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Chaturanga

~ statecraft, strategy, society, and Σοφíα

Chaturanga

Tag Archives: Kashmir

Perfilyev’s Way*

10 Wed May 2017

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, Opinion and Response, South Asia

≈ Comments Off on Perfilyev’s Way*

Tags

India, Kashmir, Soviet Union, terrorism, Ummer Fayaz, Yuri Perfilyev

The abduction and murder of Indian Army Lieutenant Ummer Fayaz marks a dark evolution in the history of Kashmiri terrorism. Fayaz had been commissioned barely five months earlier to the Rajputana Rifles in the Akhnoor sector. On furlough to attend a cousin’s wedding, the 22-year-old officer was kidnapped from his relative’s house by five or six terrorists on the evening of May 9 and his bullet-riddled body was found the next morning. It is alleged that the incident was an implicit message to Muslims not to join or cooperate with the Indian state.

While there have been the usual canned expressions of sympathy and anguish from the government for the soldier’s family, it is difficult to ignore the fact that Narendra Modi’s government has continued its predecessor’s policy of vacillation punctuated by occasional action – in Kashmir; Delhi is still scared to take military off the leash. It is not uncommon for security forces to be killed in skirmishes with terrorists or India’s neighbours. This latest incident, however, is different in that Fayaz was abducted from his home while on leave and murdered. Were Indian politicians capable of drawing red lines, one would have been crossed in spades.

It is said that if brute force is not working, you are just not using enough. There is a somewhat apocryphal story about how the Soviet Union responded to four of its diplomats being kidnapped by a terrorist outfit in Lebanon known as the Islamic Liberation Organisation in 1985. Initially, they opened negotiating channels but then one of the diplomats was found shot dead in a Beirut parking lot. In retaliation, the KGB is said to have kidnapped a relative of one of the terrorists and castrated him, cut him to pieces, and sent to the hostage takers. The remaining three Russians were shortly released near the Russian embassy as a gesture of “good will” and no Soviet/Russian diplomats were harmed for the next 20 years.

Not every incident can have the same satisfactory ending as Israeli operations have shown. Despite a fearsome reputation for exacting vengeance, the Jewish state remains the victim of dozens of terrorist attacks every year. In fact, the Israeli Defence Forces have made peace with the situation and settled into a war of attrition that is far more costly for their enemies. Delhi, however, has so far not even bared its fangs to its enemies.

Responding to an earlier provocation of Pakistani soldiers beheading two Indian border security patrol guards, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh forcefully stated that it was about time that the Indian military stopped being a gentleman’s army and joined in the same rough-and-tumble everyone else was in. To be fair to the military, it is evident that there are occasional unofficial retaliatory raids across India’s western border – morale demands it. Away from the front, though, the political will to deal with the unrest in Kashmir has repeatedly been found wanting.

In a different context, Rajesh Rajagopalan writes that India’s deterrence against Pakistan has weakened because of Delhi’s consistent and palpable fear of escalating a conflict on the border. This has emboldened Islamabad to be more reckless in its gambles against India. The same reasoning holds true in Kashmir – terrorists are getting bolder because the Indian military can be relied upon not to retaliate too harshly. This comes, again, from a political leadership that is too apprehensive about international public opinion and pressure from non-governmental organisations.

Critics of a more severe policy in Kashmir have bemoaned the lack of political solution and warned that military force will not be sufficient to sustain the peace in the state. They are not entirely wrong: the government must first have a clear vision of what its ideal, ultimate objectives are with Kashmir. Terrorists – those who are willing, at least – must be swayed by the possibility of a real political solution to their grievances. At the very least, this may prevent further radicalisation born out of a lack of alternatives.

To make the political solution more persuasive, it is imperative that the government adopt a substantially more aggressive military posture. While attacks on military targets may be the unfortunate cost of doing business, strikes against civilians or military personnel out of uniform must be retaliated against punitively. Peace was not brought to Northern Ireland or Sri Lanka by the respective authorities abjuring from the use of force. While negotiations paved the way for a longer lasting peace in the former case, Colombo thought it unavoidable that one of the factions arrayed against it be rooted out completely and exterminated. India has a similar decision before it – sift between those who are willing to negotiate and those who are not, and then eliminate the latter.

What merits such a decisive response to the slaying of Fayaz is that his murder was not the simple targeting of an enemy combatant but a threat to the people of Kashmir: do not cooperate with the Indian state or your families are not safe. Delhi cannot afford for citizens to turn away from it in fear of an authority whose force can be felt more truly than that of Raisina. A reminder – and reassurance – is needed in Kashmir as to who holds the upper escalatory hand and psychological dominance must be reasserted.

To the disappointment of many of their supporters, the present government has appeared marginally better than its predecessor in matters of internal and external security. The murder of Ummer Fayaz is not just another mark in a tally of casualties in Kashmir but fundamentally different in its political essence. The prime minister must authorise, if only quietly, ruthless retribution. He cannot allow it to be subsumed in the enormity of the larger question.

*: Yuri Perfilyev was the KGB station chief in Lebanon in 1985. In parallel to the operations against the kidnappers, it is alleged that he threatened Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Fadlallah, the spiritual leader of the Lebanese Shiites, with “accidental” missile strikes against Tehran, Qom, and elsewhere.

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Modi’s Balochistan Gambit

20 Tue Sep 2016

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, Pakistan, South Asia

≈ Comments Off on Modi’s Balochistan Gambit

Tags

Afghanistan, Ajit Doval, Armenia, Balochistan, China, genocide, India, Iran, Kashmir, Narendra Modi, Pakistan

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mere mention of Balochistan in his Independence Day speech probably caused more flutter than any actual Indian policy ever has. An earlier reference to the western Pakistani province by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval at the 10th Nani Palkhivala Memorial Lecture in February 2014 had already set the tone – in rhetoric, at least – of the Modi administration towards misadventures from its western neighbour. In the wake of the terror attack in Uri, these comments have acquired greater salience among the public.

To be sure, these utterances represent some bold and out-of-the-box thinking by anyone in the Indian government. However, supporting an insurgency – in whichever country – is a complicated and messy affair that cannot be dismissively relegated to a mere talking point. There is interest in many quarters about the feasibility of Indian support to Balochistan, especially since it appears at first glance to be analogous to the situation in Kashmir. Yet appearances can be deceptive and if Modi & Co. are serious about the option, there are some questions they must first consider.

Henry Kissinger is famously said to have asked, “Who do I call if I want to call Europe?” The same is true for Balochistan. Whom does the prime minister – or his national security advisor – call if he wants to call the Balochi rebels? The Balochi struggle, such as it is, remains deeply fractured and it is difficult to identify one clear leader or even someone who could potentially unify the different factions against their common oppressor. Needless to say, Islamabad would have picked off such a person at the earliest had one emerged.

Uniting factions in service of a common cause is not easy as even the United States with its several carrots found out in Syria. Even supporting the two or three major factions is a recipe for disaster as intra-faction fighting can quickly sap international sympathy and India’s patience.

Even if the Baloch were able to come together, what would India’s aid look like? The rebels would be committing suicide with small arms alone and heavy arms would only encourage the Pakistani Army to bring in even heavier arms such as armour and air support; Delhi can hardly supply the rebels commensurately. Yet India’s struggle to even overtly train and arm the Afghan Army puts the country’s role as an arms supplier to the Baloch in question.

There is also this to be considered: who stands guarantee to the suitability of Baloch targets? So far, India has had the advantage of international confidence that it does not distinguish between good and bad terrorists. Were Balochi fighters to target Pakistani civilians, especially schools or hospitals, it could tarnish India’s reputation for no apparent gains. This is not an unlikely situation – Baloch anger at their harsh treatment by Islamabad so far would only naturally boil over and lash out at the first instance it can strike where it hurts. Wars seldom remain kosher for long.

An armed and active Baloch insurgency would cause alarm in the neighbourhood – Tehran, Kabul, and Beijing at the very least. Historically, the Baloch people have lived in what is today western Pakistan, eastern Iran, and southwestern Afghanistan. If the insurgency were to excite dormant aspirations among Balochis outside Pakistan, it would very well sour India’s relations with Iran and Afghanistan. Baloch leaders would have to promise to abandon any dreams of an akhand Balochistan and even if they were to, could they be trusted? For how long?

Beijing would have its own concerns with a Baloch uprising. After having invested heavily is propping up a teetering state like Pakistan, China would be loathe to see its interests washed away. First, they would lose the strategically important port of Gwadar; second, they would have to abandon their economic corridor into Pakistan; third, and most vitally, their dagger pointed at India’s back would be blunted. It is highly unlikely that China’s leaders would sit idly by for long if Baloch fighters gained momentum against Islamabad’s forces, with or without India’s help.

The international community would have its own nightmares – it is not often that a state possessing nuclear weapons succumbs to such a virulent separatist movement. There would be immense pressure on India – if links were established – to cut all support to the Baloch rebels and to do so quickly.

Allowing for the moment that a Baloch insurgency is successful and Kalat regains its independence, how would it benefit India? Pakistan would lose approximately five percent of its population and 45 percent of its territory; electoral results suggest that it is unlikely that this would excite other separatist movements such as in Sindh. Will the new Balochistan tilt towards India? Delhi’s experience with Bangladesh in 1972 suggests that even this is not a given.

The nuclear arsenal, India’s primary concern, will in all likelihood remain in Punjabi hands. Punjab, the brightest ember in Pakistan’s fire of anti-India hatred, will emerge even more concentrated and certainly in no mood for negotiations henceforth. While the new situation may affect the tactical military situation, there would be little impact strategically except perhaps to lower the nuclear threshold even more and make the subcontinent an even more dangerous place.

Finally, if answers to all these convolutions do already exist somewhere in South Block, is it really wise to announce Indian support for an independent Balochistan so publicly? Declaratory wars have not been in fashion for over a century now. Plausible deniability is a very effective strategy; if Indian fingerprints were indeed found on a resurgent Baloch insurgency, there is no guarantee that it will not cross Pakistan’s nuclear threshold…especially if the insurgency makes initial gains.

None of this is to say that Modi should not extend support to the Baloch. The first step, however, might be to regularly highlight their plight on the international stage. If indirect funding could be made available for the diaspora and others to produce documentaries, organise conferences, and lobby important politicians in major capitals, it would create momentum around their cause. Exaggeration and too shrill a tone, however, would only set back the cause. A model one might learn from is how Armenians got the massacres of 1915-1917 internationally recognised as genocide. Such recognition opens several legal avenues for concerned states as well as affected people to take against Islamabad’s policies.

If aid were to ever include weapons, the Indian government would do well to closely consider the impediments to their action, potential fallout, and certain blowback.


This post appeared on FirstPost on September 21, 2016.

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Can India and Pakistan be Friends?

01 Fri Jul 2016

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Book Review, India, Pakistan, South Asia

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Aslam Siddiqi, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Ayub Khan, Chaudhry Kaliq-uz-Zaman, Husain Haqqani, Hyderabad, India, Islam, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jogendranath Mandal, Junagadh, Kashmir, Khaled Ahmed, Liaquat Ali Khan, Mohammad Ismail, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, nuclear, Pakistan, Sajjad Zaheer, Vallabhbhai Patel, Waheed-uz-Zaman

India vs Pakistan - Why Can't We Just Be FriendsHaqqani, Husain. India vs Pakistan: Why Can’t We Just Be Friends? New Delhi: Juggernaut, 2016. 200 pp.

More like a long essay than a book, Husain Haqqani’s latest book, India vs Pakistan: Why Can’t We Just Be Friends? is written for the layman. Yet its simplicity is deceptive – within its casually written, smooth-flowing narrative are a few insightful observations by a man who has served his country at the highest echelons of power. Some of these views these views are not popular, if not on one side of the border then the other. Haqqani has been hounded by many in his own country as unpatriotic, and some of his comments are bound to irk Indians as well. As an Indian myself, I cannot claim complete objectivity on the sensitive issue of India’s relations with its troublesome neighbour, Pakistan. That, however, may not be a bad thing, for human affairs are seldom dispassionate and rational: if a policy does not appeal to the emotions and aspirations of a people, as Britain’s recent almost-exit from the European Union demonstrated, its rationality is unlikely to provide it much succour. Besides, such objectivity, closely observed, is a myth.

Much of what Haqqani narrates is not new to anyone who has even peripherally followed South Asian politics. However, the author highlights events and views that raise tantalising ‘what-ifs’ of history and are often ignored in cynicism or frustration. For example, Haqqani reminds us how nebulous the idea of partition was even after the fact: that Muhammad Ali Jinnah wanted India and Pakistan to be friendly neighbours like the United States and Canada shows that the founder of the Islamic republic had not thought through the consequences of demanding a separate homeland for the subcontinent’s Muslims.

Another example is of Mohammad Ismail, the man Pakistan had nominated to be their first high commissioner to India. Ismail refused to adopt Pakistani nationality or move to the newly formed Pakistan despite his nomination. Others, such as Chaudhry Khaliq-uz-Zaman, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League, went back and forth several times to see which country promised better prospects before settling down. Jogendranath Mandal, a Bengali scheduled caste leader, served as Pakistan’s first law and labour minister and second minister of Commonwealth and Kashmir affairs before returning to settle down in Calcutta. Sajjad Zaheer, an Uttar Pradeshi Muslim who had become the leader of the Pakistan Communist Party, was arrested for sedition in 1951 and was deported to India after he reclaimed Indian citizenship.

India vs Pakistan is not just about factoids that have slipped from public memory: Haqqani also has an interesting diagnosis of the South Asian rivalry. Although Islamabad treats Kashmir as the root of all problems between India and Pakistan, according to Haqqani, it is merely a symptom. We have heard this before from Christine Fair, associate professor at the Centre for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University’s Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service in Washington, DC. Haqqani adds that this arises from the deep insecurity Pakistan feels in the suspicion that India has not truly accepted Partition. Congress had, vehemently opposed partition when the British were still ruling the subcontinent, and several leaders, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel included, publicly doubted the viability of the stump that had been hacked from the body of Mother India. The Congress resolution that accepted the partition plan nonetheless spoke of the geographic unity of an united India and the day the two-nation theory would be discredited and discarded by all. Pakistan interpreted this statement as an implicit Indian desire to undo partition even though Nehru also explicitly said in public that he would not want to inherit Pakistan’s problems on top of his own and did not yearn to re-embrace Pakistan. After the Third Indo-Pakistan War in 1971, that India did not seek to annex East Pakistan should have dispelled fears but even that did not drive home the point. For that matter, Atal Behari Vajpayee assured Pakistan during his visit to Lahore in February 1999 that India had accepted the creation of the Islamic state and had no desire to undo Partition.

For Pakistan, this is a fundamental question of identity: if they were not Muslims, were they merely second-rate Indians? asked one Pakistani official in a 1980 interview to an American newspaper. As the Pakistani academic Waheed-uz-Zaman wrote, “If the Arabs, the Turks, the Iranians, God forbid, give up Islam, the Arabs yet remain Arabs, the Turks remain Turks, the Iranians remain Iranians, but what do we remain if we give up Islam?” This was a poignant question for Pakistan then as it still is.

The power of Islam was, thus, deeply infused with Pakistani nationalism from the beginning and not the result of radicalisation in the 1980s as many believe. Even as early as the 1950s, Ayub Khan punctuated his speeches to the nation with references to the weak and cowardly Hindus, an ultimately flawed stereotype he had learned without reflection from the British theory of martial races. “The 100 million people of Pakistan whose hearts beat with the sound of la ilaha ill Allah, Muhammad ur rasool ullah will not rest until India’s guns are silenced,” he declared.

The Muslim League’s lack of preparedness for independence in 1947 is at the root of the Kashmir problem according to Haqqani. While the Congress party was able to cobble together a union of all but six of the 548 princely states, the Muslim League was unable to confirm the borders of their new state until a few months after the momentous occasion. Even then, the new state’s leaders were not able to persuade everyone and military force had to be used against Kalat in March 1948. Only Swat had voluntarily joined the Islamic republic by Independence Day. Additionally, Haqqani says, while Patel was willing to concede Kashmir to Pakistan initially, Jinnah’s claim to Junagadh and Hyderabad hardened Patel to Nehru’s position that not an inch of Kashmir can be surrendered. If the Muslims can claim Hindu Hyderabad on the basis of a Muslim ruler, why could India not claim Kashmir under similar circumstances? Jinnah’s ill-prepared and strategic blunder sowed the seeds for a multi-generational insurgency that would poison relations between the neighbours.

Haqqani also traces the use of irregular warfare by Pakistan against India to much before the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s to the late 1950s. Pakistan had used tribal militias in Jammu & Kashmir as early as 1948; Aslam Siddiqi, an official in Ayub’s Bureau of National Reconstruction, advocated as early as 1958 that Pakistan must use jihad through unofficial militias. In a report that warned Pakistan to prepare for the end of its alliance with America, the official asked, “why not train irregular fighters whom even the existing industries of Pakistan can well equip?” Siddiqi’s strategy involved spreading out and prolonging action, hit and run tactics that denied the enemy a firm target, and propaganda to fuel popular uprisings in the enemy camp. This was first tried by Pakistan in the prelude to the 1965 war.

In Pakistan, rather than inherit an army when the British left, it is the army that inherited a country. At Partition, Pakistan received 30 percent of India’s army, 40 percent of its navy, and 20 percent of its air force; in the first budget, Liaquat Ali Khan, the country’s first prime minister, had to allocate 75 percent of his finances to cover the salaries and maintenance of this enormous force. This lopsided relationship between Army and State has plagued the Islamic republic ever since. The military has had an unduly loud voice in the country’s governance and its obsession with India has perverted Pakistani society. To the horror of strategists everywhere, Pakistani generals speak casually of the use of nuclear weapons against India; Pakistan remains the only country whose nuclear programme is predicated with a single and named enemy in mind – India. To this end, Haqqani relates how the country’s diplomats covertly acquired equipment and material for the nuclear programme like smugglers, and proud of it they were, too. As Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States puts it succinctly, to seek security against a conventionally armed neighbour far superior to you is understandable but to seek parity is folly. It is this military quest for parity over the decades that has twisted Pakistani mentality towards India. According to Pakistani public intellectual Khaled Ahmed, “Pakistani nationalism comprises 95 percent India hatred. They call it Islam because that is how we learn to differentiate between ourselves and India.”

Interestingly, while Indians berate Nehru, Haqqani feels that the Indian leader moved methodically and deliberately on the strategic chessboard to gradually integrate Kashmir into India; Pakistani-sponsored terrorism did the rest by shifting the world’s sympathy from Pakistan in the early years to India at present. This perspective from across the border, especially from a man who has walked in the corridors of power, whether one agrees with it or not, deserves some careful reflection.

As interesting and thoughtful a diagnosis of the sub-continental psychosis as this may be, what is the solution? Haqqani feels that the rise of Hindu chauvinist forces in recent years does not give Pakistan confidence in Indian intentions. The saffronisation of education – or attempts in the direction – confirm to Pakistanis that Indians still cling to the idea of Akhand Bharat. These developments compound the already irrational acts on the other side of the border. Although communal fervour has been painted as a problem of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Haqqani observes that Congress was the first to use the Muslims as a vote bank; they did this continually, “reminding the community that they would have been better off had Pakistan not been created,” that they had been abandoned. Of course, the comparison between an Indian Hindu identity and a Pakistan Muslim identity is not analogous for historical as well as philosophical reasons but this is not the space for that debate.

Asked about a potential future in this gloomy climate, Haqqani replies that his objective is to “change the context of the relationship, from the embittered twins born at partition in 1947 to neighbors who cannot get away from one another and must learn to live with each other.” Towards this end, he advocates the freer flow of students, artists, doctors, musicians, poets, and athletes between the two countries as it used to be in the first couple of decades after partition: until 1951, when Pakistan formalised its citizenship law, Muslims could travel back and forth between India and Pakistan without even a passport. That document was introduced in 1952, for travel just between the two countries; visas requirements came only in 1965. The former ambassador is aware that this will not happen overnight – as long as each side suspects the other of trying to destroy them, the guns will not fall silent. Yet it is only through greater people-to-people contact that Pakistanis and Indians can dispel their misconceptions about each other. If the commonalities between the two peoples can be reignited, “the contrived animosities could begin to diminish.”

Haqqani is also sceptical about the role outside powers could play. Historically, the United States armed the Pakistan which permitted the Islamic state to have delusions of grandeur in the first place and stand up to India. More recently, however, both the United States and China, Pakistan’s new best friend, have urged the country’s leadership to resolve its issues with India peaceably or at least shelve it for later. As Haqqani explains, such intervention inevitably fans the fantasy of parity in Islamabad. “India and Pakistan need to talk to each other because it is in their interest.”

Yet Pakistan does not trust India because the latter has not done enough to reassure the former that there would be no attempt to reabsorb Pakistan again into India. How can this mistrust be reduced? Like in a merry-go-round, we return to the issue of greater people-to-people exchange. The Pakistani military would be loathe to allow greater civilian exchanges and India is stuck on its principle of reciprocity. “Any Pakistani suggesting that normalization of ties with India can preceded a final settlement over Kashmir runs the risk of being dubbed ‘traitor’.” The problem for Pakistan’s military is that after seven decades of peddling Kashmir as their primary national cause, it is not easy to suddenly effect a major shift in priorities. If Delhi could show some flexibility and allow a small number of visits, it might begin to thaw an otherwise seemingly hopeless situation.

A question that has arisen recently in the internal Indian debate on Pakistan is with whom India should negotiate. On the one hand, civilian governments are, some would argue, the moral choice though they have proven to be ineffective at producing results. On the other, the military may be capable of delivering on their promises but they have a poor track record and prove an unstable partner for the peaceful future of India-Pakistan relations. Haqqani argues that ties at purely one level cannot succeed because any civilian leader that makes too much headway in peace talks runs the risk of being undercut by the military. Instead, India must encourage a civilian leadership but maintain ties at several levels as it does with other countries. Cooperation on addressing the melting of the Himalayan glaciers or irrigating the Sindh-Rajasthan desert will give both sides a mutually beneficial goal to work towards while simultaneously building relations beyond governments, civilian or military.

The Army cannot be sidelined or wished away in a state that has been a military dictatorship for most of its history. By far the most influential actor in Pakistani society, the military has cultivated a nationalist narrative that sees India as an existential threat; this narrative has been furthered by educational institutions and the media. Yet Pakistan has had two successive civilian governments and that is also an encouraging sign. This evolution, however, Haqqani notes, is a function of Pakistani politics and outsiders – China, the United States, India, or anyone else – cannot dictate it.

The essence of Haqqani’s solution boils down to greater contact between the two societies. It is not a quick fix, the author admits, but it is the only possible long-term solution towards peace on the subcontinent. As unappetising as this may seem to some sections of Indian society, there is something to this seemingly simple solution: during the Cold War, the West allowed citizens of the Communist East to visit, travel, and see their countries. For those who could not get the opportunity or permission to travel, the United States used radio and television broadcasting to target Eastern European and Soviet audiences. Democratic Western culture, despite all its flaws, itself became a powerful psychological weapon against the repressive Communist regimes. In the end, rock and roll had a role to play in the demise of the Warsaw Pact as did Wall Street and Minuteman missiles. An open, inclusive, and confident India, even unilaterally so, may just be the way to tilt the scales towards India’s side…not, of course, at the expense of conventional security wisdom.

At times provocative, sometimes insightful, and always simple and coherent, India vs Pakistan makes for an excellent introduction for laypeople to India’s troubled relations with its Islamic neighbour to the West. And for Indians, it provides a useful and articulate perspective from across the border.

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