Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics, Sumantra Bose is a ‘specialist’ studying and analysing ethnic and national conflicts and their managements. However his point of focus remains on Indian subcontinent and Kashmir.

He is the writer of six books that focus particularly on the conflicts. His publications include States, Nations, Sovereignty: Sri Lanka, India and the Tamil Eelam Movement (Sage, 1994), Bosnia after Dayton: Nationalist Partition and International Intervention (Oxford University Press, 2002), Kashmir: The Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace (Harvard University Press, 2003) and Contested Lands: War and Peace in Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus and Sri Lanka (Harvard University Press, 2007).

In his book on Kashmir: The Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace, he reveals that this conflict is complicated than the other comparable clashes of sovereignties.

In the book he also proposes some plausible policy measures to bring about an acceptable form of peace, different reviews of the book read.

He has argued in the book that that the LOC has held firm through subsequent clashes between the two (now nuclear) powers largely because the complex ethnic and linguistic groupings on each side of the line have learned to live with each other, a review reads.

Bose has made a point that the way to peaceful politics in India and Pakistan would be granting autonomy and democracy to respective sides of Kashmir, divided by LoC.

Son of a pediatrician Bose had received his basic education in India. He did his MA, M.Phil and Ph.D. (1998) degrees in political science at Columbia University, New York, USA. Bose joined the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1999 as a professor.

Bose hit headlines in Kashmir on May 4 after his interaction with students in Srinagar.

Around 70 to 90 percent of people from Indian-administered Kashmir wanted independence, he was quoted saying, whereas 50 percent people of Pakistan-administered Kashmir (PaK) too wanted independence.

He had said there are different shades of opinion regarding the issue, “with some people supporting India or Pakistan, while the rest demanding independence,” while lecturing students and faculty of Centre of International Relations (CIR) and Department of Journalism and Mass Communication (DJMC), Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST) Awantipora.

While comparing the Kashmir conflict with that of Northern Ireland he was quoted talking about how power sharing between two parties solved the conflict in Northern Ireland.

“Like Northern Ireland, Kashmir too holds two opposite policies in coalition government, which can prove fruitful only if the power is shared with good faith. But if that does not happen, then it is useless to have such a government,” Bose told students.

Bother of Sarmila Bose, an American journalist and academic of Indian origin, his comments come at a time Kashmir is in deep crisis.

– Aakash   Hassan

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