Author	Suba Chandran and Alok Kumar Gupta
Publication	Searching for Peace in Central and South Asia
Year	2002

Summary

Sena literally means 'army'. In the context of Bihar-one of the most underdeveloped states of India-it refers to the private militias of the upper caste. Bihar has seen conflict between the upper castes (the landowning feudal classes and business contractors) and the lower castes (usually powerless sharecroppers and agricultural laborers) ever since independence. The gradual empowerment of these lower classes has provoked a bloody reaction from the gangs (sena) surrounding upper-caste criminals. The ever-present repression and retaliation escalated in the second half of the 1990s, when the entire populations of a number of hamlets were massacred in outbursts of Naxalite and sena violence.

Lack of effective state intervention and the political patronage of the upper-caste militias have worsened the situation described above. Patronage along caste lines by various political parties and organizations has exacerbated the problem of suppression and violence. In Bihar, civil society is organized along caste lines to a far greater degree than in other Indian states. This caste orientation reinforces the strong nexus between the landlords, contractors, criminals, politicians, and administrators.
Bihar, apart from being one of the biggest states (with 83 million inhabitants in 2001, after Jharkhand had been split off to form a separate state), is also the poorest state in terms of both per capita income and human-development indicators. Whereas India as a whole, and the surrounding states with a similar feudal past (Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal), have considerably reduced the percentage of people below the poverty line, Bihar has not. Male and female literacy in 2001 were as low as 60 percent and 34 percent respectively, which is far below the average of 76 percent and 54 percent of India as a whole.
This continuing poverty is due partly to the feudal rigidity in the agrarian structure of Bihar. The hold of the landlords has distorted the modernization of social and political structures. In addition to the Brahmins, the Bhumihar and the Rajput are the dominant landed elite. For a long period in the history of the state, these zamindars (landlords) have dominated politics and have exploited their sharecroppers and agricultural laborers.
Popular resistance was formerly organized by the communist parties, which had a strong presence in many areas. From the late 1960s onwards, their role has been taken over partially by the Naxalites and partially by assertive low-caste politicians. Particularly, the emergence of the movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan in the 1970s and the promotion of low-caste politicians in the 1980s and 1990s to prime ministership (Laloo Prasad Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi of the Rashtriya Janata Dal [RJD]) has changed the political landscape in the state. The RJD (National People's Party) has risen to political prominence by championing the interests of traditionally repressed lower castes, but has remained largely inactive on the issue of land reforms and the implementation of minimum wages.
The emergence of the low caste as a political force has provoked a reaction among the landlords. Ever since the Rajputs in Bhojpur district formed the Kuer Sena in 1979, all upper castes and even some middle-caste groups have formed their own sena, mainly in order to suppress the lower castes and classes. In the 1990s their role was extended to defending the political interests of the caste, namely the defeat of the RJD. As such, the senas continue a long feudal tradition. Earlier, the zamindars had men called lathaiths (those armed with sticks) whose main job was to execute the orders of the landlords, keep the peasantry and sharecroppers under control, ensure that "taxes" and other payments were paid regularly, and enforce the settlement of local disputes. Bihar has regularly experienced gruesome murders of entire hamlets when impoverished laborers dared to stand up for their rights. In May 1977, for example, eleven people in Belchi village in the Patna district were stabbed to death. Today's senas however, are more powerful because of their structure and political patronage.
Three reasons could be cited for the emergence of senas in Bihar. First, the negative fallout of the "green revolution," which in the 1970s and 1980s resulted in greater agricultural productivity. It also resulted in increasing basic inequalities that existed between landlords and the landless. The poor and landless, mainly belonging to the lower classes, increased their demands for fair distribution of land and its produce, which led to the formation of senas by landlords to suppress them.
Second, the growth of the Naxalite movement in Bihar resulted in the lower caste and class openly challenging the age-old domination of the upper castes and classes. With the Naxalite groups openly advocating and indulging in armed activities, the landlords began cultivating senas to counter the opposition from both the Naxalites and the landless.
The third reason was the politicization of caste, especially through the "reservation policy" for the lower castes, which was introduced in 1990. While education and employment have not reached the entire lower-caste population, a small segment of the lowest castes (the ex-untouchables, nowadays renamed Dalit by the more radical sections) and of the backward castes has benefited, however. This lower-class elite has begun mobilizing the lower castes for their own political ends, sometimes with the help of the Naxalites. The powerful upper-caste landlords could not tolerate this defiance by the low-caste elite and formed various senas to resist the gradual emergence of the lower castes in politics.

Conflict Dynamics

Besides Ranvir Sena, which is basically the private army of the landlords, there are a number of other armed gangs who represent the interests of the other castes. The Sunlight Sena is controlled by the Muslim Pathan landlords of Garwah, Palamau, and Gaya in alliance with the Rajput landlords of Palamau. The Bhoomi Sena was initially formed as the Kisan Suraksha Samiti in early 1980. Rich Kurmi landlords (a middle caste of the region), corrupt gentry, and professional criminals accumulated a huge quantity of arms, recruited some Kurmi youths, and launched a professional armed gang. The Bhoomi Sena is still powerful in some blocks in Patna district, but in other districts it has been eliminated by the armed squads of Maoist organizations. The Lorik Sena, of the backward-caste Yadavs, was formed in 1983 in Nalanda district but soon extended its activities and it is still powerful in Gaya and Dhanarua block in Patna. It appears to have degenerated into a gang that thrives on extortion from Yadav peasants.
Ranvir Sena, the most dreaded of all senas, is an organization of the upper-caste landlords. It came into existence in August 1994 in Belaur, a village with a population of twelve hundred in the central Bihar district of Bhojpur. The leader of the organization is Bharmeshwar Singh, who is also a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) activist, having previously been with the Congress Party during its period of national and regional government.
Estimates of the strength of the Ranvir Sena range from a few hundred to tens of thousands. The gangs are armed with knives, sickles, and home-produced guns and revolvers. Landlords finance it through "generous" contributions and subscriptions and members of the squads are reported to be drawing a monthly salary. The Ranvir Sena has also opted for the legal path by creating the Rashtravadi Kisan Mahasabha (RKMS), a peasant union that fields candidates for the elections, in alliance with the BJP and the Samata Party, both ruling parties in New Delhi.
The main objective of the Ranvir Sena and the RKMS is to intimidate the Dalits (the lower castes) and wipe out Naxalism. Ranvir Sena represents the Bhumihar and the Rajput, two major upper castes who have, in the past, been at loggerheads. The name Ranvir is actually associated with a nineteenth-
century Bhumihar folk hero who fought against the Rajput landlords in Bhojpur. The common objective of oppressing the Dalits and the Naxalites and protecting their class interests has led them to heal their differences.
Since its formation in 1994, the Ranvir Sena has been involved in more than twenty-five massacres, in which, according to different reports, between three hundred and one thousand persons have been killed. The raping of women is a common tactic employed by members of the Ranvir Sena and other caste militias to spread terror in lower-caste communities. In 1992, more than one hundred Dalit women in the Gaya district of Bihar were reportedly raped by the Savarna Liberation Front. Pregnant women and children have also been killed.
Some of the more gruesome murders in the years thereafter are the following:

• Within weeks after its formation, the Ranvir Sena was involved in clashes in the Bhojpur district. The first major incident occurred in Bathani Tola (Sahar block) on 11 July 1996, when nineteen CPI–ML supporters were killed by around sixty Sena activists armed with homemade firearms and cutting weapons. In previous months, numerous exchanges of fire took place leaving both sides with casualties. Two months earlier, nine Sena supporters were killed in a village in the same area.
• In late March and early April 1997, the Ranvir Sena killed ten Muslims in one village and eight Dalits in another village. On 20 April, two hundred armed persons belonging to the CPI–ML Party Unity attacked the village of a BJP member of the legislative assembly, allegedly responsible for the earlier attack, blew up his house, and killed six hard-core supporters of the sena.
• On 1 December 1997, sixty-three Dalits, including sixteen children, were killed in Laxmanpur Bathe village in Jehanabad; five teenage girls were raped before being shot in the chest. The village was raided in an overnight attack by two hundred and fifty Ranvir Sena members. The victims were sympathizers of the CPI–ML Liberation; in the area there had been an argument about the capture of government land by Bhumihars.
• In January 1999, twenty-two lower-caste men, women, and children were killed in Shankarbigha (Jehanabad district) when a Ranvir Sena gang entered their eight thatched huts and shot the inhabitants at point-blank range. The village is only 10 kilometers away from Laxmanpur Bathe.
• In April 1999, two groups of fifty men, each carrying sophisticated arms, attacked two hamlets in Sandani in Gaya district, killing twelve Yadavs, including a ten-year-old child; the killings were possibly a retaliation for the Bhumihars killed in Senari village one month earlier. Squads of the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) then slit the throats of thirty-four Bhumihars in retaliation for two massacres carried out in MCC strongholds earlier in the year, claiming a further thirty-four lives.
• In June 2000, thirty-five Yadav men, women, and children were killed in Miapur, Aurangabad district, by a gang of two hundred Bhumihars. One week earlier, thirteen Bhumihars had been killed in Newada district, at a distance of 200 kilometers, in retaliation for the killing of three Kurmis.

The above list of massacres perpetrated by the Ranvir Sena reveals two trends. First, the scale of the killings has increased. There have been instances, in which the entire Dalit or Muslim population, including women and children, of one hamlet was slaughtered. Second, the geographical reach of the sena's activities has been extended. Whereas initially, they focused on the Bhojpur district of Bihar, their operations are now spread over many other districts of Bihar and Jharkhand, especially Jehanabad, Patna, Gaya, and Aurangabad.
The political support of the upper castes to the Ranvir Sena and the RKMS has unfortunately also increased. The Ranvir Sena, as alleged by the Dalits, has the support of the major political parties in the state—the BJP, Congress, and even some sections in the ruling RJD. These allegations were raised in the press and by human-rights organizations. In October 2001, the Justice Amir Das Commission, constituted by the government three years earlier to investigate the nexus between political parties and the Ranvir Sena, confirmed the allegations. Notices have been issued to two federal ministers—including the powerful BJP minister Murli Manohar Joshi—and to twenty-two other politicians, of whom only two belong to the RJD.
The continuation of the conflict is also due to the involvement of local police officers, most of whom belong to the upper castes. The police are often on the scene of incidents but remain inactive. In his report on the 1996 attack in the Sahar block, the then home office minister Indrajit Gupta (a communist) remarked during the debates in the Lok Sabha (national parliament), on 19 July 1996 that "the failure of the district machinery was the immediate reason for the tragedy. In fact, it has been admitted by the state administration that despite the availability of intelligence about the impending tragedy and even the positioning of forces in the area, the massacre could not be averted due to connivance or lack of courage on the part of the law enforcing agencies."¹

Official Conflict Management

Ministerial responsibilities in the Indian constitution have been divided between the union government and the state governments. Law and order is a function of the state, and as such, it is primarily the responsibility of the Bihar government to deal with the issue. Unfortunately, Bihar is one of the few states in India with a defective system of governance.
Bihar banned all caste-based private militias as long ago as 1986, resulting in the disappearance of a number of such groups in the first half of the 1990s. However, the government is finding it difficult to tackle the Ranvir Sena for various political and social reasons. In 1996, the state government, then headed by Laloo Prasad Yadav, banned the Ranvir Sena after the latter's involvement in the killing of six Dalits in Sarthna village in Bhojpur. But the government has not been able to control it.
The state government's response over the last six years has been reactive and short-term. After every major massacre, it has announced financial compensation to the families of the deceased, and the concerned officials have been either suspended or transferred. Occasionally, a new post was also created in the police to deal exclusively with this issue. After the Laxmanpur Bathe massacre (in which sixty-three people were killed in December 1997), the state government transferred the home secretary, suspended the superintendent of police in the district, and created a new post of additional director general of police to focus on the law-and-order problems. Similarly, the state government directed the administration to take up the construction of roads on a war footing. The absence of roads keeps the poor people in the remote areas in a precarious position and hinders the swift deployment of police forces.
At the judicial level, the state has appointed special courts for speedy trials. After the Sankarbigha massacre in January 1999, Chief Minister Rabri Devi announced the creation of a special court. A major problem is that many of the arrested sena members are known to be quickly released on bail and to have many sympathizers within the police and justice departments.
Committees have been formed at state and district levels, and they have come forward with various ideas, particularly stressing the need for the restoration of local self-government, the implementation of land reforms, and a meaningful development of the affected areas.
At the police level, the handling of the situation has been dismal. It is alleged that in several cases the police were unconcerned in dealing with the situation. For example, three police pickets were present during the attack in Bhatanitola in 1996, but they appeared to ignore the shots being fired. After an attack in Narayanpur where twelve Dalits were murdered by the Ranvir Sena in February 1999, it took the police twenty-four hours to reach the scene. They then told the villagers that, although their station is just two miles away, the complaint had to be lodged at another police station, which had jurisdiction over the particular village. The major efforts by the police are focused on the creation of new pickets in the affected areas. These pickets are insufficiently manned and their weapons are obsolete. During the massacres they either remain silent spectators or have even fled from the scene. During the attacks in March and May 1997, Ranvir Sena men were allegedly accompanied by members of the police force. Three days after the retaliatory Maoist attack, six communist extremist were killed by the police in a "fake encounter," i.e., after they had surrendered.
The state government has continually demanded the deployment of paramilitary forces by the central government. Five companies of the Central Reserve Police Force were sent to Bihar by the left-wing government in New Delhi after the Laxmanpur Bathe massacre in 1997, but they were withdrawn soon after the right-wing BJP government came to power.
After an incident on 13 February 1999 in Narayanpur, where twenty-one Dalits were massacred, the union government, rather than sending extra police forces to Bihar, dismissed the state government and imposed presidential rule, i.e., direct administration from New Delhi. However, a majority in the New Delhi parliament rejected the interference and the RJD government was reinstalled. The episode illustrated that party politics aimed at dislodging a state government were considered more important than a joint intervention against terrorist violence. Instead of helping to resolve the problem, the government of India has always condemned and criticized the state government for its failures. Massacres, and the reports of the "high-level" teams after visits to the area, have been misused in a partisan manner in order to increase the stranglehold of the union government on the state government.
The role of regional and international organizations in this issue is minimal. The regional organization South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has no mandate to deal with these issues. India traditionally has been against any external involvement in its domestic issues. Besides, none of the other countries in the region or elsewhere has anything at stake in the ongoing violence perpetrated by the Ranvir Sena.

Multi Track Diplomacy

The response from society and from nongovernmental organizations—domestic and international—to the caste violence is mixed. The role of NGOs in Bihar in creating awareness of the problem is commendable, but they have failed to make any impact on the government.
The caste/class conflicts in a polarized and backward society such as Bihar have set in motion a vicious circle of caste politics and caste consciousness, with various political parties stimulating the mobilization of caste for political purposes. Consequently there has been a tendency for the elite sections within each caste to set up their own senas to protect their socioeconomic and political interests. The Dalits were the last group to form their own sena. The Dalit Sena was the initiative of a right-wing politician, Ram Vilas Paswan, and was undertaken "in order to form a unit for the self defense of the Dalit community." By forming caste-based organizations, these leaders attempt to wean their electorate away from the more radical, class-based organizations in the state. The statements of some of these Yadav and Kurmi leaders with landed interests make this clear; the magazine Frontline (12 October 2001) reported "that in the matter of land the interests of the upper castes and the advanced sections among the backward classes converge."²
Political calculations and expediency have determined the response of the political parties to Ranvir Sena's activities. The ruling RJD has always blamed the Congress and the BJP (which has the support of the upper castes) for financing and guiding the Ranvir Sena to destabilize the RJD rule. In the aftermath of the massacres, political parties usually send a fact-finding team for an on-the-spot study of the massacre.
The right-wing opposition, especially the BJP, sees the growth of the Ranvir Sena as representing the failure of the Bihar government under Laloo Prasad Yadav and Rabri Devi. The killings are seen as the result of the encouragement of criminal gangs by a government that wants to remain in power rather than the manifestation of a caste war.
The CPI–M regards the nonimplementation of basic land reforms, nonpayment of minimum wages, and the nexus between the landlords, people, and criminals as the main reasons behind the vicious circle of violence. The CPI–M, like the other communist party, the CPI, is critical of both sena and the Maoist party organizations. The poor villagers "caught between the warring groups, spend sleepless nights," it says. The CPI–ML, the main opponent of the Ranvir Sena, has been more severe in its opposition. It organizes bandhs (strikes) both at state and national levels against its activities and the failure of the state and central governments to take any effective steps. Both parties see the sena more as a private army of the bhupatis (the haves) in a struggle with the have-nots, rather than as a Bhumihar caste party.
Gandhian organizations in the state have been active, working on relief projects and organizing communities in the tradition of nonviolence and tolerance. They, however, are not effective in the remote rural areas.
The People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), like most political parties, has sent fact-finding teams to investigate the caste-based violence in Bihar, and has published various reports with recommendations. Also, the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has published a couple of reports on violence in Bihar. Both the PUDR and the PUCL are ideologically aligned with the proponents of agrarian revolt and do not command any siginficant influence over the governments. Their championship of the Naxalite cause has weakened their position as a human-rights watchdog.
At the international level, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has been monitoring the problem for a long time and has made recommendations to the state and central governments. It has carried out a number of studies and investigations, and has approached the state government directly with a list of suggestions. These include the prosecution of senior officials found to be complicit in the attacks, the provision of full security to villagers, placing police pickets away from upper-caste areas, and creating independent commissions of investigation. It has been alleged by human-rights organizations that some politicians are members of the Ranvir Sena and that the police have sometimes accompanied the sena during their attacks or have conducted raids after attacks by the senas. The purpose of the raids is often to terrorize Dalits as a group, whether or not they are members of guerrilla organizations. Sena leaders and police officials have rarely been prosecuted for such killings and abuses.
There is, in this respect, a clear difference between the response of the state to militant activity by Naxalite groups and by the senas. Whereas a large number of Naxalites are killed in "encounters" with police, not a single Ranvir Sena member has suffered this fate. The administration is noticeably slow when it comes to tackling these armies. Evidence of police collusion with the Ranvir Sena has led to charges that the sena is being backed by the state administration and nonleftist political parties in order to check the growing leftist movement. Police have frequently operated as agents of the landed upper castes, conducting raids on Dalit villages and disguising killings as "encounters."

Prospects

The prospects of ending caste violence in general and of the Ranvir Sena in particular are gloomy. First, the land reforms, one of the main reasons for class conflicts in Bihar, have not been carried out effectively. In Bihar the caste war between the upper and lower castes has deep roots in the class war between the upper and lower classes.
Second, the ruling RJD, faced with challenges from within and outside the party, has been unable to govern competently. Many villages in Bihar are without basic amenities such as schools, health centers, roads, electricity, and water. The sena and the Maoist groups are symptoms of failed land reforms; the Ranvir Sena wants to stall changes in the agrarian structure.
Third, the police in Bihar are ineffective as a result of their inadequate strength, bad administration, and political interference. Lastly, many political parties are being supported by caste groups and they provide patronage to those who perpetuate violence. Upper castes such as the Rajputs and Bhumihars in Bihar support the BJP, Congress, and the Samata Party. Unless these political parties discontinue their political patronage of caste militias, caste-based violence in Bihar will continue.

Recommendations

To combat the caste violence and the growth of caste-based militias, efforts need to be made at both the macro and micro levels. Land reforms must be effectively implemented, the state police need to be modernized, developmental programs should be implemented, and political parties must function autonomously of caste influence.
The Minimum Wage Act, the land reform legislation, and the poverty alleviation programs have to be implemented urgently. The new government proposals to make sharecroppers the legal owners of land should be enacted as soon as possible, before sharecroppers are turned off the land and the question of landlessness and polarization is made even more intractable. The state administration should implement its own legislation. Lack of educational, health, transport, and communication facilities have precluded the participation of the impoverished masses in civil society. Although there have been various development packages devised in the past by the central and state governments, they have not sufficiently reached the target groups due to poor governance and widespread corruption. Only a better economic deal for landless labor and sharecroppers may turn the scales.
The restoration of democracy may lead to more transparency and influence from below. The holding of village council elections in June 2001, after a gap of twenty-four years, is a good first step in the restoration of democracy at the village level. The institutions, however, continue to be controlled by the village elite or their agents. Unless the poor people can free themselves from economic slavery, empowerment will remain difficult.
The Bihar police force needs to be urgently revamped to effectively handle the caste militia.

• The police force needs to be augmented in terms of numbers. Arming the police with better weapons would increase their prestige and morale and also instill fear in the private militias. The police also need to be provided with better transport and communications, enabling them to reach trouble spots more easily and quickly.
• Most importantly, steps need to be taken to recruit officers from the lowest ranks of society (Dalits and poor Muslims) into the police force. Caste is an important factor in the police and the administration of the state, particularly in some districts.
• The rules of conduct should be redefined. Care should also be taken that the police remain physically separate from the contending groups and do not accept upper-caste hospitality.
• A judicial body should be set up to investigate the role of the police in villages during and in the aftermath of massacres.

Peace committees, bringing together influential righteous citizens, Gandhian organizations, and other NGOs as well as the secular political parties, including the parties on opposing sides in the conflict, will have to be formed in order to maintain peace and restore sanity when conflicts have taken place. Such joint committees will also have an important function in overseeing the constitutional behavior of political parties, i.e., documenting and protesting against the political patronage of caste militias and caste organizations in general.

Miscellaneous

1. Indrajit Bupta, XI Lok Sabha Debates Session II, 19 July 1996: http://alfa.nic.in/lsII/ses2/23190796.htm
   
2. Kalyan Chaudhari, "Tension in the Air," Frontline 18(20), October 2001: http://www.flonnet.com/fl1820/18200470.htm.

Service Information

NEWSLETTERS AND PERIODICALS:	Economic and Political Weekly: 'Ranveer Sena and Massacre Windows', by Arvind Sinha and Indu Sinha, 27 October 2001, pp. 4095-4099. 'State, Class and Sena Nexus', by Arvind Sinha and Indu Sinha, November 1996.
REPORTS:	Human Rights Watch, Broken People: Caste Violence Against India's Untouchables, 1999: www.hrw.org/reports/1999/india. Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, Senas (Caste Armies) of Bihar, by Alok Kumar Gupta: www.ipcs.org/nmt/milgroups/sena-india.html. Institute for Human Development, Semi-Feudalism Meets the Market: A Report from Purnea, by Gerry Rodgers and Janine Rodgers, 2000. People's Union for Civil Liberties: Report on Massacres in Jehanabad, 1999, Shankarbigha and Narainpur, 1999. Killings at Rajebigha, Apsarh and Mianpur on June 3, 11 and 22, 2000, 2000. People's Union for Democratic Rights: Agrarian Conflict in Bihar and the Ranbir Sena, October 1997. A Time to Kill: A Report on Massacres in Jehanabad, August 1999.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS:	The Republic of Bihar, by Arvind Das. New Delhi, Penguin, 1990.
SELECTED INTERNET SITES:	www.cpiml.org (The parliamentary Maoist party, offering interesting party documents and journals); www.dalitstan.org/sena (Web site of a sectarian political grouping of ex-untouchables); www.ekta-parishad.org (Joint web site of the Gandhian organizations in Bihar, a useful source on local relief and peace initiatives);
RESOURCE CONTACTS:	Anand Chakravarty, A-1/4, Maurice Nagar, Delhi University, New Delhi, India; Alokh Sharma, Institute for Human Development, IAMR Building, Indraprashta Estate, New Delhi–10002, India; Dilip Simeon, Oxfam India Trust, e-mail: dilip@del2.vsnl.net.in;
ORGANIZATIONS:	Center for the Study of Developing Societies, 29, Rajpur Road, Delhi, India 110054, Tel: +91-11-3951190 Fax: +91-11-2943450, E-mail: csds@del2.vsnl.net.in Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Bihar State, 201, Nilgiri Bhavan, Boring Canal Road, Patna, India. Data on the following organizations can be found in the Directory section: Center for Policy Research; Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies; People's Union for Civil Liberties; People's Union for Democratic Rights

About the author

Suba Chandran is a research officer at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi. His areas of expertise include Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, religious fundamentalism, and terrorism. He has contributed to publications on these issues, and to the Landmine Monitor 2000 and 2001. Alok Kumar Gupta is working as lecturer in political science at the National Law University, Jodhpur (Rajasthan, India) and is working on his doctoral thesis. He has written a number of articles and chapters on issues related to South Asia in newspapers, journals, web sites, and books.