Problematising Ethnic Minority Rights Claims In Asia

International Symposium On Ethnic Minorities In Asia: Subjects Or Citizens?
25 – 26 June 2009
organised by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
at the ARI Seminar Room, Tower Block, Level 10, Bukit Timah Road
Subjects or Citizens?
Problematising Ethnic Minority Rights Claims In Asia
Michelle Ann Miller
Deakin University, Australia
Michelle.Miller@deakin.edu.au
This essay considers the relationship between minority rights claims and citizenship in
Asia. Recent debates around ethnic minority right claims to citizenship have tended to
focus on either the legitimacy of such claims vis-à-vis the nation-state, or the value and
meaning of citizenship, especially in post-colonial multiethnic (and often deeply divided)
nation-states. In the former category, proponents of minority rights claims based on
ethnicity have largely fallen into one of three camps: 1) human rights advocates who
argue that ethnic minorities are inherently disadvantaged and that their rights must be
protected against cultural dominance by the ethnic majority, 2) academics who seek to
protect their research interest from ethnic dilution in an increasingly multicultural and
globalised world, and 3) minority political actors who claim ethnicity as the basis for their
discrimination against, or assertion of power over the ethnic majority. By contrast,
detractors of minority rights claims have typically either endorsed a uniform majoritarian
order, or have contended that privileging minority rights claims based on ethnicity may
impair the state’s effectiveness in other areas and lead to the rationalization of racial and
ethnic discrimination.
In the second category, there is broad agreement that the conditions for citizenship are
neither static nor enduring, and that the meaning of citizenship has changed
considerably over time. Yet while Western scholars and policy-makers in particular
endorse normative liberal egalitarian conceptions of civic citizenship based upon civic
nationalism1, the experience of many Asian minorities of citizenship has been one of
marginalization, or what Patton and Caserio call the ‘inevitable exclusiveness of
citizenship which distinguishes those who have it from those who don’t.’2 This essay will
address an understudied area in this public discourse on minority rights claims to
citizenship by considering the ways in which group-differentiated rights are viewed and
conferred in an Asian context
Michelle Ann Miller is a Research Fellow in the Institute for Citizenship and
Globalisation at Deakin University. Before joining the ICG, Dr Miller was a postdoctoral
fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute. She previously
taught at Charles Darwin University and Deakin University, and has worked as an
Indonesian interpreter for the Australian government. She is the author of Rebellion and
Reform in Indonesia. Jakarta’s Security and Autonomy Policies in Aceh (London:
Routledge 2008), as well as several book chapters and refereed journal articles.
1 See, for example, Kymlicka, W. 1995. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, U.K., Dell’Olio, F. 2005. The Europeanization of Citizenship: Between the Ideology of
Nationality, Immigration, and European Identity, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., Aldershot, U.K.; Tan, S-H. 2005.
Challenging Citizenship: Group Membership And Cultural Identity In A Global Age, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.,
Aldershot, U.K.
2 Patton, C. and Caserio, R. L. 2000. 'Introduction: Citizenship 2000', Cultural Studies, 14(1), pp.1-14.
International Symposium On Ethnic Minorities In Asia: Subjects Or Citizens?
25 – 26 June 2009
organised by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
at the ARI Seminar Room, Tower Block, Level 10, Bukit Timah Road
Multiculturalism in Asia: A Comparative Study of Asian Models of Minorities
Baogang He
Deakin University, Australia
baogang.he@deakin.edu.au
The pursuit of national homogenization has led to resistance amongst ethnic and
religious minorities – indeed to violence, secessionist movements and even civil war - in
countries like the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, China, Burma, Indonesia, India, Sri
Lanka and Pakistan, to name a few. As a result, many Asian countries are now debating
and sometimes adopting new policies to accommodate minorities, from the recognition
of indigenous rights in the Philippines to regional autonomy in Indonesia and China, to
multinational federalism in Sri Lanka and India.
Western theories and examples of multiculturalism and minority rights have had an
influence in many Asian countries, often promoted by Western academics, governments
and international organizations. However, these Western models may not suit the
specific historical, cultural, demographic, and geo-political circumstances of the region.
Many Asian societies have their own traditions of peaceful coexistence amongst linguistic
and religious groups, often dating back to pre-colonial times. All of the major ethical and
religious traditions in the region – from Confucian and Buddhist to Islamic and Hindu -
have their own conceptions of the value of tolerance, and their own recipes for
sustaining unity amidst diversity. The rhetoric of ‘multiculturalism’ may now be
ubiquitous around the world, but the word is being used to express quite different ideas,
rooted in different traditions, both Western and non-Western.
The aim of this paper is to explore the range of theoretical perspectives that shape
debates over multiculturalism in the region, and investigate the varied and contradictory
ways that issues of ethnocultural diversity are conceptualized and debated in south and
east Asia. It will discuss different models of multiculturalism in which Asians are
perceived as subjects or citizens; and diverse Asian responses to Western liberal models
of multiculturalism, in particular Will Kymlicka’s theory of minority rights will be
examined
Baogang He received his MA from the People's University ofChina, Beijing and Ph.D.
from ANU, Australia. Professor Baogang He is Chair in International Studies, School of
Politics and International Studies, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia, and the
author of four single-authored books, three edited books and numerous refereed articles.
His current research interests include deliberative democracy, Chinese democratization,
and Chinese politics.
International Symposium On Ethnic Minorities In Asia: Subjects Or Citizens?
25 – 26 June 2009
organised by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
at the ARI Seminar Room, Tower Block, Level 10, Bukit Timah Road
Indigenous People’s Rights and State Manipulation in Southeast Asia
Jacques Bertrand
University of Toronto, Canada
jacques.bertrand@utoronto.ca
The indigenous peoples’ movement has benefitted from a strong transnational advocacy
network in recent decades, culminating in the adoption of the UN Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In Indonesia and the Philippines, by contrast, the
emergence of indigenous peoples' (IP) movements is relatively recent and controversial.
What groups are "indigenous", how they are defined, and on what basis they can claim
rights is contested by states as well as by other groups in the region. Yet, some groups
have successfully leveraged this claim to gain important concessions from their
governments, in the Philippines in particular. Others such as in Indonesia have been less
successful. In both countries, IP movements have held as an important objective that
their respective governments support the UN Declaration. The paper examines how
these movements have lobbied their governments, the extent to which they have been
successful, and the ways in which states have manipulated their international
commitments to avoid making strong commitments domestically. States in Indonesia
and the Philippines have used two main tactics in this respect: i) discursive obfuscation
and manipulation; ii) administrative and legislative paralysis as a tool to thwart
concessions made.
Jacques Bertrand is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto
and coordinator of the Southeast Asia Group at the Asian Institute, Munk Centre for
International Studies. He is the author of Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Indonesia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). He has published numerous book
chapters as well as several articles in the Journal of East Asian Studies, International
Journal of Constitutional Law, Comparative Politics, Pacific Affairs and Asian Survey.
International Symposium On Ethnic Minorities In Asia: Subjects Or Citizens?
25 – 26 June 2009
organised by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
at the ARI Seminar Room, Tower Block, Level 10, Bukit Timah Road
Integration, Minorities and the Rhetoric of Civilization:
The Case of British Pakistani Muslims and Malay Muslims In Singapore
Gabriele Marranci
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
arigm@nus.edu.sg
Singapore and the UK have very different understandings of how minorities need to
integrate within society. While in Singapore the idea of ethnic, and in the case of Malay
Muslims, religious, communities as partakers in the process of integration is politically
acknowledged, in the UK it is strongly opposed: integration is not community based but
individualized through the acceptance of ‘British values’. This paper, in a comparative
analytical effort, explores two divergent approaches in relation to the idea of integration
and two different rhetoric of civic nationalism. The author will focus in particular on how
young British Pakistani and Malay Singaporean Muslims react to such rhetoric in an
attempt to maintain and/or make sense of their identities.
Gabriele Marranci is an anthropologist by training, working on religion with a
specialisation in Muslim societies. His main research interests concern identity, Muslim
migration/immigration, urban sociology, globalization, fundamentalism, political Islam,
secularisation processes, criminology and anthropology of music. He has widely
published in these subjects. He is Visiting Senior Research Fellow at ARI, and the cofounder
of the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies at University of
Western Sydney. Associate Professor Marranci is the founding editor of the Springer
journal Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life, as well the book series Muslims in
Global Societies (Springer). His research has been published both in leading international
peer-reviewed journals and edited books and he is also the author of four monographs,
including The Anthropology of Islam (Berg) and Faith, Ideology and Fear: Muslim
Identities Within and Beyond Prisons (Continuum).
International Symposium On Ethnic Minorities In Asia: Subjects Or Citizens?
25 – 26 June 2009
organised by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
at the ARI Seminar Room, Tower Block, Level 10, Bukit Timah Road
Harmonious Co-Existence of Multicultures and Citizenship:
Ethnic Rights Claims and Citizenship in Singapore
from the Perspective of Comparative Rights
Chang Shiyin
Tianjin Normal University, People’s Republic of China
changshiyin@163.com
How to deal with the relationship between minority rights claims and citizenship is the
hard issue that many Asian countries have to face. Singapore, as one country with many
minorities, has been a model in balancing minority rights claims and citizenship in an
Eastern cultural style. Around this characteristic, the author develops his analysis
according to the ways of comparative study with Canadian multiculturalism. Using the
theory of communitarianism, the author maintains that the Singaporean government has
taken the stand of state and society priority to balance the minority rights claims and
citizenship, which is different to the Canadian multiculturalism based on liberalism. It is
just grounded on this principle that the Singapore constitution stipulates that all citizen
and all races are equal. The state recognizes different ethnic group identities based on
the state and society priority. Singapore also nurtured the concept of multi-racial cultural
democracy, grounded on which all races have respective representation in the regime.
Meanwhile, democratic consensus, as one of the shared values, has an effect on
promoting the coordination of minority rights claims and citizenship. As a new nation,
the new political leaders did not follow other newly independent states in forging national
unity through the reduction of cultural, educational and linguistic diversity with emphasis
given to the dominant majority. Indeed, Singapore promoted the distinctiveness of
ethnic groups with de-emphasis on its ‘Chineseness’ and built upon the system left by
the British. The English language was made an official language and the major working
language in both administration and business. The Singaporean government promotes
‘Shared Values, not Confucian Values’ as national values. Language policies and the
Shared Value have constructed the cultural bridge for the harmonious maintenance of
minority rights and citizenship. Harmonizing the relationship between minority rights
claims and citizenship using this Eastern multicultural style has promoted Singapore
cohesion, development and prosperity in an era of globalization.
Chang Shiyin is a professor and doctorial supervisor of political theory and comparative
politics in the Institute of Political Cultural at Tianjin Normal University. He gained his
doctorate at Jilin University. He is also Director of the Canadian Study Institute. Over
past ten years he has been a senior visiting scholar in Britain, Canada and Germany, and
has twice gained two national scholarships, in 2003 and 2008. Chang Shi-yin is the
author or editor of eleven books, including Deconstruction of Political Modernity: Study
on Plural Political Thought of Western Postmodernism (2002), Exploration on Political
Development in Mosaic Culture: Major Schools of Canadian Political Thought (2003),The
Modern States and Their Political Institutions: East Asia and The West (2008), For
Harmony from Differences: Study on the Political Thoughts of Contemporary
Multiculturalism in the West.(2009),and Comparative Study of Western Political Culture
and Traditional Chinese Political Culture (1997).
International Symposium On Ethnic Minorities In Asia: Subjects Or Citizens?
25 – 26 June 2009
organised by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
at the ARI Seminar Room, Tower Block, Level 10, Bukit Timah Road
Interests Not Rights:
Accommodating the Special Position of the Minorities in Singapore
Eugene Kheng Boon Tan
Singapore Management University
eugenet@smu.edu.sg
Under Singapore’s Constitution, Article 152 provides that it is the responsibility of the
government to ‘constantly to care for the interests of the racial and religious minorities
in Singapore.’ In particular, the Constitution recognizes the ‘special position of the
Malays’, who are the indigenous people of Singapore. The Constitution also states that
the government has the responsibility ‘to protect, safeguard, support, foster and
promote their political, educational, religious, economic, social and cultural interests and
the Malay language.’ This provision has been understood, in contrast to the Malaysian
provision, to mean that no special rights are afforded to Malay-Singaporeans by virtue of
their race, language, and religion. As such, there is no affirmative action in favor of the
Malays. Concessions, when provided, are carefully couched to avoid any sense of
entitlement or legal rights.
While Singapore adopts an ostensible civic conception of citizenship, it also urges a
conscious formation and sustenance of distinctive ethnic identities of the majority and
minority communities. But the convergent civic and divergent ethnic identities naturally
compete, giving rise to a variegated discourse on belonging, identity and citizenship
denominated in terms of societal interests over sectarian ones.
This paper examines the evolution of Article 152 to explore the Singapore government’s
engagement with the significant minority Malay community in the management of issues
that affect it. It argues that the conscious avoidance of a rights-based legal regime in the
management of ethnic issues has to some extent depoliticized the post-colonial nationbuilding
project. Further, interests, duties and responsibility—rather than rights and
entitlement—is the de facto language of citizenship, wherein the larger good of the state
and society takes ultimate precedence.
Eugene K. B. Tan is assistant law professor at the School of Law, Singapore
Management University. His inter-disciplinary research interests include the mutual
interaction of law and public policy, the regulation of ethnic conflict, and governance and
public ethics. He has published in these areas in various edited volumes and
international peer-reviewed journals such as The Australian Journal of Asian Law, The
China Quarterly, Citizenship Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Ethnopolitics, Hong Kong
Law Journal, Journal of Asian Business, Law and Policy, and Terrorism and Political
Violence.
International Symposium On Ethnic Minorities In Asia: Subjects Or Citizens?
25 – 26 June 2009
organised by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
at the ARI Seminar Room, Tower Block, Level 10, Bukit Timah Road
Dispute Resolution and Procedural Pluralism in Asia:
Mediating the Claims of Identity
Ian Macduff
School of Law, Singapore Management University
ianmacduff@smu.edu.sg
Writing in the 1970s, American jurist Lon Fuller laid out the argument for a ‘process
pluralism’ that encompassed diverse forms of dispute resolution. The attributes of that
pluralism were that the processes of litigation, mediation and arbitration could
comfortably co-exist in any legal system as they served different purposes and satisfied
different norms, but shared a common legitimacy. As the landscape of dispute
resolution has developed in the last three decades, this pluralism has fostered – in many
jurisdictions – recognition of the virtues of procedural diversity. One of the further claims
for this diversity is that it more readily accommodates cultural diversity through the
greater flexibility of and disputant engagement in the process of dispute resolution.
The contemporary challenge arises in pluralist societies when the virtues of that
procedural flexibility and the political arguments for multiculturalism underpin more
specific claims to something more than accommodation: that is, when the legitimacy of
procedural diversity is said to rest not on the distinct functions of disputes resolution
processes but on the (ethnic, religious, or indigenous) identity of the claimants.
This paper will explore the responses to such claims, placing the arguments for
procedural pluralism and ‘differentiated citizenship’ (Shachar 2001) alongside those of
contemporary multiculturalism, and will propose that ‘identity’ per se is an insufficiently
robust moral or empirical basis for institutional pluralism; but also that the claims for
identity-based recognition are a basis for engaging in what Benhabib (2002, 2006) calls
‘jurisgenerative politics’ and specifically in a process of mediating between these
versions of citizenship and identity. Dispute resolution exemplifies task of creating the
space for dialogue between the particularism of identity and the public realm of
citizenship.
Ian Macduff is Practice Associate Professor in the School of Law, Singapore
Management University, where he teaches courses in negotiation, conflict resolution, and
ethics. Until June of 2008 he was the Director of the NZ Centre for Conflict Resolution,
Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington and an independent mediator and
trainer in a number of fields. He has been consultant and trainer for the World Health
Organisation for a capacity building programme in Sri Lanka from 1999 to 2001 and
again in 2004. He is co-editor of Ethnic Conflict and Secessionism in South and South
East Asia (Sage, 2003); co-author of Dispute Resolution in New Zealand (OUP 1999),
and of Guidelines for Family Mediation (Butterworths, 1995). He was Visiting Professor in
the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore, from January to April 2004; and
currently has a one-year joint appointment in Law and the Lee Kuan Yew School of
Public Policy, NUS, for 2005. He has been Visiting Professor at the International Training
Programme in Conflict Management of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa on several
occasions.
International Symposium On Ethnic Minorities In Asia: Subjects Or Citizens?
25 – 26 June 2009
organised by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
at the ARI Seminar Room, Tower Block, Level 10, Bukit Timah Road
Thai Citizens but Not Thai People: The Malay-Muslim Quandry
Duncan McCargo
University of Leeds, United Kingdom
D.J.McCargo@leeds.ac.uk
Around 1.3 million Malay Muslims live in Thailand's southern border provinces of Pattani,
Yala and Narathiwat. While holding formal citizenship rights, this population is quite
distinct from wider Thai society in identity terms; Malay Muslims refer to Thai Buddhists
as 'khon thai' (Thai people), a description they do not apply to themselves, unless
government officials are listening. Since 2004, a renewed 'separatist' struggle has been
raging in the region and has claimed more than three thousand lives. Thai Buddhists are
quick to criticise Malay Muslims for their disloyalty, yet their own language reflects a
widespread conviction among the majority community that Pattani Muslims are not really
'Thai'; a mentality of 'separation' exists on both sides of the cultural divide. Drawing on
extensive fieldwork conducted in the region, this paper will explore the ways in which
Malay Muslims understand their place in Thai society, and the range of identity choices
they face. It will also reflect on how Malay Muslims are viewed by their fellow Thai
citizens and by agencies of the Thai state.
Duncan McCargo is professor of Southeast Asian politics at the University of Leeds. His
books on Thailand comprise: Chamlong Srimuang and the New Thai Politics (Hurst,
1997), Politics and the Press in Thailand (Routledge, 2000), Reforming Thai Politics
(edited, NIAS 2002), The Thaksinization of Thailand (co-authored, NIAS 2005),
Rethinking Thailand’s Southern Violence (edited, NUS Press, 2007), and Tearing Apart
the Land: Islam and Legitimacy in Southern Thailand (Cornell University Press,
forthcoming). He conducted fieldwork based in Pattani from September 2005 to
September 2006, and spent the 2006-07 academic year as a visiting senior research
fellow at the Asia Research Institute, NUS.
International Symposium On Ethnic Minorities In Asia: Subjects Or Citizens?
25 – 26 June 2009
organised by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
at the ARI Seminar Room, Tower Block, Level 10, Bukit Timah Road
Identity, Belonging and the State: Post-Colonial States and Ethnic Minorites
Damien Kingsbury
Deakin University, Australia
dlk@deakin.edu.au
Post-colonial states in the Asian region have frequently been subject to political tensions
derived from their multi-ethnic make-up and what some have argued to be the failure of
states to adequately represent the interests of their ethnic minorities. This paper will
look at examples of where states in Asia have failed to adequately represent or
otherwise incorporate their ethnic minorities as full and equal citizens,
with citizenship being understood as recognition as a member of a state with full and
equal rights under the protection of that state. It also considers the range of responses
of such perceived or actual state failure to adequately incorporate all citizens, including
inter-ethnic and separatist conflict.
The paper will then consider some of the more obvious examples of where states in the
Asian region have been successful in accommodating ethnic minorities through the
adoption of more inclusive models of state organization, participatory and representative
electoral processes, and ideologies of citizenship based on civic rather than ethnic
nationalism. The paper will conclude by considering conceptual and actual models of
state organization intended to resolve such ethnic tensions in the Asian region. In
examining these models, the paper will critically assess both the normative internal and
external functions of the state in its relationship with its citizens, and the criteria for
state success in accommodating ethnic minorities as full and equal citizens.
Damien Kingsbury is Associate Head (Research) of the School of International and
Political Studies, Deakin University, Melbourne, and is author and editor of a number of
books on regional politics and security issues. In 2005, Dr. Kingsbury was political
advisor to the Free Aceh Movement in the Helsinki peace talks which ended three
decades of separatist conflict, and has since advised on models of autonomy and
negotiation procedures to the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation, the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
International Symposium On Ethnic Minorities In Asia: Subjects Or Citizens?
25 – 26 June 2009
organised by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
at the ARI Seminar Room, Tower Block, Level 10, Bukit Timah Road
The Subject of Migrant Rights:
Activism and Foreign Domestic Workers in Singapore
Yee Yeong Chong
Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore
socyyc@nus.edu.sg
In postcolonial Singapore, where ethnic lines are demarcated by a national ideology of
multiracialism, the plight of abused domestic workers is conditioned by racialized notions
of humanity and sub-humanity. Such racial antagonisms against foreign domestic
workers (FDWs) are supported by a market rationality that positions the national
protection of these low-skilled migrants as costs to the middle-class entitlements of
citizens. Given the government’s assertion that rights-based discourses are antagonistic
towards its communitarian telos of nation building and economic progress on behalf of
citizens, the humanitarian efforts of local migrant advocacy groups offers an empirical
threshold to study the limitations of ‘rights-based approaches’ to migration in Singapore.
As citizenship forms an integral basis for rights claims within national contexts, activism
on behalf of foreign domestic worker must take into account the fact that notions of
migrant ‘rights’ remain subsumed under the discursive constraints of ‘national interests’.
In reconceptualising citizenship and rights as modalities of self-enterprise and
subjectification, this paper argues that the quest for migrant ‘rights’ in Singapore
becomes an attempt at re-humanizing FDWs within a field of economic instrumentality.
By framing and reframing the ‘rights’ of migrant workers as complimentary to the
economic interests of the host nation, this paper illustrates how an awareness of the
fluid nature of ‘rights’ by Transient Workers Count Too and the Humanitarian
Organization for Migration Economics allows them to perform their humanitarian work
within an illiberal political terrain.
Key Words: human rights; migrant labor; government; state; social movements
Yee Yeong Chong is currently a MA student and teaching assistant at the Department
of Sociology, National University of Singapore. His research interests include the political
sociology of postcolonial state formation, the impact of transnationalism and
globalization on Asian political space, and new media in Asia. Yeong Chong also serves
as a committee member of local migrant advocacy group Transient Workers Count Too
(TWC2).
International Symposium On Ethnic Minorities In Asia: Subjects Or Citizens?
25 – 26 June 2009
organised by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
at the ARI Seminar Room, Tower Block, Level 10, Bukit Timah Road
Perpetually Temporary: Citizenship and Ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia
Stefan Ehrentraut
University of Potsdam, Germany
stefan.ehrentraut@gmx.de
The idea of a distinctly "liberal" form of multiculturalism has emerged in the West, both
in theory and practice, which defends multiculturalism and minority rights as consistent
with, and indeed advancing, basic liberal values of individual freedom, democracy and
social justice. One component of Western multiculturalism relates to the category of
long-term residents who are excluded from citizenship. There is a clear trend in Western
democracies towards regularizing the status of residents who were not thought of as
future citizens by the time they entered a country. People who have come as irregular or
temporary migrants and their children are increasingly allowed to follow the immigrant
path to integration into the larger society. This is in large part due to the recognition that
the possible price of exclusion is not only injustice faced by the alienated, ethnically
defined underclass it creates but racial tensions, criminality and violence affecting the
larger society and its democratic credentials.
Investigating the relevance of these developments and lessons for Cambodia, the article
analyzes contemporary state-minority-relationships pertaining to the country’s ethnic
Vietnamese minority in light of Will Kymlicka’s theory of multicultural citizenship.
Kymlicka argues that Western multiculturalism is not just a response to the value of
cultural membership, but also a response to the state practice of nation-building. Certain
minority rights thus do not depend on liberal values but can be based on more basic
values of reciprocity and fairness. One of the conditions under which majority nationbuilding
is legitimate is that everyone living on the territory must be able to become an
equal member of the nation.
Cambodia’s constitution defines citizenship in ethnic terms, by conceptualizing members
of the state as ‘Khmer citizens’. This conception was explicitly meant to exclude ethnic
Vietnamese (along with ethnic Chinese) while it includes Cambodia’s Muslim Cham and
hill tribes as ‘Khmer Islam’ and ‘Khmer Loeu’ respectively into the idea of a uniformly
Khmer nation and state. Despite residing in the country for generations, ethnic
Vietnamese have traditionally been considered ‘foreign residents’ in Cambodia and have
not been given access to legal citizenship. Based on extensive field research in five
provinces, the paper analyzes the situation and aspirations of Cambodia’s ethnic
Vietnamese as well as majority attitudes, state policies and practices towards them. It
investigates difficulties faced by ethnic Vietnamese as a result of their uncertain status,
the enormous legal, political and social obstacles to their full membership in mainstream
societal institutions and the potential of ongoing state reform to contribute to the
transformation of ethnic Vietnamese from foreigners into Cambodian citizens.
While principled normative questions concerning access to citizenship for ethnic
Vietnamese can be answered, there are powerful historical and geopolitical factors
impeding the adoption of a more inclusive citizenship and naturalization policy. Historical
expansion and colonization of the Vietnamese state removed large portions of Khmer
territory and population from Cambodian jurisdiction and a decade-long military
occupation during the 1980s re-enforced anti-Vietnamese feelings that persist widely
among the Khmer majority today. The French colonial administration was staffed with,
and served by, large numbers of ethnic Vietnamese who were brought to Cambodia to
help govern the Khmer population. A legacy of these historical experiences is a strong
and widely shared sense of geo-political insecurity in the relationship to the Vietnamese
International Symposium On Ethnic Minorities In Asia: Subjects Or Citizens?
25 – 26 June 2009
organised by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
at the ARI Seminar Room, Tower Block, Level 10, Bukit Timah Road
state, which is perceived to utilize ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia to realize its territorial
ambitions in that country. This perceived risk to Khmer nation and Cambodian state
trumps considerations of justice and democracy that may otherwise favor citizenship
status for ethnic Vietnamese. Moreover, in the West, irregular residents who have
benefited from more inclusive naturalization policies have tended to be disadvantaged
groups at the margins of mainstream society. In contrast, ethnic Vietnamese in
Cambodia have historically been tools of French and Vietnamese colonization and
domination of the Khmer majority. The historical injustice argument that supports
inclusion in the West thus supports exclusion of ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia.
Stefan Ehrentraut is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Potsdam in
Germany. He studied public administration in Germany and in the United States and
worked for the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and the International Labor
Organization (ILO) in Ethiopia, Switzerland and Cambodia related to indigenous peoples'
rights and decentralization. His PhD project focuses on the internationalization of
minority-state-relations in Cambodia. Stefan undertook dissertation research as Visiting
Scholar at Queen's University in Canada in 2006 and as Associate Researcher at the
Center for Advanced Studies in Cambodia in 2007 and 2008. Stefan's research interests
include theories of multiculturalism and their application in non-Western states, minority
rights and their internationalization, decentralization, democratization and state reform,
especially in Cambodia.
International Symposium On Ethnic Minorities In Asia: Subjects Or Citizens?
25 – 26 June 2009
organised by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
at the ARI Seminar Room, Tower Block, Level 10, Bukit Timah Road
Ethnic Minorities, the Politics of Identity and the State
in Contemporary West Bengal, India
Arun Kanti Jana
University of North Bengal, India
arun_jana1@rediffmail.com
West Bengal a constituent state of the Indian Union is a home to several ethnic
minorities that inhabit mainly the northern districts of the state. Numerically the most
significant ethnic minorities are; the Nepali’s and the Rajbansis who are linguistically and
culturally distinct from the Bengali’s, the dominant ethnic community. These ethnic
groups have remained relatively poor even though some of them the Rajbansis in
particular are the oldest settlers of the region. The Rajbansis and others are basically
agriculturalists with small peasant holding or with no land. They have a very small
middle class population compared to the vast Bengali middle class. All these indicate that
the policies pursued by the Indian State have not benefited the communities at large.
Some even argue that the poverty of these ethnic groups is largely the function of
underdevelopment or backwardness3 of the entire region (commonly referred to as the
North Bengal region even in official parlance).
It is this poverty relative or absolute which is the principal cause of discontent among
the most prominent ethnic minorities in the region. This discontent has led to the
emergence and growth of several ethnic forces which demand statehood within the
Indian Union. Along with this principal demand they also demand certain other
concessions from the state government and the Union. They contend that the formation
of separate states could only help in the protection of their linguistic and cultural identity
and more importantly facilitate their development. The prominent ethnic forces are; in
the hills of Darjeeling the Gorkha Jana Mukti Morcha (GJMM) who demand a separate
state of Gorkhaland, in the plains the two factions of the Kamatapur People’s Party (KPP)
who demand the state of Kamatapur in North Bengal excluding the hills and the Greater
Cooch Behar Democratic Party (GCDP) who demand a state of Greater Cooch Behar.
These forces have become active and have gained popularity since the second half of the
1990s which suggests that the living conditions of these ethnic groups have deteriorated
at least relatively in the era of globalisation.
3 In India the term ‘backward’ is used widely in official parlance. The academia however prefers to use terms
like underdeveloped, poor etc. to categorise a region or a district which lags behind in terms of some
development indicators. The term is found in the official reports of the Planning Commission (PC), the body
that prepares the national Five Year Plans. It is also used by the departments of the state governments often in
a relative sense. For example, The West Bengal Human Development Report, 2004 prepared by the
Government of West Bengal to which we refer in our paper frequently uses the term. It says for example, that
a ‘significant part of the state is relatively more backward economically and also tends to be less advanced in
terms of human development. These include large parts of the six northern districts (Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri,
Cooch Behar, Malda, Uttar Dinajpur and Dakshin Dinajpur), the three western districts, (Purulia, Bankura and
Birbhum) and the sundarban area of the two 24 Parganas districts in the south of the state’ (WBHDR, 2004
p.5). Even villages within districts are categorised as backward on the basis of health, education, employment
indicators. In this paper we borrow the term from the PC and WBHDR to categorise districts and villages in the
state not its inhabitants. For its inhabitants we use terms like poor, illiterate etc.
International Symposium On Ethnic Minorities In Asia: Subjects Or Citizens?
25 – 26 June 2009
organised by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
at the ARI Seminar Room, Tower Block, Level 10, Bukit Timah Road
The state has responded to these forces and agitations differently. The Union
government till now has rejected the demand for the formation of separate states but
has brought some of districts of the region under the Rashtriya Sam Vikas Yojana for the
advancement of the districts, for the development of its inhabitants. It is willing to grant
autonomy of some kind to the hill areas of Darjeeling district. The state government on
the other hand had used several strategies to contain the movements. It has denied that
the region is relatively backward and the ethnic communities poor and use allurement,
repression and counter mobilisation strategies to contain the movements.
In the paper we look at the agrarian roots of ethnic and identity politics, the
pattern/patterns of mobilisation in the region and the response of the Indian state to the
ethnic forces and the movements. The paper is divided into three parts; in the first we
look at the causes of discontent among the ethnic minorities, in the second we look at
the patterns of ethnic mobilisation, in the third we look more importantly at the response
of the state to these movements.
Arun Kanti Jana obtained his MA, MPhil and PhD degrees from Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi. He is currently a Reader in Political Science at the University of
North Bengal, India. Arun was a Post Doctoral Fellow at the International Centre for
Ethnic Studies (ICES), Kandy, Sri Lanka in 2005. He specialises in Indian politics, the
political economy of development and the politics of developing areas. He has
contributed several articles to various journals and edited books, including Class,
Ideology and Political Parties in India (2002). He has also contributed several book
reviews to international journals such as Journal of Contemporary Asia, Millennium,
Journal of Peasant Studies, Journal of Development Studies and Contemporary South
Asia. He was awarded the Manas Chatterjee award for excellence in Research on
Regional Science in 2008.