5. Double Whammy: Targeted Minorities in South-Asian States

This chapter explores ways in which both international criminal law and TWAIL fail to address the needs of accountability and remedy for violently targeted minorities in South-Asia. It will bring forth the selective, political manner of the institutionalisation of international criminal law by examining the prevalent power dynamics of the global political economy that shield powerful perpetrators, particularly in South-Asia. Majoritarian consolidation ensures the appearance of electoral democracy in these countries despite widespread crimes against minorities. Western states have a critical interest in protecting allied regimes in South-Asia due to their strategic geopolitical location and symbolic democratic appearance that provide ideological alternatives vis-à-vis China. Large population sizes in some of these countries also provide vital markets for western business interests. These factors often protect powerful perpetrators from any international scrutiny for mass crimes. The nation-state-building goals of the non-aligned post-colonies shaped TWAIL’s origin. The process of nation-building for postcolonial South-Asian states has often involved fortifying national borders that were arbitrarily and rashly drawn by former imperial powers in the first place. Such fortification involved silencing dissenting minorities through targeted state violence. Likewise, second-generation TWAIL scholarship continues to be constricted by the inapt binary of First World versus Third World. This narrow contextualisation of TWAIL scholarship restricts its lens to interests of Third World nation-states rather than the needs of their people, especially minorities. TWAIL’s foundational goals block effective engagement and articulation of the minorities’ pleas for accountability and remedy in South-Asian countries, creating its own hegemonic narrative.