India, Pakistan and the Sharike-Bazi: An Alternate Understanding of the Cousin Rivalry

Despite using the metaphors of kin-states and blood-brothers for the India-Pakistan conflict, there is limited work exploring this phenomenon. India-Pakistan relations have mostly been theorized by situating them along with a bipolar ethnic and religious framework. This book presents a fresh conflict model to theorize their rivalry by positioning them as warring family branches with common ancient and cultural history. Therefore, this book not only competes with the existing literature but also claims to break new theoretical ground in the subject. This book will be of interest to researchers looking to theorize intergroup conflicts, academicians, students, social activists, politicians, practitioners, track-2 diplomats and above all, the policy makers in both countries.
This book has theorized the tensions and dynamics of the India-Pakistan conflict as a process akin to a typical large South Asian family dispute after dividing its tangible assets. Categorizing and depicting India and Pakistan as two segments of such a large family, quarreling over gaining more prestige against the other after dividing ancestral land, this study does not remain unaware of other, larger pushes and pulls experienced in this intractable conflict, interfering in significant ways in the relationship between the partitioning members of the extended family. Arguing for the centrality of the concept of family relations in this context made increasing sense also as an explanation for the intensity of local emotions visible in this complex conflict. The core argument here is that the intractability, intensity, and intimacy associated with various dimensions of the India-Pakistan conflict can be better explained by analyzing it as a dispute between two warring branches of a huge joint family with an enormously rich and diverse ancient history.

I am a teacher by profession and a researcher by passion. My name is Jawad Kadir, born and brought up in Pakistan. I started my career as a public servant (Human Resource Department) in Pakistan, and am now working with the Research & Enterprises Department, Lancaster University, UK, to follow my passion. Lancaster University is the place where I spent most of the time working on this book during my PhD tenure. However, the hypothesis of the importance of family relations was strengthened during extensive fieldwork in Pakistan, while carrying out a series of semi-structured interviews. Primarily, this work is from a conflict theorist, interested in the interdisciplinarity, especially the cross-section of psychocultural theory, anthropology, psychology, sociology, and cognitive neuroscience, to research the various aspects of South Asian politics, which have been grossly ignored by mainstream scholars. Conflict Studies, Social theory of International Relations and Societal Psychology have been my specific areas of interest, which I have been teaching both in Pakistan and the United Kingdom. I have also written extensively in the field with a special emphasis on the psychocultural dimensions of India-Pakistan relations in its conflict dynamics. I have developed an indigenous conflict model and used it to explain the psycho-dynamics behind both states’ endless desire to trump each other, which is a permanent threat to regional security. I have combined political theory with everyday culture and realities impacting upon the consciousness-making of the people, which, in turn, contribute to the decision-making processes in the larger domains. My work is particularly related to conceptual issues associated with conflict analysis and management in South Asia through engaging with real-life issues and concerns. There has always been a public side to my intellectual preoccupation. I regularly write for print/electronic media to feel the pulse of common readers, students, and researchers. These pieces have come to shape the prevalent thinking on various issues surrounding the existing explanations of conflict and violence in the South Asian region. I have written a number of academic pieces for 'The Conversation, The Globe Post, Asia Times, The Northern Review UK', and 'Pakistan International Affairs'.

India-Pakistan partition, Batwara, Emotions in International Relations, Sharike-Bazi Culture of Conflict, Family Conflict Model, Gandhi-Jinnah-Nehru rivalry, Two-Nations Theory, British Empire