Insurgency and the State in India

Abstract

Securitisation has been the method of choice for non-realist international relations theorists, especially those seeking to understand state responses to terrorism. It has proved effective in discerning various types of actors and the manner in which they respond, legitimise and confer legitimacy on anti-terrorist activity. Securitisation, however, has been unable to address two crucial aspects of the legitimising process. First, it has been unable to negotiate with the fact that in most states (even liberal democratic ones) ‘emergency’ legislation is written into the normal legal structure, hence removing the requirement for securitisation. Second, and following from the first, securitisation actually occurs in many cases without the direct reference to existential threats. Using the Indian state's responses to the Naxalite and Khalistan movements, this article argues for a re-evaluation of the nature of the state and security, if securitisation is to maintain its conceptual coherence and operationalisability.