India, Pakistan and the Kashmir insurgency: Causes, dynamics and prospects for resolution

Ganguly, R. (2001) India, Pakistan and the Kashmir insurgency: Causes, dynamics and prospects for resolution. Asian Studies Review, 25 (3). pp. 309-334.

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Abstract

The endemic instability and insecurity in South Asia continue to stem from the unresolved Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. Indo-Pak hostility has resulted in the bifurcation of the erstwhile princely state and led to two major wars and several near misses in the past. With the onset of a secessionist ethnoreligious insurgency in Indian Kashmir in 1989, a proxy war developed between India and Pakistan, which brought bilateral relations between the two states to its nadir, contributed directly to an arms race and nuclear weapons testing in the subcontinent, undermined regional integration efforts, and resulted in gross human rights violations in the state. This Indo-Pak proxy war eventually led to a short conventional war along the line of control (LoC) in Kashmir in 1999. Although contained through intense international pressure, it momentarily raised fears of a catastrophic nuclear exchange. Resolving the secessionist insurgency in Indian Kashmir and the wider Indo-Pak dispute over the region has thus never been more urgent than it is today. This article analyses the origins and dynamics of the secessionist insurgency in Indian Kashmir, its impact on Indo- Pakistan relations, and the prospects for its resolution.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis
Copyright:	Asian Studies Association of Australia
Notes:	University of East Anglia Published online: 27 February 2007
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/23934

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