What is state violence ? What are the types and theories of
state violence Since times immemorial political violence has attracted our
attention for more than one reason. Often it has multiple forms, perpetrators,
victims and purposes. The category of political violence include state and
non-state actors; it may originate from internal or external sponsors; take
forms that range from terrorism and guerilla warfare to sectarian violence,
police actions, riots and assassinations.
What
is state violence ?
From Robespierre’s ‘reign of terror,’ to the Irish
Revolutionary Brotherhood’s motto of ‘revolution sooner or later,’ ‘violence
has often been used to generate publicity for a cause, besides attempting to
inform, educate and rally masses “behind revolution”. What is state violence ?
What are the types and theories of state violence The 1880s, 1890s, the 1900s
till the First World War saw an outright call for ‘propaganda by deed’, as a
legible weapon to topple an established disorder.
The 1930s, however, witnessed a phenomenal change in
protracted terrorist campaigns against governments. It was now used less to
refer to revolutionary movements and violence directed against governments and
their leaders and more to describe the practices of mass repression employed by
totalitarian states and their dictatorial leaders against their own citizens—Fascist
Italy, Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, to name a few. While Europe wreathed
under state-imposed violence against its own citizens, Asia experienced violent
outcry for revolt, heralded by various indigenous/anti-colonist groups to
oppose continued repression from colonial rule.
The appellation of ‘freedom fighters’ instead of ‘terrorists’, came into fashion at this time.
This position was best explained by PLO chairman, Yasir Arafat when he said:
“The difference between the revolutionary and the terrorists lies in the reason
for which each fights. For whoever stands by a just cause and fights for the
freedom and liberation of his land from the invaders, the settlers and
colonists, cannot possibly be called terrorists.” What is state violence ? What
are the types and theories of state violence.
What are the types and theories of state violence
Theory on
Greed and Grievances: Though
Aristotle once said, ‘poverty is the parent of revolution and crime,’
globalisation theorists of the present decade have underpinned personal greed
and grievances as the major cause of armed conflict.
According to them, globalisation represents two processes in
greed theories. It brings changes in the state— particularly the erosion of
state authority and public goods—which can make societies vulnerable to
conflict; the other fostered by increased opportunities from transborder trade,
both legal and illegal. As a result, “many civil wars are caused and fuelled
not by poverty but by ‘resource curse.’ Data from Southeast Asia, distinctly
show that, even those conflicts that has been categorised as “separatist,”
“communal”, “ethnic” or “ideological,” do have a clear element of ‘greed’ in
them. The exploitation of mining opportunities in the Philippines has come into
conflict with indigenous land rights and competition over resources, while
ongoing violence in Papua, Sulawesi and Malaku in Indonesia, is not just
religious or ethnic in character, but a tiff for land and resources exacerbated
by environmental degradation. What is
state violence ? What are the types and theories of state violence.
At the same time the greed theories
do not talk about the greed of multinational corporations and the greed of the
global elite that basis its profits on the extraction of resources from already
poor countries. Instead they focus on the ‘resource curse’ as if just having a
resource in a poor country is a curse itself rather than systemic poverty,
colonialism and its forms being the curse.
Grievance Theory : Besides, economic and greed factors,
a competing set of theorists, see political grievances as one of the most
important source of violent conflicts. According to them armed conflicts in
Nepal, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Philippines, India and Pakistan, among others,
cannot be understood without reference to political grievances. Edward Azar,
for instance, has argued that civil wars generally arise out of communal
groups’ collective struggle “for such basic needs as security, recognition and
acceptance, fair access to political institutions and economic participation.
Other analysts have found political factors arising
from weak state capacity to the denial of human needs, as central to many
contemporary conflicts, in conjunction with economic motives. What is state
violence ? What are the types and theories of state violence, Such theorists
suggest that sustainable peace requires addressing underlying grievances
through direct engagement with the state.
However rather than just grievances, the root cause of the
grievance which is often the denial of human rights should be analysed as the
reason for conflicts.
STATE VIOLENCE IN
SOUTH ASIA
In South Asia, the post-colonial state appears to be especially vulnerable
to crisis and internal conflicts often related to the vagaries of their
colonial legacy; arbitrary territorial borders; insecure ethnic, religious or
national minorities; and post-independence nationalist and sub nationalist
movements that deepen rather than transcend divisions.
A unique argument here centres on the Weberian assumption
that the state monopolises the legitimate use of violence- however such
legitimacy maybe understood. Violence in other words becomes a form of politics
by other means.
What is state violence ?
What are the types and theories of state violence
According to Varun Sahni and Tharu, in South Asia, no matter how we
define or classify subversive or secessionist groups, the state responds in a
similar manner to all of them; in most cases it calls in the military. Faced
with a perceived threat to its sovereignty, the state knows only how to respond
with force. Only when the military strength of the insurgent group is defeated
or considerably weakened does the state begin to negotiate or consider
non-violent approaches.
The small number of cases of armed insurgencies that ended with
negotiated settlement before military defeat—the Mizos, Gorkhas, the Chittagong
Hill Tracts, are testament to this argument. The authors weigh in the variation
in the quantum of force used by the state and conclude that in dealing with
violent insurgencies, while both democratic and non-democratic governments
respond with force, and all cases of successful negotiated settlement have
involved democratic governments. Democratic states are more likely to “end the
cycle of violence,” Sahni and Tharu argue, but at the same time democratic
states also use the force they posses.
Read More : The Gandhian vision of human security Human security
STATE VIOLENCE IN INDIA
Pure ‘law and order’ solutions to ethnic and minority
problems has gone hand-in-hand with ‘ large concessions’ in the form of liberal
aids and quotas for the educated youths in North-East. Still, the Indian state
seems to have found no ways of resolving these insurgencies or even withdrawing
measures like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Unless and until it strives
for holistic systemic change from the core, ‘the carrot and stick’ policy will
just keep on adding to its already insurmountable problems. India’s other big
‘northern conundrum,’ the Kashmir conflict looks almost impossibly intractable.
To the citizens of Jammu and Kashmir, whose fundamental
allegiance lies with India, the only legitimate unit of governance is
India—including Kashmir. To the citizens whose basic identity is with Pakistan,
the only legitimate unit of governance is Pakistan—including Kashmir. To the
citizens fundamentally committed to the achievement of an independent Kashmir,
the only legitimate unit of governance is yet a phantom state of Jammu and
Kashmir fully independent of both India and Pakistan.
India will have to work out a negotiated settlement for a
resolution to the Kashmir problem within a creative framework of competing
nationalist claims by looking at the past history and methods of its federal
framework.
Got the answer What is state violence ? What are the types
and theories of state violence
Q1. What do you understand by state violence? What are the types and theories of state violence?
Q2. Analyse the situation of state violence in South Asia.
Q3. Discuss the extent of state violence in India.
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