Logo

Synopsis In 1997, India and Pakistan celebrated their 50th anniversary as independent countries, whereas Bangladesh has now existed 25 years as a new nation. Since August 1947 when the two new states were created out of British India, There has been an almost continous conflict between India and Pakistan. It has come to war on three occasions, in 1947- 48, in 1965 and in 1971. Since then relations have difficult or strained and especially in recent years, a crisis level has been reached in Kashmir, the main bone of contention between the parties. In 1972, Lars Blikenberg published, in a series of Danish Institute of International Studies (DUPI), his first edition of India-Pakistan: The History Unsolved Conflicts, in the very year Bangladesh was recognized by most other nation. Her War of independence managed to cut the eastern part of the old Bengali nation out of Pakistan with Indian assistance. Ambassador Blinkenberg has continued his work with this Long term conflict and has been back to the subcontinent several times, after his early posting there as a young diplomat in 1964-68 . This work in two volumes consists of a re-edition of his First Book, now termed conflict Volume 1, Historical part, and anew analytical Volume 11, containing an analysis of many structural factors, especially as regards the political settings in India in the first conflict period: including a study of the main political actors, foremost among them Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, who died in 1964. The study is thus a comprehensive historical cum political–science one and is written in a clear–cut way so that also persons without special foreknowledge but with a keen interest in political matters can easily read it. Its style is so lively that it will give reader a through understanding of the sad conflict in the subcontinent. The former British India has now more than one billion inhabitants; ranging from the most sophisticated and highly intellectual ones to the poor destitute masses in the world`s largest democracy, India, and in Bangladesh and Pakistan. India-Pakistan: The History Unsolved Conflicts, includes several interviews with many highly involved persons having an intimate knowledge of the Subcontinent and its recent history.