Effects of Political Leadership on Ethnic Separatist Movements in India

Effects of Political Leadership on Ethnic Separatist

Movements in India

How do patterns of political leadership affect the trajectories of ethnic separatist

movements? The main bodies of theoretical literature (primordialism, instrumentalism,
socio-psychological approaches, rational-choice theory, and “social movement” theory)

all demonstrate a remarkable uniformity in how they analyze the effects of political

leadership on the course of ethnic movements. These theoretical approaches focus

almost exclusively on the emotional or material relationship between leaders and their

ethnic followers to explain how political leadership affects the trajectory of ethnic

movements. All of these bodies of theory fail to give sufficient attention to the effects of

“patterns of political leadership” (defined as the political inter-relationships between

state and ethnic elites, between ethnic elites, and between state elites) on the evolution of

ethnic movements. This paper attempts to fill this void. I use a “most-similar systems”

design to compare and contrast the effects of “patterns of political leadership” on the

trajectories of several ethnic movements in India including Punjab, Kashmir, and Assam

in the Northeast. The fact that these movements have occurred (or are occurring) in the

same political system (e.g. India) and during the relatively same time period (e.g. post-

Independence India) justifies the use of the “most-similar-systems” research design and

increases the validity of the analysis’ eventual empirical findings. The larger goal of this

paper is to formulate an incipient theory or initial model of how “patterns of political

leadership” affect the trajectory of separatist insurgencies in general. Thus, this paper has

both substantive and theoretical implications  

Introduction

The immediate purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the effects of

different patterns of political leadership on the trajectories of the ethnic movements in the

Indian states of Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir (referred to as simply “Kashmir”), and Assam

in the Northeast region. The term “patterns of political leadership” is broadly defined in

this paper as being “the complex inter-relationships between ethnic political elites and

their relationship with central authorities through time.” The eventual goal of this line of

empirical research is to develop a theory of how patterns of political leadership affect the

trajectories of ethnic separatist movements in general. This endeavor is particularly

important because the main bodies of theoretical literature explaining political

mobilization and demobilization (primordialism, instrumentalism, socio-psychological

approaches, rational-choice theory, and “social movement” theory) all demonstrate a

remarkable uniformity in how they conceptualize the effects of political leadership on the

trajectories of ethnic movements.

1

These theoretical approaches focus almost exclusively

on the emotional or material relationship between leaders and their ethnic followers, and

neglect to sufficiently analyze the effect of the interaction between and amongst state and

ethnic elites on the trajectory of ethnic movements. Thus, the line of inquiry pursued in

this paper has potentially significant empirical, theoretical, and public-policy

consequences.

1

Walker Connor, “Beyond Reason: The Nature of the Ethnonational Bond,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 16

(July 1993) is an example of a work espousing the primordialist approach. The instrumentalist perspective
is exemplified by Paul R. Brass, “Elite Groups, Symbol Manipulation and Ethnic Identity Among the
Muslims of South Asia,” in David Taylor and Malcolm Yapp (eds.), Political Identity in South Asia
(London: Curzon Press, 1979). Robert Ted Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1970) is the classic work in the socio-psychological school. Works in the rational-choice perspective
are found in Albert Breton (ed.), Nationalism and Rationality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995). The social constructivist perspective is contained in Aldon D. Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller
(eds.), Frontiers in Social Movement Theory (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).