Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2021. xviii, 392 pp. (Tables, graphs, figures, maps, B&W photos.) US$91.00, cloth. ISBN 9781108844994.
Shivaji Mukherjee has written an important book on the historical roots of contemporary insurgency, arguing that patterns of colonial rule have deeply shaped the distribution of Maoist insurgency in post-independence India. He argues that in areas of de facto indirect rule (including both formal princely states and what he refers to as “informal” indirect rule, where zamindari landlords dominated), the postcolonial state was weaker, grievances were higher, and different identities became both salient and excluded from political power compared to areas of colonial direct rule.
This combination later provided fertile ground to Maoist insurgents who were able to mobilize local populations against weak and despotic state institutions and local elites. While there is space for rebel leaders’ agency—especially how they use ideological frameworks to interpret “objective” conditions—this is broadly a structural account with strong path-dependence. Mukherjee deploys a remarkable range of evidence at the national, state, and local levels, showing deep knowledge of the Indian context and Maoist insurgency. This is a crucial scholarly work for anyone trying to understand India’s Naxalite revolt.
Mukherjee’s theory rests crucially on a tripartite typology of direct and indirect rule, which is based in large part on the nature of revenue collection mechanisms. Mukherjee argues that previous studies have overlooked that zamindari land tenure systems—even in formally “direct rule” contexts—should instead be understood as a kind of informal indirect rule because of the dominance of local elites. When we see either formal indirect rule or informal indirect rule, Mukherjee contends, we should see the creation of conditions favouring Maoist insurgency.
This is a valuable theoretical move that helps to break down the binary of direct/indirect rule. Yet it also provokes questions: Why is this tripartite division the right place to stop, as opposed to a more fine-grained spectrum of variation? Is it plausible that Bengal—the springboard of British colonial rule and site of extraordinary violence and extraction—should really be thought of as indirectly ruled? Why did intellectual circles in urban Kolkata form the intellectual breeding ground of Naxalism? These questions emerge from Mukherjee’s conceptual innovation, so they also show the generative potential of his approach while also suggesting some possible limits of the theory.
Empirically, Mukherjee does a wonderful job delving deep into state-level dynamics in Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Karnataka, mapping the existence of past patterns of colonial rule onto trajectories of militancy after independence. The level of detail is impressive and worth a careful read by anyone interested in India’s huge Naxalite insurgency, and civil wars in general. I learned an enormous amount from these chapters.
The all-India quantitative tests, by contrast, struck me as more suggestive. Mukherjee uses variation in Maoist insurgency in the early/mid-2000s as his dependent variable, which seems to present a disjuncture from the core dependent variable of his theory: civil war onset. The Naxalite insurgency has morphed and spread and retracted over decades, so its status as of 2000–2005 speaks more to an incredibly complex process of strategic adaptation and interaction than to the original spatial roots of the insurgency. We saw leftist insurgency as early as 1948, both in local pockets of India and as a (badly failed) strategy of the Communist Party of India, and the current Naxalite insurgency draws its name from 1967 West Bengal. It’s not obvious how the 2000–2005 period represents the “initial core areas of rebel control” (117) rather than the result of decades of endogenous conflict processes. There is a lot to be impressed by here, like the use of European wars as an instrument for British decision making in India, but I found the case study and field research much closer to the theoretical dynamics Mukherjee describes.
This concern extends to Mukherjee’s discussion of Burma/Myanmar and Pakistan. He is correct that there have been insurgencies in areas of colonial indirect rule in both countries. The mechanism he identifies is clearly one of the pathways to civil war. However, there is a risk of overstating things. While by the mid-1960s, anti-regime insurgencies had been pushed to Burma’s peripheries, the actual onset of both communist and Karen ethnic insurgency involved large-scale mobilization and violence in areas that were not at all on the colonial periphery (for instance, the Pegu Yoma, Insein, and the Irrawaddy Delta all saw major clashes). They were eventually pushed out of these areas into geographic peripheries by sustained military campaigns, but if the dependent variable is spatial composition of civil war onset, the Burma case is not as close to the theory as Mukherjee suggests. Similarly, in Pakistan, the most consequential insurgency occurred in 1971 East Pakistan, a war of mass mobilization led by a mainstream political party over the balance of national power, rather than a highly localized Maoist insurgency driven by local grievances. As noted above, much hinges for Mukherjee on whether we consider colonial Bengal to be a case of indirect rule—if not, then there is little way to reconcile his argument to the Bengali revolt. Mukherjee is clearly on to something important, but I would have preferred somewhat more limited claims on these cases beyond the core India work.
Colonial Institutions and Civil War is an important book full of valuable insights, data, and arguments. It joins a small list of must-read scholarly books on the Maoist insurgency in India. It leaves some important questions for future research: How should we conceptualize varieties of rule, and what trade-offs accompany different answers? What is the right way of studying the complex mix of conflict onset with dynamics over time? Are Maoist insurgencies different than others in how they mobilize localities? Mukherjee has carved out fascinating terrain; future research can move forward by building on his book.
Paul Staniland
The University of Chicago, Chicago