Bidisha Biswas explores the question of how a democratic state chooses between
policies of coercion and accommodation when dealing with political violence by
addressing an important, yet under examined, topic—India' approach to internal
conflicts. In Managing Conflicts in India, Biswas selects three cases of
conflict: the separatist campaign in Punjab during the 1980s; the protracted
insurgency in Kashmir; and attacks on the Indian state by left-wing extremists,
also known as Maoists and Naxalites, a campaign that has existed in different
forms since the 1960s. Using archival research and fieldwork, Biswas shows that
the Indian state has chosen a mix of tactics in dealing with these insurgencies.
She argues