http://www.openthemagazine.com 57effectively. It is not surprising that these areas are fertile
grounds for insurgency. To give an example, the region
dominated by the Bodo people in assam has extensive
autonomy. But people who traverse National Highway 27
know that areas to its north—Chirang and Baksa districts—
are dangerous places and encounters between security forces
and insurgents are routine there. autonomy has made these
places less and not more governable.
The ideas set out in Return of the Barbarians can be usefully
contrasted with what is probably the hardest region in
India to govern: the valley of kashmir. The story of the chaos
in that part of India has been elaborated in The Generation
of Rage in Kashmir (Oxford University Press, 2018) by
David Devadas.
By now, there exists extensive literature on the secessionist
militancy in Jammu and kashmir (J&k). Historical narratives
and memoirs have in recent years been supplemented sub-
stantially with analytical studies by scholars. But few, if any,
studies exist that look at individual motivations of various
actors—ordinary citizens caught in the conflict, stone-pelting
teenagers, officials and terrorists. Devadas, a former journalist,
has written extensively on the subject. In In Search of a Future:
The Story of Kashmir (2007), he looked at the historical roots of
the problem and the situation as it existed in the late 1990s. In
his new book, he brings the story up to date—to late 2017-ear-
ly 2018. By 2018, the nature of militancy was vastly different
from what was seen in the late 1990s. For one, the influence
of foreign terrorists dispatched from Pakistan had gone down
drastically. For another, it was local militants—a large number
of them barely out of their teens—who had picked up guns.
Finally, the geographic theatre, too, had moved: instead of
jungles in the high ranges of Bandipore and kupwara in the
north, the southern districts are the new haunt of militants.
Devadas marks 2007 as the year when the gears shifted.
By then it was clear that India had broken the back of foreign
terrorists and it was the appropriate time to dismantle the
apparatus of counter-insurgency that caused much hardship
to the people of kashmir. But nothing changed and the Union
and state governments continued as before. By 2010, this was
to bear bitter fruit. Not only were more local recruits joining
militancy, but stone pelting became a new form of venting
anger, <something that can’t be tackled merely by killing
trouble-makers>. India’s security challenges now spanned
an entire spectrum of threats: from sling-shots and stones in
urban areas all the way to regular military operations in the
northern and southeastern parts of J&k.
The problems in J&k are now far more extensive than
they were in the 1990s. as much as 70 per cent of the popula-
tion of the valley is now (2017) estimated to be below 30 years
of age. educational infrastructure in the state has crumbled
and governments are unable to do much. Underlying these
challenges is a confused state of affairs whereby opinions
range from acute dislike of India to utter confusion about the
end goal of that elusive term, ‘aazadi’. In one chapter of his
book, Devadas reports the results of a wide survey of young-
sters he has carried out over time in kashmir.
There is no clear pattern favouring either a merger with
Pakistan or a separate state. It is fascinating to note the instabil-
ity of preferences among different generations of kashmiris—
a subject to which Devadas devotes some attention—before
and since insurgency broke out. But some trends are clear: a
far greater liking for orthodox interpretations of Islam and
generalised anomic violence. One quibble with this book is
that it doesn’t report the survey methodology—its design
parameters, selection of questions, choice of sample and the
time period over which questions were asked. If these had
been added as an appendix, the information would have been
much more useful.
So what causes the return of barbarism? Grygiel’s an-
swer—both from his vantage as a seeker of answers from
ancient history and a contemporary observer of events
taking place in the middle east and elsewhere—is clear:
the weakness and retreat of states. It is, however, an answer
that many Indians—addled by ideological explanations for
anarchy—will not find palatable. They wish the state to go
away and leave people in a pristine ruritania where kindness
and goodwill prevail. That is a dangerous illusion that people
constantly need to be disabused of. nPROSE & POLITICS By siddharth singh
So whaT cauSeS The
reTurn of barbariSm?
GryGiel’S anSwer iS
clear: The weakneSS
and reTreaT of STaTeS.
iT iS, however, an
anSwer ThaT many
indianS, addled
by ideoloGical
explanaTionS for
anarchy, will noT find
pal aTable