Conflict Crisis And War In Pakistan

In examining the forces that made the Indo-Pakistani relationship prone to conflict, Dr. Ganguly focusses first on the nature of the British colonial disengagement policy, a hasty and ill-conceived procedure that served to exacerbate the ideological differences between India's major political parties, the Congress and the Muslim League. Their competing views–the Congress espoused a secular polity while the League drew its inspiration from Islamic tenets–formed the basis of the two polities that emerged from the collapse of the British Indian empire. Disputes also arose over the uncertain status of Kashmir. With the lapse of the British doctrine of paramountcy (recognition of the British as the sovereign power in India), the so-called princely states had to join either India or Pakistan on the basis of geographic location and demographic composition. Kashmir posed a problem because of its location and because it had a Hindu monarch ruling a Muslim majority population. This peculiar status made it the center of a Pakistani irredentist claim. This claim was rejected by India, iintent upon demonstrating that all minorities could thrive under the aegis of secular government. Once set in motion by the interplay of domestic, regional, and systematic factors, these three forces--disengagement, ideological differences, and the conflict over Kashmir--brought the subcontinent to war in 1947-1948, 1965, and 1971. Dr. Ganguly provides a comprehensive and comparative analysis of these three Indo-Pakistani conflicts as well as an assessment of both the impact of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on the security of South Asia and the changes in the perceptions of that security.

Using an analysis of patterns of international crisis and war from 1948 to 1975, Patrick James suggests why some international crises result in war while others do not. Over one hundred cases are used to assess the three most prominent explanations for crisis escalation to war: (1) war is the result of rational choice by leaders who expect to gain from it; (2) war is the product of the outward projection of political unrest within states; and (3) war is the result of classical balance of power politics. James concludes that the best explanations for war include elements from all three categories.

This report examines the views of India and Pakistan on the significance ofPakistan_s foray into the Kargil-Dras sector in a limited war that has cometo be known as the Kargil conflict. The goal of the analysis is to assessboth combatants_ perceptions of the crisis, with a view to evaluating thepossibilities of future Kargil-like events and the implications of thelessons each country learned for stability in South Asia. The analysis isbased almost exclusively on Indian and Pakistani source materials.The Kargil crisis demonstrated that even the presence of nuclear weaponsmight not appreciably dampen security competition between the region_slargest states. However, the question remains of whether or not the Kargilwar represents a foretaste of future episodes of attempted nuclear coercionif India and Pakistan believe that their nuclear capabilities provide themthe immunity required to prosecute a range of military operations short ofall-out war.

The escalating tensions between India and Pakistan have received renewed attention of late. Since their genesis in 1947, the nations of India and Pakistan have been locked in a seemingly endless spiral of hostility over the disputed territory of Kashmir. Ganguly asserts that the two nations remain mired in conflict due to inherent features of their nationalist agendas. Indian nationalist leadership chose to hold on to this Muslim-majority state to prove that minorities could thrive in a plural, secular polity. Pakistani nationalists argued with equal force that they could not part with Kashmir as part of the homeland created for the Muslims of South Asia. Ganguly authoritatively analyzes why hostility persists even after the dissipation of the pristine ideological visions of the two states and discusses their dual path to overt acquisition of nuclear weapons, as well as the current prospects for war and peace in the region.

Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: Near East, Near Orient, grade: 1,3, , language: English, abstract: The Kashmir conflict arose parallel to the partition of British India in 1947, so it is as old as the Indian Union and Pakistan itself. Both India and Pakistan are claiming the entire sovereignty over the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir with India having control over approximately 55% of the land area and Pakistan 30%. China, which is controlling a small area of the region, is involved in the conflict as a third party. The conflict, more than 50 years old, not only survived the Cold War, it was the direct and indirect cause for three wars between India and Pakistan, for an arms race that continues to this day and for the transformation of both states into nuclear powers. This regional conflict is unique because Pakistan has already threatened India with the use of nuclear weapons on several occasions - even in the event of a massive conventional attack by India. Over the course of five decades, the conflict has become an integral part of the respective national and, in the case of India, democratic self-image and political consensus. India bases its democratic self-image on the thesis of the one, the secular nation. The state of Jammu and Kashmir is the only one with a Muslim majority and thus formally underpins India's claim to overcoming Hindu-Muslim antagonism.

This book explains why Kashmir has been such a hotly contested issue and why international coverage of this region is set to continue, for as long as the crisis remains unresolved.