The Kashmir Conflict at a Crossroads

According to some international observers, the Kashmir conflict, now in its 75th year, entered a dangerous new phase in August 2019, when India's Hindu nationalist government unleashed a policy of draconian repression in Indian-administered Kashmir. The conflict is simmering dangerously amid continuing repression, a low-level insurgency, and abysmal relations between India and Pakistan. Since 2020, China has moved from the background to the foreground of the conflict by flexing its military power on the disputed territory's eastern border, which has resulted in an alarming and protracted high-Himalayan confrontation between the Indian and Chinese armed forces. Kashmir is a tinderbox in more ways than one, in a volatile regional environment rendered even more uncertain by the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan. The eruption of a major crisis in the near future is probable.

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The Kashmir Conflict at a Crossroads

This webinar was held on Tuesday 7 December 2021.

Anuradha Bhasin is the Executive Editor of Kashmir Times, Indian-administered Jammu & Kashmir's oldest English daily newspaper (established 1964). She was a Commonwealth Fellow in 2016. In August 2019, Ms Bhasin petitioned India's Supreme Court against the drastic curbs imposed on J&K's media by India's Hindu nationalist government, which led to the court mildly censoring the government in January 2020. Ms Bhasin is the author of a forthcoming book (2022) on life in Indian-administered Jammu & Kashmir since August 2019. Her father Ved Bhasin (1929-2015) was the doyen of print journalism in Kashmir.

Sumantra Bose is a comparative political scientist. He is the author of Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a 21st-Century Conflict, published globally by Yale University Press in November 2021. The book, also published in an India edition by Pan Macmillan India under the Picador imprint, has had advance reviews in Foreign Affairs, The Literary Review and The Independent, among other media. Professor Bose is the author of seven previous books including Secular States, Religious Politics: India, Turkey, and the Future of Secularism (Cambridge), Transforming India: Challenges to the World's Largest Democracy (Harvard), Contested Lands: Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus, and Sri Lanka (Harvard), and Bosnia after Dayton: Nationalist Partition and International Intervention (Oxford). You can enter discount code YKASH on the checkout page of the Yale University Press website for 30% off Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a 21st-Century Conflict.

Manish Tewari is a Member of India's Parliament, elected to its Lok Sabha (House of the People) from Punjab state. He is a national spokesperson of the Indian National Congress and the general secretary of its foreign affairs department. Mr Tewari is a former Minister of State (independent charge) of Information and Broadcasting of the Government of India. A prolific columnist in Indian media, he has been a distinguished senior fellow of the Atlantic Council. Mr Tewari is a practicing lawyer in India's Supreme Court.

Meet the chair

Christopher Coker is Director of LSE IDEAS and former Professor of International Relations at LSE.

Event hashtag: #LSEKashmir

LSE IDEAS (@lseideas) is LSE's foreign policy think tank. Through sustained engagement with policymakers and opinion-formers, IDEAS provides a forum that informs policy debate and connects academic research with the practice of diplomacy and strategy.