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Exploring the Right to Secession

The South Asian Context

Neera Chandhoke is Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Science, University of Delhi, and Director of the Developing Countries Research Centre at the University of Delhi. Her major books are State and Civil Society: Explorations in Political Theory (New Delhi: Sage, 1995), Beyond Secularism: The Rights of Religious Minorities (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999) and The Conceits of Civil Society (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003). She is currently working on the complexities of secession. Address: Developing Countries Research Centre, Academic Research Centre Building, Opposite Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Mall Road, Delhi 110007, India. [email: neera.chandhoke{at}gmail.com]

One of the most intractable problems confronting South Asian states and societies has been the presence of secessionist movements and insistent demands for a state of one's own. Though societies and states tend to react violently when faced with such demands, many serious issues are embedded in secessionist demands, as well as in the responses to these demands, above all issues of justice and injustice. The present article seeks to trace out the key issues involved in demands for secession, exploring reasons for why and when such demands arise in the first place. Examined within the wider context of international law, specific scenarios in South Asia are considered to propel a debate about whether secession can be argued to be a right, and in what circumstances. It is proposed that the concept of secession has, in effect, to be extricated from narrow agendas of national security, war against terror, and military strategy, and placed within the wider domain of normative political theory, which can indeed find justifications for demanding secession.

Key Words: ethno-federalism • federalism • Kashmir • pluralism • power-sharing • secession • self-determination • Sri Lanka.

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