Abstract
The Indian and European Union differences over Kashmir are ‘a textbook example’ of how these two governments approach a major foreign policy dispute in wholly different ways. The two points of difference—India’s on-and-off policy towards dialogue with Pakistan and the broader issue of human rights violations in Indian-held Kashmir—reached their peak in the period between 2000 and 2004, leading to major dissonance between New Delhi and the European Commission. Until 2007, Kashmir had remained an irritant after that because of activists in the European Parliament. Thereafter, Kashmir has largely disappeared from the formal bilateral relationship. The EU and India seem to have developed a formula comprising four elements (human rights violations taken up in the annual human rights dialogue, regular visits of EU ambassadors and officials to carry out fact-finding missions to Kashmir, regular EU humanitarian and development assistance to Kashmir, and rhetorical support for reconciliation between India and Pakistan) for handling the Kashmir issue since 2008 that keeps it from besmirching bilateral ties. New Delhi today sees Kashmir as a non-issue when it comes to its relations with Brussels.
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Notes
- 1.
Private conversations with a Danish Ambassador to India.
- 2.
Conversation with a former Indian Ambassador to the EU.
- 3.
Private conversation with a veteran Indian Member of Parliament from West Bengal.
- 4.
Private conversation with a former Indian Ambassador to the EU.
- 5.
Private conversations with Indian diplomats who served in Brussels.
- 6.
Private conversations with former Indian ambassadors to the EU.
- 7.
Conversations with Indian diplomats who served in Brussels.
- 8.
Private conversation with an Indian cabinet minister at the time of the elections.
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Pal Chaudhuri, P. (2021). India, the European Union and Kashmir: Containing a Postmodern Policy. In: Jain, R.K. (eds) India, Europe and Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4608-6_10
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