Kashmir-Palestine Scholars Solidarity Network Launch

Palestine and Kashmir are two of the most longstanding unresolved geopolitical puzzles resulting from the end of the British Empire. They share an unenviable list of commonalities in their historical conditions: from the legacies and vestiges of British colonial partition, to the large refugee populations and extensive diasporas they produced. Their struggles for national self-determination are also repeatedly shaped by the prominent influence of regional actors. More recent history has witnessed even more linkages emerging as a product of the post-Cold war detente between India and Israel; their military, political and economic cooperation; ideological affinities between Hindutva and Zionism; aspirations to act as regional hegemons, and; influence from global institutions.  Despite the many commonalities between Kashmir and Palestine and the prolonged durations of their conditions, opportunities for dialogue, networking and knowledge exchange between scholars have been limited. This initiative aims to fill this gap by exploring possibilities for networking and cross-fertilisation between scholars working on Palestine and Kashmir respectively.  This network was initially conceived out of a British Academy Knowledge Frontiers Seed Grant awarded to scholars at the Council for British Research in the Levant (Dr Toufic Haddad) and the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) (Dr Emma Brännlund) in early 2020. After encountering significant delays due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the initiative finally seeks to publicly launch, creating a space where scholarly conversations on Kashmir and Palestine can take place. The keynote lecture on “Scholar-activist Solidarity: Building Alliances” was given by Dr Goldie Osuri, author and editor of multiple articles and special journal editions that have addressed Kashmir and Palestine in tandem. She spoke in-house at CBRL’s Jerusalem Kenyon Institute.