Abstract

The democratic trajectories of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have been shaped in no small part by the behaviour of their respective militaries. The interventionist impulses of the army in Pakistan and Bangladesh and the effects periods of martial law have had in those countries has been understood, but why has Indian not gone down a similar route? Disgrace at the hands of China in 1962, the Emergency, and Operation Blue Star, are a few among the many points in history in which the Indian military could have gone astray but chose to stay apolitical. What explains this past behaviour and do these same factors still function effectively today? With retired military leaders publicly endorsing political parties and politicians trying to co-opt military symbolism and military achievements for electoral gain, is military professionalism at risk from a creeping politicization of the armed forces? Or are these alarmist fears which overlook the military’s firm organisational desire to be apolitical?

Join the King’s India Institute and the Department of War Studies for a deep dive into the complex dynamics of civil-military relations in South Asia which will explore the historical and contemporary challenges faced by countries in the region.

Speakers

Dr Aditya Sondhi

Aditya Sondhi is the author of the recently published Poles Apart: The Military and Democracy in India and Pakistan. He is a Senior Advocate practising before the Supreme Court of India and the High Court of Karnataka. He has served as Additional Advocate General for Karnataka. He graduated from the National Law School of India University, where he has returned to teach constitutional law and other courses, and also holds a PhD in political science from Mysore University.

Aditya has been a TEDx speaker and has lectured widely across India. He has a particular interest in military history, Partition and constitutionalism and is founder of the General K S Thimayya Memorial Lecture series.

Dr Anit Mukherjee

Anit Mukherjee is a Senior Lecturer at the King's India Institute. He joined King's College London after ten years in Singapore where he was an Associate Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. From 2010-2012, he was a Research Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow at Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), New Delhi.

He is the author of The Absent Dialogue: Politicians, Bureaucrats and the Military in India (NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), which examines the role of civil-military relations and military effectiveness. He is the co-editor of India-China Maritime Competition: The Security Dilemma at Sea (Routledge, 2019) and India’s Naval Strategy and Asian Security (Routledge, 2015).

Dr Saawani Raje-Byrne

Dr Saawani Raje-Byrne is a lecturer in War Studies at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London where she teaches postgraduate and undergraduate students. Previously, she was a lecturer in Defence Studies education at the King’s College London Defence Studies Department and taught Intermediate and Advanced Command courses at the Joint Services Command and Staff College at Shrivenham.

Her current research examines on civil-military relations in postcolonial nations, with a particular focus India. She is currently writing her monograph ‘Decisions in Crises: Civil-military relations in India 1947-71’ drawn from her doctoral research. Broadly, her areas of interest and expertise include civil-military relations, South Asian security, Indian foreign policy, diplomatic and military history, and international relations, with a focus on South Asia.

Chair

Dr Walter C Ladwig III

Dr Walter C Ladwig III is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at King's College London, and a political scientist specialising in US foreign policy, South Asian security, irregular warfare, and the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific. His teaching primarily concentrates on the conduct of statecraft and Cold War history. His first book, The Forgotten Front: Patron-Client Relationships in Counter Insurgency (Cambridge 2017), examines the often-difficult relations between the US and local governments it is supporting in counterinsurgency. He is currently writing a book on Indian defence policy.

Walter’s scholarly works have been published in a number of academic journals including International Security, the Journal of Strategic Studies, and Asian Survey, among others. He has commented on international affairs for the Economist, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, and the BBC and his opinion pieces have appeared in a number of newspapers including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.