The main objectives of this research are to analyze the relationship between political decentralization and ethnic violence. With this objective, the research aims to understand the factors that can contribute to ethnic violence in politically decentralized areas and therefore to understand the variations in the outcome of conflict prevention mechanism.
The study will contribute to two sets of literature: a) ethnic violence and b) conflict prevention.
There are some contributing factors that are responsible for the failure to implement conflict prevention measures, but no thorough research has been done on this particular phenomenon. The research will enable us to fulfill the research gap in the existing literature.
Furthermore, the research will provide newer empirical findings to the literature on ethnic conflict.
Explaining the variable
Based on the research problem and review of different sets of literature, this study developed workable proposition to understand the relation between political decentralization and ethnic violence in Assam with special reference to Bodoland. The workable proposition for the study is as follows:
Proposition: The process of political decentralization may foster ethnic violence if there is an intensive power struggle among political elites within the decentralized areas.
There may be ethnic violence in a region if there is a power struggle among the political elites within the decentralized areas. The power struggle can be understood using two perspectives, i.e., a power struggle within an ethnic group and power struggle among the elites of contending ethnic groups. In this study, elite competition will be understood using electoral incentives and competition for resources among elites within the decentralized areas.
(a) Electoral competition among elites and ethnic violence
Based on the understanding from the literature reviewed in the previous section, electoral competition/incentive is one of the primary factors responsible for ethnic violence in politically decentralized areas. In this thesis, ethnic violence will be understood from the perspective of elite competition for electoral incentives. Violence in the BTAD areas after political decentralization may have been caused because of intense competition of local elites for political incentives. Elite incentives may be understood based on competition between elites within the Bodos (intra-elite) and between the Bodos and other ethnic groups (inter-elite).
As there are many ethnic political parties in the BTAD area, competition for electoral incentives is very likely in the decentralized region. This section tries to understand whether intra-elite competition may promote ethnic violence in the decentralized regions.
Ethnic political parties like BPF, UPP, and BPPF have their political bases and they compete to outbid each other. Intra-elite competition may therefore promote ethnic violence in the decentralized areas of BTAD.
Elite competition for political incentives can also be examined at an inter-elite level.
The presence of non-Bodo political parties along with Bodo ethnic political parties may have promoted ethnic violence for electoral incentives in the Bodoland area.
(b) Competition for resources among elites and ethnic violence
According to the literature, it is not only the electoral incentives that may foster ethnic violence but also competition for resources, especially land and forest resources play a crucial role in promoting ethnic violence in the decentralized areas. Therefore, from this perspective, this thesis also tries to understand, how competition for resources (relative resource inadequency) fosters ethnic violence in the decentralized regions of Assam.
The relation between political decentralization (independent variable) and violent outcome (dependent variable) can be explained with the help of the following diagram.
Independent determining factors Dependent variable [Political decentralization]
X1: (Intensive power Violent Outcome struggle among elites)
Diagram 2.1: Determining factors: Independent and Dependent variables
The determining factor for this thesis has also been converted from more generalized to specific after a preliminary field visit to different parts of Northeast. The later part of this research, it analyzed the proposition with relevant theoretical understanding and analysis from the field.
1. Electoral competition 2. Competition for resources
Summary
This study advanced the claim that political decentralization may not reduce ethnic violence, but rather may intensify tensions and violence in some places. Political decentralization shows mixed responses depending on time and space as claimed by Varshney. A brief review of the earlier literature on ethnic violence in politically decentralized areas reveals that ‘elites’ play a crucial role in instigating violence between ethnic groups for personal interests. Their interests may include electoral incentives or possession of resources. This chapter reviewed the existing literature on political decentralization, ethnicity and ethnic violence along with the proposition that is used for the thesis. Drawing from the ethnic violence and political decentralization literature, the thesis tries to examine the relation between the two variables and tries to explore the conditions that may promote ethnic violence in decentralized institutions. The next chapters will discuss the history of political administration of Assam, policies of political decentralization, Sixth Schedule in the hills and plain areas of Assam and the impact on inter-group relations.
The chapter will provide a background to analyzing the relationship between the history of political decentralization and the contingent factors/conditions that may have led to ethnic violence in Northeast India.