(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
able to construct a regional sense of ethnicity cannot
readily be determined, but none of these attempts to
achieve a separate state succeeded.
Another outcome of states reorganization was the
escalation of what have been called “nativistic” move-
ments. In such movements the dominant linguistic
group of a particular state, styling themselves as “sons
of the soil,” sought, by a combination of legal mea-
sures, intimidation, and violence, to limit the opportu-
nities of immigrant groups from other states—and
sometimes of indigenous Muslims as well—and, in
some instances, to create legal obstacles to their settle-
ment. The strongest of these movements were in
Assam and Maharashtra.
Tribal and Caste-Based Ethnicity
A number of tribal groups who aspired either to state-
hood within the Indian union or to full independence
were disregarded in the initial phase of the linguistic
reorganization. In the mineral-rich Chhota Nagpur, in
the northeast of peninsular India, tribals had estab-
lished a forerunner of the present-day Jharkhand Party
as early as 1939. The party has campaigned intermit-
tently for a tribal state since the parliamentary elec-
tions of 1957. Other groups, most notably the Nagas
and later the Mizos along India’s northeastem borders,
resorted to armed rebellion. Many among these fron-
tier tribals were Christians, almost all spoke languages
unrelated to the major languages of the states in which
they lived, and very few had reason to feel a deep
sense of loyalty to India. Their struggles were at times
abetted by foreign Christian groups as well as by Paki-
stan and China, all of which provided them with moral
and/or material support.
The Indian Government’s attitude in dealing with
tribal demands was generally less conciliatory than it
was in respect to other ethnic groups. Ultimately,
however, through a combination of military suppres-
sion, co-optation of compliant leaders, and other tac-
tics, accommodations were reached with elements of
each of the rebellious frontier groups, and many new,
tribally dominated administrative units—either union
territories or fullfledged states—were established. The
much more numerous, but also more pacific, tribal
groups, however, continue to find their political aspi-
rations frustrated.
The role of caste in the postindependence period has
changed considerably. In the past, power at the local
level was typically shared by the dominant landhold-
ing group and the ritually supreme Brahmans. Each
group legitimized the role of the other in its appropri-
ate sphere. With the coming of democracy, however,
numbers, rather than ritual ascendancy or other claims
to elite status, became increasingly important determi-
nants of power. Throughout India, at all levels of gov-
ernment and across the political spectrum, parties
appealed to particular types of caste constituencies to
gain support. Local magnates—believed to control
large “vote banks” of their caste followers-offered
their support to specific parties in return for a place on
the ballot. Single castes rarely composed an absolute
majority of the electorate; alliances among various
caste groups were therefore common.
Anti-Brahmanism had become a potent political force
in some regions even in the preindependence period.
The appeal of Charan Singh to a wide spectrum of
middle-level peasant castes over much of the Hindi-
speaking area of India was a key factor in catapulting
the Janata Party to power in 1978, following the
period of emergency rule initiated by Indira Gandhi in
1975. The desire for empowerment among middle-
level groups found expression during the period of
Janata rule in the creation of the Mandal Commission,
which drew up a report in 1982 suggesting a new set
of quotas for the numerically strong so-called Other
Backward Castes (OBCs) similar to those that the
Constitution already guaranteed to Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes. Although the Janata Party did
not remain in power long enough to implement the
provisions of the Commission’s report, the decision to
do so by a new National Front government in 1990
touched off a wave of violent protest over large parts
of India and contributed to the government’s collapse
shortly thereafter.
Below the OBCs in India’s social hierarchy are the
Scheduled Castes, formerly untouchables, who com-
pose roughly a sixth of the nation’s total population.
Their struggle for equality before the law and for
humane treatment by traditionally superior groups has
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Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268