Roots Of Election Violence In US & South Asia

The attempt to assassinate former United States President and the present Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on Saturday has brought into focus the problem of political violence in the US.

But political violence in its various manifestations has been a problem the world over, including countries in South Asia. And underlying it are common factors such as communal, racial and ethnic animosities fuelled by right wing ideologies.

Political violence is inextricably linked with elections. The degree of election violence is linked to the level of political competition.

When elections get vitiated by violence, democracy itself is threatened and a question mark is put on the sustainability of democracy. This is so even in established democracies like the US.

Although the US is hailed as the world’s oldest democracy, violence is deep-set in it. The liberal US gun laws are at the root of the problem of violence which is widespread in society right down to the school kids’ level. It should not come as a surprise that the weapon used in US assassinations has typically been a firearm.

Presidents, Presidents-elect, and Presidential candidates had been attacked 15 times so far, ‘CNN’ said, quoting a 2008 report compiled by the US Congressional Research Service (CRS). Four US Presidents — Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy — had fallen to an assassin’s bullet.

The first attack on a US President (Andrew Jackson) occurred in 1835. But Jackson escaped because the assassin’s pistol failed. The CRS report said that Presidents who survived attacks included Gerald R. Ford (twice in 1975), Ronald W. Reagan (a near-fatal shooting in 1981), Bill Clinton (when the White House was fired upon in 1994), and George W. Bush (when an attacker threw a grenade that did not explode during an event in Tbilisi in 2005).

President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt was attacked in 1933. Presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt was attacked in 1912. There were several attempts on former President Barack Obama.

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was killed in 1968, and George C. Wallace, another candidate, was seriously wounded in 1972.

According to the US-based Violence and Democracy Impact Tracker (VDIT) the impact of political violence on the freedom of expression and association, access to the vote, election administration, equality before the law, individual liberties, and the independence of the judiciary and legislature are great.

The VDIT says that political violence is eroding American democracy on multiple axes, though a breakdown of the system is not imminent.

It found that experts and laymen are more concerned about “intimidation” than actual physical harm, the VDIT report says. 71% of the survey respondents saw intimidation as the real threat.

According to the respondents, the top five concerning aspects of political violence for American democracy are: 1. Violence against the electoral process; 2. Right-wing, far-right, or white nationalist violence; 3. Escalating polarisation and partisanship; 4. Violence against marginalised communities, particularly the LGBTQ+ community; and 5. Elites encouraging, condoning, or inciting violence. All five concerning aspects are to be seen globally.

Elections remain the most notable flash point for political violence in the US, not just on polling day, but throughout the election process, VDIT says. Violence may be unleashed in various contexts, but its link to politics and elections can be traced in many cases.

The survey results indicate that the risk of breakdown in the election process in the US is high. Election workers are considering retiring at high rates. Worries about threats and harassment are high among local government officials.

Women are less willing to serve in elected office in the first place, partly out of fear of such threats.

In India, the killing of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, of Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi in 1984 and Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 were political, as they were executed by political opponents.

“Violence has moved to the centre stage of Indian public life," wrote Thomas B. Hansen, an anthropologist at Stanford University. Quoting Hansen, the BBC said that ordinary Indians seemed to either "tacitly endorse, or actively participate" in public violence.

Prof Hansen wrote in his 2021 book, ‘The Law of Force: The Violent Heart of Indian Politics’, that: "This development signals a deep problem, a deformation and pathology that may present a danger to the future of democracy."

But Amit Ahuja and Devesh Kapur, two US-based political scientists, wrote in their book ‘Internal Security in India: Violence, Order, and the State’, that large-scale violence actually declined in the country over the years.

Indeed, the horrendous anti-Muslim Gujarat riots of 2002, and the anti-Sikh riots in 1984, took place long ago. But it cannot be denied that they have left deep wounds in the minds of the victims, namely, the Muslims and Sikhs, which linger to this day.

However, Ahuja and Kapur do admit that "violence and humiliation that curtail life opportunities of women and Dalits and religious minorities like Muslims” are continuing in India.

There has been a plethora of such small-scale violence in the last decade. There has been a rise in new forms of public violence, stoked by communalism, intimidation and lynching to prevent interfaith marriages or cattle smuggling are the main concerns.

"Vigilantism and lynch mobs seem to be sprouting like an ugly cancer across the country," Ahuja and Kapur say.

Public approval of these acts undermines the government’s ability to control violence. "Online and street mobs are allowed to act with impunity. All this could easily spin out of control and significantly undermine state capacity to control violence," Ahuja and Kapur warn.

“There could be an uptick in violence if social harmony is threatened, if joblessness and inequality worsen, and the ability to reach permanent settlements to political problems is delayed. India has to do much more to reduce the threat of violence," the authors say.

No election in Pakistan is complete without large scale violence. Pakistan’s first Prime Minister Liyaquat Ali Khan was assassinated, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was killed by a suicide bomber during an election campaign in 2007 and former Prime Minister Imran Khan was shot in the leg during a political rally in 2022 all due to political reasons.

In Bangladesh, the tone for violent politics was set by the killing of the country’s first President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the massacre of his entire family living in his house in 1975. Subsequently, the arrested leaders of Mujibur Raman’s party, the Awami League, were massacred in the jail. Sheikh Hasina, the present Prime Minister, has faced 19 attempts on her life so far.

Violence has been part of elections in Bangladesh since the first parliamentary poll in 1973, though the 1991 and 2008 parliamentary elections were relatively free of violence.

However, under the authoritarian government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, elections have been reduced to a farce. These elections held without an opposition have invited sharp censure from Western democracies as well as international human rights organisations.

In the past, Sri Lanka saw an enormous amount of political violence. Thousands were killed during the Tamil separatist war cum ethnic conflict between 1983 and 2009 and also during the South Sri Lankan leftist insurgency in 1988-89.

Assassination of military and civilian leaders (both Tamil and Sinhalese) was common in the years of ethnic conflict. President R. Pramadasa was assassinated in 1993 and in 1999, President Chandrika Kumaratunga was injured in a bomb blast.

Election violence caused much concern in the 1990s, but it is rare now. However, the fear of election violence remains and is deterring women from entering electoral politics. This explains the thin representation of women in the Sri Lankan parliament. It is 5%, though women are 51.9% of the Sri Lankan population.

Violent politics ended in Nepal when the Maoists entered the democratic system in 2006. As for the Maldives, elections there have been free from violence for the most part.