(Estimated Pub Date) the Challenge of Ethnic Conflict to National and International Order in the 1990S: Geographic Perspectives- October 1995

Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268
legislative assembly and imposing President’s or Gov-
emor’s Rule.
The potential for serious and enduring damage to
existing polities from ethnically rooted violence, both
intranationally and internationally, is great and
appears to be increasing. From 1972 to 1980, India
experienced serious ethnic violence in 67 percent of
all months, and South Asia as a whole experienced
such violence in 95 percent of all months. For the
period 1981 to 199.0, the figures rose to 94 percent and
100 percent for India and South Asia, respectively.
From an ethnic perspective, South Asia is arguably the
most complex and one of the most turbulent regions of
our planet. Its political map is far from frozen. One
may safely anticipate a number of changes in the fore-
seeable future, many of which will be driven by agen-
das of specific ethnic groups. Whatever these changes
may be, they will, in turn, surely give rise to new
manipulations of ethnic identities to suit the needs of
new situations.
This presentation considers the various historical pro-
cesses that have shaped ethnic identities in South
Asia, concentrating, because of limitations of time and
space, on India and on the postindependence period. It
also discusses specific bases for establishing ethnic
identities and the periods, situations, and locales in
which they assumed importance. It also notes the
means by which ethnic groups seek to advance their
interests and by which govemments respond to such
efforts. I shall not, however, strive for completeness——
the topic is simply too vast. Omitted from consider-
ation here is any discussion of ethnic relations in
Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. Even for India, I
shall do no more than touch lightly on the two most
troublesome contemporary ethnic problems: the Sikh
struggle for an independent Khalistan and the com-
plex struggle in Kashmir being waged simultaneously
by forces seeking independence, on the one hand, or
merger with Pakistan on the other. Virtually all the
empirical data that I shall be presenting are drawn
from the updated 1992 edition of the Historical Atlas
of South Asia, which synthesizes information from a
multitude of sources, only a small part of which are
noted in the bibliography accompanying this paper.
Although the interpretations of those data are my own,
I doubt that any are wholly original.
Processes of Ethnic Identity Formulation
Birth into a particular group still matters far more in
South Asia than it does in areas of other major civili- -
zations. One is expected to be “true to one’s salt”;
one’s essence and traditions are all determined by
birth.
Jati, which generally connotes caste, translates liter-
ally as birth. One is born into a particular caste in
accordance with one’s karma—the net merit or
demerit of actions performed in previous existences. If
one properly follows in the present life the forms of
behavior appropriate to caste status, one may aspire to
rebirth in a higher caste. This axiomatic belief forms
the essence of Hindu dharma, which may be trans-
lated either as duty or religion. These observations are
made with specific reference to Hinduism but are
equally applicable to Buddhism and Jainism. The
behavioral norms on which they are based have
strongly influenced communities of other coexisting
faiths of South Asia as well, even Muslims, for whom
the very notion of caste is theoretically anathema. For
example, few Indian Muslims, before the creation of
Pakistan, would have hesitated to identify the social
group to which they belonged by a name that would
conjure up in the minds of their non-Muslim neigh-
bors a particular caste-defined set of roles and a spe-
cific genre de vie.
For most South Asians and for most of the region’s
history, caste was the principal referent of one’s place
in society. The vast majority of the population lived in
villages in which their appropriate social and eco-
nomic roles were rooted primarily in caste. Social and
intellectual horizons in such a setting were typically
very limited, and political action, such as it was, was
generally confined to a narrow spatial arena. Affairs of
state were the domain of small classes of elite.
Although the encompassing sacred realm of Bharat, or
India, found a place in the consciousness of Hindus,
communal activities at an all-India level were nonex-
istent. At a regional level, devotion to the cult of a par-
ticular deity or to a saintly figure and participation in
major fairs and pilgrimages did provide some feeling
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Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268