Social Stability in India under Globalization and Liberalization
By Baldev Raj Nayar

Scholars are divided over the impact of globalization and liberalization on social stability. The critics hold that these two interrelated social processes invariably aggravate social instability, while the supporters argue that they reduce social instability. Through a diachronic analysis of quantitative data in the public domain in relation to India, this article demonstrates that there is apparent a correlation between globalization and reduced social instability; on the face of it, globalization promotes social stability.

Does Counterinsurgency Theory Apply in Northeast India?
By Bethany Lacina

Separatist violence in the Northeast against state targets is increasingly rare. Instead, violence is directed toward inter-communal attacks, interference in regional politics, and criminality. Weak rule of law has allowed separatist organizations to survive as criminal rackets and by providing violence to politicians, even as they have lost popular support and the center’s military penetration of the Northeast has advanced. There is a need for policy reevaluation in light of the evolving nature of violence in the region. Both political and military strategies designed to deal with separatist insurgency do not directly address weaknesses in rule of law, the true source of ongoing turmoil in the region.

Research Note: Sectarian Violence and British India: The Muharram Riots of Lucknow
By Shereen Ilahi

Few scholars of Muslim communalism have studied the sectarian divisions within Islam or the ways in which they complicated community building under British rule. This work focuses on Shia-Sunni relations during the Muharram riots of Lucknow in the 1900s and 1930s. It considers the ways in which elites defined their respective communities, and how collective violence was ritualized, religiously sanctioned, and policed. It argues that intra-communal tensions were as much the product of changing political and economic power relationships as they were the consequence of extremist, revivalist rhetoric, and that the British played a key role, shaping future disputes.

Understanding the Rise of India
By Manjeet S Pardesi

This paper begins with a brief description of the fundamental change in the way India is perceived today compared to its image in its early decades after independence – from a weak player in the international system to a potential great power in the twenty-first century. The author then places Edward Luce’s In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India and Mira Kamdar’s Planet India: How the World’s Fastest Growing Democracy is Transforming America and the World within this changed perception of the India, and evaluates the arguments made by them. While Kamdar’s book conveys the message that India is rising even as it has multiple challenges to overcome, it does not tell us much more. By contrast, Luce’s excellent book presents the most definitive non-academic account of the rise of India by focusing on its economy, politics, society, and foreign policy. The paper also places India’s ‘rise’ in an historical context and shows that what we are witnessing is not just India’s rise, but its recrudescence. The paper concludes by briefly discussing what a rising India seeks from the world and what kind of a power it wants to be.