Subversion, secession and the state in South Asia: Varieties of violence

The sovereign territorial state is a totalizing actor at the best of times. At the worst of times, when it feels threatened, the state may respond with force and violence. Yet the sovereign state is inherently susceptible to perceiving threats. The seeds of subversion are everywhere, waiting to sprout at an opportune moment. From a totalizing perspective, all social groups supposedly subordinate and subsumed are always potentially subversive. This presumption is reflected in state responses to a wide variety of violence, be it left-wing or right-wing insurgency or ethno-cultural movements. In this chapter we shall substantiate this argument in the concrete contexts of South Asia and develop an understanding of these cycles of violence.