States, locals and cross-border cooperation in Kashmir: Is secondary foreign policy in making in South Asia?

ABSTRACT

This article interrogates the state-centric notion of border and security in Kashmir and examines the non-state, and non-central government, actors in the borderland evolution. It analyses the border-related peace initiatives and examines the following questions: Are the initiatives purely state centric? Are the non-central government actors totally absent in the bordering practice in the Kashmir borderland? Is the secondary foreign policy as a tool for cross-border cooperation apparent in the region under scrutiny? Secondary foreign policy, a concept which has become recently vogue in border discourse in Europe, emphasizes on non-federal actors, particularly at a local level, and their role in shaping relations in border regions. Drawing on the literature on borders and qualitative field research, the article examines whether the recent border evolution in Kashmir has witnessed activism at two planes: grass-roots non-state actors and non-central government.

KEYWORDS:

• Kashmir
• border
• conflict
• India
• South Asia
• secondary foreign policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For the protracted nature of the conflict, particularly the state–people vertical conflictual relationship, see Mahapatra (forthcoming).

2. For an elaborate study of the history of Kashmir, see Hassnain (1974) and Raina (1988).

3. Under the Mountbatten Act, 1947, which facilitated the partition of British India, princely states had to accede to India or Pakistan. British India had two types of political entities: territories which were governed directly by the British, and princely states which were under British suzerainty but ruled by native rulers.

4. For details of these territorial adjustments, see Mahapatra (2013: 24–26).