Omar Khalidi
Dr. Omar Khalidi is the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture Librarian at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He was educated in India, Britain, and the United States. His research interests are in the sociology of politics, upward and downward economic mobility of ethnic groups, nationalism and diaspora. Dr Khalidi has lectured on Islamic architecture in various universities and forums in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and South Asia.
SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF SECURITY SECTOR AND POLITICS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT IN INDIA DURING LARGE SCALE VIOLENCE
Abstract
India’s burgeoning security sector employs over 1.5 million in the army men and a smaller numbers in the air force and navy. Over 500,000 men make up the paramilitaries, and even large numbers in police forces in India’s 25 constituent states. A tinier number of men work for various intelligence agencies. Together they represent India’s security sector. My paper will look at (a) the expectations the citizens have of India security sector with respect to accommodating diversity within the institutions of what is by most standards a democratic state; and (b) has the Indian state established or not established employment equity, diversity, and multiculturalism policies, and the way these have or have not been interpreted and implemented by the security sector; and finally (c) what impact the social composition of the security sector had and expected to have on preemption, control and suppression of large-scale outbreak of group violence. Based on archival records, writings of security sector personnel and personal interviews, this paper will focus on security sector performance in past several decades since independence in several states.
