Myra MacDonald on the India-Pakistan Battle for Siachen

Grand Tamasha

The contested borders between India, China, and Pakistan render the Himalayas one of the world’s most dangerous geopolitical flashpoints in the year 2021. A new book by the journalist Myra MacDonald, White as the Shroud: India, Pakistan and War on the Frontiers of Kashmir, takes readers inside the long-simmering conflict over the Siachen glacier—one of the most obscure and forbidding battlegrounds in the world.

Myra joins Milan on the podcast this week to talk about her new book and its larger implications for regional and global politics. The two discuss Myra’s lifelong passion for India/South Asia, the origins of India and Pakistan’s decades-long battle for Siachen, and the toll war at 20,000 feet takes on soldiers from both sides. Plus, Myra reflects on how the Modi government’s August 2019 abrogation of Article 370in Jammu and Kashmir has impacted relations with both China and Pakistan.

Episode notes:

1. Myra MacDonald, Heights of Madness: One Women`s Journey in Pursuit of a Secret War
2. Myra MacDonald, Defeat is an Orphan: How Pakistan Lost the Great South Asian War
3. Grand Tamasha, “Ashley J. Tellis on India’s China Conundrum”