Introducing Nathalène Reynolds
Dr Nathalène Reynolds is Associate at the Pakistan Security Research Unit of Durham University and member of the Banque d’Experts at the Réseau de recherche sur les opérations de paix (ROP) of the Université de Montréal.
As an appetizer, a key observation in “Geopolitics of Jammu and Kashmir”:
Kashmir, ‘under Indian administration’ according to the expression adopted by the Security Council, is undoubtedly the example par excellence of a nationalism which refuses to be relegated to the level of mere regionalism.
Dr Leonhardt van Efferink founded ExploringGeopolitics in 2009. Since then, the website has published over 200 contributions by more than 130 scholars. To celebrate its 10-year anniversary, ExploringGeopolitics invited its contributors in 2020 to reflect on geopolitical trends in the 21st century. Two questions play a central role. What was the main trend in the 2010s? And what will be the most important trend in the 2020s?
Kashmir, ‘under Indian administration’ according to the expression adopted by the Security Council, is undoubtedly the example par excellence of a nationalism which refuses to be relegated to the level of mere regionalism. At the end of the 1980s, Kashmiris took up arms, demanding the organisation of a plebiscite that India had undertaken to conduct after the accession at the end of October 1947 of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir to the federation it formed. History (and India) decided otherwise; a cease-fire line was defined in July 1949, cutting the principality into two parts, while India proceeded to integrate the part of the princely state in its possession.
The state of Jammu and Kashmir, and in particular the Kashmir Valley, was – at the end of the 1980s – the stage on which ideological and strategic rivalry between India and Pakistan was played out.
The state of Jammu and Kashmir, and in particular the Kashmir Valley, was – at the end of the 1980s – the stage on which ideological and strategic rivalry between India and Pakistan was played out. The two countries confronted one another, one employing its security forces, the other the armed militants it dispatched. It was not until 2008 that there was a resurgence of a truly popular movement, with the kani jung or the stone thrower movement; young people, who had witnessed the trauma and humiliations of their elders, challenged the path of submission.
A presidential decree dated August 5th, 2019 repealed the constitutional clauses (Articles 35-A and 370) which guaranteed – at least on paper – the special status which Jammu and Kashmir had until then enjoyed.
No doubt these few lines should look at the recent decision of the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A presidential decree dated August 5th, 2019 repealed the constitutional clauses (Articles 35-A and 370) which guaranteed – at least on paper – the special status which Jammu and Kashmir had until then enjoyed. In addition, on October 30th, 2019, the Indian Parliament hastily adopted legislation which reduced the Divisions of Jammu and Kashmir on the one hand, and the Division of Ladakh on the other hand to the status of Union Territories, i.e. entities administered directly by New Delhi. Finally, the Valley was placed under what was to all intents and purposes a quasi-state of siege, its communications with the rest of the world cut, and the security forces ordering any outsiders to leave Kashmir immediately.
The ‘international community’ thus continues to afford India plenty of leeway to deal with Kashmir more or less as it sees fit, in defiance of the principle of the right to self-determination.
As in the past, world powers, many of whom being all to ready to flatter the ‘world’s largest democracy’, turn a blind eye to the terrible repression to which the Kashmiri civilian population has been subjected since the beginning of the 1990s. At the session of the Security Council which Pakistan (with China’s support) finally managed to bring about, on August 8th, 2019, UN Secretary-General António Guterres simply indicated that he was following the situation in Jammu and Kashmir “with concern”, and making an appeal for “maximum restraint”. The ‘international community’ thus continues to afford India plenty of leeway to deal with Kashmir more or less as it sees fit, in defiance of the principle of the right to self-determination. Moreover, Kashmiris are rightly worried about the change in the demographic balance in their region.