ISAS Special Reports

The past partitions, frontier-making and border demarcations in South Asia have produced uneven geographies, identities and territories that continue to underpin some of the region’s most critical conflicts and social struggles today. The region’s fragmented and fractured ‘fault lines’ continue to alter due to new infrastructure connectivity projects, ecological changes and ongoing militarisation. As a result, there has been a welcome shift in academia and policy circles toward broadening the intellectual lineage of border studies in South Asia and employing cross-disciplinary, critical and transnational approaches to studying South Asian borders and frontiers.

The Institute of South Asian Studies partnered with Konrad Adenauer Stiftung to jointly organise the International Conference on South Asia from 10 to 19 May 2021. The conference, titled ‘Five Fault Lines: Reflections on South Asian Frontiers’, brought together a diverse mix of scholars and practitioners to discuss and analyse the colonial origins, postcolonial legacies and contemporary congealing of frontiers and borderlands in the region. This Special Report encapsulates the key ideas, research and debates raised in the conference.