Contested Flights The Perplexity of Intruding “Spy Pigeons” at the India-Pakistan Border

Abstract

Despite the invention and sophistication of drones and unarmed aerial vehicles, satellites, and more recently, cyber espionage, “spy pigeons” remain a serious threat at the IndiaPakistan border. The entanglement between flying pigeons for “sport” and capturing pigeons for “espionage” is critical to construe multiple meanings of morethanhuman border intrusion in South Asia. Such an incursion not only endangers longstanding values of humanpigeon companionship but also moots a perplexity of intrusion that lies between the ethical acceptance of the morethanhuman intruders and necessary resistance to their hostile infiltration. Explored through the geopolitically complex experiences of intrusion that have shaped the IndiaPakistan relationship since Partition, intruding spy pigeons provide a critical perspective on distrust, animosity, and espionage in South Asia. Show more