The book is a diligent, dense narrative of the insurgency in India's state of Punjab from the 1970s to the 1990s. An essential aspect of the book is captured in the Foreword, where Paul Wallace writes of “Jugdep's meticulous research—originally presented in a 1,000 page dissertation …” (p. xiv). In its present form, the book is 290 pages of 10-point text—more than 130,000 words. It is based on Indian periodicals, particularly that remarkable daily newspaper, The Tribune, of Chandigarh. The author also cites a few interviews in the U.S. with former activists or their relatives. It does not appear that he was able to do research in India; interviews with politicians or officials are not a feature.
The author offers a theoretical framework, which he italicizes and repeats five times: “patterns of political leadership,” defined as the dynamic interaction between and amongst state and ethnic elites, significantly affect the...