Discerning India’s Kashmir Strategy: Approach, Challenges and Outcomes

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The annulment of Article 370 on 5 August 2019 is considered a watershed in the seven-decade long history of India’s approach towards Kashmir. The rescinding of a separate special status and, subsequently, the endorsement by the Supreme Court verdict on 11 December 2023 marked the culmination of India’s long haul project to constitutionally absorb the former princely State of Jammu and Kashmir. Positioned against this important context/backdrop, the monograph canvasses the evolution of India’s strategy on the Kashmir issue since its inception examining the continuities and discontinuities in India’s overall approach. It delineates the fundamental premises in India’s Kashmir horizon that remained indelible despite intense exigencies posed by geopolitical pressures and the hard strategic choices India made. It ends by listing out priorities India must promise and deliver to Jammu and Kashmir in order to consummate the formal integration of the former State into Indian Union.

About The Author

Dr. Priyanka Singh is Associate Fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA), New Delhi and associated with the South Asia Centre. She holds an Honours degree in Political Science from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi, and a PhD from the University of Lucknow. Her PhD thesis was titled: “Indo-US Relations in the Last Decade – 1990-2000: Shifting Paradigms”. This is her fourth in the series of monographs addressing the broader issues concerning Kashmir- previous ones being Gilgit Baltistan: Between Hope and Despair (2013), Re-Positioning Pakistan Occupied Kashmir on India’s Policy Map: Geopolitical Drivers, Strategic Impact (2017) and China-Pakistan Ties and Kashmir: History and Geopolitics (2022). Her broader research interests include: Sino- Pakistan ties, China-Pakistan-Afghanistan triangular geopolitics, India-US relations, US engagement in Pakistan, Kashmir and the CPEC. She is the editor of the book The Role of Media in Promoting Regional Understanding in South Asia (Pentagon Press, 2016), and co-editor of Proliferation and Emerging Nuclear Order in the Twenty-First Century (Academic Foundation, New Delhi, 2009) and Saving Afghanistan (Academic Foundation, New Delhi, 2009).