Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Relations since 1947 FROM THE PUBLISHER
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.
SYNOPSIS
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
FROM THE CRITICS
Foreign Affairs
In his brilliant new book, [Ganguly] provides a sophisticated and lucid explanation of why India and Pakistan have suffered such chronically bad relations. Conflict Unending sets the industry standard . . . and it cements Ganguly's reputation as one of the world's leading experts on subcontinental political affairs.
Stephen P. Cohen
This outstanding examination of the India-Pakistan conflict is indispensable reading for the scholar and policymaker. Sumit Ganguly offers a guide to its deeper origins and its dangerous manifestations with clarity and rigor. Dr. Ganguly has explored the reasons for India-Pakistan discord; his book is a major contribution to our understanding of what has emerged as one of the world´s major trouble spots.
Kanti Bajpai
This is a worthy successor to The Origins of War in South Asia, the author´s well-known study of conflict between India and Pakistan. . . . a highly readable and instructive guide to this deeply troubled and violent relationship, and a must for scholars of South Asia, students of intractable international conflicts, and policymakers.
Arms Control Today
Into this vague understanding [of the India-Pakistan conflict] strides the refreshingly direct Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions since 1947, a book that manages to explicate the origins and evolution of South Asian political and military strife in a manner that is both straightforward and nuanced...making Conflict Unending's clear account of the core motivations at work both timely and significant.
Library Journal
Since 1947 and independence from the British, India and Pakistan have gone to war in 1947-48, 1965, 1971, and 1999. With the exception of the 1971 war over East Pakistan, the occupation of Kashmir has provided the focal point for each conflict. Ganguly (Asian studies and government, Univ. of Texas, Austin) presents a concise, dispassionate summary of each Indo-Pakistani conflict. With Kashmir always in the foreground, he destroys as a basis of conflict the popular, monolithic view of Pakistan as an Islamic state and India as a secular entity. Probing deeper, Ganguly contends that Pakistani aggression has emanated from a false sense that India was too apathetic to meet a military challenge. He convincingly argues that this poor military analysis is rooted in the arrested development of Pakistan's democratic institutions. In the case of the 1999 Kargil conflict, Ganguly, however, points to Indian complacency as the root of Pakistan's perception of India's weakness. With both nations now in possession of nuclear arms, Ganguly (The Crisis of Kashmir) proposes a solution for the conflict over Kashmir in making the Line of Control permanent and greatly weakening Kashmir's federal relationship with India. For most libraries. John F. Riddick, Central Michigan Univ. Lib., Mount Plesant Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
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