India’s Role in Af-Pak
Steven Walt observes that however scary a collapsing, Talibanized Pakistan may look to the United States, it looks way scarier to India:
So instead of its traditional goal of trying to weaken Pakistan, you’d think India would be going to considerable lengths to shore up the Zadari government. Pakistan’s military isn’t strong enough to pose a conventional threat to India, and New Delhi ought to be looking for ways to allow Pakistan’s armed forces to reorient their attention away from India and towards the real danger. This wouldn’t a concession on India’s part; it would be a smart strategy. But it would also require a level of foresight that few governments manage to display, so I ain’t optimistic.
I think an Indian would tell you that the real problem with this proposal isn’t that India isn’t farsighted enough to do it, it’s that Pakistan is the aggressor in the India-Pakistan conflict. If Pakistan would stop trying to take over Indian-controlled Kashmir, the conflict would go away and Pakistan could focus its energies on its domestic radicalism problem. But Pakistan has historically preferred to focus its energy on India. India can—and should—try to give Pakistan some reassurances on this score. But recent blowups in the India-Pakistan relationship have all been caused by Pakistan. India is just trying to maintain the status quo.
61 Responses to “India’s Role in Af-Pak”
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April 24th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Great insights, Matthew. Check out American Security Project Senior Fellow Dr. Bernard Finel’s post on The Flash Point Blog about the India-Pakistan issue for another perspective.
Dr. Finel puts the India-Pakistan relationship into perspective through a comparison with the United States’ interests in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and notes that the only way the Pakistani army will be able to retool to effectively combat counterinsurgency and secure the country’s nuclear weapons is to try and ease tensions between India and Pakistan. He asserts that the US has to make this a priority.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
This may be a naive question – but is Kashmir the first and most important domino in the whole region? If (and this is the naive part) we can broker some type of cease-fire holding pattern to stabilize the Kashmir conflict then wouldn’t the whole region be more easily stabilized? Should that be where our focus lies?
April 24th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
“Pakistan’s armed forces to reorient their attention away from India and towards the real danger”
You mean towards the foreign power who is actually killing pakistani citizens ?
April 24th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Is that what you think an Indian would tell you or is it what you think? If it’s the latter, I don’t think you are looking at all the moving pieces in the Indian/Pakistani conflict.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Agreed, Matt. The power behind the throne in Pakistan is the army and ISI. Without the Kashmir issue, they’d have to gin up another one to remain relevant. Now that the barbarians are at the gate, they might change their mind.
And all this talk about America mediating a peace in Kashmir is nonsense. At this point, America has no good will left in Pakistan. The only way the Pakistanis would cooperate with America would be if the Americans promise them that they will force India to hand over the entire territory. That’s not going to happen.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
I haven’t followed the India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir as closely as I should. What do the Kashmiris want? Do they want anything to do with either?
April 24th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
I think the consensus is that most Muslim Kashmiris would prefer independence. However, the Pakistanis and the fringe in Kashmir wouldn’t stand for it. If the Indians would “just” hand off control to the locals and recognize their government, it might just work. But, the potential screw ups and the Hindi political fallout are too great.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Ed Marshall,
I think Matt is saying that Indians would, like Americans and Israelis, tend to respond to an observation about the strategic logic of making an accommodation with a rival by holding forth on their own side’s moral superiority, and never get around to considering that strategic logic.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
No, India is trying to maintain the status quo. Using “just” ignores that the status quo is a win for India. I don’t know which side in the conflict is in the right, nor would I necessarily go on about it if I did, but maintaining the status quo is not a defacto morally superior position. I’m sure Bernie Madoff thought the status quo was a good idea a year ago.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
When the British left, the Prince of Kashmir agreed to join India provided Kashmir could later have a plebecite on independence. For various reasons, it didn’t happen.
At one point, the UN mandated that a referendum on independence must happen, conditional on various troop withdrawls. Those withdrawls did not happen, and the Sec Gen accepted that compliance with the mandate was not possible.
It’s hard to figure out what “justice” would be, because most of what is written about the situation is written by extreme partisans. I’m sure some will show up here soon, to tell us the way it is.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Finally, Matt, you got it.
Congratulations, and thanks.
For a while I thought you were trying to be Nixon-Kissinger.
April 24th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
The current opinion surveys in Kashmir say that 65% would prefer independence, 32% rule by India, and 3% rule by Pakistan.
_Legally_ (and leaving aside moral conciderations) Kashmir belongs to India, as it was theoretically a Princely State under “Indirect Rule” by the British, and on the withdrawal of Britain in 1947 sovereignty reverted, not to the people, but to the king, who chose to accede to India. (In, say, Sind or Madras or Bombay, there was direct rule by the British, and sovereignty reverted to the people in 1947). You can make of the legal argument whatever you choose.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
anybody who thinks that India is going to stand idly by and watch Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal taken over by the Islamic fundamentalists in the Taliban is whistling Dixie. If If anyone thinks that Israel is bent out of shape by the possibility of a nuclear Iran, that nation is almost sanguine compared to Indias’ concern over a nuclear armed Taliban running Pakistan.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
The comments here are thoughtful and well informed. One aspect of India’s predicament hasn’t been mentioned, though. It is the hordes of well armed infiltrators that Pakistan periodically sends across the Line of Control in Kashmir to commit mayhem. Since Pakistan denies its active role in this (despite evidence to the contrary), India has no assurance that proferring gestures of friendship or assurances of good intentions will not just provide an opportunity for Pakistan to step up the infiltration into Indian territory.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
“I think an Indian would tell you that the real problem with this proposal isn’t that India isn’t farsighted enough to do it, it’s that Pakistan is the aggressor in the India-Pakistan conflict ”
Being an Indian i can tell you that Yglesis sums up the situation accurately. The Indian Government/people have supported the democratically elected governments in the recent decades in vain. The kargil conflict is a clear example where the political class of Pakistan was engaged in a dialogue with India and the army ended up subverting it which ended up with a military coup and the dictatorship of Musharaf.The Pakistan army is too powerful and unless it comes around to the idea of a settlement progress is impossible. The Kashmir problem has always been a means of keeping the focus of the pakistani people diverted from the real problems facing Pakistan i.e. vast economic inequalities and little or no real development.
“The first and most important domino in the whole region? If (and this is the naive part) we can broker some type of cease-fire holding pattern to stabilize the Kashmir conflict then wouldn’t the whole region be more easily stabilized ”
Resolving the kashmir issue could be an important step,allowing troops to be diverted from the Indo-Pak border towards Afghanistan. There has been a cease fire holding pattern in Kashmir for the past 30 years broken by incursions from the Pakistani side.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
I was a little surprised by Hector’s polling data, so I checked out some polls. Most polls show a slightly higher number for independence (~70%) and the numbers for India rule and Pakistan rule vary quite a bit but are always rather low. I always thought independence was the preference of the plurality, but I never thought it was as popular as current polls show. It seems that if anyone is the victim here, it is the people of Kashmir. In my poll search, I did find a very detailed poll from 2008:
http://www.peacepolls.org/documents/peacepolls/000294.pdf
It only covers the Indian controlled portion of Kashmir, but the results are interesting. For instance, 70% of Muslims are strongly opposed to joining Pakistan. Needless to say, joining Pakistan is even less popular among the Buddhists and Hindus.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
The Kashmiri people have preferred independence for a long time now to joining Pakistan or India.Realistically, the only poll numbers that matter are the ones for the number of Indian people supporting a plebiscite in Kashmir. It is a tough sell and any external pressure from US or EU will most likely result in a hardened stance against Kashmiri self determination.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Njorl wrote: When the British left, the Prince of Kashmir agreed to join India provided Kashmir could later have a plebecite on independence.
Missing out some important points. The Raja (King) of Kashmir was dithering while he tried to figure out a way to remain independent, instead of doing what he had to – accede to one of Pakistan or India. Then Pakistan launched an invasion. The Raja appealed to India for help. Last Viceroy and first Governor-General of independent India Lord Mountbatten advised Prime Minister Nehru that he should insist on accession to India as a condition for Indian aid. (Mountbatten headed the Indian Defence Committee, so there would have been no aid without him.)
Eventually, Nehru referred the issue to the United Nations.
We are told
1. Nehru felt he had right on his side.
2. Also
Nehru expected the UN to ask Pakistan to vacate its aggression.
But,
Well, the withdrawal of invaders never happened. The rest is history.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Another view of India-Pakistan relations:
The Monkey Trap: A synopsis of Indo-Pak relations.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Kashmiri independence would be great, if both Pakistan and India would honor it. Of course, Kashmir is completely occupied by Pakistan on one side of the LoC and India on the other. So Pakistan’s talk of “Azad” (free) Kashmir is 100% bullsh*t.
If India pulled out of its side, Pakistan would move in within less than 24 hours. Hell, in 1999 in Kargil, Pakistan tried to take over the Indian side anyway.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
The article above is rather long. To keep you reading, I provide these quotes:
“The way you catch a monkey is quite simple. What you do is put a large, heavy jar with a mango or banana in it out in the open. The jar has a very small neck. Soon enough, a monkey will come along and stick his hand inside to grab the fruit. When he tries to draw his hand out he can’t. The hand with the fruit is too large for the neck of the jar. The monkey could easily let go of the bait and escape, but they never do. Even when he sees the catcher with his net, he’ll jump up and down and squeal ferociously, but he won’t let go of the fruit. He simply can’t. It’s quite beyond his power. No one knows why, but that’s the way it is, and that’s how they catch the monkey.
(Source: Indian children’s fable.)”
….
“We put forward the hypothesis that India, faced with the threat of a bankrupt, unstable and permanently recalcitrant neighbor which could soon join the list of failed states, and acting in the interests of it’s own security, engaged the “monkey trap” as India’s solution to the half century long Kashmir dispute and Pakistan problem. We do not however, provide any supporting evidence. The “trap” is a hypothesis, no more.”
“The essence of the monkey trap is its simplicity, which in turn is based on the limited strategic options available to Pakistan and the national character of its elite. Pakistan is caught in a self-destructive cycle with no way out, trapped between rhetoric and reality. It cannot abandon the anti-Indian crusade and Kashmir because too much has been invested into it and without the Indian enemy they have no identity and no method to maintain their rentier control of the Pakistani state. This fundamental basis of Pakistan can be understood within the context of the earlier section.
The monkey trap, in our opinion, was the only method available to India to engage and permanently destroy an unhinged enemy, and played almost perfectly to India’s strengths and to Pakistani weaknesses. All that it is necessary for India to do is to stand firm, make no significant concessions, and quietly watch Pakistan’s long slide into irrelevance, as it seeks ever more desperate ways to obtain that ever elusive “victory” over India.
It does not require the political or economic penalty that a major war would have, but its effect on Pakistan has been just as destructive. It allowed Pakistan’s elites to flay away pointlessly at a controlled target, Kashmir, while the Indian economy continued to outgrow it’s previous growth bounds. The strength of the trap lies in the fact that, given the character of the Pakistani state and its ruling elites, it requires India to do the absolute minimum for it’s success. In fact, India has to do nothing more other than protect it’s citizens and territory for the trap to work. It is a passive strategy and consequently fits in well with India’s democracy. Furthermore, it is virtually impossible to tell a politician, do nothing, and you will triumph, and NOT expect them to overwhelmingly accept that as a “brilliant” Fabian like strategy.
India did, and the trap, in our opinion, worked.
It should be noted that, it is irrelevant whether the trap was deliberately set to bait Pakistan, or whether it evolved as India realized that Pakistan may have over-reached itself. It is also irrelevant if, as far as India is concerned, there is no “trap” at all. The end result is the same. Pakistan is irrevocably locked into an impossible endeavor and caught in a cycle it cannot withdraw from while it’s society and nation rapidly slips into an abyss and India grows from strength to strength. “
April 24th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
And conclude with this:
“India is clearly not interested in war, not even against Pakistan. After all, why should India expend blood, sweat and treasure taking down Pakistan?. If the Americans want to do it, its perfectly fine from an Indian perspective. The US has accomplished more in Afghanistan, than India ever could. And there is every reason for India to ensure that the US finishes the job before getting distracted by Iraq. This leads, quite serendipitously to perhaps the most important role of the Monkey Trap; it’s generalization.
Pakistan currently provides the most tempting fruit available for the neighborhood’s newest and largest primate. Pakistan, a nuclear armed “moderate” Islamic state, controlled or influenced by the US a la Egypt or Turkey, and a potential check on Indian, Iranian, Russian and Chinese influence in Central Asia is a tempting ally. It remains to be seen whether or not the Americans have realized that way madness lies. Perhaps, the Americans will be successful. On the other hand, a failing Pakistan is a clear and present danger to the US as it’s nuclear weapons may fall into the hands of non-state actors. The temptation to act pre-emptively would be overwhelming.
Then the Monkey Trap would morph into the Gorilla Trap.
Either way, India stands to gain. As it would lock the US into doing precisely what India wants, to clean up the Pakistani mess at their own cost. All in all, India benefits whether America succeeds or fails.”
April 24th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Kashmiri independence is ideal.
Short of that, though, it actually would be a very good idea for India to simply cede Kashmir to Pakistan. The Indian claim is based on claims of royal sovereignty that India rejects in every other instance (because, after all, it would mean that Indian independence from Britain was improper) and, for lack of a better description, a belief that the Partition itself was improper and that Hindus had every right to rule and oppress Muslims and should have received the entire subcontinent with no Pakistan. The majority of Kashmiris are Muslim and have never accepted Indian rule. The territory should have been made a part of Pakistan in the first place, and Pakistan has acted entirely legitimately in trying to wrest it away from India all these years.
If India cedes Kashmir to Pakistan, problem goes away.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
If India cedes Kashmir to Pakistan, problem goes away.
Are you not aware of what happened to Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists when Pakistan was founded? Or are you being deliberately obtuse?
India’s never going to allow the mass slaughter of Hindus again. Any political party that does so will be dead for a generation; the BJP would rather launch a nuclear war than let it happen.
April 25th, 2009 at 1:01 am
“If India cedes Kashmir to Pakistan, problem goes away.”
Looking at the polls, it seems like that would just be the start of major problems. With a large majority of Kahmiris saying Pakistani control would be unacceptable, I just don’t see how Pakistan could ever hold Kashmir. Pakistan can’t control the majority of the land they already have, and the Kasmiris know it. The portion of Kashmir now controlled by India would likely rebel, and India will give them aid. Perhaps such a conflict might lead to independence, but there has to be a better way.
April 25th, 2009 at 1:03 am
How do you propose that India help? Pakistan already regards pretty much everything they do as suspicious (witness what they think of Indian-Afghanistan relations), and Pakistan (and its military) have a long-term fixation on getting all of Kashmir, which the Indians won’t let go (and they bristle at any mention of a foreign power trying to step in and “mediate” on the Kashmir issue).
In any case, if Pakistan goes Taliban, my guess is that there’s at least a 1 in 4 chance that India nukes it, or launches a conventional invasion.
April 25th, 2009 at 1:41 am
..India cedes Kashmir.
Excellent Mr. Esper. Your refrain remains the same as a few years ago, obviously without any benefit of any further understanding of the problem.
April 25th, 2009 at 1:55 am
Pakistan is a goner. It is Iran, circa 1979. The regime will soon collapse and the Mullahs, the Taliban, the extremists, an amalgamation of crazies, will take power.
The ISI will aid and abet, the Pakistani army will stand by and watch. Most of the ruling elites, some generals and colonels, will be -wink, wink- allowed to skedaddle. Those that remain will be put on trail and convicted of crimes against the state. Almost all will be shot.
There will be joy in streets, and millions of AK 47 rounds will search for the heavens. A new nation will have been born. It will have energy and determination, and most of all, it will have deadly intent.
I think now is time to focus on this scenario, because time is running out.
April 25th, 2009 at 3:18 am
The actual probability of the Taliban gaining control of Pakistan is fairly low. This is not to say that SOME “Islamic Party” gaining control is low.
Even if the “new Taliban” gain control of the state. the odds of their giving nukes to Al Qaeda or anybody else verge on zero. They will realize, just as the their more secular rivals do, that they need those nukes to defend against India.
In the recent Mumbai attacks, when Pakistan was feeling threatened by the Indian military and talk of attacking Pakistan, numerous “Taliban” organizations agreed that they would defend Pakistan against India at all costs.
Such persons are not going to hand over the keys to their nukes to anybody.
Also, there is little evidence that the Taliban – depending on WHICH “Taliban” you’re talking about – have any aspirations outside the region. Mullah Omar, for instance, simply wants Afghanistan back and has no interest outside Afghanistan. So the threat to US national security is next to zero.
And again, the best way to deal with Al Qaeda is a combination of foreign policy changes on the part of the US and some competent counterintelligence and law enforcement work (if that isn’t an oxymoron.)
April 25th, 2009 at 4:07 am
Building on the discussion about the India – Pakistan conflict in these comments:
The Indian view is that the Shimla Accord between Mrs. Gandhi and Mr. Bhutto in 1972 leave the earlier 1948 issue of the plebiscite moot. The 1972 Shimla Accord roughly involved India releasing 90,000 prisoners of war in exchange for an agreement with Pakistan that henceforth Kashmir would be a bilateral issue (read – not within the purview of the UN). The 1971 War over East-Pakistan, brought the nation of Bangladesh into being. (See the Blood Telegram, and the Pakistani military dictator Yahya Khan’s role in enabling the Nixon-Zhou/Mao meeting)
Besides, i think if you wanted the Indian view over Kashmir – Pakistan’s sole foreign policy objective (a national obsession if you ask me) over the last 60 years has been the annexation of what they call Indian-Kashmir. Right now, i think the question of India ceding Kashmir doesn’t arise – if not for any geo-political reasons than from the simple observation that in their 61 years, Pakistan have not done a particularly good job managing its original provinces – Baluchistan, NWFP, Punjab, Sindh, Islamabad, FATA, Azad Kashmir, Northern Areas, East Pakistan.
Of these, they have
1. lost East Pakistan
2. conceded significant control of Baluchistan (their biggest province in terms of land mass), FATA and NWFP to tribes and now to the Taliban.
3. They have been a military dictatorship for 32 out of their 61 years as a nation, during which time their Constitution was suspended multiple times.
Pakistan’s problem has been a little bit like the right wing’s obsession with the liberal media – and the liberal media’s obsession with “balance” (which in the majority of the case in unfair) – where any reference Hannity and Beck must also include a reference to Olbermann and Maddow, even though any sane watcher will quickly conclude that any claim of equivalence is farfetched.
Similarly we have Pakistan’s obsession with India, and the World’s obsession with seeing them as equals.
Just as the Republicans need to get over their obsession with Liberals (and all associated canards – socialism, fascism, communism, baby-killers etc.), Pakistan needs to get over its obsession with India over Kashmir.
This obsession has led it’s intelligence agency to associate with the sub-continental Mafia, with the Taliban and with other violent fringe insurgent groups – which in turn got the Indian Army involved in Kashmir, and they behaved terribly there and committed excesses which all armies engaged in counter-insurgency work commit.
The question is, will Pakistan wake up in time? Has that time already passed?
April 25th, 2009 at 4:15 am
One further point:
It is interesting to hear comments about the Taliban infiltrating Pakistan. We often forget that the Taliban is a Pakistan based organization – it raises funds in Pakistan, it recruits in Pakistan, it’s ancestors were nourished in Pakistan by the United States. The Taliban is in a sense returning home.
If the Taliban ideology were on the ballot in Pakistan in a fair election today, one doubts whether they would do much better than a fringe movement (may be get 5% of the 340 seats in Parliament at best). The tragedy of the military dictatorship is that the Taliban was allowed to grow in the shadows, away from scrutiny of civil society that free elections provide.
April 25th, 2009 at 4:53 am
@29: “competent counterintelligence and law enforcement work (if that isn’t an oxymoron.)”
No, I don’t think it is an oxymoron. I believe the CIA, for instance, if given effective leadership and concrete objectives, could be a very efficient outfit.
The Afghani Taliban and Al Qaeda may provide the impetus but they won’t be the ones to take control of the Pakistani state apparatus. The takeover will be similar to the student led consortium that took over Iran in 1979 or the student led Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 1996.
Graduates from Pakistan’s madrases -millions- will take to the streets. Sympathetic elements of the rank and file in the army will join in. The ISI will feign support for the government but will secretly work against the ruling elites.
A revolutionary leadership council -mostly imams- will be formed. A working relationship will be shaped between the council and the ISI, the army, and student protest groups.
The council will negotiate with the Prime Minister. The PM will undoubtedly ask for leniency for himself and fellow elites. It might be granted. There could be a peaceful transfer of government control.
Or, the scenario could be much worse. Either way, it is inevitable. Pakistan, as we know it, is a goner.
April 25th, 2009 at 7:28 am
It seems that if the Talibanization of Pakistan goes much further, India will have to try to seize the nuclear weapons depots. Maybe we should help them.
April 25th, 2009 at 9:06 am
I’m indian. And i had the chance of meeting a few pakistan citizens visiting our campus. What i came to understand of them is that their ways of thinking is very different from the rest of the world. They are the people who like to have a BMW even if they or their folks are starving. They want to take control of the kashmir region, what will they do with it once they have it is something no one in pakistan really knows. Remember what joker says in the dark knight? Stray dogs only like to run behind cars, they don’t really know what to do with it once they actually grab it. (And of course, dogs never actually grab any car.) Indians are too busy these days, frankly, why should we bother a small piece of rocky terrain, kashmir ain’t a gold mine. Yet we defend it as a part of the nation. That’s because we care to protect our people and our places. Very much unlike pakistan.
April 25th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Re: If India cedes Kashmir to Pakistan, problem goes away.
Except for the Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Ismailis, and women who would be abandoned to the tender mercies of the Jihadist hordes.
It would have been bad enough to do this in 1947, when Pakistan was at least run by tolerant secular Muslims. At a time when the Taliban is three hours from Islamabad, it’s monumentally irresponsible.
Re: The Indian claim is based on claims of royal sovereignty that India rejects in every other instance (because, after all, it would mean that Indian independence from Britain was improper)
Nonsense. It’s based on the very simple fact that the Princely States of India were, technically, protectorates of England rather than directly ruled administrative units. They had been incorporated into the British Empire by treaty between Britain and the monarchs, and when the British ended the treaty, sovereignty reverted to the monarchs (at least temporarily while they chose which country to join).
It’s true that India did not follow the principle of royal sovereingty in Junagadh and Hyderabad, but neither of those cases were comparable. Neither Junagadh nor Hyderabad was a border state, and it would be geographically and demographically unfeasible to have let them join Pakistan.
Re: The territory should have been made a part of Pakistan in the first place, and Pakistan has acted entirely legitimately in trying to wrest it away from India all these years.
Except for the fact that 97% of Kashmiris don’t want to join that charming failed state on their western border. And who can blame them. Look, Dilan, if you think Kashmir should be ruled by Muslims, then the responsible thing to do would be to push for some sort of independence, most likely a qualified independence under Indian influence. But talking about handing it over to the Pakistanis is just evil.
April 25th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Questions of legitimacy, right to self-determination, etc., aside, I hope you appreciate the monkey trap. Pakistan cannot change itself as long as its primary foreign policy objective is Kashmir.
And thus it continues on its long downward slide.
April 25th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Hector with predictable nonsense has said that 97% of Kashmiris do not want to join Pakistan.Perhaps he should acknowledge the rallies of hundreds of thousands just last year burning the imperialist Indian flag in Srinagar after a host of murders, rapes, and mosque destructions by the Indian hordes. A host of polls have conclusively shown that Kasmiris prefer merging with Pakistan to keeping with India. For example, http://www.nancho.net/fdlap/kashmir/outlookf.html
Kashmir will be free, and free soon from Indian hegemony.
April 25th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
That’s right. They want to be independent. And Pakistan, with a government that varies between incompentence, malice, and non-existence, has been doing everything in its power to show the Kashmiris that they’re right.
So go on, start another Kargil. It was that event that brought about the Modern Era of Pakistani Decay. Another such war will finish the job, while India stands by and watches.
April 25th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Nobody has asked what China’s role is in all of this. The friction between India and China permeates all of southern Asia, and with Tibet actually bordering Kashmir, China definitely has an interest. My gut feeling is that China is happy to see India occupied fighting Pakistan in Kashmir. Most of the states between India and China – Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Tibet, Bangladesh and Burma – are screwed up in one way or the other. That’s not a coincidence, that’s two great rivals facing off. The Taliban may be supported by China, or they may be a wildcard. Either way, adding Americans is going to be messy.
April 25th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
I think it’s important to also consider WHY Pakistan has been the aggressor lately. Why would a government facing SO many internal threats and becoming SO dependent on foreign aid be willing to antagonize its much bigger, stronger neighbor? Perhaps it’s because certain elements inside the Pakistani government think the most probable way to regain the political high ground is to shift electoral and cultural dissatisfaction against an old common enemy.
April 25th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Hector:
As I said, independence, not Pakistani sovereignty, is the preferred route. But India is simply buying itself all sorts of troubles in order to maintain the illusion that it is a multiethnic rather than a Hindu state. It gets nothing but trouble out of its continued assertion of sovereignty over Kashmir.
April 26th, 2009 at 2:42 am
“But India is simply buying itself all sorts of troubles in order to maintain the illusion that it is a multiethnic rather than a Hindu state.”
What??? Sorry Mr. Dilan, India is a secular democracy. How do you make such a baseless charge? What is the evidence?
And for independence to happen, Pakistan would have to cede the territory it has occupied and get back the part it gave to China as a gift.
April 26th, 2009 at 8:29 am
“But India is simply buying itself all sorts of troubles in order to maintain the illusion that it is a multiethnic rather than a Hindu state.”
In the 2001 census, the population of Jammu & Kashmir was 10 million, with 67% Muslim. Even without these 6.7 million Muslims, India would have had (in 2001) another 132 million Muslims as citizens.
So please, are you implying that India must engage in demographic engineering to keep any district from becoming Muslim majority, because then it must let that district secede rather than maintain the illusion it is is a multi-ethnic state?
April 26th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Retired Pakistani Air Marshal Asghar Khan, quoted here
April 26th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
India’s Muslim population is about 156 million. Pakistan’s is about 165 million. The “Hindu state” as you call it happens to contain the equivalent of another Pakistan within it.
Find me a majority-Muslim state that boasts of such a large minority, or (with the exception of secular Turkey) a minority that receives equal treatment under the eyes of the law.
April 26th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Re: Find me a majority-Muslim state that boasts of such a large minority, or (with the exception of secular Turkey) a minority that receives equal treatment under the eyes of the law.
Let me add that several of the non-Muslim religious minorities in India (Christians, Sikhs, Jains and Zoroastrians) are better educated and more advanced than the Hindus. Hardly seems like a religiously oppressive state to me.
The Chief Minister of one of the larger states, M. Karunanidhi, has gone on record in 2007 mocking Rama, one of the avatars of Vishnu. “Who is Ram? Which engineering college did He attend? When exactly did He construct the bridge? Is there any proof?”
Mr. Karunanidhi was not subjected to legal or social criticism for this, and in fact was heir to a very long tradition of anticlericalism and criticism of Hinduism among India’s secular governing class, especially among his DMK party. Hardly seems like a confessional state to me.
In short, Mr. Esper is merely displaying his own ignorance here- I doubt if he even knows what party Mr. Karunanidhi is from, or what the religious views of the DMK have historically been.
As for Turkey, you do them too much credit here. They may be secular, but they dealt with their Assyrian, Armenian, and Greek Christians very brutally between 1900 and 1925, with at least three separate genocides.
April 26th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
There’s another perspective to the Pakistan-India conflict that has been missed here. That the fundamental Pakistani identity is that of being not-India.
The founding fathers of Pakistan believed that the Indian idea of secular democracy was an experiment doomed to failure. Indeed, the creation of an independant Islamic state of Pakistan was solely driven by the misguided notion that Muslims could never thrive in a Hindu majority nation. Thus, India’s moderate successes as a secular republic would negate the very reason for Pakistan’s existance.
It follows that the Pakistani establishment class is actually invested in the misery of Indian Muslims, in order to affirm its own existance. Hence its efforts to engage the Kashmiris in a violent conflict, and the periodic sponsorship of terrorist attacks in Indian cities that would inflame communal sentiment.
Pakistan’s aggresion towards India has less to do with Kashmiri popular sentiment, and more to do with their own quest for self-affirmation. Which is why few Indians really believe that settling the Kashmir issue will solve the larger conflict in the sub-continent.
The Pakistani national psyche is afflicted by a congenital Oedipal complex, of a kind and on a scale that seldom occurs in history. Sadly, both Pakistan and India are the poorer for it.
April 26th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Agree, I now support the idea of the other nuclear powers entering Pakistan in force to take possession of its arsenal when the nukes are threatened.
As a rogue nuclear state, this would not include Israel.
April 27th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
The founding fathers of Pakistan believed that the Indian idea of secular democracy was an experiment doomed to failure. Indeed, the creation of an independant Islamic state of Pakistan was solely driven by the misguided notion that Muslims could never thrive in a Hindu majority nation.
Misguided????????? India has spent the last 60 years proving the founders of Pakistan right!
April 27th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Then either Indian Muslims are incredibly stupid for not moving to Pakistan, or you are wrong.
I’m not inclined to bet on the former. Neither, I think, would Azim Premji.
April 27th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Then either Indian Muslims are incredibly stupid for not moving to Pakistan, or you are wrong.
Many did leave and have left. However, Pakistan is badly governed and poor. So it’s no bargain.
But Muslims face massive discrimination, destruction of holy sites, and all sorts of obstacles in India. They are second class citizens in the world’s largest democracy and have been for 60 years.
The reality is that many Hindus felt the subcontinent was theirs and never accepted Muslim self-determination or the creation of Pakistan. While the execution of Pakistan has left a lot to be desired, the idea of Pakistan was and is compelling. Muslims on the Indian subcontinet should not be forced to live under Hindu oppression.
April 27th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
What part of “badly governed and poor” is compelling? Or are you referring to some fantasy that slips further out of reach with each passing year?
Yes, a lot of people crossed the border in each direction during partition.
Today, the Hindu presence in Pakistan is virtually nothing. Meanwhile, and I’ll say it again, the Muslim presence in India is equivalent to Pakistan itself. If Muslims were truly being oppressed in India, their numbers would decline due to genocide and emigration (see Hindus in Pakistan). Instead, they’ve kept apace with the rest of the population.
Numbers don’t lie. Show me yours. No opinion. Facts.
Please, don’t insult Indian Muslims’ intelligence. They love their country (and it is their country, too) as much as any other Indian.
April 27th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Please, don’t insult Indian Muslims’ intelligence. They love their country (and it is their country, too) as much as any other Indian.
Do they love having their holy sites destroyed by Hindu mobs tolerated by the authorities?
April 27th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Still no numbers to back up your claims, eh? Exactly why do so many Muslims remain in India, when no significant minorities remain in any Muslim countries?
April 27th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Gm:
Last time I checked, there were 3,000,000 Hindus living in Pakistan. That’s a significant number.
Again, though, what you are overlooking is that India is a much richer country than Pakistan, and Pakistan has a disfunctional government. In other words, it is perfectly rational for a Muslim to choose oppression at the hands of Hindus to abject poverty and destitution in Pakistan. That doesn’t, however, mean that your myth that Indian Muslims love their Hindu oppressors is true.
April 27th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
To make comparison, Gm’s argument is like saying that because a lot of Palestinian Arabs voluntarily choose to stay in Israel, this proves that Israel doesn’t mistreat Palestinians or that Palestinians are illegitimate to want a Palestinian state.
April 27th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
That’s 1.8%. It’s also less than half the number of Hindus who left after partition. No, it’s not a significant number compared to the population of either country. It’s also a decreasing number, as Pakistani Hindus are leaving Taliban-controlled areas for India. It’s no fun being forced to wear identifying clothing, after all.
See? That’s what oppression looks like.
That would be stupid, given that Muslims in India can and do vote, can and do organize politically, and win political offices regularly. In fact, antagonizing them has helped put the BJP in the political wilderness.
April 27th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
That would be stupid, given that Muslims in India can and do vote, can and do organize politically, and win political offices regularly
Again, Israeli Palestinian Arabs have the right to vote and hold office. That doesn’t prove Israel treats Palestinians well.
All you’ve proven is that second class citizenship in India beats first class citizenship in Pakistan with its poverty and military governments. Granted. That in no way excuses Indian oppression of Muslims. The reality is that many who take India’s side in the conflict never got over the Partition because it got in the way of complete Hindu rule over Muslims on the subcontinent. They had no interest in recognizing Muslim self-determination and still think it is illegitimate.
Thankfully, Nehru and Gandhi, two great men, did the right thing and respected the Muslims’ right to govern themselves.
April 27th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Not really, because Israel is officially a Jewish state, whereas India is officially secular. Israel will make discriminatory laws with the intent of keeping its Jewish character, much as the Japanese discriminate against immigrants.
India, on the other hand, does not have an official policy of discrimination against Muslims. Communal violence happens, yes, but find me an official rule that says Muslims are lesser citizens.
Therefore, Muslims in India are legally free to engage in politics and thereby change the government. Palestinians do not enjoy this level of freedom.
If someone with those rights chooses to bitch about being powerless, then they are wasting their rights.
April 28th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Gm:
There’s a lot more to civic equality than the right to participate in democratic government.
May 1st, 2009 at 3:49 am
Dilan Esper -
So, you couldn’t find any Indian law that says Muslims are second-class citizens? I didn’t think so.
And civic equality starts with exercising your rights. It certain doesn’t get anywhere by whining or blowing stuff up. The last 62 years have shown that.