Conflicts Without End: The Case of South Asia
| DOI | 10.1177/2347797017751707 |
| Published date | 01 April 2018 |
| Date | 01 April 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Review Essay |
Review Essay
Conflicts Without End:
The Case of South Asia
Amit Ranjan1
Bidisha Biswas. 2014. Managing Conflicts in India: Policies of Coercion and
Accommodation. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 130 pp. ISBN 978-1-49852-561-9.
Shaun Gregory (ed.). 2016. Democratic Transition and Security in Pakistan.
Oxon, UK: Routledge, 298 pp. ISBN 978-1-138-84218-2.
Samanth Subramanian. 2015. This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan
War. Gurgaon, India: Penguin, 320 pp. ISBN 978-0670-08603-00.
Introduction
India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have all faced domestic conflicts since independence
of the Indian subcontinent from the waning British Empire in the late 1940s.
Identity politics has been one of the leading factors behind these conflicts, closely
followed by injustice meted to people belonging to religious and ethnic minority
groups. Identity-based conflicts and the use of counter violence by their respective
states is not sui generis to South Asia but is a common characteristic of postcolonial
countries. Nonetheless, such conflicts became notably aggravated within South
Asia since 1970s when an idea of nationalism had morphed into ethnic politics and
gave rise to the intrastate violence that afflicts most of postcolonial countries
(Chatterjee, 1993, p. 1). The security situation after many of these conflicts died
down during the 1990s although several continue to linger on through to today.
The three books reviewed in this essay deal with a number of different conflicts
in the three South Asian countries. Managing Conflicts in India analyses Indian
state’s effort to tackle conflicts in the Kashmir Valley, Punjab and in areas affected
by Left Wing Extremists (LWE). This book discusses the specific case of India to
explain how the steps taken by a democracy to address conflicts differ little from
how a non-democratic country deals with their conflicts. Democratic Transition
and Security in Pakistan is not primarily focussed on conflicts, but the country cannot
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this essay are personal and do not reflect the official position or
policies of the institute.
1 Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Corresponding author:
Amit Ranjan, Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore, Singapore.
E-mail: amitranjan.jnu@gmail.com
Journal of Asian Security
and International Affairs
5(1) 84–97
2018 SAGE Publications India
Private Limited
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2347797017751707
http://journals.sagepub.com/home/aia
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