The Himalayan Border Region

Drawing from extensive archival work and long-term ethnographic research, this book focuses on the so-called Bhotiyas, former trans-Himalayan traders and a Scheduled Tribe of India who reside in several high valleys of the Kumaon Himalaya. The area is located in the border triangle between India, the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR, People’s Republic of China), and Nepal, where contestations over political boundaries have created multiple challenges as well as opportunities for local mountain communities. Based on an analytical framework that is grounded in and contributes to recent advances in the field of border studies, the author explores how the Bhotiyas have used their agency to develop a flourishing trans-Himalayan trade under British colonial influence; to assert an identity and win legal recognition as a tribal community in the political setup of independent India; and to innovate their pastoral mobility in the context of ongoing state and market reforms. By examining the Bhotiyas’ trade, identity and mobility this book shows how and why the Himalayan border region has evolved as an agentive site of political action for a variety of different actors.

Ravina Aggarwal explores how the conflict over Kashmir between India & Pakistan has affected the Buddhist & Muslim communities of Ladakh, part of Kashmir that lies high in the Himalayas.

An inspiring reconception of the India-China border as a space for the fluid exchange of culture, trade, and government

The Sino-Indian War of 1962 delivered a crushing defeat to India: not only did the country suffer a loss of lives and a heavy blow to its pride, the world began to see India as the provocateur of the war, with China ‘merely defending’ its territory. This perception that China was largely the innocent victim of Nehru’s hostile policies was put forth by journalist Neville Maxwell in his book India’s China War, which found readers in many opinion makers, including Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon. For far too long, Maxwell’s narrative, which sees India as the aggressor and China as the victim, has held court. Nearly 50 years after Maxwell’s book, Bertil Lintner’s China’s India War puts the ‘border dispute’ into its rightful perspective. Lintner argues that China began planning the war as early as 1959 and proposes that it was merely a small move in the larger strategic game that China was playing to become a world player—one that it continues to play even today.

At the outset, this book must be viewed as a policy relevant document rather than an abstract historical research paper. The authors have revisited the seemingly intractable India-China border dispute from a contemporary conflict resolution perspective and thus are relatively detached from the historical baggage that has so often influenced other commentaries on this controversial subject. The great natural defensive line of northern India, the mighty Himalayas, separating Tibet from north-east India, is a barrier which, by tradition, was impenetrable. This defensive line is embodied by the 1914 Line, India s non-negotiable interest. Thus, from an Indian perspective, it can never be conceived that its frontiers with China are ever formalized on the Brahmaputra plains. Further, the 1914 alignment, aside from its strategic sanctity, also upholds the ethnic and linguistic affinities to peoples south of it, who are distinct from the homogenous Tibetan or Han people. Similarly, from China s perspective it too is in possession of its non-negotiable interest the Aksai Chin plateau. And therein lies the essence of an east-west swap. By retracing the historical record, the authors argue that such a swap is eminently feasible and historically justifiable. Moreover, realpolitik demands it. From the Indian perspective, however, it should be equally clear that a bipartisan national consensus is imperative for any breakthrough resolution to emerge. It remains to be seen, however, if political managers on both sides are able to muster the necessary will to resolve a dispute that has lasted for more than half-a-century. Contents: Introduction · Acknowledgments · The Legacy of the Great Game · India, Tibet and China · India Inherits the Frontiers :1947-1954 · The Debacle of 1962 · Road to Rapprochement: Diplomacy since the 1970s · The Way Forward: Mutual accommodation and accommodation of reality · Appendices · Bibliography · Index

Reveals how British imperial border-making in the Himalayas transformed a crossroads into a borderland and geography into politics.

Set in West Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, this study explores the shifting relationships between border communities and the state along the political border with East Malaysia. The book rests on the premise that remote border regions offer an exciting study arena that can tell us important things about how marginal citizens relate to their nation-state. The basic assumption is that central state authority in the Indonesian borderlands has never been absolute, but waxes and wanes, and state rules and laws are always up for local interpretation and negotiation. In its role as key symbol of state sovereignty, the borderland has become a place were central state authorities are often most eager to govern and exercise power. But as illustrated, the borderland is also a place were state authority is most likely to be challenged, questioned and manipulated as border communities often have multiple loyalties that transcend state borders and contradict imaginations of the state as guardians of national sovereignty and citizenship.

?Even if bilateral trade between India and China goes beyond $100 billion in the coming years, China?s posture towards India is adversarial and will perhaps remain so in the future, with Beijing viewing New Delhi through the prism of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile? A rising China, inflexible on boundary dispute resolution and with strong tentacles across South Asia and beyond, could encroach on India?s strategic space and lead to a potential crisis this decade.? In April 2013, Indian troops sighted an advance patrol of the Chinese People?s Liberation Army (PLA) 19 km deep within Indian territory, a considerable distance from the Line of Actual Control, the de facto border claim line that was drawn up after the 1962 war between the two countries ? a war that still traumatizes the mind of India?s political and military establishment. Protracted negotiations led to the withdrawal of Chinese troops, but the incursion laid bare the intent of the world?s largest standing army. Despite recent advances in the bilateral relationship, highlighted by the nearly $70 billion trade between the two countries, China continues to regard Indian interests as secondary, and India as a regional adversary. In this breakthrough work, seasoned journalist and author of the bestselling Indian Mujahideen Shishir Gupta details the various advances made by Beijing, particularly the PLA, in encircling India and stifling the latter?s bid to break out as an aspiring superpower. Gupta discusses Indian political, diplomatic and military responses to China?s assertion in the subcontinent and beyond, and the various course corrections India must undergo in its foreign and defence policies to counter China?s might and influence on matters of India?s national security. In describing how India must realize and counter China?s clout over its friends and enemies if it is to achieve superpower status, Gupta sheds new light on Indo-China relations. The Himalayan Face-Off: Chinese Assertion and the Indian Riposte is an important reminder of the realigned geopolitics of the modern world, where the two most populous nations on the planet are essentially battling each other over their share of the global pie ? sometimes on the world?s highest battlegrounds. '