18 Feb, 2009   ·    Rizwan Zeb and Suba Chandran

About the Book

Co-authored by D. Suba Chandran, Deputy Director, IPCS, this volume looks as the Indo-Pak and the recent peace process through the prism of various ripeness theories, especially William Zartman's: when the parties engaged in the conflict realize that a stalemate is reached which is hurting, they look towards reaching a compromise.

Has the Indo-Pak conflict reached the mutually hurting stalemate stage? What made General Musharraf adopt a political approach towards India after initiating a military confrontation in Kargil? Why did the Vajpayee government decide to change its policy towards Pakistan after a year long confrontation in 2002? Has there been a realization that the confrontational policy/military option had failed? Or was it due to the external pressure from the international community led by the US?

Numerous changes have been taking place inside Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian Government has organized a successful election for the state legislative assembly. The new state government in J&K has initiated a 'healing touch' policy, which is yet to make changes at the ground level. The Hurriyat stands vertically divided and the armed non-state actors including the militant and jihadi organizations have their own objectives. The bus service between the two Kashmirs has started and is welcomed by people despite opposition from a section of militants and separatists. Is the Kashmir conflict finally ripe to resolve?

The book also looks into certain preconditions essential to make the conditions ripe and suggest measures that would initiate a process towards a final compromise between India and Pakistan."


Table of Contents

1. Ripeness and India-Pakistan conflicts: in search of a framework.
2. Ripeness theory and India-Pakistan conflicts.
3. The peace process in 2003-2004: signs of ripeness?
4. Indo-Pak ripeness: irritants and inducements.
5. Towards ripeness: conclusions and recommendations.


About the Authors

Rizwan Zeb is a research fellow at the Institute of Regional Studies, Islamabad and a Visiting Faculty at the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies at the Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad

D. Suba Chandran is Deputy Director, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi and is currently a Visiting Fellow at the CSRS, University of Jammu. His primary area of research includes Pakistan’s internal security, in particular Balochistan, FATA and Northern Areas. He also works on Kashmir, terrorism, particularly Suicide Terrorism. Since January 2007, he is under taking field research in Kashmir on a study titled – People, State and Violence: Conflict Transformation in Jammu and Kashmir. He also edits an annual titled Armed Conflicts and Peace Processes in South Asia. D. Suba Chandran is the author of "Limited War".



Rizwan Zeb and Suba Chandran
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