Colonial Origins of Group Structures and Statebuilding in India's Peripheries

• In Event: Historical Political Institutions in Africa and Asia

Abstract

What explains divergent trajectories of state-building processes in the geographically challenging borderlands? Departing from prevailing theories of state-building, which emphasize the center's capacity and will, I develop an endogenous theory of state-building that focuses on the conditions and dynamics within the peripheries that shape the state-building processes. I argue that the colonial origins of group structures, whether fragmented or hegemonic, within peripheral societies are crucial in determining center-periphery dynamics and the center’s state-building response in the postcolonial period. Specifically, the group structures shape the collective action capacities of the periphery and its preference for state collaboration, which in turn constrain the center’s choice for more mediated/centralized rule and its opportunity to extend state visibility throughout the territory. I illustrate this theory by constructing a subnational case comparison of two borderlands of India’s Northeast (Nagaland and Mizoram) during the early decades of Indian independence. Drawing on extensive archival and interview data collected during thirteen months of fieldwork in 2018-2020 in these remote regions, I find that existing state-building theories often oversimplify the intricate local conditions that shape political development and the projection of state power in the previously ungoverned hinterlands.

Author

• Min Jung Kim, The George Washington University