Understanding South Asia’s evolving insurgent dynamics

KOLBY HANSON TALKS ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A ‘LIKELY’ RECRUIT OF AN ARMED GROUP AND POLITICAL ECONOMY OF NORTHEAST

- HT Correspondent

How do non-state armed groups act when the state seeks not to crush them — but to tolerate their activities? This is the central question of a new book by political scientist Kolby Hanson, titled, Ordinary Rebels: Rank-and-File Militants between War and Peace.

The book draws on a range of innovative surveys and in-depth interviews tracing four armed movements over time in northeast India and Sri Lanka.

Hanson, an Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University, spoke about his new book on last week's episode of Grand Tamasha, a weekly podcast on Indian politics and policy co-produced by HT and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Hanson spoke with host Milan Vaishnav about what it means to be a “likely” recruit of an armed group, the complex political economy of India’s northeast, and the way in which state toleration operates on a spectrum.