The Frontier Complex: Geopolitics and the Making of the India-China Border, 1846-1962

Description

Kyle J. Gardner reveals the transformation of the historical Himalayan entrepot of Ladakh into a modern, disputed borderland through an examination of rare British, Indian, Ladakhi, and Kashmiri archival sources. In so doing, he provides both a history of the rise of geopolitics and the first comprehensive history of Ladakh's encounter with the British Empire. He examines how colonial border-making practices transformed geography into a political science and established principles that a network of imperial frontier experts would apply throughout the empire and bequeath to an independent India. Through analyzing the complex of imperial policies and practices, The Frontier Complex reveals how the colonial state transformed, and was transformed by, new ways of conceiving of territory. Yet, despite a century of attempts to craft a suitable border, the British failed. The result is an imperial legacy still playing out across the Himalayas.

Kyle J. Gardner is a Non-Resident Scholar at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the George Washington University.

'Kyle J. Gardner's pathbreaking The Frontier Complex is sure to become an essential resource on the India-China border. Deftly marshaling a vast range of archival materials across multiple languages, Gardner shows how colonial-era mapmaking practices created cartographic ambiguity that persists to this day. This is an important book on an increasingly urgent geopolitical dispute.' Alyssa Ayres, Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia, Council on Foreign Relations 'Based on an imaginative and meticulous analysis of sources in Urdu, Ladakhi, Hindi, Tibetan, and English, Gardner's insightful and ironical narrative outlines how by converting an open frontier in the Himalayas into a loosely policed imperial border, the British left two of Asia's most powerful countries with an unenviable task: converting that border into a sacred boundary separating two nation-states. This is imperial-environmental history at its best.' Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago 'The Frontier Complex is the riveting story of colonial surveyors, administrators, explorers, and strategists' centuries-old efforts to pin Ladakh on the map - and their failure. Gardner reveals the ascent of geography as the frontier science by excellence, the Himalayas' role in the emergence of modern notions of territory, and how 'science-based' interventions can hold within them the very conditions for their failure.' Berenice Guyot-Rechard, King's College London '... a meticulously researched book which deserves to be read closely.' Myra Macdonald, War on the Rocks 'Kyle Gardner has given us what is easily the best and most variegated account of the British discovery of Ladakh and their failed attempt to impose imperial 'scientific' or 'natural' frontiers on it.' Shivshankar Menon, The Wire