Protracted international conflicts in South Asia: the route to intractability in the Kashmir conflict 1947-1990

The central concern of the thesis is a detailed analysis of protracted international conflicts (PICs) in a bid to explain how and why certain international conflicts become intractable. The manner in which a conflict becomes protracted is a fundamental question that confronts any analyst of contemporary international conflicts. Is protractedness a property of particular sorts of conflicts or is it associated with specific types of actors in a conflict? Is it a concatenation of such dimensions? Or is protractedness a product of circumstances? Moreover, protractedness may be latent, if so, it is necessary to study the actual and potential triggers that lead to a protracted state of conflict. In short, the nature of protracted conflicts has been ill-defined. It is the purpose of the thesis to develop a sharper definition of PIC and elucidate its causes, patterns and underlying processes. The present thesis has been developed in the specific context of South Asia through a case study of the Kashmir conflict, 1947-1990. In explaining the route to intractability of the conflict, specific attention has been paid to its origin in 1947 over the status of the Princely state of Kashmir, its persistence and linkage with other issues and conflicts, and its occasional flare ups in military hostilities and violence, including its latest transformation into a secessionist insurgency supplanting the inter-state conflict. The origin of a conflict has been viewed in the thesis as an outcome of a complex process of linkages and polarisation in which other conflicts, issues and actors coalesce over a salient issue. The salient issue itself may be an outcome of a prior conflictual process. Left to itself, the conflict coagulates internally and, at the same time, links up with other issues or conflicts to become intractable and resistant to resolution. The conflict may also transform itself as new issues and parties are added to the old dispute. In short, it develops a life of its own.