List of articles and abstracts

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Colonial Expansion and Demographic Change: The British and 
Russian Experience*  

K M de Silva

Abstract

The principal concern in this article is with the dispersal of peoples under colonial rule, primarily British colonial rule, and the contrast with the cognate process, the construction of the Russian Empire under the Tsars, and Stalin.  The dispersal of communities under British colonial rule generally had an economic or social imperative, very seldom a political one, while political and strategic reasons were always features of Russian colonial expansion.  This latter expansion, to the Baltic region, to Central Asia, and the Pacific, each involved a transfer of populations from which has emerged some of the difficult problems bequeathed to the world by the former Soviet Union.  The article reviews the transfer of people from the territories the British ruled or controlled in the Indian subcontinent to British colonies in other parts of the world, a process governed entirely by economic considerations, a response to the operation of market forces.  While the two processes, British and Russian, had many differences, they had some things in common as well.  Post-colonial states face a common set of problems in fashioning policies to deal with immigrant minorities, introduced as in the British tradition, or imposed as in the Russian empire.

*      This article is a revised and expanded version of a keynote lecture entitled "State Policies towards Communities in Dispersal" given at a Conference on the "Nature of Community and its Impact on Inter-state Relations at the End of the Twentieth Century." The conference was held at the Institute of International Relations, University of the West Indies, St Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago, 28 February - 4 March 1994.  The article was subsequently discussed on two occasions.

 
The Issue of Personal and Customary Law in South Asia: A Political Analysis

Partha S Ghosh

Abstract
 

For all countries of the world, including those in South Asia, a uniform civil code is a dream that should be cherished by all.  It is so because this dream subsumes certain ideals precious for all civil societies, namely, an unequivocal commitment to equal respect for all religions, freedom of conscience, and freedom of expression.  In short, democracy-democracy, which respects pluralism and the rule of law-democracy, which averts fundamentalism of all hues and intolerance of others’ ways of life.  But there is an inherent contradiction.  All plural and democratic societies are also expected to grapple with the issue of minority rights.  One of the most essential ingredients of minority rights is the right to maintain one’s traditional rights, for this is intricately linked to the question of ethnic identity.  Since all societies are supposed to treat all their citizens equally, how would they reconcile themselves to the maintenance of traditional rights of different communities yet treating them equally?  The question, therefore, is whether a common civil code for all communities is a step in the right direction of nation-building or the maintenance of personal laws of different communities the right strategy.  The issue is complex.  National integration is not merely territorial integrity.  It means an emotional bond amongst all segments of society leading to a common goal for the well being of all.  In this march, a common system of law is just one component.  But to achieve this goal no segment should be coerced, for that way it would be counterproductive.  The same is true with the ideal of a uniform civil code.  If the minorities are feeling attached to their personal laws it must be because they are still not confident about the intentions of the majority.  Once that trust is developed no minority would feel insecure and in that harmonious climate it is possible to work for a uniform civil code.  The situation does not seem to be conducive in South Asia at present but the efforts must be on.
 

 
Sri Lanka's Separatist Conflict: The Sources of Intractability

Dayan Jayatilleka

 Abstract

The separatist struggle in the north and east of Sri Lanka has lasted for nearly 20 years, a protracted mid-intensity war of attrition.  A fairly large and substantially armed military has been unable to break the back of the guerrillas while the latter has been unable to capture and control the principal centres of Tamil settlements in the north and east of the country.  Attempts to resolve the conflict through negotiations have failed.  The principal obstacle to such a resolution is the nature of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.  The LTTE is not a political party and has seldom aspired to be one; it is, in essence, a small but powerful guerrilla army, with a clear political objective—the establishment of a separatist Tamil state in the north and east of the island.  It has shown no inclination to settle for anything less than that and holds fast to the view expressed by one of its ideologues that the only negotiations should be on what the borders of that state should be.
 

 
Book Review
 
Discourse on Kashmir: Beyond the Straightjacket

Ajay K Mehra

State, Identity and Violence: Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, Navnita Chadha Behera, New Delhi, Manohar Publishers and Distributors, 2000.
 

 
Book Review

Jerome Teelucksingh

India Through The Western Lens: Creating National Images in Film, Ananda Mitra, New Delhi, Sage Publications, 1999.