The Challenge in Kashmir: Democracy, Self-Determination, and a Just Peace [Hardcover]

Sumantra Bose (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0803993501 | ISBN-13: 978-0803993501 | Publication Date: May 5, 1997

The nineties have witnessed a dramatic escalation of the conflict in Kashmir, which has become the site of a triangular contest for hegemony between India, Pakistan, and popular movements for self-determination. Based on extensive fieldwork and interviews with a wide range of those involved, this provocative and tightly argued book goes beyond the reports and posturing that informs much of the contemporary literature on this troubled region. The Challenge in Kashmir examines how an open and unconditional dialogue between the three contending protagonists in the framework of the right for self-determination can pave the way for a just and lasting peace in Kashmir. Featuring a analysis that is refreshingly free of the nationalist rhetoric of both India and Pakistan, this engaging book moves away from the views of established politicians and generals and instead focuses on discussions with ordinary citizens, grass-roots activists, and insurgents. The result is a highly readable and original contribution to the policy-relevant studies of the ongoing conflict in Kashmir. Exploring one of the most intractable and complex problems in contemporary South Asian politics, The Challenge in Kashmir will appeal to scholars, students, policymakers, and politicians interested in Indian and comparative politics, democratic theory, social and popular movements, conflict resolution and peace studies, and South Asian studies.

Editorial Reviews

Review

`At times, such is the richness and heartfulness of the tales that they tell that Bose's witnesses appear to be speaking for themselves. Yet this is not (nor is it claimed to be) an impartial account, even if such a thing were possible. Bose is an angry young man, who writes to redress wrongs, to effect change....It is not often that one reads a book that is at once so polemical and so meticulous in observing all the scholarly conventions' - Australian Journal of Political Science

`A theoretically informed study of the current problems in Kashmir....grounded in theory and extensive fieldwork on the ground in Jammu and Kashmir itself' - Millenium: Journal of International Studies

`Bose's suggestion, which echoes that of many other scholars, is for negtioations with those "persons and forces who are creditble representatives of Kashmiri patriotism and its autonomist spirit - Kashmiriyat". To date, however, the Indian government has been unable to convince the Kashmiris of the vallley that there is genuine substance to the proposals for autonomy, and the hardline activists and militants are still refusing to consider a future for Kashmir within the Indian Union. Why, therefore, another book? The answer must surely be that until the Kashmir conflict is resolved, no book should be left unwritten, if it helps to explain - as this book does - the unparalleled complexities of this vexed topic' - Asian Affairs

`Bose opens his monograph with a pertinent question: `Why another book on the conflict in and over Kashmir?' It is pertinent because, since 1989, writers in their droves have fastened, sometimes quite voyeuristically, on the tragedy that is the (as yet inconclusive) Kashmir revolt.... Bose answers his own question handsomely by giving us an account that at once brings the narrative up to date (as far as the 1996 parliamentary and state elections), extends the intellectual boundaries of the discussion by putting it into a context of recent theoretical work on nationalism, sovreignty and `self-determination', and perhaps most strikingly of all, incorporates the experiences and views of a very wide cross-section of the ordinary people - the result of extensive fieldwork by the author, undertaken, one imagines, at considerable personal risk.... It is not often that one reads a book that is at once so polemical and so meticulous in observing all the scholarly conventions. In sum, The Challenge in Kashmir is a confronting and, at times, polemical ook which, nonetheless, offers probably the most penetrating and thoughtful account of the 1989 insurgency to have appeared thus far' - Australian Journal of Political Science

`An integral part of the history of the partition and independence of the subcontlinent 50 years ago, is the history of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. The situation has been sufficiently explosive for American analysts to suggest that the area might be a potential flashpoint for nuclear war in SouthAsia. Sumatra Bose's book is the outcome not only of his analyses as a political scientist but of considerable research in the valley, which gives him greater immediacy to - and sympathy with - his subject matter: the Kashmiri people.

His main focus of interest is the Kashmiris' quest for self-determination and what it means in the present day' - The Royal Institute of International Affairs

Product Details

• Hardcover: 210 pages
• Publisher: Sage Publications Pvt. Ltd (May 5, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803993501
• ISBN-13: 978-0803993501
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,892,174 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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