Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-44
Author(s):  
Dolly Kikon ◽  
Duncan McDuie-Ra
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Public History ◽  
Urban Modernity ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
City Of Refuge

Dimapur has a limited public history, rarely features in popular culture, and has failed to capture the information of scholars. This chapter addresses the question ‘why Dimapur’ and offers six answers that serve as the book’s argument. First, Dimapur is the largest city in a tribal majority state. Second, Dimapur gives us the opportunity to frame frontier urbanism as a research agenda in India/South Asia. Third, more than just a city, Dimapur is a spatial experiment, a zone between the hills and plains, between tribal and non-tribal space. Fourth, Dimapur is a city governed under extraordinary laws with a substantial military presence and two camps of surrendered militants on its outskirts. Fifth, Dimapur has been both a city of conflict and a city of refuge. Finally, Dimapur allows the opportunity to begin an account of the Northeast, and Nagaland in particular, with urban modernity.

Friends from North, Foes from South

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avinash Paliwal
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
Proxy War ◽  
Military Support

The United Front’s relationship with India was anything but that of ‘dependency’. In limited in capacity and separated by geography, India was arguably the least important cog in the Iran-Russia-India triumvirate that gave covert military support to the UF. Even though the India-UF relationship withstood various Taliban and Pakistani military onslaughts, its long-term sustainability was in doubt among Indian policymakers. One incident that gave an impetus to this relationship — but also underlined its limitations — however, was the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 in December 1999. The incident further strengthened partisans who wanted to wage an active proxy war against Pakistan and theTaliban. Occurring in the wake of nuclearization of South Asia in 1998, the India-Pakistan conflict in Kargil in 1999, and Pakistani military presence in Afghanistan, Indian diplomacy on Afghanistan in the second half of 1990s is highly indicative both of its strategic resolve and limits of influence.

Jumbos and Jumping Devils

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nisha P R
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Social History ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of

Jumbos and Jumping Devils is an original and pioneering exploration of not only the social history of the subcontinent but also of performance and popular culture. The domain of analysis is entirely novel and opens up a bolder approach of laying a new field of historical enquiry of South Asia. Trawling through an extraordinary set of sources such as colonial and post-colonial records, newspaper reports, unpublished autobiographies, private papers, photographs, and oral interviews, the author brings out a fascinating account of the transnational landscape of physical cultures, human and animal performers, and the circus industry. This book should be of interest to a wide range of readers from history, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies to analysts of history of performance and sports in the subcontinent.

China’s Afghanistan Policy

China Report ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raghav Sharma
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Current Strategy ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
International Profile ◽  
The Impact

This article analyses the trajectory that Sino-Afghan relations have acquired since 2001. In doing so it undertakes an analysis of China’s key interests in the commercial, security and political arena in Afghanistan and the policies adopted by Beijing to secure these interests. The analysis particularly takes into account four factors which have left a crucial imprint in moulding the contours of Beijing’s engagement with Kabul, namely, the Indo-Pak equation, implications of a large US military presence in the region, consequences of growing drug proliferation and its linkages with pan-Islamist groups which in turn could potentially stir trouble in Xinjiang and adversely impact upon China’s desire to expand and secure its commercial interests in the region. The article analyses the impact that events in Afghanistan are likely to have on China’s own internal challenges in Xinjiang as also its larger interests in South Asia and argues that given Beijing’s growing international profile and the increasingly transnational nature of the events unfolding in Afghanistan, China will need to recalibrate its current strategy.

History as Memory: Alexander in South Asian Demotic Literature and Popular Media

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-188
Author(s):  
Syed Ejaz Hussain
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
South Asia ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Art History ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Nationalist Discourse ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
The World ◽  
The Media

Abstract The diversity and range of existing archives on the history and romance of Alexander have projected on him a multiplicity of images. Alexander’s conquests, military achievements, romance, myths, and legends have fascinated writers, scholars, historians, poets, filmmakers, the media, and designers of websites around the world. His invasion of India in 326 BCE left an indelible influence on Indian art, history, and literature. The present essay takes up a theme on which not much work has been done in modern scholarship. It focuses on the nature and diversity of the historical memory of Alexander in modern South Asia, particularly as reflected in modern Urdu and Hindi, the two major languages of the subcontinent. It also examines how Alexander is portrayed in popular culture and India’s nationalist discourse.

Armed politics and the study of intrastate conflict

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Staniland
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Intrastate Conflict ◽  
Group Interactions ◽  
Armed Group ◽  
Rebel Governance ◽  
State Group ◽  
Existing Data

Though the two are often conflated, violence is not identical to conflict. This article makes the case for studying state-armed group interactions across space, time, and levels of violence as part of an ‘armed politics’ approach to conflict. It conceptualizes and measures armed orders of alliance, limited cooperation, and military hostilities, and the termination of these orders in collapse or incorporation. The article applies this framework to four contexts in South Asia. It measures armed orders across five groups and six decades in Nagaland in India, and then offers a briefer overview of state-group armed orders in Karachi in Pakistan, Mizoram in India, and Wa areas of northern Burma/Myanmar. Examining armed politics improves our understanding of ceasefires and peace deals, rebel governance, and group emergence and collapse, among other important topics. This approach complements existing data on civil conflict while identifying a new empirical research agenda and policy implications.

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