State Securitization and Internal Ethnic Conflicts in India: Re-examining the Punjab Crisis

Abstract

The theory of securitization postulates the remit of post-political, military action to quell an existential threat in International Relations. Pluralist democracies like India have used armed forces to tackle internal situations of ethnic conflict and legitimized it by deeming the conflict as a threat to national security. But ongoing domestic turmoil proves that armed confrontation between the state and its aggrieved communities has only succeeded in prolonging the dynamics of the conflict, rather than their comprehensive resolution. The present article takes a cue from this reality of insecurity. It seeks to theoretically link internal ethnic conflicts (which are perceived to threaten state survival) and their securitization, in the light of an actual conflict situation. The crisis in Punjab that embroiled India for a decade and met with a heavy military response of the state forms the case study. Analyzing the state response to the Punjab ethnic crisis from the securitization prism is a hitherto unexplored theoretical enterprise. The article undertakes this task. Also, securitization lends us the theoretical props to identify certain junctures and movements in the state-factional group/ethnic community interactions in the course of the crisis. The case study provides the empirical evidence which can inform securitization theory, and test its dynamics and efficacy.

Cries of war: Securitization of fluid transnational identities during war (a comparative study of securitization of Chinese Indians and Japanese Americans)

“…The securitization in post-colonial India both internally in terms of ethnic conflicts and State securitization (Roychoudhury, 2015) and externally in its rivalry with its neighbors and securitization can be traced back to its colonial past. The imperialist aims of the US have also led securitization to be a reality in terms of identities along with the Cold War in Asia which led to the securitization on grounds of racialization.…”