Milices armées d’Asie du Sud : Privatisation de la violence et implication des États

There seems to be no end to the growing number of victims of civil war, guerrilla warfare and military repression on the Indian subcontinent, despite the absence of interstate wars over the past 10 years. These conflicts involve militia of the paramilitary kind, whose ideology, sociology and strategies this book undertakes to unveil.

Very influential in India and Nepal, maoist organizations claim to be revolutionary. But the people they aspire to liberate are more often than not made up of lower castes and tribes, with the result that their guerrilla appear more ethnic than universalist.

They resemble in this aspect national liberation movements whose goal is the political independence of linguistic, religious and tribal communities. However, in Sri Lanka, Kashmir or Myanmar, these groups are also part of movements of national oppression.

This again is the case with nationalist or religious movements in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where Islamist militia, Hindu nationalists or Sikh militants exercise brutal control over their respective communities by means of a veritable cultural police.

Militia and states share a complex relationship. At times on the way to becoming true states within a State, these militia may equally be instrumentalized by the powers-that-be in order to enforce their authority at the local level.

Laurent Gayer is researcher at the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), New Delhi, and associate researcher at the Centre for Indian and South Asian Studies (CEIAS).

Christophe Jaffrelot is director of research at the CNRS and director of the Centre for International Studies and Research (CERI) at Sciences Po.

Mariam Abou Zahab, Amélie Blom, Gilles Boquérat, Jérémie Codron, Renaud Egreteau, Nicolas Jaoul and Chris Smith have contributed to this volume.

CONTENTS

Introduction
– Laurent Gayer and Christophe Jaffrelot

I: The Maoist Phenomenon

Chapter 1
Naxalites of Bihar:  Between Arms and Urns
– Nicolas Jaoul

Chapter 2
Maoism and the Ethnic Factor in Nepal’s People’s War
– Gilles Boquérat

II: National Liberation Movements?

Chapter 3
The LTTE: A Movement of Liberation and National Oppression
– Chris Smith

Chapter 4
Myanmar’s Militia: Between Insurrection and Maintenance of Order
– Renaud Egreteau

III: Politico-religious Movements: Relays of State Power?

Chapter 5
The Hizb-ul Mujahidin of Kashmir, Imaginaries and Clientelism
– Amélie Blom

Chapter 6
The SSP, Herald of Sunni Militancy in Pakistan
– Mariam Abou Zahab

Chapter 7
Islamist Militia in Bangladesh: Symptoms of a Weak State?
– Jérémie Codron

Chapter 8
The Hindutva Brigade and Cultural Policing
– Christophe Jaffrelot

Chapter 9
Militia of Khalistan: Servants and Users of the State
– Laurent Gayer

Conclusion
– Laurent Gayer and Christophe Jaffrelot