In the wake of the upsurge of fighting in Kashmir in 1989 the vast majority of Hindus residing in the province fled to India, where most of them continue to live in refugee camps. In a Al Jazeera report on “Kashmir: the Pandit question” on 1 August 2011 Azad Essa interviewed Mridu Rai, the author of Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights and the History of Kashmir (Princeton University Press, 2004). Rai argues that 95% of Pandits joined the exodus, with estimates of their total number ranging from 150-250,000. The last time a census was carried out in Kashmir was 1941 – when there were 80,000 Pandits. Some 40,000 Sikhs continue to live in Kashmir.
The fate of the refugees has been a cause celebre for Hindu nationalists, leading some to suggest that the departure of the Pandits was a deliberate strategy by the New Delhi government, and by then-Governor Jagmohan, to clear the decks for repressive action by the Indian army and police.
Jammu and Kashmir was the only province with a Muslim majority that stayed within India after partition in 1947, due to the accident of its having a Hindu ruler. The promised plebiscite to decide whether the region would join India or Pakistan never took place. The fate of Kashmir has been the main bone of contention between India and Pakistan in the years since. Writing in World News on 15 August – Indian Independence Day, or the ‘Black Day’ for Kashmiri nationalists, Shabir Choudry made the case for Kashmiri independence from both India and Pakistan.
In 2009 the Oregon state legislature passed a resolution declaring September 14 Martyr’s Day to commemorate the fate of non-Muslim minorities in Kashmir, illustrating the way in which ethnic conflict is embedded in broader international debates over the legitimacy of state actions, especially intense in the context of the global War on Terror.

Writing in The Daily Beast, Anna Nemtsova has published two informative articles on right-waiting youth movements in Russia. Her August 10 report on this year’s Lake Seliger camp of the pro-Kremlin Nashi movement is a nuanced picture: in amongst the anti-American rhetoric there were 15 American guest campers, and some efforts made to advance the ‘reset’ in relations with the US.
Her second story, Fascist Russia, published on August 7, reports on the hard core fringe groups, some of whom welcomed Breivik’s massacre in Norway. She quotes Aleksandr Belov, founder of the far-right Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI), as saying, “If the Kremlin cannot destroy [ultranationalism], they will try to lead it.” (The DPNI was dissolved by a Moscow court in April 2011.)
According to Pavel Koshkin writing in Russia Profile on August 1, nationalists have an active presence in the Russian blogosphere. In his article titled “Virtual nationalism” he reports that the social network site VKontakte “boasts more than 1,000 Russian nationalist groups, which can attract from anywhere between 3,000 and 110,000 members.”

Interesting article on the Washington Post website in which Anthony Stevens Arroyo succintly summarizes the checkered history of the Catholic Church’s relationship to national cultures, from Matteo Ricci’s recommendation that priests be allowed to grow beards to gain respect in China, to the creation of a Polish National Catholic Church in the US in 1897. Arroyo concludes “It is our Catholic DNA to hate nationalisms, but embrace cultural celebrations.especially in the American context.”

In an article in Digital Icons (no 5, 2011) Linguist Michael Gorham details the efforts to use Russian language as a tool to harness the Russian diaspora and project Russian state influence in the neighboring countries of the former Soviet Union.

Gorham notes that about 10 years ago Moscow switched from a defensive to more assertive policy regarding Russian language use. Rather than focusing on defending the interests of the 12 million Russians living in the ‘near abroad’ as an ethnic group, by focusing on language use the new policy appeared less threatening, more inclusive.

A new concept arose of Russkii Mir, or ‘Russian World’.  Gorham argues “russkii mir was a protean concept with little baggage from the past, but a store of symbolic potential that could be used to justify cultural patriotic visions of ‘Russianness’, more exclusionary, nationalistic notions, and even more liberal, economic and transnational sentiments.” The Kremlin sponsored the formation of a Russian World Foundation in June 2007 headed by Viacheslav Nikonov (Molotov’s grandson).

Gorham also discusses the role of the Internet and Russia’s extraordinarily active blogging community, which some suggest has turned the internet into a ‘virtual kitchen’ for free debate. However, May 2010 saw the launch of the Cyrillic language .rf web name domain, part of a broader range of government proposals (as yet mostly unimplemented) to make cyberspace ‘more Russian’ behind a ‘Cyillic curtain.’

A vivid video report on Global Post/PBS, based on interviews with three Syrian protest leaders. The analysis shows the moral courage of the protesters, and their hopes for international support. But the key decisions still rest within Syria’s ruling elite, and it is harder to figure out whether they see any upside in giving up power.

As if Islamist insurgency was not enough, Pakistan also faces ethnic separatism – notably, the Baluchi separatist movement, which launched a fresh insurgency – the fifth since 1947 – in 2004, as described by Abubakar Siddique in Foreign Policy magazine. Baluchi unrest threatens plans for natural gas pipelines from Turkmenistan and Iran.

For a more upbeat analysis of Pakistan’s federal system and its ability to accommodate regional diversity – aside from Baluchistan, see this article by Sharif al Mujahid in the Dawn newspaper of August 14.

Also in the Dawn of July 22, S. Akbar Zaidi critiques the ‘false nationalism’ of the Pakistani military, pointing out that they are dependent on US aid for 40% of their budget, so it is unbecoming for them to be critical of the US.

Western supporters of the democratic transition in Ukraine are facing a dilemma. The government of Viktor Yanukovich is backtracking on democratic procedures – even putting on trial former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who lost the 2010 presidential election to Yanukovich. However, Yanukovich is also pursuing closer economic integration with the European Union. So what is in the best interests of the Ukrainian nation – to isolate Kyiv through international sanctions, or to continue the negotiations for Association status with Brussels?

I discuss the policy debate in this piece written with Iryna Solonenko and published in Open Democracy.

In a heartfelt essay in Ianyan magazine Jirair Libaridian argues that the steady emigration of young people from Armenia threatens the country’s long term viability. The current government’s unwillingness to reach a compromise peace with Azerbaijan may please elements of the Armenian diaspora, but the economic blockade is strangling the country. Libaridian, a professor at the University of Michigan, was an advisor to President Levon Ter Petrossian, who was forced to resign in 1998 because of his willingness to make a deal over Nagorno Karabakh.

Libaridian’s analysis raises the question of who speaks for the nation: the government, the diaspora, the current population, future generations?

The latest round of peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan collapsed on June 24. I wrote this piece on the risks of a new war in the Moscow Times.

Writing in Open Democracy,  Mattias Gardell provides a useful analysis of Anders Breivik’s political philosophy – the “romantic male warrior ideal.” In the same source Deborah Grayson and Ben Little argued that the extreme Right have come up with a trans-national civilizational discourse that enables them to find common cause with nationalists in other countries. Thomas Hegghammer made a similar argument about the spread of “macro-nationalism” in the New York Times of July 30.

Over in Counter Punch, Israel Shamir offers an analysis of some of the intellectual currents jostling around in Breivik’s incoherent 2083 manifesto: Islamophobia, but also anti-communism, and even, Shamir argues, neoconservatism.

Al Jazeera just aired this grim. moving documentary on the crushing of the democracy movement in Bahrain. Noteworthy how the demonstrators appeal to national unity and deny that they are pitting Shia against Sunni, while many of the security forces are foreign nationals recruited from Syria, Pakistan etc – not to mention the arrival of troops from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark (Al Jazeera, August 4, 2011)

By coincidence the same day’s Washington Post published an article which seems to condone US support for the Bahraini regime:

Why Bahrain Remains an Ally