Description

This paper explores state and non-state practices of sovereignty and citizenship in times of civil war, the way in which each side inscribes its own ‘people’ through uniforms and lists of the dead, and the way in which indigenous people (adivasis) experience everyday membership under the different regimes of the Indian state and the Maoist parallel regime. As against traditional theories of sovereignty which see it either as authored from below (contract theory) or scripted from above (domination), I argue that in civil war the display and practical exercise of sovereignty is primarily authored by the enemy. The strategy of each ruling side – government and guerrillas – is governed by their repudiation as well as mimicry of the other. For civilians, however, the real danger is the absence of identifiable authors or the multiplicity of possible authors behind any action.

Nandini Sundar is Professor of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University. Her publications include Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar (2nd ed. 2007), Branching Out: Joint Forest Management in India (2001), as well as several edited volumes. From 2007-11, she co-edited Contributions to Indian Sociology, and serves on the boards of several journals. In 2010, she was awarded the Infosys Prize for Social Sciences – Social Anthropology. Her current interests relate to citizenship, war and counterinsurgency in South Asia, indigenous identity and politics in India, the sociology of law, and inequality. Her public writings are available at www.nandinisundar.blogspot.com