India

Abstract

Never before in its history has the Indian nation looked as severely fractured as it does now — not because the fracture is unprecedented but because it continues at a time when no one seems sure of how to fix it. Clearly, the post-independence (1947) consensus about ‘who belongs to the nation, democratic access and rights, the relationship between state and ever-more diverse society’ is now in a shambles.¹ The newly born Indian state took time to realize that it was left with a ‘nation’ that was fractured in at least two critical ways. First, it inherited a vast territory containing some groups and communities that either refused to be part of the Indian nation or, at the very least, wanted to exercise the freedom to renegotiate their inclusion in it. They resented that they had ab initio become part of the nation without forming a party to the ‘contract’ or the ‘common undertaking’ that brought the new political dispensation into existence. Thus, Manipur’s 1949 ‘merger’ in the Indian Union — as we will have occasion to see — is being disputed not only by the insurgents but also by a plethora of overground groups and forces circulating in the state. The fracture is thus constitutive of the Indian nation. However, Manipur’s problems have been subsequently compounded by poor governance, sub-regional asymmetries growing between the hills and the plains, almost routine violations of human rights, and, of course, steady erosion of democratic institutions and practices.