Primordial violence in India in the 1990s. A challenge to the democratic process: A study of primordial violence on the Indian subcontinent focusing on a case-study of the Maratha Group, the Shiv Sena.

Abstract

Major changes have taken place on the Indian subcontinent in the 1990s. The Nehru-Gandhi family is no longer in power and the Congress party, the premier political party, has been forced into forming coalitions in order to retain its position in New Delhi. New economic policies have created social, political, and economic changes. These changes have created a period of instability in India whereby the middle class has realigned itself into a political force and caste no longer controls social delineations.

This period has been rife with political conflict and the emergence of new parties and groups. The Shiv Sena is one such primordially based group drawing its membership from kinship and family ties. It has been in existence in the state of Maharashtra since the 1960s but has gained momentum and popularity in the 1990s. Once considered a radical group it is now more mainstream successfully gaining political power at the center. Well organized and structured into shakhas, the Shiv Sena is capable of mass violent mobilization as they proved in the 1992-1993 riots and the Babri Masjid incident. It is instability along with the threat of primordial violence poses a challenge to the democratic process.