file:///C|/Inetpub/wwwroot/web/06%20May%2012/Internal%20Security/violence.txt[5/12/2012 9:33:35 AM]
India 2025 : Likely Levels of Violence
by Vijay Karan
Introduction
In the history of a country, especially one so “aged” as India, twenty five years
is a very small period indeed. And yet, twenty five years can be a very long
time, a very eventful time, a very transforming time.
In terms of economic prosperity, India has little to show even fifty years after it
became independent. That things seem to be changing now is a different matter.
We will have to wait till 2020 or 2025 to see whether the current economic
reforms bring widespread economic well being, if not prosperity. At the same
time, to India’s enormous credit, when it became independent, famine loomed
over much of the country, like a long shadow of death. Twenty five years later,
famine as a threat had all but disappeared. Today, India has already emerged as
one of the world’s largest producers of so many food products – milk, milk
products, fruit, rice, sugar, wheat etc. Our granaries are overflowing and we
don’t seem to know what to do with our food. Ironically, one-third of India still
lives below the poverty line.
Violence is a worldwide phenomenon and has dogged humanity all through
history. The twentieth century, with two world wars and the Holocaust was
perhaps the bloodiest period mankind has ever experience. Things now seem to
be changing, wisdom seems to be at last dawning on humans and for the first
time in human history, peace seems to have a chance.
Violence need not necessarily have a cycle or pattern, though broadly, it has of
late been seen that violence diminishes with prosperity, showing its profound
economic dimension. Nevertheless, the violence that came with independence
to India and Pakistan had little to do with economics or prosperity. One often
wonders what would have been the degree of violence in 1947 had India and
Pakistan then been highly prosperous nations. Hong Kong slipped into China
so effortlessly, so non-violently, though the comparison may not seem quite
appropriate.
In the first twenty-five years after India’s independence, there was little change
in the pattern of violence. On the one hand, communal violence between
Hindus and Muslims continued as a British Trojan horse, drawing Indian blood
repeatedly. A new phenomenon, however was the birth of rural insurgency,
which began as an utterance against feudal oppression and exploitation and has
continued in a nagging kind of way as a left-oriented ideological movement
called Naxalism. Both these forms of violence continue to dog India till today,
both with political underpinnings. However, Babri Masjid gave the BJP such a
bad name that it seems to have diluted the party’s anti-Muslim virulence. The
party has now opened its doors to the Muslims. Even if a political ploy, it is a
revolutionary and ideologically antithetical ploy.
While there was little change in the extent of violence in the first twenty five
years after India’s independence, there was a dramatic transformation in its
