Invitation

UNESCO Madanjeet Singh Institute of South Asian Regional Cooperation (UMISARC) Pondicherry University

Cordially invites you to a talk on “Kashmir”
on December 16, 2011 (Friday) at 10:30 am to 12:30 pm

By Dr. Paul Wallace

About the Speaker: Dr. Paul Wallace (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley) is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He has been a consultant on South Asia to a member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the US Attorney General’s Office, defense lawyers, and other agencies in North America and has received five Smithsonian funded awards for national election studies in India. In 2009, he twice served as a consultant to the U.S. government in Washington, DC on India.

His research in India includes a Senior Fulbright Research Award, and funding from the Ford Foundation, the American institute of Indian Studies and various government and non- government groups in India. Professor Wallace is the author or editor of eight books and 40+ book chapters and articles. His last edited book, with Ramashray Roy, is India’s 2011 Elections: Coalition Politics, Party Competition and Congress Continuity” Sage Publications, 2011, 399 pp.; their 4th India election book with Sage.

His most notable terrorism chapter publication is “Counterterrorism in India: Khalistan & Kashmir” in Democracy and Counterterrorism: Lessons from the Past (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace) 2007, pp. 425-482. Recent publications include “Kashmir; ”and “Sikh Terrorism” in Frank Ciment ed., Encyclopedia of World Terrorism, 3d edition (Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, 2011) and “Sikh Militancy and Non-Violence,” in Pashaura Singh (ed.), Sikhism in Global Context (India: Oxford University Press, 2011).

About the talk: Kashmir has a volatile trend line stemming from its division between India and Pakistan in 1947. Periods of what can be considered “normalcy” in India’s Kashmir has alternated with large-scale protests and violence. External factors include three major and one secondary war - Kargil - between India and Pakistan, jihadists from Pakistan engaged in terrorism, and the role of China. The religious diversity found in these regions is striking: the valley has a Muslim majority population (Sunni with heavy Sufi influence); Jammu has majority Hindu with Muslim and Sikh minorities; Ladakh has a Buddhist majority (Tibetan affiliated); Azad Kashmir is predominantly Sunni Muslim; and Gilgit-Baltistan is predominantly Muslim (Shia and Sunni).

In 1947, Kashmir was one of the 569 independent principalities of British colonial India. These so-called princely states of India had the option of choosing accession to either India or Pakistan. Although it was contiguous to both India and Pakistan, it had a Hindu ruler, Raja Hari Singh - in contrast to the majority Muslim population. Armed tribals invaded Kashmir resulting in the Raja acceding to India, thus making Kashmir the only Muslim majority state in predominantly Hindu India. The two countries have fought three major wars over the issue - in 1965, 1971, and 1999 - but the issue remains unresolved.

Venue: UMISARC Auditorium Silver Jubilee Campus Pondicherry University

Prof. N.K. Jha
Director, UMISARC