Human society has two inherent permanent features and tendencies—the emergence of social-waves and the process of structuralisation in those social-waves. This opposition is a chain of causalities, containing the manifestation of dynamics in the political economy and social progress, as well as their retrogression and social stagnation. No phenomenon of social movements around the globe, particularly in the previous colonies, is an exception to this dialectic of mass expression.

State v society

Human history has witnessed and undergone this process through the structuralisation of movements, religions, ideologies and revolutions. It has left long-lasting imprints on social institutions, particularly the mega-social organism of the state, and on the process of state building and state formation.

The contemporary crises of state versus society and the liberty of the individual versus the state's reckless vigilance using the excuse of national security have deep roots in this fundamental dynamic and dialectic of broader social behavior.

The widening gap between states and societies during the process of globalisation is at a highly naïve stage in developed countries, if compared with the developing and underdeveloped world. In other words, state-society frictions in the global north and south have not only their own peculiarities but also variant degrees and velocities of social processes. This is further visible in the polar opposite nature of statehood between the previous colonies and their colonisers.

Besides, on the debris of the state apparatus in previous colonies and colonisers, there have emerged the contemporary virtual forms of soft-colonisation, which no doubt is at the height of neo-colonialism and semi-colonialism. This has highly peculiar connotations in ethno-linguistically diverse societies, countries and their arc of class-cum-federal structures.

The impacts of colonisation on the polity, state-building and state-society relations in previous colonies and their colonisers are evident. Today's virtual colonialism has even worse aspects to this. Thus, the understanding of state-society relations in the global south, particularly in the previous colonies, in the perspective of contemporary politics and social movement would lead to another stage of discourse. Neverthe-less, an analysis of the contemporary state-society relations would hardly re-direct to the hidden depths if the 'structuralism' versus 'social-wave' dynamics is not at the core of broader discourse.

Almost all religions, practical manifestations of political doctrines, movements, and cultural ethos become dogma once swamped in structuralisation. The institutions of mullahism, priesthood and panditism, political leadership cults, party dictatorship and thinking stereotypes are common examples.

Colonial state formation

State building and state formation are two different aspects of statehood. State building is a process in which the state evolves out of society through gradual evolution whilst state formation is a process where state construction takes place in a non-traditional manner, based mostly on an extraordinary centralised statehood. State formation in most cases involves the role of external factors in the embryology of the state apparatus.

In the process of state formation, peculiar courses of political actions take place, where particular state elements acquire bigger roles or powers (non-traditionally, if not abnormally) in comparison with others in statecraft.

The formation of a colonial state has historically been aimed at providing a buffer between the colonisers and their subjects. This was attained through creating a class of bureaucrats, sallariat (salaried middle class) and the establishment of various forms of rural-lordships.

The contribution of colonisers in terms of political discourse and culture has helped colonial societies to grow. However, it has meant to regulate relations between colonisers and colonies, mostly in the coloniser's interest. This led, for example, to the previous British colonies wearing a new sociality—a reversal of the previous socio-economic relations. Undivided India is a highly intelligible model of studies for that. India underwent social engineering by the British Raj, which created permanent frictions and upheavals, despite the fact that these are at the heart of development dynamics in South Asia.

The legacy of colonialism has sprung a new course of socio-political metabolism. The independence of colonies, therefore, have gradually and continuously undergone the process of the post-colonial state versus society, the neo-colonial state versus society and internal-colonial or semi-colonial state versus native or internal semi-colonies.

Freedom and the state

If post-British withdrawal from Southasia is deeply analysed, it will show a peculiar course of state-formation, social progress and consequently, state society conflicts.

If seen in the post-British withdrawal context, various states have undergone an exclusive path to contain the state's classical role of maintaining minimum civil conditions for the citizenry to avail of a free and peaceful life. In so many manners, the state's legitimacy over the use of violence has either been over-used, as in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, or this legitimacy has been shared with state-sponsored extremists, as with the urban terrorists in Pakistan.

The exclusive takeover of the polity and the state apparatus by the particular classes of India after 1947 still carries the strings of colonial statehood, if seen in a state-society perspective. Pakistan has undergone an uneven course of militarisation of the state as well as some selective societal groups. Sri Lanka has taken various courses of state retrogression in which state-society relations have been antagonised through a repressive order where harmony has been compromised over the prioritisation of the ethnic interest between the Tamil and Sinhala people.

Besides, the state has translated itself gradually into militarisation, where minimum civil conditions have always been at the stake. Even Nepal, always proud for never being colonised, has remained under a virtual colonial status since the British occupation of India. Myanmar has become the worst example of a military's dominance over the state apparatus, which turned society retrogressive. Bhutan, like Nepal, is facing the drawbacks of being a land-locked geo-political entity. Maldives, and to certain extent Nepal and Bhutan, has turned itself into a state of convenience in terms of its foreign policy, which ultimately has fall-outs in its own societies and the interests of friendly neighbours. Bangladesh, unlike others, has started cleansing house to detach the impacts, adversaries and strings of Muslim terrorism and war crimes committed by Pakistan in 1971.

Southasian states, naturally, underwent the process of transition after independence from British rule. The state apparatus left behind by the British as an institutional legacy was not only a Southasian adaptation of the Western statehood of its time but was also structured to serve colonial interests and prolong colonial rule. The unexpected withdrawal of the British from Southasia due to World War II left no room to transform the nature of the state apparatus from colonisation into a real republic.

The states in Southasia are still structured to serve global powers, in comparison with the interests of their own citizens. In the absence of 'real' colonisers, the role of colonisers has been taken over by civil and military elites. This has squared the level of alienation among the people vis-à-vis the state.

Since most Southasian countries constitute a united diversity, they are reluctant for social movements that lead to a transformation of the state and for the judicious distribution of power vertically and horizontally. Empowerment and development in Southasia is, therefore, conditioned on the judicious distribution of power among ethnicities, classes, communities and sects. Besides, the coloniser's leftover state apparatus legacy is the major reason behind the unending conflicts, underdevelopment and militarisation in the region.

If summed up, the transition of Southasian states from colonial into postcolonial states, neocolonial arrangements and semi-colonial as well as internal colonial states has always been the fault on which politics and development in Southasia has been directed and redirected through certain classes, portions of the states apparatus, elitist mindset and structural cultures of the state-society dynamics.

Shah is a Sindhi refugee activist, researcher and analyst