revolutionary Government of Kungleipak (PREPAK) managing the political and administrative aspects of the campaign, while the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) engaged Indian security forces. Their objective was to render ‘Mayang’ (non-Meitei plainsmen) occupation of Manipur untenable by a revolutionary mass uprising among the Meiteis. The potential for indoctrinating very large numbers of Meiteis to the revolutionary cause was limited. India’s impe¬ rial past, the Karma-and-Dharma-cycle of the Hindu faith in inaction, and India’s bourgeois-led state system militated against efforts aimed at radicalising the pacifist outlook of the masses. Meitei nationalism now replaced Marxist dogma as the favoured vehicle of Manipuri radicalism. The PREPAK exhorted the masses with such slogans as: ‘We are beasts of burden under Mayang colonial rule; [let us] overthrow Mayang rule and build a new society. We want independence, we want liberation!’38 Reliance on sub-national motifs for inspiration, and as a focus of the struggle has proved troublesome. Once the Chinese pipeline had dried, PREPAK and the PLA faced the task of having to fight on without any outside help. Ideological contradictions compounded material weaknesses, threatening to undo the movement’s revolutionary character. While Manipur s Indian rulers, the Bengali Elites, were the class enemies against whom the war was being waged, the movement ought, in theory at least, to have been protective toward the interests of the immigrant working classes. This the revolutionaries failed to do. Their difficulty lay in balancing narrow ethnic economic and political interests with the wider ideological terms of reference they had adopted. If PREPAK’s aim was to introduce socialist structures, it needed to acknowledge the reality of Manipur’s present state and incorporate the interests of all working people irrespective of their ethnic origin or affiliations. If, on the other hand, its aim was the ‘national liberation’ of the Meiteis, then it needed to rid the state of domination by non-Meiteis. The internal inconsistency haunting the movement did not help its prospects. The campaign remained exclusively Meitei as PREPAK was either unable or unwilling, or both, to draw activists from the Bengali working classes to dilute its ethnic exclusivity. PREPAK ideologues denounced Hinduism as an opiate imposed on the Manipuri masses by the ‘enemy’. This denunciation threatened not just

46

THE FEARFUL STATE

devout Bengalis but also the equally devout Meiteis. Manipuri separatism thus combined subnational demands with a revolutionary ideology. This was a potent brew. But, given the hostility of the dominant majority whose group interests were backed by the overwhelmingly superior instruments of state power, the movement had no realistic possibility of success. This did not dissuade the guerrillas from their campaign. In fact, PL A activities caused such panic in 1979 that the government imposed curfews and empowered security forces to shoot to kill.39 When this proved insuffi¬ cient, direct rule was imposed on 14 November 1979. The security forces gained the initiative for a time. But, the following year, PREPAK managed to organise student bodies at schools and colleges, which led to a violent campaign demanding the deportation of migrant workers. In April 1980, encounters between the police (largely non-local) and agitating students (exclusively Meitei) created uncertainty and fear. Many settlers were terrorised by arson and looting. By the beginning of May, hundreds of fearful immigrants had begun a trek to safety outside Manipur.40 The PREPAK campaign against ‘Mayang foreigners’, although limited in its success within Manipur, triggered ‘anti-foreigner’ agitation in Tripura and Assam, which led to considerable bloodletting and a temporary loss of control. Internal contradictions contributed to the growth of a many-sided campaign. One faction, the United National Liberation Front (UNLF), sought to expand the scope of its struggle. The UNLF teamed up with the NSCN, setting up its headquarters at the NSCN Oking in Burma’s Sagaing Division. But PREPAK’s exclusivist leaders rejected links with nonMeitei groups, reducing the UNLF to a Manipuri rump of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN). Throughout the 1980s, the PLA kept up its campaign of assassinations, aimed principally at the security forces but also, occasionally, government officials and politicians.41 The PLA relied on ambushes of government patrols, and raids on their outposts. While engaging guerrillas militarily, Delhi also pursued covert operations aimed at buying-off prominent revolutionaries. This was successful to the extent that PLA activities were contained at tolerable levels. Indian forces killed several commanders of the PLA.42 In 1984, another senior PLA personality, Bisheswar, abandoned the underground war in favour of participating in electoral politics and was elected to the state legislative assembly. The price paid for reducing PLA operations to a relatively minor headache for the Indian security forces was an agreement to establish a reserve for the Meiteis where plainlanders would not be allowed to live, work or buy property. The area was to be

A DIVIDED LAND

47

governed by an elected tribal council, the Manipur Hill Council. This satisfied many Meitei activists and support for separatists declined. But most revolutionaries saw this as a ploy to isolate the movement from its support base with concessions that changed little. The process of state-building in Manipur was far from complete and the state of flux was likely to persist unless both parties to the dispute made substantial compromises. A stark reminder of the very basic nature of the conflict emerged from one analysis: The Government of India treats Manipur in the same way as it treats Bihar or UP, disregarding the nationality issues. The same kind of para¬ military forces are sent there as are sent to other Indian states to deal with law-and-order problems; no difference is made between simple law-andorder problems and serious political problems involving secession at¬ tempts. CRP (Central Reserve Police) men rape women in Bihar, in UP and in Manipur. While not much may happen (usually nothing happens) in Bihar and UP, in Manipur it may spark riots.43 Manipur poses a complex problem for Delhi. The Indian constitution grants citizens equal rights of residence, employment and acquisition of property throughout the Union, except in Jammu and Kashmir, and beyond the ‘Inner Line’ in certain frontier tracts. This provision is important if an ‘Indian’ national identity is to counter myriad regional and parochial loyalties. Bengali immigration to Manipur and to other parts of north¬ eastern India cannot formally be discouraged if the citizens’ constitutional rights are to be guaranteed. The state must ensure that constitutional provisions are uniformly implemented throughout the Union. Moreover, a polity founded on universal adult franchise cannot allow minority pressure groups to press for special treatment just because they have an historical claim to a particular territory. It would be difficult to meet such demands in one area and deny them in another. The fear of Balkanisation is still too great for structural differentiation, or so Delhi pleads in self-defence. Perhaps, given the movement’s isolation, Delhi hopes to contain it without having to incur inordinate costs. There are few incentives to disengage militarily in favour of political initiatives when the opposition is hemmed in. This may explain why the Indian government has negotiated with the Nagas, the Mizos and other groups of insurgents, but has refused to do so with the Meiteis. The fact that the PLA and PREPAK are led by hardened Marxist-Leninists intent not only on separation but also on the revolutionary transformation of their homeland, may have contributed to Delhi’s uncompromising attitude. The Manipuris have been left with no

48

THE FEARFUL STATE

alternative but to continue the fight. Despite immense odds, that is what they do. The Meitei struggle may be a lost cause, but the revolutionaryseparatist war in Manipur is far from over.

Delhi’s divide and rule policy in the highlands TWO montagnard insurrections brought to an end in the late 1980s, one by Nepali Gurkha pensioners and settlers in West Bengal’s Darjeeling hill district; the other by once-dominant but now peripheral Tippera tribesmen in the state of Tripura, underscored the complex ethno-cultural, economic and political factors that have led to almost endless violence in the region. The course the two rebellions took highlighted the Congress tradition of exploiting every opportunity to discredit or weaken and, if possible, to unseat non-Congress administrations in Indian states. Even though the Tippera and Gurkha insurgencies evolved along distinct lines, they also demonstrated remarkable similarities. Both West Bengal and Tripura were under the control of a leftist coalition led by the CPI (M) [Communist Party of India (Marxist)] at the time. Tippera and Gurkha militancy gained ground in the confused period after Mrs Gandhi’s electoral defeat in 1977 — and subsequent bitterness of her exile in the political wilderness — and the failure of the Janata Dal to consolidate a support base for its policies that would hold even after the anti-Gandhi fervour had cooled. When Mrs Gandhi returned to power, her failure to unseat the Left Front in West Bengal and Tripura created determined pressure to redeem lost ‘face’. The CPI(M) governments in Calcutta and Agartala, having proved such difficult thorns in the side for so long, were prime candidates to be taught a lesson.

The Tripura Trojan Horse BENGALI immigrants from both halves of Bengal had displaced the multi-clanned and once-dominant Tippera tribe so that political power and economic influence in this former princely state had fallen into Bengali hands some time before it became a part of the Indian Union. As with Manipur, Tripura’s royal house had invited plainlander professionals and preachers to help in administration and spiritual ministration. Following Partition the flood of Bengali Hindus from East Pakistan reduced the tribals to a minority. Bengalis have been in political control of the state

A DIVIDED LAND

49

since October 1949 when the maharajah formally acceded to India. The nature of the Indian state permitted this role reversal to occur within a short span of time without acknowledging the potentially violent reaction that this change created. Tribal minorities were not organised well enough; nor did they possess the means to put pressure on the state to take their views seriously. Reduced from 70 per cent to just 29 per cent of the state’s population in a little over three decades, and unable to compete with the sophisticated Bengali immigrant majority,44 Tripura’s tribal population had no alternative to retiring to the hills. One of their major complaints was the loss of ancestral land to Bengalis. Despite regulatory and protective measures, encroachment and fraudulent acquisition of tribal land had taken away all prime holdings from montagnard ownership. Unable to use the state’s administrative or legal machinery to redress their grievances, Tripura’s tribal population was ready to explode. The increasingly better-educated aboriginal youth, excited by a process of self-discovery and embittered by what appeared to be an iniquitous and unresponsive system, provided leadership to a movement that set out as an expression of cultural distinctiveness. The Tripura Upajati Juba Samity (TUJS, tribal youth association) did not conceal its political ambitions. It realised that the power of the state could only be challenged from a position of strength. The montagnards faced many difficulties of their own. The tribal framework was characterised by pronounced fragmentation.45 None the less, TUJS activism gave rise to several underground armed groups, led by the Tripura People s Liberation Organisation (TPLO). Ironically, these regionalist organisations came to the fore just as the Marxists under Chief Minister Nripen Chakrabarty, a Bengali Hindu, were initiating wide-ranging measures to right some of the wrongs perpetrated in the name of the Indian federation since 1949. Chakrabarty enacted regulations aimed at restoring the ownership of tribal land that had been taken over by manipulative Bengalis. This was seen by many of Tripura’s better-off immigrants as the Marxist’ attempt to counter Congress influences by building up a tribal constituency. The Bengali backlash that followed this legislation spawned impassioned outbursts and, by triggering tribal reaction, Bengali resistance polarised the population as never before. However, Chakrabarty believed that it was the duty of his government to protect the interests of the disadvantaged indigenous community. He pressed on with even more drastic legislation. His government passed a Bill setting aside nearly 78 per cent of Tripura s land as a tribal reserve with an autonomous elected council to run its

50

THE FEARFUL STATE

affairs. This was more than many Bengalis could accept; a coalition of insecure immigrants, Hindu revivalists and Congress activists hoping to prevent its implementation came into being. This coalition subsequently came to act as the agent of the centre. Mrs Gandhi, having returned to power in early 1980, was determined to eliminate all regional opposition to her Congress government. Agitation delayed polls in Tripura. A minor incident early in June 1980 over a case of shoplifting at Mandai Bazar by a montagnard minor assaulted by Bengali shopkeepers, triggered a massive response by outraged tribals, who descended on Bengali villages armed with bows, arrows, spears, machetes and ancient firearms to wreak bloody vengeance. In Mandai alone, about 400 Bengalis were killed and the total loss of Bengali lives exceeded 1,000 in a week.46 More than 100,000 sought refuge in shelters. Congress, having provoked tribal discontent, now claimed more than 7,000 Bengalis had been killed and that the Left Front’s ‘softly softly’ approach was to blame for the carnage. Delhi used the fears gripping the immigrant community as a whip to beat the CPM administration in the election campaign. However, in polls following the widespread rioting and despite the centre’s deployment of considerable resources, the Left Front won 37 seats while Congress managed to gain just 12.47 The results irritated Delhi. It began to devise strategems to unseat the re-elected CPI Marxist government in Tripura, which had joined the Akali Dal in Punjab and the Left Front in West Bengal as government bogeymen. It was against this backdrop that TPLO guerrillas launched a campaign against Bengali settlers. As militancy gained ground, the tribals became polarised to an unprecedented degree. While the moderation of the TUJS led to a fall in its membership and popularity among the montagnards, the TPLO came to be seen as the protectors of tribal interests. The early 1980s were marked by growing violence between indigenous and immigrant elements, and between extremist and moderate factions of the Tippera resistance. Even at the peak of its popularity, the TUJS only polled 10.47 per cent of votes in the 1983 state elections. Congress and Delhi repeatedly urged the state administration to ban the militants and hunt them down, or allow the centre to declare martial law. The Chief Minister insisted on a political approach to tribal grievances, and began secret negotiations with the TPLO. Success came in 1983 when the TPLO, persuaded that legal and administrative measures taken by the state offered a more peaceful and practical way to resolve the dispute, gave up its armed struggle. This was a disaster for Congress. However, since fragmentation among

A DIVIDED LAND

51

the tribals was so great, not all had been lost. Many extremists felt that the Bengalis would not let Chakrabarty implement his reforms and, unless forced, the immigrants would not give up their privileges. Under the former schoolteacher, Bejoy Wrangkhyal, these men organised the Tripura National Volunteers (TNV), which not only accelerated anti-Bengali terrorist attacks but also hunted out TPLO men who had ‘sold out’ and surrendered. Thereafter, the story becomes more complex. The Congress sponsored the formation of a front organisation called the Tribal Forum, which served as the centre’s cat’s-paw in Tripura. The Forum, comprising a handful of Congress activists among the tribals, made contact with the TNV and acted as a channel of communication with Delhi. The TNV obtained assistance from the residual Mizo National Front, and, using the hill country separating Tripura from the CHT, gave grounds for Delhi’s accusation that Bangladesh was assisting the TNV. At the same time, the dispute between Delhi and Agartala (Tripura’s capital) escalated. The centre demanded rigorous measures, including military deployment, but Chakrabarty insisted that a political issue such as this could not be resolved militarily. He also complained that the Union government had deliberately ignored his pleas for non-military security assistance, and that all the centre sought to do was remove the CPI(M) government from power. Pressures reached a peak before state elections in early 1988 when the Left Front’s overtures were rebuffed by the TNV. Its campaign of terror paralysed life in much of Tripura. Chakrabarty was compelled to enact legislation banning the TNV and making negotiations impossible. Under pressure from Delhi before the state elections, he acceded to the deploy¬ ment of thousands of soldiers from central security forces, first to a ‘disturbed area’ along the Bangladesh borders and then throughout Tripura. De facto martial law clamped down on all political activities but failed to halt the bloodletting; TNV guerrillas killed more than 70 Bengalis48 in the week after the arrival of almost 10,000 new troops in the state.49 The army assumed administrative control and, in the elections it stage-managed, the discredited Marxists held on to 29 seats in the 60-seat assembly; the Congress won 30 and was swiftly asked to form the government.50 It was a much-needed victory after a string of electoral defeats. The links between Delhi and its TNV Trojan Horse became clearer when, following the elections, tribal violence came to an end. The Congress-TNV accord was remarkable. On 29 January, just before moving the military into the state, Rajiv Gandhi had pledged at Agartala and Sonamura that no talks would be held with the TNV, who would be

52

THE FEARFUL STATE

crushed. He had also accused the Marxists of keeping the insurrection alive. Gandhi promised that, unlike Chakrabarty, he would deal with the TNV ‘sternly’.51 Yet, in a volte face shortly after the polls, his government negotiated an agreement and, on 12 August, officials from the centre and Tripura’s newly-elected Congress administration signed an accord with TNV representatives in Delhi, swifdy endorsed by the Prime Minister. The accord lifted the ban on TNV guerrillas, promising their rehabilitation. It also reserved 20 seats in the state assembly for tribals. In addition, all rejected applications relating to restoration of land fraudulently acquired by Bengalis, were to be reviewed. The TNV was allowed to surrender its arsenal to forces of the central government rather than to the state administration, many of whose members, it was feared, were sympathetic to the Marxists.52 The TNV was disbanded, former guerrillas being absorbed into Congress. The Tripura episode was an instance of power politics at its most brazen and in north-east India it seemed to work.

The Gurkha guerrillas of Darjeeling THE expansion of the plantation economy in north Bengal’s hill areas in the 19th century saw a steady rise in immigration from Bengal, Bihar, Nepal and the Chhoto Nagpur hills. This workforce was encouraged by the British to migrate and, in the case of the tribal labourers from the Chhoto Nagpur hills, forced to do so. By the end of the century, the concentration of Gurkhas from Nepal in the Darjeeling area had become noticeable. The summer capital of the raj until the Viceroy opted for the Delhi-Simla circuit in 1912, prosperous, westernised Darjeeling came to be called the ‘Queen of the hills’. Since then, Gurkha pensioners from the Indian and British armies have been drawn to settle in the region bounded by Assam, Bengal, Bhutan and Nepal. Free movement across borders encouraged by the 1950 Indo-Nepalese treaty led to the growth of the Gurkha population. By the early 1950s, Gurkhas had become the majority in Darjeeling proper and soon outnumbered all other groups in Kurseong and Kalimpong. But the development of their national identity underwent a long and uneven process of maturation. Demands for a ‘Gurkhaland’ were first raised in 1907. But Gurkha nationalism in India did not make itself felt before Thakur Chandan Singh, an ex-serviceman, founded the Gurkha League at Dehra Dun in 1921. It believed that the interests of Gurkhas in India would be best served by the

A DIVIDED LAND

53

establishment of a separate constituency for them. When the League moved its headquarters to Darjeeling, demands for a separate state became a principal theme. But the bloodletting accompanying Partition convinced Gurkha leaders like Deo Prakash Rai that statehood was not in the best interests of the community. Rai’s stature and his conviction that the Indian National Congress was the best hope for the evolution of India into the kind of state that would balance the interests of India’s diverse subnational groups, kept the lid on Gurkha irredentism. In 1981, after Rai’s death, the growth of CPI(M) influence in the hills meant that the League could not maintain its position unless it abandoned the moderation that Rai had championed. Thus, militancy won by default. Language also played a role in the rise of Gurkha nationalism. A group of writers, teachers and journalists had set up the Nepali Bhasa Samiti (Nepali language society) in 1973 with the objective of gaining constitutional recognition for Nepali. Mrs Gandhi refused to discuss their demands, which infuriated educated Gurkhas, particularly since Sindhi-speaking immigrants from Pakistan, who were fewer in number, had been granted that privilege. When Morarji Desai, Prime Minister from 1977 to 1979, urged militant Gurkhas to return to Nepal if they were so keen on the Nepali language, the community was polarised as the moderates tried to restrain the militants. The following year an extremist organisation, the Prantiya Morcha (Ultimate Front) came into being. Subsequently, it changed its name to Pranta Parishad. Subhas Ghising, the future founder of the Gurkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), was a prominent activist in both. However, despite rising strength, the militants could not carry the majority of the Gurkha community as long as D P Rai remained alive. In 1980 several strands in the evolution of Gurkha militancy came together. The most significant was Ghising’s expulsion from the Pranta Parishad. His generation represented a new activism. Many well-to-do and educated Gurkhas had for long discerned a disparity between their rising economic status and political powerlessness in West Bengal. There had been little incentive for the Bengalis of the state and the Gurkhas of Darjeeling to integrate. Assimilation was limited to the CPI(M)’s Marxist activism that transcended ethno-linguistic barriers, but even the CPI(M) was loath to take Gurkha militancy seriously. By the 1950s, almost unnoticed, a Gurkha middle class of ex-servicemen and contractors had emerged. It was this development and the class perception of this small group that it was being deprived of legitimate opportunities that trans¬ formed Darjeeling from a peaceful tourist haven into a potential tinder

54 box. Since India’s growth independent their interest lay in and Ghising’s own

THE FEARFUL STATE

provincial configuration ignored their autonomous of developments in West Bengal, Gurkha activists felt separation from that state. Militancy grew unsteadily, career reflected its vicissitudes.

After a stint in the ranks of the Indian army, Ghising joined Tarun (Young) Gurkha. He left it to float his own organisation called the Neelojhanda (the blue flag). This did not flourish and Ghising switched to the more successful Prantiya Morcha, which soon changed its name to Pranta Parishad. However, Ghising had to leave the Parishad when he was accused of collecting funds without proper authorisation. His militancy may have been personal. In 1979, the West Bengal Land and Revenue authorities repossessed a plot of land he had occupied and he was evicted. At this point, Ghising appears to have recognised that Gurkhas were powerless in their own land, and that a far more vigorous activism would be necessary before West Bengal responded to the community’s needs as he perceived these to be. In April 1980, soon after Mrs Gandhi was returned to power, he founded the Gurkha National Liberation Front (GNLF). Congress's encouragement of Gurkha militancy was aimed at discomfiting the leftist coalition in Calcutta. Growing nationalist fervour helped the GNLF to gain popularity. For Darjeeling Gurkhas, the former principality of Sikkim provided an incentive to campaign for statehood. Sikkim, a state since 1975, was one province where ethnic Nepalis had not only attained majority status but had also acquired political power by dint of their superior organisational abilities, leaving the indigenous Bhotias and Lepchas far behind. Sikkim’s ability to attract 2,500 million rupees in central funding every year was a further spur to Gurkhas because, in spite of physical and demographic similarities, Darjeeling’s share of the public purse remained stable around 210 million rupees.53 Ghising had another motivation; the Chief Minister of Sikkim, Nar Bahadur Bhandari, was not only a classmate at college, but had been a comrade in the Tarun Gurkha organisation when both men were young activists. Now, one was the chief executive of a state while the other, Ghising, was just another author of romantic novels.54 It was a situation Congress strategists must have found tantalising. After Indira Gandhi’s assassination, Rajiv was willing to reverse his mother’s policies. A coup was needed to maintain the level of sympathy arising from her death and to establish him as the pre-eminent national leader. He secured the agreement of moderate elements in Punjab, Mizoram and Assam, who then came to power in these states. These concessions

A DIVIDED LAND

55

seemed to persuade the GNLF that violence could pay political dividends. GNLF agitation intensified in the period after these accords. The pattern of the centre’s transactions with the insurgents led West Bengal’s Marxist administration to accuse Delhi of masterminding the GNLF campaign so as to undermine its credibility. Delhi protested its innocence, but events belied its denials. In 1986, the rising tide of Khasi, Garo and Jaintia militancy in Meghalaya spent itself against the small group of Gurkhas who had settled in the Khasi and Jaintia hills. These Gurkhas sought refuge in Assam but received no sympathy and, eventually, the group arrived in Darjeeling where their plight triggered a ferocious GNLF campaign. Calcutta complained that by petitioning the King of Nepal and by writing to Washington, London, Beijing, Paris, Thimpu, Islamabad and Dhaka for help, Ghising’s GNLF had violated national norms and should be tried on charges of anti-state activities. Rejecting this argument, Buta Singh, Union Home Minister, urged Jyoti Basu to enter into negotiations with Ghising. Basu viewed the GNLF campaign as a threat to West Bengal’s constitutional rights and ability to implement policy framed on the basis of its electoral mandate. Evidence of the centre’s machinations to weaken his authority was clear. Warrants of arrest notwithstanding, Ghising flew several times to Delhi, via Kathmandu and Patna in Bihar state. In Bihar, state police tried to arrest him on charges of travelling under a false name and using false documentation, but officials of the central intelligence agencies prevailed and the GNLF leader was allowed to proceed to Delhi where he was a guest of the Union government.55 Delhi also provided helicopters and airliners for visits by GNLF delegations, paid hotel bills, and protected them from the prying eyes of the media. This convinced Basu that Ghising was Delhi’s agent provocateur. In the 1987 polls, the CPI(M) clung to power by winning a clear majority in the plains against Congress’s divided house. It could afford to reject GNLF demands. Eventually, the cost of continuing confrontation, given the alternatives, appeared to be too heavy for one of India s poorest regions. The violent activism of GNLF and the Gurkha Volunteer Cells (GVC, its armed cadre) had brought civil administration of the district to an end, sending the region’s tea, timber and tourism industries into a slide. That, and the lessons of Tripura, weighed heavily on Calcutta, persuading Jyoti Basu to concede. The summer of 1988 saw intense negotiations between Basu and Ghising under the mediation of Buta Singh. Basu hoped to end the haemorrhage that GNLF agitation was causing, and to remove the constant threat of intervention by Delhi. Ghising was concerned at the

56

THE FEARFUL STATE

gradual loss of control to more radical Gurkha leaders who had begun voicing separatist demands. The centre felt that it had played its hand, bloodying Basu’s government. But, unless there was control of Gurkha militancy, another Punjab could unfold. If Delhi could engineer an accept¬ able treaty, the exercise would have been a success. Two treaties were forthcoming in August 1988 — in Tripura and West Bengal. The latter, coming ten days after the first and similar in form, was signed by leaders of the central and state governments, and the GNLF chief, Subhas Ghising. It set up an autonomous Darjeeling Gurkha Hill Council within West Bengal to administer the 600,000 Darjeeling Gurkhas. It was to enjoy extensive autonomy over executive and revenue matters.56 In the local elections that followed, GNLF candidates, many on police hitlists only a few days earlier, won 26 out of 28 contested seats. West Bengal was to nominate the remaining 14 members of the council. In the elections, the CPI(M) won two seats; Congress none. During the campaign. West Bengal’s state administration encouraged the GVC commander, Chhatre Singh Subba, to reject the accord on the ground that it had not gained Gurkhas the statehood GNLF had fought for. Subba ran as an independent candidate from Kalimpong. Eight GVC leaders ran as independents; none achieved success but they drew some votes away. The GNLF was thus split between moderates who gained power in the council, and an extremist faction, agitating against Ghising’s alleged ‘sell-out’, and receiving support from the state government in Calcutta.57 The split led to internecine violence after the GNLF youth leader, S N Pradhan, and GNLF campaign manager, N K Kumai, were persuaded to make a ‘courtesy call’ on Jyoti Basu in Calcutta without Ghising’s permission. GNLF’s Kalimpong chief, C K Pradhan, supported the renegades, and shortly after Ghising was sworn in as chairman of the Hill Council, the two factions engaged in bloody skirmishing. The more extremist members of the GVC set up the Gurkha Liberation Organisation, and swore to challenge Ghising’s moderate faction. The edifice crafted by Delhi had come unstuck in a manner more embarrassing than anything Basu could have devised. The devious nature of Indian politics had come full circle in the Darjeeling hills. While there were similarities in the GNLF and TNV insurrections, there were also noticeable differences. In West Bengal, the state govern¬ ment treated the GNLF ‘traitors’ as pawns of Delhi’s machinations, unable to effect major changes and devoid of integrity. Delhi on the other hand quite openly courted the Gurkhas, employing its intelligence and other

A DIVIDED

LAND

57

agencies of the executive to maintain GNLF activism at a certain level. The centre also pressed Calcutta to join negotiations with GNLF from the early stages of the Gurkha campaign. In Tripura, it followed quite different tactics. There, Chief Minister Chakrabarty initiated talks, persuading the TPLO to- give up its armed struggle. He also took legislative measures to remove causes of tribal dissatisfaction which led to a Bengali backlash that Congress used to its advantage. Delhi repeatedly urged Agartala to stop talking to the Tipperas and take military measures against them. The state government refused to do this until the very last moment. Delhi remained adamant in its declared aim of ‘crushing’ the rebellion. The outcome of the elections and events in their wake showed what a cleverly contrived deception Delhi had been playing vis-a-vis the TNV. The way the two states had responded to Delhi’s machinations had determined the course of the gamesmanship but both strategies were characterised by coercive political transactions.

The Ahoms and Bodos of Assam THE politics of violence visited Assam in the early 1980s when thousands of plainlanders, largely Bengali immigrants and their descendants, were either massacred or chased out of the state. At one level, the state is dominated by caste Hindus representing a confluence of Brahminical and Ahom strains brought together after 1228. Its dominance survived the six centuries of Ahom rule. After the Burman conquest, caste Assamese lost their standing. Under the British, their influence declined even further; the imperialists were principally concerned with raising the productivity and revenue value of the valley. Bengal was the nearest plains region, and also the home base of the Company’s Indian colony. Bengali supervisors, lawyers, money-lenders, clerks, orderlies, farmers and their dependents flowed into the valley, soon replacing the caste Assamese as the most influential native segment, carving out large niches in the tea plantations, rice paddies and oilfields, as well as in administration and politics.58 During Partition, the Bengali community suffered a split along communal lines so that people in Assam described Bengali Hindus and Bengali Muslims as though they were distinct categories. In a way, they were. Partition, independence and the move to a democratic framework in which numbers were important, brought a sudden reversal of roles; the majority Ahoms came to the fore while the influence of the Bengalis, Hindus and Muslims, especially the latter, receded. Within the Ahom

58

THE FEARFUL STATE

community, the growing middle class of Assamese caste Hindus spear¬ headed a campaign that aimed at taking state power in its own hands. This was the principal dynamic determining the nature of political interaction in the state. All the groups with a perceived identity vied for political influence and economic benefit in an isolationist, neo-xenophobic socio¬ cultural milieu and a competitive environment, charged with fears of loss of privileges. This provided the focus for political action. Congress dominated the caste Assamese electorate. It also took most Hindu and Muslim Bengalis under its protective wing. As long as the party retained power at the centre and in the state, conflicting interests could be mediated and internal pressures for change contained. But the rise of the Janata coalition in 1977 marked the end of consensus, triggering major realignments. State elections in Assam the following year saw the Janata coalition win 53 of the legislative assembly’s 103 seats; the share of Congress (I) was reduced to 26. Driven into India’s harsh political wilder¬ ness, Congress leaders engaged in a grim game of survival that threatened the modus vivendi worked out between various groups. As electoral rolls were prepared for parliamentary by-elections in 1978, election commission officials appointed by the unseated Congress administration warned that ‘outsiders’ would make up half of the new electoral register.59 The All Assam Students Union (AASU) took up the Congress refrain. The following year, as the Janata coalition began to crack, it demanded that ‘foreigners’ be disenfranchised, to protect As¬ sam’s indigenous population from becoming a minority in its homeland. At the same time, Congress underwent a subtle shift. To balance the right-wing influences of the Jan Sangh, a coalition partner in the Janata grouping, and to gamer more votes from among the overwhelmingly Hindu electorate, Congress changed its secular stance to a majoritarian position that pleased northern India’s Hindu voters. The principled stand in support of minority communities was abandoned for a pragmatic route to power. Congress warnings of Assam being swamped by ‘outsiders’ gradually focused on Bengali Muslims. Agitation by the AASU out¬ stripped Congress rhetoric and, soon, extremists among the students were demanding extradition of all ‘foreigners’ who had arrived in Assam after 1951. Mrs Gandhi saw this growing agitation as success for her policy of subtle communalisation of India’s political process. Her reward was the distress the AASU campaign was causing the Janata coalition. However, once Congress (I) was returned to power in Delhi, its percep¬ tions and priorities changed. The AASU’s protests were no longer useful.

A DIVIDED LAND

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Unrest was not only becoming embarrassing for the centre but was hurting the tea, timber and oil economy of the state. But once ethnic passions had been aroused, the genie could not be put back in the bottle; violent agitation developed its own momentum. A commission of inquiry into possible electoral reforms was set up but that failed to restore calm. Congress’s victory in the centre had little impact on Assam where control was lost to the extent that elections could not be held until 1983. A decade earlier, Mrs Gandhi and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had agreed that those who had left East Pakistan prior to Pakistan’s military crackdown in March 1971, would be granted Indian citizenship; in effect, the AASU was now demanding a retraction. Even if immigrants from East Bengal were resettled elsewhere, the AASU demands posed a grave challenge to India’s complex and increasingly amorphous demographic and ethnic distribu¬ tion. If concessions were made to the Assamese agitators, a precedent would be set with disastrous constitutional and practical consequences for the rest of the federation. In exasperation, Mrs Gandhi herself asked: ‘Where will these people go? Which state in India will accept them and which country outside will take them?’60 Suspecting that they had been pawns in the Congress game of political one-upmanship against the Janata, Assamese activists intensified their campaign. In 1980, shadowy groups of extremists seeking to build a separate, and socialist, state in Assam emerged as the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA),61 and the Assam People’s Liberation Army (ALPA). The former initially teamed up with Nagaland’s NSCN, across the Burmese border. The ALPA elected to operate in small bands from secret hide-outs within the state’s mountainous fringe. Delhi deployed 70,000 troops to crush these two movements. The military almost reduced the ALPA to an ineffective body in combat terms. But the ULFA was able to make a major impact as men loyal to Paresh Barua and Biddeswar Gogoi remained active in five of Assam’s nine districts. Separatism engendered an intense militancy with which the state was unable to come to grips. Violence against Bengalis spiralled in the build-up to elections in 1983, challenging the state’s ability to maintain law and order and enforce its writ. A qualitative change followed the announcement of election dates. Tribesmen, outraged at having been deprived of ancestral land and now with a focus for their anger, descended on Assam’s communally separated villages to massacre plainsmen. Reprisals reduced Assam to a state of anarchy for more than a week. The first major incident occurred at Gohpur in Darrang district where tribal Bodo-Kacharis opposed the elections

60

THE FEARFUL STATE

while Assamese caste Hindus actively campaigned for it. The Bodos killed large numbers of caste Hindus whose ancestors had been responsible for turning them off tribal land. In a sequel, caste Hindus and Lalungs, like the Bodos a plains tribe, descended on Nellie in Nowgong district to murder hundreds of Muslims.62 The endemic nature of the violence that then gripped Assam underscored the vulnerability of the Indian state not only to uncertainties over supply of tea, oil and timber, but also over deeper questions.63 ‘The whole sub-continent is watching the events in Assam. Any new formula about “foreigners” and their future in the state will apply with varying force all over the country, where considerable migrations have taken place as a result of development and where directing elites have become more mixed than ever before.’64 For their part, Assamese analysts complained that the state had been left backward deliberately for easy exploitation of its resources — that its status was that of an internal colony — with the help of a ‘collaborationist and comprador immigrant landlord class and its political agents which has led to the current cultural and political crisis’.65 Elections were held none the less, Congress winning 91 of the 108 seats. The AASU accused Congress of illegally registering hundreds of thousands of immigrants as voters to secure victory. The students rejected the results and renewed their campaign of violence, bringing life to a standstill. Delhi was forced into extending direct rule. Mrs Gandhi, preoccupied by concerns closer to home, let the stalemate continue. After succeeding his mother, Rajiv Gandhi initiated negotiations with the AASU and, on 15 August 1985, the two sides signed an accord that recognised the students as the legitimate representatives of Assam’s dominant interest group — Assamese caste Hindus. The agreement thus legitimised not only the hierarchical privilege of caste Assamese but also violent campaigning as a valid instrument of politics. The Assam accord granted nationality to settlers who had arrived in India prior to 1 January 1966. Those who arrived between then and 24 March 1971 (just before Pakistan’s military crackdown in Bangladesh) would lose their voting rights for a period of 10 years but would be allowed to retain legally procured property; at the end of this ‘probationary’ decade, they would be granted full citizenship. Those who immigrated after 24 March 1971 would be treated as foreigners, stripped of all rights and assets and deported. Tribunals would be set up for this purpose. The issue took on an international flavour when Delhi promised to erect

A DIVIDED LAND

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a barbed-wire fence and watch towers along the Indo-Bangladesh frontiers to prevent illegal immigration from Bangladesh into north-eastern India. The government in Dhaka insisted that no Bangladeshi had ever illegally crossed into India; but, given its inability to alleviate mass poverty, and the relative abundance of opportunities across the border, the denials rang hollow. When the time for implementation of the accord arrived, the Assam government deported only a few ‘foreigners’, suggesting that the possibilities of Assam being swamped by Bangladeshis may have been more in the nature of political rhetoric than an accurate sociological description. And that would be in keeping with local traditions. The Assam accord resolved the immediate problems and provided for fresh elections. Held in mid-December 1985, these were won by the Assam Gana Parishad (AGP, the Assam People’s Party), the political wing of the AASU, fashioned specifically to challenge the Congress at the polls. AGP candidates took 64 of the legislative assembly’s 126 seats. Congress won 25 and the United Minorities Front, organised mainly by Muslims to protect their political rights under the new order, won 17. Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, the 32-year-old AASU leader, became Chief Minister. In its first few years in power, the AGP sought to consolidate its authority and widen its support base by pressing Delhi to implement the deportation clause of the Assam accord. The task of detecting ‘foreigners’ was further complicated by Bengali and Muslim lobbies pressing the centre not to make life any more difficult for the minorities. Although judicial tribunals were set up and began work immediately, progress was slow. The number of illegal immigrants was put at four million. However, the classification accepted by the signatories reduced the number of those liable for deportation to around one million. AASU members and their supporters registered 61,281 complaints and 6,922 cases were referred to the tribunals with regard to those who had entered the state after 24 March 1971; only 103 were actually expelled. As for the ‘aliens’ who were to be disenfranchised for a decade, 286,596 inquiries were begun and 9,999 cases referred to the tribunals, but only 42 people were removed from the electoral rolls.66 By the start of 1988, the process had come to a halt. The AGP may have reconciled itself to the impracticality of full imple¬ mentation of the Assam accord. Ironically, it was faced with a challenge to its authority from an unexpected quarter, the friendly Bodo-Kacharis. And here, too, political activism was spearheaded by students. Bodos, the Kiratas of legend, had lost their power to the Ahoms in 1228 and were subjugated by successive waves of interlopers. An agricultural people with

62

THE FEARFUL STATE

a sophisticated language, the Bodos had been a significant factor in the region’s developments. But political activism remained muted until the establishment of the All Assam Bodo Students Union (AABSU) in 1967. This was an active component of the AASU, which became the AGP in 1985. At that point, Bodo campaigners became aware that they would not share political power with the AGP. The AABSU broke away from the AASU to launch a low-profile campaign demanding self-determination for the Bodos. The AGP's Chief Minister, Mahanta, and Bhrigu Kumar Phukan, his Home Minister, were unwilling to concede to centrifugal pressures from former allies, and accused the central government in Delhi and the Darjeeling-based GNLF of aiding the AABSU. The charges were denied but the evidence tended to belie the denials. The irony of having to contend with a rival tribal student group, former allies, could not have been lost on the AGP, nor on Delhi. In 1967, Bodo student leaders had demanded the establishment of an autonomous region for Bodos and other tribals within Assam. To carry out a peaceful campaign in support of this demand they organised the Plains Tribal Council of Assam (PTCA), which retained many links with the Congress Party. When the region was reorganised in 1972, the PTC A demanded that Bodo areas be separated into a Union Territory to be directly administered by Delhi. During the Emergency, the PTCA allied itself with Congress. In the last stages of the Janata administration, Bodos joined the Assamese campaign against ‘foreigners’. Only when AGP favouritism towards the Assamese caste Hindus became evident did the AABSU campaign turn violent. The AABSU adopted techniques from the AASU manual. Strikes and stoppages became instruments of pressure; the state government employed armed police to break up AABSU rallies and processions. By June 1989, 600 lives had been lost and there were no signs of an end to the bloodletting. The GNLF admitted that the AABSU president, Upendra Nath Brahma, a law student in the Prafulla Mahanta mould, had met Subhas Ghising and asked for his help. It did not say what was the nature of the help sought nor if any would be given. Delhi’s interest lay in weakening the AGP administration not only because the Congress was unable to make any electoral headway in Assam, but also because the AGP had become an active member of the anti-Congress alliance of opposition parties hoping to defeat Gandhi in the 1989 general election. The Bodos had reasons for optimism. They were entrenched in the Khokrajhar district and the Udalguri sub-division of the Darrang district through which passed the national railway link with other parts of north-

A DIVIDED LAND

63

eastern India. They also enjoyed the support of the central government. The GNLF in power in neighbouring Daijeeling district was an ally and a possible conduit. Union Home Minister Buta Singh repeatedly asked the Assam government to initiate talks with the AABSU but without any preconditions, just as he had urged West Bengal’s Left Front government to do with the GNLF. The AGP was unwilling to accept the machinations of Delhi and it put forward a constitutional defence of its rejection of AABSU demands. The Bodos vacillated. Phukan Chandra Bodo, the commander of the AABSU ‘Volunteer Force’, threatened to escalate the confrontation if state police were not ordered out of Bodo-majority areas. However, other leaders offered to join talks with the AGP government. At first, they demanded that a meeting be held between the AGP, the AABSU and the Union government. This was rejected by the state government However, when the AGP agreed to tripartite talks, the Bodos demanded that such a meeting take place outside Assam, which was rejected by the state government. Confrontation continued in a state of violent stalemate. More stoppages and strikes, police raids and AABSU ambushes, bomb blasts on trains and in markets, arson and looting in the towns, a state of near-panic in many areas; this was the situation in large tracts of the northern Brahmaputra valley in the late 1980s. The fall of Congress weakened AABSU hands, but the ULFA’s violent campaign for a socialist Assam continued to dog the state’s ability to contain extremism. In north-eastern India then, the political chickens of India's electoral jungle, seat of the ‘world’s largest democracy’, had come home to roost. The strains created by diverse and compartmentalised groups evolving towards political maturity and national awareness at varying rates, and the status quo-oriented interests of those holding power at the centre, provided a climate in which cycles of grievance, dissent, resistance and conflict appeared inevitable. The region showed starkly the contradictions within the Indian state and the many challenges to national integration thrown up by the imposition of the elite’s vision of a unitary state on a multi-national polity. Recourse to coercion and intrigue rather than compromise and objectivity made the appearance of insurrections a natural outcome. This confluence of conflicting pressures and the inability of the Elites to develop a peaceful modus vivendi characterised the region in the 1980s. While unique features set it apart from the rest of South Asia, the political myopia of a leadership devoid of perspective, and its reliance on coercion, bound it to the other flashpoints in a subcontinent already tom by terror. This cycle will not be broken easily.

64

THE FEARFUL STATE

Notes 1. Each state has its own share of tribal divisions. Assam is home to 20 tribes, 11 highlander and nine plainlander. Arunachal Pradesh has a population of 6.28 million organised into 110 tribes. Nagaland is home to 39 tribes. Tripura has only nine, but the Kukis alone are divided into some 26 sub-tribes. The major tribal groups in Meghalaya are Khasis, Garos and Jaintias but have numerous clan divisions. While the Mizo/Lushais are the pre-eminent group in Mizoram, it is shared with other tribes. Each state is a pot-pourri of ethno-linguistic variations and state frontiers rarely conform to traditional homelands. Overlapping borders and fragmentation limit state identity largely to plainlander elites and settlers. 2. B P Singh, The Problem of Change (New Delhi 1987), pp. 171-2. 3. Ibid., p. 174. 4. Valmiki, the author of the Ramayana cited in R K Chatterjee, India’s Land Borders: Problems and Challenges (New Delhi 1978), p. 191. 5. B P Singh, The Problem of Change: A Study of North-East India, New Delhi, 1987, p. 31. 6. For a study of the caste system and its implications for social organisation, see B H Farmer, An Introduction to South Asia (London 1983), pp. 12-23. 7. Raids by the Bhotias of Bhutan and Gurkhas of Nepal on the Dooars plains of northern Bengal persuaded the EIC that coming to terms would be more costeffective than subjugation. Warfare led to treaties with Nepal in 1816 and Bhutan in 1865. Bhutan ceded some autonomy, agreeing to British supervision of its security and diplomatic spheres. Nepal became a client state, despatching a Gurkha contingent to fight the mutineers in 1857. Independent India inherited these arrangements. 8. Verrier Elwin, Nagaland (Shillong 1961) cited in Chatterjee, op. cit., p. 192. 9. Deputy Commissioners were expected to tour their territory annually. See Neville Maxwell, India, the Nagas and the North-East (London 1980), p. 3. 10. Professor Peter Marshall, of King’s College, London, says events in Britain provided the context for this development in which reconciliation with Scottish highlanders acted as a precedent. Scholarly romantics, taken with the ‘noble savage’ paradigm, promoted a protective attitude towards montagnard tribesmen still untouched by the debilitating, corrupt sophistication of the plains along India's land frontiers. According to this interpretation, the motivation was benign, even paternalistic, and tied in with the post-Mutiny policy of divide et impera, articulated with such elegance in the post-Mutiny period. 11. The pretext was provided by a dispute over royal prerogative. The British had agreed to recognise the ascent to the throne of the regent Prince Kula Chandra, but on condition that his brother Crown Prince Tikendrajit, the independent-minded and popular Commander of the Manipuri army was banished. The new Maharaja rejected this out of hand. When the British tried to enforce their decision, most imperial officials in the state, including Quinton, the Chief Commissioner for Assam, were killed. The British put down the rebellion, administration was taken over by the Resident, Tikendrajit was hanged and Kula Chandra jailed for life.

A DIVIDED LAND

65

12. Mam Deb, ‘Assam's patience with Delhi grows increasingly thin’. Financial Times, London, 3 February 1988. 13. The term subnational is used with caution. What determines national identity is not clear. Although the validity of the Indian state is beyond reproach, that of an Indian nation is not as cogent. In contemporary literature, the term nation is interchangeable with state. See J W Spanier, Games Nations Play (London, 1972), pp. 18-32. The term ‘subnational’ here is an indicator of sub-state fragmentation perceived by both parties. 14. The suppression of the students' democratic movement by Deng Xiao Ping and Li Peng in the summer of 1989 and the fate of Zhao Ziang cast considerable doubt on the outcome for Tibetans. 15. For Nehru, this entailed a reversal of beliefs. In 1944, he had written in The Discovery of India (Delhi, 1985 ed) p. 534: ‘The right of any well-constituted area to secede from the Indian federation or union has often been put forward. Thus it may be desirable to fix a period, say ten years later after the establishment of the free Indian state, at the end of which the right to secede may be exercised through proper constitutional process and in accordance with the clearly expressed will of the inhabitants of the area concerned.’ But in 1947, when India gained statehood, he changed his mind. The Nagas found this change unacceptable. 16. Jawaharlal Nehru quoted in Maxwell, op. cit., p. 4 17. It read: ‘SOUTHERN NAGAS INCLUDING MANIPUR HILL NAGAS WITH KONYAK NAGAS AND CACHAR NAGAS DECLARE INDEPENDENCE TODAY, THE 14TH AUGUST 1947’. 18. On the eve of the promulgation of India’s constitution on 26 January 1950, the NNC declared: ‘The Nagas will become a free nation. The Indian constitution cannot bind the Nagas. An appeal is made to India to declare to the world on Republic Day that the Nagas will be given the freedom of choice to become independent.’ This declaration was carried by the Western press to much conster¬ nation in New Delhi and may partly explain the intransigence with which the Indian government approached the issue. 19. A similar fate befell his grandson, Rajiv Gandhi, in Darjeeling when Gurkhas, agitating for a ‘Gurkhaland’ in West Bengal’s hill districts, treated the Prime Minister with equal contempt. But he did not have a visiting dignitary watching. 20. Both wings of Pakistan served as bases of US covert activities against the Communist powers to the north. USAF U-2 reconnaissance aircraft operated from Badaber near Peshawar. The CIA ran its Khampa operations in Tibet from Dhaka with a small outpost manned by Pakistani officers at Dinajpur; the climax of this operation was the springing of the Dalai Lama in 1959. In return, the US rebuilt Pakistan’s regular aimed services, and organised the Special Services Group (SSG) and Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). The latter acquired a degree of autonomy which only became clear in the latter stages of the 1980s Afghan war. 21. For a semi-official Indian account, see R K Chatterjee, op. cit., pp. 191-245. 22. Assam’s Chief Minister B P Chaliha, Gandhiyan leader J P Narayan and the Rev Michael Scott were the three members of the Commission that acted as a channel of communication between the two parties for over two years.

66

THE FEARFUL STATE

23. The letter read in part: ‘Your Excellency For the friendly and sympathetic consideration of your Government and your people, I am sending a few persons with T H Muivah, Plenipotentiary, and Brigadier Thinoselie M Key ho from our Government to Your Excellency with the hope that Your Excellency will seriously look into our present difficulties. That as a small nation it was never our intention to do anything which will offend our great neighbour. That is why inspite of being suppressed to the extreme we have been trying to persuade the Government of India to recognize our right to regain our sovereignty after the British left us; yet the Government of India till today have not given place to reason, and as it has become impossible for us to resist unaided the military might of the Indian armed forces, we have to look to your Government and your people for any possible assistance in any form so that we may properly safeguard our sovereignty through the liberal hand of your people. Our Government feel the paramount necessity of your kind recognition of the existence of the Nag a nation and the legality of the Federal Government of Nagaland.’ cited in Nirmal Nibedon, Nagaland: The Night of the Guerrillas (New Delhi,1978), pp. 148-9. 24. See Harold Sieve in the Daily Telegraph, London, 26/27 September 1968. 25. Mowu was kept in military prisons for six years then under house arrest in Dimapore. In December 1985, he went for a walk and kept going until he was in Pakistan 1,200 miles to the west. He was flown to London by ISI friends where he joined Phizo. The Naga nationalist movement elders claim: 'We are not rebels or insurgents. We are defending our country. We are not Indians. Nagas and Indians are two distinct nations. We only ever knew each other under British rule.’ But they recognise that India is unlikely ever to relinquish ultimate control over the strategic panhandle of Nagaland. Michael Fathers, ‘A rebel cause the world would prefer to forget’, the Independent, London, 29 October 1986. 26. Bertil Lintner, ‘The turbulent tribes’, Far Eastern Economic Review, Hong Kong, 21 August 1986, pp. 24-25. 27. The operational mission of Bangladesh army’s fledgeling brigade located in Chittagong was to keep the CHT clear of Naga and Mizo guerrillas. This changed abruptly with the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on 15 August 1975. 28. Dhaka was more concerned with other insurgent groups using the CHT as a sanctuary. In the early 1970s, the revolutionary activities of the Marxist-Leninist Purba Banglar Sarbohara (East Bengal Proletariat) Party drew a military response. In the late 1970s, the Shanti Bahini grew to prominence. Both groups are discussed in the chapter on the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The government of General Ziaur Rahman did not invite the Mizo National Army, nor did it directly encourage its return. Instructions were given to army and paramilitary units to avoid contact. Presumably this allowed Dhaka to deny that it was harbouring Mizo guerrillas. Another factor was the hostility between the MNA and the Shanti Bahini. The latter, keen to maintain the goodwill of its patrons in Tripura would engage in operations against the Mizos, taking the pressure off the Bangladesh army. 29. See Nirmal Nibedan, Mizoram: The Dagger Brigade (New Delhi, 1980).

A DIVIDED LAND

67

30. Michael Hamlyn, 'Gandhi’s poll defeat in Mizoram is victory for his peace policies', the Times, London, 19 February 1987. 31. For details of election campaigning and results, see Indranil Banerjie, ‘The rebel’s rule’, India Today, Delhi, 15 March 1987, pp. 12-13. 32. Ajoy Bose, ‘Mizoram chieftain sworn in as leader of Indian State’, the Guardian, London, 22 August 1986. 33. Shekar Datta, ‘Mizoram: A difficult choice’, India Today, 15 February 1987, pp. 29-30. 34. Statement of Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Santosh Mohan Dev, at Silchar, 21 December 1988, reported next day in The Telegraph, Calcutta. 35. India’s other neighbours too often trade such allegations 36. India Today, 15 January 1989, pp. 27-28. 37. The figures varies from 16 to 19. See, Peter Niesewand, 'Guerrilla raids force curfew', the Guardian, 5 May 1979; and Bertil Lintner, 'The China connection'. Far Eastern Economic Review, 21 August 1986, p. 22. 38. PREPAK propaganda message cited in Maxwell, op. cit., p. 13. 39. The Guardian, 5 May 1979; ibid., 15 November 1979. 40. The Daily Telegraph, 18 April 1980; the Observer, 4 May 1980. 41. See, for instance, The Daily Telegraph, 17 April 1980; the Guardian, 13 July 1982; The Daily Telegraph, 31 January 1984; The Times, 16 March 1984. 42. Raj Kumar Bhupendra Singh was killed while leading a raid on a military camp ten miles from Imphal in November 1985; Salam Rajen Singh, the PLA’s Commander-in-Chief was killed by the police in March 1988; other leaders have been killed in encounters, but the PLA appears to be able to come up with an unending supply of field commanders and fighters. 43. Ghanashyam Pardesi, 'Manipur: Can slide be reversed ?’ Mainstream, New Delhi, 5 July 1980, p. 11. 44. Sunanda Datta-Ray, ‘Five days of tribal carnage', Observer, London, 15 June 1980. 45. Tripura is home to nine scheduled tribes, relatively fewer than other states in the region, but the Kukis alone have 26 sub-tribes with individual dialects. As a result, resistance has been fragmentary. 46. 'Five days of tribal carnage', the Observer, 15 June 1980; 'Savagery of Tripura highlights tensions caused by immigration', the Times, 19 June 1980; '5,000 died in tribal warfare’, the Observer, 22 June 1980; ‘15,000 more lose homes in Indian settlement riots’, the Daily Telegraph, 1 July 1980. 47. Tripura’s population grew by 1,089 per cent from 1901 to 1981. Reduced to 29 per cent of the population and unable to reclaim rights in a system geared to Bengalis, the montagnards were ready to explode. The Bengali backlash caused by the Marxists’ attempt to ameliorate tribal grievances gave Congress an opportunity to unseat a rival. The TNV provided a whip with which to beat Agartala. 48. 'India sends troops to quell violence in Tripura', International Herald Tribune, 2 February 1988. 49. ‘India gets tough on Tripura’, the Independent, 30 Jan 1988; ‘31 killed in Indian attacks’, the Guardian, 1 Feb 1988; Int Herald Tribune, op. cit., 2 Feb.

68

THE FEARFUL STATE

50. Ex-Finance Minister and one-time heir apparent to Indira Gandhi, Pranab Mukharjee, who fell from grace, redeemed himself by masterminding Congress’s win. The Tribal Forum and, by extension, the TNV had served their purpose. 51. Rajiv Gandhi quoted by All India Radio, New Delhi, Home Service in English, 07.30 GMT, 29 January 1988. 52. Details of the agreement were published by the Press Trust of India on 12 August 1988 from Delhi. 53. Tooshar Pandit, ‘Trouble in Shangri-La’, India Today, 31 August-6 Septem¬ ber 1986, p. 48. 54. Ghising may have used his relationship with Bhandari to advantage. Some dynamite captured by security forces from GNLF armouries bore the imprint of Sikkim’s Public Works Department. The absence of a reaction from the centre suggests the Indian government knew about this link. 55. Barun Dasgupta, ‘Journey to Gurkha Accord’, Mainstream, 27 August 1988, pp. 4-6. 56. Kamaljeet Rattan, ‘Taste of Peace’, India Today, 15 August 1988, pp. 25-6. 57. Kamaljeet Rattan, ‘Hope of Peace’, India Today, 15 January 1988, p. 38. 58. Michael Hamlyn, ‘Villagers reflect on massacre and seek peaceful Assam poll’, the Times, 14 November 1985. 59. In 1979 India’s chief election commissioner S L Sakhder expressed concern at the possibility of immigrants in the North-east slanting census records and electoral registers. In later clarification, he amended this to Nepali immigration into Sikkim, but Assamese activists took his original statement as an official con¬ firmation of their fears. Congress made full use of this episode. 60. Indira Gandhi quoted in ‘An Assam massacre: Bad blood for India’, Newsweek of 7 March 1983. 61. The ULFA campaign described in ‘Dawn of a dangerous era’, India Today, 31 March 1990, pp. 66-68. 62. See, Trevor Fishlock, ‘Assam under direct rule’, the Times, 19 March 1982; Ajoy Bose, ‘Blend that didn’t work in Assam’, the Guardian, 17 February 1983; T Fishlock, ‘Mobs slaughter 600 in Assam election rampage’, the Times, 21 February 1983; D Adamson, ‘Fear of losing identity stirs Assamese fury’, the Daily Telegraph, 25 February 1983; Sanjoy Hazarika, ‘Bengali immigrants fol¬ lowed the railroad’, International Herald Tribune, 25 February 1983; Kuldip Nayar, ‘Desolation on the road to death’, the Times, 11 April 1983; ‘Resentment against Delhi grows’, ibid., 12 April 1983. 63. 10,000 men are said to have participated in the violence. In Nowgong district alone, fifty Muslim villages were razed. 3,000 peopled were killed in the first three days, after which an average of thirty murders a day were reported for some time. 300,000 people, mostly Bengali Muslims, lost all their possessions. 64. Romesh Thapar, ‘Capital View’, Economic and Political Weekly, Bombay, 14 March 1980, p. 581. 65. Ganashyam Pardesi, ‘Assam: Internal colony in a national exploitative system’, Economic and Political Weekly, 7 June 1980, p. 1001. 66. Mani Deb, ‘Assam’s patience with Delhi grows increasingly thin’. Financial Times, 3 February 1988.

Chapter 3 SIKH SEPARATISM IN EAST PUNJAB

‘There can be no question of a second partition, absolutely not. Let me guarantee you that in very very strong words. We will not allow that under any circumstances and whatever is necessary, however tough we have to be, however aggressive we have to be, we will have to prevent that. ’

Rajiv Gandhi1

GANDHI’S pronouncement reflected concern at the continuing crisis in the Indian state of Punjab. The fear of a repeat of 1947 exercised elite minds as nothing else did. The dangers of Balkanisation remained, and it was feared that if the separatists were allowed to succeed in Punjab, nothing could hold the Union together. Given the incomplete nature of the evolution towards a national identity that transcended regional, tribal, ethno-cultural, communal and sectarian loyalties, success of one such movement could trigger a series of debilitating shifts away from the Hindi heartland of the Gangetic plains. Among the centrifugal tendencies the Indian state has given rise to, the Punjab crisis has been the most protracted, violent and fraught. Lying close to the Indian capital and on the sensitive frontier with Pakistan, Punjab also provides the only viable land route linking Jammu and Kashmir with the rest of India. Threats of a collapse of central authority conjure up nightmare visions for India’s rulers. Sikh agitation over linguistic, religious, economic and political demands, Nehru’s obstreperous behaviour and Indira Gandhi’s extremist machinations against Akali moderation; loss of control followed by military assault against renegades holding Sikhdom’s holiest shrine; mutiny by Sikh soldiers and assassination of the Prime Minister by two of her bodyguards; government inaction during anti-Sikh rioting and the degeneration of Punjab into a Lebanon of the east — these were all part of a chain of events reflecting and reinforcing the many fears and insecurities that characterise the Punjab crisis.

70

THE FEARFUL STATE

An historical overview PUNJAB, the land of the ‘five waters’, a term describing the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej rivers, has been the gateway into the Gangetic plains for invading waves that either sought to capture the imperial seat at Delhi, or to carry away whatever could be carried. Its rich soil had given rise to urbanisation in the 3rd millennium BC when Dravidian city-states dotted the Indus Valley. Around 1700bc, Aryan invaders swept the region, and by breaching flood barriers protecting the cities, destroyed most of the Indus Valley civilisation.2 The dark-skinned Dravidians, reduced to ‘Dasas’ (slaves), were de¬ prived of any influence by the watertight compartmentalisation of the caste system erected by the Aryans. Aryan waves flowed on across Punjab and settled on the Gangetic plains to the east. Behind them came Scythian warriors. The Aryans stayed east of Punjab while Scythian yeomen occupied the fertile ‘doabs’ between rivers, although there was a degree of assimilation between the two, unusual in the Vedic scheme of things. Punjab's Jat peasantry was descended from these settlers, the stratum on which Sikh ethnogenesis was to occur. From about the 7th century. South Asia was subjected to a series of invasions by Arab, Afghan, Turkish, Persian and Central Asian armies. Punjab became the route used by waves of marauders because of its location between the seat of Indian power and wealth on the one hand, and mountain passes to the west on the other. Jat Sikh nationalism evolved against a backdrop of endless turbulence. By the early 16th century, northern India was under firm Muslim control and the dichotomy between the Muslim minority and Hindu majority provided another strand to this development.

The age of the Gurus and rise of a martial faith THE rise of Islam as the dominant if minority faith in northern India arose out of the oppressive orthodoxy of the Brahmin-ruled, cult-ridden and caste-bound Vedic belief system that forced many Hindus to search for alternatives. The wide range of schools and orders going by the name of Hinduism threw up reformist movements that challenged the ritualistic observance of orthodox practices. A few reformers rejected the rigidities of Hinduism and Islam, but eclectically combined elements of both. Implicit in the rejection of current orthodoxies was a challenge to those

SIKH SEPARATISM

71

institutions that drew support from and, at the same time, offered protec¬ tion to believers, sought to be an exception. The man who gave birth to Sikhism, the faith of the Sikh (disciples), was Nanak Chand,3 who served at the chancery of the local Muslim governor. At the age of 30, Nanak underwent a profoundly mystical experience from which he emerged with the cryptic message ‘There is no Hindu there is no Muslim’. He established a school of mysticism seeking the ‘heart of religion’ as opposed to the rigorous, ritualistic forms of popular religious practices.4 Nanak was influenced by Muslim Sufis and the Hindu Bhakti movement, both offering a mystical way for man's search for meaning and purpose in a transient, uncertain and frequently unhappy life. He spent several years as an itinerant seeker, astounding the devout and challenging deeply held beliefs.5 In Mecca, for instance, he outraged pilgrims by going to sleep with his feet toward the Ka’aba (the city's most sacred building). Woken up roughly, he said: ‘Take my feet then, and point them in a direction where God is not.’ When Nanak returned from his wanderings, a band of disciples grew around him. The tradition of the Guru-philoso¬ pher, teacher and guide was adopted; the followers were called the ‘Sikh’ (students) and a new faith had been bom. The Sikhs largely came from Punjabi or Jat Hindu stock and that is still the case. Sikhs were taught to follow a practical way of life and accept the station of the responsible householder who fed himself, his dependents and the needy through his own efforts. Their chief act of devotion was to be private prayers and the singing and chanting of hymns composed by the Gum. Nanak and his successors were poets with a command of several languages. The hymns they composed had the principal theme: ‘adore the divine name, practise your livelihood and share its fruits’. The 974 hymns Nanak composed were later incorporated into the Adi Granth, the original book. The most frequently chanted hymn, ‘Japji’ (the morning prayer), underscored the core values of the faith.6 Hindus feared that this revolutionary creed was challenging the Aryan social order of functional specialisation and hereditary privilege, sealed with the Karma-Dharma duality. For the minority Muslim 61ite, Sikhism represented a way of synthesising the two major faiths of the empire, and an instrument of leverage against the majority community — a viewpoint that introduced a political element into the reaction to the new faith. However, by the end of his life, Nanak had won a measure of reverence that transcended communal barriers. Simple village folk talked of him as: ‘Baba Nanak Shah Fakir Hindu ka Guru, Musalman ka Pir’, 7 (Nanak is

72

MAP 2: The Sikhs, MRG Report No. 65

THE FEARFUL STATE

Courtesy of the Minority Rights Group

SIKH SEPARATISM

73

the King of holy men; Guru of Hindus, he is equally, a Pir of Muslims). Nanak appointed Lehna, a disciple, to succeed him as the Guru. He renamed Lehna ‘Angad’ (of my own body) for he had the ‘same light and the same ways’; the Guru merely changed his body. Angad was the only Sikh Guru from outside Nanak’s family. Angad discerned the dangers of passing Nanak’s teachings by word of mouth among scattered Sikh communities. Adopting a local script used by accountants and money¬ lenders, he fashioned a written language, Gurmukhi, the Guru's word. Nanak’s hymns were transcribed and authentic versions sent down to Sikh villages. Compilations by later Gurus became the Adi Granth, the Sikh scriptures. Hindu and Muslim holy books were written in Sanskrit and Arabic, which few could read or write. These communities were obliged to maintain professional classes to interpret dogma for the laity. But Sikh scriptures were written in a language used by all Punjabis, obviating the need for a clergy. The Sikhs could exercise a degree of internal egalitari¬ anism impossible for the Hindus and Muslims to attain. Angad nominated Nanak’s grandson Amar Das to succeed him, thereby restoring the dynastic succession. Emperor Akbar’s efforts to win friends led to a warm relationship between the two that, by consolidating the Sikhs as a distinct community, built the foundations of its future growth. Amar Das led the Sikhs for twenty-two years, providing stability and helping to build institutions and traditions that would bind the community. He expanded Nanak’s ‘Temple of Bread’, establishing a communal kitchen or langar, where all Sikhs ate together. Even Akbar had to squat on the floor and share the simple langar fare when he visited. Amar Das built several gurdwaras, which doubled as community centres and resthouses. Sikh settlements were thus encouraged to develop a strong, exclusivist bond. Amar Das nominated his son-in-law Ram Das to succeed him. Ram Das and his wife Bibi Bhani were second-generation Sikhs for whom the Sikh faith was the only spiritual experience they knew. Amar Das recognised the need to give permanence to the Sikh community and its faith. With the passing of a Guru, the focus of Sikh devotion shifted to the abode of his successor. Ram Das believed that Sikhs needed a permanent locus of temporal and spiritual endeavour. He was encouraged by Akbar, who presented a large plot of real estate to Bibi Bhani on which Ram Das built a city and invited Punjab's merchants to make this centre a commercial and spiritual success. The settlement was called Guru Ka Chawk or Ram Das Pura, which was to become Amritsar (the pool of nectar), Sikhdom's holiest shrine, taking its name from the ornamental pool that adjoined the

THE FEARFUL STATE

74 50

100

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CHINA

JAMMU AND KASHMIR

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PAKISTAN

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HIMACHAL PRADESH

•

Lahore °

Bhakra ° Jullundur Anandpur

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PUNJAB Patiala o l

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Population of principal cities (1971) in thousands Amritsar Chandigarh Jullundur Ludhiana Patiala

Hindus 293 162 127 263 87

MAP 3: 77ie SrfcAy, MRG Report No. 65.

Sikhs 158 51 65 130 62

(35%) (22%) (34%) (33%) (42%)

Courtesy of the Minority Rights Group

SIKH

SEPARATISM

75

centre. It took six succeeding Gurus and a powerful Sikh monarch to build it into the cradle of Sikh faith and the centre of its temporal power. With a permanent centre, the evolution of the Sikhs as a community with a distinct identity and loyalties grew apace. Ram Das was succeeded by his son Arjun. The fifth Guru initiated the tradition of Sikh militancy: ‘We are neither Hindus nor Muslims’, he declared. In 1589, he began construction of the Hari Mandir, the Lord's abode, at the centre of Amritsar. The design of the Mandir was a blend of Hindu and Muslim architectural styles. Arjun constructed steps that led down into the temple, rather than up, to remind pilgrims of the humility needed to commune with the Creator. The Mandir became the central focus of Sikh devotion that it remains to this day. Unlike Hindu temples, it had doors open to all sides, a symbol of Sikhdom’s rejection of caste barriers. Arjun also added his own hymns to the writings of his predeces¬ sors and those of other mystics and published the Adi Granth, which was installed in the Mandir in 1604. However, Emperor Jahangir was intolerant of deviations, and the influence of the Sikhs concerned him greatly. After the crushing of an abortive palace coup, courtiers suggested Arjun may have supported the renegade prince. Arjun was fined but refused to pay. The Mogul governor of Lahore was ordered to arrest Aijun, who was tortured to death on 30 May 1606, becoming Sikhdom’s first martyr. Jahangir’s explanation of his action was couched in religious terms but the political motivation bom out of a fear of threats to a strategic frontier area is clear.8 Arjun’s death ignited the militant spirit that had been bequeathed to the community by its Scythian ancestry, replacing Nanak’s legacy of pacifist idealism. Arjun was succeeeded by his eleven-year-old son Hargobind. The sixth Guru was to lead the Sikhs for thirty-eight tumultuous years. He was the first of the warrior Gurus. ‘The sword-belt will be my rosary’, he said. He carried two swords, one symbolising the spiritual power of his position, the other temporal. He built the Akal Takht (eternal throne), seat and symbol of Sikhdom’s temporal power, facing the Hari Mandir. Together, the two shrines gave Amritsar a central role in Sikh affairs. Hargobind wrote no hymns, but he raised an army. He ruled like a monarch from a throne in the Akal Takht, sending and receiving envoys. He even called himself ‘Sacha Padshah’, the true emperor, a title meant for the ruler of Delhi. Jahangir responded by imprisoning the Guru. Mourners thronged the walls of the Gwalior fort every day to bewail this grave slight. After a year, Jahangir released the 16-year-old Guru, who embarked on a rebuilding of

76

THE FEARFUL STATE

his army. His 300-man cavalry with 800 steeds was backed by sixty musketeers but he was not troubled again by Jahangir. However, when Shahjahan ascended the throne in 1627, the Sikhs were soon at war. Hargobind set up headquarters in the wooded Kiratpur hills and became a guerrilla warrior. Most of his children died in combat so Hargobind nominated his 14-year-old grandson Har Rai to succeed him. The seventh Guru lacked military talents; under him the Sikhs had to withdraw into Himalayan fastnesses to escape the Moguls. Aurangzeb took Har Rai’s elder son Ram Rai to Delhi as a hostage and the Guru decided that his fouryear-old son, Hari Krishen, should succeed him instead. The ascent to power of an infant did not help the Sikhs’ cause. When Hari Krishen was five, Aurangzeb summoned him to Delhi where the Guru spent the last three years of his life as a prisoner. Before succumbing to smallpox, he advised that his successor was to be found in Bakala, where his great uncle Tegh Bahadur, son of the sixth Guru, lived. Tegh Bahadur accepted reluctantly. A poet of piety and simplicity, he was hardly the best man to lead the Sikhs in such troubled times.9 The Sikhs were divided. Some wanted to avoid trouble even if that demanded toeing the imperial line; others, looked for another Hargobind to lead them in battle. Exiled by militants to Patna, Tegh Bahadur was brought back to Punjab when Aurangzeb’s persecution of the Sikhs became intolerable. The Guru undertook extensive tours and tried to persuade the Sikhs and Hindus to remain faithful to their creed despite provocation. Aurangzeb, the fifth Mogul emperor, had destroyed many gurdwaras, and when the Sikhs rebuilt these he was outraged. Tegh Bahadur was seized at Agra and brought to Delhi. Refusing conversion to Islam, he was sentenced to death and beheaded on 11 November 1675. Tegh Bahadur’s nine-year old son, Gobind Rai, became the tenth Guru. He learnt Sanskrit, Persian and the art of war. Mogul behaviour engen¬ dered a militant defensiveness that persists to this day. Guru Gobind declared: ‘When all other means have failed, it is righteous to draw the sword. Light your understanding as a lamp and sweep away the filth of timidity.’ He set out ‘to teach the sparrow how to hunt the hawk and one man to have the courage to fight a legion’.10On the first day of Baisakh, the Indian new year’s day of 1699, Gobind organised a baptismal ceremony in which converts from all Hindu castes were united in a single Khalsa Panth — the community of the pure. He gave the men the Rajput title of Singh (lion), and the women, Kaur (princess). Twenty thousand Sikhs were baptised on that day, an event still commemorated with reverence and joy.

SIKH

SEPARATISM

77

Gobind thus welded the Sikhs into a single, casteless community bound by its own rituals. He also imposed the five Kakkars on the Khalsa11 The Kakkars gave the Khalsa a distinct appearance setting Sikhs apart from non-Sikhs. They could neither escape danger by avoiding recognition nor deny their faith to prevent persecution; the Sikh could only stand and fight. Distinct appearance also generated a sense of identity and aroused a spirit of martial asceticism. Guru Gobind thus raised an army of soldier-saints who, unable to escape danger by denying their faith, could only resist with courage bom of desperation. The vast majority of Sikhs are baptised ‘Amritdharis’, who follow the injunctions. Gobind also revised the Adi Granth, incorporating his father’s hymns. The expanded book became the Granth Sahib (revered book), the Sikh scriptures. These events took place during rare lulls in combat with the Moguls. Gobind escaped the Mogul armies, but all his sons were killed and his mother died of grief. Aurangzeb’s successor, Bahadur Shah, was sym¬ pathetic to victims of his father’s wrath, but he was not in full control of all the satraps. Campaigning in the Deccan, the south Indian plain, Bahadur Shah asked the Guru to join him; Gobind reached the court but was assassinated by a Muslim retainer under mysterious circumstances. Gobind had declared that Guru Granth Sahib would succeed him as the Sikhs’ spiritual leader; as for the temporal realm, the mantle would fall on Lachman Das, a Hindu hermit Gobind had converted in the Deccan. Gobind left an embattled community in northern India, but his legacy, the combative Khalsa Panth of turbaned warriors, left a nation whose ability to defend itself was a function of its collective combativeness. Khalsa pugnacity was a product of its socio-political evolution. It reflected Gobind’s own view of life and death summed up in one of the many triplets he wrote during lulls in battle. ‘With clasped hands this boon I crave When the time comes to end my life Let me fall in mighty strife’ 12

The age of heroes LACHMAN, baptised Banda Singh Bahadur, arrived in Punjab shortly after the Guru’s assassination, and called all Sikhs to arms. Vengeful Khalsa warriors gathered under Banda’s banner and in mid-1710 razed Sirhind. The satrap who had executed Gobind’s minor sons was killed along with the entire population of Sirhind city. The Moguls were commit-

78

THE FEARFUL STATE

ted elsewhere, and in two years the Sikhs captured much of south-eastern Punjab. Banda’s government struck coins in the name of the Gurus and proclaimed a republic. His success spread terror among India’s Muslim barons. Emperor Bahadur Shah was constrained to return to Delhi. His armies now enveloped Sikh forces in a pincer movement, forcing Banda to retreat into the Himalayan foothills. When the Moguls lifted the siege, Banda returned to the Punjab. He abandoned his ascetic ways and began a life of regal splendour, taking a couple of wives. Many Sikhs feared that he was about to proclaim himself a Guru, and withdrew their support, isolating Banda within the Khalsa Panth. The new Mogul, Farrukhsiyar, was determined to eliminate the Sikh threat. He ordered the governors of Lahore and Jammu to launch a final campaign and Banda’s army was starved into submission. The Sikh leader, his family and several hundred loyal soldiers were marched to Delhi in chains where they were executed. Banda was beheaded on 9 June 1716, after being forced to kill his infant son. He neither flinched nor pleaded for mercy. The leaderless Khalsa were unable to resist the reign of terror launched by Punjab’s Muslim governors, who sought to eradicate Sikh militancy for ever. By 1737, the Sikhs had reorganised themselves under the pragmatic Nawab Kapur Singh. He banded together chieftains with political acumen and military skill, among them Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, Ala Singh, Charat Singh Sukerchakia and Jassa Singh Ramghariya. As the Mogul empire de¬ clined, the star of these men rose.13 Sikh chieftains held councils of war whenever co-ordinated deployment of the Dal Khalsa — the Khalsa army, was necessary. Decisions on religious issues were sanctified by taking them in the presence of the Guru Granth Sahib and proclaiming them as Gurumatta (wishes of the Guru), which are binding on all Sikhs. The chiefs utilised the religious instrument to secure compliance. This communal and combined leadership fashioned a loose, Khalsa confederacy. It faced its first test in 1746 when the governor of Lahore rode to Amritsar, defiled the shrines and massacred Sikh defenders in the first ‘Gullughara’, the lesser holocaust. In 1747, the Afghan prince Ahmed Shah Abdali began a series of raids that was to devastate northern India ten times in two decades. Abdali’s attacks were a death blow for the Moguls in the west, while British expansionism in the east squeezed the empire in a massive pincer movement. The Muslim governors of Punjab were reduced to impotence, while Hindu Jath and Maratha forces were deci¬ mated by Afghan marauders. Sikhs tried to stay out of harm’s way,

SIKH

SEPARATISM

79

perfecting hit-and-run guerrilla tactics, harassing homebound Afghan baggage trains, plundering the loot, and freeing Hindu captives. Three times the Sikh army briefly occupied Lahore. Abdali’s men repeatedly desecrated Amritsar, blowing up the Hari Mandir and the Akal Takht, and filling the holy pool with animal carcasses; each time the Sikhs cleaned and rebuilt the shrine. On 5 February 1762, the Afghans surprised Dal Khalsa at Malerkotla and massacred 20,000 Sikhs in the Vadda Ghallughara, or great holocaust. The survivors retreated to reorganise and, shortly afterwards, defeated the Afghans near Amritsar, recapturing southern Punjab. During Abdali’s last raid in 1768, the Sikhs pursued retreating Afghans to Peshawar, occupying northern Punjab, and putting the whole of Punjab under Sikh control. Continuous guerrilla warfare had created twelve ‘misl’ or militias of varying strength within Dal Khalsa. The largest comprised 20,000 horse¬ men and the smallest, a few hundred.14 Twice a year, at Baisakhi in the spring and Dewali in the fall, these brotherhoods-in-arms congregated at Amritsar to review past campaigns and plan future ones. The Misl confed¬ eracy identified with Punjabi Muslims, who came from the same Scythian stock, spoke the same language but were all too ready to side with invading Muslims. Repeated encounters with invading armies transformed the Sikhs. Gobind’s dictum ‘robbing the robber is no sin’ provided a moral justification for Khalsa raids on Afghan baggage trains. As the entire Sikh community was transformed into a combative nation, the ground for future political development was laid.15 Afghan retreat had two consequences. At local level, many Muslims were dispossessed while Sikhs took over title to land. Khalsa fiefdoms blossomed in the princely states of Kapurthala, Patiala, Nabha, Jind, Faridko and Kalsia. At the political level, Mogul decline, decimation of Maratha and Jat Hindu challengers and the rise of the British, led to a power vacuum in northern India which the Misl confederacy was best placed to fill. But, bereft of rivals to engage in combat, Sikh militias began vying for supremacy and competition built up as Khalsa princes sought to expand their own feudatories. Charat Singh’s son, Maha Singh, married his young son Ranjit to the granddaughter of the Kanheya chief Jai Singh. Ranjit was ten when his father died. His mother-in-law, Sada Kaur, assumed the regency of the combined principality until Ranjit was turned seventeen. The Sikh confederacy was surrounded by potential hostiles; Dogras in the north, Gurkhas in the north-east, the British to the east, Marathas to the south-east and the Afghans licking their wounds to the

80

THE FEARFUL STATE

west. Ranjit realised early on that strength lay in Khalsa unity. He was determined to bring the Panth under one temporal authority — his own — to realise the dream of Raj karega Khalsa (the Khalsa shall rule). Ranjit captured Lahore and Amritsar in 1799, then evicted Pathan settlers from Kasur. In two years, Ranjit had occupied the Indus-Sutlej doab. In the north, the Dogras and the Gurkhas were consolidating their hold while Rajputs advanced from the south-west. Unable to take on all these forces at one time, Ranjit resorted to Kautilyan deceit. When Rajputs and Gurkhas, advancing in opposite directions, clashed, both asked Ranjit for assistance. Siding with the Rajputs, Ranjit took their land under his protection. The Gurkhas sought British help in their proposed invasion of Ranjit’s kingdom, but the British were having difficulties with the Gurkhas to the north-east and asked Ranjit to join an expedition against the highlanders. Ranjit stayed on the sidelines while encouraging a clash between the two, which resulted in defeat for the Gurkhas. Ranjit thus secured Punjab’s northern borders without shedding Sikh blood. His domain, the first and only Khalsa kingdom, stretched from Kashmir to the Khyber, down to the frontiers of Sind. In 1784, Warren Hastings, governor-general of Bengal, described the power of the Sikhs as ‘extending from Attock to the walls of Delhi’. Hastings was concerned about a possible Maratha-Sikh alliance. The Maratha houses of Scindia and Holkar briefly contacted Ranjit and the challenge posed by Ranjit’s French-led army to the British colony appeared to multiply. East India Company forces liquidated the Scindia army, forcing Ranjit to expel the Holkar army from southern Punjab, leaving the British as the only real threat to Sikh rule. Hastings wrote to London of the need to take ‘reasonable means of opposition ... not to permit the people (of Punjab) to grow into maturity without interruption’.16 He planned to divide Punjab along the Sutlej river into Majha (north-western) and Malwa (south-eastern) segments, leaving the former under Ranjit’s sway, with Malwa providing a buffer under Company paramountcy. Notified by an EIC official, Charles Metcalfe, that British hegemony extended to the Sutlej, Ranjit rode south to be received by the barons of Patiala, Ambala, Faridkot and Thanesar. He also resolved disputes with Nabha and Jind. Metcalfe responded by sending troops to Patiala and Ludhiana to ‘protect’ these chieftaincies. Although Ranjit reinforced his garrisons at Gobindgarh and Phillaur he recognised the superiority of the forces that were arrayed against him, and the prag¬ matic king elected to sign a treaty of friendship with the British at Amritsar

SIKH

SEPARATISM

81

on 25 April 1809. Ranjit thus removed all pretence for a British occupation of trans-Sutlej Punjab and the treaty also lent a degree of legitimacy to his kingdom. Sikh states south of the Sutlej continued a separate existence in relative freedom under British paramountcy. Ranjit now embarked on a process of modernisation. Although he ruled in the name of the Khalsa, he was no zealot and his administration was secular. It not only raised revenue but also invested much of it for the public good. Ranjit built a modem army, employing many French, Italian, German, Irish and Greek officers to drill his troops. He filled the ranks with Gurkha, Punjabi Muslim, Pathan, Bihari and Oriya as well as Sikh troops; built foundries in Lahore for fabrication of guns and balls, and trained Muslim gunners for his famed artillery. He even managed to wean horseloving Sikhs from their Misls, transforming them into adept infantrymen. This army was commanded by Sikh generals — Diwan Chand, Mokham Chand, Fateh Singh Ahluwalia, Han Singh Nalwa, and Akali Phoola Singh, who, with two others, made up the king’s Council of State; Fakir Azizuddin, a Muslim, was chief adviser on matters of diplomacy, while Raja Dinanath, a Hindu, supervised the revenue and administrative affairs. This heterogenous power structure reflected the monarch’s own relaxed view of religion. Ranjit made large endowments to gurdwaras, lavishing gifts on the shrine at Amritsar. He built the upper floors of the Akal Takht and spent 50,000 rupees on the Hari Mandir, turning it into the Golden Temple of today. He also encouraged traders to settle in the holy city to ensure its general prosperity. Ranjit ruled from Lahore and strictly enforced separa¬ tion of church and state. He was partial to Scotch whisky and fine horses; had twenty-two wives, and was the only Indian ruler to have raised a regiment of Amazonian beauties whose drilling in the palace courtyard gave him much pleasure.17 Ranjit expanded his realm with a combination of military skills and diplomacy. In 1818, he took Multan and the year after Kashmir and its Dogras passed from Afghan control to his hands. In 1823, Pathan rebellion against Sikh supremacy in the frontiers was crushed by Ranjit’s army, extending his rule to the Khyber. Fearing Ranjit’s move southward, the British took Sind under their protection, encircling Ranjit. Since the 1828 Russo-Iranian Treaty of Turkomanchai, the EIC had sought to protect the colony’s north-western ramparts by stabilising the volatile Afghan region. The Company hoped to take control of the poorly organised assortment of tribal feudatories to meld it into a buffer between India and Tsardom.18 In July 1838, the EIC

82

THE FEARFUL STATE

persuaded Ranjit to back Shuja’s claim on the Afghan throne, and to sign an agreement delineating the frontiers of his kingdom. But Ranjit would not let the Company march its forces across his domain. The victor of Lahore died the following year, but his legacy was strong enough to force the British to take a detour across Sind and Baluchistan on their way to Kabul in the First Afghan war. By then Ranjit was a folk hero, a god among men. He had raised the most modem native instrument of state in 19th-century India. His realm was the largest segment that remained beyond colonial control. But the edifice he had built was structured around chosen confidants, with his own presence the focus of popular attention. This edifice could not outlast the central character. The generals lost control of Ranjit’s army, which degen¬ erated into factions loyal to cabals of courtiers. These selected Panchas (councils) to represent them at court and nominated rival candidates for the throne in Lahore.

Sikh Wars and the privileged Khalsa IN THE three years following Ranjit’s death, three rulers, Kharak Singh, his son Naunehal Singh and his successor, Sher Singh, were murdered in rapid succession. In 1842, Ranjit’s youngest son, six-year-old Dalip Singh ascended the throne with his mother Rani Jindan acting as regent. He was the last Sikh monarch. Their plans to seize Lahore having been foiled by the Afghan debacle, the British now built up EIC forces in southern Punjab from 2,500 men to 32,000 troops with 68 guns. In mid-1845, they brought 70 ferries from Bombay to use for assault training, preparatory to crossing the Sutlej. In December of that year. Governor General Hardinge came to Ambala to plan the forthcoming campaign with its commander-in-chief, Sir Hugh Gough. The Sikh court was anxious to avoid war and assured the British of their full co-operation. But the Regent, the cabinet and Sikh generals were unaware that they no longer commanded the Khalsa army. Commanders chosen by the troops felt that they could drive the British out. Their plan was to engage EIC forces in British-controlled territory. On 11 December, Sikh units crossed the Sutlej and deployed near Ferozepur, giving the British the pretext that they needed. The official explanation was that the Sikhs were plundering the area north-west of Delhi.19 The first engagement at Mudki went well for the Sikh army, which gave the British its severest mauling in India, but then waited in vain for reinforcements from Lahore. The British recovered and soundly defeated the Khalsa at

SIKH SEPARATISM

83

Ferozeshahr, Aliwal and Sobraon. A treaty was signed in Lahore in March 1846 ceding almost half of Ranjit’s empire to the Company. Kashmir had to be given up to the Dogra chief Gulab Singh, formerly Ranjit’s prot£g6, but now an ally of the EIC. Dalip Singh was taken under EIC protection. A British Resident ruled Lahore where EIC troops were stationed. The Company seized the Koh-i-noor diamond from Dalip Singh to present it to Queen Victoria at her coronation. Sir Henry (later Viscount) Hardinge and the Earl of Dalhousie, who succeeded him as governor general in 1848, removed the Sikh kingdom’s residual independence, subverting the treaty they were committed to upholding.20 British texts state that the Company defeated the various Sikh principalities and established a network of British officers to supervise the court in Lahore. The Sikhs rose in rebellion but were defeated in a series of battles after which Punjab was annexed. However, Indian scholars record that Dalhousie had been waiting for an opportunity to annex Punjab. The provocation was provided by the Hindu governor of Multan, not by Sikhs. Mulraj rebelled against his EIC overlords who, in a classic instance of divide and rule, urged Punjab’s Muslim peasantry to avenge the suffering inflicted on them under Sikh rule. As communal rioting rocked Punjab, a Sikh backlash prompted the Khalsa to take up arms. In February 1849, the Sikh army, once again bereft of professional leadership, took the field. The Second Sikh war began at Chillianwalla where the British were given a nasty shock. But, again, reinforcements promised by Lahore failed to arrive. With fresh manpower and materials, the Company’s forces defeated the Khalsa army at Gujarat. On 10 March 1849, the Sikhs sued for peace and, a fortnight later, Calcutta annexed Punjab to the Crown. British interest lay in transforming Punjab to such an extent that it developed a stake in the colonial order. Lord Dalhousie appointed John Lawrence as Chief Commissioner for Punjab. Together, Dalhousie and Lawrence transformed Punjab’s social landscape. All large estates north of the Sutlej were confiscated. In one stroke, Punjab’s landed aristocracy were eliminated as a social and political force and their land redistributed among Jat Sikh middle peasants. Since then, the principal beneficiaries of British land reforms have constituted the most powerful group within the Khalsa panth. The British enthusiastically promoted this group, and their own exercise in imperial social engineering: These men are the backbone of Punjab by character and physique as well as by locality. They are stalwart yeomen of great independence, industry and agricultural skill, and form perhaps the finest peasantry in India.

84

THE FEARFUL STATE

The British took up irrigation schemes in Punjab, refurbishing old canals, building new ones and setting up canal colonies for Jat Sikh middle peasants. The rise of Punjab’s small and middle peasants was a crucial component in the network of interests upholding the imperial order. Some of the policies of social change were deliberately induced by the British while others were generated within the Sikh community in response to the action of the rulers. The British gained from the creation of a large constituency supportive of the changes and of the imperial order.22 Sikhs also benefited from British recruiting policies. After the Second Sikh war, the Khalsa army had been disbanded. But having noted the community’s combat proficiency, the EIC absorbed many Sikh soldiers into its Bengal army. Soon, Sikhs made the largest contribution to British military manpower in relation to their population.23 The Mutiny briefly brought the British to the brink of a disaster in the summer of 1857 when 70,000 native troops of the Bengal army took up arms against their masters, another 30,000 deserted or were dismissed, while the remaining 30,000 soldiered on loyally.24 Among those who came to the rescue of the British were Khalsa warriors from Punjab. Defeat in the Sikh wars at the hands of Company troops from Bengal, Bihar, Rajputana and Rohillakhand had not endeared these latter to the Sikhs. Now, with the British on their side, Khalsa combatants took the field, eager to avenge their honour. The Sikhs had little love for Moguls and Marathas, especially since the success of the Mutiny would threaten the gains Sikhs had made under the British.25 British cultivation of Sikh loyalty had paid off. In the wake of the Mutiny, the Crown assumed responsibility for India and disbanded the Company. Efforts to analyse the causes behind the Mutiny and the measures necessary to prevent a recurrence, persuaded the British that the safest bet was a rigorous enforcement of the police of divide et impera.26 The vice-regal system was built on a network of executives belonging to a civil service designed to draw the loyalest and the brightest in the country to serve as intermediaries in the Crown’s efforts to redesign India. A more uniform judicial system was introduced throughout the empire’s eleven provinces while legislation remained in imperial hands. The military, which doubled as a constabulary until a civilian police force was raised, held the superstructure together. The civil service was beyond the reach of natives except in its lower, clerical tiers, as was the military, which was officered by the British. However, as providers of the ultimate sanction to the imperial order, the army had to be more representative and the Viceroy’s Commission was created to leaven

SIKH SEPARATISM

85

the chain of command so that an intermediate stratum provided opportu¬ nities to ambitious natives and acted as a link between Indian sepoys and their British officers. The Sikhs played a major role in the Tndianisation’ of the army. Post-Mutiny reforms either reduced or ended the enrolment of many Brahmins, Bengalis, Mahars, Gujars and Aheers because of their unrelia¬ bility. Sikhs were among the few ‘martial races’ invited to take up the slack. Between 1862 and 1914, Indianisation of the army was mainly ‘Punjabisation’ of the infantry regiments. NUMBER OF INFANTRY BATTALIONS BY REGION 1914

1885

1892

28

31

34

57

5

13

15

20

(Bengal, Bihar)

28

20

15

15

Bombay

30

26

26

18

Madras

40

32

25

11

Totals

131

122

115

121

REGION Punjab Nepal (Gurkhas)

1862

East of the Jumna

Table One 27

The British insisted that Sikh soldiers wear the five Kakkars and swear an oath of fealty to the Guru Granth Sahib. Even those who had merely adopted the outward ‘conventional characteristics’ of the Sikhs, were not permitted to drop them after recruitment. The British designed a special helmet for Sikhs to wear their unshorn hair into combat. Observance of Khalsa injunctions was made synonymous with army discipline. The imperial military took on the role of patron and protector of the Sikh faith. Khalsas reciprocated with devoted and valorous service. Their numbers rose from 35,000 at the beginning of 1915 to more than 100,000 by the end of the First World War. Deployed to every major front in Europe, Turkey and Africa, they made up a fifth of all Indian troops fighting for the British. Of the twenty-two Military Crosses earned by Indians, fourteen were won by Sikhs.28 The First World War was the high point in this symbiotic relationship. The graceless termination of that special relationship shaped the course of Sikh politics in years to come.

86

THE FEARFUL STATE

Khalsa reformation and Sikh nationalism SIKHS often feared the loss of their identity and possible reabsorption into revivalist Hinduism. Imperial patronage of Jat Sikh middle peasants engendered a new, educated Sikh 61ite that saw its distinct identity, the source of its privileges threatened by Hindu encroachment. Sikh political organisation grew as a function of this Elite’s efforts to secure the purity of the faith, guaranteeing the group’s cultural separateness. For a time, British and Sikh interests converged. In 1872, the British rewarded Sikh loyalty by enacting the Punjab Laws Act that put Punjab ahead in constitutional governance. The following year, landed Sikh gentry founded the Singh Sabha (assembly of lions), the first modem Khalsa organisation. Its aim was to rid the faith of Hindu practices and, by highlighting their martial heritage, strengthen the popular roots of Sikh orthodoxy. Sikh insecurity was heightened in 1875 when Dayananda Saraswati set up the Arya Samaj, a revivalist Hindu movement designed to return all converts to Hinduism. It claimed that no Hindu could renounce the faith of his birth.29 The Sabha refined and redefined the tenets of the Sikh faith, its theoretical and theological bases being articulated by a group of scholars, authors and propagandists that it sponsored.30 As nouveau riche Sikhs abandoned the spartan traditions of the Khalsa, the work of these men gained added significance. Only the Singh Sabha evolved from a religious to a political platform. Two other reformist movements remained religious in character. The Nirankaris were a subsect who renounced the idolatry creeping back into Sikh ritual. Conflict with mainstream Sikhdom became inevitable when Nirankaris claimed that the founder of their sect, Dayal Das (1783-1858) and his successors, were gurus, and the Hukumnama (book of edicts) was as holy as the Granth Sahib. After Partition in 1947, Nirankaris moved into East Punjab where clashes with the mainstream Khalsa Panth were a recurring feature. The other movement, the Namdharis, was established by Ram Singh (1815-1885) as an ascetic response to the ostentation of Sikhs. These vegetarians led an austere life chanting scriptural incantations and giving frenzied shreiks in a devotional trance.31 Their spartan code of conduct (Rahat Nama) instructed them to dress in white and wear the turban somewhat differently. Nirankaris were politicised after Partition. Namdharis, on the other hand, entered the revivalist fray immediately. In 1871, they killed Muslim butchers in Amritsar and Ludhiana. The Kooka rebellion grew into full-blown insurrection, forcing the British to respond.

SIKH SEPARATISM

87

The Namdharis were defeated at Malerkotla and the British deputy com¬ missioner of Jullundhar had fifty Kooka prisoners killed by cannon fire. Namdharis have since confined themselves to religious and social work.32 The British joined the Singh Sabha in its efforts to initiate a religious and cultural renaissance through mass education. Lord Lansdowne, then under-secretary in the India Office, gave Sikhs ‘the foremost place amongst the true and loyal subjects of Her Majesty the Queen Empress’. The government of Punjab raised funds and opened Sikh schools and colleges. In 1902, the Sabha established the chief Khalsa Dewan to co¬ ordinate the Sabha’s numerous branches. It became the first Sikh political organisation. Led by loyalists, the particularist Dewan opposed the anti¬ colonial all-indian nationalism that emerged at the end of the First World War. However, by then, the Sikhs had become fragmented and neither the Sabha nor the Dewan could claim the unalloyed loyalty of the community. The Sikh diaspora transformed large segments of the Panth. Agricultural prosperity and success within the empire led to a rapid rise in Sikh population, which the land was unable to absorb. Enterprising Sikhs spread across India and then throughout the British Empire. The hostility they encountered in other British colonies, especially Canada, led expatri¬ ate Sikhs to form the ‘Ghadr’ (mutiny) party in Washington in 1913. It was dedicated to driving the British out of India. That year the Komagata Maru incident33 further heightened nationalist tendencies. This change in Sikh attitude had become apparent in 1912 when the Nicholson Army Commis¬ sion recommended that Sikh recruitment be reduced, and the slack taken up by less ‘pugnacious classes’ such as Deccani Brahmins and Naga highlanders.34 Jat Sikh politicisation gave rise to a new reformist movement, the Akali (eternal) Dal. Its ranks were swollen by former soldiers. The non-violent civil disobedience campaign also drew in large numbers of Sikh activists, who were outraged over the Montagu-Chelmsford constitutional reforms that brought partially representative governance to India but sharpened communal differences by establishing constituencies on the basis of religion. Sikhs could never hope to regain their privileges in a system governed by numbers. The Akali Dal pointed out that Sikhs made up 25 per cent of Punjab’s population but paid 40 per cent of its land revenue. The bond that had held Sikhs and the British together since 1849 was destroyed in the walled square at Jallianwallahbagh in Amritsar on 14 April 1919. This was Baisakhi day when Sikhs gathered in the holy city to commemorate Guru Gobind’s initiation of the Khalsa Panth. Rallies had

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been prohibited by the British, who were concerned by the rapid spread of nationalism. Brigadier General R E H Dyer ordered his Gurkha troops to seal all the exits and open fire on the unarmed gathering, killing 379 children, women and men; more than 1,200 were wounded.35 Residents were ordered to crawl over a spot where a mob had lynched a British nurse. Government-nominated members of the Khalsa Dewan, and the Golden Temple’s high priests, received Dyer after the shooting, anointing him an honorary Khalsa.36 Dyer was later killed in London by a Sikh. The Akalis’ principal demand was overtly apolitical. They sought to oust unscrupulous Mahants from gurdwaras and take over administration of temples themselves. As Jathas (bands of Akali volunteers) clashed across Punjab with the Mahants’ strong-arm elements, British-nominated managers of the Golden Temple and other gurdwaras resigned. The Akalis formed the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (apex temple management committee, SGPC) that took over the control of these temples and their financial resources. Despite a few well-publicised massacres of agitators around besieged temples, the British conceded in 1925. The Sikh Gurdwara Act gave control of more than 200 temples to the SGPC. In the five-year campaign, almost 400 men had been killed, over 2,000 wounded and more than 30,000 had gone to jail. In all, 700 pro-Akali village officials had been sacked, and the government had realised more than 1.5 million rupees in forfeitures and fines. The campaign established Akalis as representatives of the Jat Sikh Khalsa Panth but, for the rulers, it cost them the trust and confidence of their most ‘true and loyal subjects’. Between the wars, Sikh nationalists were faced with the dilemma of choosing between Akali Dal’s Khalsa particularism and the all-Indian nationalism of the Congress. Sikh legislators such as Bhai Man Singh took up the British refrain that the empire was a collection of diverse races and classes whose differences were so acute that not even among the ‘martial races’ could officers from one group command soldiers from another.37 But others were drawn to Gandhian ideals and Sikh campaigners stiffened the Congress ranks. The rise of the Muslim League threatened to restore Muslim rule over northern India, and Hindus and Sikhs often co-operated in local councils and in communal rioting. The situation was complicated by the violence with which Sikh activists, ‘terrorists’ in British parlance, burst on the scene. The Sikhs contributed to the nationalist mythology a most potent symbol in Bhagat Singh, a left-wing activist who did not see himself as a Khalsa.38 Convicted of murdering a British policeman who had assaulted the (Hindu) nationalist leader Lala Lajpat Rai, Bhagat Singh

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was executed in 1931 and fired nationalist imagination as few others had. Bhagat Singh did not become popular because of his act of terrorism, but because he seemed to vindicate, for the moment, the honour of Lala Lajpat Rai, and through him, of the nation ... He became a symbol... and within a few months each town and village of the Punjab, and to a lesser extent in the rest of northern India, resounded with his name. Innumer¬ able songs grew up about him, and the popularity that the man achieved was something amazing.39 Nationalist fringe movements, such as the radical Kirti Lehr and Naujawan Bharat Sabha, also gained a considerable following before merging with other underground revolutionary groups. But, on the whole, these fringe movements failed to gain the loyalty of Sikh masses; that role was to be the Akali Dal’s. The Akalis developed links with the Congress, but in Punjab the movement was divided. One faction saw religious and communal issues as the sole concern of the Dal; the other viewed Khalsa activism as part of the Indian nationalist campaign against imperial occupation. The two factions continued to co-operate into the early 1940s, while the leadership of Baba Kharak Singh was dominant. As Kharak Singh’s authority declined, the Akalis split. The larger strand, religionists under Master Tara Singh and Kartar Singh, took control of the SGPC and the paramilitary Akali Dal. The secular minority under nationalists like Pratap Singh Kairon and Sardar Swaran Singh joined the Congress. Akali activ¬ ism, deprived of the leavening of a secular, all-Indian element, became a strident force for Sikh communal politics. Apart from the gurdwara managers, the SGPC also nominated administrators who ran Punjab’s Sikh schools and colleges. Akali control of the SGPC gave it financial security and prestige, as it alone appeared able to maintain the patron-client network holding together the Jat Sikh peasantry. Access to material assets and the shrill voicing of fears that the purity of the Khalsa was under threat, contributed to a perception within and without Punjab that Sikh politics were synonymous with Akali activism. The truth was more complex and therein lay the seeds of dissension. The Sikh view of India’s role in the Second World War and their own relationship to it was dichotomous. Large bodies of Khalsa troops served under the colours of the British all over the world. More out of prayerful pride in the valour of their men than of loyalty to the raj, their families had a stake in British victory. This contributed to Tara Singh’s disagreement with Nehru — Congress claimed that Britain had no right to drag India into its war without asking the people’s elected representatives. Most Congress

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THE FEARFUL STATE

leaders went to jail for opposing British-Indian war efforts. The Akalis exhorted Sikh youth to sign up and acquire the combat experience so important for a nation on the verge of attaining freedom. Political consciousness among Sikh soldiers was far higher than among others;40 in 1940, a Sikh squadron of the Central Indian Horse regiment bound for Europe via Bombay refused, under radical Kirti Lehr influence, to go abroad and fight Britain’s war. Sikhs also played a major role in the Indian National Army organised first by Germany and then Japan using Indian PoWs taken by the Axis in North Africa and South-east Asia. The latter force was initially set up by a Sikh, Captain (later General) Mohan Singh, and may have numbered 20,000, of which Sikhs contributed more than a third.41 Singh’s INA demolished communal and caste barriers nurtured by the British, and became a truly secular, nationalist, all-Indian force. But Singh’s adoption of the Congress political programme so discomfited Japan that Tokyo disbanded the INA and asked Captain (later General) Shahnawaz Khan to rebuild it from scratch. This was the army that Subhas Bose would command in 194142. By the end of the war, it was clear that Britain would be unable to hold onto its empire, and a free India became a distinct possibility. Given Punjab’s small Muslim majority, it was likely the province would either go to Pakistan, or be partitioned itself. Neither option appealed to the Sikhs, evenly and thinly spread as they were all over Punjab. Whatever happened, a partition would impose severe disruption on the community. The irrec¬ oncilable League-Congress clash over their visions of freedom left the Sikhs on a limb. Sociologically, they were akin to India’s Hindu majority; politically they felt drawn to the principles enshrined in the Congress charter; historically, they shared bitter memories of Muslim rule. But their fear of Hindu domination, and of reabsorption, precluded wholehearted support for Congress. Their aversion to the League’s demands generated an animosity to the idea of Pakistan that was eloquently, if brutally, expressed in the fury of the communal rioting that rent Punjab in 194647. On 22 March 1946, the Akalis demanded a separate Sikh homeland, a Sikhistan or Khalistan. But the Khalsas themselves were divided on the issue and neither Congress nor the League took any notice. Two days later, the Mission led by Sir Stafford Cripps, the British Labour statesman, sat with the main parties to discuss India’s future. Feeling rebuffed, the Akalis briefly flirted with the League, proposing that they would vote to join Pakistan if they were subsequently allowed to secede. Jinnah turned down Baldev Singh’s offer,42 but the Congress Party could not forgive this ‘act

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of treachery’. The Cabinet Mission Plan, announced in mid-May 1946, ignored Akali pleas for self-determination. For the elections that year, Akalis struck a deal with Congress over four of Punjab’s thirty-three Sikh constituencies. But the League fared best in the polls, undermining Akali claims that they alone represented the Khalsa Panth, and adding to Sikh insecurity.43 These results underscored the contradictions that lie at the root of the current conflict. Akalis saw themselves as the sole custodians of the purity of the Khalsa faith. A messianic belief in the right to shape the religious and secular life of the community was not supported by the political system. When independent India abandoned communal constituencies for territorial, universal adult franchise, the Akalis lost the limited protection they had enjoyed. Secular India could not reject the founding principles of Pakistan and then accept the validity of similar claims by Sikhs within its own frontiers. Moreover, not all Sikhs supported the Akalis. Many saw in the latter a vested interest of the Jat middle peasantry. This was the case with the Mazhabi Sikhs, descendants of low-caste Hindu converts. Despite the castelessness of Sikh society, Khalsas have looked down on Mazhabis and this large minority continues to vote for the Congress Party. In addition, not all Khalsas vote Akali, and Communists remain a force. It was against this backdrop of conflicting interests that Partition unfolded.

Independent India and the demand for a ‘Punjabi Suba’ PARTITION proved particularly traumatic for Punjab. The fate of the Muslim-majority Gurdaspur and Ferozepur districts was not finalised until 9 August 1947, a week before independence. The former went to India to ease overland communication between Jammu and Kashmir and the dominion of India; the latter was also allocated to India because Sikh leaders, consulted at the last moment, refused to abandon the compact Sikh townships in the Sadar and Zira tehsils. In the bloodletting that followed Partition, Muslims killed Sikhs and Hindus in West Punjab, while Sikhs and Hindus slaughtered Muslims in the East. The 4.29 million Hindus and Sikhs who migrated to East Punjab abandoned 6.7 million acres of prime agricultural land; for the 4.35 million Muslims going west, the figure was 4.7 million acres in India.44 Estimates of those killed in Punjab range from 200,000 to 500,000.45 India got thirteen of Punjab’s twenty-nine districts and 38 per cent of its land area. The Sikhs not only lost the best of their land, they also left behind 150

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THE FEARFUL STATE

shrines. On Baisakhi day, 13 April 1947, Tara Singh and 280 Akalis had sworn ‘death to Pakistan’. Since that desire could not be realised, Akali anger focused on the authority of the Indian state whose creation appeared to have struck the Khalsa Panth a mortal. It left a bitterness that died hard. Delhi’s unwillingness to concede to Sikhism the status of a distinct faith suggested that the Sikh Panth needed to be defended. The SGPC now enjoined full observance of all Khalsa rituals, while secular India dropped injunctions that Sikh troops should maintain the Kakkar of orthodoxy and withdrew privileges granted to Mazhabi Sikhs. Akalis interpreted this as encouragement to Sikhs to abandon their faith.46 They asked ‘the Hindus got Hindustan, the Muslims got Pakistan; what did the Sikhs get?’47 Demographic distribution ensured that Akalis would not be able to choose their own representatives in elections, except from a few constitu¬ encies where they were concentrated. This ‘inadequacy’ of democracy created a sense of deprivation which came to be equated with repression. In 1948, the cis-Sutlej feudatories were recast into the Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU), in which Sikhs had a majority of 49.3:48.8 over Hindus.48 In such a competitive environment, the predominance of Hindi over Gurmukhi as the official language intensified linguistic and communal tensions. Independent India’s first census in 1951 coincided with the formation of the Hindu revivalist Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which led many Punjabi Hindus to put Hindi rather than Punjabi as their mother tongue. The Akalis complained that the Panth was in danger and demanded the establishment of a Punjabi Suba for India’s Punjabi-speaking peoples. Rioting broke out; and for the first time since Sikh mobs descended on Hindu pilgrims at Hard war in 1796, Hindus and Sikhs killed each other. But the census had thrown up a Sikh weakness — in greater Punjab (PEPSU and the former British province of Punjab), the Hindu:Sikh ratio was 62.3:35.0. Sikhs lived in the villages and worked the land while Hindus resided in the cities and controlled everything else. Although 80 per cent of all Sikhs lived in Punjab, Akalis could not hope to secure power in the provinces, and their only hope was to to fashion a Sikh-majority province. Since a communal orientation in secular India was unacceptable, the demand for a Punjabi Suba provided the focus for Akali agitation. In the South, Dravidian campaigners forced Nehru to appoint a three-man States Reorganisation Commission in 1953. The commission’s report provided the basis for redrawing provincial boundaries in India, but it said that Gurmukhi was not sufficiently distinct from Hindi to warrant a partition of

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SEPARATISM

93

Punjab on linguistic lines. It claimed the Punjabi Suba movement lacked ‘the general support of the people inhabiting the area’, and that a ‘mini¬ mum measure of agreement for making a change’ did not exist. One of the more vituperative Akalis, Hukam Singh, accused Nehru of spearheading Hindu chauvinism; but he was persuaded to join Congress and become Speaker of the Indian parliament, a reflection of Delhi’s success in ‘buying off opposition. Nehru’s principal concern was to prevent further partitioning of India and preclude the rise of communal hatred. He suspected the demand for a Punjabi Suba was a thinly-veiled demand for a Sikh province, a demand he would not concede. Punjab was strategically too sensitive to permit destabilisation; it shared the frontier with Pakistan, it was close to the federal capital, and the vital road link with Kashmir ran through the region. Nehru supported the commission. Denouncing the report as a ‘decree of Sikh annihilation’, Tara Singh launched the first morcha or agitational campaign, which was quickly halted by a police raid on the SGPC headquarters. Sikh agitation lost its momentum with the merging of Punjab and PEPSU. The polls of 1957 again showed up Akali weakness in Punjab, with Congress taking 47.5 per cent of the vote, while Communists polled 13.6 per cent. The Akali agitation continued. In 1961, Tara Singh’s failure to honour his vow to fast unto death led to the appointment of Master Fateh Singh as leader of the movement. The following year Akalis polled only 20.7 per cent of Punjab votes, while Congress candidates took 43.7 per cent. War with China united India as never before and Punjab’s contribution to the war effort in men and material was higher than that of any other state. Not until August 1965, with war clouds gathering over Kashmir and Fateh Singh threatening to fast unto death, did Delhi — now led by Nehru’s successor Shastri — take note of Akali demands. The September war with Pakistan saw Sikh soldiers fight with unflinching loyalty as combat devastated their land. Two days after the ceasefire, Shastri demonstrated his appreciation by appointing a parliamentary committee to study Akali demands. Indira Gandhi’s accession in 1966, and the confluence of other factors, brought about the creation of a Punjabi-speaking Punjabi Suba. The war had underscored Punjab’s significance, both strategically and as the homeland of the largest Indian military community. In addition, Sikh vulnerability to Pakistani propaganda needed to be countered. Tara Singh’s replacement by the more moderate Fateh Singh made negotiation easier and the fall of Kairon removed a local obstacle. Significantly, many Punjabi Hindus now supported a linguistic partition. The division was

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THE FEARFUL STATE

assisted by developments in Delhi. Congress kingmakers had chosen Nehru’s daughter as Prime Minister because they believed Indira Gandhi would be pliable, but Gandhi moved swiftly to break up the party and secured control of the larger faction. In her crucial early struggles, she saw the Akalis as potential allies against the old-timers. Less than six months after coming to power, Gandhi trifurcated Punjab. The Hindi-speaking plains in the east became Haryana, the Himalayan foothills were renamed Himachal Pradesh and the remainder was left as Punjab.49 The Sikhs constituted 56 per cent of Punjab’s population with small minorities in the other two states. Chandigarh, a modem city planned by Le Corbusier and built in the 1950s to replace Lahore, became the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana. Akali dreams had come true; or so it seemed at first. Chandigarh became a major issue, with many Sikhs feeling that they had been deprived of their own exclusive capital. And Congress retention of power in Punjab meant that Akalis remained in opposition.

Politics in the New Punjab THE Akalis eventually came to power after joining the Jan Sangh on an anti-Congress platform in the 1967 polls. That coalition was shortlived and the Akalis formed another, this time with the Congress Party. This arrangement was equally shortlived and in the summer of 1968 Congress withdrew its support. The Akali Chief Minister, Lachman Singh Gill, refused to resign and violence rocked the state legislature. Delhi dismissed Gill’s administration, imposing Governor’s Rule. Internecine disputes within the Congress, Akali failure to muster a majority in Punjab and the chaos of India’s political jungle allowed Gumam Singh, a Gandhi ally, to defeat an Akali-Jan Sangh combine in the 1969 mid-term polls to form a Congress government. The dispute over Chandigarh was rekindled when Darshan Pheruman, the non-Akali activist, fasted to death demanding the city’s transfer to Punjab. To retain his party’s credibility, Fateh Singh now threatened selfimmolation. He was dissuaded initially but, on Republic Day 1970, the Sant began a fast unto death. Fearful of the effects his death might have, Mrs Gandhi proposed a compromise that permitted Fateh Singh to break his fast without seeming to break his vow. The short-term measures included dismissal of Gurnam Singh’s Congress government. Fateh Singh’s nominee Prakash Singh Badal became the head of Punjab’s new, Akali-Jan Sangh coalition government.

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SEPARATISM

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The medium-term concessions promised the transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab, but only in exchange for the Hindu-dominated tehsils of Abohar and Fazilka. Since these were not contiguous to Haryana, a furlong-wide (220 yards) corridor 50 miles long was to link them with Haryana. Mean¬ while, long-term questions of control over dams and headworks, important to a region dependent on irrigation and a steady supply of electricity, were left pending. By returning power to the Akali-Jan Sangh coalition, Delhi defused the immediate sources of tension. Mrs Gandhi had shown that she was trying to be fair to all parties, while political realities prevented the actual transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab. Since neither Punjab nor Haryana agreed to give up what they already had, water-sharing and Chandigarh remained the two thorniest issues. Punjab’s paradox is twofold. The most prosperous state in India, it provides 65 per cent of India’s food reserves. Jat Sikh farmers are ‘the wealthiest, healthiest, best-fed and best-educated’ in India.50 They own the largest acreage of irrigated land, harvesting the highest per acre yields of cereals. However, thriving agriculture has attracted non-Sikh farmhands from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, who are cheaper to employ. They have also taken many jobs from Sikhs and votes from the Akalis. Prosperity has also brought in ‘modernity’ and new consumption patterns. Many young men shave, eat meat, drink and even smoke. Orthodox Sikhs fear that the faith is losing its character and the Panth its identity. The other paradox is political. Having pressed for and gained a Punjabi suba, the Akalis frequently found themselves in opposition in it The failure to poll the majority of Sikh votes promoted a defensive militancy and perhaps weakened their commitment to pluralistic democratic ideals. The desire to represent the entire Khalsa Panth led Akalis to extremism in opposition. Once in power, however, they abjured the dramatic and the violent and adopted pragmatic moderation. One result of this vacillation between extremism and moderation has been the conflict between the theocratic and the secular, regional and national, Punjabi and Indian, and Sikh and Hindu. In the 1971 elections, Gandhi’s Congress(I) romped home with eleven of Punjab’s twelve seats in the Loksabha. Militant Akalis broke away under Dr Jagjit Singh Chauhan, demanding an independent Sikh state of Khalistan. As Mrs Gandhi’s covert operation in support of Bengali separatists from East Pakistan gained pace, Chauhan sought shelter with Pakistani military intelligence. The fact that India was engaged in hostilities with Pakistan discredited Chauhan in the eyes of Sikhs, and once he lost value as a lever, Pakistan flew him to London.

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THE FEARFUL STATE

Meanwhile, Zail Singh’s Congress government in Punjab was posing the Akalis with a dilemma. On the one hand, they had to prove that the Giani, his close ties with Mrs Gandhi notwithstanding, was not able to safeguard Sikh interests. On the other, since Sikhs had given an excellent account of themselves in the war that destroyed Pakistan’s challenge to India’s regional pre-eminence, a gesture was clearly called for from Indira Gandhi. The 1972 Punjab award modified an earlier formulation. The new proposal declared that Chandigarh would be transferred to Punjab, and Haryana given funds to build a new capital city. This offer was conditional on the transfer of Abohar and Fazilka. The Akali response was to treat the award as a ploy to divide the opposition, split the Akalis and further estrange Punjab from Haryana. Mrs Gandhi transferred the responsibility of implementing the award to the two neighbouring states, and with tactical victory assured, turned to other problems. The award was never implemented and Akalis saw no reason to call off their agitation. The growth of agitational politics in Punjab needs to be viewed in the context of political developments throughout India. The increasing con¬ centration of power at the centre, especially in the hands of the Prime Minister, led regionalist and non-mainstream bodies like the Akalis to see it as a deliberate attempt to threaten their capacity to exercise legitimate autonomy. Local and regional interests demanded greater autonomy in keeping with the federal spirit of the constitution. But the centre feared that loosening its grip would allow centrifugal elements to secure the assistance of hostile forces awaiting such an opportunity, and tear the Union apart. For their part, regional leaders viewed Delhi’s resistance to their demands as a betrayal of India’s democratic foundations and as a manifestation of north-Indian Brahminical domination. The Akalis set up a committee of eminent Sikhs charged with the task of ‘redrawing the aims and objectives of the Sikh Panth to give a more vigorous lead for their achievement ... because of the anti-Sikh policies of the Congress government’. Akalis sought to wrest the initiative from Zail Singh and re-establish their credentials as the repository of Sikh wisdom. In April 1973, the committee’s recommendations were approved by the Akali Working Committee and these emerged as the Anandpur Sahib Resolution (ASR), which formed the basis of subsequent Akali demands and negotiating positions. The resolution’s religious, political, territorial and economic demands aroused much anger in Delhi where it was de¬ nounced as a secessionist document51 The ASR raised wider questions for Delhi. In a poor country with

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growing pressures on land, the needs of the Haryana plains and the Rajasthan desert, and the block votes enjoyed by the Congress could not be ignored. But the multiple needs of a pluralist polity could not be dismissed on the grounds of political cynicism. Mrs Gandhi saw the ASR as an Akali attempt to restore its credibility as the sole champion of Khalsa interests by further radicalising Punjabi politics. In her view, this tactical ploy raised potentially dangerous questions. If the Sikhs were a nation, what was their status within India? If Akalis alone represented Sikh aspirations, how would the state reconcile their failure to poll even 50 per cent of Sikh votes in any election, and where did their assertion place the principle of representative multi-party politics? Since the Akalis arrogated the right to represent all Sikhs, was there any scope for negotiation and compromise? If demands for erecting tariff barriers along state frontiers were met and the movement of Punjab’s grain surplus was restricted, could India’s economic and political cohesion be maintained? If such demands were met, could Delhi avoid meeting them in the Deccan, or the North-east? And how would voters in Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan react to demands for the ‘restoration’ of their land to Punjab? Mrs Gandhi defended her denunciation of the ASR with sophisticated legal and constitutional arguments. These took little account of Sikh sensibilities. No attempt was made to persuade Punjabis that Delhi was concerned with the interests of all Indians. Sikh middle peasants, most concerned with the water issue, suspected that for political reasons Delhi was teaming up with their Hindu neighbours to deprive Sikhs of what was rightfully and historically theirs. Mrs Gandhi made no effort to convince Akalis that there was enough water to go around. Sikh obstreperousness and Delhi’s legalistic probity merely inflamed passions.

Akali challenge to the Emergency and the 'Janata Spring' UNDER the ‘Emergency’ imposed on 26 June 1975, Delhi banned all political and trade union activities, assumed juridical control and ruled India by draconian decree. Thousands were imprisoned and many killed. The ruthlessness with which Gandhi, her son Sanjay, and the machinery of state executed the blueprint for reconstructing a more ‘efficient India’ ensured that ‘not a dog barked’.52 Only in Punjab was resistance open and often violent. In line with Delhi’s policy, Zail Singh passed a law under which having more than two children could be a ‘cognizable offence’ with provisions for fines and imprisonment Akalis grasped at the opportunity

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THE FEARFUL STATE

provided by this legislation. Under ‘Morcha Dictator Sant Harchand Singh Langowal, Akali Jathas gathered every morning at the Golden Temple where, fortified with fiery sermons, they emerged sword in hand, shouting Raj karega Khalsa (the Khalsa shall rule). Demonstrators and Akali leaders were arrested, filling Punjab’s jails. But the Jathas continued to gather, courting arrest and taunting Indira Gandhi’s dictatorial rule. In the 1977 elections, the Akalis won 31.4 per cent of Punjab’s votes while Congress won 34.7 per cent but, with their Janata Dal partners, Akalis captured 58 seats in the state legislature, while Congress seats dwindled to 17. A coalition under Prakash Singh Badal was installed on 26 March. Once again, Akalis and their Jan Sangh partners modified their rhetoric. The new administration endorsed the Anandpur Sahib Resolution (ASR), but urged moderation in its implementation. ASR was no longer an issue. To allay fears, Longowal declared: ‘Let us make it clear once and for all that the Sikhs have no designs to get away from India in any manner. What they simply want is that they should be allowed to live within India as Sikhs, free from all direct and indirect interference and tampering with their religious way of life. Undoubtedly the Sikhs have the same nationality as other Indians.’53 Under the triangular leadership of Badal, Longowal and the SGPC President Gurcharan Singh Tohra, the Akali Dal restored tranquillity to Punjab. But the respite was brief. Mrs Gandhi and her closest advisers were planning to visit retribution on their most intransigent rivals and Akalis were high on a vindictive hit-list. Planning of the retribution was in the hands of Sanjay Gandhi, heir apparent and role model for the brash new India that Mrs Gandhi had tried to create, and former Chief Minister Zail Singh, among others. Sanjay hoped to destroy the Akali trinity from within. Zail Singh believed that if any one of the three was bought off or ‘taken out’, the other two would close ranks. He advised Sanjay to pose an external challenge to Akalis by raising a ‘third force’. The Giani suggested that a new, relatively obscure and pliable Sikh fundamentalist be built up as an alternative to the Akali Dal as leader of the Khalsa nationalist movement. This was the plan of action finally approved.54 Of the many Sikh religious schools, the Damdami Taksal is the most puritanical and its ardour had won it much support among rural Jat Sikhs. Its young leader Jamail Singh Bhindranwale preached an unalloyed, literal interpretation of the teachings of the ten Gurus. Named a Sant at the age of 30 in 1977, Bhindranwale headed the shortlist of potential ‘third force’ candidates.55 He and the Akalis were poised at the two extremes of the

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Sikh theological debate. Badal’s coalition government sought to create a tolerant environment in which deviants could co-exist in harmony with the mainstream. Many of Badal’s Jan Sangh partners had commercial ties with Nirankans and political necessity as well as a more secular vision contrib¬ uted to the Akali ‘laxity’ against which Bhindranwale railed. Zail Singh saw this orthodox-heterodox dichotomy as a useful, but not effective, manoeuvre. To undermine Khalsa loyalty to the Akalis, he sponsored the setting up in April 1978 of the extremist Dal Khalsa, which proclaimed as its objective the establishment of an independent Khalistan. Bhindranwale never formally joined this separatist band, but from its inception the Dal Khalsa was known as Bhindranwale’s party.56 A week after the Dal’s formation, Badal’s government fell into the Congress trap; it approved a Nirankari convention in Amritsar. Bhin¬ dranwale, who viewed Nirankaris as ‘heretics’, led an armed band to disrupt the rally. In the clashes, a number of activists from both sides were killed.57 Bhindranwale lost several followers; and was forced to flee the rioting, losing face. He embarked on a vengeful mission against Nirankaris and their Akali protectors. In spite of attacks by Congress on Badal’s government, Akali candidates won 140 seats in the 1979 SGPC elections, losing only four to extremists. Under pressure, Jagdev Talwandi broke with the moderate mainstream and formed a militant, pro-Bhindranwale Akali faction. As defenders of the faith, Akalis could not condemn a popular campaign against a deviant sect; but as the party in power, could not condone lawlessness. Their dilemma was resolved when the centre-led Janata coalition fell apart, and a thoroughly chastised electorate returned Mrs Gandhi and her party to power. Akalis found themselves consigned once again to opposition.

The rise of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale DAL KHALSA ranks were built around a separatist hard core that included Naxalite revolutionaries and assorted criminals,58 who desecrated Hindu temples and shot prominent Hindus and Sikhs opposed to separatism. In September 1981, they killed Lala Jagat Narain, chief editor of the Punjab Keshari, flagship of a Hindu-owned, Jullundhar-based newspaper chain. Convinced that Bhindranwale was connected to this assassination, Chief Minister Darbara Singh ordered the Sant’s arrest. The latter was warned and took shelter at the Chando Kalan gurdwara in Haryana. Zail Singh, Home Minister in the central government, urged Haryana’s Chief Minis-

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ter, Bhajan Lai, not to move against the preacher. Darbara Singh despatched a Punjab police contingent to apprehend Bhindranwale but he had fled and the frustrated constables set fire to his van and sermon transcripts. Bhin¬ dranwale never forgave the Punjab police for the ‘insult to my Guru .59 Darbara Singh, who competed constantly with his central government rival Zail Singh, persisted with attempts to arrest Bhindranwale, who surrendered on 20 September 1981 after the well-publicised siege of another gurdwara. Clashes between his followers and the police caused several deaths, while attacks by the Dal Khalsa also rose in intensity. Nine days later, separatists hijacked an Indian Airlines airliner to Lahore, fuelling Delhi’s suspicions that Pakistan was involved in instigating Sikh militancy. In October, Zail Singh informed parliament that there was no evidence of a link between Bhindranwale and Jagat Narain’s murder and Delhi ordered the preacher’s release. Bhindranwale and his supporters celebrated the ‘victory’ over the government of India with a procession in Delhi that was the climax to his build-up as an extremist alternative to the Akalis. Zail Singh used this display of Sikh loyalty not only in the game of political one-upmanship with the Akalis, but also to promote his rivalry with Darbara Singh. The Prime Minister, who may have personally ordered Bhindranwale’s release, saw the preacher as useful in keeping the volatile Sikh community in Delhi under control. In Bhindranwale’s view, however, he was the only Sikh leader who had stood up for the faith and the Panth, defied and then defeated the might of the Indian government. This view, shared by a growing band of followers, was incompatible with the aims of the central government's strategists. The breach occurred in December 1981. Santokh Singh, president of the Delhi Gurdwara Management Committee, an admirer of both Mrs Gandhi and Bhindranwale and believed to be a linkman, died in a vendetta killing. Rajiv Gandhi, Bhindranwale and Zail Singh were among those who attended Santokh Singh’s memorial service at which the preacher railed against all infringements of Khalsa injunctions, including the dyeing of beards, a pointed reference to Zail Singh. The Akalis, relegated to the sidelines by Delhi had, meanwhile, initiated a reassessment of the secular image they had acquired while in power. The 45-point charter of demands sent to Delhi in September elicited no response, and they concluded that unless they returned to their traditional stance of mixing religion with politics, they could not regain mass support as champions of the Sikh panth.60 By now, the All Indian Sikh Students Federation (AISSF), the most militant pool of Sikh manpower.

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had, under its president, Amrik Singh, broken from the Akali Dal and joined Bhindranwale. AISSF members were accused of committing many of the murders that had become a feature of Punjab politics. In July 1982, Amrik Singh was arrested. Bhindranwale took shelter in the Guru Nanak Niwas hostel in the Golden Temple’s residential complex. Akalis now joined Bhindranwale in calling for Amrik Singh’s release. Longowal once again organised Jathas of Sikh demonstrators who, sword in hand and shouting full-throated war cries, marched from the temple to police stations courting arrest every morning. The campaign regained a degree of initiative for the Akalis but at the expense of identifying the moderates with the extremists. Darbara Singh was determined not to let the extremists undermine Punjab’s secular, elected government, but he faced difficulties from his increasingly aggressive opponents at home, and from Delhi where the Home Minister was not slow to interfere in provincial affairs. Darbara’s secularist approach created great insecurity among orthodox Sikhs, who whipped up mass paranoia over the dangers of the Sikh Panth’s absorption into India’s Hindu mainstream.61 In September 1982, a prison van collided with a train at a level crossing, killing 34 Jathas and providing a focus for renewed agitation. On 10 October, mourners marched through Delhi, heightening tension in the capital. The following day they tried to storm the parliament. Police stopped them, but Mrs Gandhi felt constrained to despatch the Sikh elder statesman Swaran Singh to talks with Akali leaders. Swaran Singh was able to hammer out a compromise that satisfied both the Akalis and the Union cabinet, but Mrs Gandhi rejected the draft agreement at the last moment. On 6 November, the talks broke down and Longowal announced that Akalis would disrupt the Asian Games due to open in Delhi in two weeks, this was a threat Mrs Gandhi could not countenance. Sponsoring the Asiad signified international recognition of India as a major actor on the wider political scene, a process begun with its victory in the war with Pakistan in 1971. The games were more than a sporting event. Indira Gandhi had inducted her elder son Rajiv, an airline pilot, into politics after Sanjay’s death and she sought to build up this reluctant debutant as her heir apparent. Sceptics within and without the Congress Party expressed doubts about his ability to manage India’s labyrinthine politics. As a test, Mrs Gandhi assigned to Rajiv the task of building a new Asiad city in Delhi in record time and to organise the mammoth sporting gathering.62 It was an impossible task, like that of ruling India. Rajiv’s team had completed preparations just in time for the games and

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THE FEARFUL STATE

the Akali threat so close to success aroused Hindu ire and brought an understandably human response from the Prime Minister. This partly explained the vigour with which security measures were implemented to prevent Sikh jathas from ruining the Asian Games.63 These included a pledge by Haryana’s Chief Minister, Bhajan Lai, not to allow Sikh agitators to pass through the state, which linked Punjab with Delhi. Concerned that a confrontation might prove counter-productive, Rajiv persuaded his mother to despatch Maharaja Amarinder Singh of Patiala to talk to the Akalis. The two sides pieced together another agreement on 18 November, a few days before the games were to begin. This news was leaked to Bhajan Lai and the Chief Minister of Rajasthan, who now demanded that Bhajan Lai be consulted before Delhi signed any agreement with the Akalis. Once again, Mrs Gandhi withdrew from the talks. After being twice rebuffed in a month, Akali credibility reached an all-time low, raising tempers and fuelling support for Bhindranwale. The Sant believed that moderation would secure nothing. As 1982 came to a close, he convened a council of Sikh ex-servicemen at the Golden Temple. More than 5,000 responded, among them 170 retired officers above the rank of colonel,64 including General Shahbegh Singh,65 a war hero who, in early 1971, had been entrusted with the delicate task of organising Mukti Bahini guerrillas while Delhi disclaimed any association with East Bengali nationalists. Shahbegh Singh was cashiered on charges of corruption the day before his retirement Although he won his appeal, the bitterness remained. He became Bhindranwale’s military adviser. Disturbed by these developments, Mrs Gandhi resumed all-party talks with the Akalis in January 1983. Water proved a sticking point, with the Akalis insisting that Punjab be allowed to draw the amount of water it was using at the time, until a tribunal ruled on the issue. Mrs Gandhi was unwilling to pay the political price that would be demanded in Haryana and Rajasthan and the talks collapsed. However, Mrs Gandhi did accept all religious demands put forward by the Akalis; then set up the one-man Sarkaria commission to review the centre-state relationship. Although to Akalis these developments amounted to concessions they could not claim any credit since the talks were broken off before they were announced. Bhindranwale raged against Longowal for negotiating with the centre at all. There were reports that Delhi negotiated another secret agreement with the Akalis early in March 1983, but, once again, Mrs Gandhi pulled out at the last moment.66 Repeated failure brought to the surface differences within the Akali trinity. The SGPC president, Tohra,

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SEPARATISM

103

sought to use agitation to discredit Badal and assume the party’s political leadership, while the party president, Longowal, was under fire from Bhindranwale. Akalis also had no control over the three major groups engaged in violence in Punjab, the students’ group AISSF, the Dal Khalsa and Dashmesh Regiment67 Longowal sought to wrest the initiative by declaring another morcha, Rasta Roko (block the roads). The ensuing violence enabled Longowal to force Bhindranwale to swear fealty to the Akali leadership. But, a few days later, the Sant’s men shot Amritsar’s police chief, A S Atwal, at the temple entrance and the peace between the two groups evaporated. Akali and Congress Party representatives who were engaged in secret talks aimed at forming a coalition government, discussed a police raid to apprehend Bhindranwale. 68 Longowal liked the idea but could not guarantee Akali unanimity. Mrs Gandhi was hoping a coalition could be forged with Badal as Chief Minister, a scheme that would have thwarted Tohra’s ambitions ^nd, at the same time, assisted centre-state co-operation to counter terrorism. Tohra now arranged a secret meeting, ostensibly to let Longowal make his peace with the preacher. When Mrs Gandhi learnt of this she dropped her coalition plans. Once the Akali-Congress talks had been scuttled, Bhindranwale was able to disown Longowal. The Akali trinity, divided within and powerless without, had been neutralised by the Sanjay-Zail game plan; but the latter’s creation was now a rogue beyond control. A slow-burning civil war between Akalis and the preacher’s supporters led to a steady loss of lives that the police were unable to stem. Ordered repeatedly to keep hands off the preacher, Darbara Singh’s government had effectively ceased to govern. The inaction that followed Atwal’s murder heightened public insecurity. If the government could not protect the people, the people would find someone who could. Sikh villagers began streaming to the Golden Temple seeking from Bhindranwale the redress of grievances over land and family conflicts. The preacher held court on the roof of the Temple langar, and meted out rough justice. Neither Congress nor the Akalis could influence events in Punjab now. The preacher concentrated on projecting Hindus as the Khalsa’s main enemy. On 28 September, Bhindranwale’s supporters carried out the first indiscriminate attack against Hindus at Jagraon near Ludhiana. A week later, a bus was hijacked in Kapurthala and its Hindu passengers shot. This escalation led to the dismissal of Darbara Singh’s Congress administration as Delhi imposed President’s Rule. Zail Singh, now president, foiled Darbara Singh’s last attempt to arrest the preacher, whose supporters

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THE FEARFUL STATE

began revenge attacks on the police, demoralising the force into a state of near inaction. In desperation, Delhi planned a raid on the Guru Nanak Niwas and Bhindranwale moved into the Akal Takht.69 Selective attacks on Hindu bus passengers evoked passionate pleas from MPs to the Prime Minister to put a stop to Bhindranwale’s activities. The government arrested 2,100 suspects between 6 October and 16 December 1983, but a slide into anarchy was unstoppable.70 On 26 January 1984 (Republic Day), Bhindranwale’s men hoisted the Khalistan flag at the Golden Temple in a symbolic challenge to the Indian state. In response, Akalis made a passion¬ ate plea for the repeal of Article 25 of the constitution that could be construed to formalise the state’s right to reintegrate Sikhs, and other converts, into the Hindu fold.71 They issued an ultimatum saying that if it was not repealed within a month, Akalis would not be responsible for the consequences. Throughout January, the internecine conflict raged as Longowal’s men fought Bhindran wale’s supporters. The former believed in the partypolitical, pluralist path to moderation; the latter felt that only an armed struggle could force Delhi’s hands. Akalis were frustrated by the centre’s inability to grasp the essence of this dispute and come to their aid. A general strike called by the triumvirate on 8 February was countered by Delhi’s ploy of cancelling all bus, train and air services to and from Punjab on that day. The Prime Minister called for tripartite talks between the government, the opposition and the Akali Dal. The talks were scuppered by Bhajan Lai. When their ultimatum expired, the Akalis publicly burnt copies of the constitution in Delhi and were arrested. February saw a rise in communal clashes between Sikhs and Hindus that claimed more than 80 lives in Punjab and Haryana between 16 February and 6 March. Hindu reaction to Sikh extremism threatened to engulf regions far beyond Punjab. The government banned the AISSF, extended President’s Rule and Punjab was declared a ‘dangerously disturbed area’. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act giving magisterial powers to security forces, came into effect and the 1980 National Security Act was amended to allow detention of suspects for six months. But the killings did not stop. In April, an air force officer was hacked to death at home. This was followed by the ‘Moga incident’ in which police laid siege on a cluster of gurdwaras in central Punjab after they had been shot at from the temples. Supplies and utilities were cut off. Longowal threatened to despatch ‘martyr squads’ to free the temples but the siege ended peacefully when the occupants surrendered. Now, pressure

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mounted from the military for more decisive action. The Special Frontier Force, a secretive body of Tibetan Khampas, was ordered to start training, using scale models of the Golden Temple, at its Chakrata base in Himachal Pradesh. Delhi’s reluctance to act against Bhindranwale weakened as extremists went on a rampage in May. Mrs Gandhi gave in to Longowal’s demands that Akalis imprisoned for burning the constitution be released before further talks with the moderates. The following day, Jagat Narain’s son, Ramesh Chandra, was gunned down by the Dashmesh Regiment.72 Mrs Gandhi offered to form a Congress-Akali coalition in Punjab providing that Bhindranwale agreed. The SGPC president, Tohra, confi¬ dent that the preacher could be persuaded, tried and failed. When the talks collapsed, Longowal announced an escalation in Akali agitation; from 3 June, no land revenue and water tax would be paid, export of Punjab’s grain would be prevented, irrigation obstructed and power transmission to other states blocked. Delhi was faced with a stark lack of choices.

The denouement ON 1 JUNE, security forces surrounding the Temple engaged General Shahbegh Singh’s men defending Bhindranwale in the first firefight. It is not clear how the exchange began, but eleven people were killed and twenty-nine wounded. This sustained exchange of fire surprised the Central Reserve Police Force (CPRF), the central government’s major paramilitary body. The defenders had sited their weapons expertly.73 The police cordon round the temple had failed, the militants were well-armed, and the CRPF outgunned. Delhi now had no alternative but to escalate the confrontation. Mrs Gandhi hesitated until the last moment. Only the imminence of Longowal’s morcha appeared to force her hand. Sikhdom’s holiest shrine had not been violated since Abdali’s invasion, and the outcome of an assault was potentially more damaging than any gains; but a point of no return had been reached. On the evening of 2 June, Mrs Gandhi made a television and radio appeal to the Sikhs to end their campaign of violence and join in talks. ‘No government can allow violence and terrorism any premium in the settle¬ ment of the issues,’ she said. Longowal remained silent. The moderates forced the centre to strike at the roots of extremism that Congress itself had nurtured. As Mrs Gandhi was speaking, the army began moving two brigades of paratroopers and infantry to Amritsar. Other units sealed off Punjab’s Pakistan frontiers, suspended all traffic, imposed a 36-hour

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THE FEARFUL STATE

curfew and banished all foreign journalists from Punjab.74 While the army took up its position over the weekend of 2-3 June, nearly 40 people were killed in continuing clashes. The army mounted two simultaneous operations; Blue Star’s objective was to secure control of the temple complex and clear it of all ‘hostile’ elements, while Wood Rose dealt with 37 other gurdwaras across Punjab. The latter went smoothly with limited resistance and little of the bloody warfare that marked Blue Star from the beginning.75 On 5 June, units of the 9th and 15th infantry divisions began inching their way into the maze of buildings surrounding the temple complex. The army’s capacity to provide covering fire for its men was constrained by instructions to avoid damage to the Harmandir Saheb, the Golden Temple itself. The parachute regiment lost half its troops while six infantry companies under Brigadier Dewan lost 137 men. To relieve survivors pinned down by enemy fire, General Brar sent in an armoured car, which was blown up with anti-tank rockets. Shahbegh Singh’s men took no prisoners; they flayed to death a junior officer whose screams could be heard through the night, and they hacked to pieces an army doctor sent in to treat pilgrims caught in the crossfire. It was clear that the army could not secure its objectives by dawn by pulling its punches. With Delhi’s consent. General Sunderji, Commander in Chief of the army’s Western Command and overall operational commander, brought in tanks to increase firepower. Nevertheless, the army was unable to secure control of the temple complex, and exchanges continued through 6 June. After forty hours of hard fighting, the militants conceded defeat in the early hours of 7 June and the bodies of Bhindranwale and Shahbegh Singh were dragged out of the Akal Takht basement. But sporadic firing went on for much longer. Casualty figures varied widely.76 More pressing than the body counts was the outrage that India’s Sikh community felt at the sacrilege done to their holiest shrine. The Akali Dal had never commanded majority support within the panth and the preacher’s support base was even narrower. But Blue Star provided a focus for Sikh outrage and insecurity that extended beyond political beliefs. The military felt the immediate impact; hundreds of Sikh soldiers revolted, broke into armouries, killed their commanding officers and headed for Amritsar or Delhi to avenge this collective dishonour.77 Reports of Sikh soldiers taking up arms against loyal forces came from Bihar, Bombay, Rajasthan, Jammu and elsewhere. Delhi claimed 1,421 Sikhs had deserted from the army, of which 35 were killed. Other government

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sources put the figures at around 5,000 and 102 respectively.78 The bitterness created by Blue Star within the panth was almost universal. While Bhindranwale and his circle of disciples had been eliminated, new converts to the extremist cause had been made. The harshness of the army’s occupation also told on the thin strand of belief that separated loyalty to the Indian ideal from loyalty to separatist hopes.79 After the operation, armed attacks by militants throughout Punjab escalated. The military was unable to wrest control of the province, which increasingly bore the hallmarks of another Lebanon. The government vacillated on the issue of reconstruction of the temple. The ruins were a potent symbol that had to be removed. But Delhi’s efforts to bribe the Nihang warrior-guardians to allow government contractors to rebuild the complex came to nothing.80 In the heightened atmosphere that persisted after Blue Star, Indira Gandhi was shot dead on 31 October 1984 by two of her bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh. The mass rioting in northern India in which more than 5,000 Sikhs were killed before the army restored order,81 and the way that the government brushed aside demands for an inquiry into Congress Party and official in¬ volvement in the rioting, further intensified Sikh anger. Rajiv Gandhi was widely perceived as having had a hand in the decision to launch the assault on the temple and his neo-dynastic succession to power created the context in which Sikh separatism acquired an explosive character.82 Dedicated bands of shadowy militants proliferated and with material assistance and moral support from expatriate Sikhs in North America and Western Europe, transformed India’s most prosperous province into a nightmare land of raids, ambushes and indiscriminate slaughter. Rigorous operations by security forces underscored the gory nature of the day-to-day conflict. In spite of repeated complaints that Islamabad was giving support to the ‘Khalistanis’, Delhi was unable to offer conclusive evidence of Pakistani collusion with the separatists. In the circumstances, the Prime Minister resurrected talks with the moderates. A new governor was appointed, detained Akali leaders were released and an inquiry was promised into the rioting that followed Mrs Gandhi's assassination. Delhi also promised to treat Sikh deserters from the armed forces with leniency. Khalsa detainees not charged with specific crimes would be released, special tribunals set up under the aegis of the military would be disbanded, and Delhi would raise investment in Punjab’s indus¬ trialisation. In this atmosphere of reconciliation, Longowal agreed to take part in fresh talks. Rajiv Gandhi and Longowal signed the Punjab accord

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THE FEARFUL STATE

on 24 July 1985. The centre promised to set up various judicial and arbitration commissions to resolve Sikh demands contained in the ASR, which was referred to the Sarkaria Commission inquiring into centre-state relations as a document relevant to its deliberations. Longowal had the accord promptly ratified by the Akali Dal, and the Dharam Yudh (right¬ eous war) launched in August 1982 was formally ended. There was an air of optimism as Punjab prepared for elections. This lasted until 20 August when extremists shot dead Longowal. Delhi and the Akalis, now under Surjit Singh Bamala, held the polls as scheduled, late in September. To Gandhi’s relief, the Akalis won a majority large enough to form a government without having to construct an alliance with strange bedfellows.83 The results were seen as the electorate’s rejection of extrem¬ ism in favour of the Akali Dal’s moderation. None the less, the level of violence remained high and Delhi maintained 60,000 regular and 125,000 paramilitary troops in the state. The pragmatic Bamala sought to satisfy many factions and included all shades of Khalsa opinion in his cabinet. However, his administration was repeatedly rocked by internal dissent. His failure to appoint any Hindus to the cabinet aroused concern; many felt that the Akalis’ new, secular approach ought to be extended to their first unitary administration. Barnala was also dogged by two major difficulties: terrorist activism had risen to levels from which it could not swiftly be brought down by using methods amenable to democratic governance as coercive measures detracted from the pluralist moderation that was being sought; and the promised resolu¬ tion of Sikh demands did not occur at the pace or in the manner that many Sikhs hoped. In a sense, Delhi’s inability or unwillingness to force a decision in disputes between Punjab, Rajasthan and Haryana over such issues as Chandigarh’s fate and water-sharing, sabotaged everything else. The failure to produce an acceptable outcome from a series of commissions told on the credibility of Bamala. As each commission ended its tenure without coming to a realistic decision, militancy was given fresh impetus. The AISSF appointed five new high priests who formed the Panthic Committee and took over the Golden Temple. Bamala sent the police into the temple to restore the authority of the SGPC. The raid succeeded, but the militants were able to convene a Sarbat Khalsa convention which excommunicated Bamala. Militants killed butchers, destroyed liquor shops and shut down hair¬ dressers. They also engaged in a war with the Shiv Sena, an extremist

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Hindu paramilitary organisation seeking to protect Hindu interests. In the summer of 1986, the police killed 38 ‘terrorists’ in encounters, arrested 744 and captured more than 1,500 firearms, ranging from pistols to machine guns. But this effort failed to stem the bloodletting. Militants claimed more than 500 victims in the first nine months of the year.84 As an exodus of Hindus from Punjab began, Delhi began to doubt Bamala’s ability to regain control. The six bands of militants with about 500 ‘hardcore terrorists’ were exacting a high toll in lives and property. In May 1987, the state government was dissolved and President’s Rule imposed on Punjab. Delhi contacted the extremists through the high priest Darshan Singh Ragi, an exercise that proved futile, and subsequent attempts in 1988 to communicate directly with the militants through Bhindranwale’s nephew Jasbir Singh Rode, and then with the AISSF president, Manjit Singh, the following year, also failed. The militants themselves remained divided and an agreement with one group did not guarantee accord with any other. The Akali Dal also split into factions behind individual leaders, who as individuals were powerless to bring about any major change in the course of events. Indian politics of the past two decades has effectively destroyed an identifiable focus for Sikh activism. Having contributed mightily to conditions in Punjab, central government has tried all possible approaches from dividing the opposition, creating an extremist alternative to the moderate opposition, and crushing the militants militarily, to negotiating with the moderates, and talking to the separatists. But the fragmented and embittered province has degenerated to the point where conventional political wisdom makes little sense. At the time of writing, the cities and towns of Punjab and, to a lesser extent, those in Haryana, are under strong police protection. None the less, rarely a week passes without an attack by Sikh militants. Villages, where most Punjabis live and which produce the state’s wealth, are more sparsely patrolled and remain vulnerable to raids and ambushes. Even India s capital, Delhi, is not immune to exploding bombs and gunfire. Suspects in unknown numbers die in encounters with security forces, while hundreds more languish in dank, dark prison cells awaiting a trial that may never reach any court. The legacy of Operation Blue Star has also touched the world outside India. Hundreds of Sikhs demonstrate in front of Indian diplomatic missions in Europe, Africa and North America, many proudly proclaim their support for and contributions to the separatist struggle. Sikh soldiers and diplomats are under constant scrutiny, while

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prosperous Khalsa expatriates fund secret separatist Sikh armies operating at home and abroad. Airliners have been hijacked and bombed, retired soldiers hunted down and shot while academics dispute the fine line dividing nations from states. Indira Gandhi’s dreams of a shattered Akali Dal have come true, but the outcome of that cynical endeavour confronts the country with the prospect of having to live for decades with a ‘bleeding wound’ within its northern Indian heartland.

Notes 1. Prime Minister Gandhi addressing a delegation of lawyers on 4 December 1986, quoted in Salamat Ali, ‘Reining in Punjab’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 18 December 1986. 2. The Rig Veda describes the Aryan military exploits under general Indra, later elevated to the status of chief god in the Hindu pantheon. The Vedas say there were then seven rivers in Punjab, probably including the Indus and the now-defunct Saraswati. See W Owen Cole, A Sikh Family in Britain (London, 1978), p. 15. 3. Nanak was bom on 15 April 1469 at Talwandi, now Nanakana Sahib in Pakistani Punjab, into the family of an accountant. 4. Christopher Shackle, The Sikhs (London, 1984), p. 3. 5. See Khushwant Singh, The Sikhs Today (London, 1985), p. 69. 6. It says: ‘There is one God Eternal truth is His name. Maker of all things Fearing nothing and hating nothing, Immortal, Unborn, Self, Existent; By the grace of the Guru made known to men. As He was in the beginning, the Truth, So throughout all ages He has been the Truth, So even now He is the Truth immanent. So for ever and ever He shall be the Truth eternal’ Japji cited from the Gum Granth Sahib in Cole, op. cit., p. 35. 7. Popular ditty cited in Singh, op. cit., p. 4. 8. See for instance, H Beveridge (ed.), Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri or Memoirs of Jahangir, tr. A Rogers (London, 1909), vol. 1, p. 72. 9. See for instance, translations in Cole, op. cit., p. 48. 10. Gum Gobind quoted in Singh, op. cit., p. 6. 11. Men were to wear unshorn hair and beard (kesh), carry a comb (kangha), wear a steel bracelet (karha), dress in breeches (kachh), and carry a sword/dagger (kripan). The comb was to keep the long hair in place; the breeches eased movement in combat; the steel bracelet symbolised unity with the One God; and the sword was the wamor s constant companion. Khalsas were to wear turbans rather than caps. They were not to eat meat of animals killed in the Muslim fashion. Smoking and drinking were prohibited; and even during war, they could not molest Muslim women.

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12. Guru Gobind Singh composed many hymns, 2,000 of which were compiled into the Dasam Granth, or Book of the Tenth Guru. It is venerated as a holy book. 13. Jassa Singh Ahluwalia established the Kapurthala principality, Ala Singh founded the house of Patiala, Jassa Singh Ramghariya led the powerful Ramghariya sect, and Charat Singh Sukerchakia established his own barony in south-western Punjab. 14. These Misl were Ahluwalia, Bhangi, Dulewalia, Kanheya, Krora Singhia, Nakkai, Nishania, Phoolkia, Ramghariya, Shahid, Singhpuria, and Sukerchakia. Some were known by the name of their chiefs while others, such as the Bhangi (those addicted to Bhang, a local narcotic) were given names appropriate to their popular image. 15. Sita Ram Kohli described this change in ‘The army of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’, Journal of Indian History, vol. 1 (London, 1931-32): ‘The simple, untrained peasant of Guru Hargobind had become a regular, well-equipped soldier of the Khalsa, adept in the use of arms and trained in guerrilla warfare. The Khalsa had further tasted the sweets of victory and acquired a love of plunder.’ 16. Warren Hastings cited in K Singh, op. cit., p. 34. 17. Ranjit was also a lover of fine stones. When Shah Shuja was ejected from Kabul and exiled to Kashmir, he sought the Sikh’s help. Shuja s wife promised to hand over the Koh-i-noor if Ranjit rescued her husband. The Sikh deployed his army to Kashmir and freed Shuja. But in the face of Ranjit s demand for more, the hapless Shuja fled from Lahore and secured British protection in Ludhiana. 18. T O Lloyd, The British Empire 1558-1983 (Oxford, 1984), p. 152. 19. Lloyd, op. cit., p. 152. 20. Hardinge wrote: ‘We must bear in mind that, by the Treaty of Lahore, the Punjab was never intended to be an independent state ... In fact, the native prince is in fetters, under our protection and must do our bidding.’ Dalhousie had a clearer objective with regard to the Sikh kingdom. He wrote: ‘The task before me is the utter destruction and prostration of Sikh power, the subversion of its dynasty, and the subjection of its people. This must be done promptly, fully and finally.’ See K Singh, op. cit., p. 42. 21. Ibbetson (1883) cited in W H Mcleod, The Evolution of the Sikh Community, (Oxford, 1976), p. 95. 22. For an elaborate presentation of this theme, see Ian Johnstone Kerr, The Punjab Province and the Lahore District, 1849-1872: A Case Study of British Colonial Rule and Social Change in India, (vols 1 and 2), PhD thesis. University of Minnesota, 1975. 23 Colonial rule depended on the Company’s ability to deploy more effective military forces than its rivals. Cost-effectiveness was ensured by recruiting ever larger numbers of native ‘sipahis’ (sepoys), who proved proficient then ranks swelled from 82,000 in 1794 to 154,000 in 1828 and 214,000 m 1856. The Bengal army’s 74 regular native infantry regiments in 1856 mainly comprised lugh-caste Hindu troops, Brahmins and Khsattriyas from Bihar, Oudh and Agra, with a few Gurkhas thrown in. After 1849, and especially following the Mutiny in 1857, recruitment of Punjabis, Sikh and Muslim, rapidly changed that composition. See

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THE FEARFUL STATE

Stephen P Cohen, The Indian Army: Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (Berkeley, 1971), p. 32-33. 24. Surendranath Sen, Eighteen Fifty Seven (New Delhi, 1957), p. 406. 25. See Philip Mason, A Matter of Honour: An Account of the Indian Army, its Officers and Men (London, 1974), p. 236, and also K Singh, op. cit., p. 44. 26. The Eden Commission, ‘Report of the Army Organisation Commission’, in Great Britain, House of Commons, East India (Army System) Return (London, 11 November 1884), especially pp. 33, 78-79. 27. Government of India, Recruiting in India Before and During the War of 19141918, (New Delhi, October 1919), p. 7. 28. K Singh, A History of the Sikhs, vol. II, 1839-1974, (Oxford, 1977), p. 160. 29. Argument made by Rajiv A Kapur in ‘Communal consciousness and compe¬ tition’, in his Sikh Separatism: the Politics of Faith (London, 1986), pp. 61-104. 30. N G Barrier, The Sikhs and their Literature (Delhi, 1970) illustrates this by reference to such tracts as Kahn Singh’s Ham Hindu Nahin (We are not Hindus). 31. These shreiks were called kooks in Gurmukhi, and the Namdharis were popularly labelled ‘Kookas’. 32. The British broke the insurrection. Sixteen Kooka prisoners were hanged and the sect’s headquarters at Bhayani destroyed. The founder Ram Singh and twelve of his closest disciples were deported to Rangoon to die in 1885. 33. Sikh immigrants had hired this ship to take them to Canada. Although they had fulfilled all official requirements, the ship was not allowed to dock at Vancouver where it sat at anchor with all passengers on board for two months. No food or water was allowed to reach the vessel; Canadian police attempted to arrest organisers of the voyage but angry passengers chased them off. The navy deployed several frigates and threatened to sink the liner with its passengers unless the ship left. The Komagata Maru returned to Calcutta in September 1914. The police forced the passengers into trains bound for Punjab without asking them where they wished to go. In scuffles, the police shot 23 ‘trouble-makers’ and chained up the remainder for their long journey back to Punjab. A few managed to escape. They joined other Sikh returnees to organise a terrorist movement that the British brutally suppressed. The vast majority of the Sikhs remained loyal and the handful of renegades who escaped execution, were jailed. At the end of their long sentences, these men formed the nucleus of the Sikh Communist movement. 34. Major A E Barstow, The Sikhs (Calcutta, 1928), pamphlet published by the Government of India that reflected British views. 35. Mark Tully and Satish Jacob, Amritsar: Mrs Gandhi's Last Battle (London, 1985), p. 29. 36. Mohinder Singh, The Akali Movement (Delhi, 1978), p. 14. 37. India, Legislative Assembly, Debates, vol 1921), p. 1,746.

I, part II (New Delhi, 28 March

38. Original photographs show him shorn of the Kakkars but in all post-execution images Bhagat Singh sprouted a beard and wore a turban. The popular image of the Khalsa warrior claimed the legacy of this and many other nationalist revolu¬ tionaries. This inaccuracy has not been challenged.

SIKH

SEPARATISM

113

39. Jawaharlal Nehru, An Autobiography, (Delhi, 1980), pp. 175-6. 40. Mason, op. cit., p. 514. 41. Winston S Churchill, The Hinge of Fate (vol. 4 of The Second World War) (Boston, 1950), p. 100; Sir Francis Tucker, While Memory Serves (London, 1950), p. 69; Tully and Jacob, op. cit., p. 34. 42. M J Akbar, India: The Siege Within (Harmondsworth, 1985), pp. 148, 155-6. 43. The League took 75 of Punjab’s 86 Muslim seats. Congress won 51 seats: 40 Hindu, 10 Sikh and one Muslim. The Unionist Party of Punjabi feudal interests won only 20 seats. The Akalis fared worst, winning just 22 of 33 Sikh seats. Congress and Communist candidates polled 40 per cent of Sikh votes. 44. Akbar, op. cit., p. 146. 45. Ibid., p. 151; Tully and Jacob, op. cit., p. 35; Christopher Shackle, The Sikhs, (London, 1984), p. 3. 46. Nancy Jetley, ‘India: the domestic dimensions of security’ in Barry Buzan, Gowher Rizvi et al.. South Asian Insecurity and the Great Powers (London, 1986), p. 51. 47. Tara Singh in B R Nayer, Minority Politics in the Punjab (Princeton, US, 1966), p. 102. 48. Akbar, op. cit., pp. 158-159. 49. Haryana had a population of 7.53 million and an area of 16,835 square miles. Corresponding figures for Himachal Pradesh were 1.2 million and 10,215 square miles and for Punjab, 11.58 million and 20,254 square miles. 50. Trevor Fishlock, India File (London, 1987), p. 73. 51. The principal religious demands were: a) An All-India Gurdwara Act be enacted ‘to reintegrate the traditional preaching sects of Sikhism without in any way encroaching on the properties of their respective individual matths (temples) ; b) Free access be ensured to ‘all those holy Sikh shrines, including Nanakana Sahib, from which the Sikh Panth has been separated (by Partition), for pilgrim¬ age and proper upkeep’; c) Akalis also expressed grave concern over apostasy and the need to send Sikh missionaries to various parts of India and abroad; d) Ihey also demanded formal acceptance by all Sikhs of Amrit Prachar i.e baptismal rites, the banning of consumption of tobacco and alcohol, and strict adherence to the formal and spiritual injunctions of Khalsahood, including the rig t to ar small arms without registration; e) A repeat of the demand for a radio station to broadcast readings from the Granth Sahib at the Golden Temp e. The ASR articulated certain political demands stating: ‘The political goal of the Panth without doubt is enshrined in the commandments of the tenth Guru, m the pages of Sikh history and in the very heart of the Khalsa Panth, Ae ultima e objective of which is the pre-eminence of the Khalsa. The: fundamen a po y the Shiromani Akali Dal is to seek this birthright of^ the Khalsa through creation of congenial environment and a political set up. The charter went on to demand constitutional changes reverting to the Cabinet Mission Plan, proposing the federal government handle nothing but defence, foreign policy, currency and general communications. The ASR also demanded^‘real, federal pnnciF- es, with fqual representation at the centre for all the states . On territorial questions, the

114

THE FEARFUL STATE

ASR demanded that ‘all those Punjabi areas deliberately kept out of Punjab such as Dalhousie in Gurdaspur district, Chandigarh, Pinjore-Kalka and Ambala Sadar etc., in Ambala district, the “Desh” area of Nalgarh, Shahabad and Gulha blocks of Kamali district, the Tohana sub-Tehsil, Ratia block and Sirsa tehsil of Hissar district and six tehsils of Ganganagar district in Rajasthan; should be merged with Punjab to create a single administrative unit in which the interests of Sikhs and of Sikhism are specifically protected.’ The other emotive issue raised in the ASR was water. The rearrangement of irrigation necessitated by Partition and formalised in the 1960 Indus water treaty between India and Pakistan had caused much disruption to Punjab’s Jat Sikh peasantry, the Akali mainstream. The treaty gave to India full control over the full flows of the Beas, Ravi and Sutlej. Punjab's farmers had, since the days of Ranjit Singh, considered the land and its canals their own collective property. Now, suddenly, the availability of irrigation facilities, crucial to Sikh prosperity and their way of life, was no longer assured. The needs of ‘Hindus’ in Haryana and Rajasthan motivating Delhi's water distributive justice, were seen as unfair infringement of Sikh rights to Punjab's waters. The ASR line was that, historically and geographically, Punjabis had held the right to the waters of the ‘Panjab’, and that the others, for whom Delhi was investing in large canal-link projects, had no such right because the rivers did not flow through their states. 52. Mrs Gandhi on reaction to her imposition of emergency, quoted in Fishlock, p. 123. See also David Selboume, An Eye to India (Harmondsworth 1977). 53. Longowal cited in Tully and Jacob, op. cit., p. 50. 54. Jetley, op. cit., pp. 52-53. 55. Philip Whitehead, ‘Honourable Rajiv Dreams, not Schemes’, New Statesman, London, 24 January 1986, p. 19. 56. Akbar, op. cit., pp. 182-183; Tully and Jacob, op. cit., pp. 59-60. 57. Figures of the total killed vary from 13 to 19. See Shackle, op. cit., p. 11; Singh (1985), op. cit., p. 64. 58. Singh (1985), p. 65 claims smugglers, ‘dacoits’ and even ‘Pakistani agents’ soon infiltrated separatist ranks. 59. Bhindranwale quoted in Tully and Jacob, op. cit., p. 68. 60. Following Bhindranwale’s arrest, the Akalis reformulated their charter of demands, reducing the number of specific issues to 15. The first of these was the demand for immediate and unconditional release of Bhindranwale. The preacher noted the volte face of his antagonists and this may have been a factor in the timing of his open condemnation of Zail Singh. See eg, Khushwant Singh and Kuldip Nayar, Tragedy of Punjab: Operation Blue Star and After (Delhi, 1984), p. 38. 61. Darbara Singh was quoted as saying: ‘There was a Sikh culture before. That Sikh culture has now reached the limit. Sikh culture is now dead ... Now the Sikh culture has been converted into a composite culture. That is what I am doing.’ The Sunday, Calcutta, 8-11 August 1982, p. 39. 62. Estimates of expenditures varied from the official £46m to £450m. More than 100,000 construction workers were brought in to build a self-contained Olympic

SIKH SEPARATISM

115

village, seven new stadia, five-star hotels, seven expressway flyovers and a ring railway, in record time. These were then integrated into the utilities network. 63. Retired Sikh soldiers faced the most humiliating indignities in face-conscious India. Former Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Aijun Singh, and Lt General Jagjit Singh Aurura, liberator of Bangladesh and the ‘hero of Dhaka’, were asked to prove that they would not participate in demonstrations during the games. High Court judges, college teachers, businessmen, students, vagrants and sports-loving Sikhs were indiscriminately screened and searched. Bhajan Lai erected roadblocks specifically to stop and search Sikhs en route to Delhi. Over 1,500 people, mostly Sikh, were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to disrupt the games. Many outraged members of the Panth felt the treatment meted out to Sikhs by the Haryana government during the days of the Asian Games has badly jolted the Sikh psyche. See Major General Jaswant Singh Bhullar, cited in the Illustrated Weekly of India, Bombay, 10 April 1983. 64. Tully and Jacob, op. cit., p. 87. 65. Ex-servicemen were vulnerable owing to the sudden loss of social status. Aggravations during the Asiad added ‘fuel to the fire , bringing many former soldiers under the preacher’s influence. See, General J S Aurora in Amarjit Kaur, Arun Shourie and Khushwant Singh et al., The Punjab Story (Delhi, 1984), p. 98. 66. ‘Three times in six months agreement was reached and three times the Prime Minister backed out. Each time the interests of the Hindus of Haryana weighed more heavily with her than a settlement with the Sikhs. Harkishan Singh MP, in Tully, p. 87. 67. The AISSF’s president, Amrik Singh, was in jail and the students were led by the association’s general secretary, Harminder Singh Sandhu, who doubled as Bhindranwale’s interpreter; the Dal Khalsa was based in Delhi, and the Dashmesh (Tenth Guru’s) Regiment was commanded by Surinder Singh Gill, a former gov¬ ernment agricultural inspector. These groups were to break up into numerous factions and reappear under new names. None the less, the foundation for an environment dominated by widespread acts of terrorism was laid by these groups. 68.

Maleeha Lodhi, Iraj Ispahani and Sumanta Banneijee,

‘Divide-and-rule

tactics’. South, London, May 1984, pp. 9-11. 69. Two versions of this event exist. According to one, fearing arrest, the preacher moved into the sanctum without asking anyone. A police raid on the Akal lakht was considered inconceivable. The other account suggests Bhindranwale was chased out of the hostel by the Babbar Khalsa, a group of warriors claiming descent from an activist organisation set up to fight the British in the 1920s, and loyal to Longowal. The preacher persuaded Tohra that only by taking shelter m the holy sanctum could he escape atrest. Already Congress MPs were pressing^jhe government to put an end to the preacher's activities. Giant Kupal Singh, Akal Takht high priest, objected but was unable to prevent Bhindranwale setting up his headquarters at the temple itself. His men smuggled automatic weapons and rocket-launchers into the temple and Shahbegh Singh designed a fortified redoubt around the entire temple complex. These men did not enjoy complete control over the shrine however; inter-gang warfare was a recurring feature. Rahul Sing , ‘Sikh India’, The New Republic, 16-23 July 1984, pp. 11-14.

116

THE FEARFUL STATE

70. Keesing's, p. 33221. 71. Article XXV guaranteed religious freedom to all Indians, but its explanatory note stated that references to Hindus included all ‘persons professing the Sikh, Jain or Buddhist religion’. Many Akalis saw this as a constitutional sanction to the state’s attempts to reintegrate Sikhs into the Hindu fold. 72. The ‘Regiment’ threatened to shoot ‘whoever speaks or writes against Sant Jamail Singh Bhindranwale’. Strikes, curfews and violence now paralysed much of northern India. Keesing's p. 33222 73. ‘Seventeen houses in the civilian residential area (around the Temple) had been selected by the terrorists at distances of 500 to 800 metres from the outer periphery of the temple complex and held by approximately ten men each. These lookout and early-warning posts were veritable arsenals of light machine guns and other automatic weapons with huge caches of ammunition. The posts had been given equipment to make instant communications with command posts.’ Govern¬ ment of India, White Paper on the Punjab Agitation, New Delhi, 10 July 1984. 74. For details of these events, see Keesing’s, p. 33223. 75. The government’s version of the operation appears in the White Paper issued on 10 July. For independent accounts see Tully, op. cit., pp. 141-91; Tariq Ali, The Nehrus and the Gandhis: An Indian Dynasty (London, 1985), pp. 253-55; there are witness accounts published in Amiya Rao, Arobinda Ghose, Sunil Bhattacharya, Tejinder Ahuja, N D Pancholi et al.. Oppression in Punjab (New Delhi, 1985), pp. 53-85. 76. Government figures were 493 ‘terrorists’ and civilians killed and 86 wounded. Unofficial sources claimed around 1,000 militants and 250 soldiers killed. A journalist, Kuldip Nayar, put the figure of soldiers of all ranks killed at 700. Witnesses claim that they saw 250 people surrender in the temple complex and another 500 in the hostel area. The fate of around 1,600 people remained unac¬ counted for. See Keesing's p. 33223; Tully, pp. 183-4; Nayar and Singh, Tragedy of the Punjab: Operation Blue Star and After, op cit. Following the operation, reports of mass cremations held by the army circulated throughout Punjab. 77. On 7 June, shortly after news of Bhindranwale’s death reached the rank and file, 300 soldiers of the 8th Sikh Regiment and 600 men from the regiment’s 9th battalion mutinied. One team from the latter group marched on Delhi while the other, firing shots in the air and chanting war cries, crossed into Pakistan where they became guests of the Inter Services Intelligence. The next night, 1,461 Sikh troops, 1,050 of them raw recruits, at the Siukh Regimental Centre at Ramgarh in Bihar killed their commandant, Brig S C Puri, and left for Delhi, 840 miles west. The government deployed mechanised infantry to capture or kill rebellious soldiers. Keesing’s, p. 33223; Tully, pp. 195-7. 78. Keesing’s, p. 33223. 79. Bitter accounts of this period appear in Rao, Ghose et al.; Mohan Ram, ‘The Punjab Vacuum’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 5 July 1984, pp. 25-6; K K Sharma, ‘A Fearful Calm Over Punjab’, Financial Times, 21 November 1984. 80. The 300 Nihangs, traditional guardians of the temple, were paid 100,000 rupees (£6,500) daily while the repairs proceeded. Once the temple was opened to the public, militants tore it down and rebuilt the complex using their own funds

SIKH

SEPARATISM

117

and labour, an act that defied Delhi and underscored the futility of much of the government’s efforts to restore peace. 81. Tavleen Singh, ‘Terror winning in Punjab agony’, the Sunday Times, London, 7 December 1986. 82. T V Sathya Murthy, ‘India’s Punjab problem: edging towards a solution?’, the World Today, vol. 42, no. 3 (London, March 1986), p. 48. 83. The Prime Minister said: ‘The Congress may have lost the electoral battle in Punjab, but [it] has won the war for India’s unity and integrity, and that was the fundamental aim of the Congress.’ Gandhi quoted in John Elliott: Gandhi hails his party’s defeat in Punjab as victory for Indian unity’, the Times, 28 September 1985. 84. Reuters cited in the Guardian, London, 30 September 1986.

Chapter 4 BALUCH NATIONALISM IN SOUTH-WEST PAKISTAN

Introduction BALUCHISTAN is the largest in area of Pakistan’s four provinces, but the smallest in terms of population. Its 134,050 square miles of territory constitute more than 40 per cent of Pakistan's land mass,1 and is home to 4,332,376 people.2 Baluchistan translates as ‘the land of the Baluch’, but that status is not fully justified by the figures. The Baluch population is thought to be about 2,500,000, and it shares the land with other ethnic groups, some more influential than the Baluch.3 This is one of the contradictions dogging the state. Baluchistan came to public notice in the early 1970s when the govern¬ ment of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto first allowed regionalist coalitions to take control in Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), and then dismissed them on charges bordering on treason. Political violence became commonplace in the NWFP, but Baluchistan was racked by open warfare between central security forces and Baluch nationalist guerrillas, whose demands ranged from constitutional guarantees of autonomy at provincial level to outright secession. Guerrilla war went on for more than four years and was ended only after Bhutto was ousted by General Mohammed Zia ul Haq. Although the nationalists stopped fighting, central policy with regard to Baluch demands remained unchanged. This study draws together the strands of events leading to the widely ignored civil war that raged in Baluchistan in the 1970s. Negotiation failed to satisfy the more extreme members of the Baluch triumvirate, who have since lived abroad in self-imposed exile.4 Zia decided to pursue the policies of his deposed predecessor, but with Western financial aid he was able to remove some discontent and weaken the hold of tribal Sardars at the same time. While she was in office, Benazir Bhutto’s policies suggested the Baluch were still far from the objectives they fought for in the civil war. The land of the Baluch falls within the jurisdiction of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. The Afghan territory south of Kandahar, especially the Rigestan desert, has been inhabited by many Baluch tribesmen. In Iran,

BALUCH

NATIONALISM

119

Persian state-building efforts have absorbed Iranian Baluchistan into the province of Sistan with its capital at Kerman. Persian settlement has rendered the Baluch a minority in their own land. Even in Zahedan, the largest town in Iranian Baluchistan, Persians outnumber Baluch residents. Pakistani Baluchistan can be divided into four physical regions. The upper highlands of central and north-eastern Baluchistan are Khorasan country, bounded by the Sulaiman mountains to the east and the Toba Kakar range to the north-west. The Kaisargarh massifs highest peaks are Zarghun (11,738 ft) and Khilafat (11,434 ft). The Bolan and Khojak passes, historically attributed strategic significance by imperial powers, separate the upper highlands in the north from the lower highlands in the south. Straddling the breach and guarding passage through these passes, Quetta (or Shal as the Baluch call it), is the province’s most important, and largest, city. It is also Baluchistan’s provincial capital, site of the army s Staff College, and headquarters of Pakistan military’s regional command. The lower highlands include the eastern slopes of the Sulaiman moun¬ tains, the Khar an, Makran and Siahan ranges in the south-west and the Kirthar and Pab mountains in the south-east. The third region comprises deserts of Chagai, Kharan and Makran, and the swamps of Mashkel near the Iranian frontier, and Lora near the Afghan borders. Finally, there are the extensive plains along the coast and alluvial river valleys in Kachhi. These most fertile stretches of Baluch land depend on a complex web of functional relationships between ethnic groups. The area suffers from extremes of temperature. In winter, the mercury falls below zero and snow is common on the mountains. Rainfall is scant and seasonal, between six and sixteen inches annually in the highlands, four to eleven in coastal areas.5 Small wonder that US geologists surveying the hostile terrain described Baluchistan as the nearest thing on earth to Mars.6

Baluch history and historiography THE term Baluch brings together several ethno-linguistic groups. The Baluchi language, along with Persian (Dari in Afghanistan) and Pashtu/ Pakhtu, belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian section of the Indo-European/Aryan family of languages. However, the dominant sec¬ tion of the area’s inhabitants belongs to the Brahui ethno-linguistic group, speaking in the Brahui or Kirdgali/Kurgali tongue. This draws its roots from Modified Australoid or Dravidian culture.7 How the Dravidian Brahuis came to be in the midst of Caucasoid Baluch and Kurds when the

120

THE FEARFUL STATE

AFGHANISTAN

IISLAMABAD)

QUETTA

BANDAR ABBAS.

(

Gulf of Oman

CHAH BAHAR GWADAR

MAKRAN

KARACHI

OMAN

A rabian

Sea

Major Puhnin (ParKan) Area | Major Baluch Area

Mixed Brahui Baluch Area

MAP 4: The Baluchis and Pathans, MRG Report No. 48

Courtesy Minority Rights Group

BALUCH NATIONALISM

121

vast majority of Dravidians live in southern India has given rise to much speculation. The Brahui built the only proto-state, Kalat, that incorporated much of Baluchistan, but their language was viewed as uncouth, and the Khans of Kalat used Baluch or Persian as the court language. Many Brahui speak Brahui and Baluchi, or have given up the latter completely.8 In the 1970s, Brahui speakers in Baluchistan and Sind numbered about 500,000.9 Brahui is spoken in three dialects, the Sarawan dialect used in the mountains north of Kalat, the Jhalwan dialect south of Kalat and the Kalati dialect, which is viewed as standard. Brahui has borrowed many words from Persian and Sindhi. Sulaimani or montagnard Baluch of the northern highlands speak in a Persian-influenced tongue, while Makrani Baluch show pronounced Sindhi and Arabic influences.10 The Baluch and Brahui appear to have attained a degree of integration where the term Baluch is taken to mean both Baluch and Brahui speakers, other groups being excluded. However, integration remains superficial. Baluch tribes found the Brahui Khan’s tutelage discriminatory. The cleavage was highlighted during the 1970s civil war. Moreover, large numbers of non-Baluch-Brahui speakers such as Pathans (Pakhtu), Sindhis (Sindhi), Jats (Jatki), Dehwars (Persian) and Punjabis (Punjabi) now live in the province, as do Meds along the coast and Lurs in Baluch areas. Large numbers of Baluch settled in Sind, Punjab and the NWFP. The cities and districts of Dera Ghazi Khan and Dera Ismail Khan in the latter two provinces, founded by Baluch nobles, have a large Baluch population. Until quite recently, much of Sind was under the sway of the Baluch Talpur (or Talbur) family; Sind’s provincial capital Karachi continues to be home to a large Baluch community. However, expatriate Baluch settled outside Baluchistan, especially in Sind and Punjab, have developed roots and acquired linkages in their adopted communities. They are far less insular than those who lived in Baluchistan or have left only recently. In the province the Baluch and Brahui have become conscious of their particularist identity in the face o perceived threats to national and cultural characteristics. Pakistani efforts to change the traditional mould of Baluch society so as to integrate tribal Baluchistan into the rational-empirical state structure, generated an in¬ tractable power dynamic. Some of the issues may be traced in the history and the myths making up the Baluch self-image. At the turn of the century, Western scholars studying the origins of the Baluch thought that they could have had Turkoman, Arab, Rajput or Iranian blood.12 Anthropologists who examined the Baluchi cephalic

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THE FEARFUL STATE

index12 suggested the Baluch were related to the brachycephalic Iranians rather than the dolichocephalic Arabs or to the trans-Indus Indians.13 Some Baluch scholars claim Arab ancestry on the basis of tribal chronicles, which state that the race is descended from the Prophet Mohammed’s uncle Amir Hamza who lived in Halab (Aleppo) in north-west Syria about ad646. The legend is that the Baluch, having fought for the Prophet’s grandson Imam Hussain, and lost the battle of Karbala, migrated to the Kerman hills in Persia and from there to Makran, spending five centuries united under one amir. They then migrated to Kalat under the amir Jalal Khan (Han), whose sons. Rind, Hot, Lashari and Korai, and only daughter Mosammat Jatoi, gave rise to the five major tribal divisions among the Baluch.14 This account also asserts, questionably, that the first Baluch was the child of a liaison between Hamza and a Pari, a fairy-like being. Others draw upon the legend that the race derives its name and ancestry from babylon’s Chaldean King Belus, the biblical Nimrod and Koranic Namrood, who defied God and caused much inconvenience to his prophet Abraham.15 The term Baluch (or Baloch) indicating a distinct people first appears in Arab chronicles in the first half of the 10th century and in the Persian epic Shahnama, long before the Baluch appeared in Baluchistan. In Shahnama the Baluch are described as fierce warriors, dressed in red, waving tiger-skin banners, fighting for emperors Kai Kaus and Kai Khasrau. Later accounts relate how Baluch and Gilani hordes ravaged the realm of Persian monarchs Ardashir Babakan and Naushirvan. Babakan failed to subdue the Baluch, but Naushirvan surrounded the mountain fastnesses of the nomadic warriors and ordered every single person killed. This order was only partly carried out and many surviving Baluch later joined Naushirvan’s army. This may have brought the Baluch from the shores of the Caspian Sea to Kerman. Alternatively, the Baluch move to Kerman may have been triggered by the Ephthalite-White Hun invasion of northern Persia. In south-central Iran, the Baluch occupied the desolate Dasht-e-Lut (barren desert). By the 10th century AD, they had returned to brigandage. They did not resist the Arab occupation of Kerman, but their raids into Khorasan and Sistan aroused the wrath of Buwaihid rulers, Adad-ud-Daula (reigned ad949-982) and Muizz-udDaula, who launched punitive campaigns against the Baluch. Nomadic pastoralists eking out a living, the Baluch evolved into a tightly-knit tribal society that lived, and died, by the sword. Loot and plunder became a way of life and the tribal montagnard came to be seen as a threat to settled kingdoms wherever princes tried to establish structured communities.

BALUCH

NATIONALISM

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Consequently, the Baluch were always under pressure and survived only by staying one step ahead of hostile powers. This defensive and insecure mind-set may have left a major imprint on the Baluch national psyche. Mahmud Ghaznavi was one of the first rulers to consolidate an empire on the Afghan plateau and beyond. The Baluch robbed his ambassador to the Arab court in Kerman, eliciting a violent response. Mahmud’s son Masud led an army against the Baluch who were defeated at Khabis, at the foot of the Kerman range. The Baluch moved out of their desert haunts, halted briefly in Sistan, and then proceeded to Makran.16 As Central-Asian invading waves penetrated the Persian-Afghan highlands, Baluch tribes¬ men were forced south-eastward in a progressive counterwave. Along the way they absorbed new groups into the growing ranks of the formative Baluch ‘nation’.17 The Baluch are thought to have moved south-eastward in three stages. First, as the Seljuk Turks dismantled the Dailami and Ghaznavid dynasties in Persia and Afghanistan, the Baluch left Kerman for Sistan en route to Makran. Chengiz Khan’s (Genghis Khan: 1162?1227) invasion propelled the Baluch out of Sistan. The tribes under the command of Jalaluddin Maghbami (Jalal Han/Khan of legend?) moved into eastern Makran and Sind borders, spreading into the southern Indus valley. As Taimur Lane’s army arrived, a large segment was precipitated into the Indian plains. The early Mogul period also affected Baluch movement from the mountains into the plains east of the Indus.18 Baluch presence in Sind was first noted in the mid-13th century, a period of strife as Baluch clans laid claim to parts of the newly occupied lands. Arriving in Makran, the Baluch had to displace Arab and Jat chiefs. Some of them were liquidated while others were converted and assimi¬ lated. When the nomads entered Sind, the largest fief belonged to King Khafif, a Somra Rajput whose dynasty had displaced the Arabs. The Baluch joined local coalitions, fought and lost, and may have had to retire into the ‘Baluch’ mountains. At the end of the 13th century the Sammas overthrew King Doda V, the last Somra, and established the Jam dynasty in Sind. Doda’s Rajputs retreated into the present-day Baluchistan, and joined the Baluch and were assimilated, emerging as the Dodai Baluch. Little love was lost between the Samma Jamotes and the Baluch. Persian Naushervanis, Sikh Gichkis and Hindu Jakranis were also absorbed into the Baluch confraternity. Today, the Baluch are divided into 27 major tribal groups, subdivided into 40 bolaks or clans, with four servile bolaks — the Gopangs, Dashtis, Gadhis and Gholos. The number of tribes is disputed. Baluch scholars have named as many as 77.19 Tribal

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THE FEARFUL STATE

organisation is the main feature of Baluch society, binding the community as it fragments it internally. In the 15th century, the Baluch confraternity was hierarchical. The core comprised the Rind, Lashari, Hoti, Korai and the Jatoi, followed by the groups organised in Makran — the Buledhis, Ghazanis and Umranis. The Dodais were next and the servile bolaks last.20 The Baluch organised themselves under the charismatic Mir Chakar, chief of the Rinds. He built the region’s first confederacy, which, by the end of the 15th century, commanded the area from the Makran coast in the south to the Marri country near Quetta in the north. Mir Chakar built his capital at Sibi and reigned from 1487 to 1511. The confederacy was destroyed in a war pitting the Rinds against the Lasharis. Early in the 16th century, Mir Chakar led his army into Punjab, where they captured Multan and other southern towns. Baluch migration followed. Despite prosperity in Punjab and Sind, Mir Chakar’s failure to defeat Lashari challenges in Baluchistan had so polarised the community and the civil war so drained the tribes that the Baluch failed to establish any other proto-state. Mirwari Brahuis founded the Khanate around Kalat and extended their hold over most of Baluchistan.21 Ballads of Daptar Shaar, the chronicle of Baluch genealogies popular with all main Baluch tribes, are based on vignettes from the Rind-Lashari war. The Baluch did band together to defeat Mogul expeditions, but lasting political unity beyond tribal boundaries was to elude Baluch and Brahui communities until 1666. Developments in what is Iranian Baluchistan today followed a similar pattern, but because tribal population there was smaller and more segmentary, political organisation remained at a lower level.22 However, a differentiated approach is relevant only up to a point since clearly defined frontiers across tribal homelands is a fairly recent innovation, imposed by a different value system and politico-economic structure, operating to secure its own interests. It meant incomprehensible restrictions on movement for the Baluch tribesmen. Despite efforts by central authorities to impose their writ and formalise the territorial nature of the states they represent, these frontiers remain porous even today.

Development of the Baluch-Brahui Confederacy ACCORDING to legend, early in the second millennium AD the Kalat highlands were under the Muslim Sehrai dynasty, which was displaced by the Hindu Sewahs. In the second half of the seventeenth century, the last Sewah king was faced with threats from the Rind Baluch tribe of Mazaris,

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who mounted endless ‘Chupao’ raids from Multan, Shikarpur and upper Sind. The King called in Brahui highlanders to defend the kingdom. The Miwari herdsmen coming down from Panjgur in Makran were led by the chieftain Kambar Khan, believed to have been descended from an Ethio¬ pian holy man. He is the first Brahui chief whose name appears in Baluchistan’s history.23 Kambar Khan’s Brahuis ascended the Sarwan and Jhaiwan mountains to defend the principality from marauding Baluch and, for a pittance, destroyed the Mazari robbers. Kambar Khan, realising that he commanded the only military force in the kingdom, took over Kalat and forced Hindus to convert. Most of those who resisted were killed. King Sewah’s rebellion failed. His son Prince Sangin embraced Islam; and Sangin and his converted army gave rise to the ‘Brahui’ tribe of Gurmani that retained its pre-Islamic name of Guruwani. The Brahuis and the Baluch who came under their authority, retained considerable freedom at the tribal level. The Khanate was made up of tribal and clannish groups that jealously guarded their freedoms. The tension between the segmentary tribal structure under its powerful sardars and nationalist, democratic demands was the principal dynamic driving Baluch society. When Kambar Khan came to power, the assembly of tribal sardars decided the Khanate would be dynastically ruled. Having given hereditary power to the Mir, they instituted measures to prevent absolut¬ ism. An elaborate counselling mechanism was built up, in which the principal counsellors were two hereditary sardars, the Raisani chief of Sarawan, and the Zehri chief of Jhaiwan. An order of precedence based on participation in major battles determined that the Sarawan chief would be seated to the right of the Khan at Durbar, and the Jhaiwan chief to the left. Matters of Brahui interest were first presented before the Raisani sardar, who had the right to speak before the Zehri sardar. The Khan’s authority rested on his ability to retain the loyalty of these two chiefs. The Khan’s authority was further diluted by a tribal system built on primary loyalties, relationships and dependence between the sardar and his tribesmen. The latter, who saw themselves as beholden to their chief rather than the Khan for protection in a hostile environment, willingly deployed their energies to the collective sustenance based on lineage. Sardars tolerated imposition of the Khan’s authority but when disputes arose over jurisdiction or other demands, the lack of a mediating authority meant that consensus collapsed. Baluch history is often an account of the struggle between wilful khans and equally wilful sardars. The Brahui khans were also frequently challenged by intransigent Baluch tribes such

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as the Marri and Bugti, and the Mengal (who disowned their Brahui identity to adopt a Baluch one). Only powerful khans who could enforce their writ could strengthen the Kalati Khanate. The Khanate’s first rulers made peace with Baluch tribes and, by giving them hereditary rights over large tracts, persuaded many to settle down. A similar policy was successfully pursued with many nomadic Brahui tribes. This Baluch-Brahui osmosis aimed to meld the two communities into a proto-national confraternity. Muhammad Khan’s son Abdullah was Kalat's first notable ruler at the beginning of the 18th century. He extended his realm with raids into neighbouring districts, and settled Brahui nomads on acquired land on condition that tribes furnish a quota of soldiers when demanded by the court. Abdullah Khan’s kingdom surpassed the Rind confederacy. He secured the allegiance of the tribes scattered from Kandahar through Makran to Bandar Abbas. His writ ran up to Dera Ghazi Khan and southern Punjab. Abdullah Khan raided the fertile Kachhi plains, whose petty chiefs paid tributary to Sind’s Kalhora princes and his armies laid to waste Kej and Panjgur. News of his depredations reached Nadir Shah, the Persian seeking to assume control over the territory west of the Indus. He mounted an expedition to Kalat to capture the Khan’s two sons, Eltarz Khan and Mohabbat Khan, who were taken back to Kandahar as hostage to their father’s good behaviour. Abdullah Khan promised to maintain peace and order and was confirmed in his position by the Persian. Since that time, Baluch-Brahui culture and politics have drawn on their Persian roots. Proximity led to intercourse with the Indie as well, and their history is as much an account of the struggle between the two civilising influences on the tribesmen straddling the boundaries, as it is of the political development of the highlanders. Abdullah Khan was killed in a raid on Kachhi’s Sindhi suzerain.24 His son, Mohabbat Khan, was presented with the Khilat, robe of the ruler, by Nadir Shah and succeeded to the Kalat throne. The new Khan was virulently sectarian, and many Hindus were forced to emigrate. During Nadir Shah’s raid into northern India in 1739, Mohabbat Khan engaged Ghilji forces opposing the Persian. Having plundered Delhi and destroyed Mogul authority. Nadir secured the trans-Indus provinces, and, as a mark of gratitude to his Brahui tributary, ceded Kachhi to the Khan of Kalat.25 Nadir died in 1747 and Persian power in the Afghan highlands was sup¬ planted by the Abdali prince, Ahmed Shah. The Abdali (also called Durrani) established the Kandahar-based Afghan empire. Mohabbat Khan launched an incursion against Durrani forces and in the counter-offensive

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that ensued, the Khan’s brothers, Eltarz Khan and Nasir Khan, were taken as hostages to Kandahar, where Eltarz died in an accident Tribal sardars, resentful of Mohabbat Khan’s despotism, sought Abdali help, at the same time communicating with Nasir Khan. Ahmed Shah, seeing a way of stabilising his southern flank, sent for Mohabbat Khan, who was detained in Kandahar where he was to die. The Abdali placed Nasir on Kalat’s throne, launching the ‘golden age’ of Baluchistan. Nasir Khan I sought to build a kingdom in which all tribes, including those in Kachhi, would be voluntarily united. In this he was largely successful. His vigorous rule was moderated by the constituency of tribal chiefs, who willingly subordinated themselves. Nasir stood at the head of a large tribal confederacy and went methodically about building his Khanate. His administrative reforms were remarkable given the period and contemporary political development. Nadir Shah had already ceded a part of the highlands to the Rinds and the Magssis. The former received a grant in Sarawan and the latter in Jhalwan. Nasir Khan divided the rest of the Khanate into four for the distribution of proprietary rights and collection of revenue. One fourth went to the tribes of Jhalwan and another to the tribes in Sarawan. A third share went to the settled Jat peasants of Baluchistan, while the remainder became crown property. The tribes gained a territorial identity and stake in the Khanate in the face of pressures from the Kalhora princes of Sind and from the empire-building merchant princes of the British East India Company. Nasir Khan encouraged trade by reducing taxes and induced Hindu traders, book-keepers and money-lenders to return by paying for the upkeep of the Hindu temple at Kalat. These measures strengthened the Khanate and the Khan. He was able to annex a large part of Makran, including Kej and Panjgur. Although treaty-bound as a dependency of Kandahar, the Khan secured from the Durrani the districts of Shal (Quetta) and Mastung. He strengthened ties with the coastal district of Las, and acquired the port of Karachi from the Kalhora of Sind. In 1758, he declared independence, having refused to pay his annual tribute of 2,000 rupees and to maintain 1,000 soldiers at the Afghan court,26 and was defeated by Ahmed Shah’s army near Mastung. The Khan fled to Kalat where he prepared to offer resistance but, diplomatic in victory, Abdali offered a new treaty under which Nasir was no longer required to pay tribute to Kandahar, nor to maintain a Baluch contingent there. The only term he accepted was to furnish, on request, soldiers for duty outside Afghanistan; the Durrani monarch agreeing to pay half the expenses. In 1759, a Kalati

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contingent took part in the Abdali foray into northern India. In 1761-62, Nasir Khan led his army alongside Afghan forces against the Persian challenge. He showed great valour, in recognition of which Ahmed Shah granted him the districts of Dajil and Harrand to be enjoyed in perpetual sovereignty. The Khanate comprised Kalat, Sarawan, Jhalwan, Dajil, Quetta, Mustang, Harrand, the greater part of Makran, the tributary state of Las and the port of Karachi. Kalat earned revenue exceeding 3,000,000 rupees from the quarter of the territory Nasir had apportioned to the royal family as crown lands. But the Khan gave away much of this fortune. On his death in June 1795, the treasury had only 300,000 rupees.27 Nasir Khan I’s reign imposed unprecedented centralisation on the nomadic-pastoralist society. By settling the land, the Khan transformed Baluch-Brahui organisation — the major tribes acquired a sedentary character, productivity increased and relations between Baluch and nonBaluch became stable. The efficient collection of surplus allowed further, but limited, centralisation in relation to settled societies in neighbouring Baluchistan. The tribes rallied to the Kalat banner as part of an agreed military organisation representing central rather than tribal authority, enabling the Khan to field an army of 25,000 men, divided into the Sarawan and Jhalwan regiments, and a special troop under his command.28 Nasir Khan revised the Baluch code of justice. The punishment for murder, if the victim’s relatives agreed, was imprisonment and fines; if they did not then a murderer would be handed over to friends of the deceased who could do with him what they chose. A foreigner convicted of murder would be summarily executed. Burglary and robbery, which were substantiated with evidence, were punished by death. The code provided severe punishment for adultery. Thefts and other ‘ordinary’ crimes were met with flogging and imprisonment. The Tumander or chief of a khel (tribal settlement) adjudicated local cases. An appeal against his verdict could be made to the sardar and an appeal against the sardar’s decision could be made to the Khan, but was rarely done. Nasir Khan strengthened existing institutions and built new ones. His Wazir (prime minister) supervised internal administration and foreign relations; his Vakil (counsellor) collected revenue from crown lands and tribute from tributaries; and his Naibs (deputies) collected revenue from Kej and Panjgur, leaving local administration in the hands of the local chieftains. He established two legislative councils. The lower chamber of tribal sardars gave important advice and its members of this chamber, or nominees, were always present at Kalat. The upper chamber consisted of

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elders chosen by the Khan and acted in a consultative capacity. Even this modest role gave a sense of continuity across generations, strengthening the bonds between tribes and with the Khanate. The centre, none the less, had a weak revenue base. The tribes rarely paid anything, with most of the finances coming from irrigated crown lands in Sarawan.29 A pattern was set whereby tribes only provided military support to the superstructure. The Khan’s power was based on the support of tribal chiefs. Kalat thus suffered from the paradox of mutual dependence. This weakness was evident shortly after Nasir Khan’s death. His young son Mahmud Khan succeeded to the throne and under him the cycle of fission and fusion began anew. Many sardars reasserted their autonomy and, bereft of support, Mahmud’s army could muster barely 12,000 men.30 Revenue collection faltered and within 80 years would fall to a tenth of what it had been under Nasir Khan.31 Makran, Kharan and Las had regularly paid tribute to Nasir Khan but they stopped in the 1800s. Under weak rulers, the revenue earned from Karachi port was also lost Powerful local chieftains bickering among themselves, and with the Khan, eroded central authority. Centrifu¬ gal pressures subsumed under Nasir’s leadership, reappeared and palace intrigue added to the confusion. At this moment the confederacy came face to face with the strongest antagonist in its history — the British.

The Baluch on the fringes of the Empire THE East India Company (EIC) was well established in India when it encountered the highlanders. It was an expansive imperial power on an outward surge. In 1809-10, the Company’s army had sent a Captain Christie and a Lieutenant Pottinger to explore the remote reaches of ‘upper Sind’, as much of Baluchistan was then called. British frontier policy in the early 19th century was motivated by an urge to consolidate the colony and reduce perceived threats to its security. Company policy-makers felt the empire could only be protected if its territorial definition was explicit and if political control within frontiers was matched by a willingness to defend these borders. This demanded acquisition of information, creation of allies, dependencies or buffers, delimiting and then demarcating frontiers and, finally, the deployment of resources to maintain the impermeability of the frontiers. Threats from an equally expansionist Czarist Russia led to the era of intrigue and conspiracy along the border. Afghanistan and the Pathan tribes of the NWFP played a significant role in that unfolding drama, which acquired a dynamic and logic of its own.

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The Baluch, because of their proximity to Afghanistan and the NWFP and to the potentially troublesome Persian power, became a secondary act in that exercise. They no longer mattered because of who they were; their significance lay in how they could be manipulated to strengthen the Company’s hands in those distant outposts. Internal strife and a weak power in Kalat opened the way to British manipulation of the Baluch confederation. Security in the north-west demanded the consolidation of a friendly Punjab under Ranjit Singh and, then, the maintenance of a dependable ally in Kabul. On both counts, British efforts led to losses for the Baluch — the intrigues of Syed Mohammad Shar, the EIC agent in Baluchistan, resulted in the loss of Harrand and Dajil, which were annexed by Ranjit Singh to Punjab.32 Mahmud Khan’s reign was troubled by rebellions. Mohabbat Khan’s son Haji Khan and his son, Bahram Khan, tried repeatedly to lay claim to the throne. Mahmud Khan ceded Kachh Gandava to Bahram in a treaty, but Bahram again attacked Kalat. With the help of the Durrani prince, Zaman Shah, the Khan captured Bahram and his father. Meanwhile, Kej in Makran declared itself independent of Kalat. The Talpur Baluch drove out Sind’s last Kalhora prince, Abdul Nabi Khan, and took over Sind and Karachi. Mengal and Bizenjo tribes revolted but were almost annihilated by Mahmud’s forces. Mahmud Khan died in 1821; his son Mehrab began his rule with vigour but was weakened by rebellions and palace intrigues. It was then, in 1834, that Shah Shuja-ul Mulk, driven from Kabul, rested in Kalat before proceeding to exile in Punjab. This brought to notice Kalat’s potential as a transit and staging area for any expedition from India to Afghanistan, Ranjit having forbidden British troops passage through Punjab. The British would do whatever was necessary to place the pliable Shuja on the Afghan throne and sent Lt Leech to Kalat to secure Mehrab Khan’s co-operation. The Khan’s minister, Mullah Muhammad Hasan, gave the British the impression that the Khan had urged tribesmen to withhold grain and harass British forces on the line of march. Sir Alexan¬ der Bumes was sent to Kalat to bind the Khan in a treaty that would secure his compliance and acknowledgement of Afghan suzerainty. It was signed on 28 March 1839, and was the first of many treaties the British would impose on the Baluch. Using Minister Hasan’s intrigues as a pretext, the British despatched General Wiltshire’s brigade on its way back from Kabul to ‘punish’ the recalcitrant Khan.33 On 5 November 1839, British forces reduced Kalat’s citadel, killed Mehrab Khan and arrested Mullah Hasan. Bahram Khan’s grandson Shahnawaz was placed on the throne.

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The British also gave the provinces of Sarawan, specifically Shal and Mustang and Kachh Gandava, to Shah Shuja in Kabul. Shahnawaz Khan’s brief reign was ended by a tribal rebellion headed by Mehrab’s son Hassan Khan, who assumed the name Nasir Khan II and, with support from Sarawan chiefs, besieged Kalat. Jhalwan tribes stayed loyal to Shahnawaz. Negotiations between tribal delegates led to the abdication of Shahnawaz Khan in favour of Nasir Khan II. A few bitter engagements later, the British acknowledged Nasir as the legitimate Khan, and restored to him the provinces that had been ceded to Kabul. A treaty formalising Kalat’s position as Kabul’s dependency was signed between the British and Nasir Khan in October 1841. A British Political Officer was appointed to oversee imperial interests in Baluchistan. British attempts at imposing structure through treaty instruments on the highlands were only partially successful. The intensity of their efforts varied with the scale of the perceived threat. The British engaged various Baluch tribes in punitive combat after the highlanders had gone on large-scale ‘chupao’ raids in British-admini¬ stered territory. Sir Charles Napier, Governor of Sind, sought a way to prevent Bugti, Jakrani, Dumbki, Khetran and Marri tribal lashkars from plundering Jat and Sindhi villages. The revenue-rich Kachhi plains pro¬ vided a lucrative objective where British and Baluch interests clashed. Napier led the 1845-46 campaigns in which Lishari Gurchanis fought alongside British forces against Marri, Bugti and Khetran fighters, while Marris assisted Napier against the Bugtis. The British were impressed with Bugti valour in 1847 when the tribal army stood its ground until 560 high¬ landers had been killed and the remaining 120, mostly wounded, surren¬ dered. But once the British forces withdrew, the raids began anew. Not until Major (later General) John Jacob abandoned the ‘closed frontier’ stance to institute the ‘forward policy’ strategy did Baluch raids stop. The former aimed at monitoring the marchlands and manipulating the tribal population so as to ensure the empire’s security. The latter aimed at administering and assimilating the land and its people.34 Jacob decided that defensive measures were inadequate to meet the Baluch threat. He ordered that small, well-armed cavalry units from the Sindh Horse be kept on permanent mobile patrol in vulnerable areas. Soldiers were to charge immediately they sighted tribal horsemen, whether or not the malign intent of the highlanders could be proved. As a bloody method of countering brigandage it was effective. By liberally deploying the Sindh Horse to the hills, killing nomads on suspicion and taking away their animals, Jacob persuaded the Marris and Bugtis to give up looting and plunder.

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The Baluch looked upon these battles as evidence of their valorous, warlike traditions. Accounts of battle with the British have the same revered place in tribal folklore as those about war with Persians, Afghans, Moguls and Hindus. The Khan’s inability to protect his subjects from British raids weakened his authority which, in turn, contributed to a general decline of what, in British eyes, was the law-and-order situation. However, after the brutal end to Shah Shuja’s reign in Kabul, the 1841 treaty lost its force. In 1854, with fears looming large of a war between Britain and Russia spreading from the Crimea to the Hindu Kush, the EIC sought to strengthen its hand in the area. Lord Dalhousie sent Jacob to negotiate another treaty with the Khan, which was signed on 14 May 1854. This abrogated the 1841 treaty but renewed the Khan’s subordination to Calcutta and obligation to oppose enemies of the EIC, to seek Calcutta’s permission before entering into negotiations with other states, and to station British forces on demand. In return, the Khan was granted an annual subsidy of 50,000 rupees. He would no longer pay ‘homage to the Royal House of the Saddozais’ in Kabul. From an Afghan tributary, Kalat became a British dependency. On Nasir Khan’s death in 1857, the year of the Mutiny, Britain became directly involved in Kalat. Nasir Khan’s brother, Khudadad, succeeded him and was faced with intermittent rebellion, first by the Marris, and then by a coalition of sardars who removed him and proclaimed his cousin Sherdil the Khan of Kalat. British subsidies were suspended. Sherdil was killed by his own guards in May 1864 whereupon Khudadad Khan was reinstated and promptly recognised by the British, who resumed payments. In 1862, the British and Khudadad Khan signed an agreement delimiting the frontier between Kalat and Sind. Some years later, Khudadad Khan had to seek British mediation to end an open rebellion by several sardars. The Khan’s dependence on the British for resolving internal disputes led, in 1871, to the assumption by the Political Superintendent of the Upper Sind Frontier District of powers to negotiate with the Marris and Bugtis through the Deputy Commissioner of Dera Ghazi Khan. The British began paying subsidies to powerful sardars, further weakening the Khan vis-a-vis his tribal chiefs and rendered them malleable in British hands. The British now decided to secure the strategic passes and, on the pretext provided by marauding Marris, with whom they were dealing directly, the imperial government imposed one other treaty on the Khan. Signed in December 1876, it provided for the stationing of British troops, construction of railway and telegraph lines through Kalat, posting of

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political officers and their escorts, and the payment of 100,000 rupees in annual subsidy to the Khan. In February 1877, the first agent, Major Sandeman, set up his headquar¬ ters at Quetta, which, as a growing garrison commanding the Bolan Pass, replaced Kalat as the main administrative centre. Two years later, the British took over Quetta, the transfer being formalised in a 1883 treaty. The Khan ‘leased’ Quetta, surrendering his right to collect revenue from commerce in transit through the Bolan pass. In 1893, the British forced Khudadad Khan to abdicate in favour of his son Mir Mahmud, who was installed in November. In the same year, the raj demarcated the BaluchAfghan frontiers along the Durand Line and the Baluch-Persian borders along the 1872 Goldsmid Line, in accordance with an agreement made with Tehran. It was followed by another with Kalat in March 1896. The demarcations ceded to Tehran and Kabul control of Baluch areas that hitherto had been under tribal sardars who, despite their fluctuating allegiance to the Khan of Kalat, had at least been masters in their own house. The process of weaning Baluchistan from its historical association with Kandahar and Kabul, and extending British paramountcy over it, was now complete. By the early part of the 20th century, Baluchistan had been divided and was being ruled by the British with varying degrees of intensity. There was, firstly, the strip of territory stretching from the south-western tip of Afghanistan to the borders of the NWFP, an area directly administered by the British Chief Commissioner. The aim was to create a buffer that insulated Baluch tribesmen from troublesome neighbours in Afghanistan and the NWFP. Then there were the leased districts, secured for their strategic significance to imperial defence and security, integrated admin¬ istratively under the Chief Commissioner, but for which an annual rent was paid to the Khan of Kalat. Quetta, Mustang and the Bolan Pass fell into this category.35 The rest of Baluchistan was broken up into chieftaincies, Kalat merely being the largest. The British signed separate treaties with these in a classic instance of divide and rule. The chiefs surrendered independence to the British and were allowed sovereignty, supported with cash subsidies paid to the sardars. The Bugtis became semi-independent, their sardar being created a nawab, and the Marris and the Mengals gained autonomy. Within Kalat, tributaries were encouraged to assert their individuality and, by 1947, Kharan, Makran and Las Bela had become distinct entities. Baluch cohesion had been lost.

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Stirrings of nationalism and accession to Pakistan THE Russian Revolution, the subsequent civil war, and Indian nationalist struggle acted as catalysts for Baluch nationalist tendencies, which had stirred in 1920 when Mir Yusuf Ali Khan Magssi and Mir Abdul Aziz Kurd secretly founded the Anjuman-e-ittehad-i-Baluchistan (Organisation for the Unity of Baluchistan). Educated in India and steeped in the fiery Congress rhetoric of the 1920s, scions of tribal chiefs returned to build up the Anjuman’s ranks which began working openly in 1931. Its efforts were directed against the pro-British Prime Minister of Kalat, Sir Shams Shah, who hoped to replace the reigning Mir Mahmud Khan with his own son. The Anjuman secretly negotiated with the imprisoned prince, Mohammad Azam Jan, and declared its support for him. The Anjuman leader initiated a mass migration from the Magssi area to Sind and Punjab to force Shams into resigning. In December 1931, Mahmud Khan abdicated in favour of Azam Jan in what the Baluch nation¬ alists viewed as their first victory. But the accord between the Anjuman and the Khan broke down, and in 1932 the organisation declared its goal to be an independent and united, democratic Baluchistan. This movement was led by men whose ardour was partly the product of their privileged tribal position, which gave them exposure to sophisticated political views gleaned from a liberal education. In 1932 and again the following year, he Anjuman organised ‘Baluchistan and All-India Baluch Conferences’, at which Khairpur’s Mir Ali Nawaz Khan Talpur played a significant role. These conventions resolved to unite the Baluch politically, establish a constitutional government, abolish the Frontier Crimes Regulations, set up centres of advanced education and a manufacturing industry. In December 1933, Mir Ahmad Yar Khan succeeded Mir Mohammad Azam Jan. The young Khan supported the Anjuman and his policies gave the movement legitimacy. After Magssi’s death in 1935, the Anjuman’s left wing decided to reorganise. In February 1937, the Kalat State National Party emerged with the Anjuman’s objectives articulated more ardently. The party recruited educated Baluch youth and state employees. These groups were tiny, however. Anjuman also persuaded the Khan to abolish a number of taxes levied on tribes by pro-British sardars. The party supported the Khan in his opposition to British plans to build naval facilities at Jiuni. These policies created a backlash against nationalists. Pressure from the British and several sardars forced the Khan to declare the party illegal in 1939; its leaders went underground.

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At the end of the Second World War, many exiled Baluch nationalists joined the Congress-sponsored All India States People’s Conference under Nehru’s chairmanship. The Khan sought to cut Kalat’s ties with British India. In 1936, he had retained a barrister, M A Jinnah, to defend Kalat’s claim to independence in post-colonial India. The future founder of Pakistan wrote to the Cabinet Mission in 1946: ‘Several representatives of the British have described Kalat as a sover¬ eign and independent state. In 1872, Sir W L Merewether, who was in charge of the British Government’s relations with Kalat, wrote as follows: “There cannot, in my opinion, be the least doubt of the course which should be followed with regard to Kalat or Baluchistan as it should be correctly termed. H H the Khan is the de facto and de jure ruler of that country. We have treaty engagements with him under which he is bound to keep his subjects from injuring British territory or people to protect trade etc. But the treaty is with him as ruler only”.’ 37 Baluch nationalists also point to a petition prepared the same year by Pakistan’s future prime minister, I I Chundrigar, in which he stated: ‘Kalat, which is not an Indian state and which was brought in relation with the British Government on account of its geographical position on the border of India, is just like Afghanistan and Persia. The State has no intention of entering into a federal relationship with successive govern¬ ment or governments in British India and I have, therefore, to request your Excellency to declare the independence of Kalat State.’ 37 The raj’s last months were uncertain and painful on the subcontinent. For the 565 princely states, the uncertainty was especially acute. On 11 April, Kalat proclaimed its constitution, a charter of minority rights, and provisions for converting the Khanate into a welfare state. At the end of July 1947, Jinnah described Muslim League policy towards the princely states as one of non-interference in their internal affairs and declared that they had the right to determine their own future.38 On 4 August, ten days before Partition, an agreement was reached between Kalat, Britain, and the future government of Pakistan. It stated: ‘ The Government of Pakistan recognises the status of Kalat as a free and independent State which has bilateral relations with the British Govern¬ ment, and whose rank and position is different from that of other Indian states.’39 The next day the Khan proclaimed the establishment of ‘Independent Kalat’, but with limited impact. The directly administered ‘British Balu¬ chistan’ had taken a different course. A month before Kalat s declaration,

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the British-nominated council of tribal elders, the Shahi Jirga (royal assembly), and the Quetta municipal council had voted to join Pakistan; that decision was not changed. The Khan held elections to the new State Assembly and the still illegal National Party won 32 of the 52 seats. The Assembly supported the Khan’s decision to initiate talks with Pakistan. Late in September 1947, Kalat’s Prime Minister, Nawabzada Mohammad Aslam, and Foreign Minister, D Y Fell, met the Secretary to the Government of Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign and States Affairs. They offered to negotiate a treaty under which Pakistan would have full control over the Khanate’s defence, foreign relations and communications.40 Their host advised a merger with Pakistan rather than a treaty relationship. The Kalat cabinet considered five options. 1. Kalat become a British colony: rejected by Fell. 2. Merger with Iran: also rejected since Tehran was already engaged in brutal suppression of Baluchis demanding self-determination. 3. Merger with Afghanistan: supported by some members of the royal family but Fell pointed to the possibility of Communist infiltration of the Khanate through Soviet influence in Afghanistan; the devoutly religious Khan then rejected this option. 4. Merger with India: recognised as extremely awkward geographically and an option that would be unpopular. Such a decision would be seen in Pakistan as a serious provocation. The Khan asked the Prime Minister to accept the fifth proposal. 5. Independence: Kalat would maintain friendly relations with Pakistan and ensure sovereign equality. A merger was not considered.41 On 13 December, the Khan convened the elected Lower House to consider the accession issue. The next day Kalat’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minsister explained the juridical aspects of the various options. Mir G B Bizenjo, a young parliamentarian, made a fiery defence of Kalat’s independence. National Party members of parliament also demanded that Pakistan return the leased areas, Baluch tribal zones and the Baluch areas of the two Dera districts. On 2 January 1948, Jinnah performed a volte face, writing to the Khan to advise immediate accession. Two days later, the Upper House of Kalat’s parliament (the Brahui sardars) joined the Lower House in rejecting accession42 The Khan could not ignore them. Pakistan faced pressures that left it little choice but to annex Kalat. Having been founded as the homeland for South Asia’s Muslims, it could not accept any implicit challenge to its position as the sole representative of Muslim political aspirations. Kalat was contiguous to Pakistan’s other

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provinces, including the former British Baluchistan. It had been under British paramountcy as had other Muslim princely states that acceded to Pakistan. The British had allowed the princely states two choices: join India or Pakistan. Given Kalat’s overwhelmingly Muslim majority and its location, it appeared only logical that the Khanate join Pakistan. Kalat did not share a border with India. Pakistan felt that if Hyderabad and Junagadh-Manvadar could not join the Muslim state because of their location, then Kalat could not join India. Significantly, Pakistan was already engaged in its first war with India over Kashmir, and if Kalat were to remain independent, Karachi’s claim on Jammu and Kashmir would be severely tested. An independent Kalat would weaken the centre’s hold on Baluch tribes living elsewhere, and would also represent a challange to Pakistan’s raison d’etre. Given the insecurity that afflicted Pakistan’s immigrant ruling elites, and the uncertainties they faced in their adopted homeland, Baluch nationalism was seen as a threat to newly gained autonomy. They acted decisively. Kalat’s parliamentary proceedings were brushed aside and Karachi accepted the accession of Makran, Kharan and Las Bela, feudatories that Kalat claimed were its tributaries. Under mounting pressure, the Khan signalled unconditional accession on 27 March 1948. This was an unpopular move and sparked violent protests throughout the Khanate. On 1 April, Pakistani regular forces garrisoned at Quetta were deployed to Kalat. The following day Karachi announced that the Khan of Kalat had, after several weeks of negotiations with the Government of Pakistan, signed an instrument of accession.42 The National Party, which had espoused the cause of a ‘Greater Baluchistan’ incorporating all Baluch areas into an enlarged Kalat state, rejected accession and was behind much of the agitation. Its leaders, Mir G B Bizenjo, Mir Abdul Aziz Khan Kurd and others, were arrested. This first encounter between Baluch tribals and the forces of the Pakistani state was crucial in shaping nationalist insecurity and fear of repression at the hands of ‘foreigners’. Under the raj, Baluch affairs outside of British Baluchistan had been left to the Baluch; now, centralising forces appeared that the highlanders could not easily accept. In May, the Khan s brother, Prince Abdul Karim, launched a rebellion against Pakistan. National Party members who were still free, joined the prince along with Sind-Baluch Communist Party leaders. Karachi forced the Khan to declare his brother and his band outlaws. The rebels sought sanctuary in Baluch territory in south-eastern Afghanistan, setting a precedent for the future. The prince set up camp at Nazar Mohammad Karez in Shorawak and began a series of

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small-scale raids on Pakistani posts across the Durand Line. It was a hopeless campaign. The rebels had neither the organisation nor the wherewithal for sustained action against an army equipped for highland operations, and could not even be sure they would have sanctuary for long. The Afghans were not happy hosts. Kabul-Karachi relations had been embittered over the Pakhtunistan issue. But, for decades, Afghan rulers had viewed as rightfully theirs the land lying between the Durand Line and the Indus, which superior British military forces had annexed. With the ending of the Imperial paramountcy, it was only fitting in Kabul’s view that its historical rights be restored. Kabul’s irredentist claims included what had now become Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, a fact Prince Karim’s nationalists failed to appreciate. Kabul ordered the rebels to leave and the prince approached the Soviets for help. The Soviet embassy was sympathetic, but offered no material assistance, which was to be the pattern for relations between Baluch nationalists and Moscow. Prince Karim returned to Baluchistan with his militia and surrendered. Most rebels were given prison sentences, which were later reduced. On their release in 1950, nationalists organised the ‘Baluchistan Peace Committee’ demanding recognition of the Baluch right of self-determination, and replacement of the tribal-feudal system with one that was representative. The Pakistan government set up a committee to propose political reforms in Baluchistan. Its report was published, but little was done.43 Two years later, Karachi tried to appease the Baluch by uniting the former Baluch states into the Baluchistan States Union as a distinct administrative entity, partially restoring the autonomy enjoyed by the royal family before accession. As a palliative it proved to be shortlived. In the early 1950s Pakistan’s ceaseless bickering with India over Kashmir, Punjab river waters, disputed frontiers and enclaves, distribution of assets and liabilities and the management of evacuee property, left its rulers feeling beleaguered. This was reflected in its policy-making. The decision to join the Dulles ‘containment alliances’ was motivated by the insecurity afflicting its leaders vis-a-vis India, as much as by their lack of an internal territorial constituency. The insecure elite developed linkages with the Punjabi-dominated civil and military bureaucratic apparatus that had held together the imperial superstructure and now maintained the new order. Punjab’s feudal interests lent support to, and co-opted, the state structure as an insurance. This was the nature of Pakistan’s emerging power 61ite when the new state’s Bengali majority began demanding an equal share in political and economic decision-making. As Pakistan

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approached constitutional rule, the potential threat posed by the Bengali petit bourgeoisie grew. To counter East Bengal’s demographic weight, the rulers in Karachi contrived the ‘one unit’ formulation whereby Punjab, Sind, NWFP, Baluchistan and the various states were grouped into a-single province enjoying parliamentary parity with East Pakistan. During the life of the Baluchistan States Union (1952-55), little was done in the way of economic development. Now, under the One Unit scheme, the domestic autonomy enjoyed by the princely system was again removed. Opposition from Baluch, Sindhi and Pathan politicians was matched by support from Pakistan’s patrons in Washington. There,'it was seen as one way of consolidating the Pakistani state, which could serve as a stronger link in the global anti-Communist chain. During 1956-57 the National Awami Party (NAP) was formed as an alliance of left-centre groups from non-Punjabi regions. It brought Baluch nationalist activities within the ambit of opposition politics in Pakistan and led to socialisation between regional and progressive forces that had been kept at bay by entrenched elites; and it provided a formal channel to the leftist groups for expressing its alternative view of what the Pakistani state should be. Among its components was the Ustman Gall (people’s party), founded in 1953 by Prince Karim and Mir G B Bizenjo.45 The end of the Kalat States Union increased Pakistani worries about Baluch response to the One Unit scheme. To preclude protests on legal grounds, the government presented a ‘New Instrument of Accession’. Constitutional democracy arrived in Pakistan in 1956. The following year, the West Pakistan Provincial Assembly voted for the dissolution of the One Unit scheme and restoration of four linguistically based provinces. Internecine political squabbling led to a rapid turnover in governments and accretion of power to the civil-military bureaucracies. The army inter¬ vened before the parliament’s decision could be implemented. Ayub Khan’s regime of martial law was particularly intrusive. Its integrationist policies created friction and enduring bitterness among tribal communities, such as those in Baluchistan. The province s multi¬ ethnic populace had developed a highly efficient mechanism to utilise resources in a way that achieved a balanced scale of production and distri¬ bution. The fertile Kachhi valley was a model of social organisation and land utilisation. The plains were drained by six seasonal streams that provided irrigation and secured high crop yields. The land, largely owned by Brahui tribes, was worked by resident Jat tenants. Vertical co-operation between Jat and Brahui, and horizontal co-operation by Brahui tribes,

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ensured the benefits of irrigation and distribution for all. Each village had a resident Brahui Naib who supervised production units of twenty Jat families gathered under a Jat Rais. The Naib allocated labour for specific tasks, which were carried out under the Rais’s supervision. Every July, the Naibs organised the workforce to erect dams across the dry or nearly dry river beds. Each village built its own barrage in which timing, organisation and co-ordination were crucial. Once the rain-swollen spate arrived, the weir sent water along irrigation channels to the fields. After plots were drenched, the barrage was breached to let the water rush to the next dam downstream. The migrational cycle of the nomadic Brahuis, their flocks and herds was dovetailed with the crop cycle. The owners received one-third of the crop and the tenants received the remainder. The owners distributed one-seventh of their share to intermediaries: the Naibs, Arbabs and Mirabs. A further one-ninth was given to specialists: the accountants, trackers, messengers, guards, cooks, and water women. These specialists also received one-ninth of the tenants’ share. Religious and judicial functionaries such as mullahs, qazis, Sayyids and Takkaris also received shares from both owners and tenants. Village craftsmen — barbers, carpenters, potters and blacksmiths — received one-thirtieth of the tenants’ share of crops.46 Baluch agriculture before the encroachment of the Pakistani garrison state sustained the region’s interactive, settled and nomadic lifestyles. Changes to any one aspect would wreak havoc with the entire cycle, which is what Ayub Khan’s martial law achieved. The army entered Kalat the day before martial law was declared throughout Pakistan, ostensibly to contain demonstrations in support of Baluch self-determination. The Khan surrendered and was paraded on the streets before being locked up in Lahore jail. Many of his followers were shot. In the Khan’s words: ‘Oppression and tyranny reigned supreme. The people of Baluchistan forgot the barbarism of the time of the British in comparison to their own times.’46 The military action fuelled resistance. The highlanders had always viewed their Jat tenants condescendingly. Jat peasants had historically been helpless victims of Baluch depredations. Tribal lashkars found it difficult to accept the authority of the state imposed and represented by an army manned mainly by Jats from Punjab. They fought back and, in the face of the army’s superiority, suffered grievous losses. In 1958-59, Baluchistan was directly ruled by the army. Their pride challenged, the Mengals under Nauroz Khan raised the flag of rebellion. Their attacks on the army were serious enough to provoke reprisals. To break the stalemate, the brigade commander, Tikka Khan,

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declared an amnesty and promised on the Koran to grant safe passage to Nauroz Khan and his lashkars. The trusting Mengal laid down his arms, and was promptly arrested. Seven aides were hanged and Nauroz Khan died in prison. The bitterness engendered by this episode was a major factor in shaping Baluch nationalist ardour in later years. Ayub Khan’s intrusive regime stepped up ‘nation-building’ activities, despatching Punjabi civil servants to assume responsibilities that had hitherto been the province of tribal chiefs, building roads and laying gas pipelines to facilitate the exploitation of Baluchistan’s mineral reserves, and military mobility. The 1962 constitution transferred power from the legislature to the executive whose hands reached down into rural areas through 80,000 ‘Basic Democrats’, who acted as a conduit for distributing patronage. Ayub’s centralising policies introduced land reforms threaten¬ ing the intricate complex of relationships and interdependence that had characterised Baluch agriculture. The military abrogated the rights of the Jat Arabs and Rais (intermediaries between Baluch owners and nonBaluch tenants). Ceilings were imposed on land holdings, a maximum of 1,000 acres of unirrigated land and 500 acres of irrigated. Surpluses were taken for redistribution among tenant and landless farmers. The strict enforcement of these ceilings endangered the way tribes and dependents had worked the communal land for centuries. Nasir Khan I and his successors had settled nomadic tribes on the fertile valleys by giving them half the land. The other half was maintained as crown lands to be worked by Jat and Dehwar peasants, the principal source of royal revenue. The half distributed among the tribes was divided into two categories. ‘Gham’ (sorrow or obligation) land was doled out in proportion to the number of soldiers provided by each tribe. The surplus, one-twelth of the income collected by the sardars from Gham lands and handed over to Kalat treasury, went mainly to maintain the army in the field. Collectively held Gham land could not be bought or sold by tribes¬ men. Ownership signified the share a family claimed to the land s produce. If the Khan was dissatisfied with a tribe, he could confiscate its Gham land. The other part, called ‘Jagir’ (lease in perpetuity) was given away to the tribes on the basis of participation in the principal battles for Kachhi. Owners paid no revenue for working this land, and could do what they wished with it Principal Sarawan tribes, having fought hard, were given fertile tracts along the Bolan and Nari rivers. The Jhalwan tribes, owing to their limited participation, owned marginal plots between the hills and Kachhi. This surplus-differential created socio-political and economic

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variations between tribes and regions. Gham and Jagir land created no tradition of revenue payment. Tenants treated Botar’s (owner’s) share of produce (Botari) as dues to the landlord, not revenue. When central authorities demanded land revenue, tenants and owners felt unduly op¬ pressed and tribal resentment grew. Confiscation of all Jagir and Gham land surplus to the ceilings further enraged the highlanders, who were convinced the Punjabi Jats were depriving the Baluch. In July 1963,48 Sher Mohammad Marri, a former Congress member, raised the ‘Parari’ army, which demanded freedom for Baluch working classes from the oppression of Pakistan’s Punjabi-Mohajir, feudal-bureaucratic-bourgeois elite, to secure the right to build a socialist state modelled on the Soviet Union. The NAP, unpopular with Pakistan’s right-of-centre establishment, supported these aspirations. Throughout the 1960s, the Baluch mountains were the scene of considerable guerrilla activity. General Tikka Khan, who commanded Pakistani forces in the area, earned the sobriquet ‘the Butcher of Baluchistan’. Marri and Mengal tribesmen would remember him, and the state he represented, with horror. Later, rebellion spread to Bugti country. The Bugtis, pampered by the raj, felt aggrieved because the government was distributing scarce irrigated land along the Pat Feeder canal of the Guddu Barrage among highlanders loyal to the government. Bugti violence was more tribal than national, but in the context of growing montagnard disaffection, it was seen as horizontal escalation of the guerrilla war. In 1967-68, Bugti guerrillas and the Pakistan army engaged in a series of bloody skirmishes. In May 1968, Nawab Akbar Bugti was sentenced to death under the Defence of Pakistan Rules. Although Bugti was later pardoned, around 200 Baluch leaders were kept imprisoned in Quetta, Kalat and Karachi on rebellion charges, between 1962 and 1969.49 Tribal reaction to the Pakistani effort to integrate fringe areas into the national, or state structure, elicited a violent response and Baluch insurrection did not end until after Ayub’s fall in 1969. An amnesty was offered to surviving prisoners, and in preparation for Pakistan’s first free elections, the One Unit scheme was broken up and the provinces of Punjab, Sind, NWFP and Baluchistan were resurrected.

Provincial autonomy and the Iran-Iraq Great-Game '

'

THE election results reflected the segmentary character of the tribal polity. Of twenty seats allocated to the Baluchistan provincial assembly, the NAP won eight, the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) took three; Pakistan

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Muslim League (Qayyum Khan faction) two; NAP (Pakhtun Khawa) and Baluchistan United Front, one each; with five for the Independents.50 The Pakistan People's Party, having won a majority in Punjab and Sind, made no mark in Baluchistan. This, and the insecurity engendered by the events of 1971 that led to Pakistan’s dismemberment and invalidation of the state’s raison d’etre, were at the heart of the events that now followed in Baluchistan. Other factors such as the personality of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who saw himself, and was seen by many, as the saviour of the residual Pakistan, and external influences helped to shape the fate of the province. The NAP and the JUI had fashioned an alliance for campaigning in the NWFP and Baluchistan. The alliance won eleven of the twenty seats but did not accede to power immediately as the civil war in East Pakistan provided a pretext for the military government to postpone the transfer. After becoming President on 20 December 1971, Bhutto appointed the pro-PPP Baluch leader, Ghaus Bakhsh Raisani, as Baluchistan’s governor. This resulted in public protests orchestrated by the NAP-JUI alliance, which forced Bhutto to negotiate. Talks with NAP leaders led to the dropping of Raisani in April 1972. Bhutto appointed a member of the Baluch-NAP triumvirate, Mir G B Bizenjo, as governor, but in his letter of appointment warned him that he would remain in office only as long as he retained the President’s confidence. Bizenjo asked the alliance to form the new provincial government. The NAP-JUI administration led by Ataullah Mengal took office on May Day 1972. The summer was devoted to negotiations on Pakistan’s constitution. Bhutto insisted on a presidential system built around a powerful executive that he felt could preserve Pakistan from centrifugal tendencies. The NAP argued that strong, insensitive central executives had been the cause of Pakistan’s break up, and that the country ought to learn from its own mistakes. The NAP sought a constitution that relied on the parliamentary system and created consensus by devolving maximum autonomy to the provinces.51 These two objectives were so divergent that compromise was virtually impossible. Delays in the framing of the constitution, and the consequent partisan ill feeling, were inevitable. In Baluchistan, Mengal lifted the draconian Section 144 from the Quetta-Pishin area and withdrew press censorship. Headed by a trio of leftist tribal chieftains, the provincial government promised land reforms, abolition of the feudal sardari system, and other measures that would strengthen cultural and ethnic bonds among the Baluch across tribal boundaries.52 These reforms would redound to the benefit of the poorer

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THE FEARFUL STATE

sections of the community and threaten traditional power structures of which Mengal and Marri were beneficiaries. The sardari system, the essence of tribal organisation, defined Baluch identity within parameters of linear descent and loyalty to hereditary chiefs. Benefiting powerful families, it divided the tribes, preventing coalescence of a group identity. Abolition of the sardari system threatened vested interests, and destroyed the leverages a fragmented society gave to outsiders, such as Pakistan’s central authorities. A unified Baluch nation was likely to be more successful in asserting collective rights, but such policies challenged the manoeuvrability of Pakistan’s rulers. The NAP decision to repatriate the majority of nonBaluch public employees and replace them with Baluch personnel, was particularly controversial. Mengal established a National Council of Arts to develop Baluch art, language and literature. But he retained Urdu as the province’s official language, alienating hard-core nationalists. Bizenjo explained that Urdu was replacing English, not Baluchi, which would become the provincial language after it was properly developed. The NAPBaluch triumvirate articulated Baluch nationalist concepts in a socialist light. They also promoted the concept of a non-aligned Pakistan pursuing a foreign policy based on friendship with the Soviet Union.53 Popular within Baluchistan, these views widened the gulf separating the Pakistani establishment and Baluch leaders. As the Bhutto administration gradually lost its populist, Islamic-socialist image, coming increasingly to depend on established interests, the NAP, and especially the administration in Baluchistan, appeared to it to be dangerously radical. The stridency with which the NAP government advo¬ cated radicalism could lead to difficulties in Iranian Baluchistan. In the early 1970s, Iran had become the nodal power in West Asia, holding together the edifice of an alliance with the West. As power at the Iranian centre grew, the relative influence of the periphery declined. Therefore, any resistance appeared as a challenge that had to be met. The Shah’s invitation to Bizenjo to visit Tehran was unprecedented in terms of diplomacy and protocol. It reflected the intensity of the Shah’s discomfiture and the degree to which Bhutto was beholden to Tehran. But Bizenjo would not promise to tone down Baluch rhetoric or action. The Shah, widely regarded as the keeper of regional peace, conceivably decided that the Baluch in Pakistan could no longer be allowed the luxury of provincial autonomy. Bhutto also viewed the provincial government’s moves with concern, and cautioned the governor against steps that could

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threaten national integrity. Bizenjo claimed that the NAP-JUI govern¬ ment, far from threatening national integrity, was strengthening Pakistan by developing democratic forces in Baluchistan. These exchanges did not help the growth of mutual confidence. Tension mounted in September 1972 when Islamabad accused the NAP leaders Wali Khan and Ataullah Mengal of hatching the ‘London Conspiracy’ with Bangladesh’s Prime Minister, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, when the three were in London. They were alleged to have agreed to turn Pakistan into a confederation of four autonomous states, which could then be joined by Bangladesh, India and Afghanistan.54 The NAP dismissed it as a ‘figment of imagination’. Bhutto claimed that he had no knowledge of the ‘conspiracy’. But he admitted that it had been ‘unnecessarily overplayed by our press, radio and television’. None the less, Bhutto condemned Wali Khan’s proposal that the centre be left in control of defence, foreign affairs and finance only. He said that such an arrangement would leave the centre ‘a widow without a pension’. Bhutto also claimed he stood for maximum provincial autonomy but that there was a ‘thin line between maximum autonomy and secession’. Responding to accusations of Punjabi domination, he said that Punjabis comprised 62 per cent of Pakistanis; he could not ignore the majority province’s interests just as he would not ignore those of the smaller ones.55 Centre-province tensions mounted over constitutional differences. An all-party agreement reached on 20 October was later repudiated by the NAP. As violent confrontations between supporters and opponents of the government escalated, the issues separating Baluchistan from the rest of Pakistan appeared to widen. At the same time, the Baluch could not present a united front and dissipated much energy in internal squabbling. One fissure divided the NAP triumvirate and Nawab Akbar Bugti, who had served as the NAP treasurer, but after Bizenjo became governor he resigned and left the country. His new anti-NAP stance on returning to Pakistan exacerbated tensions. After the ‘London Conspiracy canard, Mengal had accused the central government of disrupting law and order to hinder NAP reforms and impede administration by the province's elected representatives, to create a pretext for removing his government He had also complained that reactionary feudal sardars were terrorising and even murdering tenants, confident that the bourgeois power in Islamabad would protect them. Mengal raised an armed militia to counter reactionary forces. Bugti now accused the NAP administrations in Baluchistan and NWFP of smuggling in weapons and cash from a neighbouring country. Fighting broke out in the Us Bela district on 26 January 1973 between

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THE FEARFUL STATE

provincial paramilitary forces and a force of about 500 Jamote irregulars.56 Islamabad complained that this was tribal warfare between the Bizenjos and the Mengals on the one hand, and Las Bela’s Sindhi-descended Jamotes on the other. According to the subsequent government White Paper, the provincial government had arrested recalcitrant Jamote leaders in December 1972. When the Jamotes resisted Baluch authority over their (Jamote) territory, Chief Minister Mengal personally led his tribal lashkars into battle with the Jamotes.57 Bizenjo and Mengal militias were larger and better armed; they forced 8,000 Jamotes to flee into the mountains where they were cut off from food supplies. The Government claimed that 42 Jamotes were killed in the clashes, and Jamote property worth 2.6 million rupees destroyed. On 30 January, Islamabad announced its decision to deploy the army to Las Bela ‘on the governor’s request’. Bizenjo denied making such a request, claiming the situation in Las Bela was under control. He said that the disturbances had been instigated by the central government’s Home Minister, Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan, to destabilise the NAP administration and to provide a pretext for its dismissal. Qayyum Khan claimed that the Jamote rebellion had been triggered by Quetta’s ‘repressive policies’.58 The account by the government stated that on 31 January it asked Mengal to call off paramili¬ tary operations against the Jamotes. When Baluch militias refused to withdraw, Islamabad sent in its army to save the beleaguered Jamotes. The army moved in on 9 February, taking control of the district the following day. As Baluch militias were being forced into the mountains, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry informed Iraq’s ambassador, Hikmat Suleiman, that arms and ammunition meant for subversives were being brought into Pakistan under diplomatic immunity by his embassy. Islamabad sought permission to search the embassy premises. The ambassador pleaded that he could not give such permission without Baghdad’s clearance, but counter-intelligence officers entered the building and uncovered 300 sub¬ machine guns, 60,000 rounds of ammunition, 40 incendiary grenades and other ordnance. The police also recovered from the airport three crates containing ordnance and addressed to the embassy.59 Suleiman insisted the arms were not for use within Pakistan, hinting that these were destined for the Baluch Liberation Front in Iranian Baluchistan. The rivalry between Iran and Iraq reflected longstanding conflict between Arab and Persian civilisations. Each feared and mistrusted the other and sought to tie down the rival’s forces in internal warfare. Proxy internal wars were seen as a more cost-effective and less threatening form

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of conflict management with limited potential for escalation. The cost in terms of international opprobrium was small. Iran supported the Kurdish nationalists in northern Iraq; Baghdad gave aid to Baluch separatists. Iraq had been helping Iran’s Baluch guerrillas since 1968. Given Pakistan’s domestic and regional political constraints, the February 1973 episode became a turning point for its Baluch nationalists. In mid-February, Bhutto dismissed the governors of Baluchistan and NWFP, and dissolved the NAP government in Quetta. Nawab Akbar Bugti was appointed governor of Baluchistan. The NAP-JUI administration in NWFP resigned in protest. The NAP president Wali Khan claimed that Bhutto was seeking one-party control over Pakistan. Bizenjo claimed that only seven people had been killed in Las Bela, not more than forty as Islamabad had told the world, and that Bhutto had engineered the clashes as a pretext for getting rid of progressive forces elected to power in Baluchistan. NAP leaders also alleged that Akbar Bugti had visited London, Moscow, Baghdad and Kabul to seek assistance for the secession of Baluchistan, and may have had something to do with the Iraqi arms drama. Bugti swore in Jam Ghulam Qadir of the ruling family of Las Bela, chief of the Jamotes and a member of Qayyum Muslim League, as provincial Chief Minister. This was a reversal of fortune which hurt Mam, Mengal and Bizenzo pride. Bugti claimed that he had the support of the majority of the assembly, but the legislature would not be called into session. At a mass rally in Quetta, Mengal gathered eleven members of the twenty-seat assembly to declare the new administration illegal. He said: ‘We will defeat it in the assembly or, if necessary, in the streets.’61 Marri and Mengal lashkars who had taken to the mountains with their weapons, launched a new armed struggle.60

Tribal nationalism versus military power THE first clash was reported on 18 May 1973 when Baluch guerrillas ambushed a patrol of the paramilitary Dir Scouts and killed all eight Pathan soldiers, taking their weapons. Bugti, charging that Marri and Mengal ‘miscreants’ were attacking transport and communications facili¬ ties, requested army deployment to the Kalat and Sibi mountains. Ataullah Mengal accused the air force of indiscriminate attacks on remote tribal settlements, while Bizenjo, the former governor, warned that if military intervention did not end, some sections of the NAP would seek aid from abroad.61 The party divided along Baluch-Pathan faction lines. The NAP

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president, Wali Khan, who was sympathetic to the Baluch, believed that threats were counter-productive. His appeals for moderation failed to lessen Baluch rhetoric. The Baluch triumvirate and the commander of Baluchistan’s NAP militia. Col Mohammad Sultan Mengal, were arrested. This triggered a massive insurrection by tribesmen, who joined guerrillas to try to force Islamabad to release their sardars. Bhutto’s administration, owing to its large majority in parliament, especially when the opposition boycotted sessions in protest, obtained extensions of emergency powers. These allowed the executive to empower the military to take control of Baluchistan and seek to restore what it saw as law and order. Wali Khan accused Bhutto of doing in Baluchistan what Yahya Khan (President 196971) had done in East Pakistan. He declared the opposition would not attend parliament until fundamental rights were restored and the rule of law was conceded. On 14 August 1973, the oppositionless assembly promulgated Pakistan’s new constitution. Bhutto assumed the office of Prime Minister. This concession to demands for a parliamentary system did not affect the process of concentrating power in the hands of Bhutto and his deputies. As the centre grew increasingly authoritarian, agitation broke out all over the country. In late 1973 clashes between guerrillas and the army escalated into full-blown warfare. In November, a key anti-NAP Pathan politician in Baluchistan, Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai, was assassinated in Quetta. To dispel growing disquiet about the province, Islamabad assured the nation, and the world, that the security forces were capable of controlling 5 a few miscreants’. Governor Bugti, an increasingly unwieldy instrument of Bhutto’s will, created alarm by discounting these assertions. He claimed a state of ‘armed insurgency’ by 30,000 ‘foreign-trained guerrillas’ ex¬ isted in Baluchistan. Worse still, he asked Bhutto to withdraw his troops from Baluchistan and restore the dismissed NAP administration to power.62 The army failed to eliminate armed opposition and in mid-December Bhutto had the Baluch troika of Bizenjo, Mengal and Marri brought to Rawalpindi for discussions. The NAP leaders demanded the release of Baluch political prisoners and the withdrawal of the military. Bhutto would not concede and the talks broke down. On New Year’s Eve, Bugti was replaced by Mir Ahmad Yar Khan, the last Khan of Kalat. The latter’s image had been tarnished by his weak-kneed reply to Pakistani pressures; under him, Quetta was an extension of the state machinery in Islamabad. The Khan announced that as no party commanded an absolute majority in the assembly, fresh elections might be necessary. In mid-April, Bhutto announced military operations would be terminated on 15 May, the army

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would only engage in activities like roadbuilding, and there would be an amnesty for all detainees except those charged with serious offences. Undaunted, the guerrillas stepped up their hit-and-run operations against targets representing the coercive central authority. The Baluch insurrection was not a spontaneous outburst of nationalist fervour but the outcome of concerted efforts by left-of-centre tribal sardars to transform ancient patterns of relationships that kept the tribes apart. Their attempts to forge a Baluch national identity transcending tribal loyalties were not successful. But in the years of ferment between 1968 and 1971, their efforts created the context in which many Baluch students, exposed to external influences, broke out of the tribal mould and became highly politicised within the Baluch Students Organisation (BSO), which spearheaded the struggle against the status quo. They had two objectives: destruction of the divisive, hereditary tribal system without destroying the seeds of the nation, and the fight against the discriminatory Pakistani state. The BSO received a shot in the arm in 1970 when a group of 10 nonBaluch Pakistani students from London and Cambridge gave up thenstudies and dedicated themselves to the Baluch cause. Scions of prominent Punjabi and Sindhi families, members of this ‘London Group’ renounced family ties, adopted Baluch names and entered Baluchistan secretly to help to organise the nationalist movement along progressive lines. They began politicising the Baluch masses, a process continued by the local membership, mostly students educated in Karachi and Quetta.63 The first indication of the success of the London Group came in 1972 when Marri and Bugti tribesmen attacked Punjabi settlers granted land in the fertile Kachhi valley drawing the centre into striking back against a perceived grave challenge to its integration^ policies. However, faced by the coercive instruments of the unitary state, nationalists failed to devise a national as opposed to tribal response. At that time (1973) the Baluch were unable to cross tribal lines, and their guerrilla organisations were riven by historical animosities. As a result, the London Group and its supporters organised the Marri factions into the Baluch People’s Liberation Front (BPLF), which was commanded by the charismatic Mir Hazar Khan Ramkhani. He came to be seen as the bearer of the Marri torch in the 1970s after Sher Mohammad Marri, commander of Pararis, was arrested in 1973 and spent the rest of the war in jail. The BPLF was the strongest of several nationalist bands fighting Pakistani authority. It commanded the western front — Marri territory but was unable to unite non-Marri guerrillas. The Mengals organised the Popular

150

THE FEARFUL STATE

Front for Armed Resistance Against National Oppression and Exploitation in Baluchistan (PFAR), whose guerrilla army came in two territorial divisions. The PFAR hierarchy was riven by rivalries. Agents penetrated its organisation and Safar Khan, a commander in the Sarawan-Jhalwan highlands around Kalat, was assassinated and many of his colleagues left the struggle. The London Group struggled on, several becoming important advisers to guerrilla commanders. One, Murad Khan, was appointed spokesman on foreign policy. But their association with the Baluch movement was shortlived. By late 1977, after General Zia ill Haq declared a ceasefire, they developed serious differences of opinion with local leaders, possibly on the nature of ‘post-revolutionary’ society, although neither side is precise about the dispute.64 Some Baluch viewed the young men as Communists from London, Trotskyites ‘wanting a pure Inquilab’ — in their view there was no such thing. In 1979, local opposition and the recognition that Baluch society was some way from an internal revolution led the Group to leave Baluchistan. While leaders like Sher Mohammad Marri complained that the London Group played a ‘very dirty’ game and its members merely worked toward the fulfilment of their own dreams of pure revolution, the contribution made by these ‘romantic dreamers’ to the development of a theoretical basis for the movement cannot be discounted. The revolutionaries were purists in that they articulated the need for initiating changes within nationalist ranks before restructuring could begin. Their efforts to raise consciousness among tribesmen may have threatened the status quo which sustained tribal sardars in their role as guerrilla commanders. Baluch nationalism in the 1970s had not reached a stage where such challenges could be absorbed without fears of destabilisation or loss of control. Traditional ties were still important and so the London Group had to go.65 Guerrilla operations were divided into two theatres, underscoring the tribal superstructure of the nationalist upsurge. The PFAR was dominated by the Mengals but also comprised fighters from Bizenjo, Mohammad Hasni, Zarakzai and Zehri tribes. They added up to about 4,500 guerrillas operating in the Kalat, Makran and Las Bela districts.66 The army launched an offensive against the Mengal strongholds on 26 October 1974. Both sides fought with ferocity and the cycle of reprisals and counter-reprisals grew vicious. Commandos of the army Special Services Group raided suspected guerrilla hideouts, and mountain villages were flattened by pack artillery howitzers and ground attack fighters. Commando operations at Saruna, 100 miles north-west of Karachi, stirred controversy even in

BALUCH

NATIONALISM

151

Islamabad. The raiders launched a surprise attack, killing at least fortyfour and consigning most of the village’s 800 remaining men to prison camps to ‘encourage’ the PFAR to surrender. Pincer attacks on Jhalwan, southward from Khuzdar and northward from Uthal, forced tribesmen to seek shelter in even more difficult mountainous terrain. The other main area of insurgency was the Marri country in the north. The army launched its operations in this area on 21 August 1974. The Bhambore mountain range, northern parts of Bugti country and important roads such as the new army-built Lari-Dera Bugti road, came under the operational command of the elderly Wazir Khan Baddhani. In the northern and central districts of the Marri area, Mir Hazar Ramkhani emerged as the most influentia of the four guerrilla leaders. The Marri area saw its biggest battle in September 1974 when guerrillas were forced to take sanctuary at Chamalang and, in a two-day battle, Pakistan army and AH-1J Huey Cobra helicopter gunships lent by the Shah devastated the area. With PAF jets, Iranian gunships and government forces surrounding the hills, Ali Gul, the area commander, was forced to surrender, along with forty-four fighters and about 1,000 non-combatant tribesmen.67 One account reckoned this battle cost the lives of 17,000 Marri guerrillas.68 According to the government, the original insurgent tribal armies comprised about 400 Mengals and 500 Marris. This figure was to grow to thousands.69 By late 1974, around 55,000 Baluch were up in arms, some 11,500 of them organised into hard-core units.70 They operated in small bands of 30 to 50 fighters covering a particular stretch. The hard core comprised fighters who had fought Ayub’s integrationist policies. While aims were limited at one level, a political consciousness of the ethno¬ cultural bonds uniting the various tribes did gradually emerge. However, centrifugal tendencies were too entrenched in tribal traditions to allow only the most rudimentary co-ordination. Thus, the nationalists were never able to deploy more than a minimal capability against government forces. These forces included the 17th, 18th, and 33rd Infantry Divisions of the Pakistan army, and a brigade each from the 10th and 11th Infantry Divisions, approximately 70,000 troops.71 Much of the government’s counter-insurgency effort was directed at the Mam area. The fact that the Pakistanis were able to employ modem weapons systems against highland¬ ers armed with bolt-action rifles and an occasional G-3 automatic captured from government forces did not deter the Baluch. Infused with a tradition of valour, they engaged the military in 178 major and 167 lesser battles during the five-year war.72 At least 5,300 guerrillas and 3,300 Pakistani

152

THE FEARFUL STATE

soldiers were killed. Thousands were wounded and hundreds of men, women and children were caught in the crossfire in this little-known war.73 Unable to end the uprising, Bhutto extended amnesties, and invested in developmental activities, hoping to create new patron-client networks to weaken the hold of nationalists. Limited to tribes not engaged in combat, these measures were only partly successful.74 The majority of the tribes sat out the war, underscoring the difficulty of unifying a segmentary society with its primary loyalties defined by cleavages between often hostile groups. The war was a lost cause when, in a vivid demonstration of the superficiality of Baluch-Brahui co-operation, guerrillas from one group refused to co-ordinate operations with comrades from another. But, denied channels of unarmed exchanges, the nationalists fought on. They received little assistance from abroad. Baluch refugees75 sheltering in Afghanistan received food and medicines from the Daud government.76 Even this was threatened in March 1978 when the Shah engineered an agreement between Islamabad and Kabul that froze the disputed frontiers issue and secured assurances from Daud that he would force the refugees out of Afghan territory. In return, Kabul was offered $2,000 million in aid. The Saur revolution that brought to power the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan the following month put paid to these hopes. The Taraki government was sympathetic towards the Baluch cause, although this merely gave Kabul a leverage to respond in kind to threats posed by reactionary, fundamentalist forces under Gulbuddin Hikmatyar, who had earlier been offered sanctuary in Peshawar by Bhutto. Despite friendly noises made towards the nationalists by Moscow, and Pakistan’s fear that the 60,000 Baluch living in the southern Soviet Union might be employed to escalate the conflict, Moscow gave them no material assistance. In Baluchistan, effective control over policy, administration and resource allocation was transferred to the Pakistan army. The losses it inflicted on separatist forces also gained it the respectability nationally that it had been denied since the 1971 war. The electoral crises gripping Pakistan in 1977 offered General Zia ul Haq, promoted by Bhutto to chief of the army staff because of his apolitical attitude, the chance to end the civilian interregnum and restore the military to political pre-eminence.77 Zia’s first-hand experience persuaded him that the problem could not be addressed with force. He released Baluch leaders and offered terms that allowed Baluch leaders to call off the fighters without actually achieving anything more than a ceasefire. This has held. Zia’s overtures exposed strains within the NAP. The party’s national leadership under Wali Khan

BALUCH

NATIONALISM

153

believed that it was in the interests of the people of Pakistan to seek to transform the state along progressive lines. The narrow regionalism of the Baluch triumvirate was seen as a hindrance to that endeavour. In the end, Marri and Mengal rejected the possibility of resolving the Baluch national issue within the framework of the Pakistani state and left the country. Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo appears to have reconciled himself to the Pakistani state and has continued to direct national attention toward the need for greater provincial devolution, a process beset with difficulties in a system built on a strong centre dominated by autocratic rulers enjoying the loyalty of the military. The inspired fervour of the Baluch nationalism of the 1970s has dissipated. The ease with which Benazir Bhutto was able to displace the elected administration in Quetta in 1989 highlighted this change.

Prospects BALUCH nationalism may have lost its ardour, but it is not dead. In fact, a case can be made that nationalist forces have grown in potential and, given the right circumstances, could mount an even greater challenge to the Pakistani state. In the 1980s, martial law acted as a dampener on political activism and weakened the authority of tribal chiefs. These leaders no longer command militias ready to die to avenge tribal honour. In the absence of traditional leaders, the dynamic of socio-economic change has precipitated a new kind of leader — younger men of ‘common’, i.e., non-sardari, descent. Educated in Pakistan’s colleges, they under¬ stand what keeps the Baluch in subordination in their own country. They also recognise the weaknesses inherent in the tribal feudal system that places inheritance above merit, suppresses human potential and deprives the Baluch nation of the use of its human resources. Seeing tribal bounda¬ ries as contrivances that keep the Baluch divided, they demand the removal of the barriers to the emergence of the united Baluch nation that alone can press its claims with any hope of success within Pakistan. This emergent leadership so threatened the military and Baluch tribal leaders that the two joined hands to destroy it. The army used its intelli¬ gence agencies to hound the most articulate leaders of the Baluch Students Organisation (BSO). The execution of Hamid Baluch in June 1981, charged with the attempted murder of an Omani recruiting officer, was the clearest instance of this policy.78 Successive Pakistani governments have allowed Oman to recruit Baluch youth to maintain close relations with die Gulf, for the money the soldiers send home, and also because the siphoning

154

THE FEARFUL STATE

off of Baluch youth weakens the manpower base of Baluch nationalists. The BSO saw this mercenary attitude as a slur and a policy of tactical denial. It was this that provoked Hamid Baluch’s attack. Tribal leaders tried to undermine the BSO by encouraging students to group themselves under respective tribal banners, i.e., behind the chiefs. Sardars commanding BSO factions weakened the pan-Baluch identity.79 The potential for renewed violence lies with the guerrilla organisation sheltering in Afghanistan. In the later stages of the civil war, a large BPLF contingent under Mir Hazar Ramkhani crossed the Durand Line into south¬ eastern Afghanistan where it has stayed. The contingent may have 7,500 guerrillas under arms.82 Khair Bakhsh Marri, who lives in Kabul, may have restored the faith of Marri soldiers but their hopes of obtaining assistance from Moscow became more forlorn than ever when the former Soviet army left Afghanistan, abandoning the BPFL to an uncertain future. Policies pursued by successive governments in Baluchistan are a source of dynamism. Bhutto maintained that tribal feudal reaction to the forces of modernisation was at the root of Baluch irredentism and sought to reduce the strength of that reaction by investing in infrastructure. Zia ul Haq replaced the military involvement with investment and pacification. Bhutto’s development plans achieved some return but not enough to assist the Baluch to cross the chasm separating the feudal from the bourgeois. Zia ul Haq changed that. While the Soviet Army was still in Afghanistan and the Ayatollahs in power in Tehran, Washington under Regan wanted facilities that could provide staging points around West Asia. The dangers of Moscow seeking warm-water ports on the Indian Ocean needed to be averted irrespective of whether the USSR actually sought such advan¬ tages. Gulf oilfields had to be protected from allcomers. The Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF) and then the Central Command (CENTCOM) were created with this option in mind. Natural harbours like Jiuni and Gwadar on the Baluch coast provided just what was needed.81 Given its need to borrow power to ward off insecurities vis-a-vis poten¬ tially hostile neighbours, Pakistan was willing to oblige. The need to create a peaceful and, if necessary, prosperous Baluchistan assumed significance. The execution of Hamid Baluch signified Pakistan’s deter¬ mination to implement its Baluchistan policy irrespective of the domestic costs. In this, Islamabad received total support from the United States. Bhutto had defended his policy of transforming the Baluch highlands by saying that he wanted to free the montagnard from the bondage of the tribal system. He raised development expenditure significantly. To counter

BALUCH

NATIONALISM

155

the resistance of vested interests, he employed the military. The Fifth FiveYear Plan (1977-1982) increased expenditure in the province fivefold. But he did not address the complaint that, while Pakistan’s other provinces had benefited from use of the natural gas from Baluchistan’s Sui fields since 1954, the province had no facility to utilise this, or indeed any of its other mineral deposits such as coal, copper, oil and uranium. Zia profited from these lessons. He defused tribal grievances by freeing Baluch leaders, and by reducing the Pakistan People’s Party to a shadow of its former self. Bhutto’s execution doused the fire in Baluch hearts, and the sternness with which martial law was enforced across Pakistan calmed passions. Zia increased expenditure in Baluchistan, with assistance from donor nations, acknowledging that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had really brought Baluchistan ‘into focus’.82 He upgraded Bhutto’s five-year plan but found the province unable to absorb large and rapid increases in public expenditure. The Sixth Plan (1982-88) had the modest objective of ‘priming the pumps’. This plan took in five Annual Development Plans. Each allocated $295.2 million to education, water and energy sectors. An equivalent amount, funded by donors, was spent in other areas under a Special Development Plan.83 Despite problems posed by low population density (12.5 per sq km) and geographical features, much improvement was made in essential sectors. On 6 January 1983, Zia personally inaugu¬ rated a £30-million, 200-mile gas pipeline from Sui to Quetta.84 Even such a symbolic gesture was useful in a land of montagnard sensibilities. Gradually, a Baluch middle class emerged and as it expanded the static tribal tradition declined. But socialisation with non-tribal forms did not always deprive the modem Baluch of cultural moorings but could strengthen his sense of belonging to the wider Baluch nation. Herein lay the danger. The process of change is destabilising because of the element of uncertainty it introduces into the environment. The highlanders are in transition from nomadic clansmen to sedentary citizens. The pace of change is rapid and the forces unleashed by it are unpredictable. New ideas and ideals, hopes, fears and expectations are abroad. The evolution of Pakistan and Iran makes the situation in Baluchistan ever more complex. Sporadic violence especially on the Iranian side of the Goldsmid Line is a constant reminder of the potential for spontaneous combustion. Having largely cut off the Baluch from external patronage, Tehran and Islamabad now seek to enforce the inter-Baluch division along the Iran-Pakistan borders in an attempt at divide and rule. The two countries signed an agreement in October 1988 covering security co-operation and transit

156

THE FEARFUL STATE

control through regular meetings between border guards and extradition of ‘criminals’.85 This is the most recent attempt to impose structure on what has been a difficult-to-control tribal territory. Its success remains tinged with uncertainty but montagnard isolation is irretrievably lost. The tribes may be responding to their changed circumstances. In May 1983, after decades of violent rivalry, the Marris and Bugtis were brought together ceremonially. The agents of this change were unobtrusive bands of armed men who demonstrated an understanding of the political rather than the military nature of their role. The jirgah at Sartar was aimed at helping the two rival tribes settle ancient disputes and make co-operation across tribal lines possible. Persuaded by guerrilla groups, tribesmen had prepared for a year. They paid off each other’s blood-debts and other compensation arising out of nearly 500 clashes, beginning with the antiAyub insurrection of 1963. Negotiations and celebrations continued for five days while an amount equivalent to $1.2 million changed hands. The Marri sardar, Khair Bakhsh, was in Kabul at the time but the Bugti nawab, Mir Akbar, attended. His statement at the ceremony echoed those of his former rivals. Just as Jinnah had talked about South Asia’s Muslims, Bugti told the Baluch assembly: ‘ We have our own unique language, an old and vibrant culture, our own traditional lands and rich natural resources. As a nation, we are separate.’ 86 That role reversal may have been an attempt to take over leadership of the entire Baluch community, especially since Marri and Mengal were unlikely to return, but Bugti’s lustily cheered nationalist assertion caused consternation in Islamabad. In that statement lay evidence of the recognition by the old order that a new order was in place, and that it was pan-Baluch rather than tribal. The new Baluch nation emerging from the ashes of the civil war may pose a far greater challenge to the cohesion of the unitary Pakistani state than the BPLF and the PFAR ever could. Much depends on how post-Zia Pakistan turns out.

Appendices THERE are forces in existence that could pose a challenge to the status quo in Pakistan. The most prominent of these are: 1. The Baluch People’s Liberation Front (BPLF). This guerrilla army is led by the sardar, Khair Bakhsh Marri, and based in south-eastern Afghanistan with its headquarters near Kalat-i-Ghilzai. Its members have been recruited from Marri tribesmen and include nomads, peasants and the educated lower middle class. The BPLF leadership professes Marxist-Leninist ideals and seeks independence. The

BALUCH

NATIONALISM

157

BPLF faces an uncertain future in view of the difficulties confronting Afghani¬ stan. 2. The Baluchistan Liberation Organisation (BLO). Led by the sardar, Ataul-lah Khan Mengal, who lives in self-imposed exile in London, the BLO is made up of elements from the PFAR and is based in Mengal country in southern Baluchistan. Members include nomadic pastoralists, settled peasants and white-collar workers. BLO sees itself as a nationalist organisation fighting for Baluch independence from forces supported by imperialism and neo-colonialism. 3. Pakistan National Party: Led by Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, the only member of the Baluch nationalist triumvirate to remain in Pakistan, the PNP seeks Baluch autonomy within the Pakistani framework. In the past it has pursued a generally pro-Moscow policy that reflects its NAP origins. The party has attracted Baluch petit bourgeoisie and the nascent Baluch bourgeoisie, groups that see greater opportunities in an autonomous Baluch province within a Pakistani federation. 4. Baluch Student Organisation (BSO): Led by a crop of leftist students (such as Habib Jalib Baluch) in Karachi and Baluch towns, the BSO has aided the transition of the nationalist movement from an expression of tribal reaction to the articula¬ tion of ethno-cultural particularity. The BSO, although divided internally, is at the forefront of nationalist activism. Students from the Baluch lower middle class play a major role. The organisation supports the BPLF. 5. World Baluch Organisation: Based in London, the WBO acts as a cultural front for the expatriate Baluch community and doubles as the European liaison organisation for the BPLF and BLO. The Baluch middle class and students in Europe are its mainstay.87 PAKISTAN! POPULATION BY MOTHER TONGUE Per cent of total Households Language 48.17

Punjabi

6,051,356

Pashtu

1,651,223

13.15

Sindhi

1,478,621 1,235,830

11.77

Urdu Baluchi Hindko Brahui Others

955,039 379,148 305,505 151,958 353,197

7.60 3.02 2.43 1.21 2.81

TOTAL

12,561,877

Siraiki

Table 1

9.84

100.00

THE FEARFUL STATE

158

BALUCHISTAN: POPULATION BY MOTHER TONGUE Language

Households

Per cent of total

Baluchi Pashtu Brahui Sindhi Siraiki Punjabi Urdu Hindko Others

214,208 147,880 121,958 48,899 18,164 13,208 8,101 785 16,659

36.31 25.07 20.68 8.29 3.08 2.24 1.37 0.13 2.82

TOTAL

589,866

100.00

Table 2

Source: Government of Pakistan, Population Census Organisation 1981; Census report of Pakistan.

Notes 1.

Encyclopaedia Britaruiica, 1978, Macropaedia, vol. 2, p. 677.

2.

Colliers Encyclopaedia, New York, 1987, vol. 3, p. 535.

3. Brian Spooner, ‘A 1000-word statement prepared for the BBC’, University of Pennsylvania, April 1987, mimeo, p. 1. 4. The troika of left-leaning Baluch leaders commanding the National Awami Party’s Baluchistan chapter in the 1960s and 1970s were Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, and the chiefs of the Marri and Mengal tribes, provincial NAP president, Mir Khair Bakhsh Marri, and its head of political affairs, Ataullah Mengal. For an account of their political philosophies see Selig S Harrison, In Afghanistan's Shadow: Baluch Nationalism and Soviet Temptations (Washington DC, 1981), pp. 41-69. 5.

Encyclopaedia Britaruiica, p. 677.

6. David Dodwell, ‘Hope blooms in Baluchistan desert’. Financial Times, 12 May 1983. 7. Baluch belong to the Caucasoid ethnic family along with Pathans Tajiks and Nuristanis (Kafiristanis), while the Brahuis are considered the Dravidians now found concentrated south of the Narmada river India. Louis Dupree, Afghanistan-, Princeton University Press, 1980 57-65. 8.

Collier’s Encyclopaedia, op. cit., p 462.

9. Ibid.

(Pakhtuns), a branch of in southern edition, pp.

BALUCH

NATIONALISM

159

10. M Longworth Dames, The Baloch Race, London, 1904, p. 3. 11. Ibid., op. cit., pp. 7-9; A W Hughes, The Country of Balochistan (London, 1877), pp. 26-29. 12. Cephalic index: ratio of the greatest width of the human head to its greatest length multiplied by 100. 13. Dames, op. cit., pp. 11-13. 14. Hughes, op. cit., p. 28. 15. Mir Khuda Bakhsh Bijarani Marri Baloch, Searchlights on Baloches and Balochistan, Karachi, 1974, pp. 12-14. 16. Lord Curzon, Persia, 2 vols., London, 1892, vol. 1, p. 203. 17. Selig S Harrison, op. cit., pp. 10-11. 18. Dames, op. cit., pp 33-35. 19. Selig Harrison, ‘Nightmare in Baluchistan’, Foreign Policy, No.32, Fall 1978, p. 139 cites 27 as the number of Baluch tribes; Justice Mir Khuda Bakhsh Bijarani Marri Baloch, op cit., in appendix titled Main Baloch Tribes in Pakistan lists 77. 20. Dames, op. cit., pp. 39-40. 21. Although Mir Chakar Rind’s confederation failed to last, his army of followers gave rise to some of the best known Baluch tribes of today. Determined to carry on the Chakar Rind tradition within the Baluch mountains, these bands developed into the Marri, Bugti and Mazari tribes. Because of their origins in a fratricidal civil war, the structures of these tribes differ from those of other Baluch tribes. 22. A micro-analysis of Iranian Baluch political organisation appears in Philip Carl Salzman, ‘The Proto-State in Iranian Baluchistan,’ in Ronald Cohen and Elman R Service, (eds.). Origins of the State, Philadelphia, 1974, pp. 125-140. 23. Hughes, op. cit., p. 180. 24. Ibid., op. cit., pp. 183-4. 25. For a brief account of Nadir’s sack of Delhi, see Bamber Gascoigne, The Great Moghuls, London, 1987 edition, p. 245. 26. Warren Swidler, ‘Economic Change in Baluchistan: Process of Integration in the Larger Economy of Pakistan’, in Ainslie T Embree, (ed.) Pakistan s Western Borderlands, New Delhi, 1977, pp. 89-90. 27. Hughes, op. cit., p. 189. 28. Harrison, In Afghanistan's Shadow, op. cit., pp. 15-16. 29. Nina B Swidler, ‘ The political structure of a tribal federation: the Brahui of Baluchistan’, PhD thesis, Columbia University, New York, 1969. 30. Hughes, op. cit., p. 49. 31. Ibid., op. cit., p. 51. 32. Ibid., op. cit., p. 196. 33. Sir Charles U Aitchison, Treaties, Engagements and Sanads Relating to Balu¬ chistan, Part II, Calcutta, 1904, pp. 186-7; also Hughes, op. cit., pp. 198-206. 34. James W Spain, ‘Political problems of a borderland’, in Ainslie Embree (ed.) Pakistan's Western Borderlands, New Delhi, 1977, pp. 1-2. 35. Pakistan's Western Borderlands, pp. xvii-xviii. 36. M A Jinnah quoted in Mir Ahmad Yar Khan, Inside Baluchistan Karachi, 1975, p. 265.

160

THE FEARFUL STATE

37. I I Chundrigar, memorandum to Viceroy, 1946, cited in Inayat Allah Baluch, ‘The Baluch Question in Pakistan and the Right of Self Determination , in Zingel Lallement (ed.) Pakistan in the 80s, Lahore, 1985, p. 350. 38. M Rafique Afzal, Selected Speeches and Statements of Quaid-I-Azam M A Jiruiah, Lahore, 1973, p. 427. 39. Independence of Kalat, 1948, India Office Record, cited in Baloch, p. 352. 40. ‘Baluchistan: Some background’, Paikaar, London, vol. 3, no. 4, 1986/87, p. 14. 41. Inayat Allah Baloch, op. cit., p. 353. 42. Their resolution read, in part: ‘This House is not willing to accept merger with Pakistan which will endanger the separate existence of the Baluch nation. See the Weekly Bolan, Mastung, 2 April 1948. 43. Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, 3-10 April 1948, p. 9202. 44. ‘ Report of the Committee on Constitutional and Administrative Reforms in Baluchistan’, Karachi, Government of Pakistan, 1950. 45. The component parties (and leaders) of NAP were: Ustman Gall-Baluchistan, Prince Abdul Karim Khan and G B Bizenjo; Sindh Hari (peasant) CommitteeSind, Hayder Bakhsh Khan Jatoi; Sindh Mahaj-Sind, G M Syed; Khudai KhidmatgarsNWFP, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Abdul Wali Khan; Wrore Pashtun Party-NWFP, Baluchistan, Samad Khan Achakzai; Azad Pakistan Party-Sind, Mian Iftekharuddin; Pakistan Aw ami League (Bhashani)-East Bengal, A H K Bhashani. 46. Warren Swidler, ‘Economic Change in Baluchistan: Processes of Integration in the Larger Economy of Pakistan’, in Embree, (ed.) op. cit., pp. 101-104. 47. Mir Ahmad Yar Khan, op. cit., p. 183-4. 48. Sher Mohammad Marri, ‘Struggle of the Baluch People’, Paikaar, vol. 3, no. 4, London, 1986/87, p. 11. 49. Baloch, op. cit., p. 359. 50. Craig Baxter, ‘Pakistan Votes’, Asian Survey, March 1971, vol. xi, no. 3, p.

211. 51. Keesing’s, December 16-23 1972, p. 25626. 52. Surendra Nath Kaushik, Pakistan under Bhutto Leadership, New Delhi, 1985, p. 169. 53. The Dawn, Karachi, 27 December 1972. 54. The Pakistan Times, Rawalpindi, 10 September 1972; Keesing’s, p 25626. 55. Keesing’s, ibid. 56. Keesing’s, p 25893. 57. White Paper on Baluchistan, Rawalpindi, Government of Pakistan, 19 October 1974, pp. 20-21. 58. Keesing’s, p. 25893. 59. Ibid. 60. Ibid, p. 25894. 61. Selig S Harrison, Afghanistan's Shadow, op. cit., pp. 33-44 on the 1973-77 guerrilla war. 62. Keesing’s, p. 26124. 63. Ibid., p. 26564.

BALUCH

NATIONALISM

161

64. ‘Pakistan’s two-year civil war’, the Guardian, London, 24 January 1975. 65. Discussions with expatriate Baluch activists in London, November 1988. 66. Sher Mohammad Marri in Paikaar, vol. 3, no. 4, p. 12. 67. ‘Pakistan’s two-year civil war’, the Guardian, op. cit. 68. S. Harrison, ‘Nightmare in Baluchistan’, Foreign Policy, op. cit., p. 139. 69. Keesing's citing the Government’s White Paper on Baluchistan, p. 27016. 70. Harrison, ibid.; R G Wirsing, The Baluchs and Pathans, London, 1987, p. 11. 71. ‘Pakistan’s two-year civil war’, op. cit. 72. Pakistan government sources cited in S Harrison, op. cit., p. 139. 73. Harrison, op. cit., p. 139. 74. In discussions in London in November 1988, Baluch activists claimed that Bhutto’s policies had created a major impact among tribesmen who now recog¬ nised the feudal and repressive nature of the sardari system. As a result, the Pakistan People’s Party was popular in the province, although the chiefs would obviously not acknowledge it 75. The number of Baluch refugees in Afghanistan is uncertain. An undated War On Want report for the Asia Committee of the Standing Conference on Refugees, London, says about 25,000 Baluch had sought refuge outside Baluchistan but within Pakistan, while another 4,700 found shelter in camps at Kandahar and Kalat-i-Ghilzai. Salamat Ali, ‘An upheaval is forecast’, Far Eastern Economic Review, Hong Kong, 19 October 1979, pp. 41-42, cites Marri sources and quotes a figure of 7,000 Baluch families who had taken refuge in Afghanistan in mid1970 and remain there. The latter figure is more reliable and indicates the presence of over 30,000 Baluch refugees in camps in Afghanistan. 76. ‘The case for humanitarian recognition of Baluch refugees in Afghanistan: Refugees from Pakistan in Afghanistan’, undated paper prepared for the Asia Committee of the Standing Conference on Refugees, London, by War on Want, pp. 1-4. 77. For an account of these events, see Keesing’s, pp. 28565-28572. 78. ‘Pakistan police on alert after student is hanged’, Della Denman, the Guardian, 12 June 1981; ‘Soviet threat to policeman Zia’, Peter Pringle, the Observer, 28 June 1981. 79. Information on BSO divisions obtained from Baluch contacts in London. 80. ‘Soviet threat to policeman Zia’, op. cit. 81. ‘The wooing of Baluchistan’, the Economist, 12 June 1982. 82. Zia ul Haq quoted in ‘Priority is set on development in Baluchistan’, the International Herald Tribune, 9 August 1982. 83. ‘The Sixth Five-Year Plan’, Islamabad, Government of Pakistan. 84. The Guardian, 7 January 1983. 85. BBC World Service (Eastern Service) News, A51, 19 October 1988. 86. Akbar Bugti quoted in David Dodwell, ‘Guns, blood feuds and $1 million’, the Financial Times, London, 26 May 1983. 87. Inayat Allah Baloch, op. cit., p. 367.

Chapter 5 THE ‘PEACE FORCE’ OF THE CHITTAGONG HILLS

Introduction IN March 1989, the Bangladesh parliament passed several Bills enabling the government to transform the administrative system in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), a 5,000-square mile region of undulating hills covered in rain forest in the south-east of the country. The new laws established three districts, Khagrachhari, Rangamati and Bandarban. The enactments merely confirmed the existing superstructure: it was in the infrastructure of the regulatory mechanisms that the new laws promised a transformation. The districts were to be administered by elected councils, each with thirty seats. Twenty of these, and that of the chairman, were reserved for the area’s tribal people; the remainder, also elected, were to be filled by Bengali settlers. That ethno-communal division was a departure from Dhaka’s insistence on a unitary system. The centre conceded substantial executive and legislative authority to the councils. They would spend the annual development plan budgetary allocation, and funds made available by the CHT Development council on the basis of their own priorities and programmes. Additionally, councils could levy local taxes to raise extra revenues using the traditional hierarchy of the village headmen. For the first time, the central bureaucracies were subordinated to the elected councils. They would raise and maintain their own constabularies and when these were ready to take the field, Bangladesh police personnel would be withdrawn. Dhaka also promised to return the army to ‘duties relating to national defence’. But the most significant concession was the authority given to the councils to monitor and control all transfer of land rights. The councils would also have the right to reoccupy land transferred fraudulently.1 This meant that the steady transfer of land from tribal ownership to the control of Bengalis could now be brought to a halt, and further settlement of Bengalis in the CHT, promoted by past administra¬ tions, was to be discontinued. This had been one of the key demands of the tribal autonomist movement. These concessions were granted in the context of fierce guerrilla warfare by the Shanti Bahini (peace force) against the authority of Dhaka for more than thirteen years, and counter-insurgency operations by Dhaka’s

163

CHITTAGONG HILLS ‘PEACE FORCE’

security forces.2 They could be seen as a victory for the autonomists, or as a sign of increasing maturity within the national executive. The militaryled administration gave in to permissible demands to cut off the guerrillas from their popular support, and to weaken their position as instruments of the government of India. Hossain Ershad, President of Bangladesh from 1983 to 1990, announced an amnesty for ‘misguided elements’, meaning the insurgents, and offered to rehabilitate them if they surrendered their arms, renounced violence and accepted the new guarantees. Such men, and presumably women, could contest elections to the District Council in their respective areas. Ershad had made similar offers earlier but with mixed results. This time the Shanti Bahini responded by intensifying raids on Bengali settlements. Although, Dhaka’s initiative constituted a radical departure and conceded most of the demands Chakma autonomists had made early in their campaign, the insurrection did not end.3 There appears little possibility that warfare will end until the insurgents acquire a stake in the system, which must satisfy their' new expectations and positions hardened by more than a decade of guerrilla warfare in the jungle. Dhaka had tried other methods to end the insurgency. The SAARC summit in Bangalore, India, in November 1986 led to an accord between President Ershad and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in their efforts to eradicate montagnard dissidence in the region. Gandhi, having made his peace with the Ahoms and the Mizos, seemed determined to stamp out the insurrection of Bejoy Wrangkhyal’s Tripura National Volunteers (TNV) in Tripura;4 it is not clear if the TNV at that stage had become the Congress Party Trojan Horse it proved to be in 1988. On occasion, Delhi had complained that Dhaka was helping the TNV to destabilise a bordering Indian state, presumably as a quid pro quo for Indian aid to the Shanti Bahini. Mutual recrimination embittered inter-state relations,5 although official statements were often conciliatory in tone.6 After the Bangalore meeting, the two military commanders of the infantry divisions in Tripura and CHT met in December 1986. They undertook not to harbour each other’s insurgents, offer them sanctuary or provide any other assistance. The military accord saved both sides from the embarrassment of tacitly accepting the fact that the Shanti Bahini was operating from Tripura, and the TNV from CHT. Dhaka and Delhi now hoped that peace was at hand. The two guerrilla armies did not share that optimism. Both were in the midst of escalating attacks on security forces and Bengali settlers in CHT and Tripura. That campaign had started in mid-November, just as the SAARC summit was winding down. The Shanti

164

MAP 5: Chittagong Hill Tracis,

THE FEARFUL STATE

Courtesy of the Minority Rights Group

CHITTAGONG HILLS ‘PEACE FORCE’

165

Bahini had launched a new phase of operations by killing twenty-four Bengalis in a single raid on 16 November. This was followed by the murder of twenty-two settlers in a seven-day period after the meeting between the generals. In the final week of December 1986, guerrilla forces killed nineteen Bengalis in one day and seventy-one in six weeks. In Dhaka the parliament heard from Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Matin that Shanti Bahini guerrillas had killed or wounded 1,198 people between 1980 and 1986. The death toll in 1986 alone was 290 and, despite counter-insur¬ gency operations, civilian casualties in the jungle war were set to rise. By 1989, the government figure exceeded 1,500 dead. Other estimates sug¬ gested that as many as 185,000 lives may have been lost in the CHT conflict by 1986.7 The rising toll was just one indication of the intensity with which successive administrations in Dhaka had fought with Chakma autonomists. The ‘four rays of hope’, as the Bills passed on 1 March were described, were a desperate attempt to barter concessions for peace.

A demographic revolution IN the 1970s, when CHT was a single administrative district governed from Rangamati, it was home to around 600,000 people, or about 0.7 per cent of the national total.8 This 10 per cent of a land-hungry Bangladesh was sparsely populated, creating much tension between the tribal montagnards trying to protect their ethno-cultural identity, and the plainlander Bengalis from the neighbouring districts of Noakhali and Chittagong, who needed increasingly greater amounts of ‘living space’.9 CHT consists of forested ridges running north to south and rising to just over 3,000 feet at its highest. The hills, valleys and dense vegetation of the tropical rain¬ forest offer ideal terrain for low-to-medium-intensity guerrilla warfare, but as cultivable ground it has limited use. With its agricultural technol¬ ogy, CHT could support a density of only 40 persons per square kilometre. The density of the contiguous plains district of Chittagong was more than 600, and the resulting tension was unsustainable.10 The plains experienced a population explosion in the 1950s and the 1960s, and the differential in the land-man ratio created the context for the political crises of the 1970s and 1980s. The problem was not unique to CHT; pressures created by immigration, legal or otherwise, from both sides of the inter-Bengal boundary and from Nepal, Bihar and even Rajasthan, into South Asia’s sub-Himalayan sylvan reaches is a major factor in the environment of conflict permeating the region. The tensions engendered by the sudden intensification of the competition for scarce

THE FEARFUL STATE

166

resources led to friction between native montagnards and immigrant plainlanders. This was the root of conflict between sub-national tribal militants and majoritarian central authorities. The dispute was compounded by the demarcation of frontiers that ignored montagnard sensibilities, and the historical processes that provided the context in which these sensitivities had been shaped. This chapter is an attempt to study those processes with regard to the conflict in Chittagong Hill Tracts. The uplands that are today Chittagong Hill Tracts were largely terra incognita until the 15th century. Contact between the bustling plains and the uncharted, malarial, forested and sparsely populated hills was limited. Differences in social development, modes of production and distribution made communication even more difficult. The principal interest of the central authorities lay in maximising revenue from minimal investment CHT was linked to Chittagong by distant central powers driven by expansionary urges. Their energies were directed to the Chittagong hills only through the Chittagong plains because of geography; local links were far more diffuse and slow to develop.

An ethnic pot-pourri THE CHT is home to thirteen montagnard tribes. Their precise strength is conjectural: one account lists twelve tribes, while the other lists eleven, and the totals vary by more than 60,000 in a mean total of 600,000. With 350,000 to 400,000 members, the Chakmas are the largest tribe and the best-integrated into the ‘modem’ and setded, non-tribal lifestyle of the plains. The Shanti Bahini is an overwhelmingly Chakma organisation.12 Tribal group Chakma Marma/Mogh Tripura/Tippera Mro/Mru Tangchangya Khumi Chak/Sak Murung Khyang/Khiang RyangAnimism Pankhu/Pankho Mizo/Lushai Banjugi Bawm/Bom TOTALS Tablet

13

Religion

Account A

Account B

Buddhism Buddhism Hinduism Animism Animism Animism Buddhism Buddhism Buddhism

350,000 140,000 60,000 5,000

Not Listed

400,000 100,000 15,000 5,000 80,000 2,000 20,000 20,000 2,000 Not Listed 2,000 2,000 Not Listed 5,000

590,000

653,000

Christian Christian Christian Christian

-

35,000

CHITTAGONG HILLS ‘PEACE FORCE’

167

This diversity allied to a rapid influx of Bengali settlers has created a discordant gloom. Reliable data is difficult to obtain. The government of Bangladesh has been unable or unwilling to conduct an accurate census in the region and preoccupations with security has kept CHT closed to any non-governmental enumeration. Dhaka may have decided to wait until the reduction of the montagnards to a minority in their own lands could be presented to the world, and to the tribes, as a fait accompli.14 However, the government was compelled to end the ‘Bengalisation’ scheme to create the conditions for the launch of its political programme. The following figures show the trend of population movement over a period of three decades:15 Group

1950

Montagnards Bengali Hindus Bengali Muslims

Table 2

-

1970

1974

1980

240,000 26,000

574,000 not listed

650,000? not listed

2,000

76,000

255,000

'650,000

508,000 905,000?

268,000

TOTAL

1960

385,000

totals only for 1960 and 1974

The Chakmas occupy CHT’s central and northern districts where they have worked the fertile valleys in agriculture patterned on the wet-rice tradition of the plains. The Marmas live in the north-eastern and southern reaches. The Tripuras occupy the region’s northern ramparts, straddling the international frontiers between CHT and the Indian state of Tripura. These three tribes constitute about 85 per cent of the montagnard popula¬ tion and their members have largely settled in the CHT’s valleys. The remaining tribes occupy forested ridges and broken uplands of the south¬ ern hills. Contiguity, trans-frontier distribution and weakness in policing the difficult terrain have contributed to an environment in which crossborder insurgency has flourished.

An historical overview THE tribes are believed to have entered CHT in three waves. First came the Tibeto-Burmans of the Kuki group: Mizo, Pankhu, Mro, Khyang, Khumi and Banjugi. The second carried the Tripura and Murung group, while the last wave brought in the Arakanese group — the Marma and Ryang. The dominant Chakmas came from Burma. They occupied parts of Arakan in the 16th century and were known as the ‘Theks’ or the ‘Tseks’ meaning foreigners, implying they had originated farther afield. They moved into the Matamuhuri valley in southern CHT by the second half of the 16th century and travelled north to occupy the Kamaphuli valley in early 17th

168

{,

THE FEARFUL STATE

century. The Chakmas apparently ventured into the plains, but suffered heavy casualties in clashes with Bengali plainsmen in Chittagong and were forced back. This experience, although not fully benign, initiated an exchange of ideas and values whereby the Chakma montagnard and Chittagonian Bengali were able to communicate in a pidgin dialect. The Marmas came to CHT as an after-effect of the Burman occupation of Arakan at the end of the 18th century. Most Marmas settled in southern CHT but smaller groups pushed on west to the coastal belt near the Sundarban mangrove forests. The Tipperas captured Tripura, founding a principality there; they also spread along the valleys in northern CHT to became a major force in the region in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Bawms, a Chin offshoot, arrived from the Chin hills in northern Burma early in the 19th century, engaging the Mru, Khumi and Marma in combat for over three decades. Eventually, a modus vivendi was reached and the Bawms settled on the fringes of Marma territory around 1840. The Mru and the Khumi had to abandon the Koladan region following Chin expansion there at the beginning of the 19th century. Only small groups reached CHT; the majority settled in Arakan. The Chins or the Khyangs followed the tribes they had uprooted from the Chin hills; but only small groups of Khyangs have made CHT their home; most settled in northern Burma. The Chaks attained local paramountcy in southern CHT in the 15 th and 16th centuries. Their domination left an imprint on Tangchangya/Doignak montagnards already settled in the area. The Chakma tribe evolved from a stratum of the Chaks in the 16th century and became the largest and most powerful tribe in CHT.16 The smaller tribes retained linguistic and cultural kinship with the Chin, Arakanese or Tripura societies depending on their origins, but the Chakma cultural milieu was influenced by the tribe’s interaction with Arakanese and Bengali plainlanders. This study is based on the Chakmas and Marmas because of their pre¬ ponderance and political pre-eminence. Both evolved into kinship units virtually independent of each other. The Chakmas were distributed into 40 ‘gozas’ or clans, each headed by a ‘Dewan’, an office that was often hereditary, demonstrating the primacy of the root family within the clan. The gozas were exclusive in their patrilineal isolation; their mutual relationship was believed to have been benign, however. Below the hereditary Dewan, the Chakmas organised villages under the leadership of elected headmen, who could be replaced if they lost the confidence of a sufficiently large number of villagers. This egalitarian and democratic society was subjected to increasing centralised control as distant powers

CHITTAGONG HILLS ‘PEACE FORCE’

169

extended their writ into the Chittagong hills, forcing Chakma society to change. Delhi’s satraps in Bengal annexed Chittagong in the mid-17th century. This led to protracted warfare between the Mogul army and the Chakmas, who had emerged as the dominant montagnard group in the north-western CHT. In response to Delhi’s violent intrusion, the gozas collectively raised an army to meet the challenge. The commander, selected from within their own ranks by the college of Dewans, was a soldier — he had no political control over the gozas except his own. The war with the Moguls led to an accommodation between the parties. The Chakmas agreed to pay a trade tax to the Mogul court and, in return, were assured local autonomy. A stable relationship developed between the plainlander central authority and the highlander tributaries. The Moguls did not demand complete subjugation as they had on the plains; the montagnards found regular payment of a tax levied on trade between the Chittagong hills and the Chittagong plains better than perpetual warfare. Early in the 18th century, Mogul-Chakma relations were principally commercial. The Moguls rewarded the Chakma military chief, now an ally, with land and other perquisites that raised his social standing within the tribal community. He became an exception in a society where the concept of private ownership of land had not made its mark. The Moguls granted the chief monopoly over all trade between the hills and the plains on the rationale that this would ensure efficient collection of revenue. This monopoly extended the chief’s control over all the Chakma gozas. The Chakma military resources were devoted to the execution of his, rather than the tribe’s, orders, giving him control over the activities of all Chakmas irrespective of their goza, and over all plainsmen commercially links with the hills. In return, he had to ensure that a fixed tribute of cotton was regularly rendered to the Moguls. This commercial, financial and military supremacy was to give the chief almost absolute power. The chief collected trade tax from the Dewan of each goza, passed on a fixed quantity to the Mogul Subahdar, and retained the rest. With land grants, he became both a Jagirdar (landlord) and a Tehsildar (collector of taxes). The advent of the British East India Company further concentrated power. Three years after Plassey, the Company persuaded Nawab Mir Kasem Ali Khan to cede the Chittagong hills to the EIC’s control. The Chakmas, rejecting this change, waged a guerrilla war of resistance for 25 years, until, in 1785, Chief Jan Bux Khan acknowledged British hegemony in the hills. The EIC reinforced the relationships between the highlanders and their plainlander overlords, and between the chief and his recently

170

THE FEARFUL STATE

incorporated ‘subjects’. It exploited the chiefs military-political author¬ ity and his commercial acumen to further its own interests, helping to concentrate greater power in his hands. In 1789, the British replaced the cotton tribute with cash, introducing monetisation into the subsistenceand-barter economy of the hills. This brought in its train usurious moneylending practices developed by plainlander Bengalis. As its response to external stimuli transformed tribal society, relation¬ ships within and without it were changed. By the 1830s, the tribal military chief had emerged as a supremo. His powers were further strengthened after the Crown assumed control from the EIC in the post-Mutiny era. The British introduced material incentives and retribution to encourage certain acts and discourage other forms of behaviour. Imposition of such novel concepts of social relations led to occasional instability and violence as the pace of adaptation varied from group to group, and sometimes within a particular group. This was compounded by the westward migration of Lushai-Chin montagnards across the CHT’s eastern frontiers. These waves clashed with the eastward spread of British influence across South Asia’s north-eastern quadrant and resulted in several Lushai expeditions being mounted by the raj. The Mizo-Lushai move westward was temporarily halted but, seen from Calcutta, the protection of the colony demanded stronger measures. For some time, CHT was a useful buffer, but eventually the proxy administration through the tribal chief proved too weak an instrument for the security of an expanding imperial enterprise. Repeated Lushai raids on tea plantations provided a pretext for ending reliance on indirect control; the raj decided to annex CHT. In 1860, a century after CHT had been ceded to ‘the Honourable Company’, the area finally became an integral part of the British empire in India. In 1872, Calcutta encouraged the Chakma chief to disband the goza organisation by increasing the number of tax¬ collecting Dewans from forty to 108. The enlarged constituency had a vested interest in upholding the chiefs authority, which was dependent on the imperial design for frontier uplands. Mutual benefit led the British to raise the status of the chief to Talukdar (native baron).

Early militarisation THE imposition of a political structure focused on practices involving ex¬ tortion, demanded the sanction of coercive instruments. The tradition of the repressive state draws its roots from its imperial origins. Initially, the

CHITTAGONG HILLS ‘PEACE FORCE’

171

British exercised control over the Chittagong Hill Tracts District primarily by military means. A paramilitary force was stationed along the district’s eastern borders, fixed for the first time as an expression of the imperial urge to secure definable and defendable frontiers. Military police camps were established throughout CHT to aid ‘pacification’ and to ‘curb smuggling’. In the 1870s, the ratio of military policeman to civilians was 1:96. A British superintendent commanded these forces to keep the peace among the tribes and their chiefs and to administer British criminal justice. But the collection of revenue remained in the hands of the tribal chief. The strong military presence allowed the British to reproduce the Chakma pattern of unified political structure among other major tribes. In its search for political stability and economic control Calcutta divided CHT into three chieftaincies in 1881: the Maung Circle in the north under the Maung chief at Manikchhari; the Chakma Circle in the centre under the Chakma chief at Rangamati; and the Bohmong Circle in the south under the Bohmong chief at Bandarban.17 The imperial authorities retained control over the choicest parts of real estate with urban or military potential, known as ‘khas’ or government-owned land. To enforce these divisions and provide back-up for the newly established chiefs, the British enacted in the same year the Chittagong Hill Tracts Frontier Police Regulations, 1881. A native police force was raised with tribal constables under British officers. This tempered montagnard opposition to British control and gave subjects an impression of being involved in the admini¬ stration of their territory. To stabilise revenue assessment and collection, the raj discouraged ‘jhum’, the slash-and-burn shifting cultivation that was a mainstay of the tribal economy. This pattern of agriculture suited nomadic highlanders, but it made the calculation and collection of revenue uncertain, and the steady extraction of revenue was the main function of imperial colonialism. Shifting cultivation also hindered control of a population perpetually on the move, if within a fairly narrow range. The British encouraged the ‘settled’, i.e., plough, cultivation that had made the Indian plains such a rich source of extractable surplus. Despite credits offered to prospective farmers in the 1870s, the exercise failed owing to opposition of the chiefs, who felt they had not been properly consulted. The raj was constrained to enact the 1881 regulations that for¬ malised and offered to underwrite the chieftaincies before the chiefs would support wet-rice cultivation. By the 1890s, about 3,000 hectares in CHT s valleys had been put to the plough, but over half the plots were being worked by Bengali settlers, whose immigration the British encouraged.

172

THE FEARFUL STATE

Financial priorities laid the foundations of the tribal-montagnard-nomad versus plainlander-Bengali-peasant dichotomy that was to divide the district once Pax Britannica was removed. In pursuit of more effective control, the authorities moved the district headquarters from Chittagong to Rangamati in 1898. They believed that proper administration was only possible when people were tied to particu¬ lar plots of land centred around the authority of their own chief who, in turn, was accountable to Calcutta. In addition to revenue-collecting responsibilities and proprietary rights over what used to be communal land, the chiefs were given judicial powers over their own Circles. They were encouraged to impose a system of permanent settlement and tenancy already in force on the plains. As individuals and families became tenants or, in some cases, owners of land, tribal society was transformed. The British viewpoint was: Unless we establish and support the Roajah or village headmen in their authority, the people will scatter themselves more and more. The Roajah will, in fact, not know where his villagers are, for they will have settled all over the country in isolated jhums and he will have great difficulty in collecting them and in realising the rent due to the chiefs. The chiefs will fall into pecuniary difficulties and the authority of the [British] Govern¬ ment will be reduced to something merely nominal.18 The raj granted the three chiefs the right to dismiss village headmen and replace them with men loyal to themselves. Whatever elements of egalitarianism that had survived until then, now ended. The authority of the chiefs rose in direct proportion to British penetration of the hills, the two developing a symbiotic bond. Montagnard organisation gave way to a hybrid somewhere between the original and that on the plains. The British built roads, schools and hospitals near the seats of the chiefs, and set up military camps. New responsibilities conferred on the chiefs, goza Dewans and village Roajahs brought personal material rewards, another novelty in tribal eyes. Behind the ascendancy of the British-imposed chieftaincy stood the sanction of imperial power, the garrisons and the Military Police, border guards and montagnard-manned CHT Frontier Police Force. The Chittagong Hill Tracts Act of 1900 enshrined this new order.

The CHT Regulation, 1900 MONTAGNARD resistance to Bengali encroachment has focused on this regulation (No. 1 of 1900), and demands for constitutional guarantees

CHITTAGONG HILLS ‘PEACE FORCE’

173

against its amendment. In an open letter addressed to General Ershad in November 1983, the Central Executive of the Jana Samhati Samity (JSS) wrote: ‘You have been ecstatic in proclaiming “the British-made Hill Tracts Manual of ad1900 today awaits modification, reformation and thor¬ ough development. (The) Government shall present a revised Manual suited to the Hills People without delay”. But you and your Government know that your previous Governments had been in successive plots cunningly to steal and infringe the rights and safeguards of the Jumma (practitioners of slash-and-bum shifting cultivation) Peoples embodied in the Manual of ad 1900 with the set purpose of crushing the religious, racial, cultural and traditional identity and distinction destroying the very secu¬ rity and existence of Ethnic Minority Nationalities of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Consequently, the Jumma Peoples were compelled to organize a Movement for ensuring their National Identity and the integrity of their motherland. But circumstances so led them that at last, a full decade ago, they had to take to Arms in demand of SELF-DETERMINATION. 19 In a speech made on 21 July 1986, a JSS spokesman touring Europe specified five demands that were ‘deemed absolutely necessary for the survival of the indigenous people’. The CHT Regulation of 1900 featured in this charter, which demanded: 1. Removal of all non-tribal settlers from the CHT; 2. Withdrawal of all Bangladesh armed forces, including the non-tribal police force from the CHT; 3. Reintroduction of the 1900 CHT Regulation and enactment of constitutional provisions restricting its future amendment; 4. Grant of regional autonomy to CHT with its own legislature; 5. The deployment of United Nations peace-keeping forces in the CHT and implementation of these measures under UN auspices.20 The Regulation in question separated CHT from the rest of the province of Bengal and Assam, empowering the British administrator to run the district as he saw fit. It stated, inter alia: The Chittagong Hill Tracts shall constitute a district for purposes of criminal and civil jurisdiction and for revenue and general purpose, the Superintendent (amended to Deputy Commissioner vide the CHT [Amend¬ ment] Regulation, 1920; Regulation IV of 1920) shall be the District Magistrate, and subject to orders passed by the Provincial Government (of Bengal and Assam) under Section 6, the general administration of the said Tracts, in criminal, civil, revenue and ALL OTHER MATTERS, shall be vested in the Superintendent. 21

174

THE FEARFUL STATE

The Superintendent was empowered to issue or withdraw permits for the possession of firearms, ammunition, drugs, narcotics and liquor. With this Act the British arrogated arbitrary power over CHT, its people and its land. The absolute nature of this power was underscored by a particular set of provisions dated January 1900 under which the superintendent was to administer CHT in a manner best suited to colonial interests. The British sought control along imperial boundaries whose strategic significance was secondary to developments along the northern and north-western frontiers. The Act laid the legal and juridical basis for the administration of CHT to be given parity with the system of ‘civilised law’ in force on the plains. The Regulation did not specifically bar Bengali immigration or land rights, but gave the British the authority to impose restrictions when it considered fit.

Montagnard isolation in a period of nationalist ferment IN 1892, the British conquered the Lushai Hills (Mizoram) east of CHT. This victory ended warfare with the Mizos, transferring CHT’s strategic significance as a frontier district to the new acquisition. Most Military Police and civil administrative personnel were redeployed to pacify the Lushai Hills, CHT being relegated to the status of a stable area requiring long-term arrangements. This was the context in which the 1892 and 1900 Regulations were enacted. The need to encourage Bengalis to settle in the Hills and provide political and revenue stability had ended. New forms were needed to meet the changed circumstances. The Act of 1900 was the legal expression of the final destruction of tribal self-government. That was replaced with colonial administration under a veneer of indigenous institutions. The Act integrated the district with the empire’s judicial system but also erected barriers to its socio-cultural assimilation. For the first time, the law made a distinction between highlanders and plains people, and the superintendent was empowered to control the latter’s movement in the area; no reciprocal provisions in regard to montagnard activities in the plains were made. CHT’s administrative and taxation system differed from the ‘collectorate-zamindari’ structure used in Bengal since 1797. The divide-and-rule approach characterised British policy all along the empire’s frontiers. The raj sought to sanitise and insulate the hills from the ‘corrupting’ influence of the incipient nationalist revolu¬ tionary movement, for which Bengal provided a fertile spawning ground. Constitutional reforms introduced after the First World War tended to loosen Britain’s grip on local administration across the empire. Native

CHITTAGONG HILLS ‘PEACE FORCE’

175

interest groups began to be represented, largely by nomination, but demands for elective offices could not be suppressed. The long slide to imperial denouement had begun, but the British were not reconciled to giving up without a fight. Violent crackdowns on suspected ‘terrorists’ and mass execution such as at Jalianwallahbagh were one approach; tightening control along the frontiers was another. In 1921, Delhi declared CHT a ‘backward tract’, and an ‘excluded area’. This excluded the district from the influence of the increasingly representative provincial legislature. The Deputy Commissioner continued to preside over CHT’s affairs as the representative of the Governor General-in-Council. Enforced separation from the development of the nationalist movement did not endear the highlanders to native politicians in Delhi and Calcutta. However, residual influences continued to assert themselves. CHT was, after all, accessible only from the west along routes that passed through the Chittagong plains. This lacuna was redressed when the Government of India Act of 1935 was passed into law. CHT was declared a ‘Totally Excluded Area’. Restrictive regulations were fleshed out to protect the tribals from the contagion sweeping the plains. The Act stated: ‘No person other than a Chakma, Mogh or a member of any hill tribe indigenous to the Chittagong Hill Tracts, the Lushai Hills, the Arakan Hill tracts or the State of Tripura shall enter or reside within the Chittagong Hill Tracts unless he is in possession of a permit granted by the Deputy Commissioner at his discretion.’ Few Bengalis entered CHT legally. The formal severance of political ties between CHT and Bengal reflected the congruence of interests of three of the four parties involved: the montagnard people, their three chiefs and the British. All three wished to maintain and, indeed, increase the distance between the tribal hills and the Bengali plains. The tribals hoped to end Bengali settlement and interference; the chiefs aspired to the status of native princes, hoping to elevate Circles into princely states, the British sought to insulate highlanders from the nationalist contagion. Thus, the idea of a separate political identity was nurtured. By the time British rule ended, it had grown roots in the highlanders collective consciousness.

The mountains go to Mohammedan Pakistan THE Partition of the empire along communal lines, with contiguous Muslim-majority areas forming Pakistan and the remainder refashioned into the Union of India, should have left the largely Buddhist CHT as a part

176

THE FEARFUL STATE

of India. Until early August 1947, that was the general assumption. CHT’s future did not feature in pre-Partition negotiations. Its fate was decided by secret negotiations with the Sikhs about the partition of Punjab. Although a minority community, Sikhs had gained disproportionate representation in India’s civil and military bureaucracies, and its agricul¬ tural and entrepreneurial classes.23 This loyalty merited recognition and, even in the last days of imperium, the British were concerned lest their partition plans hurt Sikh sensibilities. Any division of Punjab would leave large numbers of these turbaned warriors in Muslim Pakistan. In the context of the communal violence sweeping northern India, the conse¬ quences of such a step, inevitable by then, agitated the Viceroy. On 9 August, less than a week before Partition, Lord Mountbatten, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, chairman of the Boundaries Commission, and Lord Ismay, senior military adviser to the Viceroy, decided to do whatever could be done to prevent aggravating the communal bloodletting.24 Punjab was in the throes of a particularly vicious form of self-destruction.25 Major Maclaughlin Short of Lord Ismay’s staff was sent secretly to meet Sikh leaders. Details of the talks are not known but soon after his return a change occurred in Punjab’s boundary award. Owing to its overall Muslim majority, Ferozepur district had originally been awarded to Pakistan. The district’s Sadar and Zira sub-divisions were, however, home to compact Sikh communities. When the Radcliffe award was finally unveiled on 17 August, these sub-divisions went to East Punjab, i.e., to India. By way of compensation, East Pakistan was given CHT. The ‘Lords of the Frontiers’ failed to explain why non-Muslim CHT should become a part of the newly created homeland for India’s Muslims. CHT’s three tribal chiefs had advocated the formation of a confederation linking CHT, Tripura, parts of (greater) Assam and Cooch Bihar. This proposal was ignored by Congress and the League. The chiefs refused to acknowledge the enforced accession of their Circles to Pakistan and, for several days, the Indian tricolour flew in Rangamati and other CHT townships. This treasonable act was righted by Pakistani police forces. Bereft of the protection of regulatory barriers, montagnard tribesmen faced domination by Bengali Muslims. In the unequal confrontation, they proved to be extremely vulnerable.

The ‘opening up’ of the CHT INITIALLY, CHT retained its separate administration because Pakistan’s rulers had more urgent concerns. Along with other areas that had been

CHITTAGONG HILLS ‘PEACE FORCE’

177

declared Excluded Areas by the Government of India Act 1935, CHT came under the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions in Pakistan’s central government. In 1955, the provincial administration in Dhaka decided to strip CHT of its special status, integrate it with the province, extend its control there, and end the centre’s ‘interference’. The Chiefs and the British Deputy Commissioner were vehemently opposed, and Karachi resumed direct administration. CHT was declared a ‘Special Area’, and placed under Pakistan’s Ministry of Home and Kashmir Affairs, with the deputy commissioner reporting directly to Karachi. This loss of local control did not please the East Pakistani political 61ite. Official restrictions notwithstanding, montagnard inability to compete allowed the Bengalis to establish a monopoly in the wholesale and retail trade particularly, unofficial money-lending operations and in transport After General Ayub Khan took power in 1958, the army dismantled the residual elements of indigenous control over tribal life. The martial administration was more integration^ when it came to state-building than its civilian counterpart had been. It abrogated the 1881 CHT Frontier Police Act and disbanded the locally recruited constabulary. Its members were posted to other districts while provincial (plainlander) police forces were deployed permanently to CHT. The 1959 Basic Democracies Order replaced tribal institutions with new patron-client networks. With ‘the new constitution of Pakistan in 1962, a systematic but clandestine colonialisation of the hills by the Bengalis began’.26 The constitution was amended to bring all local institutions under the control of central authorities. Around this time, Pakistani policy with regard to fringe areas such as CHT underwent a major change. Demographic pressures were substantial. East Pakistan’s population explosion became so severe that, by 1965, average densities had reached 1,215 per square mile. The country s soil resources were being overtaxed. The government attempted to direct special attention to the still largely self-sufficient tribal areas. So far, these had managed to remain beyond the reach of the monetised economy, avoiding the disruptions of industrialisation.27 Disruptions were not planned; but the course adopted by successor states made these almost inevitable.

Nation-building and development in CHT POST-WAR decolonisation established the nation-state as the paradigm of political development and the newly-independent states felt obliged to conform. Consolidation of the presumptive nation-state was essential to

178

THE FEARFUL STATE

establishing the state as a focus for consensus. Forging component groups into a ‘nation’ became synonymous with national integration and state control without which there would be no legitimacy. To this end, the elites felt obliged to impose homogeneity to compel conformity but did not allow subject groups the benefits of evolving over time. Conformity with ‘national’ or majoritarian mainstreams strained the fabric of montagnard societies and peripheral resentment grew into ‘subnational’ resistance. State-building was associated with growth of a centralised bureaucracy that excluded both the tribal population and the Bengali majority.28 Pakistan interpreted the imperatives of state-building along dynamicnation-state versus static-tribal-society lines. Elite perceptions were also influenced by the lack of any historical political unity between the two wings, relegating all subnational ethno-cultural and religious groups to the status of tribalism. This rationalised the denial of self-determination to minority groups seen to threaten the state system by suggesting they represented a primitive, hence inferior, mode of political organisation.29 This alleged inferiority also explained their forced integration into the mainstream in the name of state- and nation-building and of development and modernisation. A similar concept applied to the Bengalis. But the tenuous links forged did not survive the strains of nationalist reaction. Assuming that they were somehow superior to the montagnards in a way that the Pakistanis were not to them, Bangladeshis applied to CHT’s tribal population methods that had so spectacularly failed in their own case.

The Kaptai Dam and ‘Lake of Tears’ MONTAGNARD accusations of callous exploitation of CHT’s resources for plainlander benefit without consideration for tribal sensitivities, find expression in the Kaptai hydel project and its 500-square mile reservoir. Bangladesh stands on flood plains that lack the gradient necessary for hydroelectricity generation; only CHT’s rivers have this potential.30 Pakistan’s martial rulers, builders of major water control schemes in the West, decided to build a modest hydroelectricity project in East Pakistan in 1959, which went on stream in 1963. Its installed capacity of 80 MWe was utilised to stimulate industrialisation around the port of Chittagong. Although consumers in the plains benefited, the highlanders did not. New navigational facilities expanded opportunities for exploitation of CHT’s forest and fishery resources but the scheme had no place for the tribals. For Pakistan and its US investors, Kaptai represented an example of

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what co-operation between military allies could do to help develop weaker partners. But the reservoir submerged 250 square miles of prime farming land in Chakma territory, together with its largest town Rangamati. Twenty thousand hectares of grade-one plots in the Kamaphuli valley — 40 per cent of CHT’s total arable land — was lost. According to the JSS, the reservoir displaced 96,000 tribesmen, mostly Chakma, a quarter of CHT’s population.31 A Board of Revenue compensation office set aside $51m for the displaced families. But between 1959 and 1967, only 43 million rupees (£l.lm) was disbursed. The government of Bangladesh resumed the compensatory service in the mid-1970s but by 1980 no more than $2.6m had been paid. The loss of livelihood created the first major source of resentment in the Chakma population. Of those affected, 60,000 received no compensation and about 10,000 migrated to India in the hope of some redress. Many Chakma tribesmen who had farmed the lost plots knew very little of plainlander settlement regulations, tenure registration, revenue documentation and compensation procedures. They were unable to fulfil official require¬ ments, and the government made no provisions to ensure that bureaucratic complexities did not prevent disbursement of allocated funds. Of the 18,000 families uprooted by the project, 8,000 lacked the necessary documentation to have their cases considered. And among the 10,000 displaced families who could claim legitimate land rights in the submerged valley, only a fraction fulfilled documentary and other require¬ ments laid down by the Board of Revenue. Even for these fortunate few, compensation fell far short of the loss sustained. Before the flooding, the average holding of prime agricultural land per family had been around six acres. Those rehabilitated were given, or offered, three acres of land cleared from the Kassalong reserve forest. For the majority, life has been an unmitigated disaster since 1959. No wonder then that in the opinion of even the most moderate Chakmas: The vast expanse of water captured by the dam provides a scene that impresses every visitor with its beauty. But could anybody have thought that this immense body of water is to some extent filled with the tears of the local people? Through the cables of the electric lines not only current flows, but also the sighs of grief.32 In the 1960s, the Chakmas did not have the organisational leverage or the leadership to bargain their way out of difficulties. In a period dedicated to ‘development through industrialisation’, minority anguish was easily ignored. East Pakistan had virtually no manufacturing industry and the

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THE FEARFUL STATE

establishment of any was equated with progress. Any impact on society or the environment did not burden American or Pakistani minds and it was not until 1966 that the dam builders troubled themselves over such issues. Forrestal Inc., a Canadian consultancy, was assigned to conduct a study of the wider implications of the project. It concluded that prior to the dam’s construction: ‘The tribal people had attained a reasonably satisfactory way of life adequately adjusted to the limitations imposed by the physical environment.’ Since that dislocation, a cycle of over-cultivation has led to the depletion of top-soil fertility, loss of forest cover, serious erosion and further pressure on the remaining arable land. Forrestal recommended that slash-and-bum methods be restricted, since these could not compete in terms of productivity with sedentary cultivation, and that horticulture be introduced to compensate for the loss of staples. Two programmes were launched. The Pilot Scheme for the Control of Jhuming designated 35,000 acres a protected area forbidden to shifting cultivators. This land was planned as a soft wood and fruit tree forest. In the event only 2,000 acres were planted with fruit trees, although the displaced ‘Jummas’ were kept well away from the entire plot. The Standard Agricultural Holdings Programme aimed at transforming CHT into a fruit-growing region. Horticultural projects were planned wherever Chakmas were being rehabilitated. The danger signals were ignored. In a paper on the CHT, presented at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, in April 1983, Wolfgang Mey said: ‘Rice production was given up entirely in favour of fruit production. This meant the withdrawal of a sound economic basis of the concerned villages and the integration of nearly self-sufficient groups into the Bengali market economy. The results soon came. As people were compelled to work in these fruit gardens, they had no time to work in the swidden fields. Shortly afterwards lack of foodstuffs was reported, then the first cases of starvation. Chakma peasants were compelled to render unpaid labour in the forests and settlements of the Forest Department’s personnel; they were forced to buy in special shops whose Bengali owners had come to some profitable agreement with the Department’s staff. Those Chakmas who resisted these practices were publicly beaten up, arrested and handed over to the Rangamati jail.’ The repressive and unjust nature of the state was inescapable. Forrestal also recommended the introducion of mixed plantation farming heavily dependent on fertilizers and pesticides. This trade was a Bengali preserve and many made a fortune by first stealing, and then selling the items at

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marked-up prices in the black market. Only the Bengalis profited, and only the tribals lost. The former, as middlemen, also controlled marketing. A Chakma in Rangamati, for instance, would be paid Tk0.25 for his pine¬ apple by a Bengali trader, who would unload his cargo at Chittagong, 50 miles away, at Tk5.00, thus grossing a profit of 2,000 per cent. The asymmetry in the rewards of Chakma labour and Bengali enterprise engendered an unequal transaction and led to a situation in which many (of the displaced Chakmas) who had been resettled, abandoned the land they had helped to plant. According to Dr A H M Attaf Ali, the project director, no solely domestic food crops were included in the develop¬ ment programme. Farmers were dependent on government support and if this was unreliable could hardly be blamed for falling back on their own resources.33 Whether the authorities were Pakistani or Bangladeshi, the montagnards’ lot was unchanged. In fact, the ability of Bangladesh to impose its writ on CHT surpassed that of Pakistan. Supported by the instruments of the Bengali state, Bengali majoritarian interests struck at the vulnerable mon¬ tagnards with ruthlessness once the Pakistani edifice had been demolished. The displaced remained largely uncompensated into the late 1980s.

The ‘Little Great-Game

’

CHT acquired a strategic significance in the late 1950s which would leave its imprint on the region. In the late 1950s, East Pakistan's capital, Dhaka, became a centre of the CIA’s secret struggle against Communism. From here, the US controlled its covert operations against Chinese authority in Tibet,34 until the CIA’s command post for this operation was moved to Delhi* after the 1962 border war. Pakistan’s secret assistance was a quid pro quo for US aid to Ayub Khan’s military government CIA operations from Dhaka ran in tandem with U-2 flights over the USSR and China from Badaber near Peshawar. Involvement in Cold War operations led UStrained Pakistani intelligence operatives to feel that they could engage in covert operations of their own against India, the principal source of Pakistan’s insecurity. CHT’s thinly inhabited upland rain forests provided an ideal base for operations. Developments in north-eastern India dovetailed with these little great games’. In 1956, Z Phizo’s Naga National Army began a struggle against Delhi’s authority in the Naga Hills. Pakistan grasped at this opportunity to ‘bleed’ India without risking a direct confrontation. Its Inter Services

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THE FEARFUL STATE

Intelligence (ISI) offered arms and sanctuary to the guerrillas operating in CHT. Training camps were established at remote sites and manned by local tribal militias who provided a cover for the operation.35 CHT thus became a cockpit of foreign-inspired intrigue against central authorities. The Shanti Bahini’s campaign drew its roots from that old tradition. Later, the Mizo insurrection received similar assistance from the ISI operating from remote CHT bases at Ruma, Bolipara, Mowdok, and Thanchi.36 These clandestine operations assumed the first priority in Pakistan’s CHT policy. The fate of the tribal populace, the outcome of tensions between an exploding Bengali population’s encroachments on montagnard territory and the latter’s resistance, the sense of insecurity haunting the three tribal chiefs, the future of the area’s natural resources — these questions exercised both the Bengalis and montagnards but they had become peripheral to Pakistan’s own ‘great game’. Pakistan’s military rulers wanted a trouble-free CHT from which they could pursue a low-risk, low-intensity proxy war against their dominant regional rival. The mili¬ tary was the senior partner in the bureaucratic coalition ruling Pakistan. After Ayub Khan’s accession, pretences of civilian supremacy were rendered irrelevant and CHT became an ISI preserve. China joined in these covert operations, emphasising CHT’s clandestine militarisation.

The development of resistance IN THE 1940s, sympathetic British administrators helped the CHT’s tribal communities organise themselves politically. The Chittagong Hill Tracts Peoples Association was recognised as the forum for the political evolu¬ tion of the Chakmas along acceptable lines.37 The association pleaded with the Radcliffe Commission to incorporate CHT in India, a fair plea given Sir Cyril’s terms of reference for allocating areas to Pakistan on the basis of contiguity and Muslim majority. In the event, CHT became a part of East Pakistan and Chakma youth organised themselves into the CHT Students’ Association to press for regional autonomy. The civil war in 1971 sharpened existing cleavages within tribal society, which led Raja Tridiv Roy, the erudite Chakma chief, to flee to Pakistan where he became a member of the Bhutto cabinet in 1972. He left behind a divided community. Many tribal students, radicalised with their Bengali counterparts in the anti-Ayub agitation in 1968-69 and the campaigning in 1970, came to believe in the legitimacy of Bengali demands. They went to India to join the Mukti Bahini (Liberation Army)

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being organised by Indian intelligence. They were not trusted by Bengali guerrillas or their Indian mentors, and many were maltreated. They returned disillusioned, concerned over their collective fate in the future republic of Bangladesh. Another group of tribesmen was sympathetic to Mizo and Naga insurgents operating from their CHT sanctuary. Armed by the ISI and organised into highland militias, the tribal loyalists chose to side with their Pakistani patrons and resist the entry of Bengali guerrillas and Indian army units. The Bangladesh government tried many of these men as collaborators, mostly in absentia. In 1972, units of the Bangladesh army followed Indian battalions to occupy areas formerly used as Naga and Mizo base camps, and to neutralise Chakma renegades. Many innocent tribals complained that during the civil war they had been portrayed as anti-Pakistani and left to the tender mercies of the Pakistan army, now they were being seen as proPakistani. The Far Eastern Economic Review reported on 2 August 1980: ‘When The Pakistan army withdrew ... the Bangladesh army came and plundered the area. Eighteen people were killed when they came out to receive the Mukti Bahini; another sixteen slaughtered in the jungle ... On 14 December 1971, 200 houses were burnt to the ground and twenty-two people sheltering in trenches in Kukichhara were killed ... When montagnard refugees returning from India at the end of the war discovered their land had been occupied by Bengali settlers, many fought to retrieve their homes. Bangladesh's fledgeling air force responded with strafing raids on tribals at Ramgarh in northern CHT and Bandarban in the south, precipitating montagnard resistance. Manabendra Narayan Larma, elected in 1970 to the provincial assembly (and in 1973 to the Bangladesh parliament as an independent), led a delegation to the Prime Minister, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, on 15 February 1972 with a charter of demands: a. CHT be declared an autonomous region with its own legislature; b. the CHT Act of 1900 be incorporated into Bangladesh’s constitution then being framed, so as to restore CHT’s special status, c. administrative authority enjoyed by tribal chiefs be fully restored, d. constitutional guarantees be provided against future amendment to the CHT Act, and against settlement of Bengalis in CHT.38 Mujib, who had only just been released from death row in Pakistan and was flushed with a victory he could not have foreseen, was busy restoring his authority over a party and a government that had evolved in the civil war. In his absence he had acquired the status of father of the nation: he could not countenance any hint of a challenge to the authority of the state.

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THE FEARFUL STATE

In a phrase heavy with irony, he dismissed the charter as secessionist. He advised M L Lamia’s delegation in his peremptory fashion to accept integration into the new state by ‘becoming Bengalis’. Articulate Chakmas felt that Pakistan’s rulers had been too distant to pay much attention to CHT, and their benign neglect had circumscribed the intensity of all they did. Now that the Bengalis next door had become CHT’s political masters, the impact of decisions by the new central authorities would be direct and inescapable.39 Given the attitude under¬ scored by Mujib’s response to their demands, rising tribal insecurity was inevitable. Following this encounter, M N Larma and his younger brother Jyotirindra Bodhipriyo (Shantu) Larma established the PCJSS (Parbattya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samity), the political wing of the Shanti Bahini. The PCJSS: Its Precepts and Organisation

THE official ‘Guideline’ issued by the PCJSS central committee lays down the organisation’s fundamental precepts: ‘Humanitarianism is the ideology; nationalism, democracy and secularism are its main principles.’ Its aims and objectives are: For the achievement of the right of self-determination of the various small nationalities, such as the Chakma, Marma (Mogh), Tripura, Bom, Murung, Pankho, Khumi, Khiang and Lushai, is the main aim and object of the Party, that is 1. To be free from Islamic fanaticism, expansionism, exploitation, oppression, deprivation and perpetuated rule of Bangladesh and to safe¬ guard the national entity and homeland for the various multilingual nationalities to ensure the separate entity status of Chittagong Hill Tracts with a constitutional guarantee; (and) to establish regional autonomy with a legislative assembly. 2. Chittagong Hill Tracts is the homeland of various multilingual small nationalities. Therefore, to do away with difference, oppression, exploi¬ tation and deprivation among the various multilingual small nationali¬ ties; (and) to develop culture and language of the various multilingual small nationalities. PCJSS spokesmen visiting European capitals in the mid-1980s translated these objectives to indicate certain specific goals: a. To restore political, economic and cultural rights of the ‘Chittagong Hill Tracts People’;

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b. to preserve the Chittagong Hill Tracts as the traditional homeland of the thirteen (montagnard tribal) nationalities; c. to remove the ‘invaders’ from the Chittagong Hill tracts; and d. to establish Chittagong Hill Tracts as an autonomous state. These objectives have been pursued with a complex organisational structure seeking to acquire effective control over CHT at various levels. The core of the command structure is the party central committee. Its members are said to be elected by party members but, given the constraints imposed by the jungle war, such electoral niceties may not have been practical. The central committee elects (and this is also conjectural) the party president and general secretary from its own ranks. Powers to super¬ vise and co-ordinate are vested in the party president, while the responsi¬ bilities of the general secretary are a well-kept secret. In fact, power has remained in the hands of the Larma brothers. M N Larma was the overall leader as long as he lived. His younger brother Shantu was military commander until his arrest by the security forces when Priti Kumar Chakma assumed command of the Shanti Bahini. Shantu’s reappointment to command on his release split the organisation. In the ensuing internec¬ ine struggle, M N Larma was assassinated. But, defeated in battle, the Priti faction was forced to accept Dhaka’s amnesty and seek state protection. At the village level, the JSS runs three parallel organisations in the ‘liberated areas’: the Gram Panchayet (village council) administers the village, raises revenue and decides judicial cases; the Juba Samity (youth association) and the Mahila Samity (women’s association) organise party activities, assist the Gram Panchayet, spread literacy, grow crops and, generally, take care of the village. Owing to the superiority of the centre s forces, such liberated areas are few. The armed cadre has two wings: the Shanti Bahini is the centrally controlled guerrilla army of the JSS. Its auxiliary, the militia, maintains law and order and provides security to liberated villages. Shanti Bahini sources claim that 15,000 fighters have joined the force, although in the mid-1980s Dhaka maintained that the JSS fielded no more than 2,000 armed men.40 Tribal refugees sheltering in camps in Tripura provide a manpower pool to the guerrillas. Government estimates suggest that Shanti Bahini regulars total between 5,000 and 7,000 with about 1,200 weapons. A more reliable figure may be around 8,000 guerrillas.42 There is a reserve force of some 50,000 trained youth presumably organised into militia units. The ‘regular’ guerrillas of the Shanti Bahini are organised into six territorial sectors, three Command Posts providing operational command

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THE FEARFUL STATE

and control on a zonal basis, and a Sector Reserve Force under the direct operational command of the Shanti Bahini’s Commander-in-Chief.43 The JSS and Shanti Bahini campaign is not just aimed at the Bengali majoritarian state of Bangladesh, but also against the dynastic and feudal forms of social relationship rooted in hereditary chieftaincy. Success, however limited, is owed to the sympathetic chord they have struck among the tribal masses in an effort to revive village self-management pre-dating the ascendancy of the British-backed chiefs. ‘Liberated’ villages are administered by village elders in their village council. Mouza headmen continue to perform their tasks of co-ordination. Women not only nurse, cook and operate the communications network, but are also organised into separate combat units. They have risen to combat command in the Shanti Bahini, but not in the government forces.44 The Bahini’s cadre has attracted educated Chakma youth, and former schoolteachers influenced by socialist ideals in the late 1960s — some had joined or sympathised with the CHT Communist Party established by M N Larma in 1970. This motivated cadre has aroused political consciousness in ‘liberated’ areas to the extent that respect for the chieftaincy and its feudal structure has virtually disappeared among the Chakmas. The JSS organised produc¬ tion brigades that improved collective effort in agriculture, and instilled a new self-assurance among highlanders that will resist the return of past economic and political relationships. This was evidenced in Dhaka’s failure to strip the JSS of its popular support base by reviving intervening patron-client networks. The offices of the chiefs and the Dewans was restored and their subventions reinstated. But the chiefs, unable to resist portrayal as Dhaka’s instruments, could not revive former constituencies. The new Chakma chief’s reluctance to be seen as an agent of the state may have enhanced his respectability, but the days of absolutism are over. The JSS raises revenue from tribal villages and imposes various tolls and taxes on Bengali traders and contractors operating in CHT. In some areas the Shanti Bahini is strong enough to obtain contributions from government officials. Even the police and the Bangladesh Rifles are known to have paid up45 In the late 1970s, seen from Dhaka, the situation became quite desperate. The army believed that in one three-year period about 60 million Taka ($4m) was collected from local traders, villagers and businessmen.46 In more recent years, the Shanti Bahini has shown a facility for extracting large sums from organisations, including foreign corporations, by kidnapping staff and holding them to ransom. The most spectacular escapade occurred in January 1984 when Shell Petroleum paid

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$lm for the release of three employees held by JSS cadres. The JSS has also obtained considerable assistance from India. Except during the brief ‘Janata spring of regional amity’, Delhi has found the leverage provided by the Chakmas against its neighbour very useful.47

A cockpit of intrigue and violence FOR more than three decades, CHT has been used for covert operations in one form or another. In 1956 Pakistan began a campaign supporting India’s Naga dissidents from secret CHT bases. The following year, the NNC chief, Angami Zapu Phizo, was smuggled into CHT from where he directed, with Pakistani advice and assistance, the Naga guerrillas for three years. In 1966, CHT became a sanctuary for the Mizos, a state that continued until December 1971. CHT’s southern ramparts have been used by the Red Flag and White Flag factions of the Burmese Communist Party in their protracted war against the government in Rangoon. In the early 1970s, CHT was used as a base for operations by another secret army, the Rohingyas (Arakani Muslims), whose forbears migrated from Chittagong but failed to integrate into a Mongoloid Buddhist society dominated by the integrationist Burman power in Rangoon. Faced with enforced deprivation of past privileges, these Muslim businessmen and teachers took up arms in the 1960s and organised the Rohingya army, calling for the establishment of a separate state in Arakan presumably in confederation with East Pakistan. The degree of support and sympathy they may have received from Pakistan was a well-kept secret but, directly after the emergence of Bangladesh, the Rohingyas approached Dhaka for material assistance. However, Bangladesh needed to keep the peace along the 170-mile Bangla-Burma frontiers, particularly after a dispute over Totadia, an island in the middle of the river Naaf. CHT’s southern reaches had been lightly policed since imperial days. The Garjania forest region here became a Rohingya base. The need to keep CHT a Mizo-free zone meant Dhaka could not spread its limited resources any further, and its DirectorGeneral of Forces Intelligence, a pale shadow of the ISI, was ordered to negotiate with the Rohingyas, while the Foreign Ministry in Dhaka assured Rangoon with all sincerity and some truth that it had no contact with these dissidents. In 1974, the DGFI persuaded the larger factions of the Rohingyas to surrender.48 But other forces appeared in CHT. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Awami League government won a landslide victory in the 1973 elections, but the euphoria was shortlived. The corrupt

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THE FEARFUL STATE

and inexperienced propelled to power were unable to face up to the challenges wrought by the devastation of war. Maoist revolutionaries saw Bangladesh as the perpetuation of the bourgeois-dominated exploitative state, now under Indian tutelage. Challenging the Awami League’s right to rule, these radicals sought social revolution. One such group was the Purbo Banglar Sarbohara (East Bengal Proletarian) Party, which sought shelter in CHT, under pressure from police and the Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini (Mujib’s Indian-trained counterpoise to the army), the party and its armed wing, the ‘Mukti Parishad’. In December, Mujib sent the army into CHT on ‘Operation Dragon Drive’ against the revolutionaries who appeared to pose the most serious challenge. The Sarboharas and the JSS had tacitly partitioned CHT into eastern and western zones, with the Shanti Bahini recruiting in the more distant eastern reaches, and the revolutionaries using the western half as their base. The army’s counter-insurgency operations forced the radicals out of the hills. The party chairman, Siraj Sikdar, was caught by National Security Intelligence operatives in Chittagong town and later killed in JRB custody. The eastern half of CHT came under intense military scrutiny. Many tribal settlements were searched and a number of highlanders interrogated. Violence was inherent in such operations and casual brutality against suspects caused widespread resentment. Operation Dragon Drive left a lasting imprint on the tribal psyche. It gave birth to a new pool of JSS sympathisers who went on to join its armed wing; by removing the radicals from the CHT, it also created a vacuum which was quietly filled by an expanding Shanti Bahini. Thus, Dhaka’s short-term victory against the Sarboharas contributed to its long-term inability to resolve what from early 1976 became the jungle war in the CHT. August 1975 saw the beginning of the series of coups, counter coups, rebellions and mutinies that would rock Bangladesh for five or six years, during which army factions sought to secure political power by violent means.49 By the summer of 1977, General Ziaur Rahman had partially restored calm, but was faced with a restive and divided military.50 Zia’s administration suppressed the symptoms of the malaise but failed to find a cure. Despite this, it became clear that Bangladesh had broken with its past. The honeymoon with Delhi was ended, and Mrs Gandhi’s Emergency regime extended covert support to dissidents fighting Zia’s stridently nationalist military regime; the Indo-Bangla accord on sharing river waters was tacitly abrogated; and a border treaty allowed to wither without ratification. A new proxy war for leverage began in Chittagong Hill Tracts.

CHITTAGONG HILLS ‘PEACE FORCE’

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Jungle war and pacification plans LATE IN February 1976, the Shanti Bahini struck its first blow against the military. Guerrillas raided the isolated camp of a detachment of army engineers building one of the several roads linking arterial motorways with military camps located deep inside CHT. All plant and equipment were destroyed, arms, ammunition and explosives captured, and the sleeping soldiers hacked to death. The thoroughness of the operation demonstrated that the Shanti Bahini had come of age. Despite its many travails, the government considered CHT important enough to deploy increasing military and economic resources in elaborate pacification schemes. During the Janata interregnum, Delhi terminated assistance to the Shanti Bahini and other Bangladeshi dissident groups. But, by then, the insurgents had acquired the experience, confidence and solidity to con¬ tinue hit-and-run operations alone. Dhaka now embarked on a policy of deliberate colonisation of CHT by resettling landless Bengalis from the land-hungry plains.51 In the summer of 1979, Zia chaired a ‘national conference on CHT’. Its proceedings were classified but the blueprint for a long-term answer to CHT’s troubles was unveiled. It was decided to settle 30,000 landless Bengali families on government-owned ‘khas’ land in CHT the following year and Tk60 million was allocated for the project. There was a surfeit of landless Bengalis, and colonisation proved popular. From February 1980 on, settlers began arriving by the truckload. Each family was to be given five acres of land, Tk 3,600 in cash, and provisions to tide them over the first few months. Most Bengalis were settled on what was communally owned tribal land placed notionally under government control by the British. In the north, major settlements were built in Kaptai and Rangamati, and along the valleys of the Chengi, Myani and Feni rivers, traditionally farmed by Chakma and Tripura tribesmen. In the south, Lama, Bandarban and Naikhyangchhari areas saw the largest concentration of settlers. Dhaka also set up military, paramilitary and police camps to protect the settle¬ ments. By the end of 1980, about 25,000 families had been resettled. The second phase was initiated in August 1980 at a meeting in Dhaka. The divisional commissioner of Chittagong issued a secret memorandum on 4 September advising district administrators that this time the grant of khas land would be reduced and graduated on the basis of quality.52 Each family would receive an initial grant of Tk700 and, thereafter, Tk200 a month for five months. They would also be given 12kg of wheat weekly per

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THE FEARFUL STATE

family for the first six months, after which they were expected to fend for themselves.53 By the end of 1981, Bengalis were said to constitute between a third and half CHT’s total population of 746,000, and Montagnard resentment rose in proportion to the number of Bengali settlers. General Ershad’s military government continued the policy that it had inherited. In July 1982, a third phase was launched when the CHT was divided into three administrative districts based on former sub-divisions which, themselves, had been designed around the Circles. By the end of the third phase, another 250,000 Bengalis were said to have been resettled.54 By then, the focus of Shanti Bahini operations had shifted. Although the government’s forces continued to be attacked, from September 1981 more and more settlements came under violent assault. These led to equally violent and often indiscriminate reprisals by settlers on neighbouring montagnard villages, with the security forces providing protection, and occasionally, joining in. Much of CHT became a theatre of civil war.55 The military-led governments in Dhaka often responded to these events by devoting substantial military assets to the district in an effort to bludgeon the opposition to death. In addition to the twenty-eight police stations, three battalion-size cantonments, forty-three company-level military camps, thirty Bangladesh Rifles encampments and thirty-three camps housing armed police battalions and the Ansar militia dotted CHT.56 The control mechanism resided in the Chittagong headquarters of the army’s 24th Infantry Division. With four fully manned and equipped brigades, this was the army’s only operational combat formation. There was also an elaborate programme to recruit village defence police (also called village defence parties) from among the new settlers and to provide them with .303 calibre bolt-action rifles to resist the Shanti Bahini tribal insurgents.57 With arms and ammunition aplenty, guerrillas and settlers indulged in atrocities. The Shanti Bahini set fire to settlements at night; the settlers, supported by the security services, looted villages, raped and murdered women, defiled temples and desecrated holy statuary.58 None the less, Dhaka has the resources to make the prospects of military success for the Shanti Bahini very bleak. In spite of the cost in life and funds, Bangladesh appears capable of indefinitely containing its peripheral running sore.

The Shanti Bahini’s divided house THAT ability to contain has been assisted by divisions within the JSS. The Larma brothers and their colleagues from the CHT Communist Party gave

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the JSS a Marxist tenor. But the JSS was more tribal nationalist in emphasis than it was doctrinaire in its Marxism. The original name of its armed wing was Gono Mukti Fouz (people’s liberation army). None the less, the campaign was eclectic and pragmatic rather than dogmatic. Its inability to match ideological claims with practical results created some strains. One difficulty lay in reconciling the JSS claim that it represented the interests of all thirteen ‘small nationalities’ of CHT with its failure to persuade a large number of volunteers from other tribes to join the struggle. The JSS and the Shanti Bahini remained Chakma organisations and this failure reflected the inter-tribal cleavages that have long divided CHT, and which Dhaka has used to its advantage. Eclecticism created other difficulties. Institutional strength was sacri¬ ficed for charismatic leadership and personality cults. The Larma brothers concentrated so much power in their hands that even moderate Chakmas saw the JSS and the Shanti Bahini as instruments of self-glorification. The campaigners thus lost the support of a large number of co-tribals who accepted the Bangladeshi state structure, and chose to work from within it. The most serious internal difficulty lay in the JSS’s personalised power structure. Shantu Larma, brother of the president, first commander-inchief of the Shanti Bahini, co-founder and a member of its central committee, became the second most powerful man in the JSS. The elder Larma’s unquestioning reliance on his brother created the first strains. In 1976, after Shantu was taken into custody for four years, Priti Kumar Chakma, another member of the central committee, assumed the command of the Bahini. India’s covert Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Border Security Forces network made contact with him and the infusion of material assistance led to a substantial expansion of the Bahini’s size and capability. Although the guerrillas became capable of larger operations, many, including the elder Larma, saw the increasing dependence on Indian patronage as potentially damaging. In 1977, the party president and Chakma fell out.59 The Priti faction, whose other leaders were J L Tripura and Bhabatosh Dewan, wanted to declare independence and launch an allout attack on Bangladeshi forces. M N Larma and his supporters had more limited goals, hoping to force Dhaka into negotiations leading to a settlement that protected tribal interests. The autonomist-vs-secessionist schism split the JSS. In 1980, Shantu Larma was released. He had been ‘contacted by Dhaka two years earlier when initiatives were taken to negotiate a compromise solution.60 On Shantu’s return, Priti Chakma and his faction demanded

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THE FEARFUL STATE

that, in keeping with Bahini regulations, he be treated as any other ‘returnee’ and placed under observation before being accepted back into the organisation. But Shantu demanded his immediate reinstatement as commander-in-chief. He also issued a 45-page policy document that called for a phased struggle aimed at securing tribal political rights while negotiating with Dhaka for immediate resolution of problems relating to montagnard economy and culture. The Priti faction saw this as evidence that Shantu had ‘struck a deal’ with the government. They demanded formal rejection of the document by the party president but M N Larma overrode objections and welcomed back his brother. If the government had hoped to divide the opposition, its success was complete. The central committee sought to heal the breach during an eight-day conclave late in September 1982, but argument prevented compromise. In a 14-page document published shortly after the conclave, the Priti faction complained that Shantu Larma had violated democratic principles and the regulatory norms of the Shanti Bahini by arbitrarily replacing Priti-faction commanders of elite units with men loyal to himself; important formations such as Sectors 1 and 2, and Command Post B were cited. The elder Larma was accused of nepotism, intolerance and of socialist ideology.61 Open warfare broke out on 14 June 1983 when Larma loyalists raided camps manned by Priti Chakma’s forces and killed a number of guerrillas, including the commander Amritlal Chakma (alias Bali Ustad). Cooler heads tried to bring the feuding factions together for more talks. A ceasefire was agreed eventually and both groups formally expressed a desire to settle their differences peacefully. Representatives agreed to hold elections to all the committees, and democratically resolve the dispute. This agreement notwithstanding, a Priti faction combat team under the command of Trivangil Dewan (alias Palash) and Debojyoti Chakma (alias Deven) attacked the Larma headquarters on 11 November 1983. Nine senior leaders of the JSS mainstream were killed, including M N Larma. After more skirmishes, Shantu Larma emerged as the leader of the strongest faction. However, the process by which he consolidated his authority became progressively more extremist. The movement's patrons at Agartala in Tripura saw in the younger Larma a man more likely to succeed to leadership than Priti Chakma, who was abandoned. Dhaka grasped the opportunity to offer an amnesty to guerrillas who laid down arms, with the added lure of material benefits and political rehabilitation. On 29 April 1985, in a coup for government and army, 223 guerrillas under Priti aides, the Majors ‘Rommel’ and ‘Fury’,

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surrendered at a formal ceremony in Rangamati.62 By extending the amnesty, Dhaka persuaded some 2,500 to surrender, almost all of them members of the Priti faction.63 By the end of 1985, Shantu Larma was undisputed political and military leader of the Chakma insurrection. He embarked on a ruthless campaign against the settlers.

The new Bahini and a new strategy ATTACKS on Bengali settlements reached a peak in early 1986 when, in a series of raids, the guerrillas killed thirty-eight and wounded twenty-four Bengalis in Assalong, Sentilla, Taindong and Tanokkopara. This led to violent reprisals on montagnard villages by enraged mobs of settlers and their uniformed protectors. Tens of thousands of mostly Chakma villagers crossed into Tripura to seek shelter at camps set up by Indian authorities. The exodus boosted the Shanti Bahini’s morale, gave it a measure of legitimacy as the champion of an oppressed minority, provided it with a recruitment pool, and afforded leverage to Delhi in its low-intensity confrontation with Dhaka. Delhi claimed it was sheltering some 50,000 refugees; Dhaka said that there were only 29,000 and that 8,000 of them had already returned. Shortly before events took this turn, Dhaka had tried to contact Shantu Larma once again. Now that he was unchallenged leader, the government may have hoped to secure an agreement to end the violence. Upendra Lai Chakma, a former Marxist member of parliament, was asked to mediate, using his liaison committee as a channel of communication between the Shanti Bahini and the government. Six meetings followed, the first on 21 October 1985 near Panchari, Larma’s home village in northern CHT.67The five-man JSS delegation was led by M N Larma’s son-in-law Rupayan Dewan (Major Rip), a senior field commander; the four-member army team was headed by a brigadier. The guerrillas reiterated their demands for regional autonomy with a tribal legislature, an end to security force operations in CHT, and special seats in education and employment for the Chakmas. The government's representatives rejected these demands and the pressure for removal of all Bengali settlers, but assured the guerrillas that Dhaka would not encourage further settlement by Bengalis (a promise that it kept). Talks went on intermittently for about three years, with the timing and venue of five of the meetings being dictated by the guerrillas. By 1988, Dhaka was losing patience and decided to call a sixth session at the Dighinala garrison near the district HQ of Khagrachhari, in the heart

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of Chakma country. At the meeting, officials tabled the government’s bottom-line position, which formed the basis of subsequent legislation enacted by the Bangladesh parliament in March 1989. The talks were a failure but the government had decided to proceed on its own terms. For the guerrillas, years of warfare had hardened positions, making compromise difficult. For Dhaka, its proposals were the most generous that it could offer and still maintain a semblance of state control. The Shanti Bahini intensified attacks on Bengali settlements and on the military while demanding concessions through negotiation.68 Unable to accommodate the JSS’s hardened posture, Dhaka decided that it should be bypassed and a political structure created that addressed major tribal grievances without conceding its sovereign control. There were limits to its flexibility; questions of national security, territorial integrity and political acceptability were involved. Dhaka maintained the entire Bangladesh population was autochthonous [native to a particular region] having settled the area in prehistoric times and co-existed in harmony ever since. This argument was only partially correct; the montagnards arrived in CHT about five centuries ago from around the Chin Hills. However, the government held that the montag¬ nards were kept separate from the rest of Bengal by the British as part of the divide-and-rule policy applied to upland frontier regions, generating artificial distinctions which sowed the seeds of further disputes. The Bangladesh goverment also claimed that it recognised tribal fears of cultural integration, but it could not accept the principle of preserving museum relics in one part of the state for anthropological study by other groups, while it sought to bring the fruits of modernisation to the rest of the country. Besides, all citizens must be given their constitutional right of equal access to opportunities and resources throughout the unitary state and no intra-state boundaries could be accepted. The economic privations and degradation suffered by all Bangladeshis demanded the maximisation of resources. The government must pursue objectives of economic devel¬ opment and national integration; opposition to this endeavour must be seen as inimical to national interest and dealt with as such.66 Dhaka admitted that CHT had been neglected in the past and promised a substantial increase in allocations. In August 1987, a high-powered national council was formed under Air Vice-Marshal A K Khandkar, the government planning minister, to identify problems afflicting CHT and suggest solutions. The council’s development plans were to be funded with its own resources, with allocations from government, and aid extended by

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overseas donor states and agencies. The council launched a special fiveyear plan parallel to the national five-year plan. This special plan saw the allotment of $15.55 million every year on seventeen projects. Progress was made in redressing the imbalance in facilities. Nine hospitals, 938 primary schools, thirty-three junior high schools, sixty-two secondary schools and eight colleges, two residential schools and a second vocational institution were built. Thirty thousand acres of land were rehabilitated and most of it restored to montagnard owners.67 There was, however, a widespread feeling among the Chakmas that it was a case of too little almost too late.

Natural resources in a world of hunger BEHIND political conflicts lie clashes of economic interests and the CHT dispute has substantial economic underpinnings. CHT is a treasure trove of natural resources. Although occupying 9 per cent of the country’s area, CHT contains about 60 per cent of its reserve forests. In a land hungry for fuel and timber and bereft of other sources of energy, this is a rare gift. Industrial units manufacturing paper, plywood, rayon and matches have been built along the fringes of the forest. In a land without a manufacturing base, such units are seen as significant contributors to economic well¬ being. These units rely on the forest for raw materials and on the Kaptai project for power supply. Bangladesh began exporting CHT timber after independence. To its rulers, these resources are indispensable to national sustenance; to many tribals, this attitude is symptomatic of Bengali exploitation. The Swedish International Development Agency, having assisted the government’s Forest Industries Development Corporation in the 1970s, withdrew in the mid-1980s in response to tribal protests. Others followed, fuelling Bangladesh’s determination to go it alone. Dhaka also conducted geological surveys with foreign help, which uncovered large reserves of hydrocarbons in the Jogigofa and Rangamati regions. Some coal was found, and copper discovered in the Miani reserve forest. German and Australian road-building projects, since discontinued, were said to be connected to newly discovered uranium ore.68 But, it was the search for oil that attracted most attention as far back as 1908 when the Burmah Oil Company first prospected in the Chittagong area. In 1974, Bangladesh invited foreign oil companies to explore for hydrocarbons in the offshore belt. Two years later the Chittagong area onshore was placed on offer. In January 1981, an agreement was reached with Shell Oil, whose new subsidiary Shell Petroleum Development BY

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THE FEARFUL STATE

signed a contract in June of that year. Dhaka received a token sum of $5m as a signature bonus. Shell was to explore 5,250 square miles: in effect the whole of CHT. The 25-year contract would lapse if no oil was found in eight years.69 Prospecting was dogged by the difficult terrain, monsoons, bureaucratic red tape and a lack of local technical expertise. Nevertheless, Shell persevered until 19 January 1984 when the Shanti Bahini kidnapped five employees. Two were released to communicate a demand for ransom of around £200,000 payable in Bangladeshi and Indian currencies.70 The government tried to prevent such sums reaching the guerrillas but Shell felt constrained to suspend work, lay off 600 casual workers, and strike a deal with the Shanti Bahini. Having secured the cash, the guerrillas demanded that should oil be found, a share of Shell profits should go to the montagnards. Shell shut down its operations.71

Prospects GIVEN the political imperatives facing Dhaka, and CHT’s economic potential, it appears unlikely that Bangladesh will ever let go of the area. There are, therefore, limits to how far any government can go towards appeasing Chakma nationalist demands. The Bills passed by parliament in Dhaka in March 1989 could satisfy the moderate tribals and the mass of highlanders who have accepted the Bangladeshi framework. But for those who have devoted more than a decade fighting what must appear an insensitive, exploitative and brutal system, compromise may be even more difficult than it is for the rulers of Bangladesh. This became apparent after enactment of the Bills when the Shanti Bahini intensified attacks on Bengali settlers and moderate tribal politicians. The most prominent Chakma politician to die at the hands of the guerrillas was Shantimoy Dewan, a former activist who accepted the inevitability of CHT’s associa¬ tion with Bangladesh. He was also suspected of nursing political ambitions that did not accommodate the JSS.72 Some accounts suggest that over the past decade the guerrillas have killed more than 1,100 tribesmen, half of them Shanti Bahini cadres.73 As long as the guerrillas feel unable to give up their armed struggle, internecine violence is likely to continue. Montagnard divisions were underscored by the activities of two Chakma leaders, Samiran Kumar Dewan and Upendra Lai Chakma. Dewan was the sole candidate for the chair of the new Khagrachhari district council and won without any contest in CHT’s northern third. He saw the guerrillas as ‘a bunch of cowards resorting to terror tactics ... a hated people’. But

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religious leaders such as the venerable Sumana Lankar Thero, president of the Khagrachhari Hill Tracts Buddhist Mission, were ambivalent. They believed that blaming the Shanti Bahini for all violence was too simplistic and unfair.74 The other extreme of Chakma political opinion was repre¬ sented by Upendra Lai Chakma. This once fiery Marxist politician had organised the liaison committee that served as a channel between the government and the guerrillas. But now that the autonomist demands he had been pursuing with great sophistication were accepted, he defected. The spurt in violence preceding the 25 June elections, that forced many more montagnards to trek to Tripura after reprisal raids by Bengali settlers, demonstrated the Shanti Bahini’s determination to disrupt polling and force Dhaka to abandon its policy of bypassing the JSS. However, the JSS was not an autonomous participant in this power play while its Indian patrons were apparently tiring of the socio-economic and diplomatic strains. The relative success of a Bangladesh delegation in mid-1989, the third such exercise in two years, in reaching agreement with militants running camps at Karbook, Kathalchhari, Pancharam Para, Takumbari and Silachhari in Tripura, suggested that Delhi was gently prodding the guerrillas to leave. Ultimately, it will largely depend on the government of Bangladesh representing the interests of all Bangladeshis, the tribal groups but not exclusively the JSS, and the authorities in Delhi being able to agree an arrangement that meets everyone’s minimum demands. Historical errors and imperial loose ends may not easily be tidied up; but the ability to distinguish between the essential and the peripheral can help. The conflict inherent in economic competition and social change from tribal feudalism to modem political relations, and the concomitant threats to cultural specificities need to be managed with vision, something that none of the parties has demonstrated. The enactments described at the beginning of this chapter suggest that Dhaka has recognised the limits of force as a political instrument. Only when these laws are enforced, and Dhaka s adversarial partners in CHT’s jungles, and in Delhi, also elect to make a comparable concession to reason, can a new beginning be made.

Notes 1. For an account of the Bills’passage and background see D Davies, Four rays of hope’. Far Eastern Economic Review, Hong Kong, 23 March 1989, pp. 20-22. 2. The Parbattya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samity translates as the Chittagong Hill Tracts United People’s Party’, referred to by its acronym, the PC JSS.

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3. See, for instance, Bertil Lintner, ‘Intractable Hills’, Far Eastern Economic Review, Hong Kong, 5 April 1990, pp. 22-24. 4. See for instance, P Niesewand, ‘Dacca sees India behind the raids , the Guardian, November 1981; ‘The Indian Hand’, the Sunday, Calcutta, 6-12 July 1986, p. 33; ‘Fire in the Hill Tracts’, Holiday, Dhaka, 4 July 1986; ‘BSF patron¬ ising Shanti Bahini’, the New Nation, Dhaka, 19 May 1986; ‘Hill Tracts Bleeds , Holiday, 30 May 1986. 5. Official statements were often conciliatory, however. See, FBIS despatch RUESFGA2415 quoting Radio Bangladesh, 26 April 1987. 6. The situation Indira Gandhi had been faced with has been described in Mohan Ram, ‘A spreading plague of violence’, Far Eastern Economic Review, Hong Kong, 20 June 1980, p. 34. Rajiv inherited this violence and sought to end the ‘bleeding’. He was more successful initially with the Ahoms and Mizos. 7. John Laffin, Brassey’s War Annual, (London 1986), p. 23. The population of CHT in 1989 was approximately 600,000 montagnards, and 300,000 Bengalis. In 1986, it was likely to have been lower. If that estimate was correct, it would have entailed the death of 20 per cent of the total population over a decade at an average rate of 2 per cent every year. This appears to be an exaggeration. 8. The literature has at least three figures, 5,093, 5,095 and 5,400 square miles. This underscores the difficulty of conducting a detailed survey and the lack of governmental effort. It also shows basic data variations that could lead to wrong conclusions. 9. Anti-Slavery Society, The Chittagong Hill Tracts: Militarisation, Oppression and the Hill Tribes, (London 1984), p. 11. 10. Wolfgang Mey (ed.), ‘Genocide in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh’, cited in CHT Campaign, The Charge of Genocide (Amsterdam 1986), p. 16. 11. Harikela comprised Chittagong, Noakhali and Comilla regions of present-day Bangladesh, parts of the Burmese province of Arakan and areas that today belong to Tripura in India. Its dominant culture was cosmopolitan commercialism based on gold and silver dust. The surplus generated allowed royal endowment of land and other treasure lavished on Buddhist seminaries like the one at Mainamati in Comilla, which later sustained the vigour of Buddhist inquiry in these south¬ eastern ramparts in a period that saw the faith gradually decline elsewhere. 12. The Shanti Bahini’s insurrection has been described by government officials as a schoolteachers’ rebellion. Many young Chakmas had been trained as teachers in the 1960s and had taken up posts at the CHT’s relatively numerous primary and secondary schools. They helped the germination of political awareness and resis¬ tance in the 1970s. Many guerrilla commanders of the 1980s had been teachers. 13. These figures are from Anti-Slavery Society, op. cit., p 12; and W Mey, ‘The Tune of the Hills: History and Tradition in the CHT’, in Mey (ed.), pp. 63-65. 14. The decision to resettle Bengalis and tip the numerical balance against the montagnards over a few years was suggested by General M Atiqur Rahman, then military commander of the Chittagong and CHT area in the late 1970s. The general also advised Muslim missionary activity aimed at converting the tribals to Islam to give them a sense of identity with the Bengali Muslim majority of Ban¬ gladeshis. The administration of General Ziaur Rahman took up the first proposal

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with vigour; the second proposal was not considered to be cost-effective. When in the late 1980s General Rahman became Chief of Bangladesh's Army Staff, President Ershad, another general, decided to stop the Bengali resettlement scheme and offer political concessions to the tribal population instead. 15. These figures were compiled from a variety of sources by Mey, ibid., p. 63. 16. Ibid., p. 86. 17. The Maung Circle was the smallest at 653 sq miles. The Bohmong was 1,444 sq m, the Chakma at 1,658 sq m was the largest. Subsequent expansion of British holdings increased the area of the CHT to just over 5,000 sq miles. The author has found four accounts of the area's size (5,093, 5,095, 5,100 and 5,400 sq miles). 18. J Beame, Commissioner of Chittagong Division (which included Chittagong hills and Chittagong plains, and continues to do to this day, ‘Memorandum no. 21H dated Chittagong, 11 February 1879, to the Secretary to the Government of Bengal, Revenue Department’, cited in Selections from the Correspondence of the Revenue Administration of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (Calcutta 1887), p. 58. 19. ‘Open Letter’ from the Central Executive of the PCJSS to Lt Gen H M Ershad, Chief Martial Law Administrator of Bangladesh, 25 November 1983 (emphases in original). A copy was sent to the BBC World Service on 1 June 1986. 20. The Bills passed by the Bangladesh parliament in March 1989 appeared to address most of these issues. Recognition of the validity of the CHT Act 1900 came in the provision whereby the elected district councils would be able to control and presumably prevent land alienation from highlanders to plainsmen and even resume land fraudulently transferred earlier. However, Dhaka did not even consider involving third parties such as the UN in what it considered an exclusively internal matter. In fact, the government was concerned with insulat¬ ing the CHT from linkages it had developed with India through the Shanti Bahini. 21. ‘Regulation 1 of 1900, The Chittagong Hill Tracts Regulation, 1900’, 17 January 1900; reprinted as modified up to 30 September 1983 by Ministry of Law and Land Reforms, Govt of Bangladesh (Dhaka 1983), p. 3 (emphasis added). 22. Any account of the political evolution of montagnard tribals all along South Asia’s north-eastern frontiers would reveal this pattern of behaviour. Concerned over the security of their expanding empire, a highly profitable and prestigious enterprise, the British sought to draw fixed frontiers and solidify these with legal and diplomatic constructs. Such sophisticated instruments failed to draw the sympathies or appreciation of fragmented highland societies that not only rejected the strictures, but actually threatened peace and order along the fringes by resorting to violence, drawing off the surplus accumulated by plains peasants and traders, thereby bringing into question the ability of imperial authorities to enforce their writ, and, equally significantly, reducing the revenue base of the colonial order. Repeated recourse to violent coercion and the empire’s ability to concentrate overwhelmingly superior resources at a given time and place won it control over tribal communities. Victorious, the British developed a sympathetic, even paternal attitude toward these ‘noble savages’. The British erected barriers to prevent demographic forces from playing their role which would in all likelihood have eliminated the montagnards as a separate body politic. However, when they left the subcontinent, the former protectors did nothing that would

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prevent integrationist Elites ruling the successor states from dismantling those barriers and threatening these acutely insecure groups with assimilation. 23. See chapter on Sikh separatism for an account of the rise of the Khalsa polity. 24. Mey, op. cit., p. 42. 25. While the rest of India saw rioting in Hindu vs Muslim terms, Punjab was being wracked by a triangular malaise. Muslims in West Punjab and the NWFP killed Hindus and Sikhs while Hindus and Sikhs in East Punjab killed Muslims. The East-West division was not final and the violence followed the lines of communal predominance based on traditional patterns of local power politics. 26. Amnesty International, Bangladesh: Recent Developments in Chittagong Hill Tracts and Amnesty International Concern, (London, 1 November 1980), p. 2. 27. J Bodley, Victims of Progress (California 1975), p. 5. 28. This exclusion helped intensify Bengali nationalist passions which led to an autonomist and then secessionist campaign. Montagnard nationalism appears to have been aroused only after the Bengalis had succeeded in their separatist endeavours and began posing an even greater threat to tribal traditions and rights. 29. Post-colonial elite policies discussed in S Geller, ‘State-building and Nation¬ building in W Africa’, in S N Eisenstadt and S Rokkan (eds), op cit., pp. 384, 391. 30. Accounts of the area under water varies from 400 to 600 sq miles. Seasonal variations including rainfall fluctuation cause some of the difference. However, the margin is too wide to have been caused by natural factors. A more likely explanation is the lack of data based on a proper survey. 31. PCJSS Central Committee, ‘An Introduction to the Greater Chittagong Hill Tracts and its Present Situation’, (location not specified, December 1986). 32. That rather poetic expression was part of a memo submitted by tribal elders to Gen Ziaur Rahman, head of a CHT fact-finding mission, when he visited Rangamati in January 1976. The author was present. 33. John McKinnon, ‘Socio-Economic Aspects: A Report on the Chittagong Hill Tracts’, compiled for the Asian Development Bank, Manila, in 1976. The report also quoted price differentials for fish caught in the lake. At lakeside, freshly caught fish sold at Tk. 0.65 per kg. The Bengali wholesaler resold it for Tk. 2.00, but the price at Chittagong could go up to Tk. 15.00 per kg. In recent years, almost ceaseless warfare and increasing Bengali settlement near the commercial centres have rendered fishing a largely Bengali preserve. Many fishermen have continued to ply their trade by agreeing to pay ‘tolls’ to the Shanti Bahini. On occasion, the guerrillas have attacked and killed unarmed Bengali fishermen who refused to pay their dues. The report underscored the essential continuity in the patterns of exploitation of the tribal communities in the Pakistan and the Bangladesh periods. The only difference appears to be that tribal consciousness in the post-1971 war era is far more acute. This is one fall-out of the war the Bengalis may not have appreciated or even recognised. 34. T D Allman, ‘Cold wind of change’, the Guardian, 19 December 1973, p. 11; Chris Mullin, ‘The CIA: Tibetan Conspiracy’, Far Eastern Economic Review, no 89, vol. 36, 1975, pp. 31-3; A Tom Grunfeld, The Making of Modem Tibet (London 1987), pp. 149-150.

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35. R K Chatteijee, India’s land borders: Problems and challenges (Delhi 1978), pp. 191-245. 36. Indian Home Minister Gulzari Lai Nanda in Indian parliament. The allegation was denied by Pakistan. The author has talked to former ISI officers involved in this episode who confirm a ‘low-level’ proxy operation as a counter to similar activities by Delhi. See also, ‘Tribal rising cuts off part of Assam’, the Times, 3 March 1966; ‘No proof of aid to Mizo rebels’, the Times, 8 Mar 1966 (See chapter 2 of this book). 37. ‘A history of tribal tensions’, the Sunday, Calcutta, 6-12 July 1986, p. 34. 38. These continued to form the core of the PCJSS demands in the 1970s and early 1980s. After Larma’s assassination, the insurgents’ position visibly hardened. 39. See e.g., the statement of Sneha Kumar Chakma, a leader of the Agartalabased Buddhist Minority Protection Committee, cited in Mey, op. cit., p. 47. 40. Mey, op. cit., p. 47. 41. Derek Davies, op cit., p. 21; Bertil Lintner, op cit., p. 23. 42. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 19881989, (London, 1988), p 158. However, the ESS describes the guerrilla theatre of operation as ‘Comilla province’ of Bangladesh which, owing to its inaccuracy, must cast some doubt on the reliability of this information. 43. Amnesty International, Bangladesh: Recent Developments etc, op. cit., p. 2; Kazi Montu, ‘Tribal Insurgency in CHT’, Economic and Political Weekly, Bombay, 6 Sept 1980, p. 1511; ‘Civil War in Chittagong’, the Sunday, Calcutta, 6-12 July 1986, p. 35. 44. Aggavansa Mahathero, Chakma Rajguru (royal priest) now in self-imposed exile in Agartala, Tripura. 45. Mahathero, ibid. 46. Syed Kamaluddin, ‘A tangled web of insurgency’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 23 May 1980. 47. Laffin, pp. 23-4 says the Shanti Bahini was armed by the Indians and the Russians while dissident Indian groups operating in the CHT also fight the Shanti Bahini and are equipped by the US and the Chinese. He says the US arms these Indian groups because they fight the Indo-Soviet armed Chakmas. He does not cite sources. While the pattern of external linkages may support that thesis, this author has found no evidence to suggest that the superpowers are directly involved in the insurgency and counter-insurgency operations in the CHT. 48. DGFI officers operated from a logistic base provided by the battalion with which the author was associated at the time. However, the Bangladesh army was not directly involved in these secret negotiations. 49. For two somewhat different accounts of these and related events, see Lawrence Lifschultz, Bangladesh: The Unfinished Revolution (London, 1979), and Anthony Mascarenhas, Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood (London, 1986). 50. The more significant of these were revolutionary vs. reactionary, freedom fighters vs. repatriates and nationalists vs. revivalists. Often these cleavages ran parallel and deepened fissures dividing rank and file generally, and the officer corps, particularly. Ziaur Rahman, used the extreme left to secure his own release from custody, but then struck back at his rescuers and joined revivalists to prevent a leftist backlash. Within the military, he used fissures to his own advantage.

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THE FEARFUL STATE

keeping the military divided and faction-ridden to reduce, or so it appeared to him, challenges to his position. Zia’s tenure was marked by at least 17 recorded instances of rebellion by military personnel. His inability or unwillingness to take drastic measures against factionalism among officers reduced the military to a gathering of generals running their own fiefdoms and conspiring in a frenzy of character assassination. Eventually, one of these factions was to kill him during an abortive coup. 51. Gen M Atiqur Rahman, then commander of the army overseeing the Chittagong-CHT area, explained this programme to the author in 1976. The rationale was that such a scheme, continued long enough, could relieve pressures on the land elsewhere in the country and offer opportunities to poor Bangladeshis to begin a new life. More significantly, a Bengali majority would provide Dhaka with a democratic rationale for its integrationist policies and secure physdical control over the territory. It was also felt that past inaction by Muslim missionaries compared to activities by Christian, Hindu and Buddhist preachers had created some of the difficulties faced by Muslim-Bengali Bangladesh in CHT. If a large section of the tribals could be converted to Islam, it was believed, a bond would be created between the national mainstream and the montagnard minority. The resettlement policy was executed with vigour but the missionary project did not find favour with the regime. 52. Each family would be given either 2.5 acres of plain land or 4 acres of plain and bumpy mixed land, or 5 acres of hilly land since most of the prime plots had already been distributed in the first wave. 53. The Ganokantho, Dhaka, 16 October 1980. 54. According to one estimate, 300,000 to 400,000 Bengalis had been resettled in CHT by 1984, the Guardian, 6 March 1984. 55. Ibid., 11 November 1981. 56. The Sentinel, New Delhi, 29 May 1986. 57. The Holiday, Dhaka, 18 June 1983. 58. See for instance, Amnesty International’s report, op. cit., especially pp. 11-30; ‘Civil war in Chittagong’, op. cit., pp. 32-3; the Guardian, 5 June 1984. 59. A PCJSS spokesman toured European capitals in 1986 delivering addresses on ‘The History of the Jana Samhati Samity’. Much of this information is based on these talks. 60. In mid-1978, the founder of the Shanti Bahini was moved to Dhaka Medical College for treatment for ulcers. The author was sent by his superiors at army headquarters to make the initial approach. Subsequent talks, although long drawn out, were conducted in an atmosphere of remarkable mutual consideration. 61. ‘Civil war in Chittagong’, op. cit., p. 35. 62. ‘Shanti Bahini surrender’, Bangladesh Today, Dhaka, May 1985, pp. 34-6. 63. ‘Hill Tracts bleeds’, the Holiday, Dhaka, 30 May 1986. 64. Shehab Ahmed, ‘Hill Tracts may soon return to normalcy’, the Holiday, Dhaka, 31 December 1985. 65. This twin-track policy was alluded to in a letter addressed to Raja Debashish Roy, the current Chakma chief and head of the government-backed liaison committee, by ‘Shomiran’, aka Shantu Larma, dated 28 December 1986.

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66. This position was elaborated by Alimul Haq, a diplomat at the Bangladesh mission in Geneva, before the UN Working Group on Indigenous Peoples on 12 August 1983, in response to a complaint filed by the Anti-Slavery Society, London. 67. Davies, op. cit., p. 22. 68. Mey (ed.), op. cit., pp. 117-118. 69. Shell would bear exploration costs and depending on local demand, production sharing arrangements entitled Bangladesh to between 76 and 87.5 per cent of output; the balance would go to Shell. Should production exceed 500,000 barrels per day, new sharing arrangements were to be negotiated. During the exploration, Shell was to invest $120m in CHT, more than total allocations made over the past two decades. 70. The Guardian, 6 March 1984. The demand for payment in Indian currency showed where the money would be spent. It convinced Dhaka that Indian agents were involved in planning the raid, whose aim, it was suspected, was to prevent hydrocarbon exploration in CHT. Fears that India would prevent Bangladeshi auturchy in the energy field, were strengthened. 71. Locally employed security officers suggest Shell’s departure was motivated by a sense of uncertainty over Dhaka’s ability to provide security to its investment in the CHT. Such a loss of confidence rankled in official, especially military, ranks and may have contributed to the hardening of attitudes in the period preceding overtures. 72. Shantimoy Dew an was gunned down in Rangamati town in broad daylight. This showed the degree of infiltration the Shanti Bahini was capable of and the difficuty of containing an insurgency such as this. His death also underscored the nature of the montagnard leadership. Prominent personalities on both sides of the autonomist-secessionist divide were often scions of the once-powerful and privileged Dewan families. Feudal tribalism dies hard. 73. Davies, op. cit., p. 21. 74. In an interview on 1 June 1989, the monk said: One has to take into account why these people (the Shanti Bahini guerrillas) have resorted to such killings. They are not professional murderers after all.’

Chapter 6 TAMIL SEPARATISM IN SRI LANKA

THE Tamil-Sinhala conflict in Sri Lanka was the most significant strate¬ gic development in the South Asian region since the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971 and the emergence of Bangladesh. In mid-1987, an ‘IndoSri Lanka Agreement to Establish Peace and Normalcy in Sri Lanka’ signed by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and President J R Jayewardene provided for the deployment to the island’s Northern province of an Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF), whose strength grew to more than 50,000 men. For over two years, Sri Lanka, one of India’s more independentminded neighbours, was reduced, in effect, to the status of a client state. Such an eventuality was perhaps logical, given the ethno-linguistic overlap linking the two countries, Delhi’s domestic compulsions, Colombo’s political myopia and a history of misunderstanding between the Tamil and Sinhala communities in Sri Lanka. The tensions between India and Sri Lanka, and between India and the US and its clients, further complicated Indo-Sri Lankan relations. Tamil separatism in Sri Lanka showed up the fine line separating the domestic from the international, and the local from the regional, in the South Asian subcontinent. This chapter examines the links between these two sets of circumstances. The conflict between Sri Lanka’s Sinhala majority and its Tamil minority can be oversimplified. The largely Buddhist Sinhalese have small but important pockets of Christianity, and inhabit the wet zone in the south and south-west, and the central highlands around Kandy. The distribution of the Tamils, who are divided into three distinct communi¬ ties, is more complicated. The most significant is the largest group, the Ceylon or Jaffna Tamils. They are Hindu and concentrated in the dry zone in the north-east. They resent having their majority in the Eastern province diluted by the policy of settling landless Sinhala peasants there. The Eastern province is also home to the island’s Moor or Tamil-speaking Muslim population which, despite its linguistic affinity, has developed a distinct identity.1 Another group of Tamils, descended from indentured labourers shipped in by the British from southern India to the coconut, coffee, tea and rubber plantations in the central highlands in the 19th and early 20th centuries, is also predominandy Hindu. These Indian Tamils belong to the Tower’ castes, and have always been underprivileged and ignored by Sinhalese

TAMIL SEPARATISM

205

and Ceylon Tamils. Except for a handful of leaders, S J V Chelvanyakam among them, Ceylon Tamils have shown little consideration for their upland cousins. Indian Tamils have trailed the rest of the population in education, per capita income, infant mortality and lifespan. Although subjected to disenfranchisement, loss of citizenship, eviction and deporta¬ tion, Indian Tamils remained loyal to the state. Some radicalisation occurred after the 1977 riots, when large-scale eviction forced many to seek shelter in Eastern province, from where they were forced back during the 1983 riots. Sri Lanka has a population of 14.85 million.2 The Sinhalese account for 10.98 million or 74 per cent; Ceylon Tamils number 1.87 million or 12.6 per cent; Moors total 1.057 million (7.12 per cent); and Indian Tamils some 825,233 (5.56 per cent). The remaining 110,000 (0.7 per cent) include 43,500 Malays and just over 38,200 with European ancestry. Tamil nationalists have claimed that Tamil speakers total 3.75 million, about a quarter of Sri Lanka’s population, and ought to be treated as a substantial minority community.3 This claim is accurate, but ancient differences preclude a united stand in the struggle for political rights. In the long run, this may be a greater threat to Tamil nationalism in Sri Lanka than majoritarian Sinhala chauvinism.

An historical overview BOTH the Sinhalas and the Ceylon Tamils claim that they were the first group to arrive from the Indian mainland. Sri Lanka s physical separation from peninsular India occurred relatively recently and this explains the settlement by Vaddas, Nagas and Yakkas, proto-Australoid groups akin to pre-Dravidian tribes from the Deccan. Indo-Aryans arrived from northern India in the 5th century BC, absorbed the former and developed as the Sinhalese people. Sinhalas claim the Tamils arrived from southern India much later, their immigration being spread over a millennium to about ad1200. Tamils claim that their ancestors were either contemporaries of the first Sinhala settlers, or preceded them.4 Whatever the truth, Sri Lanka has had a continuous record of settled and cultured life for more than two millennia. The core of the Sinhala historical tradition lies in two chronicles, the Mahavamsa (Great lineage) and the Kulavamsa (Lesser lineage). Buddhist chroniclers, beginning in the 5th century AD, wrote these over several centuries. With subsequent commentaries in Pali and Sinhalese, written and in oral traditions, they

206

THE FEARFUL STATE

SRI LANKA MAIN ROADS TEA AREAS

• TOWNS MAIN TAMIL

INDIAN OCEAN MANNAR

TRINCOMALEE

45* batticaloa

'■{ms.

KELANI VALLE

COLOMBO pi!..••••:] POTTUVIL

KALUTARA*

^HAMBANTOTA GALLE^ DONDRA HEAD

MAP 6: The Tamils of Sri Lanka, MRG Report No. 25. Courtesy of Minority Rights Group

TAMIL SEPARATISM

207

comprise the Sinhalas’ historical self-image. The Mahavamsa provides a chronological account of the growth of Sinhala-Buddhist power on the island. The Mahavamsa is still seen by many Sinhalese close to the Sangha (Buddhist clergy) as the history of the Sinhala race up to the fall of the Kandyan kingdom in 1815.5 Its political and socio-psychological signifi¬ cance is greater than its historical import. The legend begins with an Aryan princess whose union with a lion or Sinha begat Prince Sinhabahu (the lion-armed-one), progenitor of the leonine ‘Sinhala’ race. Sinhabahu called the capital of his small Bengali kingdom Sinhapura, the ‘city of lions’. His eldest son Prince Vijaya became a renegade, pillaging the Bengali countryside. Under pressure from neighbouring kings, Sinhabahu exiled Vijaya and his 700-man army, who sailed into the Bay of Bengal to land near Puttalam on the west coast of Sri Lanka in the 5th century BC. The Bengali origins of the Sinhala have been disputed. Vijaya, it is argued, was unlikely to have landed on the west coast if he had embarked on his voyage from Bengal. Some claim Sinhabahu had left Bengal to settle in Gujarat from where his son then set sail.6 This does not explain why Panduvasudeva should land on the east coast. The early Sinhalas spoke Pali, the language used in Bengal.7 Aryan settlers may have travelled from both north-eastern and north-western reaches of the Gangetic plains. Adventurers from Bengal, Orissa and Gujarat may have arrived in waves and intermarried to engender the Sinhala people. The Vijaya dynasty ruled until ad 65. The involvement of south Indian powers, initiated by Vijaya in his quest for a Pandu (Pandya) bride, increased as the fortunes of the Pandya and Chola kingdoms rose and fell in the struggle for supremacy. The Sinhalas were converted to Buddhism by Emperor Asoka’s son Mahinda and daughter Sanghamitra, sent to preach the faith of ‘Ahimsa’ in the 3rd century BC. With the spread of Buddhism, the Anuradhapura kingdom assumed control of the island. Political centralisation began with King Dutthagamani Abhaya (reigned 161-137 bc) whose combat to the finish with Tamil King Elara is the most oft-quoted instance of Sinhala-Tamil conflict cited in the Mahavamsa.8 In ad 65, King Vasabha founded the Lambakanna dynasty that lasted about four centuries. Its most gifted monarch, King Mahasena (reigned ad 276303), protected heterodox Buddhist sects and also built irrigation projects. In ad 432 the Pandyas invaded and took over until defeated in 459 by King Dhatusena’s Sinhala army. He established the Moriya dynasty. His son Kasyapa I (reigned 477-495) moved his capital to the rock fortress of Sigirya; but after his dethronement, the capital was returned to Anuradhapura.

208

THE FEARFUL STATE

Despite Pandya defeat, south Indian mercenaries rose to prominence in Sinhala service. From the 6th century, Tamil raids became frequent. Invading chiefs would set up a small kingdom and peace would reign for a generation or so. Then the cycle would be repeated.9 Peninsular involve¬ ment reached a new height as the south Indian Pallavas installed the fugitive Manavamma as the Sinhala King in 684. He founded the second Lambakanna dynasty that ruled for about 400 years. During this period Sinhala kings were involved in intermittent warfare between the Pandyas, Pallavas and Cholas on the mainland. Consequently, invasions from south India and counter-raids were a recurrent phenomenon. By the 10th century Sinhala power was in decline. The island’s alliance with the mainland Pandyas spilled war across the Palk Strait. The Cholas took their antiPandya campaign to Sri Lanka, annexing its northern Rajarata province to their mainland kingdom in 993. In 1017 they took Ruhana in the south and Sri Lanka became a Chola colony. Dravidian domination lasted until 1070 when Vijayabahu restored Sinhala power. He moved the capital to Polunnaruwa, which gave its name to the last 150 years of Sri Lanka's classical age. King Parakramabahu I (reigned 1153-1186) brought prosperity to the island but his expeditions to Burma and the Pandyan kingdom were only briefly successful. Power passed to the Kalinga dynasty through his Kalinga queen. Nissankamalla, a brother of the queen, was the last effective ruler of this period. As Sinhala power weakened, south Indian adventurers took control. Intermarriages raised Pandyan and Kalinga influence. The island’s courts, manned by south Indian nobles, were protected by foreign mercenaries. Sinhala nobility left Polunnaruwa to resist Dravidian authority from the outlying districts. In 1232, Vijayabahu III re-established Sinhala power at Dambedeniya, 70 miles south of the Dravidian capital of Sri Lanka. The Sinhala kings raided Tamil and Kalinga towns in Rajarata but left Polunnaruwa alone. Parakramabahu II (reigned 1236-1270) secured Pandyan assistance and sent the Kalingas packing. In the 15th century the capital was moved to Kotte, near Colombo, and the island was briefly unified under one authority. However, the royal writ did not extend beyond the capital’s environs. Internal divisions, external interference and the destruction of the dry zone’s irrigation-based agriculture reduced the centre’s authority. Increasing Tamil power in the north and east forced the Sinhala to leave the dry zone and move southward into the wet zone where new cities were built and new agricultural techniques developed. As irrigation tanks and canals left to the jungle, decayed into malarial swamps, the island was

TAMIL

SEPARATISM

209

partitioned into a Tamil north and east, and a Sinhala centre, south and south-west. Trading grew in importance, spices becoming the principal export. Dravidian influence weakened Buddhist institutions, and Hindu deities were worshipped in many Buddhist temples. Among the nobles, fraternisation had built family relationships that could serve as a future base for a common social framework. As the Pandyan kingdom collapsed on the mainland in the 14th century, large numbers of Tamils arrived in the north of the island. Jaffna became the new centre of Hindu-Tamil power.

The Europeans arrive IN 1505, the fleet of the Portuguese admiral Lourenco de Almeida was blown into Colombo where he established a rapport with the King of Kotte, Vir Parakrama Bahu. In 1518, the Portuguese were granted trading conces¬ sions and permission to build a fort at Colombo. Three years later. King Vijayabahu was killed by his three sons who divided the Sinhala kingdom into three independent states. Sibling feuds led to Bhuvanaika Bahu, King of Kotte, seeking Portuguese assistance against his brother Mayadunne, ruler of Sitawake, who, in turn, formed an alliance with the Zamorin of Calicut on the peninsula. Bhuvanaika Bahu and the Portuguese signed an agreement in 1543 guaranteeing protection to the prince and his principality; Portuguese privileges were confirmed and they were to be paid tribute in cinnamon. By the 1620s, the Portuguese had occupied the island, although Sinhala resistance in the central highlands and along the east coast was protracted. The Portuguese divided the island into four dissavanis (provinces) headed by Portuguese dissava (governors). They retained loyal Sinhala nobles in subordinate positions and compiled the first island-wide register of land holdings, ownership and crop patterns. They also monopolised trade in cinnamon, elephants, areca nuts and pepper, and the pressure put on the local economy caused much resentment. But, the Portuguese failed to conquer the central highland kingdom of Kandy. Between 1638 and 1640, the Kandyans and the Dutch, with whom they had made contact, engaged the Portuguese, before a treaty in Europe led to a Dutch-Portuguese ceasefire. In 1645, the two powers divided the island between themselves. In 1659, Mannar and Jaffna fell and the Dutch replaced the Portuguese. King Rajasinha II of Kandy, incensed at this breach of faith, sacked the districts around Colombo, now the seat of European power on the island, and retired to his mountain kingdom.

210

THE FEARFUL STATE

The Dutch for their part divided the island into three provinces, Colombo, Galle and Jaffna, subdivided in turn into Kories or dissavanis, headed by Dutch administrators. Sinhala and Tamil nobles were retained at the lower rungs of administration. The Dutch strengthened their control over production, designating the Chalia caste to collect cinnamon from the forest. Taxes were collected in kind and used in trade. Rewards were made in land grants, and the cultivation of rice and cash crops encouraged. The Dutch East India Company, like the Portuguese, monopolised trade. This restrained local commerce and trade with India declined. The Dutch also reformed the island’s legal system. In the north, Tamil customary law, Thesavalamai, was codified in 1707. The Muslims were urged to practice a unified code agreed by their own headmen. Because of the difficulties in codifying Sinhala-Buddhist customary law, the Dutch increasingly relied on Roman-Dutch law in the cities, particularly with regard to Christians. The Dutch banned Catholicism which had expanded under Portuguese missionary activities, and Catholic churches were handed over to Calvinist seminaries. The reformist faith received state patronage.

Pax Britannica THE wars of the French Revolution in Europe decided the fate of Sri Lanka. As the Netherlands passed under French control, the British East India Company reached out from the Indian mainland to seize this ‘enemy territory’. Dutch resistance proved futile and the British gained control in 1796. Initially, the British ruled Sri Lanka from Madras. But war with France confirmed the island’s strategic potential and, in 1802, Sri Lanka was formally annexed to the Crown under the Treaty of Amiens. The British were unhappy with the continued independence of the Kandyan highlands, which detracted from the absolute nature of the occupation. The EIC encouraged dissension among the chiefs of the kingdom but an attempted intervention in 1803 failed. By cultivating renegade chiefs, the British secured control in 1815. Despite its assurances of protecting the status of helpful chiefs, the EIC continued to have pressure put on Buddhists, leading to an uprising in 1818 which the Company crushed. The Kandyan highlands became an integrated part of the colony.

Reforms and Change THE Company’s administrators embarked on a programme of reform to ‘civilise’ the natives. Beginning in 1833, the island was brought under a

TAMIL

SEPARATISM

211

uniform administrative and judicial system. The authority of the Governor was balanced with those of the new executive and legislative councils. English became the medium of administration and instruction throughout Sri Lanka. These reforms, and the economic liberalisation effected in tandem, laid the foundations of the new Sri Lanka and many of its tribulations. Until 1830, trade surpluses were monopolised by foreign colonialists, and most Sri Lankans — Sinhala and Tamil — had led the lives of peasants, fishermen, village craftsmen and minor traders. But, in 1830, the British began selling licences that offered opportunities to make large profits in the protected arrack trade. Local investment in the newly organised coffee, coconut and rubber plantations, graphite mines and real estate markets was encouraged. This engendered a new class of merchant capitalists who were predominantly Sinhala, since the centre of colonial power and productive heartland of the economy lay in the Sinhala country. This laid the foundations of the ethno-cultural, religio-linguistic cleavage dividing the island once the foreign superstructure was removed.10 Meanwhile, driven by the need to increase return on investment, the British opened up the highlands, expanded the acreage under coffee, and when that failed in the 1870s, switched to tea. They organised coconut and rubber production in labour-intensive plantations, expanded graphite mining operations, and built roads and townships. They imported indentured Tamil and Malayalam labour from south India. As economic activities picked up, service sectors became important. English-educated islanders joined the professions and lower rungs in the bureaucracies. The northern dry zone lacked agricultural opportunities and missionary activity here led to greater Anglicisation. By joining government services and the profes¬ sions, the Tamils came to dominate fields requiring command of English. Towards the end of the 19th century, Sri Lankan society was trans¬ formed as sharp delineations appeared. On the top of the pile was the bourgeoisie, itself forming two branches. The Europeans had rewarded Mudalliyars (native officials) with land grants. This landed class almost exclusively comprised Goyigama Sinhala and Vellala Tamils. Planters and princelings, they remained loyal to their colonial masters. Their land was cultivated by peasants living under feudal conditions. This landed gentry made up the ‘old monied class’. As favoured loyalists they were to take control of the island’s politics when independence came. They were challenged by the ‘new money’, a rising breed of traders, planters and speculators from all communities, grasping the opportunities offered by the colonial economic system. But, operating in the non-manufacturing

212

THE FEARFUL STATE

sectors of production and trading in coffee, tea, rubber and liquor, this group was unable to expand into a national industrial bourgeoisie. It remained weakly loyal, only seeking mild reforms that would open up greater investment opportunities. Among the old and new aristocracies, there were many who remained above the ethnic divisions. The new petit bourgeoisie cut across religious and caste barriers. This group included the largely rural petty producers, small traders, artisans and craftsmen predat¬ ing the colonial economy. Educated in Sinhalese and Tamil, they were devout Buddhists and Hindus, and many were associated with local organi¬ sations aimed at ‘social and moral upliftment’.11 The colonial order engen¬ dered a new middle class of clerical staff, teachers, shopkeepers and minor officials. The lower rungs of the plantation economy and the service sector provided the base on which grew a new, urban petit bourgeois intelligent¬ sia. In time this articulate class was to challenge the colonial order, demand substantial reforms and mobilise nationalist forces. In addition, there were two other groups of workers: a class of landless workers, who seasonally rented their labour. This rural workforce pro¬ vided weight to the rural petit-bourgeois intelligentsia in its quest for religious revival and social reform. The colonial economy also generated an urban workforce. The roads, railways and docks employed Sinhala, Tamil and Malayalam wage labourers. This workforce was politically underdeveloped. Although strike action began in 1893 when the first trade union was formed, it looked to the urban petit bourgeoisie for leadership.

Genesis of the new divide RELIGIOUS revivalism became a vehicle for incipient nationalism. Late in the 19th century the middle classes had reached a stage in their political development where they viewed state-sponsored Christian missionary activity and state patronage of the converted as a threat to their interests. In their efforts to counter the privileges granted to the Christian minority, they employed the instrument of Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim orthodoxy. The colonial policy of licensing taverns, mostly owned by Christians, provided grist to the revivalist mill. Colonel Olcott, of the US army, a co¬ founder of the Theosophical Society, formed the Buddhist Theosophical Society in Sri Lanka in 1880. The clergy gained a platform on which to preach puritanism; noveau riche Sinhala merchants, seeing an opportunity to press for greater freedom to invest, seized it. By 1888, tracts began to rail against ‘alien exploiters’.

TAMIL

SEPARATISM

213

The most articulate exponent of Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism was the monk, Anagarika Dharmapala. He directed his wrath at ‘merchants from Bombay and pedlars from south India’ dominating the island’s trade. He praised his Sinhala merchant patrons for accumulating their surplus by fair means, denounced Muslim restaurants and shops and called for their mass boycott13 With middle-class support, the revivalist campaign took on the language and education issues. The inroads into Sinhala-Buddhist society made by Christian missionaries were attacked. The campaign claimed that social evils such as drunkenness were the product of colonial imposition; criticised the decadent consumerism of alien lifestyles and urged a return to Buddhist values. The movement demanded investment in vernacular education and equal status for those competent in Sinhala. In 1903, Dharmapala symbolically purged the holy city of Anuradhapura of taverns, churches and butchers’ shops. In 1904 the clergy began the Temperance Movement, an agitational campaign against state patronage of the liquor trade. But the movement did not affect relations between the principal components of state power, and it elicited only limited response. The landed aristocracy remained loyal to the British. The new bourgeoisie clamoured for changes within the system which had created it. But the 1910 reforms showed up the marginal impact of its campaign. The nominated executive council was retained. The legislative council was to have a nominated majority. A new constituency was created for ‘educated Ceylonese’, who were given a single elective seat in the legislative council, marking the beginning of representative politics. The British instituted communalism by nominating other native members of the legis¬ lature on the basis of communal quotas. These concessions stole the thunder from the temperance movement, which ended in 1912. The communal constituencies froze the communities across political and social divisions. Minority groups were also discomfited by revivalist myths that had become a part of popular Sinhala tradition. Dharmapala nurtured majoritarian chauvinism. The Sinhalese are unique, he claimed repeatedly, ‘in as much as they can boast that they have no slave blood and never were conquered either by the pagan Tamils or European vandals^ ... the Sinhalese stand as the representatives of the Aryan civilisation’.14 Orientalist work on the Aryans, popularised in the mid-19th century, provided a pseudo-scientific cloak for Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism. The first myth stated that the Aryan Sinhalas had never been. defeated or enslaved, were purer and superior, and that it was only natural, therefore, that they ruled. The second myth gave historical credence to the legend of

214

THE FEARFUL STATE

Vijaya’s founding of the Sinhadipa (island of the lion race) on Ceylon. This meant the Sinhala preceded all other civilisations and so had the right to rule. The third myth sanctified chauvinism by suggesting that the Lord Buddha had thrice visited Sri Lanka three and blessed it with a role to defend the faith under pressure from ‘Hindu India’. The danger to Bud¬ dhism from Hindu ‘invaders’ out to deprive the Sinhala of their homeland and last refuge, was a recurring theme. It equated Sinhala-Buddhist rights with destruction of Hindu threats. Mutual, communal insecurity was a natural outcome and it was a small step from insecurity to hostility. The First World War aroused secular nationalism. Shortages triggered mass disturbances in Colombo and beyond. Fragmented Sinhala and Tamil organisations began to identify in the colonial order a common enemy deserving concerted attack. In 1919, these disparate groups joined to form the Ceylon National Congress. As waves of nationalist agitation reached across the Palk Strait, the Congress demanded constitutional changes, including an elected majority in the legislature with control over the budget and partial control of the executive. The British were unable to brush aside the Congress because it was drawing in its ranks many islanders whose support they considered important. A new constitution was promulgated in 1920, modified four years later to placate nationalist hostility, which provided for an elected majority in the legislature and increased the number of legislators elected territorially. However, the constitution divided constituencies along communal lines and left the executive out of the islanders’ reach. The nationalist movement broke up under strains created by these concessions. Sinhala Congressmen de¬ manded withdrawal of communal representation; minority communities disagreed and left the Congress to form their own parties. By 1930, the British appeared to be ready to transfer authority. A new constitution promulgated the following year on the basis of the Donoughmore Report gave greater control to elective bodies in preparation for dominion status. Sri Lanka became the first colony to exercise universal franchise. The largely-elected State Council functioned as legislature and executive with seven executive committees electing their own chairmen. These latter comprised the board of ministers which co-ordinated executive functions and presented the annual budget. Political leadership, however, remained with the landed, Anglicised Goyigama Sinhala and Vellala Tamil families. The leaders, acting as the focus of popular nationalism, wrested further concessions. During the Second World War when the headquarters of the South East

TAMIL SEPARATISM

215

Asia Command was moved to Colombo, the Sri Lankans demanded responsible government. When the Soulberry Constitutional Commission arrived in 1944, the Ceylon Tamil Congress claimed the support of the majority of the Ceylon Tamils and asked for a ‘fifty-fifty’ legislative system giving Sinhala half the seats and reserving the rest for minorities. The Tamil Congress also demanded that no community should have more than half the Cabinet from among its members. Sinhala pressure brought to bear by D S Senanayake’s Ceylon National Congress countered these demands. However, recognising minority insecurity, Lord Soulbury incor¬ porated certain safeguards in the constitution. Constituencies in the nine provinces were drawn up on the basis of population and area. In the north, several multi-member constituencies increased Tamil strength in the legislature. The state was also barred from conferring privileges and imposing disabilities on any single community. Senanayake, on his way to becoming Sri Lanka’s first Prime Minister, urged the Tamils to accept this constitution on the assurance ‘that no harm need they fear in our hands in a free Lanka’. That such a public assurance was needed to secure Tamil acceptance showed the depth of the divisions in the society. In 1947, several largely Sinhala parties joined the Ceylon National Congress, the merged group taking the name United National Party (UNP) and winning a majority in the legislative elections that year. The Jaffna Tamils, for their part, elected G G Ponnambalam leader of the Tamil Congress, underscoring their preference for communal leadership. Thus, on 4 February 1948, Sri Lanka emerged as a self-governing Common¬ wealth state with its ancient divisions intact and institutionalised.

Independent Sri Lanka THE liberal democratic, secular traditions espoused by the Ceylon Na¬ tional Congress had been transferred to the UNP and Senanayake recog¬ nised Sri Lanka’s plural, multi-cultural character. Under him die UNP symbolised ideals of Sri Lankan — as opposed to Sinhala — nationalism, parliamentary democracy modelled on Westminster, and gradual eco¬ nomic development through free-market policies. The dominion’s export earnings were healthy and its sterling balances substantial. The UNP coalition enjoyed a large majority and was generally popular. However, the system clearly had a weak base. The consensus which the UNP represented carried the upper 7 per cent of the population. Westernised, English-educated liberal democrats from landed families, steeped in the

216

THE FEARFUL STATE

parliamentary tradition, they existed in a different world from the one inhabited by the majority to whom the niceties of liberal democracy and representative government were either incomprehensible or irrelevant. 15 Sinhala lower middle class expectations were raised by the fanfare accompanying dominion status but found little change in employment and other economic opportunities. Increasing political awareness brought pressure on the government to promise sectional benefits. One of the first steps taken in response to these demands, and to the growing popularity in the north of the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (DMK),16 was the decision to render the plantation Tamils stateless because of their inability to prove Sri Lankan parentage, effectively disenfranchising them. Next, the UNP enacted the Indian and Pakistani Residents Act which granted citizenship to 140,000 among the 1,000,000 made stateless by the previous act. The Government nominated MLAs to represent plantation Tamil interests. The Jaffna Tamils saw it as the first step toward the erosion of their political and economic rights. Sinhala peasants and labourers saw this as evidence of their ability to wrest concessions from the state; in India, it was viewed as unfriendly since it was expected to rescue the stateless ‘Indian’ Tamils. During a visit to Delhi, Senanayake was lectured by Nehru, who insisted that the issue of 750,000 Indians on the island be viewed in the context of Indo-Sri Lankan relations. He demanded plantation workers be granted full citizenship in Sri Lanka.17 Despite pressures from all sides, Senanayake sought to steer Sri Lankan politics along a generally biparti¬ san course. But he had to make concessions to Sinhalese demands. In 1949 he agreed to build an irrigation scheme in the Tamil-dominated Eastern province to settle landless peasants in the area. Most settlers were nomi¬ nees of political leaders and the Sinhala. The Tamils viewed this as an encroachment on what had been a part of their traditional homeland. They resented what they saw as a deliberate ploy to reduce them to a minority. Despite Colombo’s denials, that was the outcome over the next three decades. Sinhala demands and Tamil complaints rose in tandem. Left¬ leaning Tamils, under S J V Chelvanyakam, founded the Federal Party. Meanwhile, a growing population, the fall in world prices of Sri Lanka’s exports, and increasing costs of food and fuel imports almost exhausted foreign exchange reserves, a crisis compounded by an adverse balance of trade. Against that backdrop, S W R D Bandaranaike, a Sinhala nationalist, left the UNP to set up the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). Communal polarisation became a part of party politics.

TAMIL

SEPARATISM

217

Bandaranaike was ambitious, articulate and conscious of the dynamics of Sri Lankan politics. He recognised the potential of Buddhist clergy, and its followers among lesser professionals and small traders. He also recog¬ nised clerical support and wanted to co-opt and harness this potential to his own plans for Sri Lanka. In 1952, Stephen Senanayake died and his son Dudley became both UNP leader and then Prime Minister. Communal politics failed to become a powerful force; Chelvanyakam and four members of his party failed to win seats in the north. The SLFP, having campaigned for the abolition of English in favour of Sinhala, won only nine seats. The following year when India announced plans to replace English with Hindi within twenty years, Bandaranaike promised to replace English with Sinhalese in 24 hours if elected.18 Sinhala-Buddhist emotions reached a peak in 1956, the 2,500th anniversary of Buddha’s death. The SLFP-led Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (People’s United Front) was the greatest beneficiary of that upsurge, sweeping to power in the polls that year. Bandaranaike offered state support to the Buddhist faith and Sinhala culture. His government passed the Official Language Act making Sin¬ halese the sole official language. The island was more divided than ever.

Politics of language THE codification of Sinhala nationalism as a principle of state evoked a Tamil backlash. The Federal Party (FP) picketed parliament, rioting spread and law and order crumbled. The FP campaigned for a federal constitution that would protect the cultural rights of minorities, including language. For Tamils, the first requirement was a constitutional guarantee for their language. They also demanded the repeal of laws disenfranchis¬ ing plantation Tamils and an end to officially sponsored settlement of Sinhalas on land in Eastern province that was traditionally Tamil. The language dispute reflected Sinhala-Tamil insecurity. By making English the medium of all official transactions, the British had imposed structure on economic activity. The privileged were educated in English which prepared them for authority, responsibility, material rewards and status. Soon, an exclusivist network developed in which pragmatic Tamils did very well. Lacking opportunities in agriculture, they derived maximum benefit from missionary schooling and joined the services and professions in large numbers. Over a century, Tamils secured a pre-eminence in the bu¬ reaucracies and professions and came to dominate Sri Lanka s retail and wholesale sectors, and financial services. Much of Colombo’s Pettah com¬ mercial district, its financial centre, belonged to Tamil entrepreneurs.

218

THE FEARFUL STATE

By 1911, literacy in English among Ceylon Tamil men had reached 4.9 per cent; the corresponding figure for Kandyan Sinhala men was 3.5 per cent. 20 As education facilities grew along with increasing representation in politics, the differential rose. By replacing English with Sinhala in all official transactions, it in effect lowered the opportunity threshold of the vernacular-educated Sinhala at the expense of the privileged minority, westernised Sinhala and Tamil elites. English-educated Sinhala could fall back on their own language and still prosper. Tamils, English-educated or oherwise, could no longer hope to secure entry into prized public service posts. They launched a wide¬ spread campaign that turned to violence. Faced with an impossible situ¬ ation he had helped to create, Bandaranaike negotiated an agreement with Chelvanyakam in July 1957 to ‘safeguard the position of the Sinhalese while, at the same time, meet reasonably the fears of the Tamils’. This persuaded many Tamils that the only way Colombo could be forced to listen was through agitation. The 1957 agreement promised legislation granting the Tamils regional autonomy in the Northern and Eastern provinces with recognition of Tamil as the administrative language, and an end to Sinhala settlement in traditional Tamil territory. Order was restored when the FP withdrew its demand for equal status for Tamil language. But the communal passions that had been released by Bandaranaike’s actions threatened new violence. The Eksath Bhikku Peramuna, militant political front of the Buddhist clergy, claimed that by raising the status of Tamil, the government had diminished Sinhala linguistic superiority and this would endanger the position of the Sinhalese. Among the reasons they cited was the ever-present danger of invasion by Tamils from India where there were 40 million Tamil speakers. In April 1958, Bandaranaike abro¬ gated his pact with the FP. A month later, the first major communal riots shook the island. Governor General Goonetileke declared a state of emergency and brought in the army to restore order. Persistent rioting in Colombo and Jaffna forced Bandaranaike to introduce the Tamil Language Act ensuring ‘reasonable use’ of Tamil. This led to Buddhist agitation, followed, in September 1959, by a monk assassinating Bandaranaike. Mrs Bandaranaike assumed her husband’s mantle and, ironically, strengthened the FP’s hands by neutralising the more accommodating Tamil Congress. Everywhere, extremism gained over moderation. There were two elections in 1960. In the first, the UNP made an electoral alliance with the FP but once it gained power, the UNP disowned the concessions it had promised. The FP, with ten of Northern

TAMIL

SEPARATISM

219

Province’s thirteen seats, and all five of the Tamil constituencies in the Eastern province, held the balance but by itself could not effect change. It then reached an understanding with the SLFP, withdrew support from the UNP and forced another election. This time, the SLFP-led United Front came to power. But once in power, Mrs Bandaranaike also rebuffed Chelvanayakam, reverted to the SLFP’s ‘Sinhala only’ policy and nationalised large commercial and industrial units. The FP renewed its campaign of civil disobedience and took over administration in the Northern province. Fearing secession, the government declared a state of emergency. Troops were deployed to Jaffna and FP leaders were detained as separatist tendencies stirred among the more extremist Tamil activists. In 1961, the SLFP brought in the Court Languages Act, widening the scope of the ‘Sinhala only’ regulations. The following year Colombo banned the DMK for talking about a single Tamil polity. Faced by rising Tamil extremism in the North and East, Mrs Bandaranaike negotiated an agreement with India’s Prime Minister, Lai Bahadur Shastri, to resolve the ‘Indian’ issue. In November 1957, Colombo had asked Delhi to repatriate 500,000 plantation Tamils whom they viewed as Indian citizens. The testy exchanges only served to embitter relations at the time, but now they agreed to share the burden. The problem for Sri Lanka was economic. After Colombo appropriated all large plantations and handed them to Sinhala co-operatives, there was an influx of Sinhalese labour. As the workforce grew and productivity fell, so did profitability. Tamil workers, having lived and worked on the plantations on which island prosperity had been based, were squeezed out, leaving the government with the problem of 975,000 stateless Tamils. Hence the accord with India. The 1961 agreement provided for the repatriation to India, over 15 years, of 525,000 Indian Tamils. Sri Lanka would grant citizenship to 300,000 others who could remain. The fate of the remaining 150,000 would be decided later. Plantation Tamils were asked to file applications by 1974, but while both governments wanted to be seen to be tackling a difficult issue, they lacked the strength to resolve it. At this point, the FP teamed up with the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (socialist party) and the Communist Party in parliament to defeat the SLFP and force an election, which was held in early 1965. In the run-up to the election, the UNP had secured FP support by promising secretly to devolve power to autonomous regional and district councils in the North and East, whose language of administration would be Tamil. The UNP also promised to amend the Court Language Act of 1961, and assured the FP that land settlement

220

THE FEARFUL STATE

schemes in the Eastern province would give priority to landless Tamils. Once elected, the UNP reverted to its free-market policies and many nationalised businesses were returned to private ownership. Agricultural production rose, but cash-crop exports still failed to balance imports. Fearing a Buddhist backlash, the UNP decided not to add to its problems by implementing its secret agreement with the FP. The FP was outraged and, perhaps to mollify mounting anger, Dudley Senanayake lifted the ban on the DMK. Tamils in the North and East were not alone in their disappointment, however. The expansion of vernacular education after 1956 had created a large pool of educated Sinhala youth in the South, who saw no opportunity to realise their expectations and turned to MarxistLeninist visions of revolutionary transformation. In 1965, they organised the secret Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna or JVP (People’s Liberation Front), but as a potential threat it was subsumed by Sinhala insecurity vis-a-vis the Tamils on both sides of the Palk Strait. In 1967, Mrs Bandaranaike persuaded the UNP administration to reimpose the ban on the DMK. While this relieved many Sinhala, the UNP’s handling of the economy did not. The 1970 elections were fought on economic issues and an SLFP-led United Front was returned to power. The United Front government re¬ stored Sinhala primacy, and state control over the economy.

Sri Lanka’s other insurrection DESPITE Mrs Bandaranaike’s populist rhetoric and policies, she now faced a new problem. Rapid expansion of vernacular education had raised the island’s literacy rate to over 80 per cent. But the economy had not kept pace to provide employment opportunities to the educated unemployed. By 1970, 14 per cent of the total population of 12 million were jobless; over 70 per cent of rural youth between 19 and 25 were unemployed. The vast majority of these young men and women were secondary school graduates. These potential revolutionaries swarmed to join the JVP. When the apparently socialist United Front failed to initiate structural changes, the JVP took up the task of social engineering. By 1967 Rohana Wijeweera, one of the party’s founders, had secured control over the organisation. He had supported Mrs Bandaranaike’s United Front coalition in the 1970 elections, but perceiving the SLFP’s limitations as an instrument of radical change, JVP leaders began opposing SLFP policies. The government had Wijeweera arrested, along with more than 4,000 JVP members in March 1971, triggering the leftist insurrection

TAMIL

SEPARATISM

221

that rocked the Sinhala heartland for much of the year. Inspired by the initial successes of West Bengal’s revolutionary Naxalite movement, JVP activists launched a campaign of terror-bombing and assassination. They sought to create the conditions for the working classes to challenge an iniquitous system maintained by a weakened state. Mrs Bandaranaike sought international aid and received materiel from the US, Soviet Union, China, India and Pakistan — an interesting conver¬ gence of interests given that South Asia was then the focus of attention by an alliance of Moscow and Delhi on the one hand and a Beijing-IslamabadWashington axis on the other. Estimates of JVP suspects killed in the next few months range from 8,000 to 25,000.22 The JVP fought on briefly with the limited assistance it is said to have received from North Korea, but was soon spent. The events exposed the level of support for JVP ideals and the United Front dare not ignore the potential threats of Sinhala activism. The 1972 constitution proclaiming Sri Lanka a republic was promulgated against this backdrop. It sought to assuage Sinhala anger by taking steps that only raised Tamil fears. The ‘Sinhala only’ policy became law; section 29 of the old constitution that had protected Tamil interests was dropped. Writs to the Privy Council in London were also ended. Tamil leaders, among them Chelvanyakam and his heir-apparent Appapillai Amirthalingam went to Madras to seek the assistance of Tamil Nadu’s DMK government. Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, himself an ardent Tamil nationalist, encouraged the leaders to establish a united campaign for Tamil autonomy on the island. At Karunanidhi’s urging, the Tamil United Front proclaimed: ‘We will fight to establish a full, independent state ... For this we shall need not only the support of the people of Tamil Nadu but also the people of India.’ The TUF was angling for Delhi’s support at a time when India’s inter¬ vention in support of Bengali nationalists had transformed the subconti¬ nent, and underscored the pre-eminent role that Indian policy and interests had assumed in the region. Flushed with its diplomatic and military victory, India could equally transform the Sri Lankan scene. It did, but not the way that TUF leaders had hoped.

Kautilya and Indian politics INDIAN victory in the Bangladesh war transformed South Asia’s strategic balance. It also generated new hopes and fears in the neighbouring states. Iran and Sri Lanka, not to mention Pakistan, were convinced of Delhi’s

222

THE FEARFUL STATE

hegemonist ambitions. Dissident forces within these states, on the other hand, came to believe that autonomist or separatist tendencies could secure Indian support if their objectives did not directly challenge Delhi’s interests.22 Under Indira Gandhi, India’s search for tangible power had reached Kautilyan proportions and the outcome of the 1971 war appeared to demonstrate Delhi’s success in that quest.23 Assisting Tamil autonomists was a logical extension of Indian regional policy but domestic considera¬ tions imposed other imperatives. Karunanidhi’s DMK represented Tamil ethno-cultural nationalism that in Delhi’s view detracted from the devel¬ opment of an ‘Indian’ nationalism and challenged the concept of the Indian Union. Any support to the TUF could redound to the regionalist DMK’s benefit and was therefore anathema to Mrs Gandhi, who saw Karunanidhi as an irritant. But denial of assistance to Tamil nationalists from Sri Lanka also went against the grain of Delhi’s Kautilyan policies. Such a denial could weaken Delhi’s own Tamil lobby, the All-India Anna DMK. Sri Lanka’s dissident Tamils offered an opportunity of maintaining substantial leverage against the island. Delhi extended its support to Sri Lankan Tamils opposing Sri Lanka’s Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism, but not to TUF moderates enjoying DMK patronage. The Gandhi government stole a march on the DMK by selecting young Tamil militants from the north of the island who had no shared memories of Sinhala-Tamil co-operation in the pre-independence nationalist struggle. The Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s external intelligence arm, operating through the AIADMK, set up Tamil New Tigers (TNT) with young militants from Jaffna dedicated to Tamil separatism now that TUF accommodation had failed to elicit a Sinhala response. The socialist TNT rejected moderation. The conflict between the north-Indian centre and the south-Indian periphery, between Aryan Hindi and Dravidian Tamil, between Congress and the DMK, and between a unitary state and a looser federation, was thus superimposed on the Tamil struggle for non¬ discrimination and self-determination in Sri Lanka. Afraid of surrendering control to Delhi’s militant clients, TUF leaders hardened their position. Increasing militancy became the mechanism of survival for the divided nationalist movement.

Tamil Tigers vs Sinhala Lions UPSTAGED by Delhi’s manoeuvres, the DMK continued to support the moderate TUF. The RAW-AIADMK, on the other hand, organised the

TAMIL SEPARATISM

223

militants into a body of guerrillas, armed and trained them, and replicated the East Pakistan operations of 1971. The Tigers, as TNT members came to be known, began by crossing the Palk Strait from their secret camps in Tamil Nadu for hit-and-run operations against the police and banks in the Northern province. Success bred a degree of confidence in TNT leaders who soon discovered major ideological differences among themselves. The militants broke up along caste and ideological lines. Velupillai Prabhakaran and his fishermen followers from the Vadamarachhi area of Jaffna built the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the largest guerrilla group, while high-caste Marxist ideologues such as Uma Mahes¬ waran and Sabaratnam left to set up their smaller, but ideologically more consistent armies — the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), and Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO). Delhi pro¬ tected diverse groups of armed Tamils, but their freedom was restricted by the lack of committed support from the DMK government in Madras. On the island, the United Front government kept its promise to end Tamil ‘domination’ of the modem sectors by instituting positive discrimination in favour of the Sinhalas, calling it ‘standardisation’. Tamils had enjoyed disproportionate facilities in higher education because the colonial state had rewarded their greater willingness to adopt English. By independence, Ceylon Tamils, barely 10 per cent of the population, occupied 31 per cent of university seats, at a time when fewer than 7 per cent of islanders had received secondary and higher education, all of it in English.24 The Sinhala majority saw itself unfairly deprived of what was its due. By 1970, UNP and SLFP policy had reduced Tamil entry into universities to less than 16 per cent; 25 but many Sinhala nationalists demanded more. By 1974, Colombo had widened the differential in marks required for university entrance by Sinhala and Tamil students: Sinhala

Tamil

Architecture

180

194

Bio-sciences

175

184

Engineering

227

250

Medicine Physics Veterinary science

229 183 181

250 204 206

Departments

In that year, the Ministry of Education added a district quota to the system of standardisation. It was aimed at helping bright students from

224

THE FEARFUL STATE

underprivileged rural areas. The effect was that Ceylon Tamils suffered a rapid decline in tertiary education as Kandyan Sinhala men and women took their place. Sinhala educationists claimed that these measures helped to reduce Tamil share of admissions in medicine from 36.9 per cent in 1973 to 20 per cent in 1975, in engineering from 24.4 to 13.2 per cent, and in effecting an even steeper fall in dental surgery and agro-sciences.26 If positive discrimination appeared to shut doors to Tamils, administra¬ tive measures, language being just one of them, also encouraged higher proportions of Sinhala entry into the public services.27 Under the imperial dispensation Tamils had dominated government services, their member¬ ship of the higher echelons of the permanent bureaucracies far exceeding their demographic proportion, and resulted from the selectivity of Englishlanguage education. The UNP was averse to sectional discrimination. But electoral pressures and the rise to eminence of the Sangha as a lobby for Sinhala chauvinism, which the SLFP embraced, ensured that the govern¬ ment in Colombo had to pursue policies that raised the Sinhala share of government services to the detriment of Tamils. Between 1948 and 1986, overall Tamil admission to government service was reduced from 30 per cent to 6 per cent.28 The Tamil public service trade union Arasanga Eluthu Vinaya Sangam furnished figures underscoring the Sinhalisation of the government services. Taken together with positive discrimination in favour of Sinhalas in university and technical education, these changes persuaded many Tamils that their future in a Sri Lanka ruled by the UNP and the SLFP was sealed. Government service Administrative services Clerical (postal, hospital, railway, Customs) Professions (doctors, engineers, lawyers etc) Armed Forces Labour Forces

Percentage of Tamils 1956

1965

1970

30 50 60 40 40

20 30 30 20 20

5 5 10 1 5

The erosion of educational and employment opportunities was seen as a deliberate attempt to eliminate the Tamils as an important segment of the polity. The Tamil state of Tamil Nadu offered some hope to the moderates, but in the atmosphere of mutual suspicion between the communities, extremism gained in strength. Disaffected Tamil youth felt that only a total restructuring of the relationship between the state and themselves could bring about a long-term solution. It was to this end that they sought

TAMIL SEPARATISM

225

assistance from Indira Gandhi’s government. The links between the Tigers and Delhi did not escape notice; fear of invasion was part of a Sinhala psychosis. Perhaps in recognition of these linkages, Mrs Bandaranaike signed an agreement with Mrs Gandhi to finalise the Indian Tamil issue. The 1964 treaty had left the fate of 150,000 plantation Tamils undecided. The two prime ministers agreed to share this burden equally, India and Sri Lanka each granting citizenship to 75,000. However, by the time the Indian High Commission in Colombo closed its application register that year, only 40,000 had applied for Indian citizenship. On the other hand, around 70,000 had requested Sri Lankan citizenship. By the end of the year, only 14,000 had been registered as such. Bureaucratic processes were slow and, by November 1976, only 10,000 had been accepted as Sri Lankan nationals; 28,000 had been granted Indian nationality, but of them only 19,000 had been repatriated. By the end of 1981, Colombo had accepted 21,000 as Sri Lankan citizens; 49,600 had been granted Indian citizenship, some 37,500 had been repatriated to India and the remaining 12,100 were awaiting transit. In pursuit of its socialist ideals, the United Front nationalised large plantations once again, transferring them to co-operatives. Run by politi¬ cal nominees or bureaucratic timeservers, these co-operatives now opened up employment opportunities for landless Sinhala labourers in the Kan¬ dyan highlands. As before, productivity fell and Tamil workers were squeezed out. Many were reduced to begging in the streets. Only a handful trekked to the Eastern province where the Gandhiyam Society cleared land and built co-operative plantations and one-acre farms for their resettle¬ ment. Against the backdrop of continuing economic decline, aided by a massive rise in the cost of food imports and stagnation in the export markets, the government had to withdraw food subsidies. This, and the Prime Minister’s authoritarian manner, disillusioned a large number of supporters. The UNP, having recovered from its 1970 defeat, grasped the opportunity provided by dissent within and without the coalition. A difference of opinion led to the LSSP being expelled from government in October 1975. The United Front coalition disintegrated as strike action by unions turned violent. Mrs Bandaranaike’s efforts to postpone the 1977 elections were resisted by her own Cabinet. On the mainland, emergency powers assumed by Delhi swept Karunanidhi and his DMK administration out of Madras. TUF moderates had lost their principal patron and extremist guerrillas of the LTTE and other separatist armies had come into their own. Militants were heartened by the formation, in 1975, of the Eelam Revo-

226

THE FEARFUL STATE

lutionary Organisation of Students (EROS) in London, which put Tamil separatism on the world map. EROS opened up a channel of financial aid and moral support. Unable to maintain credibility with its still moderate stance, the TUF met at Vaddukoddai on the Jaffna peninsula in May 1976 and resolved to struggle for the restoration and reconstruction of the free, sovereign, secular, socialist state of Tamil Eelam. The TUF renamed itself the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), the mantle of leadership pass¬ ing from Chelvanyakam to Appapillai Amirthalingam. As elections drew near, the TULF returned to open campaigning. The July 1977 polls trans¬ formed the island’s political scene, with the UNP capturing 140 of the 168 seats, while the SLFP was virtually eliminated as a political force. The TULF won all fourteen seats in the North, and three out of ten seats in the East. The Ceylon Workers Congress, platform of the plantation workers and a constituent of the TULF, won one seat in the highlands, bringing the TULF total to eighteen. This made the TULF the main opposition party. The campaigning had increased polarisation. The UNP manifesto, which promised to ‘take all possible steps to remedy (Tamil) grievances in education, Sinhala colonisation, language and employment in public and semi-public corporations’, had won over a large number of Tamils. Even in the North, heartland of Tamil nationalism, the TULF, campaigning on the platform of a separate Tamil state, captured just 68.5 per cent of the 400,000 plus votes cast. In the Eastern province, with its 300,000 Hindu Tamils, 245,000 Muslims and 167,000 Sinhala, the TULF polled 31.4 per cent of the vote. While many Tamils supported the TULF’s separatist demands, a large minority opposed the island’s division. The lack of clearcut demarcation of opinion made life difficult for the TULF and UNP. To placate the religious right, the latter had promised to establish a dharmista, righteous administration guided by Buddhist principles. In reality, J R Jayewardene sought to use the UNP’s massive majority to end positive discrimination and initiate reconciliation in an all-party conference. But the SLFP-UNP dichotomy intervened. Soon after the UNP came to power, communal clashes erased much of this optimism. In Jaffna, SLFPloyalist Sinhala policemen provoked a backlash by barging into a Tamil religious festival. In the charged atmosphere police opened fire and killed four Tamils. A week of island-wide rioting followed. The official death toll was 97 Tamils, 24 Sinhalese and Muslims, and three unknowns. Other reports suggested higher casualty figures. There were 1,500 arrests, promi¬ nent Sinhala extremists among them.29 But the police responsible for the incident were not punished — in the Tamil view, it reflected Colombo’s

TAMIL SEPARATISM

227

connivance at worst, and acquiescence at best. After this, the TULF lost most of its following in the Northern province to the separatist guerrillas. The rioting put paid to Jayewardene’s planned all-party conference which convinced many Tamils that the plan had only been an electoral ploy. Thereafter, the UNP’s efforts to liberalise the economy with Western capital and support, to neutralise the SLFP without causing unbearable strains within Sinhala society, especially among the clergy, and to strengthen itself by concentrating executive power in presidential hands (and by restoring control to the Northern province) proved self-defeating. For the first time, the riots had devastated Indian Tamil homes in the highlands. Estimates of Tamils made homeless ranged from 14,000 to more than 50,000.30 The Sansoni judicial commission that inquired into the violence reported that police remained inactive during anti-Tamil outrages by mobs of Sinhala. Many Tamils saw the state of emergency and curfew imposed by the government as too little too late. The government came to believe that only executive fiat could give it the flexibility necessary to engineer a solution to the problem. Constitutional changes in February 1978 made Jayewardene the executive president of a unitary state. He was head of state and government, and commander-in¬ chief of the armed forces. He was no longer responsible to parliament and could appoint and dismiss ministers as he chose. The new constitution, promulgated in September 1978, emphasised the rights of the individual without discrimination and sought to assuage minority insecurity without evoking majority resentment. Tamil became an official language along with Sinhala. The constitution removed distinctions between citizens by descent and citizens by registration, thereby removing a major complaint from plantation Tamils with Sri Lankan citizenship. The introduction of proportional representation on the ‘first-past-the-post’ principle helped the UNP wean the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) away from the TULF. When the CWC leader, S Thondaman, joined the new UNP cabinet, it was a further blow to Tamil nationalism. But a weakened TULF merely served to strengthen the extremists. At this time the Janata government in Delhi was ready to chart a new course in its regional policy. The Desai administration sought to replace animosity with co-operation and Delhi’s involvement in Tamil extremism dwindled. But the elected government in Tamil Nadu state had to continue its moral support, acting as a spiritual fountainhead of Tamil nationalist)!. The line separating domestic and international politics was very fine. In 1978 LTTE attacks on Sri Lankan police, Sinhala politicians, and

228

THE FEARFUL STATE

banks were stepped up. The murder of Alfred Duraiyappa, the pro-UNP mayor of Jaffna, and of two CID officers opened a new chapter in the insurgency. It forced Jayewardene to renew draconian security measures, giving the police wide powers of arrest, interrogation and detention. The frequency of guerrilla attacks grew in the North and East where law and order became a major problem. In July 1979, the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) was enacted, which placed the security forces beyond the reach of civil law in Tamil territories. Tamil complaints of indiscriminate abuse, including torture, rose as the violence spiralled. But Jayewardene was more afraid of a Sinhala backlash if the Tamils were allowed to go too far.31 The UNP government inherited an economy in disarray. Jayewardene’s government pursued expansionist policies by denationalising industry and businesses, encouraging local and foreign investment and by attracting substantial credits from OECD donors. By removing state patronage and withdrawing subsidies from sectors of the economy protected by SLFP, he antagonised a large number of Sinhala small entrepreneurs and middle¬ men. Since state patronage had not favoured Tamils, their relative loss was small but, in fact, under the UNP, Colombo Tamils recovered much of their prosperity and the open economy encouraged a whole spectrum of Tamil enterprise. This created new tensions. Political changes in India were equally significant Mrs Gandhi’s return to power in 1980 ended the ‘Janata spring’ of South Asian accord. All along India’s frontiers, Delhi’s security men renewed destabilisation campaigns against recalcitrant neighbours.32 RAW operatives set up larger camps to provide useful training to separatist groups. India was perturbed by rumours of Sri Lanka’s plans to offer its Trincomalee harbour for refuelling. Negotiations over relay facilities for the Voice of America also appeared to threaten Indian interests. Delhi felt it needed all the leverage it could get against Colombo and Tamil separatists appeared to provide the low-cost, low-risk instrument that Mrs Gandhi preferred. LTTE, EROS and PLOTE fighters intensified their operations against security forces in the North and East. To neutralise the appeal of the militants, Colombo established District Development Councils as instru¬ ments of devolution and decentralisation. In August 1980, Colombo announced that polls for 24 DDCs were to be held in summer 1981. To commemorate 50 years of universal suffrage, Queen Elizabeth II paid a state visit to Sri Lanka in 1981. However, security restricted the royal tour to areas under government control and the Queen was kept well away from Tamil areas. To many Tamils, this emphasised the second-class nature of

TAMIL SEPARATISM

229

their citizenship, but Colombo, for its part, could not afford to take risks. New guerrilla groups were proliferating in Madras, and attacks on police stations in the North were becoming so frequent that nine out of the sixteen police stations in Jaffna district had to be closed by mid-1981. The security measures failed to win Tamil loyalty. Faced with local elections, the UNP felt it must do more in order to gain at least one or two seats to prove it enjoyed national and not regional or communal support. The Industry Minister, Cyril Mathew, and Minister of Lands, Gamini Dissanaike, were sent to stir up support for a united island. Tamils viewed both men as Sinhala chauvinists. Mathew’s extensive writings had urged the Sinhala to wake up to the danger posed to their faith, their language and culture by ‘alien invaders’ i.e., Tamils, and save themselves and their way of life by joining the UNP. Mathew also headed the Jathika Sevaka Sanghamya (JSS), the UNP’s trade union front that acted as the party’s strong-arm force. Dissanaike represented Sinhala landed interests, and his Mahaveli project appeared to many Tamils to be a ploy aimed at wresting control of the Eastern Province from the Tamils by providing new Sinhala settlements with irrigated land. Both men were powerful members of the nationalist lobby within the UNP cabinet. Their arrival in Jaffna in May 1981, with 500 police reinforcements and 150 new polling officers sent to replace those posted earlier, was provocative. In the explosive atmos¬ phere, random shots fired by unidentified gunmen at a rally on 31 May, led to a bloodbath. Killing and looting racked the North. Arsonists razed the Jaffna public library, a potent symbol of Tamil nationalism housing important manuscripts, and a centre of Tamil erudition. Its destruction increased support for the extremists.33 Despite the violence, the elections were held on schedule, although the TULF leader and three other TULF MPs were arrested on the eve of polling. Reprisals by Tamil militants evoked a Sinhala backlash in the highlands and many plantation Tamils were once again forced to seek shelter in the North and East Sinhala attacks on plantation Tamils in July and August 1981 were not random. ‘It was stimulated, and in some cases organised by members of the ruling United National Party, among them intimates of the President.’ 34 Jayewardene took steps to end die rioting after a DMK politician from Madras was killed while on a pilgrimage to a shrine in the Northern province, and Delhi joined Madras in vocal protests. On the mainland, LTTE, PLOTE, TELO, EROS and the newly-formed Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) were ranged against Colombo. Although these groups were rivals and constantiy

230

THE FEARFUL STATE

regrouping, the pressure that they maintained in the North and East was substantial. Their role as instruments of India’s regional ambitions was a threat to Sri Lanka’s sovereignty. By early 1982, guerrilla bands, entrenched in the North and the East, were fighting government forces under Brig. Ranatunge. Equipped with automatic rifles, grenades and mines, they were no match for Sri Lanka’s small armed forces.35 Colombo took legal steps to empower security forces to ‘wipe out’ Tamil insurrection. An indemnity act was passed in May to protect security forces from prosecution because ‘it was necessary that public service officers should do their jobs and follow orders without fear of consequences from adverse court decisions’.36 The TULF still hoped to negotiate a settlement with Colombo over language, college entrance, employment and land settlement. It feared that if it gave up peaceful methods the nationalist campaign would irretrievably pass into the hands of extremists; sectarian forces would then wreak havoc on the Tamils. The Government insisted that the TULF accept the DDC framework as the instrument of devolution. Since the 1981 riots, however, the DDCs had become mere post offices for Colombo’s orders. The TULF could not accept Colombo’s demand and retain its credibility as the vehicle for Tamil nationalism. As it was, the TULF was already being sidelined; Tamil Nadu’s AIADMK Chief Minister, M G Ramachandran, and leader of the DMK opposition, Karunanidhi, now took up the militant cause, urging Delhi to provide greater support to the guerrillas.37 Mrs Gandhi agreed. She rejected President Jayewardene’s demand for the extradition of separatists charged with criminal offence in Sri Lanka. A domestic crisis became an international issue with the parties locked into positions from which they were unable to extricate themselves. The UNP admini¬ stration felt it had become necessary to seek an extension of its own tenure. Jayewardene held presidential elections with Mrs Bandaranaike still bereft of civil rights. The TULF boycotted the polls and Jayewardene was re-elected with over half the votes cast. He then held a referendum seeking support for extending to 1988 the life of the 1977 parliament. Emergency regulations prohibited campaigning and the turn-out fell from its usual 85 per cent to about 70 per cent. The extension was agreed, 38 per cent voting ‘yes’. But the year ended with ominous portents. In November, three Roman Catholic priests and an academic couple were arrested in the North on charges of helping terrorists and withholding information. Their trial was scheduled for June 1983. The arrests triggered huge demonstrations by Tamil students and professionals. Security forces began operations against

TAMIL

SEPARATISM

231

the Gandhiyam Society, sacking the Pankulam settlement near Trincomalee in March and raiding the society head offices in Vavuniya in April. The society’s president and secretary were arrested and its property damaged. Again, the charges were aiding and abetting terrorism. In early May, Tamil students at Peradeniya university attacked Sinhala students. They were expelled from campus and the violence escalated. A week later, guerrillas killed a corporal near Jaffna and provoked a major retaliatory operation by the army. On 1 June, two airmen were killed in a PLOTE ambush and air force personnel went on the rampage in Vavuniya, Batticaloa and Trincomalee. Colombo reimposed restrictions on news coverage but as TELO guerrillas wrecked a Colombo-Jaffna train and attacked buses, an Indian inter-party conference in Madras agreed to press for greater assistance to the ‘Tigers’. July began with Colombo enacting a provision of the security act that let security forces dispose of bodies ‘without post-mortem examination, inquest or judicial inquiry of any kind’.38 Tamils viewed this as a Sinhala licence to kill Tamils. In Madras, the DMK promised to ‘create a situation that would force Mrs Gandhi to give direct aid to the Tigers. In the south of the island, the JVP, restored to health by Wijeweera, and the Nava Sama Samaja Party (new socialist party), an LSSP faction, called on all youth, Sinhala and Tamil, to destroy the capitalist UNP government. On 23 July, the most extensive anti-Tamil riots were triggered by an ambush that killed 13 soldiers near Jaffna. Colombo Radio announced that the dead would be given a state funeral in the capital on the morning of 25 July. When that decision was amended, mobs killed Tamil men, women and children, and looted and burned Tamil houses, cars, shops and businesses. The rioting continued for several days. Many Tamils believed the violence was orchestrated by Cyril Mathew’s JSS trade union and UNP activists, with the support of clergy, while some alleged direct government involvement. It is more likely that Colombo lost control of the situation for several days when the rule of law broke down; only the Navy earned out orders. On 28 July, Jayewardene addressed the country on radio and television; what he said hardly helped the situation. His statement seemed to condone Sinhala brutality as ‘the expected reaction of the Sinhalese’, and declared that ‘the time has come to accede to the clamour and the national respect of the Sinhalese people’. The Indian government reacted sharply. Mrs Gandhi despatched her Foreign Minister, P V Narasimha Rao, to Colombo. He urged the government to initiate all-party talks and offered help in restoring order. Sri Lanka agreed to the first but rejected the second. On his

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THE FEARFUL STATE

return, Rao told the Indian parliament that Colombo was not yet in complete control; rumours of an imminent Indian and ‘Tiger’ invasion rapidly spread and Sinhala rioters went into hiding.39 Sri Lanka’s economy was in ruins. In Colombo’s Pettah business district, 442 premises had been gutted; an estimated 116 manufacturing units were destroyed or damaged. The Finance Minister estimated direct industrial damage at 2,000 million rupees, and the cost of rehabilitating these units at 4 billion rupees. A further 1,750 million rupees was needed to replace plant and equipment This did not take into account losses in inventory, spares and production. Exports of tea, rubber and coconut suffered severe losses; 18,000 households were affected; and 100,000 made homeless. Tamils claimed 3,000 of their civilians had been killed and 300,000 made homeless; 160,000 had fled, 115,000 to Tamil Nadu.40 Studies cited many complex factors leading to the violence, which was the result of ‘the anti-democratic political trends of recent decades, the seriousness of the failure to achieve essential economic development, factional struggle within the ruling party, bad leadership of the Ceylon Tamil community and, underlying all this, the growing gap between racist fantasies and social reality’.41 The consequences were embittered com¬ munal relations and the direct entry of India into the Sinhala-Tamil dispute. Delhi pressed Colombo to hold an all-party conference. However, Jayewardene was so shaken by events that he enforced the 6th Amendment to the constitution soon after control had been restored. This barred members of parliament from retaining their seats if they refused to swear allegiance to the unitary state, as a result of which all 14 TULF members resigned. Indo-Sri Lankan relations worsened and Mrs Gandhi instructed central government employees in Tamil Nadu to join in a state-wide strike organ¬ ised by the incumbent AIADMK and the opposition DMK to protest at the treatment meted out to Tamils in Sri Lanka. Fearing Indian intervention in late August 1983, Jayewardene asked the US and Britain for contingency aid in case of invasion. The latter’s response was to tell Sri Lanka that as it fell within Delhi’s area of strategic security interests, Colombo should be looking to its regional neighbours to resolve its fears.42 Jayewardene was reduced to calling Pakistan’s President Zia ul Haq in a desperate bid to ward off the much-feared possibility of invasion. Zia is reported to have stalled while he informed a horrified Mrs Gandhi. Delhi announced that any military assistance to Sri Lanka without Indian participation would be considered hostile to India, thus leaving Jayewardene with few options.

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233

Diplomacy and guerrilla war SHUTTLE diplomacy by Gopalaswami Parthsarathy, adviser to Mrs Gandhi on foreign policy, made it possible for an all-party conference to be summoned on 10 January 1984. The JVP, the NSSP and the Communist Party having been proscribed after the July rioting, were not invited. The conferences continued for almost a year, but the SLFP and the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) left after only a few sessions, lessening the potential value of the talks. Religious groups insisted they would concede nothing beyond the revival of the 1978 DDCs (district councils). Sinhala obstinacy was hardened by detailed reports of Delhi’s sponsorship of Tamil separatists based in Tamil Nadu; Delhi did not deny these reports.43 The talks were polarised between those demanding ‘Regional Councils and no less’ and those offering ‘District Councils and no more’.44 Jayewardene suspended the talks in September hoping to gather suggestions for drafting fresh proposals. In mid-December, Colombo offered the Tenth Amendment Proposal and Draft District and Regional Councils Bill. It provided for the formation of regional councils (but only if the DDCs of a province elected to join together), a Council of State (fifty of whose seventy-five members would be the chairmen and vice-chairmen of the DDCs, and the remaining twenty-five presidential nominees to give due weight to minorities), and, finally, formation of regional police and armed forces reflecting the island’s ethnic balance. At this point, Jayewardene terminated the conference. Suspecting that Sinhala chauvinists had re¬ strained the president from compromising further, Amirthalingam and his TULF colleagues left for Madras. The Northern and Eastern provinces were now left in the hands of the Tamil extremists. Mrs Gandhi’s assassination in October 1984 brought hopes of a change in India’s role. Rajiv Gandhi appeared more willing to explore options other than those based on power politics, although, in the end, this assess¬ ment proved over-optimistic. Colombo kept up the diplomatic pressure during the first half of 1985 by sending Lalith Atulathmudali and Esmond Wickremesinghe of the UNP to Delhi to retain an Indian involvement in the negotiating process. Gandhi spoke positively about the unitary nature of the Sri Lankan state, persuading the guerrillas to accept a ceasefire in June 1985. He invited Sri Lankan jurists to discuss with Indian colleagues the terms of reference for peace talks45 This led to a Jayewardene-Gandhi mini-summit; first in Delhi, and then Bangladesh. These broke fresh ground and made possible the talks that followed in Thimpu, Bhutan, from

234

THE FEARFUL STATE

8 to 13 July and 12 to 17 August 1985. The six Tamil groups stated the ‘Four Principles’ — recognition as a distinct nationality with a secure homeland, the right of self-determination and Sri Lankan citizenship for all Tamils on the island. Colombo claimed the right to self-determination applied to colonised people only. The government delegation, led by Dr H W Jayewardene, guaranteed ‘all communities throughout Sri Lanka’ their cultural, linguistic and religious rights; proposed a scheme of devolution and offered to establish a second chamber if necessary where minorities would enjoy adequate representation. Government delegates also prom¬ ised the composition of security services and educational opportunities would reflect the ‘national ethnic proportion’. But they insisted the government ‘recognises the whole of Sri Lanka as the homeland of every member of every community’; hence no territorial division or ethnoregionalism as such was acceptable.46 The Draft Framework of Terms of Accord and Understanding was a further step from the 1984 all-party conference, but it failed to meet Tamil expectations. Guerrilla groups, forced by Delhi to participate, felt negotia¬ tions could not achieve what they sought; but the TULF sent a letter to Rajiv Gandhi on 1 December 1985 with a draft proposal accepting the unitary state framework. The TULF also articulated demands that must be met within that framework — union of Northern and Eastern provinces into ‘one Tamil linguistic state’; official language status for Tamil; restric¬ tions on parliament to legislate on minority issues; a reflection of ethnic balance in ‘Union Services’, including the armed forces; the establishment of State/Provincial governments with a governor appointed by the presi¬ dent and an elected chief minister; and special provisions for ‘Tamils of recent Indian origin’ ensuring they ‘enjoy a sense of security and to provide for their participation in government’. Colombo denounced these demands on the ground that they were not based on the post-Thimpu accord. But on 31 January 1986, Jayewardene proved he could overlook Sinhala pressure by granting citizenship to about 150,000 ‘Indian’ Tamils. Meanwhile, the UNP and TULF envoys continued talks.47 The spate of bombings, raids, ambushes and minelaying carried out by the Tamil armies in 1985 and 1986 may have been motivated by the urge to demonstrate their capacity to disrupt any settlement that ignored them. Colombo expanded its defence budget,48 and increased its forces. Service¬ men were sent to Pakistan for training.49 Sri Lanka also invited Israeli and British counter-insurgency experts to organise and train a Special Task Force, which later earned a measure of notoriety. Jayewardene then

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235

summoned a Political Parties Conference on 25 June 1986 and, announc¬ ing the acceptance of provincial councils as a negotiating point, sought the support of all the major parties for this new initiative. The SLFP and the TULF boycotted the conference. TULF leaders were summoned to Delhi, and told that Colombo had gone as far as it probably could. Acknowledging that the UNP was fighting on many fronts, TULF leaders decided to go to Colombo on 13 July 1986. Meanwhile, the guerrillas were engaged in an internecine struggle for dominance. PLOTE, EROS and EPRLF showed signs of responding to Delhi’s repeated urgings to return to the talks but the LTTE leader, Prabhakaran, rejected attempts to resolve the crisis within a Sri Lankan framework. His guerrillas attacked PLOTE, TELO and EPRLF bases, wresting control of the Jaffna peninsula, and confining government forces to zones around major encampments. After the massacre of monks and pilgrims in the Buddhist holy city of Anuradhapura in May 1985, Colombo found it more difficult to gamer Sinhala support for its peace initiatives. The Tamils also faced difficulties. Moderation had lost the TULF much support as militant separatism gained popularity. Although the politicians maintained close contact with the guerrillas, the former appeared to be more constrained by this relationship than the latter. In October 1986, in response to a Papal appeal, Colombo offered an unconditional truce. Press reports of LTTE and PLOTE encampments near Madras and Tiruchinapalli were unconvincingly denied by Delhi.50 By the end of 1986, Tamil armies began taking over some of the government’s administrative func¬ tions in Jaffna peninsula. The LTTE set up courts, the EPRLF issued stamps, running its own postal service, and the tiny Tamil Eelam Army (TEA) conducted lotteries to raise funds for ‘the struggle’.51 The LTTE leader Prabhakaran returned to Jaffna from Madras in the new year to take personal charge of this administration. When the Govern¬ ment choked off fuel supplies on 2 January 1987, transportation came to a standstill and food as well as fuel became scarce. Co-operatives set up by the LTTE prevented starvation but the danger was clear. National Security Minister Lalith Atulathmudali told the parliament: ‘It is only by militarily reducing the power of the Tigers that we can force them to their senses and get them to negotiate.’ 52 Early in February Delhi threatened to stop medi¬ ating if Colombo did not stop military operations and enforce the proposals made on 19 December 1985. Colombo insisted that its commitment to a political solution depended on the LTTE ceasing its operations first. The breach between the two neighbours was now at its widest53

236

THE FEARFUL STATE

Meanwhile, the LTTE broke away from the Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF) which it had formed with EPRLF, TELO and EROS in April 1985. Internal differences led to the demise of the ENLF; only EROS accepted the LTTE as the spearhead of Tamil separatism. Now, having undermined its competitors PLOTE, TELO and EPRLF in vicious internal fighting that killed almost 100, LTTE was confident it could bring pressure to bear on Colombo to make fundamental changes.54 LTTE leaders had no idelogical vision of the changes they sought, merely ‘economic factors — education, employment, our right to decide what we want to do’.55 It was as determined to sway all opposition, including Tamil opponents, to its goal of a separate Tamil state as the government was to prevent a partition of the island. EROS’s bombing of Colombo’s central bus station at Pettah on 21 April was the trigger for further violence in which at least 127 people were killed and more than 300 wounded. By attacking the very heartland of government, it challenged Colombo to take drastic action. Operation Liberation, a joint services offensive directed by Gen. Cyril Ranatunga, aimed to secure control of the Jaffna peninsula, arrest the LTTE com¬ mander (who had been offered $2.4m in aid by Tamil Nadu's Chief Minister, M G Ramachandran) and emphasise the futility of insurrection.56 The guerrillas had enforced a two-year blockade on Jaffna City and the peninsula.57 In the first week of the operation the army lost 32 killed and 204 wounded, at the same time killing 156 guerrillas and wounding or capturing 437. LTTE claimed that it had killed 70 troops in that week.58 It was only a matter of time before the separatists’ last bastion on the island fell.59 The guerrillas were being hard-pressed and, in India, pressure mounted on Rajiv Gandhi to ‘do something’. The Prime Minister accused Colombo of killing thousands of unarmed civilians, hinting that India could not stand aside for long. Colombo took senior diplomats and journalists on a tour of the combat zone, although the Indian and Soviet envoys stayed away. Both LTTE and EROS conceded that resistance would soon become militarily impractical. The impending success of Colombo's military efforts was gloomy news for India — a victory would persuade Colombo and Sinhala chauvinists that further compromise with treacherous Tamils was unnecessary. Moreover, pressures in Tamil Nadu could become unbearable especially if the densely-populated city of Jaffna was devastated, as was likely given LTTE’s determination to fight to the last. Equally, there was the need to assert its regional pre-eminence in a conflict where Indian interests seemed self-evident. The seven-year conflict had cost 6,000 lives and ‘Liberation’ added several hundred more.

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On 1 June, India announced that it would send a flotilla of 24 ships loaded with essential supplies to relieve the populace of Jaffna. Colombo replied it was ‘still in a position to feed its citizens’ and did not need ‘any outside assistance to deal with the Jaffna situation’. Two days later a convoy of 19 fishing boats was despatched from Rameswaram across the Palk Strait bearing 38 tons of provisions, journalists and Red Cross officials. Sri Lankan frigates turned it back.60 The following day Gandhi sent five Antonov-32 transports escorted by four Mirage 2000 fighters to paradrop 25 tons of supplies on Jaffna. Colombo was warned that the fighters would destroy all opposition. India imposed its writ as President Zail Singh announced: ‘India stands for the unity and integrity of Sri Lanka’, but might ‘have to consider measures to ensure the safety of the Tamils in the island’.61 Operation Liberation was ended on 10 June and 540 Tamil suspects released. As the Southern Command of Indian armed services concentrated forces and equipment in the peninsula, Indo-Sri lankan talks began on how to ship and distribute the promised 20,000 tons of provisions for Jaffna. Colombo released another 1,000 Tamil detainees. However, fighting began anew the following month in the North and East where the Special Task Force made painful progress. Gandhi per¬ suaded Jayewardene that Delhi would not countenance the partition of the island as demanded by the LTTE since this could set a dangerous precedent for India’s own territorial integrity; nor could it permit further militarisa¬ tion without suffering severe strains itself. It had to redirect Sinhala-Tamil interaction along political lines. Since Delhi had nurtured the guerrillas, Gandhi assured Jayewardene that the latter could be brought to the negotiating tables. If Colombo accepted Indian management of the talks, the guerrillas would be disarmed, by force if necessary. After this assur¬ ance, progress was rapid. On 24 July 1987, Colombo and Delhi anounced that an agreement had been reached and would shortly be formalised. Sinhala opposition to the humiliation of a settlement imposed by India and the compromise of sovereignty was immediate and massive. The accord was opposed, among others, by Prime Minister Premadasa, the Industry Minister Cyril Mathew, Agriculture Minister Gamini Jayasuriya and Rural Development Minister Irene Kannangara. Mrs Bandaranaike, her civil rights restored, went to the Sangha to discuss ways of scuppering the agreement Tamil militants were also ‘shocked’ by Delhi’s offer to reach an agreement with Colombo. On 24 July, the Indian Air Force flew Prabhakaran from Jaffna to Delhi. Despite the intervention of Tamil Nadu's Chief Minister (Ramachandran)

238

THE FEARFUL STATE

he remained recalcitrant until Gandhi personally assured the LTTE leader that Tamil interests were close to his heart. On 29 July, Gandhi flew to Colombo to sign the ‘Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement to Establish Peace and Normalcy in Sri Lanka’. The agreement provided for an end to hostilities throughout the island within 48 hours, and the lifting of emergency regulations from the North and East by 15 August if the militants surren¬ dered their weapons to ‘authorities designated by the Sri Lankan govern¬ ment’ within 72 hours of the cessation of war. Government forces were to be confined to barracks established prior to the launch of Operation Liberation on 26 May. Colombo would disband militias accused of attacking Tamils in Eastern province. India would ensure its territory was not used for actions ‘prejudicial to Sri Lanka’s unity and integrity’ and ‘afford military assistance’ to ensure implementation of the agreement if asked by Colombo. The two navies would co-operate in patrolling the Palk Strait to prevent the flow of men and materiel between guerrilla bases in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. The agreement also instituted Tamil and English as official languages along with Sinhala. The Northern and Eastern provinces were to be fused into one unit with an autonomous Provincial Council to be elected by 31 December 1987. The president would nominate the governor, but executive authority would be vested in the leader of the elected council, who would become the Chief Minister. Voters in the Eastern province could accept or reject this new arrangement in a referendum to be held by 31 December 1988. The President could delay the referendum if he judged postponement to be necessary. By undertaking to ‘guarantee’ these provisions, India became the ultimate arbiter of Sri Lankan politics. This was formalised in the letters exchanged by Gandhi and Jayewardene as annexes to the treaty. Colombo agreed not to employ security and intelligence personnel whose presence could ‘prejudice Indo-Sri Lankan relations’; it would not offer Trincomalee or any other port for military use to any country ‘in a manner prejudicial to India’s interests’; the restoration and operation of the Trincomalee oil tank farm would be an Indo-Sri Lankan joint venture, and Colombo would ensure that broadcasting or relay facilities granted to external agencies, such as the Voice of America, were not used for military or intelligence purposes. India promised to ‘deport all Sri Lankan citizens engaging in terrorist activities or advocating separatism or secessionism’, and provide equipment and training to Sri Lankan security forces. It was a high price, but Jayewardene saw it as the best set of terms he could obtain. The irony of Sri Lanka being allowed to disengage from counter-

TAMIL SEPARATISM

239

insurgency operations against Indian-armed-and-trained Tamils by In¬ dia’s offer to take this responsibility could not have escaped the President. The treaty was widely resented and Gandhi’s visit was marked by violent rioting by Sinhala mobs. Police opened fire and dropped tear gas from helicopters, killing 22 and wounding 120 during the visit.62 Gandhi was hit on the neck with a rifle butt during his inspection of a Sri Lankan honour guard. The guerrillas surrendered some arms but large quantities were held back. In the North and the East, an Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF) drawn from the 4th, 36th and 54th Infantry Divisions and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) took over from the Sri Lankan army. The IPKF was intended to protect Tamils in these areas and restore their faith in the state. However, once the limited surrender of arms ended, LTTE intransigence resurfaced. The JVP raid on the Cabinet in session on 18 August was remarkable. The president escaped but colleagues were injured and one died. The JVP also attacked the Colombo headquarters of the Communist Party and the LSSP (both Marxist parties had supported the treaty). Political murders in the South mounted with 17 UNP men killed between 15 September and 15 October. Jayewardene lamented: ‘My ministers, my candidates, my MPs, the whole party is rocked by that. They are in fear of their lives. A few more deaths, and my party will break up ... I can’t deal with it in a democratic way.’ 63 The UNP accused the SLFP of trying to gain political mileage by sup¬ porting the JVP. Anura Bandaranaike, Srimavo’s son and heir-apparent, retorted that his party did not encourage violence. The UNP was stung by its failure to bring the JVP into open politics. Having changed from a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary organisation to one representing Sinhala nationalism opposed to Indian hegemony, the JVP resented the treaty’s failure to disarm the Tamils. It urged a Sinhala rebellion against the Indian ‘army of occupation’, and against the UNP. Late in October 1987, the IPKF launched Operation Pawan to capture Jaffna city from the 2,500-strong LTTE. It laid siege to the city for 16 days, sustaining 214 losses, including two colonels, and 700 wounded, with 36 missing, presumably captured and then killed by the LTTE.64 Unofficial reports suggested the LTTE killed 400 Indian soldiers. Eventually, the LTTE disappeared into the swampy jungles of the North-east, and the IPKF took control of Jaffna, capturing only 80 guerrillas. The IPKP commander, Gen. Harkirat Singh, unable to fulfil his remit, was relieved by his deputy Gen. Kalkat. Delhi had been convinced that the LTTE was a foe deserving of greater respect.

240

THE FEARFUL STATE

By early 1988, IPKF strength was increased to 50,000 men. Operations were costing 30 million rupees a day with no end in sight.65 In Tamil Nadu, DMK politicians now had a stick with which to beat Delhi and its AIADMK allies. In Sri Lanka, none of the initial clauses of the treaty (lifting of the emergency, disarming guerrillas and provincial elections) could be implemented. By the end of January 1988, the IPKF had lost 350 men with civilian and LTTE casualties exceeding 1,000. When it became clear that the LTTE would not give in, Gandhi extracted certain promises from Colombo as a quid pro quo for military operations by Delhi against its former ‘favourite’. They were that polls be held to elect a new president of Sri Lanka, and, once the IPKF had neutralised the LTTE, elections be held to the new Provincial Council for the united North-Eastern province. President Jayewardene not only agreed, but with Gandhi’s persuasion, declared that he would not run for re-election. Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa, an opponent of the Indo-Sri Lankan treaty, and the first Sinhala politician of modest origins to rise to high office, took on Jayewardene’s mantle. Mrs Bandaranaike announced her own candidacy on behalf of the SLFP and left-of-centre parties allied with the clergy. Ossie Abeygoonesekera, leader of the tiny United Social¬ ist Alliance was the third candidate. A month before the presidential polls, the IPKF arranged elections to the new 71-seat North-East Provincial As¬ sembly. Although the LTTE and JVP had threatened to kill voters, 60 per cent of the 700,000 voters turned out. During 1987-88, RAW operatives had secretly negotiated with the LTTE but when it became clear that the Tigers would not make conces¬ sions, RAW and the IPKF were ordered to support the more malleable EPRLF and Eelam National Democratic Liberation Front (ENDLF), groups that had agreed, under Indian protection, to leave their weapons and participate in the polls.66 The IPKF managed Operation Mahan Kartavya or the Great Task in the manner of a tactical manoeuvre. The new NorthEastern province had four electoral districts — Jaffna, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Amparai. In Jaffna the EPRLF-ENDLF combine won all thirty-six seats unopposed. In ‘Trinco’, the EPRLF won five seats, while the newly-vocal Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) captured the remain¬ ing five. In Batticaloa the EPRLF won eight to the SLMC’s three; in Amparai SLMC took nine seats, EPRLF four and the remaining seat went to the Assembly’s sole UNP member.67 With a total of fifty-three seats, EPRLF-ENDLF to the SLMC’s seventeen, the EPRLF leader A Vardaraj Perumal was sworn in as the provincial Chief Minister.

TAMIL SEPARATISM

241

This was followed by the election to the national presidency of Ranasinghe Premadasa, who confirmed the results of the provincial elec¬ tions and sought the ending of the emergency. Having promised to revoke the Indo-Sri Lankan agreement and send back the IPKF, Premadasa demanded that the treaty be modified to reflect Sri Lankan sensitivities. Jayewardene had made such an appeal in January 1988, but Gandhi rebuffed him.68 However, the LTTE’s role reversal transformed the nature of Indian involvement. Responding to Colombo’s request for a more equal treaty of friendship and co-operation, Delhi made a token withdrawal of around 2,500 troops soon after Premadasa was sworn in. However, the LTTE remained unpredictable. Estimates of LTTE ranks varied from several thousand to more than 10,000. The dedication of their fighters was underlined when seventeen captured LTTE men chose to take cyanide pills rather than face interrogation by the IPKF. Ruthless in combat, they burned captured Indian soldiers rather than waste ammuni¬ tion. Despite the Indian blockade, the Tigers smuggled in arms and ammunition, including surface-to-air missiles that could pose a major threat to IPKF control of the air. The irony could not have been lost on Delhi since Indian instructors were training LTTE guerrillas in the use of anti-aircraft weaponry at the time of Operation Liberation in May 1987. There were also rumours that the CIA was supplying sophisticated arms to the guerrillas. It was felt that as Gandhi had pre-empted US leasing pros¬ pects in Trincomalee, Washington would be happy to see India’s Sri Lankan adventure turn into a mini-Vietnam.69 By the middle of October 1988, the IPKF had lost well over 600 men to the Tigers.70 After the DMK victory in Tamil Nadu’s state elections in January 1989, LTTE attacks on the IPKF intensified. V P Singh’s government must have been pleased to complete the withdrawal of Indian forces without a complete loss of face.

Prospects THE EPRLF government of the North-Eastern province and its IPKFraised Tamil National Army (TNA) militia collapsed with the withdrawal of Indian forces. The Indian presence fuelled support for the JVP, which killed more than 700 UNP members, policemen, soldiers and local offi¬ cials.71 It took Colombo until the end of 1989, using draconian powers, to destroy the JVP’s leadership.72 Both the Tigers and the Premadasa govern¬ ment saw the removal of Indian troops as their first objective. Their reasons differed, but the tactical advantages to be gained encouraged them

242

THE FEARFUL STATE

to press for the IPKF’s withdrawal. Later, the LTTE eliminated all local opposition to its position as sole representative of Tamil interests. The LTTE showed its political maturity in the February 1989 general elections, the first in twelve years. The island was divided into twenty-two electoral districts. In each, the nine contending parties73 would gain seats in proportion to the votes polled. On the basis of population, the twentytwo districts were allocated a total of 196 seats. This left the 225-seat National Assembly another 29 seats to be shared by the parties in propor¬ tion to the votes polled. Premadasa was elected president with only 27 per cent of the electorate supporting him. In the campaign that followed his victory, more than 1,000 people were killed in election-related violence.74 None the less, the completion of presidential and parliamentary elec¬ tions offered hopes that the island was set on the path to democratic normality. But continuing LTTE violence in the North and an equally bloody campaign by the JVP in the South suggested that elections could no longer heal the divisions in Sri Lankan society. Neither Colombo nor Delhi could resolve the issues their policies had brought about. In a dramatic reversal of roles in the summer of 1989, Premadasa struck a deal with the LTTE and asked that the IPKF be withdrawn by 29 July. Rajiv Gandhi, faced with elections later in the year, was in no position to concede. But he had to agree to a withdrawal date in the spring of 1990. That schedule was kept, but Colombo’s efforts to disarm the LTTE failed, leaving the potential for conflict. That is how the island that had given the word ‘serendipity’ to the English language entered the 1990s. The Tigers took over the North-Eastern province, eliminated the TULF, and engaged Colombo in negotiations. But they refused to surrender their arms. Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination by a Tamil suicide-bomber underscored the diffi¬ culty of resolving the dispute. The government, recognising its limita¬ tions, may become reconciled to a federal arrangement in which the L ITE rules the ‘Tamil homeland’ within the Sri Lankan framework. Should that be the case, the past two decades of violence may not have been in vain.

Notes 1. This relatively recent development manifested itself during the campaign prior to the Provincial Council polls for the newly-formed North-Eastern province in November 1988. The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress fought and won 17 seats in elections in the former Eastern province. The SLMC leader M H Asroff cam¬ paigned on a platform demanding the creation of a separate council for Muslim areas. See Prabhu Chawla in India Today, Delhi, 15 December 1988, p. 52

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SEPARATISM

243

2. Population and related figures have been taken from Dept of Census and Statistics, Census of Sri Lanka 1981, Colombo, Government of Sri Lanka, 1984; and Central Bank of Ceylon, Economic and Social Statistics of Sri Lanka, Kelaniya, Vidyalankara Privena Press, 1981, p. 12. 3. Religious divisions also reflect the ethno-linguistic fissures. In 1981 Buddhists accounted for 10.29 million (69.31%); Hindus 2.29 million (15.46%); Muslims totalled 1.13 million (7.64%) and Christians were a close fourth with 1.11 million (7.49%). The remaining 15,300 (0.10%) islanders followed other faiths. 4. For these conflicting interpretations of history, see Walter Schwarz, The Tamils of Sri Lanka, London, Minority Rights Group, 1986, p. 5; ‘History of Ceylon’ in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropaedia, 1978, vol. 4, p. 1; E M Thornton and R Niththyanathan, Sri Lanka: Island of Terror, North Wembley, Eelam Research Organisation, 1984, pp. 7-8. 5. The Ceylon Information Department, precursor of the Ministry of Information felt obliged to publish an ‘official’ version of The Mahavamsa in 1950. No comparable Tamil literature received government patronage. 6. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropaedia, vol. 4, 1978, p. 1. 7. In Bengal, Pali underwent another transformation and generated Prakrit which is accepted to be the immediate precursor of the Bengali language. In Sri Lanka, Pali itself evolved into the Sinhalese language. Despite this differentiation, the two languages show striking similarities. 1716 most remarkable instances are provided by Sinhala names which can be traced to their north-Indian origins. 8. Ceylon Information Department, The Mahavamsa, Colombo, The Government of Ceylon, 1950, p. 175. 9. Penelope Willis, ‘The Tamils: Recent Events in Sri Lanka’, Asian Affairs, London, vol. xviii, part II, June 1987, pp. 176-177. 10. Kumari Jayawardena, ‘Class Formation and Communalism’, in A Sivanandan (ed.) Sri Lanka: Racism and the Authoritarian State, London, Institute of Race Relations, Race & Class, vol. xxvi, no. 1, summer 1984, p. 51. 11. Jayawardena, op. cit., p. 53. 12. Walter Schwarz, The Tamils of Sri Lanka, op. cit., p. 6. 13. P V Jayasekara, ‘Social and Political Change in Ceylon - 1900-1919’, PhD thesis. University of London, 1970, pp. 103-107. 14. Anagarika Dharmapala, ‘History of an ancient civilisation’ in A Guruge (ed.) Return to Righteousness, Colombo 1965, cited in Jayawardena, op. cit., p. 61. 15. Britannica, op. cit., p. 9. 16. The DMK, a south Indian Tamil nationalist organisation, set up office in Jaffna in 1947, and began demanding a separate political identity for all the Tamils of the subcontinent. 17. The Manchester Guardian, 31 December 1947. 18. In 1925, the Anglicised Bandaranaike had to apologise for his inability to speak Sinhalese. Soon afterwards, he not only mastered the language, but also renounced his Christianity, returning to the Buddhist fold. It was an astute move. 19. For a detailed study of the impact of education on Sri Lankan politics, see Donald Stephen Fitzgerald, ‘Politics, Education and Political Instability in Cey¬ lon (Sri Lanka)’, PhD thesis, Indiana University, 1975.

244

THE FEARFUL STATE

20. Schwarz, op. cit., p. 7. 21. A Sivanandan, ‘Sri Lanka: Racism and the Politics of Underdevelopment’, in Sivanandan (ed.), Sri Lanka: Racism and the Authoritarian State, London, Institute of Race Relations, vol. xxvi, no. 1, summer 1984, pp. 21-22; Rene Dumont report in the Le Nouvel Observateur, 23 May 1971; Penelope Tremayne,‘Sri Lanka: Chronology of a Conflict’, in Rusi & Brassey's Defence Yearbook 1987, London, Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, 1987, p. 395. 22. This optimism was not unrealistic. The 1962 debacle had shaken India out of its moralist stance over real-politik imperatives of usable power; the 1965 IndoPakistani war over Kashmir had deepened Indian insecurities. Its support for Bengali nationalists in 1970-71 was aimed at weakening antagonists. 23. The policy ideas of Kautilya, or Chanakya, have guided Indian political thought for two milennia. Chanakya, Arthashastra (tr. R Shamashastry, vol. vi, p. 2, and vol. vii, p. 1) Wesleyan Mission, Mysore, 1923. See also chapter 1. 24. Ceylon University, University of Ceylon Review, vol. xxiii, Colombo, p. 147. 25. C R de Silva, ‘Weightage in University Admissions’, Colombo, Ceylon Stud¬ ies Seminar, series 2, 1975. 26. de Silva, ibid. 27. In private discussions with the author, Indian diplomats have conceded the great imbalance in governmental employment between the two communities that existed in the colonial system and acknowledged that in an independent Sri Lanka only the majority-dominated democratically elected government was likely to reverse that imbalance. Their major objection appears to be the haste with which Colombo has pursued positive discrimination, thereby releasing passions which the system could not absorb or contain. 28. Schwarz, op. cit., p. 10. 29. See, eg, Martin Wollacott in the Guardian, London, 27 August 1977. 30. See Schwarz, op. cit., p. 11; Thornton and Niththyanathan, op. cit., pp. 30-33. 31. J R Jayewardene was quoted as saying: ‘I'm not concerned by separatism, but I'm concerned that some of the (Tamil) speeches might arouse the Sinhalese.’ The International Herald Tribune, 11 May 1979. 32. Non-Congress State administrations eg, in Punjab, West Bengal and Tripura were also subjected to similar machinations. 33. See Francis Wheen’s report in the New Statesman, 17 July 1981. 34. Brian Eads in the Observer, London, 20 September 1981. 35. For a detailed account, see David Selboume, ‘Sinhalese Lions and Tamil Tigers’, the Illustrated Weekly of India, Bombay, 17 October 1982. 36. Public statement in Ceylon Daily News, Colombo, 4 March 1983. 37. Thornton and Niththyanathan, op. cit., pp. 48-49. 38. David Selboume in the Guardian, 7 July 1983. 39. For a reasonably detached account by a Tamil of the violence, see, ‘Sri Lanka’s Week of Shame: An Eyewitness Account’, in Sivanandan (ed.), pp. 39-50. 40. N Sanmugathasan, ‘Sri Lanka: The Story of the Holocaust’ in Sivanandan (ed.), pp. 68-69; Schwarz citing Tamil sources, p. 12. 41. L Piyadasa, The Holocaust and After, London, Marram Books, 1985, p. 71.

TAMIL

SEPARATISM

245

42. India Today, New Delhi, 15 September 1983. 43. One of the most detailed reports of large numbers of guerrillas being recruited from among refugees, taken away to the secret camps in the Tamil Nadu countryside, armed and trained by RAW operatives in an operation that was supported by both the AIADMK administration in Madras and the DMK opposi¬ tion, was published in India Today, 31 March 1984. It stirred storms of protests in both Colombo and Delhi. Sri Lankans feared this hostile intervention in their domestic affairs and resented their inability to do anything about it or even elicit overseas support to their cause; Indian politicians, including several MPs who picketed parliament in Delhi and burnt copies of the offending edition, felt the Government was not doing enough to help their brethren across the Palk Strait and the disclosures by India Today constituted a propaganda campaign against the little it was doing and demanded stem measures. 44. Bruce Matthews, ‘Devolution of Power in Sri Lanka’, The Round Table, London, Butterworth, 1987, pp. 78-79. 45. In discussions with the author, Indian diplomats have repeatedly expressed the belief that the preservation of the Sri Lankan state in basically its present form may be as important to India as it is to Sri Lanka. They fear a division of the island along communal lines, with Indian assistance, could set a dangerous precedent for Indian minorities, not least the Tamils in Tamil Nadu. Interviews in London 1988. 46. These statements are found in Government of Sri Lanka, Address to Parlia¬ ment by the President on 20 February 1986, Colombo, Government Press, 1986. 47. Lanka Guardian, Colombo, 1 May 1986. 48. The rate of growth in Sri Lanka’s defence expenditure has been spectacular in the 1980s reflecting the increasing reliance Colombo has come to place on force in managing its domestic and regional security affairs. This table (in million US $s) shows the scale of the increase: Year

Defence Expenditure

Year

Defence Expenditure

1982

67.27

1983

76.50

1984

102.21

1985

131.37

1986

571.08

1987

615.28

Source: EISS, The Military Balance (1984-85, 1985-86, 1987-88). 49. Keesing's Contemporary Archives, pp. 33586; 34880. 50. The Sri Lankan press has avidly reported Indian involvement in the Tamil in¬ surrection over the years. For the general view of India s role in this conflict and what this means in terms of regional co-operation, see V Yappa’s comments in Sridhar, K Khatri (ed.) Regional Security in South Asia, Kathmandu, Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies, Tribhuvan University, 1987, pp. 167-174. 51. For an account of events during this period, see Keesing's Contemporary Archives, vol. xxxii, pp. 34358-34362. 52. Lalith Atulathmudali in ‘Jaffna feels the pinch’, Asiaweek, 8 February 1987. 53. Keesing’s, vol. xxxiii, p. 35313. 54. Figure was a government estimate. Henry W Degenhardt (ed.) Revolutionary and Dissident Movements, Harlow, Essex; Longman, 1988, pp. 348-349.

246

THE FEARFUL STATE

55. Sathasivam Krishnakumar alias ‘Major Kiddu’, Jaffna commander of the LTTE in an interview in Asiaweek, 8 February 1987. 56. See ‘Showdown in Jaffna’, Asiaweek, 14 June 1987, pp. 15-21. 57. See ‘Bearing the blockade’, India Today, 15 February 1987, pp. 24-27. 58. ‘The Generals lay a Trap’, Asiaweek, 14 June 1987, p. 21. 59. ‘The final battle’, India Today, 15 June 1987, p. 57. 60. For details of the abortive relief convoy and subsequent Operation Flower Garden, the latter succesfully mounted by the Indian Air Force, see Salamat Ali, ‘Trespass from the air’ and ‘The unarmed intervention’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 18 June 1987, pp. 10-11. 61. Gyani Zail Singh quoted in Penelope Tremayne, op. cit., p. 428. 62. ‘Pact offers the Tamils more autonomy’, the Times, London, 30 July 1987. 63. J R Jayewardene quoted in ‘Terrorists in the south’. Far Eastern Economic Review, 12 November 1987, p. 22. 64. ‘A bloodied accord’, India Today, 15 November 1987, p. 15. 65. India Today, 15 November 1987, p. 20. 66. Like many other Tamil guerrilla groups, ENDLF was the product of internal fission. Breakaway factions of the EPRLF and PLOTE merged in May 1987 to form the ENDLF. The Front vowed to work towards building a base for the establishment of an ‘Eelam People’s National Democratic Republic’ and a ‘Tamil national army’, Degenhardt (ed.), p. 348. 67. ‘A vote for peace’, India Today, 15 December 1988, pp. 50-52. 68. The Guardian, London, 25 January 1988. 69. Chris Nuttal in Colombo to the BBC World Service, 3 August 1988. 70. Edward Gorman, the Times, London, 22 October 1988. 71. James Manor, ‘Annual Review on Sri Lanka’, BBC World Service, RE3, 29 December 1988. 72. An account of the events of the last years of the 1980s appear in the Strategic Survey 1989-1990, London, 1990, pp. 176-8. 73. The ruling United National Party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, the United Socialist Alliance, the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna, the Sri Lanka Muslim Con¬ gress, the Tamil Congress, the Tamil United Liberation Front, the Eksath Lanka Janatha Peramuna and the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam. One group of independents who captured nine seats, eight them in Jaffna penin-sula, was subsequently identified as the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students closely allied to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The LTTE had, however, urged a boycott of the elections as had the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, though for very different reasons. 74. Roland Edirisinghe’s despatch from Colombo to BBC World Service on 15 February 1989.

Chapter 7 LESSONS TO BE LEARNED NEARLY half a century after gaining independence. South Asia is still in a state of perennial crisis. The region has failed to manage the problems of nation-state building, wealth generation and distributive justice. This book has dealt with only some aspects of the complex set of issues confronting regional leaders. Each state has faced its own challenges with varying degrees of success, although they have all failed to manage peacefully the process of change in a heterogenous milieu. Pakistan has broken up, and the residual Pakistani state continues to show strains. Sri Lanka’s internal warfare waxes and wanes, but its economy has been wrecked and its political future is at best uncertain. India is in ferment too; while montagnard rebellion in the fringes has been contained, conflict in Punjab has brought the threat of disorder close to the centre. The insurrection in Jammu and Kashmir challenges the secular order and has the potential to effect a violent transformation of the subcon¬ tinent. In Bangladesh, the struggle for legitimacy is complicated by the continuing search for a national identity. As contending groups vie for dominance, the validity of the claims of montagnard minorities is quietly brushed aside. The region has manifestly failed to settle down and the destructive character of its political dynamic is unchanged. Central authorities continue to view centralisation as the most reliable modus operandi in their endeavour to create nation-states where only states exist. Federal management of multi-cultural, indeed multi-national, polities is a conceptual objective more honoured in its breach. Given the mutually exclusive principles on which states are founded, and the con¬ trived nature of their frontiers, 61ite insecurity is understandable. Rulers have viewed challenges to their own authority as threats to the state; they have also responded to challenges with coercion rather than compromise. The absolutist view of the struggle between incumbents and opposition, and the absence historically of any mediatory tradition has produced an environment of conflict. Violence has thus become the currency of political transactions. There are few signs that central authorities have learnt from the past. None of

248

THE FEARFUL STATE

the actors has found it easy to subordinate its own beliefs voluntarily and accommodate dissenting views. This is why it is difficult to be optimistic about the future.

However, there are a few indications of political maturity not seen until recently. In Pakistan, following the somewhat mysterious air crash in which General Zia and several of his senior military aides were killed, the army restored multi-party democracy. Wielding power from the wings, it allowed Benazir Bhutto’s minority government to take over at the centre. The frayed fabric of domestic consensus, the subnational conflict racking Sind, a weakened economy, declining US interest, growth of a drugs-andKalashnikov culture — the combination was a prescription for anarchy. And yet, parliamentary procedures continued to guide the major political parties as they vied for power and influence. The centre demonstrated greater sensitivity toward the Baluch than in the past. Horse-trading, mudslinging and vote-buying were evident, but that being the nature of the beast, the beginnings of a tradition could be discerned in faint outline. As Pakistan entered the 1990s, the question was whether the structure would hold, and for how long. The dismissal of Benazir Bhutto’s government was an indication of the difficulties that the country, after decades of rule by the military, was facing in its efforts to establish functioning democratic institutions. In India, the hopes raised by V P Singh’s National Front coalition swept the Gandhi-Nehru dynasty out of power. The new Janata Dal hoped to be in charge longer than its 1977 predecessor but, soon after power changed hands, events in Kashmir and Haryana demonstrated the severity of the challenges any government in Delhi would have to face. Coming to terms with the pluralist nature of society is difficult for any elite group used to power in a unitary framework. In the vast smorgasbord called the Indian Union, these difficulties are particularly acute. The elections that led to the overthrowing of Congress (I) both at the centre and in most states, were the most violent in Indian history. Returning officers had their arms chopped off; voters were sent scampering before men firing indiscriminate bursts with automatic rifles; rival politicians and their supporters were stabbed to death. And although Delhi killed off the Ayodhya Mandir-Masjid issue, its dependence on the resurgent Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) circumscribed its secular credentials. Its handling of the Kashmiri insurrection was inept. However, given the nature of that dispute, and the fact that this time around the uprising was rooted in mass disillusionment, Delhi had few options.

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED

249

The Kashmiri revolt showed up the contradictions of the Indian Union. Growing as a military power with regional aspirations that concentrated neighbouring minds, India remained a ‘soft’ state within its own frontiers. Its policy of centrist, secular moderation was under constant pressure from extremist lobbies. V P Singh’s dependence on the BJP and the CPI (M), and his successor, Chandrasekhar’s, on Congress, underscored the fragility of domestic consensus. It was small wonder that Rajiv Gandhi soon became Prime Minister again, only to be assassinated. The fact that Congress leaders had conceded partition on the basis of religion, diminished the vitality of the state culture. The arguments must be that, if Muslims of South Asia could have a separate state simply because they were not Hindus, why should India not be a Hindu state? If Pakistan’s legitimacy was conceded, why not that of a ‘Khalistan’ for the Sikhs? And why should the Kashmiris not be allowed to join Pakistan if they so wished? And what could the 100 million-odd non-Kashmiri Indian Muslims do to secure access to equal opportunity? The Indian state as it is organised cannot address these questions without making assertions that invalidate Pakistan’s raison d’etre. The difficulty is that the two countries are bound in a philosophical duel and many of their actions must be guided by the unreason of a desperate struggle to prove that each is somehow more ‘legitimate’ than the other, making the line between domestic politics and regional diplomacy very fine indeed. Bangladesh also suffers from the malaise. The nationalists who spear¬ headed the autonomist-separatist struggle rejected Pakistan’s two-nation justification. They saw their links with Islamabad as an irrational, neo¬ colonial bondage. Their interpretation of national identity was based on ethno-cultural premises that rejected the role of religion as a political cement. Their success came, when it did, not because their assumptions were more accurate than those permeating the Pakistani elite-culture but because their strategic alliance with Delhi and Moscow gave them an advantage Islamabad was unable to match. Their victory did not, however, resolve the question of national identity. Bangladeshis could not counte¬ nance the two-nation theory. The difficulty was that their ethno-cultural nationalism must reasonably be expected to encompass the whole of Bengal, and all the Bengalis, rather than just the Muslim members in eastern Bengal. After all, the nationalists had rejected the basis on which Bengal, and India generally, had been partitioned in 1947. But that rational, pan-Bengal ideal would threaten the integrity of the Indian Union, the principal patron of the nationalists.

250

THE FEARFUL STATE

Both sides found it convenient to fudge the issue by limiting the range of Bengali nationalism to East Bengal only. It worked for a time. But the irrationality of one partition, that of India in 1947, could not rationalise another, that of Bengal. And, so, the Bangladeshi state had to devise a cloak to cover its nudity. Ironically, its only option was to revert to an Islamic element of its identity that alone could be construed to explain its separate existence from the rest of Bengal in particular, and from the rest of India more generally. Islam became a significant aspect of politics as Dhaka restored religion’s constitutional status. Domestic challenges to central authorities also forced successive military governments to encour¬ age the renascence of the religious right as a counterpoise to the radical left. Within two decades of demolishing the two-nation theory, Bangla¬ desh appeared as an Islamic state. Although 61ite insecurity contributed to this transformation, the fact that Bengali nationalism would not be al¬ lowed to mature by ‘Indian nationalists’ was, and remains, an inescapable fact. Unless the borders are redrawn all over South Asia, Bangladesh cannot but be a Muslim state. This was best illustrated by the Islamic ardour of public personalities who felt they must not damage popular religious sensibilities. The growing co-operation between Bangladeshi and Pakistani military elites, presumably slanted against their common adversary India, was another indication of role reversal. This is bound to generate tensions within and between the states, but no politician can challenge the status quo and hope to survive. However, the margins for manoeuve are narrow; Delhi and Dhaka have shown that, given the political will, they can work out a modus vivendi. The movement toward a permanent water-sharing arrangement and the Indian Supreme Court’s award to Bangladesh, in perpetuity, of the lease of the Tinbigha corridor in accordance with a 1974 treaty, suggested that both countries were grasping whatever opportunities there were. But prospects for the establishment of ‘normal’ relations do not look bright. Temporary gains can be, and indeed have been, made; but the essential discord between India and Pakistan, and between Bangladesh and India, cannot be removed by the use of artifice. Profound discontinuities demand profound responses, something that the regional genius has failed to offer. The smaller states have not fared much better. In Sri Lanka, the government and the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) failed to resolve their differences over the constitution. The former demanded that the Tamil Tigers lay down their arms; the latter insisted that the 6th Amendment to the constitution be revoked first. None the less, for much

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED

251

of 1990, they held talks. But, in the end, the Tigers returned to the bush to resume warfare. In neighbouring Burma, the people forced the flight of the dictator and the collapse of his one-party structure. The army was constrained to hold elections in which the masses voted the largest opposition party, the National League for Democracy, to a landslide victory. But the military refused to transfer power to the elected representatives. Only in Nepal has a popular uprising forced the monarch to concede power to the largest opposition grouping. Nepal thus moved, inside a few short weeks, from a state of autocratic feudalism to a democratic, pluralist milieu, although how permanently remains to be seen. In Bangladesh, the fall from power of General Ershad brought renewed hope to that country. Meanwhile, the international scene has been transformed. Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies have laid to rest the Cold War, and the Soviet Union itself has disappeared. Great-power confrontation may have given way to a more multi-polar and less threatening architecture of global relations. Regional leaders can no longer count on a superpower face-off on regional issues. Now, each region must work out its own arrangements to place the political forces in equilibrium. There are domestic pressures for a move in that direction. The populace is increasingly impatient with governments that are unable to meet their everyday economic and social needs. Given an opportunity, they will rise to effect changes at the centre. Electoral and popular rejection of the old order throughout South Asia testifies to that assertion. The difficulty lies in the ability, or lack of it, of the newly empowered authorities to meet expectations heightened by protracted and often painful campaigning. There is growing recognition of the significance, indeed of the virtues and richness, of human diversity. Homogenisation negates man’s natural, cultural instincts and imposes on others a set of values on the assumption that the powerful are also superior. The unique position of each segment of society deserves respect and protection. Changes that occur naturally are the only ones likely to last in peace. The right of indigenous and other minorities to differ from the ‘mainstream’ needs to be recognised. Forcing the pace of assimilation has not led to the intended results. South Asia is an example of the failure of integrationist policies. Hope for endangered minorities and neglected, impoverished majorities lies in grassroots mobilisation to effect changes. After decades of governmental planning and coercive imposition there are few signs that top-down development strategies work. Failure to

252

THE FEARFUL STATE

eliminate mass poverty among majorities and minorities alike must cast doubts on the effectiveness and legitimacy of the existing state structure. Politics being inseparable from economics, mass involvement is essential to the tackling of inequalities. This is one feature that binds the region together. It is time perhaps for South Asian politicians to take stock of thenposition after a half century of conflict between the centre and periphery. They could draw lessons from a review of their failures and occasional successes. The following is a selection: 1. States that ride roughshod over local sensibilities eventually have to pay a heavy price for having done so. The costs may make the short-term gains appear puny. East Pakistan’s secession was a spectacular instance of the hazards of political myopia. 2. Internal warfare and challenges to the central authorities may well pose threats to the state’s territorial integrity; but often the roots of such challenges lie in the contrived nature of the state itself. Generally, the threats are not the product of local aspirations. They tend to arise out of local reaction to the centre’s heavy-handed imposition of uniformity on diverse communities in the first instance, and the violent repression of sub¬ sequent local dissent. It is the dominant Elite’s own goals and behaviour that threaten to bring about disintegration. 3. The blind emulation of the unitary, nation-state paradigm by elites steeped in alien concepts has weakened the rulers’ ability to handle diversity within society and manage the processes of transition without disrupting domestic order. The development of democratic institutions has faltered in an environment characterised by strife and instability. 4. South Asian societies are transitional composites with variegated elements adopting and adapting to new ideas, methods and technologies at different rates. The attitudinal consensus necessary for building norms and value systems remains elusive. Feudal landlords and holy men compete for the loyalty of rural masses; technocrats with a grasp of sophisticated theories contend with politicians; Mach-2 fighter pilots kneel and seek blessings of pirs and gurus. The challenges faced by the Elites in thenefforts to impose a definable structure are far more complex than those in settled societies, where there are stable patterns of expectations. Given the complexity, mediocrity is a threat to national security. 5. Disruption caused by mismanagement of nation-building efforts results in negative consequences in the field of development as well. The areas tom apart by conflict suffer from severe dislocations in terms of human and material costs since containment of the challenges to the centre

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED

253

takes precedence over everything. There are national costs too. Resources are inevitably drawn away from social and developmental goals to strengthen the armed forces, which become relatively independent of the political process. On occasion, a self-important military will assume its corporate interest is the only one that matters, and take control of the state it is intended to defend. Pakistan and Bangladesh fall into this category. In other cases, where multi-party democracy has put down roots, security issues may earn the armed forces a greater say in policy-making and resource allocation than is healthy, as in India and Sri Lanka. There is a way out. Societies and their leaders have to revise their view of national ideology and objectives by defining rationally the ends of statehood. This can only be done if the inadequacies of the status quo are appreciated. Change will only occur when a sufficiently large number of people see it as both necessary and possible. A revision of the concept of national identity, and of the purpose of the state, would open the way for radical restructuring of the region. It is not necessary to demolish existing borders, but their purpose and the nature of relationships across these, could be redefined. The regional must be given precedence over the national. In multi-cultural polities such as those in South Asia, the national is often defined by the prejudices of the dominant group. This is a major affliction. In India, the Hindi-speaking populace of the Gangetic plains has taken control. In Pakistan, power tends to lie in Punjab. The BengaliMuslim majority in Bangladesh has virtually marginalised all minority communities. In Sri Lanka, the Sinhala reign supreme. It is the tensions generated by such regional and sectarian/communal concentration of power in a highly competitive environment that threatens stability. The removal of the sources of tension will demand political and psychological engineering of massive proportions. But it is not impossible and there is a recent precedent. The original anti-colonial movement that galvanised the subcontinent after the First World War was a regional challenge to alien imposition. That movement embraced diverse social classes, although leadership lay in the hands of a particular group. In the inter-war period, before Muslim separatism nurtured by colonial rulers came into its own, pan-Indian nationalism embraced diverse religious views. Anti-colonial nationalism absorbed within its fold myriad social systems whose specifics had been sharpened by the British divide et impera policy. It was only when the panIndian nationalist movement gained momentum and the Elites ascribed sectarian images to give it mass appeal, that differences appeared. In

254

THE FEARFUL STATE

August 1947, this may have made partition of the empire into two hostile successor states unavoidable, but that inevitability was not an historical absolute. Nor is it necessary to maintain the artificial fissures which only benefit tiny 61ite groups in each state, and have done nothing in half a century for the vast majority of South Asians to justify continuation. If change is desired, then physical and psychological change has to be substantial — half measures have not worked, and will not do. Changes at two levels recommend themselves. Within each state, the elites need to accept the strength that can come from diversity. This will be evident when notions of majoritarian mainstreams and unitary nation¬ states are seen as concepts whose usefulness has passed. States need to develop a looser, more confederal character, which holds the polity together because the components desire a voluntary union, not because dominant groups believe it is in their interest to do so. Elites need to appreciate that it is both possible and advantageous to reconcile greater economic unity in some respects at the national-state level with greater pluralism and devolution at regional and local levels. Central authorities need to view local democratic institutions that genuinely express the interests, concerns and perspectives of local communities as essential components of the polity, and not as threats. More significantly, dominant groups need to build up the political motivation and constituency for preventing majoritarian factions from solving their own economic and demographic problems by physically encroaching on land and other resources that have traditionally been the preserve of weaker segments of the population. These measures will weaken the perceived authority of the centre but, by removing major sources of dissent, strengthen the state. What the Elites need to do at the state level must be replicated at the regional level. A looser, confederal structure can work but only if the sub¬ system develops a similar feature in which co-operative linkages replace conflictual ones. At present, separation on the bases of two mutually exclusive, indeed totally contradictory, founding principles pits Pakistan and Bangladesh against India. This makes it difficult for all three to avoid the Kautilyan principle of ‘my neighbour is my enemy, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. Physical and psychological frontiers being porous, domestic dissent in one state easily becomes the vehicle for a proxy war sponsored by another. Contradictions in their raisons d’etre force each state to attempt to subvert the integrity of the other. The zero sum nature of the interaction will not be altered unless the inconsistencies

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED

255

of partition are recognised. This demands vision and sacrifice. Elites in all successor states have profited from the current set of political and economic relations that divide South Asia and the regional states. It will not be easy for them to accept the need to change the status quo. However, the subcontinent's history is replete with instances that point to the way ahead. After the establishment of the first regional empire by Chandragupta Maurya about 520 bc, great Lord Paramounts (known as Chakravartins) held the subcontinent together by allowing regional and local interests to express themselves fully within the imperial framework. Stability in diversity allowed the state to generate and accumulate the wealth that earned India its fabulous riches. Empire-builders like Asoka and Akbar left lasting monuments only by combining diplomatic finesse with prowess. Even the British united the subcontinent under its raj by accepting the diversity of the empire. Whenever the centre ignored the plurality of the polity and imposed the stamp of uniformity, unbearable strains tore the empire asunder. Voluntary subordination of group interests to national ones is not easy in any society. In an environment characterised by traditions of strife, insecurity and competition for scarce resources, the challenge is far greater. But the choice could not be starker. If the status quo is maintained, the pattern of continuing conflict, repression and authoritarian military rule could generate pressures that could ultimately lead to the state's disintegration. If on the other hand, ruling elites grasped the essence of the conflicts and vigorously sought solutions, alternatives could be found. Any restructuring of political and economic relations within and between states would depend on and, at the same time, encourage negotiation, accommodation, democracy, devolution, pluralism and, perhaps, social peace. That could permit the community to devise means to fight its real adversaries — mass poverty, disease, distributive injustice, ignorance and low productivity. The transition would be difficult, but the choice exists. Recent developments suggest the argument is not without foundation. The federal structure of the United States allowed it to develop a sense of cohesion and national unity that made it, in little more than a century, the strongest single nation on the world political-economic scene. In contrast, the unitary state structure imposed by the Soviet system on an even more multinational and multicultural USSR generated strains that eventually destroyed the state itself. But this is only one aspect of the manner in which the global centre provides examples to the periphery. There is also the question of regional integration.

256

THE FEARFUL STATE

The European Community (EC) is seeking closer economic ties, although the path is by no means smooth. As frontiers dissolve and the EC becomes an economic unit, it will serve as an example of what unity in diversity can achieve. The reunification of the two German states is serving as a catalyst for swifter and more thorough European integration. Concepts of pan-European economic co-operation and security are no longer considered far-fetched. The age of adversarial relations at the global centre may not have ended, but it certainly appears to be on its way out. The reunited German state, and the pan-European Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) framework may encourage similar trends elsewhere. If the socialist and capitalist halves of Germany can unite, there can be no reason, for instance, why the similarly divided halves of Bengal, or Punjab, or Kashmir cannot. Only the Elites who stand to lose most would object. The CSCE parallel could also be drawn for the subcontinent. If NATO and the Warsaw Pact can give way to a more united and co-operative Europe, few rational arguments could prevent closer regional co-operation in South Asia. The region is a compact subsystem with greater ethno¬ cultural commonalities, shared historical memories, contemporaneous political evolution and comparable economic development than Europe. Superstructural reunification with infrastructural pluralism is the way ahead for South Asia. Existing frontiers need not be dissolved, but the relationships across them must change. That is the challenge for the 1990s.

GLOSSARY Ahimsa: principle of unversal peace codified by Lord Buddha. Alee Command: Militant faction of the separatist Naga National Army (NNA) that rejected the November 1975 Shillong Accord signed at place of that name by representatives of the Naga Federal Government (NFG) and the central Indian government to end the NNA’s insurrection. Akbar: ‘Nawab’ AkbarBugti, chief of the large and powerful Bugti tribe, often in trouble with chiefs of the Marri, Mengal and Bizenjo tribes on the one hand, and with Pakistan’s central government on the other hand. Arbab, Naib and Mirab: all representatives of the Khan of Kilat in Baluch/ Brahui villages, who together managed the complex agricultural and irrigation activities, especially in fertile river valleys. Asiad: Asian Olympiad. Bakhti Movement: literally campaign of devotion — one of many Hindu reformist movements that, over the centuries, have sought the eradication of ‘unacceptable’ features of the syncretic body of coda called Hinduism. Balkanisation: fragmentation into separate states e.g., as in Balkan peninsula. Doabs: literally between two waters — fertile valleys between two rivers. Emergency [the Indian]: India’s victory in the Bangladesh war was costly and resource restraints frustrated aspirations raised during the 1971 election. Economic difficulties and political differences eroded the authority of the state, sit-ins and strikes reduced production while violence and crime esca¬ lated. Demands for the Prime Minister’s resignation reached a crescendo in June 1975 when the Allahabad High Court convicted Indira Gandhi of electoral malpractices, disqualifying her from holding office for six years. A stay of sentence allowed her to continue until the elections but she could not vote in parliament. Citing growing lawlessness nation-wide, the Indian President, on the advice of the Prime Minister, declared a state of emergency two weeks after the court’s decision. Mrs Gandhi embarked on administration by fiat Giani: a lay Sikh scholar with an acknowledged understanding of Sikh eccle¬ siastical matters. Han Chinese: the largest single, and dominant ethnic, group in China’s population (as opposed to the Tibetans, for instance). Inquilab: revolution. Jathas: bands of devotees willing to make sacrifices for their faith or other significant values. Jirgah: tribal assembly.

258

GLOSSARY

Khas land: land whose ownership is vested in the government Kirti Lehr: one of several leftist, nationalist bands that became active in northern India, especially in Punjab before and during the Second World War. Langar: part of the Sikh temple (Gurdwara) where food is cooked and communal meals are served and eaten. Lashkar: tribal militia raised and commanded by chiefs (Sardars). Loksabha: the ‘People’s House’ or Lower House of the Indian parliament Mandir: temple, usually indicates Hindu place of worship; also used by Sikhs (such as Har Mandir, Temple of the Lord). Mir: family title of the Khans of Kalat; Emir. Misl: clan-based Sikh militia in the period preceding the rise of Maharajah Ranjit Singh and his kingdom in the Punjab. Montagnard: literally of the mountain. Highlanders often belonging to tribal clans culturally and ethnically distinct from plainlanders. Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms: The British response to Indian nationalist demands for the introduction of representative and responsible administration at the end of the First World War; led to the Government of India Act 1919 and partial represenatation. Oking: headquarters of separatist Naga guerrilla organisations. Pakhtunistan issue: dispute in which Pakistan maintained the Durand line was the legally-defined international border and Afghanistan claimed it was an artificial boundary dividing the Pakhtu-speaking people. Pir: Muslim sage or holy man. Red Flag/White Flag: The Moscow-Peking schism split the Burmese Com¬ munist Party into pro-Peking (Red Flag) or pro-Moscow (White Flag) factions. Sangha: assembly of the Buddhist clergy. Sant: religious leader, often used to describe Sikh preachers. Suba: province, originally governed by a Subahdar. Tehsil: administrative and revenue unit, sub-division of the district; originally controlled by a Tehsildar. Vedic: of the Vedas; oldest of the Aryan scriptures which narrate in heroic terms the entry of the Aryan armies to the subcontinent and their defeat of the Dravidians. Zamindari: system of land tenue introduced by the British. The Mogul regime had leased land to farmers but the British transferred rights to pliable families with large holdings, granting them feudal privileges over holders of smaller plots, and tenants. The landlords (or Zamindars) collected revenue on behalf of the British and exercised near-absolute rights as long as dues were paid.

GLOSSARY

259

A number of acronyms appear throughout the text; others are grouped within chapters. AASU: All Assam Students Union. AABSU: ditto Bodo. AGP: Assam Gana Parishad (AASU’s political wing). AISSF: All Indian Sikh Students Federation. ASR: Anandpur Sahib Resolu¬ tion (charter of Akali demands). CHT: Chittagong Hill Tracts. CPI (M): Communist Party of India (Marxist). DMK: Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (a Sri Lankan Tamil organisation) and AIADMK: equivalent political organisation based at Madras (Tamil Nadu). EIC: East India Company. ENRC: Eastern Naga Revolutionary Council. FGN: Federal Government of Nagaland GNLF: Gurkha National Liberation Front GVC: Gurkha Volunteer Cells (armed wing of the GNLF). IPKF: Indian Peacekeeping Force. ISI: Inter Services Intelligence (Pakistan). JVP: Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (People’s Liberation Front - Sinhalese). LTTE: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. MNA & MNF: Mizo National Army/Front MNFF & MNF: Mizo National (Famine) Front NAP: National Awami Party (allied with JVI: Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam). NEFA: North-East Frontier Agency. NWFP: North-West Frontier Province. NNA: Naga National Army. NNC: ditto Council. NNO: Naga Nationalist Organisation. NNDP: Naga National Democratic Party. NSCN: National Socialist Council of Nagaland. PCJSS: Parbahya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti (political wing of the Shanti Bahini). PEPSU: Patiala and East Punjab States Union. PFAR‘ Popular Front for Armed Resistance Against National Oppression and Exploitation (Mengal). PLOTE: People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam. PREPAK: People’s Revolutionary Government of Kungleipak. PTCA: Plains Tribal Council of Assam. RAW: Research and Analysis Wing — the Indian government’s external intelligence arm. SGPC: Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (the Sikh temples man¬ agement committee). SLFP: Sri Lanka Freedom Party. TELO: Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation. TNT: Tamil New Tigers. TUF: Tamil United Front. TULF: ditto Liberation. UNP: United National Party (of Sri Lanka).

Index

Abdali, Ahmed Shah, 78, 79 Abdul Nabi Khan, 130 Abdullah Khan, 126 Abeygoonesekera, Ossie, 240 Achakzai, Abdul Samad Khan, 148 Adad-ud-Daula, 122 Adi Granth, 71, 73, 75, 77 Afghanistan, 1,118,151,153,154 Ahluwalia, Fateh Singh, 81 Ahluwalia, Jassa Singh, 78 Ahmed Shah, 127 Ahom people, 57-63 Akali Dal, 50, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95,97-9,101,103,104,108,109 Ali Khan, Liaquat, 5 All Assam Bodo Students Union (AABSU), 62, 63 All Assam Students Union (AASU), 58, 60,61 All Indian Sikh Students Federation (AISSF), 100,103, 104,108, 109 Amirthalingam, Appapillai, 221, 226 Anandpur Sahib Resolution (ASR), 96, 97, 98,107 Angad, 73 Angami clan, revolt of, 25 . Angami, Gwizan Mowu, 35 Angami, T.N., 33 animism, 6, 23, 166 Anjuman-e-Ittihad-i-Baluchistan, 133 Arasanga Eluthu Vinaya Sangam, 224 Arjun, 75 Arshadir Babakan, 122 Ashroff, M.H.,240 Aslam, Nawabzada Mohammad, 135 Assam Association, 26 Assam People’s Liberation Army (APLA), 59 assassination of leaders, 5 Assom Gana Parishad (AGP), 61 Attaf Ali, Dr A.H.M., 181 Atwal, A.S., 103

Aurangzeb, 76, 77 Awami League, 187 Ayub Khan, General, 39,139,140,151, 177,181,182 Azad Hind Fouz, 29 Azizuddin, Fakir, 81 Badal, Prakash Singh, 94, 98,103 Baddhani, Wazir Khan, 150 Baghdad Pact, 6 Bahadur, Banda Singh, 77 Bahadur, Tegh,76 Bahram Khan, 130 Balkanisation, fear of, 47, 69 Baluch community, 8 Baluch, Habib Jalib, 156 Baluch insurgency, 18 Baluch Liberation Front, 146 Baluch nationalism, 118-61 Baluch People’s Liberation Front (BPLF), 149,153, 156 Baluch Students Organisation (BSO), 148,153,156 Baluchi-Brahui confederacy, development of, 124-9 Baluchistan Liberation Organisation (BLO), 156 Baluchistan Peace Committee, 138 Baluchistan States Union, 138 Baluchistan United Front, 142 Bandaranaike, Anura, 239 Bandaranaike, Sirimavo, 218, 219, 220, 221,225,237 Bandaranaike, S. W.R.D., 5,216,217,218 Bangladesh, 1,10, 14,18, 19, 29, 30, 39, 162-203, 221, 247, 249, 250, 251, 253, 254 Bangladesh Rifles, 186 Baptist Church, 34, 35 Barnala, Surjit Singh, 108 Barua, Paresh, 59 Basic Democracies Order (1959), 177

INDEX Basu, Jyoti, 55, 56 Bengal, East, 33, 43 Bengal, West, 43, 55 Bengali autonomous movement, 14 Bhakti movement, 71 Bhandari, Nar Bahadur, 54 Bhani, Bibi, 73 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 248 Bhindranwale, Jamail Singh, 98, 99,105, 106; rise of, 99-105 Bhutan, 1,14 Bhutto, Benazir, 118, 152, 248 Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali, 5,118,142,143, 144,146, 147, 148,151,152,153,154 Bhuvanaika Bahu, King, 209 Bizenjo, Mir G.B., 136, 137, 139, 143, 144,145,152, 156 Blue Star, Operation, 105, 106, 109 Bodo people, 57-63 Bodom Phukan Chandra, 63 Bogra, Mohammad Ali, 15 Bose, Subhas, 29, 90 Brahma, Upendra Nath, 62 Brahui people, 8,121 Brar, General, 106 British policy in South Asia, 8,13, 24, 25, 27,32,37,38,52,57,80,82,83,84,86, 88, 89, 131, 132,133, 135,136,137, 170,171,172,173,174,182,185,194, 204, 211, 213, 217, 218, 232,234, 253 Buddhism, 6, 23, 166, 187,204, 205, 209, 210, 212, 213, 214, 220; Tantric, 23 Bugti, Nawab Akbar, 142, 145,146,148 Bulganin, Nikolai, 15 Burma, 24, 30, 39, 44, 250 Burmah Oil Company, 195 Bumes, Sir Alexander, 130 Central Command (CENTCOM), 154 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (USA), 15, 30, 181,241 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), 238 Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO), 15 Ceylon National Congress, 215 Ceylon Tamil Congress, 214, 215 Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), 226, 227 Ceylon National Congress, 214 Chakar, Mir, 123,124 Chakma, Amritlal, 192 Chakma, Debojyoti, 192 Chakma, Kumar, 185 Chakma people, 18,166,167,175,178, 179,180,181,183,184,186,190,192,

261 Chakma, Priti Kumar, 191,192 Chakma Shanti Bahini guerrillas, 39 Chakma, Upendra Lai, 193, 196 Chakrabarty, Nripen, 49, 51, 52, 57 Chanakya,14 Chand, Diwan, 81 Chand, Mokham, 81 Chand, Nanak, 70 Chandra, Ramesh, 105 Chauhan, Dr Jagjit, 95 Chelvanyakam, J.V., 205, 216, 219, 221, 226 China, 15,29,30,34,35,38,39,40,44,45, 181,182,221 Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), 162-203 CHT Act (1900), 172-4 CHT Development Council, 162 CHT Frontier Police Act (1881), 171,177 CHT Peace Force, 162-203 CHT People’s Association, 182 CHT Students’ Association, 182 Christianity, 23, 37, 41, 42,166,204, 210 Christie, Captain, 129 Chundrigar, 1.1., 135 Cold War, 181,251 collectorate-zamindari structure, 174 communism, 11, 41,91,149, 181,193, 196, 220, 239 Communist Party: of Burma, 40; of CHT, 186, 190; of India, 50, 93 (Marxist, 48, 53, 55, 249); of Sri Lanka, 219, 239; Sind-Baluch, 137 Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), 256 Congress Party, 6, 7,9, 26, 27, 33, 38,40, 41,42,50,51,60,89,91,93,94,95,98, 99,103,105,134,141,222 Congress (I) party, 58, 95, 248 constabulary, 3,4,162,174,176,186,190, 227, 229, 238 Court Languages Act (1961), 219 Cripps, Sir Stafford, 90 Dal Khalsa, 103 Dalai Lama, 30, 33 Dalhousie, Lord, 83,132 Damant, Deputy Commissioner, 26 Damdami Taksal school, 98 Daptar Shar, 124 Das, Amar, 73 Das, Dayal, 86 Das, Lachman, 77 Das, Ram, 73, 75 Dashmesh Regiment, 103 de Almeida, Lourenco, 209 demographic change, 165-6,177

262 Desai, Morarji, 53 Dewan, Bhabatosh, 191 Dewan, Rupayan, 193 Dewan, Samiran Kumar, 196 Dewan, Trivangil, 192 Dharmapala, Anagarika, 212, 213 Dhatusena, King, 207 Dinanath, Raja, 81 Dissanaike, Gamini, 229 Doda V, King, 123 Donoughmore Report, 214 Dragon Drive, Operation, 187, 188 Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (DMK), 216, 219, 221, 222, 225, 232, 239 Dravidian people, 12, 70, 119, 208, 209 Dulles, John Foster, 6,138 Duraiyappa, Alfred, 227 Durand Line, 11 Dutch policy in South Asia, 209, 210 Dutch East India Company, 210 Dutthagamani Abhaya, King, 207 Dyer, Brig. General R.E.H., 87, 88 East India Company (EIC) (British), 4, 24,25,80,81,82,83,84,129,130,132, 169,170,210 Eastern Naga Revolutionary Council, 35 Eelam National Democratic Liberation Front (ENDLF), 240 Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), 229, 234, 240, 241 Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS), 226, 228, 229, 234, 236 Eksath Bhikku Peramuna, 218 Elizabeth II, Queen, 228 Eltarz Khan, 126 Enanayake, Dudley, 220 Ershad, Hossain, 163,172, 189, 251 . Faqirof Ipi, 11 Farrukhsiyar, 78 Federal Party (FP), 217, 218, 219 Fell, D.Y., 135,136 Forrestal Inc. company, 179, 180 frontiers: demarcation of, 8,11,165, 256; porosity of, 14, 18, 30 Gandhi, Indira, 5, 32, 48, 50, 53, 54, 58, 59, 60, 69, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103,104, 107, 109, 188, 221, 222, 225,228,230,231,232 Gandhi, Mahatma, 5, 7, 31 Gandhi, Rajiv, 40, 41, 51, 52,54, 60, 69, 100, 101,102, 107, 204, 234, 236, 237, 238,240,241,242,249

INDEX Gandhi, Sanjay, 97, 98, 101,103 Gandhiyam Society, 225, 230 Genghis Khan, 123 Ghaznavi, Mahmud, 122 Ghisingh, Subhas, 53, 54, 56, 62 Gichki, Aslam, 149 Gill, Lachman Singh, 94 Gobind, Guru, 79, 87 Gogoi, Biddeswar, 59 Gono Mukti Fouz, 190 Goonetileke, Governor General, 218 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 251 Gough, Sir Hugh, 82 Government of India Act (1919), 7,27 Government of India Act (1935), 7, 29, 175, 176 Gurkha insurgency, 48, 52-7 Gurkha League, 52 Gurkha Liberation Organisation, 56 Gurkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), 53, 54, 55, 62 Gurkha nationalism, 31 Gurkha Volunteer Cell (GVC), 55, 56 gurus: age of, 70-7; warrior, 75 Haji Khan, 130 Hamid, A.C.S., 237 Hamza, Amir, 122 Hardinge, Sir Henry, 82, 83 Hargobind, 75 Hasan, Mullah Muhammad, 130 Hassan Khan, 131 Hastings, Warren, 80 Hikmatyar, Gulbuddin, 152 Hinduism, 3, 5, 7, 23, 43, 45, 48, 57, 58, 60,70,71,75,81,85,86, 88,91,92, 101, 103, 108, 109, 204, 212, 214, 226, 248; Tantric, 24 Hydari, Sir Akbar, 32 Hyderabad, occupation of, 11 India, 1,5,9,11,13,15,17,29,30,36,95, 136, 137, 138, 183, 188, 189, 204, 217, 219, 221,223, 225, 232, 237, 239, 242, 249, 250, 253, 254; north-eastern, 22-63 Indian and Pakistani Residents Act, 216 Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF), 204 238, 239, 240, 241 Indo-Bangladesh Treaty (1972), 39 Indo-Nepalese treaty (1950), 52 Indo-Sri Lanka agreement, 204, 237, 240 Inter Service Intelligence (ISI), 33 39 181,182, 187 Iran, 118, 142-7,155 Iraq, 142-7, 146

INDEX Islam, 3, 5,12,23, 57, 58, 60, 61, 71,75, 79,81,86,88,90,91,92,125,136,144, 175,176, 182, 184,187, 204, 210, 213, 226, 249, 250, 253 Ismay, Lord, 176 Israel, 234 Jacob, Major John, 131 Jahangir, Emperor, 75 Jain religion, 6 Jaintia Durbar, 26 Jalal Khan, 122 Jamiat i Ulema Islam (JUI), 142 Jammu, 12, 19, 247 Jan Bux Khan, 169 Jan, Mir Mohammad Azam, 134 Janata Dal, 48, 248 ‘Janata Spring’, 97-9, 186,189, 228 Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), 220, 221,232,239,240,242 Japan, 29, 32 Jathika Sevaka Sanghamya (JSS), 190, 196,197, 229 Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini, 187 Jayasuriya, Gamini, 237 Jayewardene, J.R., 204, 226,227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 234, 237, 238, 239, 240 Jinnah, Mohammed Ali, 5, 6,7,9, 31, 134,135 Junagadh-Manvadar, occupation of, 11 Kachin Independence Army (KIA), 35 Kairon, Pratap Singh, 89 kakkars, wearing of, 85 Kalat State National Party, 134 Kalat States Union, 139 Kalkat, General, 239 Kambar Khan, 124 Kannangara, Irene, 237 Kaptai Dam, 178-81,195 Karim, Prince Abdul, 137,138,139 Karunanidhi, M., 221, 222, 225, 230 Kashmir, 12,19,137,138, 247 Kasyapa I, King, 207 Kaur, Sada, 79 Khafif, King, 123 Khalsa army, 82-5; reformation of, 85-91 Khan Shahnawaz, 90 Khan, Mir Ahmad Yar, 148 Khan, Mir Mahmud, 134 Khan, Murad, 149 Khan, Nauroz, 140 Khan, Nawab Mir Kasem Ali, 169 Khan, Walid, 144, 147 Khan, Yahya, 147

263 Khandkar, Air Vice Marshall A.K., 194 Khaplang, Shangwang S., 36 Khasi National Durbar, 26 Khasi States Federation, 26 Khilafat movement, 7 Khudadad Khan,132,133 Kirti Lehr movement, 89 Koh-i-Noor diamond, 83 Krishen, Hari, 76 Kruschev, Nikita, 15 Kulavamsa, 205 Kumai, N.K., 56 Kurd, Mir Abdul Aziz Khan, 133, 137 Lai. Bhajan, 102,104 Laldenga, 38, 39,40, 41, 42 Langowal, Sant Harchand Singh, 97 language: as factor inhibiting assimilation, 23; Baluchi, 119; Brahui, 121; English, 217, 242; Gormukhi, 73; Hindi, 94; politics of, 217-20; questions of, 12,13, 53,73, 92,121, 157, 204; Sinhala, 217; Urdu, 144 Lanka Sama Samaja Party, 219 Lankar, Sumana, 196 Lansdowne, Lord, 87 Larma, J.B. (Shantu), 184,185,191,193 Larma, M.N., 183,184,185,186,191, 192,193 Lawrence, John, 83 Left Front, 50, 51,63 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 223,225, 227, 228, 236,237, 239,240,241,242,250 Liberation, Operation, 237, 241 ‘London Group’, 148,149 Longowal, 102,103,104,107,108 Lushai people, 37-40,170,184 Maghbami, Jalaluddin, 123 Magssi, Mir Yusuf Ali Khan, 133 Mahabharata epic, 23 Mahajana Eksath Peramuna, 217 Mahan Kartavya, Operation, 240 Mahanta, Praful Kumar, 61, 62 Mahasena, King, 207 Mahavamsa, 205, 207 Maheswaran, Uma, 223 Mahmud Khan, 129,130 Mahmud, Mir, 133 Manavamma, King, 208 Manipur: kingdom of, 27; revolutionary warfare in, 15, 43-8 Manning, Governor, 214 Mao Zedong, 40,44 Marma people, 168

264 Marri, Khair Bakhsh, 153,156 Marri, Sher Mohammad, 141,149 Marxism, 12,13,35,44,47,51,52,55,156 Mathew, Cyril, 229, 231,237 Matin, Abdul, 165 Maurya, Chandragupta, 255 Mehrab Khan, 130 Mengal, Ataul-lah Khan, 143,144,145, 146,156 Mengal, Col. Mohammad Sultan, 147 Menon, V.P., 9 Merewether, Sir W.L., 135 Metcalfe, Charles, 80 Mey, Wolfgang, 180 military, 3, 4, 5,18,29, 38, 81, 84,106, 147-52,162,169,170-2 Mizo insurgency, 15,182,183 Mizo National Army (MNA), 38, 40 Mizo National Famine Front, 38 Mizo National Front (MNF), 38,41,42,51 Mizo National Front (MNF) (Democratic), 42 Mizo National Union, 26, 38, 41 Mizo people, 37-43,170,174,182,187 Mogul Empire, 3 Mogul-Chakma relations, 169 Mohabbat Khan, 126, 127,130 montagnard peoples, 8,10, 19,44,165, 166,169,178,184,194; federation of, 35; insurrections of, 22-63 Montague-Chelmsford reforms, 7, 87 Muhammad Khan, 125,126 Muivah, Thuingaleng, 34, 36, 37 Muizz-ud-Daula, 122 Mukti Bahini, 182 Muslim League, 6,7,9,26,27,88,90,135 Mutiny, Indian, 4, 7, 84, 85,132 Nadir Shah, 126, 127 Naga Club, 26, 31 Naga Hills District Council, 26 Naga insurgency, 15, 182, 183, 186, 187 Naga National Army (NNA), 33, 34, 181 Naga National Council (NNC), 31,36,186 Naga National Democratic Party (NNDP), 36 Naga Nationalist Organisation (NNO), 33 Naga people, 25, 31-7 Nalwa, Hari Singh, 81 Namdhari movement, 86 Napier, Sir Charles, 131 Narain, Lala Jagat, 99, 105 NasirKhan I, 126,127, 128,141 Nasir Khan II, 131, 132 nation state: as paradigm, 10,177,178; building of, 16-18

INDEX National Awami Party (NAP), 139,142, 143,144,145,147,152 National Front, 248 National League for Democracy, 251 National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN),30, 36, 37,46,59 nationalism, 26; Baluch, 133-42; Manipuri, 44; Sikh, 70, 85-91 Naujawan Bharat Sabha, 89 Naushirvan, 122 Nava Sama Samaja party, 231 Naxalite movement, 44, 220 Nehru, B.K., 35 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 6,10,13,15, 30, 31, 32, 34, 69, 89, 92, 93,134, 216 Nepal, 1, 14, 251 Nepali Bhasa Samiti, 53 Nirankari movement, 86, 99 Nissankamalla, King, 208 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), 256 North Korea, 221 North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), 12,15,33,118,129,133,145 Official Language Act (Sri Lanka), 217 Olcott, Col., 212 Pakistan, 1, 5, 6, 9, 11,15,17, 29, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 91, 92, 93, 95, 96,101,105, 107,133-42,157,175, 178,182,186, 221, 232, 247, 248, 249, 250,253,254; East, 10, 30, 48, 177,178,179,181, 187, 222, 252; South-West, 118-61 Pakistan National Party, 156 Pakistan People’s Party, 142 Pakistan Muslim League (Qayyum Khan faction), 142 Parakramabahu II, King, 208 Parakramabahu, King, 208 Parari army, 141 Parthsarathy, Gopalaswami, 232 partition, 5,6, 7, 33, 53, 57, 86, 91, 175, 249 Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU), 92 Pawan, Operation, 239 Pax Britannica, 4, 5, 172, 210 People’s Conference, 41, 42 People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, 151-2 People’s Liberation Army (China), 30, 35,45, 46, 47 People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), 223,228,229, 231,234

INDEX People’s Revolutionary Government of Kungleipak (PRGK), 45 Perumal, A. Vardaraj, 240 Pheruman, Darshan, 94 Phizo, Zapu Angami, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 181,186 Phukan, Bhrigu Kumar, 62 Plains Tribal Council of Assam (PTCA), 62 Plassey, battle of, 4,169 Ponnambalam, G.G., 215 Popular Front for Armed Resistance in Baluchistan, 149,150,156 post-colonial state, 1-21 Pottinger, Lieutenant, 129 Prabhakaran, Velupillai, 223, 236 Pradhan, C.K., 56 Pradhan, S.N., 56 Pranta Parishad, 53, 54 Prantiya Morcha, 53, 54 Premadasa, Ranasinghe, 237, 240, 241, 242 PREPAK organisation, 47 Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), 228 proxy wars, 14, 38 Punjab, 175, 247, 253; East, 69-117 Punjab Laws Act (1872), 86 Punjabi-Muhajir coalition, 17 Purbo Banglar Sarbohara party, 187 Qadir, Jam Ghulam, 147 Qayyum Khan, Khan Abdul, 145, 146 Qayyum Muslim League, 147 Radcliffe, Sir Cyril, 176,182 Ragi, Darshan Singh, 109 Rahman, General Ziaur, 5,188 Rahman, Sheikh Mujibur, 5,59,144,183, 187 Rai, Deo Prakash, 53 Rai, Gobind, 76, 77 Rai, Har, 76 Rai, Lala Lajpat, 88 Rai, Ram, 76 Raisani, Ghaus Raisani, 143 Rajasinha II, King, 209 Ramachandran, M.G., 230, 237 Ramayana epic, 23 Ramghariya, Jassa Singh, 78 Ramkhani, Mir Hazar, 149,150,153 Ranatunga, Cyril, 236 Rao, P.V. Narasimha, 231 Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF), 154 Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), 191,222,223,228,240

265 Revolutionary Government of Manipur (RGM), 44 Rode, Jasbir Singh, 109 Rohingya army, 187 Roy, Raja Tridiv, 182 Russo-Iranian treaty (1828), 81 Saikia, H., 42 Sailo, Brig. Thenphunga, 41, 43 Sakhrie, T.N., 33 Samaj, Arya, 86 Sandeman, Major, 132 Sangin, Prince, 125 Saraswati, Dayananda, 86 Sarkaria Commission, 107 Scott, Rev. Michael, 34 Senanayake, D.S., 215, 216 Sewah, King, 125 Shah of Iran, 144 Shah, Bahadur, 77, 78 Shah, Sir Shams, 134 Shahjahan, 75 Shahnawaz Khan, 131 Shanti Bahini, 162-203; divisions in, 190-2 Shar, Syed Mohammad, 130 Shastri, Lai Bahadur, 93, 219 Shell Oil, 186,195 Shillong Accord, 36, 40 Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), 88,89,92,93,98, 99,102,105,108 Shiv Sena organisation, 108 Short, Major Maclaughlin, 176 Shuja-ul Mulk, Shah, 130,132 Sikdar, Siraj, 188 Sikh Gurdwara Act (1925), 88 Sikh separatism, 18, 69-117 Sikh Wars, 82-5 Sikhs, 6,175-6, 249 Simon Commission, 27 Singh Sabha, 86 Singh, Akali Phoola, 81 Singh, Ala, 78 Singh, Amrik, 100,101 Singh, Baba Kharak, 89 Singh, Baldev, 90 Singh, Beant, 107 Singh, Bhagat, 88 Singh, Bhai Man, 88 Singh, Buta, 55, 63 Singh, Dalip, 82, 83 Singh, Darbara, 99,100,101,103 Singh, Fateh, 94 Singh, General Harkirat, 239 Singh, General Shahbegh, 102 Singh, Gulab, 82

266 INDEX Singh, Gurnam, 94 Singh, Hukam, 92 Singh, Jai, 79 Singh, Kartar, 89 Singh, Kharak, 82 Singh, Maha, 79 Singh, Maharaja Amarinder, 102 Singh, Manjit, 109 Singh, Master Fateh, 93 Singh, Master Tara, 89 Singh, Mohan, 90 Singh, Naunehal, 82 Singh, Nawab Kapur, 78 Singh, Ram, 86 Singh, Ranjit, 79, 80, 81, 82,130 Singh, Santokh, 100 Singh, Sardar Swaran, 89 Singh, Satwant, 107 Singh, Shahbegh, 105, 106 Singh, Sher, 82 Singh, Swaran, 101 Singh, Tara, 91, 93 Singh, Thakur Chandan, 52 Singh, V.P., 241, 248, 249 Singh, Zail, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 237 Sino-Indian border dispute, 34 Sino-Indian treaty (1954), 30 slash and burn agriculture, 171, 180 Slim, Field-Marshal, 29 Soulbury Constitutional Commission, 214 Soulbury, Lord, 215 South Asian Association for Regional Development (SAARD), 1 South East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO), 15 Sri Lanka, 1,10,18, 204-46,247, 250, 253 Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), 216 217, 218, 219, 220, 223, 224, 228, 234 Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), 240 Subba, C.S., 56 Sufism, 71 Sukerchakia, Charat Singh, 78 Suleiman, Hikmat, 146 Sunderji, General, 106 Swu, Isak, 35, 36 Swu, Scato, 34 Taimur Lane, 123 Talpur, Mir Ali Nawaz Khan, 134 Talwandi, Jagdev, 99 Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO), 223, 229, 231 Tamil Language Act, 218 Tamil National Army (TNA), 241 Tamil New Tigers (TNT), 222-32 Tamil separatism, 18,204-46

Tamil United Front (TUF), 221,222,226 Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) 226, 227, 229, 230, 234, 242 Tarun Gurkha, 54 Telengana campaign, 12 Temperance Movement, 213 Theosophical Society, 212 Thonadam, S., 227 Tibet, 15, 30 Tikka Khan, General, 142 Tippera insurgency, 31, 48 Tohra, Gurcharan Singh, 98,102,103,105 Tripura National Volunteers (TNV), 51, 52,163 Tripura People’s Liberation Organisation (TPLO), 49 Tripura Upajati Juba Samity (TUJS), 49 Tripura, as Trojan horse, 48-52

(USSR), 15, 141, 144, 152, 153, 156 181,221,249,251,255 United Front, 220, 221,223, 225 United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), 36, 59 United Minorities Front, 61 United National Liberation Front (UNLF), 36, 46 United National Party (UNP), 215, 216 218, 219, 220, 223, 224, 226, 227, 229 United Nations (UN), 31,32 United Socialist Alliance, 240 United States of America (USA), 12,15 33,138. 154,178,179,181, 204, 221 ’ 232,241,248,255 Ustman Gall, 139 Vasabha, King, 207 Vedas, 23 Vedic system of beliefs, 3, 70 Vijayabahu, King, 208, 209 Vijayabahu III, King, 208 Voice of America, 228 Warsaw Pact, 256 Wijeweera, Rohana, 220, 231 World Baluch Organisation (WBO) 157 Wrangkhyal, Bejoy, 51, 163 Yallay, Kevi, 36 Za Sein, 35 Zaman Shah, 130

Zia2U312H^8Genera1’5’149’ 152>154-135, Zoro Reunification Volunteers, 43

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THE COUNTRIES OF SOUTH ASIA, in the half century since Independence, have all experienced recurrent and violent conflicts between the central authorities, dominated by elites from majority communities, and a variety of ethnic and religious minorities. These internal wars are the subject of this book. In particular, the author describes the insurrections by the Baluch against the Pakistan government; Sikh separatism in the Indian Punjab; montagnard irredentism in the remote Northeastern states of India; tribal insurgency in Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts; and the Tamil uprising in Sri Lanka. Why is it, he asks, that coercion and violence have been resorted to so often by both the state and dissident groups? Why have these domestic conflicts usually taken on a regional dimension? And what part has interference by great powers from outside the region played? These questions go to the heart of the nature of the post-colonial state in South Asia and the world view embraced by its dominant elites.. The author explores the lessons to be learned from these conflicts and suggests ways in which political leaders ought to rethink the inherited nature of the state and customary patterns of inter-state relations if there is to be any hope of a more peaceful, democratic future for the subcontinent. This important book makes a profound contribution towards a reevaluation of South Asia’s future. DR

s.

MAHMUD A L l

is a former army officer who fought in the

Indo-Pakistan War of 1971-72 and spent nine years in the Bangladesh armed forces before taking early retirement. In 1983-85 he served as editor of Bangladesh Today and subsequently the Dhaka Courier before moving to King’s College, London where he took his doctorate. He currently works for the BBC World Service as a programme producer.

Zed Books Political Science/Ethnic Relations/Asian Studies 1 85649 121 8 Hb 185649 122 6 Pb