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 India-Pakistan border. The entanglement between flying pigeons for “sport” and capturing pigeons for “espionage” is critical to construe multiple meanings of more-than-human border intrusion in South Asia. Such an incursion not only endangers long-standing values of human-pigeon companionship but also moots a perplexity of intrusion that lies between the ethical acceptance of the more-than-human intruders and necessary resistance to their hostile infiltration. Explored through the geopolitically complex experiences of intrusion that have shaped the India-Pakistan relationship since Partition, intruding spy pigeons provide a critical perspective on distrust, animosity, and espionage in South Asia.