Christopher Snedden
Christopher Snedden is an Australian political scientist, politico-strategic analyst, academic researcher and author. In 2012, he has authored the book The Untold Story of the People of Azad Kashmir, where he proposed that the origins of the Kashmir dispute lay, not in the invasion by Pushtoon tribesmen from Pakistan, but in the protests by the people of Poonch and Mirpur against the Government of Maharaja Hari Singh.[1]
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Life and career
Christopher Snedden has received B.A. in Modern Languages, focusing in Russian and Political Science. He completed a Ph.D. at La Trobe University in Melbourne in 1982, in which he explored the origins of the Kashmir dispute.
He has worked for the Australian Transaction Reports and analysis Centre (1990-1994), Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (1989-1990) as well as the Defence Intelligence Organisation (1984-1989), focusing on South Asian matters.
He has worked as an academic in the Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies of the Deakin University (2004-2009) as the Director of the M.A. (Strategic Studies) programme for senior military and civilian officers. Prior to that he worked in the La Trobe University (2002-2004).
He also runs his own consultancy called Asia Calling providing information to a range of government and business clients about South Asia. He is currently a Professor specialising in South Asian studies at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.
The Untold Story of the People of Azad Kashmir
- The Untold Story of the People of Azad Kashmir (C. Hurst & Co., 2012), ISBN 1849041504
- Also published in India as Kashmir: The Unwritten History (HarperCollins India, 2013), ISBN 978-9350298978 and ISBN 978-9350298985.
Idrees Kanth of Leiden University notes the main thesis of the Untold Story as saying that the Jammuites, who later became Azad Kashmiris, had a central role in instigating the Kashmir dispute, giving a "new spin" to the Kashmir issue that makes us rethink the accepted narratives. It is not Maharaja Hari Singh's "indecisiveness" that led to the Kashmir dispute, but rather the different accessional desires of the State's peoples. Three events in the Jammu division of the State shaped these desires: first, the pro-Pakistan, anti-Maharaja uprising by the Muslim Poonchies; second, a major communal violence in the eastern districts of Jammu that caused upheaval and death, including a massacre of Muslims; third, the establishment of a provisional Azad Kashmir government in areas "liberated" by the Poonch uprising. These three events, which happened well before 26 October 1947, divided the Jammu province into pro-Pakistan and pro-India areas "politically, physically and militarily."[2] This narrative is partly corroborated by G. K. Reddy, one of India's preeminent journalists, who worked as the editor of Kashmir Times based in Srinagar and witnessed the large-scale massacres of Muslims in Jammu's eastern districts.[3]
However, Kanth finds that Snedden has oversimplified the narrative of the `pro-India' part of the State as being governed by secular thinking of Kashmiriyat. He argues that the role of the Congress party (and the National Conference allied with it) as well as the colonial state in Kashmir were also important factors.[2]
Satish Kumar of the Foundation for National Security Research in New Delhi finds the new material on the Poonch uprising contains considerable detail. However, he finds the assertion of the uprising as the main cause of the Kashmir dispute to be questionable. He points out that a local uprising internal to the State by itself cannot turn a dispute into an international dispute. However, he credits Snedden for having made a "realistic assessment" that there is no possibility of Jammu and Kashmir either getting independence or being unified.[4]
Priyanka Singh of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses finds the book meticulously researched providing a wealth of empirical evidence. However, she states that Snedden takes a `moderate view' on Pakistan in the first half of the book and disagrees with India's position that Pakistan incited the tribal raid on Kashmir. These arguments she finds `more or less in sync with conventional Western approach' of putting the onus on India for not holding a plebiscite without insisting on a Pakistani withdrawal. She says that Snedden's conclusions and recommendations come from a `partial reading of history', perceiving it as problem of the Muslims and disregarding the issues of Jammu and Ladakh. She finds his proposed solution of `let the people decide' disappointing as it disregards the fundamental ideological differences between India and Pakistan and the complications issuing from cross-border terrorism.[5]
References
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