Governance by Stealth The Ministry of Home Affairs and the Making of the Indian State

by Mitra, Subrata K.

• ISBN13: 9780199460489
• ISBN10: 0199460485
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2022-02-02
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Author Biography

Subrata K. Mitra, Professor, South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg

Subrata Mitra is Professor and Head of Political Science, South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg.

Table of Contents

Chapter One
Governance by stealth, and, the making of India's Home Ministry
Home's distinctive character
Is governance by stealth an elite conspiracy?
Why India? Order-making as State Formation: the 'Missing Link'
Raj to Swaraj: Poachers into gamekeepers
Ministers and civil servants: the Janus-face of the Indian state
Home: The 'charlady' of the government, and more
Independence and the ordeal of post-colonial chaos
Structure of the narrative
Sources, and the method of analysis
Contributions of the book and its limitations
Chapter Two
Governance as process: Colonial legacy, hybrid norms, and institutional arrangement
Colonial Order: Appropriation and re-use of Indian culture
The Structure of colonial power and its orderly unravelling
Norms of governance by stealth and the post-colonial challenge
Post-colonial Democracy and a dynamic, neo-institutional model of governance
What holds India's political system together?
Chapter Three
The Sentinel of Order: Home - origin, evolution, functions and structure
Imperial rule and Home's functional niche
Origin and evolution
From Department to Ministry (1947)
The functions and Structure of the Ministry (1948)
The internal architecture of the Ministry: Allocation of Business Rules (1961)
Organization of the Ministry
The 'new look' charlady: Home - balancing authority, accountability and compliance
Chapter Four
Politicians, civil servants and post-colonial Governance: Continued synergy, despite role reversal
Regime Change, with seamless continuity
The challenge of leadership: Synergy of ministers and secretaries
Ministerial leadership
Bureaucracy: the 'Old Faithful' of Indian politics
Ministers and Secretaries: Conflicting loyalties?
PM- HM- HS: An Incompatible triad?
Chapter Five
Home at work: Re-shaping public services and integrating national territory
Public Order and Public Services: dual challenges for the Home Ministry
The challenge of re-shaping the civil service
Recasting the colonial civil service in a national mould
Post-partition trauma, and building of an Indian nation
Integration by stealth: Princely states and the dilemma of Independence
Junagarh
Hyderabad
Jammu and Kashmir State
Generous in victory: Patel stoops to conquer!
On to the 'promised land', with Home
Chapter Six
Setting the Mould: Home and the 1950s
Setting the political agenda: The Congress 'system', Home Ministry and the 1950s
Public services
Reorganisation of the Machinery of Government
Nehru and Patel: a tense duopoly
Home at work: creation of new, innovative institutions
The 1950s' harvest: Embryonic norms and policy outcomes of the 'new' politics
The 1950s: Institutionalization of governance by stealth
Chapter Seven
Home, beyond the foundational decade: Manifest decline, resilient frame
1960s and the beginning of governmental instability: Home under pressure
Self-portrait of the Ministry, 1960-61
Indo-China border war, 1962: unintended consequences for the MHA
The growing hiatus of politics and administration: facing the uncertainty of the 1970s
Special measures during emergency
Revoking Emergency: Home, redux?
The 1980s: A decade of 'deinstitutionalization'
India's 1984: Home at its nadir
Beyond the Foundational Decade: Home's complex trajectory
Chapter Eight
Holding the state together: The Ministry of Home Affairs and India's 'unity in diversity'
The 'rational' politics of cultural nationalism and the danger of 'Balkanization'
Surreptitious integration: Regulating public holidays
Censorship
Mediation in contesting claims over regional boundaries
Engaging insurgency through peace initiatives
Creation of sub-States
'Colonization' of Union Territories
Institutional innovation: Reorganisation of J&K militia
President's rule: MHA and Indian States
Punjab: limited success, despite President's rule
India's 'Unity in Diversity', with a little help from Home's silken threads
Chapter Nine
Governing the sacred: Home and the quest for collective identity
Sacred spaces and colonial power
The Devaswom Board: A colonial innovation
Religion, post-independence: fundamental right and fundamental cause of political strife
Home, and evolution of a national language policy
Combatting 'Communalism' through the Project of 'National Integration'
After Ayodhya riot (1992), what kept Bhiwandi quiet?
Accommodating regional and sectional identities within the modern state
Continuing relevance of language and religion as issues in Indian politics
Chapter Ten
Ultima ratio regum: Force in the making of legitimacy
The forceful state: Home's fire power
The gathering and processing of intelligence
Legitimate force? An Indian dilemma
The 'Liberation' of Goa, 1961
Force, bound by law
Policing the police: Lessons of the PAC (UP) revolt, 1973
Legitimate force? Democracy's conundrum
Chapter Eleven
Home stymied: The Emergency regime, 1975-77, and its aftermath
Orderly rule, emergency and due process: A symbiotic triad
Carl Schmitt: the role of the sovereign in an emergency
The Political context of the Emergency
The Janata Interlude (1977-79): Home and the middle ground between orderly rule and anti-emergency zealotry
Emergency as conundrum: Home's cruel dilemma
Home: Orderly rule and the legacy of the 1970s
Chapter Twelve
When Home Fails: Compliance and Contestation in a post-colonial state
Assessing compliance: Three analytic narratives
Ayodhya: demolition of the Babri mosque
Insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir
Maoist movements (LWE)
Norms of governance by stealth reconsidered
-loss of elite consensus and its impact on compliance
-High efficacy and low trust, and non-compliance
Home on the mend
Rupture of orderly rule in India: cumulative or diminishing?
Conclusion
The Reason of State: Governance by Stealth, and beyond
Home at work
The logic of appropriateness and grey areas of governance
The reason of state and the ambiguity of power
Liberal Politics in an illiberal context: Home's challenge
Re-enchanting the state
Still the 'steel frame'?