Serving the Militant’s Cause: The Role of Indo-Pak State Policies in Sustaining Militancy in Kashmir
| Author | Syed Eesar Mehdi |
| DOI | 10.1177/2347797020939012 |
| Date | 01 August 2020 |
| Published date | 01 August 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Review Essay |
Serving the Militant’s
Cause: The Role of
Indo-Pak State Policies
in Sustaining Militancy
in Kashmir
Syed Eesar Mehdi1
C. Christine Fair. 2019. In Their Own Words: Understanding Lashkar-
e-Tayyaba. Oxford University Press. 307 pp. ISBN: 978-0-19-949521-4.
David Devadas. 2018. The Generation of Rage in Kashmir. Oxford
University Press. 223 pp. ISBN: 978-0-19-947799-9.
Rao Farman Ali. 2017. History of Armed Struggle in Kashmir. Jay Kay
Books. 304 pp. ISBN: 978-93-83908-64-6.
Abstract
The essay explores three recently published books on the origins of militancy
in Kashmir. In short, they all find that two causal factors are responsible for the
insurgency’s ability to endure. First, the unending muscular security policy of
India coupled with its explicit integrationist approach that triggered alienation by
squeezing the democratic space of Kashmiris. Second, the role played by Pakistan
in strongly backing the menagerie of militant groups for weakening political and
territorial control of India over Kashmir. These books rely on a series of case
studies of the different militant groups that have operated in Kashmir: most
notably, Al-Fatah, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), Hizbul
Mujahedeen (HM) and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT). The emergence of Al-Fatah and
JKLF was an offshoot of New Delhi’s iron-fist approach compounded with the
dwindling of democratic space. Pakistan played a major role in the creation of HM
and LeT by invoking Islam and Muslim identity as mobilising factors. These books,
in their own different ways, identify a teleological shift in the thinking, strategies
and operations of the militant groups, and this essay tries to extrapolate this by
outlining the key markers of distinction between the old and new militancy.
1 Department of International Relations, South Asian University, New Delhi, Delhi, India.
Corresponding author:
Syed Eesar Mehdi, Department of International Relations, South Asian University, New Delhi, Delhi
110021, India.
E-mail: Eesar.mehdi@gmail.com
Journal of Asian Security
and International Affairs
7(2) 244–255, 2020
The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/2347797020939012
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Review Essay
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