Overview

An overarching exploration of the Indian state's approaches, laws, and organizations that maintain order and contain violence. Maintaining order and containing violence-the core constituents of internal security-are fundamental responsibilities of any government. Yet, developing countries find this task especially challenging. In Internal Security in India, Amit Ahuja, Devesh Kapur, and a cast of leading scholars on the subject focus on India's security and the threats it faces. Since Independence, the Indian state has grappled with a variety of internal security challenges, including insurgencies, terrorist attacks, caste and communal violence, riots, and electoral violence. Their toll has claimed more lives than all of India's five external wars put together. As the contributors in this volume analyze how the Indian State has managed the core concern of internal security over time, they address three broad questions: How well has India contained violence and preserved order? How have the approaches and capacity of the State evolved to attain these twin objectives? And what implications do the State's approach towards internal security have for civil liberties and the quality of democracy? A major reinterpretation of order and internal security in India, this book sheds light on an underanalyzed issue of global import given the changing nature of threats that states face.

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9780197660331

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Reviews

India's internal security is a subject of such immediate political and social relevance that it is not often the subject of rigorous academic study. That gap has been filled by this volume edited by Amit Ahuja and Devesh Kapur, two scholars with outstanding credentials, covering the institutional, doctrinal, organizational, and other aspects of this contentious subject. The volume thus takes an integrated view of India's internal security. Its strength lies in its reliance on data, the coherence of its arguments, and the reliance on academic disciplines honed in other contexts. All in all, a significant book on an important subject that will become ever more relevant as the pace of change in India accelerates in years to come. * Shivshankar Menon, Former National Security Advisor and Foreign Secretary, Government of India * The carefully researched essays in this book document the decline in many measures of internal violence in India but also disturbing changes in the use of force by the state. It should be read by any person interested in India today. * Stephen Peter Rosen, Harvard College Professor and Beton Michael Kaneb Professor of National Security and Military Affairs, Harvard University * This is an extraordinarily good volume, bringing together experts on all aspects of India's internal security: from its expanding private security businesses, to its overstretched police forces, to the complex structures through which India's political, military, and intelligence leaders respond to internal security challenges. This volume goes far beyond description, to analyze the larger strategies behind these responses, and the ways in which India's internal security state affects Indian democracy, federalism, and the rights of all its citizens. Indispensable. * Steven Wilkinson, Professor of Political Science, Yale University *

Author Information

Amit Ahuja is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Devesh Kapur is Starr Foundation South Asia Studies Professor at the Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

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