Contents: Introduction: Probing State-legitimacy in the Context of Violence. Part One: 1. Everyday Policing and Legality. 2. Torture, Notions of ‘Justice’ and Petty Sovereigns. 3. Spaces of Abjection and a ‘Civic-Disciplining’ Model of Policing. 4. (Mis)Use, Agency and Acceptance: Interactions with Police Violence. Part Two: 5. Of Blessings and Banes: People, ULFA and the State in Lakhipathar. 6. ULFA in Lakhipathar: Perspectives and Perceptions. 7. Bearing Witness: Memories, War and Life in Lakhipathar. 8. The Making of an Authority: The State versus the Non-state. Conclusion: Produced Belongings, Imagined Geographies. Glossary. References. Index. How do people respond to a state that is violent towards its own citizens? In State, Violence, and Legitimacy in India, this question is addressed through insights offered by ethnographic explorations of everyday policing in Delhi and the anti-insurgency measures of the Indian army in Lakhipathar village in Assam. Battling the dominant understanding of the inverse connect between state legitimacy and use of violence, Santana Khanikar argues that use of violence does not necessarily detract from the legitimacy of the modern territorial nation-state. Based on extensive research of two sites, the book develops a narrative of how two facets of state violence, one commonly understood to be for routine maintenance of law and order and the other to be of extraordinary need for maintaining unity and integrity of the nation-state, often produce comparable responses. The book delves into the debates surrounding state–citizen relationship in India, while critically engaging with dominant notions of state legitimacy and its relation with use of violence by the state.