Jadavpur Journal of International Relations

Historically, jihad was long encouraged by the West, a perspective which has not gained sufficient recognition in scholarly literature. Berlin played an important role in this ever since the times of Kaiser Wilhelm II till the end of Hitler’s Third Reich. The Germans, playing the game of big-power politics against primarily the British Empire, actively fanned jihad among the Muslims worldwide. Later, the USA did the same to encourage Afghan mujahideen fighters to fight back the Soviet invasion of their country in December 1979. Hence the term ‘directed jihad’, suggesting that the history of jihad in the twentieth century shows much active Western support behind the phenomenon. Paradoxically, this—at least partial—creation of the West is now turning against the latter.

While multiculturalism with its reciprocal recognition of rights is usually held as the key to peace and peacemaking in India in general and her Northeast in particular, this article points out with the help of a series of case studies how ‘unofficial’ peace that is made independently of the state mediation bases itself on certain values and standards of culture that more often than not entail compromise with our rights in some form or the other. These values and standards, however, are neither given in our culture nor unalterable as the theorists of ‘unity-in-diversity’ would have us believe. Insofar as their viability and effectiveness in bringing peace depend on their ability to constantly negotiate with and confront the official or the State-brokered peace process and ‘interrupt’ the effects of governmental power, these values and standards constantly get reconstituted, reordered—if not hierarchized—in keeping with the changing requirements of such negotiation and confrontation. As a result, peace, as the article illustrates, acquires forms that are extremely contingent and momentary and does not necessarily depend on rights-based solutions.

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.