'Is North India violent because it has a surplus of men?'

Abstract

In their recent book 'Bare branches: the security implications of Asia's surplus male population' (MIT Press, 2005), Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer advance a provocative thesis. When population sex ratios are highly unbalanced by surplus males—where, in their terms, there are many 'bare branches' (men who will never marry and have children)—societies in the past have typically experienced increases in inter-social violence and instability. They argue that huge numbers of males are emerging in China and India who will never be able to marry. These ‘bare branches’ have significant security implications for their societies. Increased criminal violence will pose growing threats to public order, and may even result in regional revolts. In this paper we test a number of key propositions advanced by Hudson and den Boer, using Indian data. Although there is confirmation for some of these, many others must be rejected. The lack of clear confirmation leads us to question whether, in the case of north India, the arrows of causality may need to be reversed. These findings thus lead us to question the broader security implications of Hudson and den Boer’s work.