COMMON SENSE IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS : THE CASE OF INDIAN FOREIGN POLICY VIS-A-VIS JAMMU AND KASHMIR, 1947-50

Abstract

How do ideas of the masses impact foreign policy? As a discipline, International Relations has sought to answer this through various conceptual lenses - national identity, public opinion, and popular culture. However, at the core of all these lenses lie a mass of undifferentiated, often contradictory but uncontested ideas that a society takes for granted, which can be called its mass common-sense. In my doctoral dissertation, I conceptualize, operationalize, and use mass common-sense to understand India’s foreign policy regarding Jammu & Kashmir from 1947-50. I argue that mass common-sense acts as a ‘gatekeeper of legitimacy’ within societal discourse and thus enables and constrains how masses and elites interpret and act in the world around them. Recovering common-sense from diverse Hindi and Urdu sources such as folk songs, children’s literature, popular history books, films and short stories, I explain how mass conceptions of masculinity, morality and justice shaped India’s actions and inactions in Jammu & Kashmir. In doing so, my research brings a fresh, bottom-up perspective to an otherwise over-studied conflict.