Tag Archives: Pashtun

Dealing With A Pariah

23 Sun Aug 2015

Posted by in India, Pakistan, South Asia

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The cancellation of the scheduled talks between the national security advisors of India and Pakistan, Ajit Doval and Sartaj Aziz, felt like euthanasia – unpleasant but a welcome respite given the lack of alternatives. Rawalpindi’s persistence in sabotaging talks – terrorist attacks, cross-border shelling, infiltration attempts, and insisting on talking to Kashmiri separatists, the All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) – ultimately paid off.

There will be an outpouring of concern in editorials over the next few days over how recklessly Narendra Modi is steering the country’s foreign policy with regard to Pakistan, but it is difficult to imagine the editorials remaining silent had talks continued – in all likelihood, the Modi government would have been criticised for continuing with talks despite repeated and deadly provocations, not to mention an inexplicable and sudden softness in its Pakistan policy. As such, these opinions are worthless for the goal appears to be more Modi-bashing and less critical thought.

The drama of the past few days is uncannily similar to events almost exactly a year ago, when the new Modi government cancelled talks with Pakistan over the meeting of Abdul Basit, the latter’s High Commissioner, with Kashmiri separatists in Delhi just before the talks. Such consultations have been a longstanding tradition but the actions of the Modi government indicate that India has reconsidered its policy on the acceptability of foreign leaders meeting with separatists. So much for continuity of foreign policy…

There is a large constituency in Delhi that support diplomatic engagement with Pakistan no matter the circumstances. However, it remains to be asked what benefits India has ever accrued from its umpteen talks with its troublesome neighbour over the past decades. Not one achievement can be recalled that validates, even partially, the efforts of Indian diplomats. The question naturally arises, why should India continue to engage with Pakistan seriously, or why Delhi should even maintain a full diplomatic mission in Islamabad. It might even be argued that India should not be emollient with Pakistan any longer but take a tougher stance. As the oft-quoted wisdom goes, repeating the same thing and expecting different results is a sign of insanity.

A tough policy, to lay rest to the caricature at the outset, does not mean a military invasion or even a large cross-border raid. Due to certain acts of Chinese commission and US omission, use of force against Pakistan above an ambiguous threshold is fraught with risks. Besides, there are several options India can consider before the ultimate argument of kings.

If Pakistan cannot conduct itself in the manner befitting the basis of diplomatic exchange, there is no reason to accord them that privilege. In fact, there is little reason for Delhi to maintain a full mission in Islamabad. India can request the United States, Pakistan’s great benefactor, to host an Indian diplomatic interests section within its embassy; all critical communications can be relayed out of the section without having to maintain the charade of normal relations.

Diplomatic links may be progressively reestablished as signs emerge that effective measures are being taken against non-state actors along the border and that Pakistani troops have been ordered to stand down from indiscriminate cross-border shelling. Pakistan must be made to earn the right to participate in talks. If Islamabad cannot promise to curtail its army or its terrorists, what is the purpose of keeping on talking?

India can also use its diplomatic influence at every international forum to push for counter-terrorism commitments in every aid package to Pakistan. In all likelihood, this is unlikely to reap rich rewards but it will put pressure on Islamabad and constantly remind the international community about questions regarding the safe haven for terror networks in Pakistan. Islamabad would be forced to expend diplomatic capital and lobbying effort to counter India’s narrative of its conduct.

Taking the fight to the enemy, India also retains the option of encouraging Baloch and Pashtun sentiments on independence. This is a delicate matter which has diplomatic, cultural, and military dimensions to it and the risk of blowback is high. For example, Baloch separatism may ring alarm bells in Iran, a country important to India’s Central Asia and energy strategies. Similarly, Pashtun sentiments must be balanced against Afghan repercussions. Nonetheless, it is an option worth exploring and pursuing, albeit with caution.

As far as terrorists of interest are concerned, India would stand to profit from the development of covert operations capabilities to carry out surveillance, infiltration, and targeted assassinations. From all reports, India is years away from fielding such skills and even then, such tactics usually cause only disruption rather than bring resolution. No matter, it is best to keep available the widest range of options and such considerations should not stop Delhi from developing a force capable of such missions. Furthermore, the occasional public spectacle of a successful clandestine operation serves a psychological purpose among civilians and combatants alike.

The usual word of caution in taking any hawkish stance on Pakistan is a reminder of the nuclear shield behind which Pakistan conducts its nefarious asymmetric operations. As the United States tries to impress upon India, Pakistan’s political and economic stability is in Indian interests too for turmoil in the country would put the custody of approximately 120 nuclear warheads in question. Yet it must also be borne in mind that none of what has been suggested as part of India’s offensive panoply represents anything more than a minuscule show of arms; most of Delhi’s tactics remain diplomatic and economic with only the slightest armed assistance.

As regards the survival of a unitary (West) Pakistani state, the secession of Balochistan and a Pashtun region – to consider the extreme outcomes – may not be a flowering of democracy and peace but it will certainly restrict Pakistan militarily, geographically, and strategically as several strategic assets move out of its jurisdiction. Punjabi control over the state apparatus, its army and its nuclear arsenal, will certainly be weakened and circumscribed but not threatened. Given the ethnic paranoia that drives Pakistan, it is highly unlikely that any critical nuclear facilities are far beyond the borders of Punjab. A truncated Pakistan will leave an irate nuclear stump of Punjab and Sindh who would be less willing to negotiate with India but Delhi can find some solace in that the new state would have lesser economic, geographic, and demographic resources to conduct its vendetta against India. A weakened Pakistan would also limit the scale of China’s ambitions in India’s rear.

There are those who argue that the strongest weapon in India’s arsenal is economic growth. India should keep negotiations with Pakistan ongoing while expanding its own options by simultaneously growing the economy. Whatever else might be said about this, it is an unsound theory in the sense that Karl Popper would define the term – it is unfalsifiable. While it seems intuitive that an economy of $5 trillion comes with more options than an economy of $2.5 trillion, the disparity in wealth did not achieve for the United States its aims in Cuba despite decades of sanctions. Similarly, it was not the United States’ stronger economy that secured a nuclear agreement with Iran.

Indeed, an economy growing at nine per cent per annum would be enormously beneficial to India. Yet that will not change the nature of Pakistan’s relations with China, the United States, or terrorist organisations. As Christine Fair argued recently, even Kashmir is merely a symptom – the real problem lies in the conception of the Pakistani state itself.

The latest flashpoint in diplomacy between India and Pakistan has arisen over the role of the Hurriyat. It is argued that they are the Kashmiri voice in the negotiations between Delhi and Islamabad and that consulting with them is an old Pakistani diplomatic tradition. Yet this status has been accepted only by Islamabad. The Modi government has done well in its insistence that separatists have no standing in India’s international affairs, and far from being a minor matter of protocol and decorum, diplomatic recognition is in fact a significant thing.

As columnists impotently bemoan the latest tragedy in India-Pakistan relations and condemn India’s hawkish NSA and government, there will be at least one small voice in the country wondering why Modi Sarkar is still so soft on Pakistan. Even if this entire premise is flawed, can India possibly lose more than it does already?

This post first appeared on Swarajya on August 23, 2015.

Beware The Stories Your Friends Tell

26 Wed Jun 2013

Posted by in India, Opinion and Response, Pakistan, South Asia, United States

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William Dalrymple’s Brookings essay, A Deadly Triangle – Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, has stirred up a hornet’s nest among observers of Indian foreign policy. Best known for prize-winning works such as The Age of Kali, White Mughals, and The Last Mughal, Dalrymple, in this essay, looks at the decades-old conflict in Afghanistan and its foreign participants to come to the conclusion that the central Asian country is a battleground for a proxy India-Pakistan war.

This, we are told, is buncombe; Indians are furious at being considered part of the Afghan equation. Unfortunately, their reasoning seems more emotive than logical. Writes one journalist (who won much plaudits on twitter),

“Dalrymple’s “proxy war” reasoning implies – even though he may not have intended it — that Pakistan’s use of jihadi militants is somehow justified to counter Indian influence. And whatever emanates from the bunch of jihadis is indirectly India’s fault. It creates a troubling moral equivalence between India and Pakistan, between building roads and hospitals and bombing embassies.” (emphasis added)

That is a tough claim to defend. Dalrymple repeatedly states throughout his essay that “the ISI has consciously and consistently funded and incubated a variety of Islamic extremist groups” to bog down India’s conventional military superiority. As Dalrymple explains, the generals liked this strategy as it had an added bonus of fostering nationalism based on the “twin prongs of hatred for India and the bonding power of Islamic identity.” This, he explains, is because for the Pakistani military, “the existential threat posed by India has taken precedence over all other geopolitical and economic goals.”

These sentiments are not far from Indian opinion when Dalrymple’s essay is not in sight. Indian academics and strategists have always argued that Pakistan is unhealthily obsessed with India because it was created, in essence, as an anti-India; that Pakistan is ruled by the military needs hardly any argument, and the Islamic Republic’s ties to terrorism are also beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Dalrymple further accepts that Pakistan was the first to use irregulars when it encouraged Pashtun tribesmen into Kashmir in 1947. The Soviet invasion changed everything for the country; with Pakistan providing aid in terms of weapons, medical supplies, training, communications and intelligence bought by US and Saudi money, India’s disfigured twin gained the upper hand in Afghanistan.

Dalrymple also shows how Pakistan provided refuge to the Taliban soon after the September 11 attacks on the United States. The US War on Terror has forced Islamabad to restrain its hand in the internal matters of its northern neighbour while provided a boost for India’s agenda. India is the fifth-largest investor in Afghanistan, providing food, schools, hospitals, roads, and other infrastructure, and enjoys overwhelming approval (74%) of the Afghans.

Nowhere in the essay does Dalrymple make a case for the moral equivalence between India and Pakistan. In fact, if anything, the reader might be persuaded that Dalrymple is subtly hinting for a more active Indian role in Afghanistan. He writes,

“It is hardly surprising that India keeps intelligence personnel in these sensitive postings, but there is no hard evidence that RAW or any other Indian agency is taking reciprocal action against the Pakistanis in response to their covert war against Indian interests in Afghanistan. U.S. intelligence agencies have followed up all the leads provided by the Pakistanis on this matter and have not found any evidence that India is actively aiding Baluchi separatists in the way Pakistan alleges.”

The Indian commentariat has also accused Dalrymple of forgetting that Pakistan’s troubles with Afghanistan stretch to far before the US War on Terror or even the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to the two countries’ dispute over the Durand Line. This is, again, patently false. Any careful reading would reveal Dalrymple’s explanation of the older conflict that has been overlaid by superpower conflict, Islamism, and the India-Pakistan conflict in the 20th century: “Afghan leaders had never accepted the Durand line that the British drew in 1893 and, after Partition, Afghanistan was not about to recognize that line as its border with Pakistan.”

In fact, the Brookings essay goes further back to say, “There is also an age-old Pashtun-on-Pashtun element to the conflict. It pits Taliban from the Ishaqzai tribe, parts of the Nurzais, Achakzais, and most of the Ghilzais, especially the Hotak and Tokhi Ghilzais, against the more “establishment” Durrani Pashtun tribes: the Barakzais, Popalzais and Alikozais.”

Perhaps what has so incensed Indian observers of the Af-Pak issue is that India’s own halo has been shredded. A Deadly Triangle also reminds readers that Afghanistan was the only country that opposed Pakistan’s membership into the United Nations in 1947, and the mutual antipathy to Pakistan that Afghanistan and India shared pulled them together into a friendship treaty as natural allies by 1950. Furthermore, India did not enter Afghanistan for the first time after the NATO invasion in 2001; India was there even earlier to mitigate the effects of the mess caused by the US involvement during the Soviet invasion and its abrupt abandonment of Kabul soon after. Until 2001, it was Iran and India that sent supplies to the Northern Alliance under Ahmad Shah Massoud in their fight against the Pakistani-supported Taliban.

If the assertion that the violence in Afghanistan is not about Pakistan’s irrational hatred of India but has to do with the United States, then all problems ought to be solved as they leave next year. Only the naive would believe this. It is true that Dalrymple has underplayed the devastating effect of US and Saudi money on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. However, that money went to fuel an anti-Soviet campaign with the side effect of exacerbating Islamabad’s troubled relations with Delhi. US aid, as it has in so many other theatres, acted as a catalyst upon already existing animosities and left the place worse than before the aid was given. In this narrow sense, the US is responsible for the Af-Pak quagmire but not the underlying raison d’être.

It is also possible that what motivates such a wild reaction from India to Dalrymple’s essay is Delhi’s fear that they will yet again be left alone to pick up the pieces as the United States and NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. With Iran occupied in its own imbroglio over nuclear weapons, this time around, India will have little help from elsewhere. Russia may be of passing assistance – after all, Kabul is in its backyard too – but the geopolitical price India will have to pay might be too high.

Unfortunately for South Block and its many media and blogosphere supporters, there is little India can do to prevent or delay a Western retreat. Only a massive Taliban surge might achieve that if only because of the US desire for yet another “decent interval,” but it is unlikely that the Taliban high command is that stupid – it would be much easier to fight a lonelier Karzai next year.

Would Afghanistan have looked different without US and Saudi beneficence? Probably, but that is one too many what-ifs to tackle – it was the Cold War, the Soviet Union had not yet gone the way of the dodo, and China had yet to rise. Pakistan has steadily attacked India’s small assets in Afghanistan. This has less to do with the Afghans than with India. A simple test would be to compare Pakistan’s obsession with Afghanistan and the Durand Line to its visceral hatred of its larger eastern neighbour. It would also be fruitful to compare the dollars spent and the blood spilled by Pakistan against purely Afghan interests to the same against India or Indian interests in Afghanistan.

It is difficult to understand the explosive reaction to Dalrymple’s essay. Contrary to the assertions critics have made, scholars like Dalrymple and Bruce Riedel have argued strenuously that it is Islamabad and its support of terrorism that is the root of all the problems in the region, including India, Afghanistan, nuclear, and Islamism. India’s role, unfortunately, is acting as the object of ditransitive Pakistani terrorism. In fact, I, for one, applaud what little mettle India has shown for strategic thinking in Afghanistan and would like to see more of it. Or as journalist Pierre Fitter tweeted, “All said and done, I’m hoping the Pashto and Dari classes in Delhi are seeing maximum attendance.”

A version of this post appeared on FirstPost on June 29, 2013.