Essay Discussion

Tutorial Question: To what extent was Britain responsible for the Indo-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir?

Question Analysis

Topic: Indo-Pakistan

Focus: Who is to be blamed for outbreak of the conflict? The role of actors-Britain, Pakistan and India

Assumptions: Outbreak of the conflict was a caused by a single actor, in this case the British had sole responsibility for the IP conflict.

Historical Concepts

-Significance: How significant were their actions in causing the conflict?

-Cause and effect: how did their actions attribute to the start of a conflict, what kind of effect it had?

-Perspectives: should the conflict be blamed entirely on Britain or were there other actors that the question fails to recognize?

Framework

1) Britain had to be responsible for the Indo-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir considering the fact that they left behind a flawed structural framework that staged a platform for India and Pakistan to clash over Kashmir

2) However, it would be weak on its own. Well, it is important to acknowledge that the poor structural faults that the British left behind had set the scene for the clash of nationalism, it is rather passive until India and Pakistan decided to contest Kashmir which highlighted the poor structural weaknesses. Thus, it would be difficult to understand the fact that Britain is responsible for the outbreak of IP conflict without the competing nationalism between India and Pakistan as its foil which uncovered the flawed framework left behind

3) It would be far too simplistic to lay the blame solely on Britain because India and Pakistan also had a fair share in causing the outbreak of the conflict. Their

competition over Kashmir for geostrategic importance heightened the tensions between the 2 sides and saw Kashmir as even more important than ever before. This zero sum game caused neither side to not give in to each other as they wanted Kashmir to be part of them in order to secure their strategic goals.

Conclusion: It is far too hasty for us to lay blame on Britain just because they set the scene for the clash of opposing nationalism. In fact it would be short-sighted of us to even pinpoint all the blame to Britain without considering the fact that India and Pakistan competition over Kashmir had a greater role to play as they uncovered the flawed structure left behind by Britain. It is of vital importance that we consider the competing nationalism between India and Pakistan together with the faults of the British. Due to the competing nationalism between India and Pakistan, it made the flawed structure even more obvious which created the platform for the conflict to occur.