This book explores what it has meant for India and Pakistan to act as sovereign states entangled at birth by an unsatisfactory partition. Sovereignty is conventionally understood as a means to achieve the goals that states set for themselves. The book argues that for India and Pakistan, sovereignty has become an end in itself, and that its pursuit has aided majoritarianism, insecurity, and mutual estrangement. The book examines the trajectory of three problems that the partition of 1947 bequeathed to the two states. It investigates the state-minority relations, national identity debates, and contestation over Kashmir to outline the parallel processes of minoritization, homogenization, and territorialization. It shows how these processes signify the two states' quest for sovereignty. The scholarship on India and Pakistan often privileges their bilateral relations. In contrast, this book carries out the deeper task of a single-frame analysis and critique of their intertwined statehoods. Ultimately, the book shows the inadequacy of the nation state form as the basis for political community on the subcontinent. It concludes by pointing to the contemporary relevance of alternative ideas of sovereignty and political community for South Asia that were articulated during the first half of the 20th century.

About the Author
Atul Mishra is an associate professor at the Department of International Relations and Governance Studies, Shiv Nadar University, India.

Reviews
An excellent book on an important and topical subject. Atul Mishra incisively reveals how, and why, the assertion of sovereignty has become an end in itself for the post-colonial states of India and Pakistan. The Sovereign Lives of India and Pakistan lays bare the destructive effects of rigid conceptions of sovereignty, rooted in anxiety, on the two countries and on the relationship between them. * Sumantra Bose, London School of Economics and Political Science *
Atul Mishra's work presents an intriguing proposition-that for both India and Pakistan, pursuit of sovereignty has remained an end in itself. Traversing the fields of political history and theory of international relations, The Sovereign Lives draws our attention to how the perception of statehood of both countries is predicated upon ideas of minority, national identity and territoriality. The importance of the book lies in its ambitious attempt to present alternative ideas of nation-state and community in the context of South Asia. * Suhas Palshikar, Former Professor of Politics, Savitribai Phule Pune University *



Book Information
ISBN 9780190130879
Author Atul Mishra
Format Hardback
Page Count 280
Imprint OUP India
Publisher OUP India
Weight(grams) 392g
Dimensions(mm) 222mm * 145mm * 20mm