{"id":8503,"date":"2026-08-27T13:22:53","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T07:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/jsia\/cas\/?p=8503"},"modified":"2026-08-27T13:22:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T07:52:53","slug":"borders-that-bleed-durand-line-pashtun-identity-and-the-failure-of-colonial-cartography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/jsia\/cas\/borders-that-bleed-durand-line-pashtun-identity-and-the-failure-of-colonial-cartography\/","title":{"rendered":"Borders That Bleed: Durand Line, Pashtun Identity, and the Failure of Colonial Cartography."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Durand Line is one of the most disputed borders in the world, which was created in 1893 as\u00a0 a colonial border between British India and Afghanistan. The Line was a politically and culturally illogical boundary dividing the tribal lands of Pashtun, and was created as an administrative convenience instead of a culturally and politically coherent border. The proposed paper explores the Durand Line case study as an example of the continued failure of colonial cartography, holding that its survival has played a major role in the instability of the region, identity crisis, and confusion in the law of South Asia<sup>1<\/sup>. Placing the Durand Line in the context of imperial boundary-making, the research paper examines how the colonial states were keen on strategic domination of the native realities. In the paper, the historical context of the Anglo-Afghan accords is followed, which demonstrates the lack of balance of power, the absence of the Pashtun consent, and the lack of democratic legitimacy in the formation of the boundary. It also examines how the artificial demarcation interfered with the conventional forms of governance, tribal movement and economic ties that were at the core of the Pashtun society. Another concept the research is also involved in was the concept of Pashtun identity, which underlines the validity of the Durand Line due to transboundary kinship, customary law (Pashtunwali), and collective memory. Although the international community has accepted the border as Pakistan claims, Afghanistan has been steadfast in refusing to formally accept the border, which highlights the legal and political ambiguity of the border.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jgu.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com\/cas\/Borders+That+Bleed+Durand+Line%2C+Pashtun+Identity%2C+and+the+Failure+of+Colonial+Cartography+-+Krishanu+Kalita.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Know More<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Durand Line is one of the most disputed borders in  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/jsia\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/jsia\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/jsia\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/jsia\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/jsia\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/jsia\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8504,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/jsia\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8503\/revisions\/8504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/jsia\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/jsia\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/jsia\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}