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On the 25th and 26th of June, 2010 an international conference was held at the Karl Jaspers Centre, University of Heidelberg. Co-organised by the Centre for Contemporary India Research and Studies, Warsaw and the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg, the conference brought together a number of specialists on security with a focus on South Asia. Two central questions underpinned the goals of the conference: what is and what should be India’s role in contributing towards security in the region and what are the tools of analysis and theories from the field of international relations that help explain the extent of or lack of security within South Asia. |
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Professor Bogusloaw Zaleski (Centre for Contemporary India Research and Studies at the Institute for International Relations, University of Warsaw) and Professor Subrata K. Mitra (head of the Department of Political Science, South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg) opened the conference with lectures on India as an emerging power questioning whether non-alignment was simply empty rhetoric. Subrata Mitra pointed out that in the 1950s India was a free rider and so non-alignment was about playing one side off against the other. Today as a stakeholder in the international system, India’s non-alignement rhetoric must have a different purpose which he proposed to explain through the use of a tool-box. |
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Providing insights into different aspects of security, three papers examined South Asia in the contemporary world by Dr. Justyna Nakonieczna (Institute of International Relations, University of Warsaw), Ms. Aneta Halizak (Institute of International Relations, Centre for Contemporary India Research and Studies, University of Warsaw) and Dr. Jakub Zakaczkowski (Chairperson of the Centre for Contemporary India Research and Studies, University of Warsaw. Dr. Nakonieczna identified the approaches and concepts developed in South Asia to address problems of social insecurity and under-development. Ms. Aneta Halizak, drawing upon her expertise in international law, presented the notion of ‘cultural security’ and how the protection of cultural property and heritage is an increasingly important feature of how states engage with each other in the international system. Dr. Jakub Zakaczkowski explored the implications that the end of the Cold War had for India’s foreign policy and security in South Asia. The presentations in this panel each highlighted the multi-faceted nature of security studies and the different instruments available to states in their bid to combat inequality and poverty, protect cultural heritage or pursue economic and military goals. |
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The second panel explored the challenges that India faces as a regional power. Professor T.V.Paul (Professor of International Relations, Department of Political Science and Director of the Montreal Centre for International Peace and Security, McGill University) drew attention to the variable of state capacity which is particularly weak in South Asia and is compounded by weak interstate norms. Commodore Udhay Bhaskar (Director of the National Maritime Foundation, New Delhi) challenged the conventional regional boundaries that the term South Asia connotes and instead placing India’s concerns within global geo-political structures.
The third panel of the conference sought to analyse the role of ‘extra-regional’ influences and their implications for the management and provision of security in South Asia. Professor Han Hua (School of International Studies, Peking University) presented a paper on the evolution of Sino-Indian relations. Dr. Harsh Pant (Kings College, University of London) traced the development of Indo-US relations and Dr. Jivanta Schoettli and Dr. Siegfried Wolf (Department of Political Science, South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg) focused on the triangle of India-Pakistan-Afghanistan relations. Each of these papers explored how bilateral relationships can change over time but also recognised the constraints within which foreign policy is made, including the compulsions of domestic and international politics. |
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The output of the conference aims at collecting the various contributions in the form of articles and to publish them as an edited book. Bogusloaw Zaleski and Subrata Mitra identified some of the core questions that underpinned the discussions and it was proposed that all the papers take security as their primary dependent variable. One main challenge identified was how to marry the richness of data that had come through with the rigour of theory so that the papers could be inter-connected and engage with one another. It was also pointed out that there does not have to be a meta-theory and that time itself can be considered as a variable, in that memory plays an important role also in foreign policy and international politics. Other core observations to emerge from the papers and the discussions included the emphasis on the fact that South Asia has states that are very different from those of Europe but that there are also fundamental differences among post-colonial states; asymmetries were also strongly noted in terms of the self-perceptions that ground South Asian states.
You can download the report in pdf-format here.
You can download the programme in pdf-format here.
For further information, please contact Dr. Jivanta Schoettli
