Social Movements and State Repression in India

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (8) ◽  
pp. 1080-1102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raju J Das
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
State Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Aboriginal Peoples ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Property Relations ◽  
Military Threat ◽  
Maoist Movement

State repression is particularly likely when social movements target property relations that cause ordinary citizens to suffer. Whether these movements are violent, and whether the state is a liberal democracy is a contingent matter. This is illustrated by India’s ‘Maoist movement’ (which is also known as the Naxalite movement because it originated in an area called Naxalbari, located in India’s West Bengal State). Where necessary, sections of this movement use violent methods to fight for justice for aboriginal peoples and peasants. This strategy, which the author, incidentally, does not endorse, has been seen by the state as the greatest internal military threat to it. Such a perception invites state violence. What is often under-emphasized or ignored is that the movement is an economic, political and ideological threat, and not just a military threat, and it is so through its localized alternative developmental activities, and this is also a reason for the state’s violent response to it.

Legitimation, State Repression, and the Sioux Massacre at Wounded Knee

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Roscigno ◽  
Julia Cantzler ◽  
Salvatore Restifo ◽  
Joshua Guetzkow
Keyword(s):  
State Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Dance Movement ◽  
Ghost Dance ◽  
Cultural Foundations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wounded Knee ◽  
Institutional Actors

The Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 and the Ghost Dance movement that preceded it offer a compelling sociological case for understanding legitimation, elite framing, and repression. Building on the social movements literature and theoretical insights on power, institutions, and inequality, we engage in multimethod, in-depth analyses of a rich body of archived correspondence from key institutional actors at the time. Doing so contributes to the literature by drawing attention to (1) the cultural foundations of inequality and repression; (2) super-ordinate framing by political elites and the state; and (3) key institutional conflicts and their consequences. We find that, within an ambiguous colonial context, officials of the Office of Indian Affairs and federal politicians shelved benign military observations and, instead, amplified ethnocentric and threat frames. Force was consequently portrayed as justifiable, which increased the likelihood of the massacre. We conclude by discussing the utility of our results for conceptions of culture, power, inequality, the state, and state violence.

scholarly journals And the Heat Goes On: Police Repression and the Modalities of Power

2021 ◽  
pp. 002200272110130
Author(s):  
Howard Liu ◽  
Christopher M. Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
State Power ◽  
State Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Local District ◽  
Unique Data ◽  
Unique Position ◽  
Infrastructural Power

Among security institutions, police occupy a unique position. In addition to specializing in the repression of dissent, police monitor society and enforce order. Yet within research studying state repression, how police institutions are used and deployed to control domestic threats remain under-explored, particularly as it relates to the dual functionality just described. In this study, we develop and test an explanation of police repression accounting for the bifurcation of Mann’s two modalities of state power: infrastructural power and despotic power. Infrastructural power allocates police resources to surveil dissidents and preemptively limit dissent’s emergence or escalation. Police deploy despotic power through repressive responses to political threats. Empirically, we employ unique data to investigate police repression and the modalities of power in Guatemala. To analyze how shifting the balance between infrastructural and despotic power affects police repression, we isolate damage occurring from an earthquake that exogenously reshaped the landscape of infrastructural power. Results affirm the role of infrastructural power in regulating the despotic power of the state. Where local infrastructure was most affected by the earthquake, the security apparatus lost the capacity to surveil nascent movements and predict their activity, thereby providing opportunity for dissidents to mobilize and forcing police to (over-)react rather than shutdown resistance preemptively. However, the intensity of state violence recedes as the state recovers from the infrastructural damage and regains its control of local district.

The Russian nationalist movement at low ebb

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Verkhovsky
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Subsequent Increase ◽  
Nationalist Movement

This chapter examines changes in the Russian nationalist movement from Russia’s annexation of Crimea until the State Duma elections in September 2016. Since 2014, the nationalist movement has been split over which side to support in the war in Ukraine. Then, with the subsequent increase in state repression of ultra-rightists, the movement lapsed into total decline. The chapter traces activities in various sectors of Russian nationalism, discussing the separate trajectories of the pro-Kremlin and oppositional nationalists, as well as the latter group’s further subdivision into groups that support or oppose the ‘Novorossiia programme’. Attention is paid to the complex relationship and interaction between the various groups of nationalists, as well as to their interaction with the powers-that-be and with the liberal opposition.

The History Of Modern Vaccination In Cooch Behar State In The Nineteenth Century

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 180-190
Author(s):  
Rajkumar Bind
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Vaccination Programme ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
The State ◽  
The People ◽  
Small Pox ◽  
Preventive Method ◽  
History Of

This paper examines the development of modern vaccination programme of Cooch Behar state, a district of West Bengal of India during the nineteenth century. The study has critically analysed the modern vaccination system, which was the only preventive method against various diseases like small pox, cholera but due to neglect, superstation and religious obstacles the people of Cooch Behar state were not interested about modern vaccination. It also examines the sex wise and castes wise vaccinators of the state during the study period. The study will help us to growing conciseness about modern vaccination among the peoples of Cooch Behar district.   

The Challenge of Mass Democracy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin A. Schupmann
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
The State ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
The People ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Mass Democracy

Chapter 1 analyzes Schmitt’s assessment of democratic movements in Weimar and the gravity of their effects on the state and constitution. It emphasizes that the focus of Schmitt’s criticism of Weimar was mass democracy rather than liberalism. Schmitt warned that the combination of mass democracy, the interpenetration of state and society, and the emergence of total movements opposed to liberal democracy, namely the Nazis and the Communists, were destabilizing the Weimar state and constitution. Weimar, Schmitt argued, had been designed according to nineteenth century principles of legitimacy and understandings of the people. Under the pressure of mass democracy, the state was buckling and cannibalizing itself and its constitution. Despite this, Schmitt argued, Weimar jurists’ theoretical commitments left them largely unable to recognize the scope of what was occurring. Schmitt’s criticism of Weimar democracy was intended to raise awareness of how parliamentary democracy could be turned against the state and constitution.

Repressive Religious Regulation and Political Mobilization in Central Asia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin Gamza ◽  
Pauline Jones
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Religious Persecution ◽  
Muslim Majority ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Perceived Harm

What is the relationship between state repression of religion and political mobilization in Muslim-majority states? Does religious repression increase the likelihood that Muslims will support acts of rebellion against the state? This chapter contends that the effect of repression on attitudes toward political mobilization is conditional on both the degree of enforcement and the type of religious practice that is being targeted. When enforcement is high and the repressive regulation being enforced targets communal (rather than individualistic) religious practices, Muslims expect state persecution of their religious community to increase, and that this persecution will extract a much greater toll. They are thus more willing to support taking political action against the state in order to protect their community from this perceived harm. The chapter tests this argument with two novel survey experiments conducted in Kyrgyzstan in 2019. It finds that the degree of enforcement has a significant effect on attitudes toward political mobilization, but this effect is negative (reducing support) rather than positive (increasing support). The chapter also finds that repression targeting communal practices has a stronger effect on attitudes toward political mobilization than repression targeting individualistic practices, but again, these effects are negative. The chapter’s findings suggest that the fear of collective punishment increases as the degree of enforcement increases, particularly when it comes to repression targeting communal practices. Thus, while Muslims are motivated to protect their community from harm, it may be that the certainty of financial and physical harm outweighs the expectation of increasing religious persecution.

scholarly journals The dark footprint of state violence: A synthetic approach to the American crime decline

2021 ◽  
pp. 136248062098423
Author(s):  
Aaron Roussell ◽  
Lori Sexton ◽  
Paul Deppen ◽  
Marisa Omori ◽  
Esther Scheibler
Keyword(s):  
Crime Rate ◽  
State Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Synthetic Approach ◽  
Holistic View ◽  
Lethal Violence ◽  
Crime Decline ◽  
Reported Crime ◽  
Criminal Legal System ◽  
Deaths In Custody

This project combines the conversation on the national crime rate with emerging discussions on the violence that the state perpetrates against civilians. To measure US lethal violence holistically, we reconceptualize the traditional definitional boundaries of violence to erase arbitrary distinctions between state- and civilian-caused crime and violence. Discussions of the “crime decline” focus specifically on civilian crime, positioning civilians as the sole danger to the health, wealth, and safety of individuals. Violence committed by the state—from police homicide to deaths in custody to in-prison sexual assault—is not found in the traditionally reported crime rate. These absences belie real dangers posed to individuals which are historical and contemporary, nonnegligible, and possibly rising. We present Uniform Crime Report data side-by-side with data on police killings, deaths in custody, and executions from sources such as Fatal Encounters, the Washington Post, the Guardian, and the Center for Disease Control to produce a robust discussion of deaths produced through the criminal legal system. We ground this empirical analysis in a broader conceptual framework that situates state violence squarely within the realm of US crime, and explore the implications of this more holistic view of crime for future analyses.

scholarly journals "Communist" dispossession meets "reactionary" resistance

Focaal ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 2009 (54) ◽  
pp. 89-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Projit Bihari Mukharji
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
Present Situation ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Subjectivity ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Term Change ◽  
Communist Government ◽  
Set Up

The reflections in this article were instigated by the repeated and brutal clashes since 2007 between peasants and the state government’s militias—both official and unofficial—over the issue of industrialization. A communist government engaging peasants violently in order to acquire and transfer their lands to big business houses to set up capitalist enterprises seemed dramatically ironic. De- spite the presence of many immediate causes for the conflict, subtle long-term change to the nature of communist politics in the state was also responsible for the present situation. This article identifies two trends that, though significant, are by themselves not enough to explain what is happening in West Bengal today. First, the growth of a culture of governance where the Communist Party actively seeks to manage rather than politicize social conflicts; second, the recasting of radical political subjectivity as a matter of identity rather than an instigation for critical self-reflection and self-transformation.

Tribal Land Rights: A Situational Analysis in the Context of West Bengal

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-209
Author(s):  
Sudipta Biswas ◽  
Sukumar Pal
Keyword(s):  
Land Reform ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
The State ◽  
Situational Analysis ◽  
Tribal Population ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
Large Section ◽  
Tribal People ◽  
Tribal Land

Tribal communities in India are most deprived. Socio-economically, they are poor and marginalised. The root cause of socio-economic marginalisation can be attributed to alienation of tribal people from their land, territory and resources. The overall situation of the tribal population of West Bengal is not better than the national average, even more deprived than the tribal population of other states. Despite progressive land reform laws and political commitment to implement such laws, issues of tribal land rights have not been addressed adequately. There is no such exclusive study to understand the situation of tribal land rights in the state of West Bengal. This article analyses the status of tribal land rights in the state context and makes some suggestions for improving the situation. It is found that despite distribution of land titles, a large section of the tribal population remains landless. A sizable portion has not received received record-of-rights. Claims of many tribal people for forest patta remain pending or stand rejected. Tribal land alienation continues to be a matter of concern. The state has not taken any concrete steps for the restoration of unlawfully alienated tribal lands. A large section of the tribal sharecroppers in the state remain unrecorded.

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