State structures must be based on popular will, and must work for the greatest good of the greatest number. This seemingly simple principle could provide a solution to some of the most intractable problems of the day. Unfortunately, it is a principle that has been observed more in breach than in practice, and nowhere more than in Southasia.
The country that pats itself on the back for being the largest democracy in the world suffers from selective amnesia when it comes to recollecting some of the actions of its 'democratic' state structure. On 2 January, tribal people were protesting in Kalinga Nagar village in Orissa against the government decision to forcibly acquire their land at throwaway prices and set up a factory complex that would only benefit the corporate-bureaucrat-political elite. The people were engaged in what was their constitutional right – to protest peacefully. The police clearly thought otherwise, and had a simple mechanism to deal with the problem. They opened fire, and shot dead 12 of the protestors.
Dissent is not the only way by which a citizen runs the risk of earning the wrath of the Indian republic, nor that of other states in Southasia (see "The deserving and the undeserving", in this issue of Himal). The establishment seems to have a particular fondness for killing apolitical, innocent people. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in the Northeast empowers the army to 'shoot to kill' on the basis of mere suspicion. Last year, in Manipur, Manorama Devi – by all accounts, an innocent woman not associated with any militant outfit – was picked up by soldiers in the middle of the night, raped and killed. Despite the outrage that followed – middle-aged women stood naked in front of the army headquarters in Imphal to protest against the Act that allowed such violations – the government refused to budge. 47 years after it was first introduced, AFSPA, giving the state the license to kill, continues to operate in democratic India, in principle and in practice. Manorama Devi is a symbol for the many that are killed every year, all over the republic, by state violence.
It is not only in politically-troubled spots, be it the Northeast or Kashmir, that the Indian state shows its darkest manifestation. The economic policies pursued by successive governments, especially after the opening of the economy in 1991, is responsible for massive structural violence against the poor. The state establishment, with its reduced spending in rural areas and policy of leaving agriculture to the whims of global trade organisations, has manufactured an agrarian crisis in India. This has resulted in a sharp drop in the per capita food intake of the rural poor. The police brutality against workers of an MNC who dared to strike last year in Gurgaon, in Delhi's outskirts, is yet another example of how vulnerable hard-earned labour rights are in 'socialist' India.