India–China Boundary Problem 1846–1947


Book Description

Boundary issues have always occupied a central focus in the relations between India and China. Highlighting the role of history, policy, and diplomacy, this book traces the origins and development of the India–China boundary problem during the British Raj. A.G. Noorani shows how British efforts to secure a defined boundary in the western sector began immediately after the creation of Jammu & Kashmir in 1846. However, in the eastern sector, such an exercise began only sixty-five years later, when a Chinese threat was perceived. Examining the role of the bureaucracy and diplomatic negotiations, the author presents a nuanced analysis of the treaties and conventions, as well as internal debates between British officials on conflicting policies. Breaking new ground, this book evaluates the relevance of the Indian Independence Act, 1947, and explains how the diplomatic history in the last hundred years shaped the boundary problem between India and China. What was a problem aggravated into a dispute that erupted in 1959. The central thesis is that history had direct relevance to the shaping of a sound policy. Based on archival research and unpublished material, this volume uses twenty-two appendices and fourteen maps to present a unique perspective on a long- standing problem.




India-China Boundary Problem, 1846-1947


Book Description

This volume discusses the origins and development of India's boundary dispute with China. It examines key issues like areas of dispute, treaties, agreements, and conventions, role of the bureaucracy, peace processes together with an analysis of earlier attempts at drawing a boundary line.




The Frontier Complex


Book Description

Reveals how British imperial border-making in the Himalayas transformed a crossroads into a borderland and geography into politics.




Article 370


Book Description

On 26 January 1950, the Constitution of India came into force with a unique provision—Article 370. The special status accorded to the state of Jammu and Kashmir in the article meant that its people lived under a different set of laws while being part of the Indian Union. Alternating deftly between history and politics, A.G. Noorani examines a wide range of documents pertaining to Article 370. He incisively analyses the implications and consequences of the article for the constitutional democracy of the state and the nation. From Jammu and Kashmir's accession to India in 1947 to the various negotiations thereafter; Sheikh Abdullah's arrest to the framing of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir and the replacement of Sadar-i-Riyasat, this book impeccably documents the little-known constitutional history of the state. Noorani underscores the politics behind the gradual erosion of Article 370 and the need for restoration of autonomy. Critically analysing the various judgments relating to this constitutional arrangement, he suggests a framework for resolving the 'Kashmir problem'. Collecting together rare, often unseen and unnoticed, letters, memoranda, white papers, proclamations, and amendments, this book will be an indispensable resource on Kashmir.




The Babri Masjid Question, 1528-2003


Book Description

History of Babri Masjid of Ayodhya (Faizabad, India) through its demolition and resultant litigation in various fora; contributed articles and documents.




Understanding the India-China Border


Book Description

In the summer of 2020, China and India came near to war. The nuclear-armed adversaries both massed troops and equipment along their disputed border in eastern Ladakh. The two sides slugged it out with fists, stones and clubs, next to a fast-flowing Himalayan stream, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries, many from hypothermia. The entire 4,000-kilometre Sino-Indian boundary is disputed. In 1962, the two countries fought a short and vicious war that went badly for India, and from which Nehru never recovered. The border, called the Line of Actual Control, is not marked on any map agreed upon by the two sides; it runs through the largely unpopulated and inhospitable high mountains of the Himalayas. From the 1990s, as Beijing and New Delhi sought to resolve their seemingly intractable border dispute, an elaborate system of agreements kept the situation akin to a kettle on a slow boil. But the kettle is now boiling over. The two rising Asian giants, both led by strongly nationalistic regimes, neither of which wishes to blink first, are seeking geopolitical and strategic advantage. This timely book explains what is happening on 'the roof of the world'; and why that matters for us all.




Independent Kashmir


Book Description

Many disenchanted Kashmiris continue to demand independence or freedom from India. Written by a leading authority on Kashmir’s troubled past, this book revisits the topic of independence for the region (also known as Jammu and Kashmir, or J&K), and explores exactly why this aspiration has never been fulfilled. In a rare India-Pakistan agreement, they concur that neither J&K, nor any part of it, can be independent. Charting a complex history and intense geo-political rivalry from Maharaja Hari Singh’s leadership in the mid-1920s to the present, this book offers an essential insight into the disputes that have shaped the region. As tensions continue to rise following government-imposed COVID-19 lockdowns, Snedden asks a vital question: what might independence look like and just how realistic is this aspiration?




The Northeast Question


Book Description

This book explores the idea, psychology and political geography of Northeast India as forged by two interrelated but autonomous meta-narratives. First, the politics of conflict inherent in, and therefore predetermined by physical geography, and second, the larger geopolitics that was unfolding during the colonial period. Unravelling the history behind the turmoil engulfing Northeast India, the study contends that certain geographies — most pertinently fertile river valleys and surrounding mountains which feed the rivers — are integral to nature and any effort to disrupt this cohesion will result in conflict. It comprehensively traces the geopolitics of the region since colonial era — in particular the Great Game; the politics that went into the making of the McMahon Line, the Radcliffe Line and the Pemberton Line; the region’s relations with its international neighbours (China, Bhutan, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Nepal); as well as the issue of many formerly non-state-bearing populations awakening to the reality of the modern state. Lucid and analytical, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of Northeast India, modern Indian history, international relations, defence and strategic studies, and political science.




International Law and the Reconceptualization of Territorial Boundaries


Book Description

This book critically analyzes the state-based regime of international law, eliciting its colonial and decolonial origins and proposing a new sub-regional basis for dealing with contemporary global challenges. Since 1648, public international law has taken many steps to maintain peace and establish a just order. The State is deemed central to each of these efforts. Yet modern challenges, such as environmental mitigation, mass migration, and the need to stimulate economic growth, overwhelm the State. Could a regional approach to these questions, achieved in conjunction with strong sub-national local governance, establish a more effective framework for systemic change? Drawing on a history of colonization and decolonization, while scrutinizing decisions made about the imposition of the State on the basis of colonial boundaries, this multidisciplinary work analyses why current challenges are unlikely to be adequately addressed through existing governance structures. In response, it advocates for a sub-regional, transnational approach, drawing on analyses of pre-colonial shared histories and contemporary population ethnographies unfettered by hegemonic boundary drawing. The book argues that collaboration across such frontiers in the face of climate and other challenges may offer more feasible approaches to the pursuit of peace than the unquestioned maintenance of state-based structures of inherited privilege. This book will appeal to scholars and others with interests in international law, international relations, and international politics, as well as in the history and politics of colonialism.




Age of Secession


Book Description

A novel analysis of secessionist movements, explaining state response, the likelihood of conflict, and the proliferation of states since 1945.