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Conquest and Conflict: The Colonial Roots of Maoist Violence in India

Abstract: Does colonialism have long-term effects on political stability? We address this question through
a study of India’s Naxalite insurgency, a Maoist rebellion that has been characterized by its left-wing
proponents as having roots in the colonial period. We highlight three mechanisms linking colonialism
with contemporary Naxalite violence–land inequality, discriminatory policies toward low-caste and tribal
groups, and upper-caste dominated administrative institutions. We then analyze how the degree of British
influence relates to Naxalite conflict in 589 districts from 1980-2011. We find a positive association
between British influence and the strength of the Naxalite rebellion across all of India, within the “Red
Corridor” region itself, and within former princely states. Our results are robust to a coarsened exact
matching analysis and a wide array of robustness checks. The findings call into question whether the
supposedly beneficial administrative and institutional legacies of colonialism can be evaluated without
reference to their social costs.

Keywords: Colonialism, Conflict, India, Maoist, Political Stability


Word Count: 11,264
Introduction

The era of European colonialism that began in the 16 th century resulted in major

transformations of state-society relations in many parts of the world. Colonial powers generally

sought to increase the colonial state’s penetration of society while minimizing the risk of

rebellion. They achieved this dual objective through substantial investments in infrastructure and

administration, but also by manipulating social divisions and hierarchies in ways that promoted

buy-in among local elites and mitigated resistance by the masses. How did policies that enhanced

state capacity at the expense of social cohesion impact levels of political stability over the long

run in the postcolonial world? Are former colonies more (or less) prone to political dysfunction,

violence, and armed insurgency than countries that were never colonized?

This article addresses the long-term effects of colonial rule through an analysis of India’s

Naxalite insurgency – a Maoist uprising largely supported by low castes and indigenous tribal

groups.1 The insurgency now dates back over half a century and was famously billed by Prime

Minister Manmohan Singh as “the single biggest internal security challenge facing our

country.”2 The movement is estimated to have mobilized between 6,500 and 9,000 fighters, at

one point operated in roughly 40 percent of India’s districts, and according to the Ministry of

Home Affairs has claimed more than 13,000 lives since its inception. 3 Moreover, the Naxalite

movement has clear historical antecedents in a sizable number of peasant uprisings that occurred

during the colonial era. Naxalite leaders themselves have cited Britain’s role in establishing

“semi-colonial” and “semi-feudal” conditions that make India ripe for revolution. 4

1
India’s Naxalite movement is named after the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal, where a small tribal revolt in
1967 against a local landlord sparked a major uprising throughout the region (Ray 2011).
2
The Hindu, May 24, 2010.
3
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/maoist/data_sheets/fatalitiesnaxalmha.htm, accessed November 13,
2017.
4
See, for example, Central Committee, CPI (Maoist), “Strategy and Tactics of the Indian Revolution,” Chapter 2.

1
While it is generally recognized that the Spanish undermined governance by setting up

extractive institutions (Acemoglu and Robinson 2012) and that the French diminished state

capacity by undermining traditional forms of governance (Asiwaju 1970), scholars frequently

portray British colonialism as promoting bureaucratization, stronger state capacity, and better

judicial systems because it was less direct and because the British tended to colonize the least

developed areas in any given region (Lange, Mahoney, and vom Hau 2006). British rule has been

tied to a robust legal-administrative capacity in Mauritius (Lange 2009), higher levels of state

capacity and cohesion in Singapore (Huff 1994), as well as strengthened rule of law (Joireman

2001) and more robust democracy (Jensen and Wantchekon 2004) in Africa. British colonies

became democratic faster than other colonies and British colonialism is positively associated

with GDP per capita (Feyrer and Sacerdote 2009).

At the same time, the long-term social effects of colonialism are known to have been

overwhelmingly negative. Numerous studies demonstrate how Europeans generated political

instability around the world by disrupting native societies and encouraging antagonism between

indigenous groups. Scholars have linked Belgian colonial legacies to the Rwandan Genocide

(Mamdani 2002), French legacies to ethnic violence in Mali (Keita 1998) and Sudan (Kanya-

Forstner 1969), Portuguese legacies to civil war in Angola (Birmingham 1966), and British

legacies to the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya (Throup 1987). In such cases, the standard colonial

“divide-and-rule” strategy generated enduring horizontal inequalities between ethnic groups that

have continually reemerged as the primary source of contemporary conflagrations.

In this paper, we develop and test a theory that connects British colonialism in India to

grievances among low-caste and tribal populations. We hypothesize that these grievances in turn

led to these subaltern groups joining the Naxalite insurgency, which became concentrated in

2
former areas of direct rule. Similar to previous analyses of the effects of colonialism in India, we

leverage the fact that the British governed through a bifurcated system of direct rule in provinces

and indirect rule through native kings in the princely states (e.g. Banerjee, Iyer, and Somanathan

2005; Iyer 2010).5 Going beyond these studies, however, we note that the British ruled some

areas directly longer than others, and they continued to interfere in the affairs of some native

kingdoms even after they remained formally independent. We therefore focus on the degree of

British influence in a district, which we measure by the number of years a province was directly

governed by the British and the number of guns in British salutes to princely states.

We begin by drawing on the rich historical literature on colonial rule and peasant

rebellion in India to identify three specific mechanisms that link British rule to contemporary

low-caste and tribal grievances. First, the British exacerbated land inequality by granting

property rights to landlords and by commandeering forest lands that tribal populations

traditionally relied upon for sustenance. Second, the British systematically categorized and

ranked caste and tribal communities, which rigidified social inequalities. Third, the British

installed an upper-caste dominated bureaucracy that cemented these inequalities through

administrative practice, ultimately fostering distrust of India’s law enforcement and legal

institutions among low-caste and tribal groups. We analyze census and survey data to show that

the degree of British influence in former provinces and princely states is positively associated

with contemporary land inequality, caste conflict, and citizen distrust in the police.

We then test our argument with a statistical analysis of insurgent activity and violence

across 589 Indian districts over a 31-year period. We find that in both provinces and princely

5
Native kings were known by a variety of names. To the British they were princes, a diminutive title meant to
indicate their status relative to the colonial state. Hindu kings were known as rajas or maharajas, while Muslim
kings were known as nizams or nawabs.

3
states the likelihood and intensity of Naxalite violence is substantially higher today in areas of

greater British influence. These findings are robust to a variety of specifications as well as a

coarsened exact matching analysis that helps address the concern that the British annexed or tried

to influence areas that were already violent or prone to insurgency.

Our study of the Naxalite insurgency makes several important contributions to the

literature on conflict and political violence. Our analysis questions whether the supposedly

beneficial administrative and institutional effects of colonialism can be evaluated without

reference to their social costs. The very same agencies that served as the administrative “steel

frame” of the British Raj, and subsequently the Indian bureaucracy, also enacted policies that

generated the economic inequality and social divisions that fuel Maoist violence. By showing

how institutions that provided better administration and governance overall may have

concurrently given rise to long-term instability and conflict in some parts of India, we integrate

disparate literatures on the long-term administrative and social impacts of colonial rule. Further,

we provide historical context to the recent literature on horizontal inequalities and conflict by

demonstrating how colonial policies that attempt to order native populations and exclude

minority groups contribute to grievances and rebellion by marginalized communities (Cederman,

Weidmann, and Gleditsch 2011; Cederman, Gleditsch, and Buhaug 2013; Stewart 2008). Our

study also helps to fill a gap in our understanding by exploring the less-understood colonial

origins of peasant rebellion and conflict in the countryside (Kalyvas 2006). Finally, we

contribute to the literature on Naxalite violence in India by concretely establishing the

connection between historical factors and the more immediate causes of the rebellion that have

so far been the focus of most studies.

4
Colonialism and Patterns of Maoist Violence

Most studies of Maoist insurgent violence focus on the “Red Corridor,” a vast expanse of

territory in central and eastern India and have used a variety of contemporary political and

economic factors to explain the conflict. The prevailing view is that Naxalite violence has been

substantially fueled by poverty and horizontal inequalities structured by caste and tribal

identities. Naxalite violence is associated with unemployment and labor income shocks

(Dasgupta et. al. 2017; Fetzer 2014; Vanden Eynde 2017), the presence of mineral wealth and

mining operations that dispossess tribal populations of their land (Hoelscher et al. 2012), the

heavy dependence of the rural population upon renewable resources (Gawande et. al. 2015),

economic inequality structured by caste and tribal identities (Gomes 2015), and the political

exclusion of low castes and tribals (Chandra and García-Ponce 2015; Pasquale 2015). Poverty,

economic inequality, and political exclusion make low-caste and tribal populations uniquely

vulnerable to the appeals and recruitment strategies of insurgent leaders who promise to provide

justice and retribution against high castes and to provide short-term economic benefits ranging

from negotiating wages to help with securing government contracts.

While these explanations are no doubt compelling, there are reasons to suspect that

colonial institutions and policies also play an important role in explaining violence in the Red

Corridor. First, the British contributed enormously to the scope and severity of peasant and tribal

unrest during their rule (Gough 1974, p. 1392). Ranajit Guha (1999), compiling an

incomprehensive list, records 110 separate revolts during the colonial period. Furthermore,

Maoist leaders have consciously drawn connections between their movement and these earlier

uprisings against the British. Naxal ideologues view the history of India as one of “uninterrupted

historic struggles carried out by the Indian people against the British imperialists” and

5
subsequently “against feudal exploitation and oppression” stemming from the colonial period. 6

They argue that “British imperialism has been organically linked to feudalism from the very

beginning” as has the “comprador big bourgeoisie…that serves the capitalists of imperialist

countries and is nurtured by them.” 7 Naxal propaganda further states that independence from the

British was essentially “fake,” and although the British left India, colonialism never ended but

instead takes on newer and more insidious forms. In this way, they see their movement as the

climactic struggle in a long “series of peasant struggles and rebellions against the British

colonialists and their feudal props, such as the Santhal revolt of 1854-56” that marked the

“beginning of the Indian democratic revolution.”8

The broader geographic patterns of Maoist violence provide additional preliminary

support for the idea that colonial legacies contributed to the uprising. The Naxalite insurgency

has undergone three distinct phases that differed somewhat in terms of their geographic location

and social composition (Banerjee 2009). The first relatively short phase began in 1967 with an

uprising in the village of Naxalbari in a part of West Bengal that the British ruled for more than a

century. During this phase, Naxalite leaders pursued a “politics of assassination” and urban

warfare under the leadership of Charu Mazumdar with very little emphasis on mass mobilization

or the rural sector. As a result, this initial mobilization was crushed following Mazumdar’s death

in police custody and the arrest of other key leaders in 1971. Subsequently, the movement

underwent a long period of reorganization. During this second phase, a new consensus emerged

on a revolutionary line that emphasized mass mobilization around the concerns of low-caste

6
CPI (Maoist), “Party Programme,” Pt. 4.
7
CPI (Maoist), “Strategy and Tactics of the Indian Revolution,” Chapter 3.
8
Ibid.

6
sharecroppers and agricultural laborers in the plains regions of Bihar and Andhra Pradesh where,

in most districts, the British had ruled between 150 and 182 years.

The movement’s third phase, which is still ongoing, saw the reunification of the

movement under the banner of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in 2004 and intense

mobilization and activity across the Red Corridor. Recently, the conflict has spread into the more

forested areas of the newly formed states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, as well as tribal regions

of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Orissa. There has also been a gradual shift among

movement leaders from a sole focus on mobilizing dalits (“untouchables”) against feudalism and

landlordism to mobilizing adivasis (indigenous tribal communities) against displacement

stemming from mining and industrial activity (Harriss 2011, p. 318).

–Figure 1 about here--

Throughout these three stages of conflict, insurgent activity has been greater in areas of

former British influence than in other parts of India. Figures 1.1 and 1.2 depict the spatial

breadth of the insurgency. The first map highlights the administrative districts in which Maoist

organizational activity was detected between 2008 and 2011 by the Government of India’s

Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). The second displays a measure of insurgent violence that

codes whether a district experienced any Maoist attacks or casualties from 1980-2010. This

coding is based on two variables discussed in greater detail in the data and analysis section: the

number of attacks carried out by Maoist rebels between 2005 and 2009 recorded in the

Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS) database, and the number of deaths resulting

from Maoist attacks for the period 1980-2010 recorded in a dataset compiled by Gomes (2015).

Figures 1.3 and 1.4 depict the degree of British influence during the colonial period.

Figure 1.3 illustrates the number of years that a district was governed directly by the British.

7
Many of the Maoist-affected districts in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, and West

Bengal were governed by the British for 100 years or more while districts that were never

governed by the British in places like Gujarat, Rajasthan and northern Karnataka have not

witnessed any Maoist activity. Figure 1.4 illustrates the number of guns in the salutes granted by

the British to princely states. As we explain in greater detail below, gun salutes serve as a good

proxy for the extent of British influence in indirectly ruled territories because more independent

territories tended to receive higher gun salutes. With the exception of Hyderabad, the princely

states in today’s Red Corridor had either no gun salutes at all or very small gun salutes. The

princely states with the most stature and independence were mainly concentrated in the west

where there is virtually no Maoist activity today.

The Legacies of British Rule: Inequality, Discrimination, and Elite Capture

How did colonial policies generate horizontal inequalities and grievances among low

castes and tribals? And to what extent do the legacies of colonial rule persist into the modern

era? While the notion espoused in Naxalite propaganda that India continues to be ruled indirectly

by the British or other foreign powers is farfetched, the divergent histories of provinces and

princely states did lead to persistent differences in how citizens viewed and participated in

government institutions and the degree to which they incorporated or excluded low-caste and

tribal groups. We identify three ways that the British aggravated the types of horizontal

inequalities and grievances that frequently contribute to peasant unrest: 1) by instituting new

landholding systems that generated land inequality; 2) by implementing new discriminatory

policies against low-caste and tribal communities; and 3) by facilitating the capture of

bureaucratic institutions by upper castes. Princely states were often insulated from many of these

divisive policies instituted in British India. As we show, the relationship between peasants and

8
rulers in the princely states also differed considerably from the relationship between peasants and

British administrators or landlords in the provinces.9 Following independence, the leaders of the

central government failed to change many of the key features of the colonial state that had

previously led to peasant unrest while former princely states continued to pursue policies that

were more egalitarian than those being imposed in the former provinces.

Land Inequality

The Maoist Party Programme states that “the British colonialists preserved the feudal

forces” by giving power to “Zamindars, who acted as their social props, through permanent

settlement.”10 Most historians would agree with this assessment. The British radically disrupted

precolonial landholding systems when they became the paramount rulers of the subcontinent by

empowering a new class of landlords. This process began in 1793 with the institution of a

zamindari system (the “Permanent Settlement”) in the Bengal Presidency (much of modern day

Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal). While zamindars were present in the

precolonial period, they served as intermediaries between peasants and the rulers of the Mughal

Empire – they were revenue agents who had no property rights over land. Drawing on English

conceptions of land ownership, British administrators enacted a system of land tenure that

abolished the top layer of property administration that existed under the Mughals (the jagir) and

gave ownership rights to zamindars in the hopes of incentivizing them to make productive

investments in their estates (Guha 1981; Maddison 1971, Chapter 3).

In reality, these “reforms” had the opposite effect, generating subinfeudation and

inequality rather than productivity and growth. Under zamindari tenure, peasants became

9
Lord Lytton, Viceroy of India, noted that “The Indian peasantry is an inert mass. If it ever moves at all it will move
in obedience, not to its British benefactors, but to its native chiefs and princes” (Copland 1973, 210).
10
Maoist Party Programme, pt. 2.

9
tenants-at-will and could be dispossessed for any reason. Consequently, land began to heavily

concentrate in the hands of landlords throughout north India: in the sprawling United Provinces,

all the land was owned by less than five percent of the population by independence (Stokes 1978,

205). Policies that increased land inequality were not unique to the north; when the British

brought central-eastern India under their control in the mid-19th century, they instituted the

similar malguzari system.11 Moreover, the areas that were held by the British for the longest

period of time were most likely to have landlord-based systems because British administrators

feared the peasantry more in the shadow of the French revolution but became more influenced by

Utilitarian thought as time went on (Banerjee and Iyer 2005, p. 1196).

Princely kingdoms utilized a variety of landholding systems, but in contrast to the British

generally treated cultivators on their lands as hereditary and did not displace them arbitrarily

(Singh 2003). Moreover, in the late 19th and early 20th century, many native rulers began to

establish ryotwari settlements in which land tributes were collected directly from cultivators

without the use of landlords. For example, Baroda in South India implemented several reforms

geared toward the peasantry in the late 19th century, lowering agricultural taxes and

incorporating cultivators into a more direct relationship with the government (Hardiman 1978).

Jaipur and Jodhpur in north India implemented ryotwari tenure, while Mysore, Bikaner, and

Cochin made substantial investments in irrigation networks (Ramusack 2004, p. 191).12

11
In the southern Madras Presidency, colonial administrators instituted a ryotwari system in which the revenue was
collected directly from cultivators without the use of intermediary landlords (Banerjee and Iyer 2005, p. 1195). The
decision to implement ryotwari in the South may explain why there was significantly less low-caste and tribal unrest
in directly-ruled areas around Madras and Bombay (Beaglehole 1966). The overriding tendency of the British,
however, was to enhance the power of landlords relative to peasants, sometimes even in areas where cultivator-
based systems predominated (Verghese 2017).
12 Peasant unrest over land was not completely unknown to the princely states. One battleground was the kingdom
of Hyderabad in the Telangana region, which experienced tenancy agitation and rural rebellion in the 1940s and
later became a hotbed of Maoist activity. Notably, however, this area was controlled by large landlords (deshmukhs)
that had been given individual property rights in the mid-19th century through reforms instituted by Salar Jung,
Hyderabad’s chief minister (Thirumali 1992). Thus, the Telangana region is the exception that proves the rule –

10
In addition to instituting zamindari tenure systems, the British colonial state

fundamentally altered adivasi land rights by declaring itself the conservator of forest lands where

tribals had lived without interference for generations. This policy was instituted throughout

central-eastern India (much of modern day Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Orissa) where the

country’s tribal population has historically been concentrated. Huge swaths of forest were

suddenly placed in reserve, especially areas that contained rich forest produce or mineral wealth.

The Indian Forest Act of 1878, as Gadgil and Guha note, “...by one stroke of the executive pen

attempted to obliterate centuries of customary use of the forest by rural populations all over

India” (Guha and Gadgil 1989, p. 145). Furthermore, forest lands became overburdened by an

influx of Forest Department officials, immigrants, moneylenders, and commercial firms, and

illiterate adivasi cultivators often unknowingly signed away their land to such encroachers.

--Figure 2 about here--

Subsequent attempts to rectify the inequality generated during the British period mostly

met with failure. The results of ambitious land reforms in the 1950s were limited as large

landlords evaded new land ceilings through simple tactics like distributing title deeds among

family members (Metcalf and Metcalf 2001, p. 244). The failure of land reform following

independence led to the persistence of land inequality into the modern era. Figure 2.1 shows how

district-level land inequality, measured by the 1991 land gini index, is highly correlated with the

duration of British rule. Inequality and landlordism continue to have serious developmental

consequences: former landlord districts still underperform non-landlord districts in agricultural

investment, yields, and public investments in health and education (Banerjee and Iyer 2005).

caste hierarchies were more rigid and relations between landlords and tenants more contentious because the policies
of Hyderabad’s rulers more closely resembled those of the British than those pursued by most other rajas.

11
Discriminatory Policies

Another major change during the British period was the introduction of several new

policies that discriminated against low castes and tribals and reified the social inequalities

inherent in India’s caste system. Though caste existed long before British rule, colonialism – and

more specifically, the desire on the part of colonial administrators to simplify and systematize a

complex and foreign society – led to an emphasis on caste that was previously unknown in India

(Cohn 1996). The first scientific census in 1871 attempted to place thousands of diverse jatis

(endogamous birth groups) into a four-tiered (varna) structure, a practice that helped rigidify the

caste system and increased the salience of caste in the administrative context (Bayly 1999,

Chapter 3). In the 1901 census, enumerators ranked jatis. L. Middleton, Director of Census

Operations for Punjab, laid out the deleterious results of these new policies:

Caste…was rigid among the higher castes, but malleable amongst the lower. We pigeon-holed

everyone by caste, and if we could not find a true caste for them, labeled them with the name of

an hereditary occupation. We deplore the caste system and its effects on social and economic

problems, but we are largely responsible for the system we deplore. (Ghurye 2008, p. 43).

This process of ranking castes led, in the short term, to the mobilization of thousands of

claimants from various castes who jockeyed for better positioning in the caste system and, over

the long term, the augmentation of caste identity in mainstream Indian politics (Dirks 2001).

The British likewise instituted new Criminal Tribes legislation that pertained to certain

tribes with a history of criminal behavior. This legislation criminalized every member of a

Criminal Tribe, including those who had never committed a crime. These tribes were heavily

stigmatized, prevented from traveling freely, and jailed for not reporting their movements. In

1949, A.V. Thakkar, a member of the Bombay Depressed Classes and Aboriginal Tribes

Committee, noted that “it may be said that a much larger percentage of these tribes were led into

12
criminality by giving them the stigma of criminal tribes” (Hasnain 2007, p. 237). The British also

disrupted tribal life in several other ways, such as the introduction of a monetary economy to

replace a barter system, and by allowing an influx of Christian missionaries into tribal areas.

Generally speaking, rajas and nawabs did not implement the same type of discriminatory

policies toward tribals and low castes. Most kings protected and gave ceremonial deference to

adivasis whom they regarded as the original inhabitants of India. Princely governments often

incorporated adivasis into the government apparatus: tribes in the northern region of Rajputana,

for instance, were employed as hunters and guardians of the royal treasury (Varma 1978). In

Travancore and Cochin, laws were passed that prevented outsiders from settling in adivasi

territory (Mohanty 2006, p. 178). Several kings were similarly noteworthy for taking the lead in

fighting caste discrimination. The ruler of Kolhapur responded to low-caste agitation by

stipulating that 50 percent of all government jobs be reserved for non-Brahmin (priestly) castes

(Mendelsohn and Vicziany 1998, p. 129). In Travancore, maharaja Sri Chithira Thirunal adopted

the most liberal measure by allowing untouchables for the first time in Indian history to enter

Hindu temples, a policy that weakened the strict caste hierarchies of the kingdom (Jeffrey 1976).

Discrimination against low castes and tribals likewise continues as a major feature of

contemporary politics. While the postcolonial state technically “abolished” the caste system via a

modern liberal constitution, the legacies of policies first instituted under British rule did not

dissipate – caste is the “specter that continues to haunt the body politic of postcolonial India”

(Dirks 2001, p. 17). Despite affirmative action policies, low-caste and tribal communities still

suffer enormous discrimination (Narula 1999), and some scholars argue that government quotas

have only exacerbated discrimination against them (Shah 2002; Wilkinson 2000).

13
A brief analysis of survey data from the 2005 Indian Human Development Survey

(IHDS) suggests a relationship between British rule and long-term caste conflict (Figure 2.2).

The IHDS includes responses to questions on social relations from 44,000 randomly selected

individuals in about 320 districts. One questions asks: “in this village/neighbourhood, how much

conflict would you say there is between communities/jatis that live here?” In the original dataset,

responses were coded “a lot of conflict” (1), “some conflict” (2), and “not much conflict” (3).

We flip and truncate the scale so “2” reflects high conflict and “0” represents low conflict and

plot the variable against the number of years British. The analysis demonstrates a clear

correlation between the number of years a district was ruled by the British and the sense by

individuals living in these districts that caste groups were in conflict.

Elite Capture

The third way that British rule disadvantaged low castes and tribals was through the

introduction of a new centralized, Westernized bureaucracy. Among the new organizations they

constructed were the Indian Civil Service, the Imperial Police, and the Imperial Forest

Department. While these organizations are often considered to have promoted bureaucratization

and the rule of law, they were dominated by upper-caste elites who tilted the promulgation of

rules and their enforcement toward their own interests. This is essentially what Naxal ideologues

are referring to when they characterize the Indian government as a “semi-colonial state”

dominated by a “comprador bourgeoisie.”

Three institutions have come under special scrutiny by historians and social activists for

their role in oppressing low-caste and tribal minorities – the police, courts, and the Indian Forest

Service. Sandria Freitag argues that the police and the courts formed “a colonial social order

designed to reinforce those at the top of the hierarchy of groups” (Freitag 1991, p. 261). The

14
British purposefully isolated police officers from low castes and adivasis, and over time the

police became an increasingly repressive instrument of social coercion (Arnold 1986). New

courts adjudicated land disputes against low castes and adivasis, codifying land dispossession.

And corrupt Forest Department officials were complicit in cheating adivasis out of their land.

W.J. Culshaw, a Christian missionary in India, wrote a contemporaneous account detailing how

British administrators allowed the Santhal tribe to be dispossessed by outside groups (Culshaw

1945). The Santhals, decades later, would instigate the 1967 rebellion in Naxalbari (Singh 1995).

Following independence, India’s new leaders made an explicit decision not to dismantle

the main institutions of colonial rule. All three of the main arms of the contemporary All India

Services – the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Forest Service (IFS), and the Indian

Police Service (IPS) – are direct descendants of British organizations. Postcolonial leaders

considered the IAS a pivotal tool for establishing political order, and in the ensuing decades the

institution has been incredibly resistant to reform (Potter 1986). Similarly, the IFS has not altered

colonial forest policy, failing to make substantive reforms after independence (Kulkarni 1983;

Haeuber 1993). The All India Services remain elite and largely undemocratic governing

institutions that derive their manpower primarily from the dominant groups in society.

Prior to independence, the princely states were governed quite differently from the

provinces. In princely states, the court of the raja or nawab was the center of government

activity, and the main administrative institutions of British India like the civil service and the

police extended only to the provinces (Ramusack 2004). While the Indian government imported

these institutions of British India into former princely areas following independence, differences

in styles of governance between British and princely India remained salient for some time. Many

former kings continued to govern their territories in the first decades after colonialism, and

15
policies in these areas often remained unchanged (Richter 1971). As late as 2004, the states of

Rajasthan, Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh had Chief Ministers from former princely families

(Madsen et al. 2011). Princely rulers also controlled the Civil Lists and managed to have their

officers appointed to newly-established administrative institutions (Nath 2011, p. 198). In the

princely states of Indore and Gwalior, for example, most of the new IAS force was simply

transferred from the princely bureaucracy, even though the law stipulated that they should be

selected from outside the state per the results of a competitive examination (Jones 1974, p. 100).

It is likely that such differences in the culture of state-society interactions would persist,

especially when it comes to institutions with clear roots in the colonial era. The Naxalites have

themselves pointed to the police as one institution that has aggravated tensions in rural areas by

consistently discriminating against low-caste and tribal communities. To explore the relationship

between colonialism and trust in the police, we looked at responses to a question from the IHDS

about how much confidence citizens have in the police “to enforce the law.” In the original

dataset, responses were coded as high confidence (1), moderate confidence (2), and low

confidence (3). We flip and truncate the scale so that “2” reflects high confidence and “0” low

confidence. As Figure 2.3 demonstrates, the length of British rule correlates negatively with

citizen trust in the police. Further analysis shows that this distrust extends to other colonial era

institutions like the courts but not democratically elected postcolonial institutions like

legislatures. For example, Figure 2.4 is based on a question about how much confidence citizens

have in the state government “to look after the people” and provides no evidence that British rule

undermines citizen trust in democratically-elected state-level government.

16
Data and Analysis

In the previous discussion, we identified three ways that British colonialism contributed

to the economic and political exclusion of low-caste and tribal groups. We contend that

grievances associated with such exclusion then led to higher Maoist violence in areas formerly

ruled by the British. To test this argument, we analyzed Maoist organizational activity and

conflict outcomes in 589 Indian districts covering the period 1980-2011. We explore the

relationship between British influence and violence at an all-India level by asking “what makes

the Red Corridor red?” We also look at the relationship between British influence on levels of

violence within the Red Corridor region and within regions that were formerly governed as

princely states. In this analysis, we demonstrate a relationship between the level of British

influence and measures of insurgent organizational activity and violence that is robust to a

variety of specifications and a coarsened exact matching analysis.

Measuring Insurgent Activity and Violence

Our dependent variables consist of four measures of Maoist insurgent activity and

violence. First, we examine whether colonialism is correlated with the organizational capacity of

Maoists across India. The data on Maoist organizational activity in each district come from a

Right to Information (RTI) petition filed by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), an online

terrorism database. 13 The Ministry of Home Affairs response to the RTI request lists all districts

between 2008 and 2011 in which the MHA’s Naxal Management Division recorded Maoist-

related violence or organizational activities. From this list of Maoist-affected districts we created

a binary variable, coded “1” if the government detected Maoist activity between 2008 and 2011,

and “0” otherwise. This variable represents the most sensitive measure of insurgent presence at

13
See http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/maoist/data_sheets/2008-2011.pdf. Accessed November 13,
2017.

17
the height of the Naxalite conflict. Maoist insurgents may engage in organizational activities in a

district, like disseminating propaganda and recruiting new cadres, without in fact executing any

attacks. Such activities would be recorded by the MHA’s Naxal Management Division, but

would not appear in conflict datasets.

As a second measure of Maoist presence, we coded a binary variable “1” if a district

experienced any Maoist attacks or related casualties from 1980-2010 and “0” otherwise, based

on conflict data from the National Counterterrorism Center’s Worldwide Incidents Tracking

System (WITS) and Joseph Flavian Gomes’ Maoist conflict dataset (Gomes 2015). WITS is a

database of terrorist and conflict events derived from press reports that was compiled by the

National Counterterrorism Center between 2004 and 2012.14 The Gomes dataset covers the

period 1980 to 2010 and combines data from WITS and three other sources: the Global

Terrorism Database (GTD); the Rand-MIPT Terrorism Incident Database; and the SATP.

Our third conflict measure is the number of insurgent attacks recorded in the WITS

dataset. While available for a shorter period, the WITS data provide a more accurate reflection of

levels of insurgent violence than other publicly available datasets. They are just as accurate as

unpublished police data when we consider incidents with two or more fatalities.15 The WITS

data also provide a unique advantage in measuring the frequency of insurgent attacks.

Specifically, the WITS coding protocol includes an “intentionality requirement,” which says that

“there has to be no evidence in the incident that the event was started by someone other than the

group committing the attack” (Behlendorf et. al. 2016, p. 649). This coding requirement enables

14
WITS was discontinued in April of 2012 when its funding was cut by the U.S. Congress. We were able to obtain
and analyze data for the period 2005-2009.
15
Behlendorf et. al. (2016) compare events reported in GTD, WITS and SATP with official police statistics in the
state of Andhra Pradesh. According to the study, WITS reported 31 percent of leftwing terrorist events reported in
police data, whereas SATP reported 21 percent and GTD just four percent. The difference between WITS and
official police reports narrows with the increased lethality of attacks. WITS tracked 50 percent of fatal events listed
in police records, and 100 percent of events involving more than two fatalities.

18
the researcher to better distinguish between Maoist-initiated attacks and the infamous “fake

encounters” in which police initiate conflict with the intent to eliminate suspected Maoist rebels

or to intimidate the local population.

We use data compiled by Gomes to measure the number of conflict-related casualties.

The Gomes dataset includes counts of the number of dead and wounded in Maoist-related

incidents. Unlike the WITS dataset, the data in Gomes is not limited to insurgent attacks but also

includes casualties resulting from police actions taken against insurgents as well as

conflagrations in which it is unclear who initiated the violence. The obvious advantage of the

Gomes dataset is its comprehensiveness. By combining data from four separate sources, it covers

almost the entire duration of the insurgency’s most recent phase, and it records more events than

is recorded in any one of the four sources alone.

The data we use in our analysis offer distinct advantages over those used in many

previous analyses of Maoist insurgent violence, including datasets based on vernacular press

reports (Dasgupta et. al. 2017; Gawande et. al. 2015), machine-coded data (Fetzer 2014), and

government reports collected during field research (Mukherjee 2017). First, the datasets we rely

upon are all publicly available, thereby making our analysis easily replicable. Additionally, the

data cover all of India, rather than just conflict outcomes in a handful of districts in the Red

Corridor, making it possible to explicitly address the question of why Maoist conflict

concentrates in some areas and not others. Another advantage of these data is that they are based

on codings of reports found in the major English daily newspapers. While local language dailies

typically record more incidents than national English dailies, the journalistic standards of local

language dailies are not as high as the national English dailies, whose reporters are less likely to

19
accept bribes to report on an event unless it has been confirmed by multiple sources. 16

Additionally, by incorporating a wide variety of sources (MHA, WITS, GTD, Rand-MIPT, and

SATP), our data enable us to cover a longer timeframe than most previous analyses, which tend

to focus on a handful of years in the early-to mid-2000s. For example, Mukherjee’s (2017) study

is based on a coding of an unpublished MHA report pertaining to only 55 districts for the

truncated period 2000-2003.

Measuring British Influence

Our analysis directly exploits variation in the extent to which British institutions

influenced or replaced local institutions. In the aftermath of the 1857 Rebellion, a widespread

revolt that took a full year for the East India Company to suppress, Queen Victoria officially

renounced the policy of annexing princely states. Consequently, 45 percent of the land in India

remained under the rule of native kings, and after 1858 none of these territories were annexed

(Jalal 1995, p. 32). During the colonial period roughly 25 percent of the Indian population (in

1901, almost 60 million people) lived under the control of native kings who frequently exercised

considerable internal autonomy over their territories.

In this way, India remained officially divided between “provinces” and “princely states,”

but there is substantial heterogeneity even within these categories. By 1857, British rule had been

established for a much longer duration in some provinces than others. And while the British

stopped annexing princely states, they continued to interfere in the internal affairs of many of

them. To account for these contextual historical factors, we place special emphasis on a district’s

level of British influence (see Figure 1). Among provinces, we measure British influence with

the number of years the British controlled a district, based on the logic that colonial policies

16
Interview with Ajai Sahni, Director of Institute for Conflict in New Delhi, March 2015. For a good illustration of
the role of money in reporting on state and local politics, see Roberts (2017, p. 122).

20
became more institutionalized over the long term. This variable was constructed by referencing

district websites maintained by the Government of India, 17 and by cross-referencing information

with British gazetteers (encyclopedic entries) and other historical sources.

To measure British influence in the princely states, we drew on data pertaining to gun

salutes taken from Iyer (2010). Many princely kingdoms were given a salute (ranging from zero

to 21 guns) that was a ceremonial marker of prestige (Jeffrey 1978). Higher gun salutes entailed

more deference in the eyes of the British – the 21-gun salute states were large, independent

kingdoms like Hyderabad, Mysore, Jammu and Kashmir, Gwalior, and Baroda. They were also

the most populous: the 24 kingdoms that received salutes of 17 or higher accounted for 70

percent of the total princely state population (Kooiman 2002, p. 18). Smaller states with lower

salutes (or no salute) often continued to experience British influence even after 1858. We use this

variable as a measure of the amount of British interference in a native state.

Conceptually, these two measures improve on the use of dummy variables to measure

direct and indirect rule (e.g. Iyer 2010; Hoelscher et. al. 2012), although our results are robust to

the use of dichotomous measures as well. Our measurements of British influence also differ from

Mukherjee’s (2017) coding scheme, which conceptualizes indirect rule as taking two discrete

forms: formal indirect rule (princely states) and an informal indirect rule (British zamindari and

malguzari tenure). This coding is problematic because it is at odds with mainstream

historiography, and because in focusing solely on land tenure it ignores the many other

previously discussed aspects of colonial rule that negatively impacted Indian society, such as the

reification of the caste system and the privileging of high-caste elites in the colonial bureaucracy.

17
See http://districts.nic.in/

21
It also ignores the fact that the British were responsible for the establishment of the zamindari

system in North India.18

Model Specification

We ran three sets of regressions to test the link between colonialism and Maoist conflict.

At an all-India level, we regressed our dichotomous measures of insurgent activity and violence

on the number of years a district was controlled by the British using logit models. This enabled

us to analyze the question of “what makes the Red Corridor red?” and explore whether British

rule is related to why some districts are more vulnerable to Maoist influence and violence than

others. Next, we analyzed the effect of British rule on violence outcomes within the Red

Corridor by regressing the number of Maoist attacks and related casualties on the number of

years a district was controlled by the British. For our analysis, the Red Corridor is defined as the

districts in which the Government of India reported Maoist insurgent activity in its response to

the SATP RTI request, or in other words, the districts coded “1” in our first measure of insurgent

activity. Finally, to test our argument about British influence in princely states, we regressed the

number of Maoist attacks and related casualties on the gun salute measure. For the second and

third set of regressions, we ran negative binomial models to account for the discrete, non-

negative nature of the counts of Maoist attacks and casualties. If our argument about the long-

term effects of British influence is correct, then we would expect the number of years a district

was ruled by the British to be positively correlated with Maoist violence but the gun salute

measure to be negatively correlated with Maoist violence.

In our models, we controlled for a number of factors commonly thought to be associated

with Maoist violence. We included controls for poverty and levels of human development,

18
We present a more detailed discussion of our coding scheme in relation to Mukherjee’s in Appendix B.

22
measured as the percentage of the population that reports having “no assets,” and literacy rates

from the 2001 Indian census. 19 Since many analysts and observers point to mining as both a

major grievance and a source of revenue for the Maoist leadership (Miklian and Carney 2010),

we include an indicator variable coded “1” if bauxite, iron ore, or coal mining activity is reported

by the Ministry of Mines. We also controlled for the percentage of the population that is

comprised of Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), as these are the main

aggrieved groups who have taken up arms against the state, and we included squared terms to

test for a curvilinear relationship between SC/ST populations and insurgent activity (Gomes

2015). We controlled for the geographic area of a given district, forest cover, and population

density because the state is typically thought to have a harder time rooting out Maoists in larger,

forested, and less populated districts (Collier et. al. 2003). We also clustered all of our standard

errors by state to account for regional effects.

Main Results

The results of our analysis, presented in Table 1, provide strong support for the argument

that contemporary Naxalite violence is related to colonial rule. Our logit models of insurgent

activity and violence at the all-India level are presented in columns (1) and (2). Our negative

binomial models of insurgent attacks and the number of dead and wounded within the Red

Corridor are presented in columns (3) and (4). The coefficients for the number of years of British

rule are positive and statistically significant at the .01 level in all four of these models. Mining

activity is also a significant predictor of Maoist activity in all four of these models, while district

size is statistically significant in models (3) and (4), suggesting that within the Red Corridor,

Maoists are more likely to concentrate their attacks in less administratively dense areas. Other

19
Assets include televisions, cars, access to banking, etc. See online Appendix A for detailed descriptions of the
control variables used in our analysis.

23
controls, including literacy, caste and tribal identity, forest cover, and population density are not

consistent predictors of Maoist activity and violence.

-- Table 1 about here --

Columns (5) and (6) present our negative binomial models of insurgent attacks and the

number of dead and wounded within the former princely states, where British influence is

measured by the gun salute given to each kingdom. Gun salutes are negative and significant

across both models, meaning that lower salute states (those with more British influence) have

more violence. These results make sense in historical context, and constitute an important

rejoinder to the argument that because some former princely states experience Naxalite attacks

and violence, princely rule could be a cause of Maoist violence (Mukherjee 2017). Consider, for

example, a comparison of the kingdom of Hyderabad (the most populous and prestigious

princely state in India) and the princely state of Bastar (which requested a 9-gun salute but did

not receive it), both located within the Red Corridor. While the British generally avoided

meddling in Hyderabad State (Regani 1963), they governed Bastar directly (including, quite

notably, through Englishmen rather than native Indian officials) for 42 years between 1891-1947.

It was during this period that the British commandeered forests from local tribes and instituted

heavy land taxes, which led to a series of tribal rebellions (Verghese 2016). While there has been

serious violence in many of the districts that comprise the former Hyderabad State, Bastar has

become the epicenter of Maoist conflict – it is the single deadliest region for Naxalite violence in

India today.

--Figure 3 about here--

In addition to their statistical significance, the models also predict a highly substantive

impact of British rule on Maoist insurgent activity. Figures 3.1 and 3.2 show the predicted

24
probabilities of insurgent activity and presence based on Models (1) and (2) of Table 1. The

predicted probability of insurgent activity triples from around 20% in a district that was formerly

part of a princely state to about 60% in a district that was governed by the British for 190 years.

The likelihood of Maoist presence increases six-fold from around 5% to more than 30%. Our

models suggest a similarly large substantive impact of British rule on insurgent attacks and

casualties within the Red Corridor and princely states. Models (3) and (4) predict that districts

within the Red Corridor governed by the British for the maximum number of years will

experience double the number of attacks and four times the number of casualties compared to

those with no history of direct rule, while Models (5) and (6) predict that princely states with full

21-gun salutes will experience close to zero insurgent attacks and casualties.20

Coarsened Exact Matching Analysis

One potential concern with our analysis is that the experience of colonization was not

randomly assigned across the subcontinent. The British never had a coherent master plan for

conquering India, and British officials were often conflicted on the objectives of empire.21 But

the territorial expansion of the Raj tended to be profit-driven. A chief consideration for British

administrators when annexing territory was thus the productivity and value of land. As Barbara

Ramusack notes, by the time “…Queen Victoria renounced any further British annexation, the

princely states were located mainly in less economically productive areas” (Ramusack 2004, p.

186). To the extent that enduring geographic features of some districts influence the

organizational capacity and behavior of Maoist insurgents but are not randomly distributed

across districts, they could bias the results of our analysis.

20
See Appendix Figure D3.
21
Francis Wylie, Political Advisor to the Viceroy, alluded to this fact in 1970 by reminiscing that the empire in
India was “...surely the oddest political set-up that the world has ever seen” (Kooiman 2002, 17).

25
To address this threat to validity, we utilize coarsened exact matching (CEM) to create

better balance between “treatment” and “control” groups in the dataset. While there is no perfect

solution for dealing with endogeneity bias, studies show that matching performs as well as pure

experiments (Dehejia and Wahba 1999). Coarsened exact matching is less sensitive to

measurement error than competing specifications such as Mahalanobis, genetic, or propensity

score matching (Iacus, King, and Porro 2012, p. 11), and helps to produce less model-dependent

causal inferences (Ho et. al. 2007).

For our analysis, we first divided districts into treatment and control groups based on the

number of years each district was ruled by the British. Districts that never came under British

rule were automatically categorized as control cases. For the remaining districts, we used the

implementation of the “Doctrine of Lapse” (DOL) in 1848 as a cutoff for distinguishing between

treatment and control cases – those the British annexed before the DOL was implemented were

categorized as treatment cases, and those that were annexed after the implementation of the DOL

fell into the control category. The DOL was an aggressive annexation policy, instituted from

1848-56, which allowed the British to annex any princely state in which a ruler died without a

direct male heir.22 From a theoretical standpoint, the implementation of DOL is a natural cutoff

because it radically changed the logic of conquest during the time it was in force. It is important

to note, however, that 95 percent of districts that were ever controlled by the British were

acquired before the implementation of the DOL and that our results are robust to other cutoff

22
Iyer (2010) uses the DOL itself as an instrumental variable for colonial rule. Iyer argues that since the law allowed
for the annexation of princely states where kings did not produce natural male heirs, annexation following the
implementation of the DOL was random – that is, based on the death of a ruler. However, several princely states that
should have lapsed were not annexed (such as Karauli and Chhatarpur), suggesting that annexation was not
randomized in practice. Moreover, only 5% of Indian districts were annexed under this policy. Consequently, we
think that the DOL is better leveraged as part of a matching strategy rather than an instrumental variable analysis.

26
points, including the average number of years that districts were controlled by the British, and

the 1857 Rebellion (after which the British halted their annexation of new territories altogether).

Next, we preprocessed the data to match treatment and control districts based on four

variables that we believe are consistent with the logic used by the British to annex economically

productive territories: coastal access, the existence of mineral rich alluvial soil, rainfall levels,

and the extent of forest cover. We expect that the British were more likely to colonize the

coastline, areas with more productive soil and higher rainfall, and agriculturally settled regions

as opposed to forests. Basic t-tests show statistically significant differences for each of these

variables between areas governed by the British and those that remained princely states, and

matching on these variables helped to improve the balance between treatment and control

cases.23 The CEM procedure left us with a dataset of 458 matched observations—230 districts

that were governed as princely states and 228 districts that were ruled by the British.

--Table 2 about here--

After preprocessing the data with CEM, we reran our analysis using the DOL cutoff as

the treatment and the two binary measures of Maoist presence (MHA and Gomes/WITS) as the

dependent variables. Table 2 reports models with no controls, to account for potential

multicollinearity and post-treatment bias, as well as models with a full set of controls. The results

of the models with full controls suggest that the odds of coming under Maoist influence are 4.8

times greater for districts that came under British rule before 1848 than those that did not. The

odds of experiencing Maoist-related deaths or casualties are 3.4 times greater for districts that

23
Table C2 in the online appendix contains the results of the t-tests. Balance can be summarized with the
multivariate imbalance measure, ℒ1 (Iacus, King, and Porro 2011). ℒ1 ranges from 1 to 0, with 1 indicating that the
distributions of the treatment and control groups exactly coincide, and 0 indicating no overlap of the two groups.
The CEM matching procedure reduces ℒ1 by about 30 percent, from .51 pre-CEM to .29 post-CEM.

27
came under the control of the British before 1848 than those that did not. These effects are

statistically significant at the .01 level.

Additional Robustness Checks

In addition to the analysis presented so far, we performed a series of robustness checks to

ensure that our results were not an artefact of any specific variables, measures, or cases. We

performed stepwise regressions to ensure that our results were robust to the inclusion or

exclusion of different sets of control variables.24 We reran our models using a number of

additional controls, including landlord tenure, land inequality, distance to state capital, an

alternative measure of percentage forested land, and a variety of terrain measures.25 We

substituted a dummy variable for British direct rule in our main regressions and the test of the

mechanisms, instead of the number of years British, to see if an alternative measure of our main

independent variable would matter.26 We examined whether our results regarding the effect of

colonialism on Maoist violence across all of India are robust to using a count variable with

negative binomial models rather than logit models.27 To ensure that the conflict dynamics of no

single state were driving our results, we reran our models of Maoist presence while dropping

each state in our dataset one at a time.28 We explored different model specifications for our

coarsened exact matching analysis, using additional soil types to preprocess our data, and by

dropping each of the variables used to preprocess the data in turn.29 Finally, we also ran

additional models using state fixed effects.30 Our results remained consistent across all of these

models.

24
See Appendix Tables C3-C8.
25
See Appendix Tables C9-C13.
26
See Appendix Tables C14 and C15.
27
See Appendix Table C16.
28
See Appendix Figures D1 and D2.
29
See Appendix Tables C17-C20.
30
See Appendix Table C21.

28
Conclusion

Social scientists have long debated the effects of European colonialism on political

stability across the postcolonial world. Colonizers faced the continual challenge of maximizing

their authority and control while minimizing the risk of inciting rebellion in the process of doing

so. While some scholars have emphasized the benefits of bureaucratization, infrastructure, and

the rule of law, others have focused on the disruptions that colonialism caused by engendering

political conflicts among local communities.

We integrate these two disparate literatures through an analysis of India’s Naxalite

movement, an insurgency of low castes and tribal groups that has been a major threat to Indian

political stability over the past several decades. We test three hypothesized mechanisms that we

argue link colonial rule to contemporary Naxalite violence: the favoring of landlords, the

implementation of discriminatory policies toward low-caste and tribal communities, and the

establishment of undemocratic administrative practices that produced long-term distrust of

government institutions. We show that British direct rule is associated with contemporary land

inequality, distrust between castes, and citizen distrust in the police. Using conflict data

triangulated from three distinct data sources, we then analyze the strength of the Naxalite

insurgency across provinces and princely states in 589 districts over the period 1980-2011. We

find that Naxalites have been more active in areas where the British were more influential.

Whereas previous studies have approached similar questions by comparing the legacies

of different European powers (Blanton et al. 2001; Lange et al. 2006; Lee and Schultz 2012), our

contribution lies in comparing the long-term effects of British influence across areas of direct

and indirect rule within the same colony. Ours is also the first study to look at internal

heterogeneity within provinces and princely states in India, instead of assuming both kinds of

29
territories experienced the same level of British influence. These uneven effects of British

influence were enduring. In post-independence India, the policies that created rural insurgency in

regions of heavy British influence were mostly retained, while princely states with greater

independence remained under the control, often for decades, of princely families that largely

continued their own inherited policies.

As one of the deadliest conflicts in the world’s largest former colony, the Naxalite

insurgency constitutes an important case in its own right. But the Indian case takes on added

importance because after the 1857 Rebellion, the British exported the “Indian model” of

combining direct and indirect rule to other cases across the Indian Ocean, such as Malaysia

(Emerson 1937; Zainal 1970) and Nigeria (Falola and Heaton 2008; Laitin 1986; Meek 1937).

Whether similar path dependencies linking colonialism and persistent horizontal inequalities that

generate armed conflict exist in other former British colonies is open to question, but would

certainly seem to be a fruitful area for future research.

30
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Figure 1: Insurgent Activity and Violence in India’s Red Corridor

Notes: Figure 1.1 depicts the districts in which Maoist activity was detected by the Government of India
between 2008 and 2011 and is based on a Right to Information petition filed by the South Asia Terrorism
Portal. Figure 1.2 displays a dichotomous coding of Maoist violence based on events recorded in the
World Incidents Tracking System and the Gomes (2015) dataset. Figure 1.3 depicts the number of years
Indian districts were directly ruled by the British based on information found in gazetteers and other
official British documents. Figure 1.4 displays the number of guns in salutes given by the British to
princely states and is taken from Iyer (2010). See the text for further details.

40
Figure 2: Colonialism and Contemporary Grievances

Notes: Figure 2 depicts the relationship between the number of years of British rule and hypothesized
mechanisms in our analysis. For all of the figures, the number of years Indian districts were directly ruled
by the British is taken from information found in gazetteers and other official British documents In Figure
2.1 land inequality is measured by the 1991 land gini index taken from the Agricultural Census. The
measures of caste conflict and public confidence in institutions in Figures 2.2-2.4 are taken from the
Indian Human Development Survey (IHDS). See the text for further details.

41
Figure 3: Predicted Values

Notes: Predictions based on Models 1 & 2 of Table 1. The predictions and associated confidence intervals
depicted in these graphs were produced using the “marginsplot” post-estimation command in Stata 14,
holding all other variables in the model at their means.

42
Table 1: Colonial Rule and Maoist Violence

All India Red Corridor Princely States


(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist
Activity Violence Attacks Casualties Attacks Casualties
(MHA) (WITS/Gomes) (WITS) (Gomes) (WITS) (Gomes)
Years British 0.0111*** 0.0115*** 0.00560** 0.00812***
(0.00313) (0.00367) (0.00238) (0.00290)
Gun Salute -0.147** -0.195*
(0.0746) (0.102)
% No Assets 0.0208 0.0266 0.0373 0.0539** -0.0222 -0.0306
(0.0198) (0.0194) (0.0269) (0.0273) (0.0377) (0.0536)
Literacy Rate -0.0286 -0.0504*** -0.0571** -0.0437 -0.0755** -0.122**
(0.0196) (0.0128) (0.0257) (0.0381) (0.0328) (0.0612)
Mining 0.907** 1.334*** 1.413* 1.363*** 1.303 1.606*
(0.417) (0.325) (0.746) (0.410) (0.925) (0.879)
% SC 11.98 18.39* -1.956 -1.548 33.11* 83.86**
(8.413) (9.867) (8.701) (14.28) (19.84) (32.77)
% SC Squared -14.06 -38.66 -2.603 -12.29 -114.9 -332.0**
(23.01) (25.19) (19.06) (25.52) (72.79) (137.0)
% ST 6.193** 2.876 0.896 1.335 2.364 -3.052
(2.984) (3.252) (5.231) (5.513) (6.361) (9.599)
% ST Squared -9.703*** -4.729 -0.167 -2.031 -5.449 -0.488
(3.201) (3.703) (7.065) (8.296) (5.906) (9.380)
Area (Log) 0.0442 0.533 0.905*** 1.046*** 2.697*** 4.152***
(0.332) (0.383) (0.253) (0.265) (0.959) (1.320)
% Forested 0.0247** 0.0140 -0.00443 -0.00186 0.0324 0.0679***
(0.0101) (0.00939) (0.0135) (0.0189) (0.0237) (0.0233)
Pop Density -1.09e-05 0.000178* -0.000424 -0.000123 0.00120 0.00126***
(6.02e-05) (0.000102) (0.000787) (0.000470) (0.00237) (0.000246)
Constant -3.456 -7.417** -5.014 -6.410 -20.14*** -30.63***
(3.417) (2.996) (3.653) (4.620) (7.368) (9.507)
/lnalpha 1.292*** 1.561*** 2.296*** 2.747***
(0.320) (0.280) (0.698) (0.613)
Observations 516 516 168 168 174 174

Notes: Models (1) and (2) are logit models of Maoist activity in all Indian districts. The dependent
variable in Model (1) is an indicator variable coded “1” if a district was identified by India’s Ministry of
Home Affairs as falling under the influence of ‘Left Wing Extremists’ between 2008-2011 and ‘0’
otherwise. The dependent variable in Model (2) is a dummy coded “1” if any attacks or casualties were
recorded in the districts between 1980-2010, as recorded by WITS and Gomes’ (2015) dataset. Models
(3) and (4) are negative binomial models in the Red Corridor. The dependent variable in Model (3) is the
number of attacks between 2005-9, as recorded by WITS. The dependent variable in Model (4) is the total
number of insurgents, police, and noncombatants killed and wounded in fighting between 1980 and 2010
respectively, as recorded in Gomes’ (2015) dataset. Models (5) and (6) are negative binomial models in
the princely states. The dependent variable in Model (5) is WITS attacks (2005-9), and the dependent
variable for Model (6) is Gomes’ recording of casualties (1980-2010). Robust standard errors, clustered
by state, in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

43
Table 2: Coarsened Exact Matching Analysis

DV: Maoist DV: Maoist Violence


Activity (MHA) (WITS/Gomes)
(1) (2) (3) (4)
Province (Before 1848) 1.279*** 1.564*** 1.221** 1.218***
(0.455) (0.420) (0.581) (0.438)
% No Assets 0.0366** 0.0394**
(0.0180) (0.0189)
Literacy Rate -0.0393* -0.0595***
(0.0212) (0.0150)
Mining 1.138** 1.326***
(0.523) (0.375)
% SC 11.77 20.41*
(12.65) (11.54)
% SC Squared -12.86 -41.03
(29.94) (30.71)
% ST 4.577 0.911
(4.330) (3.900)
% ST Squared -8.611* -4.644
(4.981) (4.969)
% Forested 0.0229 0.0226
(0.0163) (0.0138)
Area (Log) -0.115 0.275
(0.411) (0.489)
Population Density -2.47e-05 0.000146
(9.16e-05) (0.000124)
Constant -1.472*** -1.932 -2.056*** -5.036
(0.401) (4.181) (0.510) (3.869)
Observations 458 420 458 420

Notes: Logit models of Maoist activity in Indian districts run after preprocessing the data with Coarsened
Exact Matching (CEM). The CEM “treatment” and the main independent variable in the parametric
models is an indicator for whether the British ruled a district before 1848. See text for more details
regarding the models. Robust standard errors clustered by state in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, *
p<0.1

44
APPENDIX A: DATA SOURCES

Dependent Variables

Indicator of Maoist Insurgency

Indicator variable that indicates Maoist activity in any Indian district from 2008-11. The data
come from the Ministry of Home Affairs’ Naxal Management Division.

Presence of Maoist Insurgency

Indicator variable that records the presence of Maoist activity in any Indian districts. It combines
two things: Maoist attacks from 2005-9 and any individuals killed and wounded in fighting
carried out by Maoists from 1980-2010. The data come from, respectively, the Worldwide
Incidents Tracking System, which was built from local, national, and international press reports
by the National Counterterrorism Center; and, work published by Joseph Flavian Gomes, who
compiled information from several sources and then shared them with us: the Worldwide
Incidents Tracking System, Global Terrorism Database, Rand-MIPT Terrorism Incident
Database, and the South Asia Terrorism Portal.

Maoist Attacks

Count variable that records the number of attacks carried out by Maoists in India from 2005-9.
The data come from the Worldwide Incidents Tracking System, which was built from local,
national, and international press reports by the National Counterterrorism Center. The
Worldwide Incidents Tracking System was discontinued in April of 2012 when its funding was
cut by the U.S. Congress.

Maoist Casualties

Count variable that records the number of killed and wounded in fighting carried out by Maoists
in India from 1980-2010. The data come from work published by Joseph Flavian Gomes, who
compiled information from several sources and then shared them with us: the Worldwide
Incidents Tracking System, Global Terrorism Database, Rand-MIPT Terrorism Incident
Database, and the South Asia Terrorism Portal.

Number Killed in Fighting

Count variable that records the number of insurgents, police, and noncombatants killed in
Naxalite conflict from 1980-2010. The data come from work published by Joseph Flavian
Gomes, who compiled information from several sources and then shared them with us: the
Worldwide Incidents Tracking System, Global Terrorism Database, Rand-MIPT Terrorism
Incident Database, and the South Asia Terrorism Portal.

45
Number Wounded in Fighting

Count variable that records the number of insurgents, police, and noncombatants wounded in
Naxalite conflict from 1980-2010. The data come from work published by Joseph Flavian
Gomes, who compiled information from several sources and then shared them with us: the
Worldwide Incidents Tracking System, Global Terrorism Database, Rand-MIPT Terrorism
Incident Database, and the South Asia Terrorism Portal.

Landlord Tenure

Indicator variable that records whether a district featured a landlord (zamindari or malguzari)
tenure system. The data come from Iyer (2010).

Land Inequality

Land gini per district in India for the year 1991. The data come from the Indian Agricultural
Census of 1991. The gini coefficient is calculated by looking at data on operational holdings of
agricultural land.

Peace/Conflict Among Jatis

Response to a question amount of intercaste that exists in a district in India, for the year 2005.
The data come from the Indian Human Development Survey. Respondents were asked: “In this
village/neighborhood, how much conflict would you say there is between communities/jatis that
live here?” Responses of “a lot of conflict” were coded “1”, “some conflict” “2”, and “not much
conflict” “3”.

Distrust Police

A variable that records the amount of distrust for police that exists in a district in India, for the
year 2005. The data come from the Indian Human Development Survey. Respondents were
asked: “Would you say you have a great deal of confidence, only some confidence, or hardly any
confidence at all in…police, to enforce the law?” High confidence was coded “1”, moderate
confidence “2”, and low confidence was coded “3”.

Distrust Politicians

A variable that records the amount of distrust for politicians that exists in a district in India, for
the year 2005. Indian Human Development Survey. Respondents were asked: “…would you say
you have a great deal of confidence, only some confidence, or hardly any confidence at all
in…politicians, to fulfill promises?” High confidence was coded “1”, moderate confidence “2”,
and low confidence was coded “3”.

46
Distrust Panchayat

A variable that records the amount of distrust for panchayats (village councils) that exists in a
district in India, for the year 2005. Indian Human Development Survey. Respondents were
asked: “…would you say you have a great deal of confidence, only some confidence, or hardly
any confidence at all in…village panchayats, to implement public projects?” High confidence
was coded “1”, moderate confidence “2”, and low confidence was coded “3”.

Independent Variables

Years British

Count variable that records the number of years a district in India came under direct British rule.
All princely states are recorded as zero. The data were personally compiled. Information for the
coding comes from the Imperial Gazetteer of India, district websites maintained by the Indian
government, and other historical sources.

Gun Salute

The number of guns in a British gun salute given to any princely state. The data come from Iyer
(2010).

Province

A dummy variable that records whether a district in India came under direct British rule. The
data were compiled by the authors from the Imperial Gazetteer of India, district websites
maintained by the Indian government, and other historical sources.

Control Variables

% No Assets

Percentage of households per district in India that record no assets, for the year 2001. The data
come from the 2001 Indian Census, but were collected by IndiaStat, a private statistical firm.
Examples of assets include: radio/transistor, television, telephone, bicycle, scooter/motor
cycle/moped and car/jeep/van.

Literacy Rate

Literacy rate per district in India, for the year 2001. The data come from the 2001 Indian Census.

Mining

Indicator variable that records whether a district in India contains bauxite, iron ore, or coal
mining operations, for the year 2001. The data come from the Ministry of Mines.

47
% Scheduled Caste

Percentage of a district-level population in India that belongs to the Scheduled Castes, for the
year 2001. The data come from the Indian Census of 2001.

% Scheduled Tribe

Percentage of a district-level population in India that belongs to the Scheduled Tribes, for the
year 2001. The data come from the Indian Census of 2001.

Area (Log)

Logged area (in square kilometers) of a district in India, for the year 2001. The data come from
the Indian Census of 2001.

Population Density

Population density of a district in India, for the year 2001. The data come from the Indian Census
of 2001.

Log Rainfall

Logged average millimeters of rainfall per district in India from 2004 to 2009. The data come
from the Indian Meteorological Department.

Coastal Districts

Indicator variable that records whether an Indian district is coastal. The data were personally
compiled using information from district websites maintained by the Indian government.

Log Distance to Capital

Logged distance to the state capital per district in India, for the year 2005. The data come from
the Ministry of Rural Development, and were originally compiled and shared with us by Joseph
Flavian Gomes.

Alluvial Soil

Indicator variable for whether district in India has alluvial soil, for the year 1991. The data come
from the India Agriculture and Climate Data Set (World Bank), and were originally compiled by
Lakshmi Iyer (2010).

48
% Sandy Soil

Percentage of land in a district in India that has sandy soil, for the year 2005. The data come
from the Wasteland Atlas of India, from the Ministry of Rural Development, and were originally
compiled and shared with us by Joseph Flavian Gomes.

% Forested

Percentage of a district in India that is covered by forest, for the year 2001. The data come from
the Ministry of Environment and Forests, but were compiled from IndiaStat.com.

% Barren/Rocky Land

Percentage of land in a district in India that is barren and rocky, for the year 2005. The data come
from the Wasteland Atlas of India, from the Ministry of Rural Development, and were originally
compiled and shared with us by Joseph Flavian Gomes.

% Steep/Sloping Land

Percentage of land in a district in India that is steep and sloping, for the year 2005. The data
come from the Wasteland Atlas of India, from the Ministry of Rural Development, and were
originally compiled and shared with us by Joseph Flavian Gomes.

49
APPENDIX B: CODING DIRECT AND INDIRECT RULE

For the purposes of our analysis, we begin with the assumption that there existed two

basic forms of governance in British India: direct rule (by British administrators in the provinces)

and indirect rule (by native kings in the princely states). This dichotomy comports with the

perspective of British administrators and native rulers themselves, who viewed the main political

divide on the subcontinent as one between provinces and princely states. Maps from this period –

such as Imperial Gazetteer of India, Atlas from 1909, produced by Sir William Stevenson Meyer

– single out the boundaries between British provinces and princely states. Additionally, the

pioneering work of historians like Michael Fisher (1991), Karen Leonard (2003), Ian Copland

(1997), and Barbara Ramusack (2004) all contrast British provinces with princely states. Of

course, the reality of colonialism was much more complex than any simple binary coding

scheme: there was heterogeneity among both the provinces and the princely states.

Consequently, we code for the level of British influence in both provinces and princely states as

we describe in the paper. But our basic assumption is that there are fundamental differences in

how areas that were directly controlled by the British were governed compared to those that were

indirectly ruled through native kings.

Mukherjee (2017) argues for a different conceptual approach. He codes one form of

direct rule (the British ryotwari land tenure system), a formal indirect rule (princely states) and

an informal indirect rule (British zamindari and malguzari tenure). For a variety of reasons, we

do not agree with the logic of this coding scheme. At the outset, coding direct and indirect rule

solely on the basis of the land tenure system ignores the presence of a significant amount of the

machinery of colonialism: military troops, police, elected officials, civil service bureaucrats,

courts, schools, etc., as well as the many long-term deleterious social effects of direct rule that

50
we outline in the paper. In addition, the coding scheme ignores the fact that the British were

directly responsible for the land tenure systems in areas that they governed.

Thus, Mukherjee’s coding of an area like West Bengal and Bihar (both of which were

part of the Bengal Presidency of British India) as indirectly-ruled is historically questionable, and

does not make intuitive sense. Calcutta, the capital city of modern-day West Bengal, was the

capital of India under the British until 1911, the Bengal Presidency was more powerful than the

Bombay or Madras Presidencies, the Governor-General of Bengal was the Viceroy of India, and

the Bengal Presidency was the cultural and educational capital of India (the site of the Bengali

Renaissance). Furthermore, data shows that the British had more of a presence in Bengal than

other areas despite Mukherjee’s claim that colonial rule was less penetrative there. For example,

statistics collected by the British government show that in 1840 (the first year for which data is

available), there were 16,303 European troops in the Bengal Presidency, but only 12,371 in the

Madras Presidency and 6,930 in the Bombay Presidency. 31 From the period 1840-65, there were

always more European troops in Bengal than either of the two other Presidencies that Mukherjee

considers to be areas of direct rule.

31
See: http://dsal.uchicago.edu/digbooks/digpager.html?BOOKID=HA1711_1867&object=65

51
APPENDIX C: TABLES

52
Appendix Table C1: Summary Statistics

Variable Obs. Mean Std. Dev. Min. Max.

Dependent Variables
Indicator of Maoist Insurgency 589 .3616299 .4808808 0 1
Presence of Maoist Insurgency 589 .2207131 .4150799 0 1
Maoist Attacks 589 2.50764 12.67901 0 230
Maoist Casualties 589 11.80645 74.17164 0 1648
Number Killed in Fighting 589 8.066214 47.76111 0 1033
Number Wounded in Fighting 589 3.740238 26.92984 0 615
Landlord Tenure 462 .1645022 .3711325 0 1
Land Inequality 414 .4848257 .1751022 .1204489 .7999637
Trust Other Jatis 376 2.633006 .2916942 1.444444 3
Distrust Police 376 2.05618 .3451557 1.1 3
Distrust Politicians 376 2.462576 .2887472 1.25 2.983124
Distrust Panchayat 376 1.849526 .308006 1.073918 2.688889

Independent Variables
Years British 578 92.19031 71.89062 0 286
Gun Salute 589 5.139219 8.120331 0 21
Province 589 .6672326 .4716046 0 1

Control Variables
% No Assets 551 37.19476 15.62704 5.773482 77.36033
Literacy Rate 579 63.91472 12.7446 30.17 96.51
Mining 588 .1513605 .3587051 0 1
Land Inequality 414 .4848257 .1751022 .1204489 .7999637
% Scheduled Caste 579 .1487602 .0861906 0 .501128
% Scheduled Caste Squared 579 .0295456 .0288818 0 .2511293
% Scheduled Tribe 579 .1592917 .2563671 0 .9808581
% Scheduled Tribe Squared 579 .0909844 .2187103 0 .9620827
Area (Log) 573 8.261393 .9849279 2.197225 11.70212
Population Density 584 839.3185 2872.19 2 29468
Log Rainfall 502 6.975373 .482591 5.126936 8.272059
Coastal Districts 589 .1154499 .3198358 0 1
Log Distance to Capital 379 5.485511 .7963417 0 6.940222
Alluvial Soil 459 .496732 .5005349 0 1
% Sandy Soil 576 .755995 3.50985 0 68.83154
% Forested 574 21.99394 24.39197 0 95.66
% Barren/Rocky Land 576 3.089157 19.23952 0 316
% Steep/Sloping Land 576 .2840889 1.047981 0 12.92973

53
Table C2: T-Tests Illustrating Potential Confounders

Province Princely State Difference


Coastal District 0.165 0.056 -0.110***
Alluvial Soil 0.534 0.453 -0.082**
Annual Avg. Rainfall 1189 1059 -130**
% Forested 20.48 23.86 3.37**

Notes: For information on these variables, see Appendix A: Data Sources. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

54
Table C3: Stepwise Regression of Table 1, Model 1

DV: Maoist Indicator (MHA) in All Indian Districts


(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Years British 0.00871** 0.00872** 0.00888*** 0.00889** 0.00956*** 0.00909***
(0.00353) (0.00352) (0.00327) (0.00348) (0.00352) (0.00352)
% No Assets 0.0139
(0.0148)
Literacy Rate -0.00839
(0.0224)
Mining 1.188***
(0.433)
% SC 5.319
(8.711)
% SC Squared -6.673
(20.53)
% ST 8.250**
(3.523)
% ST Squared -10.67***
(3.917)
% Forested 0.00950
(0.0111)
Area (Log) 0.299 0.365 0.272 0.157 0.0394 0.312
(0.273) (0.290) (0.272) (0.251) (0.330) (0.281)
Population Density -2.43e-06 1.39e-05 -2.79e-05 -1.68e-05 -4.63e-05 1.07e-05
(6.16e-05) (7.23e-05) (6.62e-05) (5.80e-05) (7.12e-05) (6.29e-05)
Constant -3.860* -5.117** -3.138 -2.881 -2.786 -4.225*
(2.300) (2.518) (2.660) (2.130) (3.003) (2.379)
Observations 560 527 553 560 554 560

55
Table C4: Stepwise Regression of Table 1, Model 2

DV: Maoist Presence (WITS/Gomes) in All Indian Districts


(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Years British 0.0126** 0.0108** 0.0116*** 0.0128*** 0.0140*** 0.0127**
(0.00504) (0.00462) (0.00438) (0.00481) (0.00475) (0.00497)
% No Assets 0.0268*
(0.0155)
Literacy Rate -0.0465***
(0.0124)
Mining 1.321***
(0.298)
% SC 16.12
(11.21)
% SC Squared -35.57
(30.10)
% ST 7.639**
(3.357)
% ST Squared -8.084**
(3.867)
% Forested 0.00206
(0.0110)
Area (Log) 0.795** 0.766** 0.798** 0.611* 0.651 0.796**
(0.367) (0.380) (0.336) (0.359) (0.417) (0.370)
Population Density 7.16e-05 0.000137 0.000126 5.61e-05 9.28e-05 7.41e-05
(0.000111) (0.000113) (9.78e-05) (0.000109) (0.000112) (0.000113)
Constant -9.302*** -10.03*** -6.424** -8.032*** -10.22*** -9.361***
(2.942) (3.101) (2.846) (2.889) (3.095) (3.012)
Observations 560 527 553 560 554 560

56
Table C5: Stepwise Regression of Table 1, Model 3

DV: Maoist Attacks (WITS) in the Red Corridor


(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Years British 0.00688** 0.00129 0.00407 0.00775*** 0.00858*** 0.00811***
(0.00310) (0.00328) (0.00281) (0.00279) (0.00267) (0.00275)
% No Assets 0.0551***
(0.0121)
Literacy Rate -0.0667***
(0.0161)
Mining 0.897***
(0.339)
% SC 10.07
(9.084)
% SC Squared -26.60
(22.90)
% ST 0.730
(3.523)
% ST Squared 3.840
(5.041)
% Forested 0.0157
(0.0146)
Area (Log) 1.111*** 1.026*** 0.939*** 1.035*** 1.044*** 1.156***
(0.344) (0.308) (0.341) (0.337) (0.347) (0.336)
Population Density -0.000804 -0.000301 -0.000952 -0.000562 -0.000341 -0.000280
(0.000582) (0.000587) (0.000586) (0.000634) (0.000689) (0.000562)
Constant -8.307** -9.662*** -2.648 -8.174** -9.358*** -9.486***
(3.242) (3.115) (3.546) (3.216) (3.224) (3.203)
lnalpha 1.617*** 1.451*** 1.421*** 1.577*** 1.535*** 1.601***
(0.330) (0.358) (0.325) (0.310) (0.310) (0.329)
Observations 208 175 201 208 206 208

57
Table C6: Stepwise Regression of Table 1, Model 4

DV: Maoist Casualties (Gomes) in the Red Corridor


(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Years British 0.00862** 0.00315 0.00766** 0.00925*** 0.0107*** 0.0101**
(0.00415) (0.00346) (0.00333) (0.00352) (0.00414) (0.00415)
% No Assets 0.0652***
(0.0124)
Literacy Rate -0.0659***
(0.0115)
Mining 1.086***
(0.293)
% SC 10.88
(8.891)
% SC Squared -33.20*
(19.59)
% ST -1.509
(3.691)
% ST Squared 6.185
(4.803)
% Forested 0.0170
(0.0150)
Area (Log) 1.329*** 1.220*** 1.056*** 1.143*** 1.174*** 1.292***
(0.341) (0.277) (0.247) (0.281) (0.306) (0.323)
Population Density -0.000549 -5.33e-05 -0.000764 -0.000365 -0.000599 -0.000194
(0.000660) (0.000341) (0.000616) (0.000436) (0.000860) (0.000203)
Constant -8.896*** -10.64*** -2.623 -7.860*** -8.762*** -9.376***
(3.250) (3.165) (2.493) (2.726) (3.013) (3.278)
lnalpha 1.791*** 1.635*** 1.652*** 1.751*** 1.724*** 1.773***
(0.289) (0.301) (0.270) (0.279) (0.277) (0.290)
Observations 208 175 201 208 206 208

58
Table C7: Stepwise Regression of Table 1, Model 5

DV: Maoist Attacks (WITS) in the Princely States


(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Gun Salute -0.163*** -0.161*** -0.168*** -0.142*** -0.174*** -0.122**
(0.0440) (0.0427) (0.0501) (0.0451) (0.0497) (0.0531)
% No Assets -0.00484
(0.0176)
Literacy Rate -0.0267
(0.0275)
Mining 1.276**
(0.526)
% SC 20.37
(16.60)
% SC Squared -75.94
(66.45)
% ST 4.893
(4.231)
% ST Squared -6.694
(4.369)
% Forested 0.0296
(0.0207)
Area (Log) 3.549*** 3.517*** 3.490*** 3.019*** 3.365*** 3.445***
(0.540) (0.598) (0.575) (0.586) (0.585) (0.662)
Population Density 0.000991 0.000958 0.00119 0.000875 0.000942 0.00109
(0.000925) (0.000766) (0.00127) (0.000833) (0.000758) (0.00148)
Constant -29.71*** -29.24*** -27.56*** -25.70*** -29.35*** -30.19***
(5.002) (5.101) (6.111) (5.370) (5.087) (6.132)
lnalpha 2.534*** 2.531*** 2.553*** 2.435*** 2.479*** 2.453***
(0.687) (0.683) (0.727) (0.655) (0.682) (0.658)
Observations 185 177 182 185 185 185

59
Table C8: Stepwise Regression of Table 1, Model 6

DV: Maoist Casualties (Gomes) in the Princely States


(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Gun Salute -0.199*** -0.182*** -0.190*** -0.186*** -0.253*** -0.127
(0.0408) (0.0365) (0.0321) (0.0496) (0.0703) (0.0785)
% No Assets 0.0261
(0.0271)
Literacy Rate -0.0588
(0.0399)
Mining 1.253**
(0.596)
% SC 37.48*
(20.10)
% SC Squared -153.6*
(87.53)
% ST 1.707
(5.328)
% ST Squared -6.229
(5.699)
% Forested 0.0489
(0.0340)
Area (Log) 4.724*** 4.454*** 4.454*** 4.052*** 5.057*** 4.666***
(0.709) (0.742) (0.691) (0.790) (0.800) (0.836)
Population
0.00121*** 0.00120*** 0.00122*** 0.00110*** 0.00127*** 0.00124***
Density
(0.000153) (0.000145) (0.000154) (0.000160) (0.000173) (0.000179)
Constant -38.40*** -37.37*** -32.62*** -33.01*** -42.14*** -40.21***
(6.243) (6.154) (6.790) (6.776) (6.881) (6.658)
lnalpha 3.085*** 3.068*** 3.068*** 3.032*** 3.012*** 3.026***
(0.630) (0.639) (0.670) (0.608) (0.645) (0.601)
Observations 185 177 182 185 185 185

60
Table C9: Alternative Controls for Table 1 (Landlord Tenure)

All India Red Corridor Princely States


(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist
Indicator Presence Attacks Casualties Attacks Casualties
(MHA) (WITS/Gomes) (WITS) (Gomes) (WITS) (Gomes)
Years British 0.00661* 0.00968* 0.00628* 0.00842*
(0.00391) (0.00521) (0.00326) (0.00440)
Gun Salute -0.139** -0.184***
(0.0647) (0.0637)
Landlord 1.369** 1.417** 1.224** 1.211* 1.871*** 0.831*
Tenure (0.538) (0.629) (0.601) (0.674) (0.583) (0.439)
Area (Log) 0.308 0.893** 1.039*** 1.129*** 3.675*** 4.512***
(0.430) (0.401) (0.306) (0.274) (0.688) (0.821)
Population - -
Density -3.08e-05 0.000106 0.00145*** 0.00150** 0.000822*** 0.00117***
(7.46e-
05) (0.000139) (0.000462) (0.000630) (0.000166) (0.000195)
Constant -3.945 -10.13*** -7.849*** -7.231*** -31.35*** -36.70***
(3.715) (3.186) (2.879) (2.704) (6.227) (7.063)
lnalpha 1.389*** 1.581*** 2.304*** 2.963***
(0.305) (0.241) (0.727) (0.710)
Observations 453 453 184 184 143 143

61
Table C10: Alternative Controls for Table 1 (Land Inequality)

All India Red Corridor Princely States


(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist
Indicator Presence Attacks Casualties Attacks Casualties
(MHA) (WITS/Gomes) (WITS) (Gomes) (WITS) (Gomes)
Years British 0.00738* 0.0107** 0.00914** 0.0107*
(0.00383) (0.00476) (0.00430) (0.00644)
Gun Salute -0.201*** -0.229***
(0.0596) (0.0567)
Land Inequality 4.235** 3.551** -3.777 -4.685 5.506 8.627**
(1.661) (1.665) (3.751) (4.380) (3.833) (4.162)
Area (Log) 0.580 1.303** 1.151*** 1.252*** 4.101*** 5.622***
(0.431) (0.520) (0.293) (0.466) (0.543) (0.678)
Population Density -0.000262 0.000284 -0.000289 0.000397 0.00112 0.00136***
(0.000456) (0.000225) (0.00108) (0.00136) (0.00117) (0.000147)
Constant -8.014** -15.39*** -7.249** -6.508 -36.42*** -49.90***
(3.791) (4.502) (2.842) (4.307) (5.536) (6.298)
lnalpha 1.590*** 1.766*** 2.602*** 2.978***
(0.347) (0.288) (0.752) (0.686)
Observations 404 404 162 162 146 146

62
Table C11: Alternative Controls for Table 1 (Distance to State Capital)

All India Red Corridor Princely States


(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist
Indicator Presence Attacks Casualties Attacks Casualties
(MHA) (WITS/Gomes) (WITS) (Gomes) (WITS) (Gomes)
Years British 0.00851** 0.0156*** 0.0105*** 0.0138***
(0.00389) (0.00475) (0.00340) (0.00495)
Gun Salute -0.125** -0.102**
(0.0547) (0.0465)
Log Distance 0.258 -0.244 -0.424 -0.841** -1.414*** -1.912***
To Capital (0.271) (0.322) (0.277) (0.359) (0.378) (0.568)
Area (Log) 0.456 1.301** 1.270*** 1.433*** 4.569*** 5.774***
(0.478) (0.548) (0.335) (0.493) (1.114) (0.971)
Population 0.000707 0.000407 -0.00142** -0.00207** -0.00344 -0.00164
Density (0.00103) (0.000487) (0.000588) (0.000905) (0.00804) (0.00766)
Constant -6.845* -12.86*** -7.702** -5.332 -31.51** -39.17***
(3.862) (4.572) (3.473) (5.272) (12.38) (10.78)
lnalpha 1.483*** 1.632*** 2.494*** 2.944***
(0.357) (0.308) (0.882) (0.758)
Observations 377 377 154 154 128 128

63
Table C12: Alternative Controls for Table 1 (Gomes’ % Forested)

All India Red Corridor Princely States


(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist
Maoist
Indicator Presence Attacks Casualties Attacks
Casualties (Gomes)
(MHA) (WITS/Gomes) (WITS) (Gomes) (WITS)
Years
0.00927*** 0.0127** 0.00770*** 0.00957**
British
(0.00349) (0.00495) (0.00274) (0.00403)
Gun Salute -0.132*** -0.144**
(0.0514) (0.0708)
% Forested 0.0109 0.00251 0.0117 0.0125 0.0253 0.0414
(Gomes) (0.0106) (0.0104) (0.0159) (0.0160) (0.0203) (0.0316)
Area (Log) 0.329 0.800** 1.139*** 1.308*** 3.507*** 4.760***
(0.279) (0.371) (0.338) (0.329) (0.647) (0.808)
Population 1.20e-05 7.40e-05 -0.000434 -0.000265 0.00111 0.00126***
Density (6.37e-05) (0.000113) (0.000737) (0.000336) (0.00150) (0.000175)
Constant -4.417* -9.398*** -9.122*** -9.300*** -30.50*** -40.61***
(2.360) (3.017) (3.253) (3.310) (6.069) (6.629)
lnalpha 1.609*** 1.782*** 2.472*** 3.038***
(0.331) (0.291) (0.661) (0.603)
Observations 558 558 208 208 185 185

64
Table C13: Alternative Controls for Table 1 (Terrain Measures)

All India Red Corridor Princely States


(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist
Indicator Presence Attacks Casualties Attacks Casualties
(MHA) (WITS/Gomes) (WITS) (Gomes) (WITS) (Gomes)
Years 0.00938*** 0.0123*** 0.00716** 0.00724**
British (0.00348) (0.00477) (0.00293) (0.00369)
Gun Salute -0.186*** -0.275***
(0.0417) (0.0807)
% Sandy -0.146* -0.207** -0.199 -0.582*** -2.808*** -3.933***
(0.0831) (0.0964) (0.276) (0.221) (0.924) (1.238)
% Barren/ 0.0122** -0.0143 0.0247* 0.00870 0.0116 -0.0766
Rocky (0.00619) (0.0206) (0.0144) (0.0172) (0.168) (0.146)
% Steep/ 0.0406 -0.378 -1.596*** -1.875*** -0.431 -0.632
Sloping (0.148) (0.252) (0.568) (0.543) (0.398) (0.591)
Area (Log) 0.352 0.830** 0.919*** 0.796*** 3.517*** 5.138***
(0.282) (0.397) (0.331) (0.304) (0.637) (0.988)
-
Population -4.57e-05 8.80e-05 -0.000966 0.000880*** 0.00129***
0.00120**
Density (7.06e-05) (0.000138) (0.000608) (0.000781) (0.000337) (0.000217)
Constant -4.271* -9.349*** -6.250** -3.593 -28.72*** -40.33***
(2.403) (3.174) (3.129) (2.902) (5.916) (7.905)
Lnalpha 1.540*** 1.704*** 2.222*** 2.829***
(0.310) (0.282) (0.629) (0.579)
Observations 553 553 208 208 184 184

65
Table C14: Using Province Dummy Instead of Years British

All India Red Corridor


(1) (2) (3) (4)
Maoist Maoist Maoist Maoist
Indicator Presence Attacks Casualties
(MHA) (WITS/Gomes) (WITS) (Gomes)
Province 0.960** 1.163** 0.382 0.822**
(0.394) (0.484) (0.356) (0.349)
% No Assets 0.0259 0.0332 0.0424 0.0566**
(0.0207) (0.0204) (0.0281) (0.0288)
Literacy Rate -0.0312 -0.0525*** -0.0546** -0.0424
(0.0213) (0.0143) (0.0266) (0.0366)
Mining 0.852** 1.331*** 1.430* 1.355***
(0.403) (0.339) (0.815) (0.441)
% SC 12.17* 16.64* -1.720 -0.604
(7.247) (9.221) (9.291) (14.48)
% SC Squared -15.34 -33.04 -2.473 -12.61
(19.88) (24.28) (20.85) (26.82)
% ST 4.741* 1.718 -0.00931 -0.632
(2.797) (3.131) (5.688) (5.437)
% ST Squared -8.286*** -3.927 0.764 0.654
(2.755) (3.233) (7.697) (8.449)
Area (Log) -0.0217 0.412 0.858*** 0.966***
(0.334) (0.413) (0.252) (0.272)
% Forested 0.0226** 0.0119 -0.00557 -0.00388
(0.0100) (0.00966) (0.0140) (0.0199)
Population Density 2.15e-05 0.000200* -0.000151 -1.98e-05
(6.07e-05) (0.000111) (0.000690) (0.000349)
Constant -2.390 -5.950* -4.680 -5.599
(3.369) (3.315) (3.593) (4.213)
/lnalpha 1.313*** 1.579***
(0.319) (0.284)
Observations 527 527 168 168

Notes: Models (1) and (2) are logit models of Maoist presence in all Indian districts using a province
dummy instead of the number of years a district was ruled by the British as the main independent
variable. The dependent variable in Model (1) is an indicator variable coded ‘1’ if a district was identified
by India’s Ministry of Home Affairs as falling under the influence of ‘Left Wing Extremists’ between
2008-2011 and ‘0’ otherwise. The dependent variable in Model (2) is a dummy coded ‘1’ if any attacks or
casualties were recorded in the districts between 1980-2010, as recorded by WITS and Gomes’ (2015)
dataset. Models (3) and (4) are negative binomial models in the Red Corridor. The dependent variable in
Model (3) is the number of attacks between 2005-9, as recorded by WITS. The dependent variable in
Model (4) is the total number of insurgents, police, and noncombatants killed and wounded in fighting
between 1980 and 2010 respectively, as recorded in Gomes’ (2015) dataset. Robust standard errors,
clustered by state, in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

66
Table C15: Colonial Rule and Grievance Mechanisms (Using Province Dummy)

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)


Landlord Land Trust Distrust Distrust Distrust
Tenure Inequality Other Jatis Police Politicians Panchayat
Province 0.258** 0.135*** -0.101*** 0.145* 0.0662 0.00962
(0.122) (0.0448) (0.0370) (0.0769) (0.0708) (0.0601)
Literacy
Rate -0.00823 -0.000974 0.00583*** -0.00942*** -0.00328** -0.00582*
(0.00573) (0.00266) (0.00209) (0.00255) (0.00159) (0.00305)
Constant 0.575 0.462*** 2.322*** 2.583*** 2.636*** 2.228***
(0.372) (0.160) (0.137) (0.172) (0.111) (0.192)
/sigma 0.293*** 0.321*** 0.285*** 0.300***
(0.0167) (0.0220) (0.0219) (0.0162)
Observations 457 409 372 372 372 372

Notes: Model (1) is an OLS analysis of landlord tenure (zamindari and malguzari systems) based on data
from Iyer (2010). Model (2) is an OLS analysis of the land gini index of ownership concentration that is
based on the results of the 1991 Agricultural Census. Models (3) – (6) are tobit regressions of responses
to questions about intercaste trust and trust in public institutions in the 2005 University of Maryland
Human Development Survey. Robust standard errors, clustered by state, in parentheses *** p<0.01, **
p<0.05, * p<0.1

67
Table C16: Using Conflict DVs for All India Regressions

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)


Number Number Number
Maoist Maoist
Killed Killed Wounded
Attacks Casualties
In Fighting In Fighting In Fighting
(WITS) (Gomes)
(WITS) (Gomes) (Gomes)
Years British 0.0107*** 0.0149*** 0.0156*** 0.0167*** 0.0169***
(0.00309) (0.00429) (0.00471) (0.00420) (0.00481)
% No Assets 0.0428 0.0410 0.0578 0.0464 0.0584
(0.0346) (0.0348) (0.0451) (0.0430) (0.0455)
Literacy Rate -0.0590** -0.0437 -0.0533 -0.0751** -0.0570
(0.0285) (0.0308) (0.0399) (0.0379) (0.0398)
Mining 2.211*** 1.801*** 2.395*** 2.161*** 2.276***
(0.716) (0.623) (0.473) (0.366) (0.397)
% SC 8.773 30.89** 22.66 -6.018 11.23
(13.24) (14.81) (16.53) (17.17) (15.13)
% SC Squared -23.82 -82.78** -66.15* -1.353 -42.28
(27.90) (33.27) (35.69) (33.84) (32.18)
% ST 6.948* 9.726* 10.15* 11.48** 11.91**
(3.900) (4.965) (5.294) (4.933) (5.085)
% ST Squared -9.868** -11.07** -14.56*** -16.88*** -17.22***
(4.560) (5.466) (5.630) (6.038) (5.696)
Area (Log) 0.968** 0.985*** 1.158*** 1.300*** 1.284***
(0.380) (0.346) (0.406) (0.367) (0.411)
% Forested 0.0156 0.0276 0.0183 0.0118 0.0144
(0.0151) (0.0192) (0.0192) (0.0148) (0.0190)
Population
0.000287* 3.85e-05 0.000586*** 0.000544*** 0.000591***
Density
(0.000148) (0.000103) (0.000111) (0.000107) (0.000113)
Constant -9.377** -12.75*** -12.66** -10.35* -12.17**
(4.544) (4.276) (5.999) (5.427) (6.133)
/lnalpha 2.338*** 2.659*** 2.698*** 2.716*** 2.792***
(0.420) (0.440) (0.377) (0.417) (0.378)
Observations 516 516 516 516 516

Notes: Models (1) – (5) are negative binomial regressions of all Indian districts, and are meant to test the
effect of colonialism on Maoist conflict. The dependent variables in columns (1) and (2) are the number
of attacks and deaths carried out by Maoist insurgents as recorded in the WITS dataset between 2005 and
2009. The dependent variable in columns (3), (4), and (5) are the total number of insurgents, police, and
noncombatants killed, wounded, and killed and wounded (casualties) in fighting between 1980 and 2010
respectively, as recorded in Gomes’ (2015) dataset. Robust standard errors, clustered by state, in
parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

68
Table C17: Coarsened Exact Matching Analysis, Alternative Specification for MHA Maoist
Presence Measure

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)


Province
(Before 1848) 1.279*** 1.294*** 1.258*** 1.428*** 1.387*** 1.287*** 1.564***
(0.455) (0.445) (0.438) (0.454) (0.436) (0.413) (0.420)
% No Assets 0.0309** 0.0366**
(0.0152) (0.0180)
Literacy Rate -0.0261 -0.0393*
(0.0239) (0.0212)
Mining 1.131** 1.138**
(0.547) (0.523)
% SC 3.673 11.77
(11.37) (12.65)
% SC Squared -4.356 -12.86
(25.27) (29.94)
% ST 7.934* 4.577
(4.364) (4.330)
% ST Squared -10.72** -8.611*
(5.355) (4.981)
% Forested 0.0133 0.0229
(0.0132) (0.0163)
Area (Log) 0.103 -0.115
(0.324) (0.411)
Population
Density 8.66e-06 -2.47e-05
(6.71e- (9.16e-
05) 05)
- - -
Constant 1.472*** 2.768*** 0.112 1.744*** -2.370* -2.562 -1.932
(0.401) (0.692) (1.547) (0.426) (1.370) (2.792) (4.181)
Observations 458 435 449 457 453 444 420

69
Table C18: Coarsened Exact Matching Analysis, Alternative Specification for
WITS/GOMES Measure

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)


Province
1.221** 1.083* 1.089** 1.411** 1.353** 1.339*** 1.218***
(Before 1848)
(0.581) (0.565) (0.531) (0.559) (0.534) (0.506) (0.438)
% No Assets 0.0400** 0.0394**
(0.0163) (0.0189)
- -
Literacy Rate
0.0529*** 0.0595***
(0.0159) (0.0150)
Mining 1.340*** 1.326***
(0.448) (0.375)
% SC 14.42 20.41*
(14.32) (11.54)
% SC Squared -35.77 -41.03
(41.12) (30.71)
% ST 7.720* 0.911
(4.516) (3.900)
% ST Squared -9.378 -4.644
(5.783) (4.969)
% Forested 0.00549 0.0226
(0.0143) (0.0138)
Area (Log) 0.379 0.275
(0.382) (0.489)
Population
2.58e-05 0.000146
Density
(9.52e-
(0.000124)
05)
- - - -
Constant 1.221 -5.458* -5.036
2.056*** 3.597*** 2.423*** 3.785***
(0.510) (0.728) (1.040) (0.503) (1.175) (3.257) (3.869)
Observations 458 435 449 457 453 444 420

Notes: Logit models of Maoist presence (WITS/Gomes data) in Indian districts run after preprocessing
the data with Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM). The CEM “treatment” and the main independent
variable in the parametric models is an indicator for whether the British ruled a district before 1848. See
text for more details regarding the models. Robust standard errors clustered by state in parentheses. ***
p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

70
Table C19: Different Combinations of Conditioning Variables for CEM, MHA Indicator

DV: Maoist Indicator (MHA)


(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Dropping Dropping
Additional Dropping Dropping
Forest Coastal
Soil Types Soil Types Rainfall
Cover Dummy
Province
1.453*** 1.350*** 1.211*** 1.688*** 1.179***
(Before 1848)
(0.394) (0.405) (0.437) (0.373) (0.398)
% No Assets 0.0484*** 0.0305* 0.0228 0.0372** 0.0302*
(0.0181) (0.0182) (0.0194) (0.0183) (0.0182)
Literacy Rate -0.0391* -0.0381* -0.0277 -0.0412** -0.0281
(0.0218) (0.0209) (0.0199) (0.0204) (0.0195)
Mining 1.524** 0.972** 0.610 1.141** 0.637
(0.687) (0.496) (0.534) (0.520) (0.470)
% SC 15.22 15.01 14.39 12.00 8.476
(12.54) (11.26) (10.25) (10.21) (8.703)
% SC
-16.26 -20.95 -23.96 -11.19 -6.889
Squared
(33.09) (27.23) (25.48) (23.55) (18.74)
% ST 5.104 5.786 4.853 5.163 4.130
(5.137) (4.148) (3.371) (4.232) (3.535)
% ST Squared -8.108 -10.03** -8.157** -9.265* -8.374**
(5.956) (4.794) (3.202) (5.324) (3.423)
% Forested 0.0130 0.0310* 0.0182 0.0211 0.0215
(0.0188) (0.0160) (0.0114) (0.0159) (0.0137)
Area (Log) -0.250 -0.315 -0.00669 -0.0389 -0.0366
(0.411) (0.337) (0.347) (0.421) (0.316)
Population
-5.30e-05 -3.00e-05 3.01e-06 -1.07e-05 8.11e-06
Density
(9.53e-05) (7.51e-05) (7.11e-05) (9.17e-05) (6.15e-05)
Constant -1.744 -0.312 -2.669 -2.670 -2.224
(4.269) (3.432) (3.730) (4.250) (3.299)
Observations 354 444 508 433 517

Notes: Each column presents a logit analysis of a set of Indian districts matched using CEM. The
dependent variable is an indicator variable coded ‘1’ if a district was identified by India’s Ministry of
Home Affairs as falling under the influence of ‘Left Wing Extremists’ between 2008-2011. The data for
Model (1) were preprocessed with CEM using the original four variables (alluvial soil, forest cover,
coastal access and rainfall) plus two additional soil types (black and red). The data for Model (2) were
preprocessed dropping out soil type but including forest cover, coastal access, and rainfall. The data for
Models (3) – (5) were preprocessed including three of the four original variables (e.g. dropping forest
cover, coastal access, and rainfall one at a time). The main independent variable is a dummy coded ‘1’ if
the British annexed the district prior to 1848. Robust standard errors clustered by state in parentheses. ***
p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

71
Table C20: Different Conditioning Variables for CEM, WITS/GOMES Measure

DV: Maoist Presence (WITS/Gomes)


(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Additional Dropping
Dropping Soil Dropping Forest Dropping
Soil Coastal
Types Cover Rainfall
Types Dummy
Province (Before 1848) 0.810 1.192*** 1.273*** 1.216*** 1.166***
(0.521) (0.445) (0.427) (0.417) (0.406)
% No Assets 0.0511*** 0.0376** 0.0351* 0.0400** 0.0327*
(0.0170) (0.0178) (0.0190) (0.0181) (0.0197)
Literacy Rate -0.0524*** -0.0540*** -0.0503*** -0.0600*** -0.0542***
(0.0188) (0.0171) (0.0157) (0.0136) (0.0145)
Mining 1.626*** 1.201*** 1.259*** 1.290*** 1.193***
(0.456) (0.351) (0.425) (0.394) (0.380)
% SC 31.79* 18.69* 20.61* 20.31* 16.91*
(17.73) (10.36) (10.98) (11.79) (9.529)
% SC Squared -79.76 -36.22 -42.71 -41.31 -31.94
(56.53) (27.18) (28.98) (31.47) (24.94)
% ST 1.346 1.702 2.331 0.470 1.957
(4.684) (3.912) (3.389) (3.811) (3.596)
% ST Squared -3.829 -5.982 -3.759 -4.440 -4.000
(5.844) (4.702) (3.695) (4.973) (3.958)
% Forested 0.0158 0.0237 0.00551 0.0233 0.00989
(0.0168) (0.0145) (0.0100) (0.0144) (0.0110)
Area (Log) -0.101 0.129 0.406 0.327 0.409
(0.409) (0.431) (0.465) (0.478) (0.401)
Population Density 7.83e-05 0.000124 0.000189 0.000156 0.000200*
(0.000107) (0.000122) (0.000120) (0.000125) (0.000115)
Constant -3.279 -3.937 -6.444* -5.375 -5.817*
(3.877) (3.264) (3.873) (3.828) (3.362)
Observations 354 444 508 433 517
Notes: Each column presents a logit analysis of a set of Indian districts matched using CEM. The
dependent variable is a dummy coded ‘1’ if any attacks or casualties were recorded in the districts
between 1980-2010, as recorded by WITS and Gomes’ (2015). The data for Model (1) were preprocessed
with CEM using the original four variables (alluvial soil, forest cover, coastal access and rainfall) plus
two additional soil types (black and red). The data for Model (2) were preprocessed dropping out soil type
but including forest cover, coastal access, and rainfall. The data for Models (3) – (5) were preprocessed
including three of the four original variables (e.g. dropping forest cover, coastal access, and rainfall one at
a time). The analysis is repeated for Models (6) – (10), where the dependent variable is a dummy coded
‘1’ if any attacks or casualties were recorded in the districts between 1980-2010, as recorded by WITS
and Gomes’ (2015). The main independent variable is a dummy coded ‘1’ if the British annexed the
district prior to 1848. Robust standard errors clustered by state in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, *
p<0.1

72
Table C21: Using State Fixed Effects for Maoist Casualties (Gomes)

DV: Maoist Casualties (Gomes) in All Indian Districts


(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Years British 0.00834* 0.00888* 0.00592 0.00778** 0.00490*
(0.00479) (0.00504) (0.00399) (0.00381) (0.00266)
Literacy Rate -0.0164 -0.0192
(0.0216) (0.0336)
Area (Log) 1.843*** 1.727*** 0.836** 0.641
(0.337) (0.319) (0.339) (0.498)
Population Density 0.000352*** 0.000348*** 0.000206** 0.000150*
(9.09e-05) (8.76e-05) (9.41e-05) (9.07e-05)
% SC -17.66 4.561
(12.03) (12.32)
% SC squared 52.61** -5.469
(25.19) (24.05)
% ST 14.73* 2.591
(8.003) (2.870)
% ST Squared -14.27 0.323
(10.72) (4.287)
Mining 0.840 0.424
(0.526) (0.694)
% Forested 0.0830*** 0.0988***
(0.0220) (0.0331)
% No Assets -0.0477
(0.0366)
Constant -13.58*** -11.59*** 4.202*** -5.615* -1.133
(3.152) (3.713) (1.250) (3.155) (4.558)
/lnalpha 1.813*** 1.846*** 1.765*** 1.476*** 1.508***
(0.347) (0.353) (0.320) (0.289) (0.328)

State FE YES YES YES YES YES


Observations 560 553 568 560 516

Notes: Negative binomial model of insurgent violence across all of India with state fixed effects. The
dependent variable is the total number of insurgents, police, and noncombatants killed and wounded in
fighting between 1980 and 2010 respectively, as recorded in Gomes’ (2015) dataset. Robust standard
errors clustered by state in parentheses. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

73
APPENDIX D: FIGURES

74
Figure D1: Conflict Model 1, Sensitivity to Specific States

Notes: The dots represent coefficients for the logistic regression contained in Model 1 of Table 2, and the
bars represent 95% confidence intervals. The dependent variable is an indicator variable coded ‘1’ if a
district was identified by India’s Ministry of Home Affairs as falling under the influence of ‘Left Wing
Extremists’ between 2008-2011. The main independent variable is a count of the number of years the
British ruled the district. Each regression was run dropping out states one by one. All iterations were
significant at the .01 level or better.

75
Figure D2: Conflict Model 2, Sensitivity to Specific States

Notes: The dots represent coefficients for the logistic regression contained in Model 2 of Table 2, and the
bars represent 95% confidence intervals. The dependent variable is a dummy coded ‘1’ if any attacks or
casualties were recorded in any Indian district between 1980-2010, as recorded by WITS and Gomes’
(2015) dataset. The main independent variable is a count of the number of years the British ruled the
district. Each regression was run dropping out states one by one. All iterations were significant at the .01
level or better.

76
Figure D3: Additional Predictions

Notes: Predictions based on Models (3) – (6) of Table 1. The predictions and associated confidence
intervals depicted in these graphs were produced using the “marginsplot” post-estimation command in
Stata 14, holding all other variables in the model at their means.

77

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