Widmalm investigates the factors that led to the breakdown of democracy and the rise of violent separatism in Jammu and Kashmir in the 1980s and how the risk for a large scale war has grown in South Asia in the 1990s. This book will be of interest to researchers and students in South Asia studies, political science and conflict studies. It makes use of theories of causes of conflicts and democratic development, in combination with in-depth case-study research. Using new and unique empirical material, including interviews with representatives of the Government of India, the ISI in Pakistan, and separatist leaders in Jammu and Kashmir, it is argued that the emergence of incompatible identities should be regarded as an outcome of a preceding and distinctly political conflict in Jammu and Kashmir in the 1980s. This conflict, which later escalated into a small-scale civil war, originated in disputes between elites in Jammu and Kashmir and the central government over power in a weak institutional setting.
Comparisons with developments in other states in India, namely West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, suggest that it is a mistake to see an ethnic factor as the main cause of the conflict in Jammu and Kashmir. Furthermore, although it is clear that Pakistan has actively supported the uprising, and although poor socioeconomic conditions may have fuelled discontent in Jammu and Kashmir, the conflict cannot be explained by such factors alone. The book ends by showing how the political logic of the elite having played a significant role in producing the violence in Jammu and Kashmir, could well be reproduced at the inter-state level, which could lead to a large scale war between India and Pakistan. Such a conflict risks precipitating the first wartime use of nuclear arms since 1945.