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Browsing Research Repository by Author "Basumatary, Daoharu"

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    Ethnic Identity, Insurgency and Economic Development
    (Department of Humanities and Social Science, NITS, 2026-02-18) Basumatary, Daoharu
    In today’s world there is hardly any country that is ethnically homogenous. Polyethnic societies are often characterised by the competition for resources (including state privileges) across identities—be it ethnic, racial, religious or linguistic— which is often explained through a majority minority frame As economic condition of a social group is largely influenced by the development policy of the state, in most cases, particularly in electoral democracies, these policies are often biased towards the interest of the majority community leaving the minorities in the lurch. This phenomenon has been observed worldwide irrespective of the forms of government where the minority groups mostly find themselves excluded from the participation in mainstream political and economic opportunities which are embedded in the political processes. As a result, the minority groups in most of the countries are economically marginalised. In fact, this divide might further gets accentuated due to the discriminatory practice in the labour market in the lines of race and ethnicity and the practice of segregating the ethnic minorities in lower paid jobs and occupation. Thus, the uneven economic status among the of the minority ethnic groups in a polyethnic society is often an outcome of identity-based socio-politico-economic marginalization and discrimination. Therefore, governments across the globe are tasked with the responsibility of managing ethnic diversity. Broadly speaking the policy of integration or assimilationist is usually followed in managing the ethnic base of a country. Integrationist policy which allows co-existence of multiple cultural groups and accommodative of the claims and aspirations of the ethnic groups have resulted in peaceful existence between the ethnic groups. Contrary to integration is the policy of assimilation built on the notion of cultural homogenization in favour of the majority groups. This type of policy engineered by the majoritarian ruling elites is often faced with stiff resistance from the minorities leading to ethnic assertion, demand for separatism and sometimes call for secession. Inter-ethnic conflict arising out of ethnic assertion especially in developing and underdeveloped countries as they often lack the institutional capacity to manage the elements of conflicts inherent in ethnic diversity have often transcended into insurgent movements by the minority groups. Needless to say, that insurgency spews violence. This results in extreme difficulty for the government(s) in supplying public goods like education, health, housing, transport, electricity, drinking water, and sanitation particularly in rural areas. Moreover, the inducement to invest by the private investors also gets greatly reduced in an insurgent affected area. As a result, the avenues for employment and income generation get reduced, resulting in widespread unemployment that deteriorates the overall well-being and economic condition of the people living in an insurgency-affected area. In such a milieu, unemployed youths often become an easy prey to the ideological call of the insurgents and many joiners see it as the only alternative for meaningful engagement. Thus, a vicious cycle of insurgency and underdevelopment comes into play where one reinforces the other. Therefore, accommodating the claims and aspirations of the ethnic minorities relating to their identity, culture, politics and economy appears to be a way forward for conflict resolution that would allow development initiatives to take hold. In fact, the Bodo ethnic assertion that transcended into Bodo insurgency (1986 2021), can be attributed to their grievances relating to their identity, politics, economy, culture, and language. The Bodo insurgency was solved by federally accommodating the Bodos within the state of Assam. It was with the signing of the 3rd Bodo Accord in 2020, between the representatives of the Bodos on one hand and the Government of Assam and India on the other, under the provision of the 6th schedule of constitution of India, that resulted in the creation of the BTR (Bodoland Territorial Region) constituted by the five contiguous districts of Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa, Tamulpur and Udalguri that Bodo insurgency came to an end. The proposed study seeks to empirically investigate whether (a) there exist any difference in the economic status between the Bodos and the Non-Bodos, (b) the ethnic assertion of the Bodos was responsible for the Bodo insurgency, and (c) how this Bodo insurgency affected the economic development of the BTR. To do so three hypotheses were framed, which are 1. Major ethnic groups in the BTR like the Assamese, Bengali and Santhals, have higher levels of economic development in comparison to the Bodos. 2. Identity Crisis in a multi-ethnic society leads to ethnic insurgency. 3. Insurgency negatively affects economic development. For all the objectives the data collected from 408 respondents (determined by using Taro Yamane’s formula) in the BTR were estimated using partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Since for the first objective we found that in a polyethnic society the ethnic assertion of the underprivileged minority group(s) can be triggered by the existence of uneven economic development between of these groups. Hence economic development of a nation has to be inclusive that factor into the interests of the underprivileged groups as a way of conflict resolution Secondly, we determined that identity crisis of the Bodos acted as a major driver behind insurgency. This finding has a significant policy implication in polity management and governance particularly in a polyethnic social setting. Our finding calls for federalist accommodation of the ethnic groups as a way forward towards conflict resolution and peace building in a polyethnic social setting a la BTR. Lastly the effect of Bodo ethnic insurgency on the economic development was estimated. We found that insurgency negatively affected economic development. This calls for the development policy of a state to be accommodative of the grievances relating to the identity, culture, politics and economy of the ethnic minorities as a way forward for conflict resolution.