India-Pakistan Relations: Retrospect & Prospect

Summary

Can India and Pakistan find a negotiated settlement to the Kashmir dispute? In this session, regional experts Dr. Happymon Jacob (JNU, New Delhi) and Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa (SOAS, University of London) discuss this question in context of recent trends and triggers of this tormented bilateral relationship in South Asia.

India-Pakistan Relations: Retrospect & Prospect

Speakers

Dr. Happymon Jacob is an associate professor of diplomacy and disarmament at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He is a columnist with The Hindu, hosts a weekly show on national security at The Wire.in, and is the author of The Line of Control: Travelling with the Indian and Pakistani Armies (2018) and Line on Fire: Ceasefire Violations and India-Pakistan Escalation Dynamics (2019).

Ayesha Siddiqa is a research associate at the CISD, SOAS, London. She is a Ph.D. in War Studies from King's College, London, and author of two books on Pakistan's security and military, Pakistan's Arms Procurement and Military Buildup, 1979-99, and Military Inc: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy. She was the inaugural Pakistan fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a research fellow at Sandia National Laboratory, a Ford Fellow in Germany, and Charles Wallace fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford. Dr. Siddiqa has contributed in various academic journals and contributes regularly in South Asian media. Prior to her academic career she was a civil servant and served for two years as Pakistan Navy's director of naval research. She is currently working on a book explaining societal forces in the evolution of extremism and militancy in Sufi societies.

Organiser: SOAS South Asia Institute

Contact email: ssai@soas.ac.uk