Ethnic Identity, Insurgency and Economic Development
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Date
2026-02-18
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Department of Humanities and Social Science, NITS
Abstract
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.