South Asia Revision

Metcalf — Imperial Connections, India and the Indian Ocean

• Article talks about India’s role in supporting the British Empire, in particular how its contribution to manpower and resources

• Created debate over whether the British Raj should have relative autonomy and the ability to be imperial

Satia — “Turning Space into Place”

• Role of India in shaping the area of Mesopotamia into Iraq, and how that shaped Indian identity

• Perspective on nationality and identity in the region

• Debates on governance, territory, decentralization, and identity

Annand — “Strategic Hypocrisy”

• Piece examines Britain’s complex approach to colonialism and how it strategically used diplomacy to manage and utilise the area of Tibet for trade between India and China

Manela — Wilsonian Moment

• Book uses the Wilsonian moment, that is the movement inspired by Wilson’s 14 points as well as the creation of the League of Nations

• Creates a framework that establishes nationalist movements as existing outside of the nation, that are created not just domestically but perpetuated by international/transnational events and actors

Framke, “Political Humanitarianism in the 1930s”

• Piece analyses how humanitarian aid reflects the political stance of countries, how it is utilised in order to gain recognition and establish legitimacy in the international system

• Uses the case of India’s humanitarian aid in the Spanish Civil War in order to show how India’s support of the Spanish Republicans reflected India’s stance towards anti-imperialism and independence

• Aid can give recognition to these ideas and legitimize India’s ability to be independent

Singh, “Jodh Singh, The Ghadar Movement and the Anti-Colonial Deviant in the Anglo-American Imagination”

• Piece analyses how everyday individuals can be shaped by a 2 way current between movements and the public

• How movements and nations percieve migrants shape how migrants percieved themselves

• Imaginations turned to belief

• Uses the case of Jodh Singh in America to understand how racism and estrangement from the Ghadar movement drove Singh insane which further fueled anti-indian racism in America

Baghavan — “A New Hope: India, the United Nations and the Making of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”

• Piece focuses on the role India played in shaping the UN in hopes of utilising it to create a world state, or at least fight for India’s values and goals of independence and anti-imperialism

  • Importance of the interplay between States and institutions and how they work with each other to survive/grow and how national interest dictates how states percieved the use of institutions for their benefit

Davis & Thakur — “Walking the Thin Line: India's Anti-Racist Diplomatic Practice in South Africa, Canada, and Australia, 1946-55”

• Focuses on the day-to-day practices of diplomats and how they carry the ideals of the state and translate it into diplomatic discussions

• Challenges dominant view that Nehruvian ideals were moralistic and not practically applied, and shows that diplomats used the ideals in order to challenge imperial and racial order within the international

• Day-to-day practice shows how diplomats, no matter how small the action, made changes in states they engaged in diplomatic relatioons with

• How Identity drives policy

Naduyu — “‘In the very eye of the storm’: India, the UN, and the Lebanon crisis of 1958”

• Importance of India’s role as mediator in civil crises and preventing the escalation of a civil war to a regional or international war.

• Nehru’s interest in preventing US neo-imperialism influenced the rational process behind India’s intervention.

• Through the use of the UN and the establishment of the Observation group,

• Foundations for which future UN peacekeeping missions would take from in order to aid in future crises and giving a voice to Asiatic countries who were at risk of unnecessary escalation

  • Challenges the perception of Nehruvian politics merely being moralistic and spoken, conceptions of identity leading policy

  • Importance of diplomacy in achieving middle ground

  • How Identity and national interests affect stance and policy

  • Promotion of Internationalism through the UN

Abraham — “From Bandung to NAM: Non-alignment and Indian Foreign Policy, 1947–65”

• Talks about the shift in Indian foreign policy identity during the course of the Asian Relations, Afro-Asian, and Non-Aligned conferences

• Non-alignment was not an immediate stance from Nehru’s India, but rather it was a slow creation as a result of the conferences.

• Shift from the fight against imperialism towards ensuring a non-aligned South Asia devoid of any Cold War entanglements

  • In an attempt to be a regional leader, claimed non-alignment in order to prevent any cold war alliances to form but ultimately failed

Singh, “From Delhi to Bandung: Nehru, ‘Indian-ness’ and ‘Pan-Asian-ness’”

• Analyses how India sought to be a a region builder through the conferences by aligning values of “Indian-ness” towards “Asian-ness”

• Attempt at aligning "Non-alignment” towards “Pan-Asianism” failed as sstates saw insecurity with one another leading towards alignment with superpowers in order to gain security against each other

Stolte, “’The Asiatic Hour’, New perspectives on the Asian Relations Conference, New Delhi, 1947”

• Chapter seeks to redefine the basis of the Asian Relations Conference, as it shows that the ideas established in the conference has been around for some time during the Interwar period. It also highlights how its choice of location reflects India’s desire to become a region builder, and the challenges that entails with regards to meanings of being Asian, of leadership within the region, and the redefinition of Asia as a space.

  • How the Asian Relations Conference reflects a bridging between Interwar ideas and post-World War realities and aspirations for decolonisation and in the wake of the Cold War power blocs

Taylor C. Sherman, Nehru's India : A History in Seven Myths

• Piece on Non-Alignment attempts to show that policy of non-alignment was not all that it was in Indian Foreign policy actions, showing that there were complexities and realities of India’s foreign policy

• Rather than an idea of looking away at the superpowers, non-alignment sought to rather not entangle India in any Cold War conflict

  • Benefitted from both superpowers

  • Internationalism, attempt to shape foreign policy around cooperation and friendship

  • however, this attempt at cooperation, in particular within the neighborhood, was not without challenge as it had issues with stataes such as Pakistan and China with regards to territory, population, and identity leading to tensions around the cohesiveness of its foreign policy

T. V. Paul “The India-Pakistan Conflict : An Enduring Rivalry”

• Article describes the dynamics of India and Pakistan’s enduring rivalry

• Enduring rivalry: a rivalry that has existed for a long time

• Rivalry centers around the conflict regarding Kashmir

  • Conflict of territory and identity as Kashmir is a muslium majority state

• Truncated asymettric conflict defined by a naturally stronger India but countered by Pakistan’s alliances with the US and China

R. Chaudhuri, “‘Just another border incident’: The Rann of Kutch and the 1965 India–Pakistan War”

• Article studies the Rann of Kutch incident in 1965 and how it impact Pakistan’s future calculations regarding Kashmir

• Not just another border incident, had precedent over calculations leading up to the September 1965 war

• Intervention by the British and Americans led Ayub Khan to believe that if Pakistan went to war over Kashmir then they would do the same with that

• India’s weak position further added to the war calculus

• However UK and US did not intervene, instead USSR and the UN intervene

Pallavi Raghavan, Animosity at Bay: An Alternative History of the India-Pakistan Relationship, 1947-1952

• Raghavan talks about the dynamics of the Indo-Pakistani relationship, arguing it is cooperational alongisde confrontational

• Conflict is not just an issue of security, but also how India and Pakistan dealt with the final parts of partition

• Partition gave reason for the states to exist, as the partition divieded them in a way that they are so different to need to become 2 differnt states

• Ultimately conflict and diplomacy between the 2 states reflect an ongoing debate on partion and attempts to finalize it

Joya Chatterji, “The Fashioning of a Frontier: The Radcliffe Line and Bengal's Border Landscape, 1947- 52”

• Article debates and critiques the way the Radcliff Line is created

• Surgical metaphor assumes partition was clean and effective, leading to better outcomes

• However metaphor overlooks the complexities, trauma, and damage caused as a result of a messy partition

• Failed to partition based on local dynamics and instead on political demands

• Uneven and unfair considerations of the borderline lead to conflict and violence within the populations who felt they were mistreated by being assigned to a country they didn’t want to be a part of

Sumit Ganguly, The crisis in Kashmir: Portents of War (1998)

• Article provides an alternative explanation over the reason the conflict in Kashmir existed

• 4 main strands of thought

  • Pakistan perpetuated islamist activity and fueled anti-Indian violence in Kashmir

  • India backstabbed and mistreated Kashmir leading to rebellion

  • Ethnoreligious fragmentation and discourse

  • Circumstantial accounts

• These all fail to accomodate each other and often miss the mark

• Ganguly’s explanation is that Kashmir was attributed to institutional decline, political mobilisation, and ethnoreligous mobilization

  • Institutional decline attributed to lack of institutional development since the authoritarian and restrictive rule of Sheikh Abdullah

  • Political mobilisation attributed to India’s focus on developing the Kashmiri state, people more exposed to news, radio, and television

  • Ethnoreligious mobilization attributed to unique diversity of Kashmir as well as mobilization to gain concessions

• Disregard for the autonomy of Kashmir and Pakistan’s fueling of islamist thinking led to degredation of the Kashmiri state leading to insurgency

Ashutosh Varshney, “India, Pakistan, and Kashmir: Antinomies of Nationalism”

• This piece covers a more state-centric approach to the Kashmiri question, showing the sociopolitical dimensions of the conflict, showing how conflicting ideas of nationalism would lead to emotional conflict within the people of Kashmir.

• Ultimately, the rising encroachment in India as well as the decreasing ideas of autonomy and identity for the Kashmiris leading to feelings of betrayal and mistrust paved the way for militancy and why Kashmir sides with Pakistan to fight against India.

• The antimonies of nationalism conflicted and created fractures within Kashmir’s own government which had a spiral effect on India and then Pakistan’s views on the nation. Because of India’s growing control in Kashmir, there was a rise of ethnic nationalism within Kashmir who increasingly wanted autonomy.

  • Interplay between Kashmiri identity and national interests between India and Pakistan

Kabir Ananya Jahanara, “Territory of Desire : Representing the Valley of Kashmir”

• This chapter focuses on the interplay between cinema and national desire, showing how it depicts India’s interests in Kashmir and it shapes views, ideas, interests, and identity of the region

• Bollywood depicts Kashmir as a place of romance and desire, as not many Indians know of the reality of the area

  • Displays the desire to transform the region, turn it into a place of opportunity

    • Reflects India’s want to develop the state

  • Leads to misrepresentation of reality, often ignoring the horrors of conflict

• Kashmiri moviemakers on the other hand, utilise the camera in order to project the traumas and damage done as a result of conflict serving as a means to critique Bollywood and show reality as is; fetichism par excellence

Bérénice Guyot-Réchard — Shadow States : India, China and the Himalayas, 1910-1962

• Talks about how China and India both lay claim to the Himilayan regions

• India claims Assam through the McMahon Line

• China claims the southern part of Aksai Chin over historical claims of Beijing’s protection of the Dalai Lama

• Both India and China compete with each other over Tibet through economic and social development in the region, attempting to sway the opinions of the populations in order to gain their favor

• Idea of “Shadow states” in influencing the populations through development and incorporation

  • Like Shadow governments in Westminister Parliamentary system, acting against each other to gain the favor of the region

Garver — “The security dilemma in Sino‐Indian relations”

• Describes the security dilemma between China and India

• China is seen as becoming a bigger threat to India, especially as it expands its influnece in South Asia and the Indian Ocean

  • Chinese economic interests in the region lead it to engage in economic cooperation with many states there

  • Ports in Pakistan and Myanmar

• India sees this as a challenge to Indian hegemony and influence, thus shifts its foreign policy to aim towards econonmic cooperation with its neighbors

  • Look East policy

• China sees Indian influence in Tibet as a challenge to Chinese security, and that a Tibetan India would be a threat to China’s borders

  • Indian utlisation of Tibetan population as military and a buffer

• Pakistan acts as a counterbalance to India, dissuades it from being confrontational with China

Miller — “Re-collecting Empire: “Victimhood” and the 1962 Sino-Indian War”

• Miller provides an alternative framework for explaining China and India’s conflict in Tibet, seeing it as both powers wanting the region as entitltement and compensation for years of suffering under colonialism

• China and the “Century of Humliation”

• India and British occupation

• Post Imperial Ideology — want of states to pursue international recognition as victims of imperialism and expecting compensation and entitlement

• Leads to little room for negotation, both want to maximise their territorial sovereignty to become recognized

• This unwillingness to compromise leads to deadlock, ultimately leading to the 1962 war

Graham — “The Eisenhower Administration and Public Diplomacy in India: An Ambivalent Engagement, 1953–1960”

• Piece talks about the ambivalence of the Eisenhower administration’s public view on India, how it displays its views towards it on a public level and how it translates towards relations between the 2 countries

• Mismatched connection between foreign policy and public diplomacy reflect misunderstanding of Indian intentions, especially during the time of non-alignment

• Failure to connect with commonalities of both Indian and American interests further prevented any meaningful relationship to grow, as America contradicted itself on many occasions, from issues on racism to ideology, often missing the mark and leading to miscommunication and disagreement

• Alliance with Pakistan further soured relations

• Importance of text is the importance of the relationship between Public diplomacy and foreign policy. Both have to be in line with one another to send a clear message to the target state, and establish a clear bilateral relationship. America’s ambivalence drove India away

McMahon — “On the Periphery of a Global Conflict: India and the Cold War, 1947-1991”

• Piece studies the shift of Indian foreign policy during the years of the Cold War, showing how despite being a strong proponent of non-alignment, India was willing to compromise in order to accommodate to the shifting dynamics of Cold War superpowers

• Strict non-alignment towards non-committment

  • Original non-alignment drove India and america apart

    • American intervention in Vietnam and Korea further soured relations, Alliance with Pakistan drove India to seek relations with USSR and PRC

• Sino-Indian split resulted in the Sino-Soviet split as a result of the 1962 War over Tibet

• Tried to go back to the US for support after USSR backtracks, but slow response and USSR returning to supporting India results in recooperating with the USSR

• Article reflects the reflexivity of Indian foreign policy and shows how it adapted its policy to fit the current situation of the Cold War

Engerman — The Price of Aid : The Economic Cold War in India

• Piece talks about the idea of an Economic Cold War in India, how both the US and USSR pushed for influence over the country through economic cooperation and development

• Unique relationship between domestic politics and foreign aid, they played into each other and influenced how the other would act

• Demonstrates how India benefitted from both superpowers, but also how it was influenced by the aid domestically

  • Cunning ability of Indian diplomats to steer the dynamics of Cold War rivalry allowed them to shape what support they got and who they got it from

• Relationship between development and institutional capacity, efficacy of development projects depended on India’s capacity to recieve and implement them

• Bihlal steel plant from the USSR and Nuclear development from the US

Sagar, “Hindu Nationalists and the Cold War”

• Piece looks at Hindu Nationalism during the course of the Cold War and how it shifted until the coming of the BJP

  • Particularly, it analysed the perception each state had on relations with the US

• Chapter redresses the notion that Hindu Nationalism, and in particular the BJP was particularly a militaristic politcal faction

• Each faction resonated with many ideological aspects of the US , especially with regards to liberty, democracy, and religious freedom

• However, what undermined this potentila relationship was the Hindu nationalist worries of Capitalism and Materialism that was dominant in American Culture, a common theme in each faction

• Each faction had the same goal of agressing the reclaiming of Hindu as the key Indian way of life

  • How to reclaim it after being lost and corrupted through colonialism

• The Hindu Mahasabha was particularly fond of the US as it stood against Communism and the Soviets as they saw them as imperialist

  • after the events in Turkey and partnership with Pakistan however they became disillusioned

• The Jan Sangh focused on internal development and self-reliance in order to develop, however it failed to come up with potential policies on how to achieve this

• The BJP follow closely with Ghandi’s ideals of rejecting modernity and technology, and rather focused on cooperation with the south in order to develop

  • Understood technological advances are needed in order to develop, however moral disagreements hold it back from making any meaningful policies of development

  • The end of the Cold War would exasperate these anxieties as a BJP-led India would need to recalibrate itself to an America-dominated world

Huju, “Saffronizing diplomacy: the Indian Foreign Service under Hindu nationalist rule”

• Piece studies the saffronization of the Indian Foreign Service, that is the transition away from cosmopolitanism and towards hindu nationalisation

• A unique case as the IFS is relatively autonomous compared to its counterparts in the US and other countries; helps understand how bureaurcracy change in reaction to a populist regime

• The slow internalization of the political norms of the new government reflect a resistance towards change

• Furthermore this disjointedness highlights the difference of social class and how the status of bureaucrats is undermined and threatened by the new government whose values are not reflected and reciprocated

• IFS engrained in postcolonal/Nehruvian ideal of cosmopolitanism and internationalism, much of the heads there belonging to the old elite

  • Thus the saffronization of the IFS reflects a rejection of not only the traditional Nehruvian thought, but also the generations of bureaucrats that have served before

  • As the criteria for who can be a bureaucrat widens, new generations come from a more majoritarian background and making the old anglicised elite fade

• This double rejection represents a true populist shift, one that rejects the elite in favor for true pluralism, for the majority

Hall, “Multialignment and Indian Foreign Policy under Narendra Modi”

• Article analyses the shift away from non-alignment towards multialignment

• Response to the shift towards multialignment reflect a change in accordance to the new unipolar/multipolar system

• Multialignment as a way to recover India’s economic and poltiical losses after the fall of the Soviet Union

  • Seeking new relations with the Look East policy, to find new partners in Asia in light of the rising threat of China

  • Attempt to reach out the the US through nuclearization, however falls short due to reasons previously stated (values align but disdain for materialism and capitalism)

• Focus on economic foreign policy was made to enhance cooperation with neighbors

• Idea of normative hedging, that is to bank on certain normative frameworks that work in India’s favor and not committing to one singular system

• Through multialignment, India was able to maintain and accelerate economic development and solve political/security challenges by gaining influence within the region.

• Its exposure to more global forums made it a more important voice in the international system, giving it more clout to work with

  • BRICS and ASEAN