Pakistan’s NIMBY Approach to the Taliban
The Obama administration’s efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan continue to be hamstrung by some pretty fundamental disagreements about what’s important here:
A major concern is that the American offensive may push Taliban militants over the border into Baluchistan, a province that borders Waziristan in the tribal areas. The Pakistani Army is already fighting a longstanding insurgency of Baluch separatists in the province.
A Taliban spillover would require Pakistan to put more troops there, a Pakistani intelligence official said, troops the country does not have now. Diverting troops from the border with India is out of the question, the official said.
As long as Pakistan’s thinking about its national interest is dominated by India and the quest to gain control over Kashmir, it’s very hard to imagine them and us ending up eye-to-eye on how to think about Afghanistan.
40 Responses to “Pakistan’s NIMBY Approach to the Taliban”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Afhanistan is almost as stupid a war as Iraq.
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Do the Pakistanis actually believe they need to have a heavily-guarded border in case India launches a military offensive? India doesn’t seem to launch very many military offensives.
Is their appreciation of their security situation really that far off, or is this just a case of foolish national pride?
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Re: joe from Lowell’s comment that “India doesn’t seem to launch very many military offensives.”
For Pakistan, the existential threat is India. That might seem preposterous to us in Washington, because our leaders press Pakistan to tackle their jihadist problem more vigorously, but we don’t share a border with a country almost 6 times our size. We need to recognize this.
Overall, U.S. policymakers have underestimated how greatly leaders in Islamabad fear the rise of an India-leaning government in Kabul. In this respect, Yglesias’ analysis is spot on.
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:27 pm
A really good read(s) is “Unexpected Light” and “Punishment of Virtue”, both books by people who have lived in Afghanistan, and speak Pashto. The latter is written by a former NPR journalist. The conclusion both authors draw is that Pakistan (or should I say its ISI – the equivalent of our CIA) wants to own/control Afghanistan, and that supporting the Talib is the best way to have proxy ownership. Under those circumstances, it is not in Pakistan’s interest to “eliminate” the Talib. They will do only what they have to, to keep public happy, and will find any excuse – such as the India border.
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:30 pm
The Pakistanis (including Pakistani people) think the Afghani Taliban are useful allies, while the Pakistani Taliban are pernicious rebels. In order believe both things, you’d have to think that the Taliban agree on the legitimacy of the Durrand line.
Which is pretty ironic, since the Pakistanis don’t believe in the legitimacy of the Kashmir Line of Control.
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Remember, this is now a War on Drugs. Forget the Taliban and Osama. We must blow up Afghanistan in order to save it from the Heroin People.
That is why we are employing our $1 trillion Air Force to bomb, rocket, and strafe dangerous mounds of poppy seeds.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/07/21/afghanistan.poppy.strike/index.html
Also, decisions have been made at NATO high command to gun down any Afghani who looks like he might be rolling with the evil Heroin People.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,604183,00.html
If we are going to finally win Nancy Reagan’s War on Drugs, we must battle to the death in Afghanistan. And Mexico. And…whatever.
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Do the Pakistanis actually believe they need to have a heavily-guarded border in case India launches a military offensive? India doesn’t seem to launch very many military offensives.
Why would India need to launch a military offensive if they’re already in control of the disputed territory? They can just perform internal security operations and make sure they *stay* in control of the disputed territory.
I have no dog in that fight, but come on. If Canadian troops were already camped out in Seattle we’d be a little preoccupied too, regardless of whether we expected military offensives from the Canadians.
July 22nd, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I have no dog in that fight, but come on. If Canadian troops were already camped out in Seattle we’d be a little preoccupied too, regardless of whether we expected military offensives from the Canadians.
Yep. And it’s worth noting that Pakistan and India have fought 3 hot wars, many Indians have never even conceded the legitimacy of Pakistan’s creation, and India gave aid to the separatists in East Pakistan, succeeding in severing and creating an independent Bangladesh.
Plus, Pakistan has a legitimate territorial claim that Kashmir should never been given to India in the Partition.
It is true that India-Pakistan relations have certainly thawed out a bit in recent years (which is a good thing especially given all the political instability in Pakistan after Musharraf’s coup and Bhutto’s assassination). But I don’t really blame Pakistan for being on its guard and not wanting to show weakness to India.
(It would, however, help Pakistan immensely if they stopped sponsoring violence in Kashmir and India. That’s a separate issue from maintaining a strong defense.)
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Ah, I was wondering when Mr. Dilan Esper, this blog’s resident postmodern whackjob, would show up. Mr. Esper neglects to mention a few salient facts.
1) There is no significant movement in India that wants to reconquer Pakistan. On the contrary, most Indians realize they are better off not having millions of Pashtun jihadis inside their borders. The official ideology of the Taliban Jihadists and their Pakistani allies, however, does call for the reconquest of India (as well as France, Spain, Armenia, the Balkans, Ethiopia, and all other former Muslim held territory).
2) The Pakistani army under Yahya Khan had murdered an estimated 3,000,000 Bengali civilians in 1971, and forced millions more to escape into India. India’s liberation of Bangladesh was the classic example of a humanitarian intervention. She intervened to stop a genocide and she deserved international praise, not the critical burblings of ignorant postmodern hipster feminists.
3) Pakistan has no more claim on Kashmir then I have to be President of Western Samoa. Kashmir was a princely state under a native monarch, and was a successor state of the Sikh Empire. Once British protection withdrew in 1947 the choice about which state to accede to belonged to the monarch, not to the people.
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:24 pm
The Pakistani army under Yahya Khan had murdered an estimated 3,000,000 Bengali civilians in 1971, and forced millions more to escape into India. India’s liberation of Bangladesh was the classic example of a humanitarian intervention.
Hector, you can make that case in terms of results, but it wasn’t India’s motivation. India wanted to split Pakistan, for obvious strategic reasons. And my post wasn’t about Pakistan’s treatment of Bengalis, it was about whether Pakistan has legitimate fears of India. And the fact that India sponsored separatist movements in the past is one source of such fears.
Pakistan has no more claim on Kashmir then I have to be President of Western Samoa. Kashmir was a princely state under a native monarch, and was a successor state of the Sikh Empire.
Hector, ANY claim of anything that is based on some monarchy is completely illegitimate. Monarchy is an absolutely illegitimate form of government and Pakistanis and Kashmiris can be forgiven for not giving a crap that some self-indulgent wealthy to the manor born prince was Hindu.
Indeed, given your leftist political views, I am surprised I have to educate you on the illegitimacy of monarchy. It’s kind of the diametrical opposite of the socialism you favor.
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Dilan,
Who gives a f*ck what ‘fears’ the Pakistanis have? If you decide to commit genocide then you DESERVE to have your state invaded and dismembered. I really couldn’t give a f*ck.
Since you probably think that a vote would solve the problem, being the postmodern hipster you are, be aware that only about 3% of Kashmiris favor joining Pakistan.
July 22nd, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Hector, Pakistani fears are directly relevant to whether they keep troops on the border, which is the subject of Matt’s post.
Most Kashmiris favor independence, which would probably solve the problem if it were offered. They don’t like Indian rule either. The problem is that Kashmir has great symbolic importance for Indians, who desperately do not want to admit the correctness of the judgment in the Partition that there should be Hindu and Muslim states on the subcontinent. Maintaining control of Kashmir strengthens India’s claim that it is a multi-ethnic state and that therefore its Hindu governments have full legitimacy in governing Muslims.
In any event, they should have the plebiscite and honor the Kashmiris’ wishes, whatever they are. If they vote to stay in India, that’s gonna have a lot more legitimacy than some claim based on a stupid monarchy.
July 22nd, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Regularly sending terrorists into an armed country 6 times your size is a sign of insanity. Not many functioning nations do that. We need to recognize this, too.
July 22nd, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Dilan,
No, that isn’t why Kashmir has ’symbolic importance’ to Indians. Look, I’m (ancestrally) from that part of the world and I have talked to Indians about the issue, both those who favor the Indian cause and those who oppose it. If you really want to know why Kashmir is symbolically important, then let me leave my own views about Kashmir out for a minute, and you leave out yours, and I’ll try to state this neutrally.
1) Kashmir was important to Nehru because he was of Kashmiri origin.
2) Indians fear that if Kashmir breaks away, then so will other regions (the Punjab, Assam, the Northeastern provinces, etc.) This is less of a live fear now then it was back in the ’80s, when separatist movements in Punjab and the Northeast were strong, but old fears die hard.
3) India’s identity, and her national myth since 1947, are built on being a secular, multiconfessional state. Though it would remain a multiconfessional state even if it lost Kashmir, it would certainly be an embarrassment.
4) Perhaps most seriously of all, the fate of religious minorities in Pakistan has been abysmal since 1947, while the fate of religious minorities in India has been- with some horrible exceptions such as Gujarat in 2001 and Orissa last year- pretty decent. What provision is going to be made for the non-Muslim sectors of Kashmir (Ladakh and Jammu)? If you want to replay 1947 then do it honestly- that means splitting not by state but by district.
5) Partition in 1947 was a horribly traumatic experience for Hindus in Pakistan, Muslims in India, and the Sikhs stuck in the middle. No one in India wants to replay that episode. But given the fact that Kashmir has a 30% non-Muslim minority, partition is the only feasible solution (short of independence).
6) Independence- this was actually the King’s favored solution in 1947, and is the favored choice of two-thirds of Kashmiris today. One has to question though whether it would be feasible. An independent Kashmir would be something like Afghanistan- poor, landlocked, sparsely populated, and sandwiched between powerful neighbors who dislike one another. And Afghanistan is hardly anyone’s ideal of stability.
Frankly, Dilan, while I don’t think Pakistan has a _right_ to Kashmir, I would be perfectly happy with India giving away the state as a free gift. Much good may it do whoever receives it. India has the right and the _duty_ however, to demand that provision be made for the protection of the Hindus and Buddhists, and that they not be abandoned to rule by Pakistan or by a domestic Shariah regime. Simply put, I doubt Pakistan is in any condition to give those assurances right now. She can’t even maintain order within her own borders without the help of the US Air Force, much less within Kashmir’s.
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:48 am
Wow, Hector, that was a lucid and totally non-crazy explanation of the issues.
It seems to me, though, that people’s (especially non-South-Asians) views on the matter have a lot less urgency now than they did, say, in the 1990s. At least then, Westerners could plausibly see all these conflicts as the last bit of tidying up to do at the End of History. Now its more of a muddle.
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:03 am
Dilan Esper writes: “Maintaining control of Kashmir strengthens India’s claim that it is a multi-ethnic state and that therefore its Hindu governments have full legitimacy in governing Muslims.”
India is a secular democracy and our government is no more a Hindu government than the US government is a Christian government. If you think India is some Hindu equivalent of the dysfunctional “Islamic republics” of various sorts that litter this world (such as the “Islamic Republic of Pakistan”), you need to educate yourself a little.
In any case, your statement makes no sense. India has 150 million Muslims, and only a tiny fraction of those (fewer than 10 million) live in Kashmir. If we gave up Kashmir, we would still have 140 million Muslims living in India. What do you propose we do with them? Would it be “legitimate” (to use your word) for us to govern them? Or is it your opinion that Muslims should only live in Islamic republics and not in any secular country in which they are a minority? Of course, when Muslims are in a majority anywhere, they have no problem declaring themselves to be an Islamic republic and insisting that other religious minorities like Hindus, Jews and Christians should live as “dhimmis” in their own country.
Why do we refuse to hand over Kashmir? Because if you feed a crocodile today, it will come back tomorrow for more.
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:29 am
Re: If you think India is some Hindu equivalent of the dysfunctional “Islamic republics” of various sorts that litter this world (such as the “Islamic Republic of Pakistan”), you need to educate yourself a little.
To be fair, not all Islamic republics are dysfunctional. Malaysia would be an example of an Islamic state that works very well.
I don’t think that foreigners often understand how much India is _not_ a Hindu government. Some of the major political parties (especially in the South- the DMK and its offshoots) were founded as explicitly anticlerical and atheistic parties. Nehru wasn’t actively antireligious in the same way as the DMK, but he was a strong agnostic who had little time for religion. Remember Karunanidhi’s remark about the bridge two years ago? When will we see a major US politician say the equivalent statement: “Who is this Jesus? They tell me he raised a dead man. In what medical college did he learn this trick?”
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:41 am
When Muslims are in a majority they have no problem declaring the country an “Islamic republic” and strip minorities of equal rights. In a Sharia court, evidence given by non-Muslims (”kafirs”) against Muslims is not accepted. This is the case in many countries including the Sharia courts in Pakistan.
But when Muslims are in a minority somewhere, they want more than equal rights, and are ready to disrespect the law of the land. (See UK, Denmark, France).
Right now the Prime Minister of India is a Sikh, and the head of the ruling party is a Christian woman(born in Italy). Can anyone imagine a minority at the helm of power in the “Islamic republic” of Pakistan?
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:48 am
India certainly doesn’t THINK of itself as a Hindu government. But that’s the problem. The deal was, the Muslims would govern themselves. That’s what the Partition was all about. Kashmir was an error in the Partition, and India won’t correct the error for symbolic reasons.
I don’t think that India’s self-image as a multiethnic state counts for very much, by the way. Indian Hindus have done their fair share of persecuting of Muslims and other minorities, which basically bears the founding generation out that there needed to be an independent Muslim homeland on the subcontinent.
I actually agree with Hector that the actual IMPLEMENTATION of a solution to the Kashmir problem would be very difficult due to Pakistan’s lousy government. But that doesn’t mean India shouldn’t OFFER a solution, especially based on a plebiscite which would allow the Kashmiris to decide.
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:45 am
I actually agree with Hector that the actual IMPLEMENTATION of a solution to the Kashmir problem would be very difficult due to Pakistan’s lousy government. But that doesn’t mean India shouldn’t OFFER a solution, especially based on a plebiscite which would allow the Kashmiris to decide.
Yes, of course, because that’s what nation-states do all the time: deliberately give up an advantageous position to an adversary on the basis of principles which are not shared by the opposing side.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:49 am
They do, if they go to Pakistan. However, Muslims in India have one vote each, just like anyone else, and are free to organize politically, just like anyone else. Sometimes they form effective coalitions and get what they want (e.g., scheduled-caste status). Sometimes they don’t.
The fact that the Muslims of Hyderabad are subject to the executive decisions of the Christian Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh is just part of life. They don’t make a big deal of it because he isn’t going to make them pay a dhimmi tax, and because a Muslim might win the seat next time. They also didn’t riot just because the previous Chief Minister was Hindu.
A Muslim in Hyderabad who studies hard and works hard has a good reason not to complain. The previous Chief Minister spent a lot of effort successfully wooing foreign tech companies to the city, resulting in the creation of many high-paying jobs. No similar success story is coming out of Pakistan.
One reason Muslims and other minorities have it safer in India than do minorities in Muslim countries is because there is no unified “Hindu bloc” in politics. The BJP is the closest thing to it, and even they argue amongst themselves. They are in political retreat. Otherwise, the rest of the population is more divided along have/have-not lines (e.g., rural vs. urban, backward vs. forward castes, etc.) than along religious, tribal, ethnic, or any other classes.
For example, a Shia Muslim has less to worry about in India than in Pakistan. And unlike Pakistan, India doesn’t pass laws declaring Ahmadis to be non-Muslims. If you go to India, you’ll hear the call to prayer loud and clear from every part of any village or city.
So, in other words, Muslims in India have more faith in their secular government than you do. There are almost as many Muslims in India as there are in Pakistan. If things were truly so bad for them, they would vote with their feet. Since they live there, and their kids and grandkids will live there, I tend to believe them more than you.
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Gmor:
I’ll believe that India has a secular government when cows are no longer treated as sacred over there. On the matters where Hindu partisans CARE about such things (sacred cows, caste system, etc.), the Indian government favors the Hindus. And there’s plenty of violence and discrimination against Muslims, and citing this or that cabinet minister or government official who is not Hindu doesn’t change that.
India clearly DOESN’T WANT TO THINK OF ITSELF AS A HINDU STATE. But the Partition created one, along with a Muslim state, whether Indians like it or not. And there was no other way, as it would have been unacceptable for all of the subcontinent’s Muslims to be forced to accept Hindu rule.
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Also, arguing that India doesn’t mistreat Muslims because it has Muslims in the government is like arguing that Pakistan doesn’t mistreat women because Benazir Bhutto was once elected President over there.
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:47 pm
I see. India is not perfect, so it’s as f***ed up as Pakistan. A perfectly logical argument.
India at least has the machinery for a minority to say, “Hey, I’ve been wronged!” and point to the letter of the law, which says he or she is legally equal to everyone else.
To quote my question to you from May 1 of this year:
Well? Still waiting.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
I’ll say it again. Muslims are treated as a “backward caste” (i.e., disadvantaged sub-group) and therefore eligible for India’s version of affirmative action. To re-iterate, politics in India is about which groups are rich and which groups are poor, not who worships Allah or Vishnu.
As far as sacred cows go, I don’t know why that bothers you so much. You might as well rage about the Easter Bunny.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Re: On the matters where Hindu partisans CARE about such things (sacred cows, caste system, etc.), the Indian government favors the Hindu
Huh? Caste is illegal in India, and the government engages in very heavy affirmative action. To the tune of, if I recall correctly, a majority of government jobs and university seats in the Southern states being reserved for the backward castes.
India has a problem with caste (though these days, the bigger problems are poverty and economic oppression) but the blame is due more to civil society than to the government.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Hector,
As usual the topic has turned from the fact that Pakistan is a failed state that can’t protect its own people from the Taliban, and turned to India’s various imperfections.
Gotta give Mr. Esper credit for that.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
You guys seem to really be offended that anyone could possibly talk about India’s rather awful human rights record towards its Muslim population (note, it goes beyond “imperfections”). That’s basically telling– you guys know that India doesn’t come off well in such discussions so you don’t want to have them.
In any rate, I actually didn’t start that discussion. Hector did, because he didn’t want to discuss Pakistan’s very good reasons for maintaining a strong defense against its hostile neighbor India. So he changed the subject to how right India is with respect to all the disputes.
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Re: As usual the topic has turned from the fact that Pakistan is a failed state that can’t protect its own people from the Taliban, and turned to India’s various imperfections.
Gmor,
Dilan,
India’s record with respect to minority religious communities compares favorably to that of any nation in the world, as we both know. Hell, Muslims (or to be precise, Muslim men) have rights in India that no one else has- to polygamy, to easy divorce, and to consanguineous marriages. Muslims are also the beneficiaries of affirmative action programs. The Indian government pays for Muslims to undergo the Hajj to Mecca. When was the last time you heard of them paying for someone to take a pilgrimage to Rome or Tirupathi? It can be argued (correctly, I think) that they should lose those special rights and be treated the same as anyone else.
Were you aware that India pays for Muslims to go to Mecca, Dilan?
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Alright on second thoughts, I need to qualify that. India does, apparently, subsidize Hindu and Buddhist pilgims to go to Tibet. Although many fewer of them go (due to Chinese border restrictions), and it’s a much smaller subsidy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haj_subsidy
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Still waiting for your answer to my question, Mr. Esper. Months and counting. I’m beginning to think you’re not serious about this discussion.
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Gmor:
Indian Muslims are second class citizens because they are subjected to violence, discrimination, destruction of holy sites, etc., which the Indian government has not prevented. The issue of whether India has written specific discrimination into its laws is irrelevant.
Look, we get it. You love India and think it can do no wrong, and think that Pakistan should have never been created because Hindus were put on the subcontinent to rule it. Thankfully, the folks who founded Pakistan AND India were more pragmatic than that and understood that there needed to be a two-state solution.
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Hector:
Subsidizing pilgrimages and affirmative action are band-aids, meant to give India’s defenders some talking points. How about stopping the destruction of Muslim temples, stopping Hindu violence against Muslims, actually preventing discrimination by private and public employers against Muslim, getting rid of the sacred cows (this basically privileges sectarian Hindus over everyone else who has to live in the city and deal with the filth), and yes, letting the Kashmiris go and have their own state?
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:26 pm
July 23rd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Dilan Esper: “You guys seem to really be offended that anyone could possibly talk about India’s rather awful human rights record towards its Muslim population.”
No, we object to your holding India to such high standards that few countries in the world can meet them, while ignoring the 7th century savagery of Muslim countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia where Sharia barbarism rules supreme. This kind of hypocrisy is called anti-Semitism when the targets are Jews, and we are calling you on it.
By the way, I am still waiting to hear from you whether you believe giving Kashmir to Pakistan will make it “legitimate” for India to govern the remaining 140 million adherents of the religion of peace that will still be left in our country.
July 23rd, 2009 at 6:26 pm
No, we object to your holding India to such high standards that few countries in the world can meet them, while ignoring the 7th century savagery of Muslim countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia where Sharia barbarism rules supreme.
Where have I ever said that? Pakistan is awful– it teeters back and forth between dictatorship and corruption, the government doesn’t even have control over a huge part of the country, and there’s plenty of Taliban-style repression there (though, I should note that Pakistan is no more defined by the Taliban than it is by the election of Benazir Bhutto– there’s a lot of real accomplishments that they have made as well).
Saudi Arabia is also awful– they have one of the worst human rights records on the planet.
Indeed, personally, I’d rather live in India than Pakistan.
But that’s part of my point. A lot of India’s fans seem to like to just go on and on about how great India is and how bad Pakistan is, without realizing (1) Pakistan was created for a very good reason that is still true today, and (2) Pakistan’s fears of India are entirely legitimate, given that they have fought 3 wars, India has nuclear weapons, India played a hand in splitting the Pakistani state, and there are plenty of Hindu Indians even now who think the entire Partition was illegitimate and that Hindus had the right to rule the entire subcontinent.
By the way, I am still waiting to hear from you whether you believe giving Kashmir to Pakistan will make it “legitimate” for India to govern the remaining 140 million adherents of the religion of peace that will still be left in our country.
First of all, stop with the sarcastic “religion of peace” crap– that’s nothing more than anti-Muslim bigotry. Second, on the merits of your point, given that MUCH, if not almost all, of the violence by Pakistan against India over the years has been over the issue of Kashmir, yes, I do think that solving the Kashmir issue would defuse tensions between the two countries a lot.
And note, “solving the Kashmir issue” could mean lots of things, so long as they are agreed to by the parties.
Lastly, look, India has 150 million Muslims because it has a billion people. Muslims are a minority and are treated like one. That doesn’t mean the Indian government is illegitimate– any more than the fact that Israeli Arabs live as second class citizens in Israel establishes that the Israeli government is illegitimate. But it also doesn’t mean that the logic of the Partition has been superseded– the point was not that either country would have no minority of the other religious group; it was that as a general matter, Muslims should govern in Muslim-majority areas and Hindus in Hindu-majority areas. Kashmir was an error, which is why the Pakistanis are so pissed off about it.
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Re: Second, on the merits of your point, given that MUCH, if not almost all, of the violence by Pakistan against India over the years has been over the issue of Kashmir, yes, I do think that solving the Kashmir issue would defuse tensions between the two countries a lot.
No, it won’t. Granting Kashmiri independence will solve the problem of domestic terrorism by Kashmiri nationalists (who, whether you agree with them or not, at least have a sincere and reasonable objective). And I support it primarily for that reason. To paraphrase the late and unlamented Lyndon Johnson, keeping Kashmir free of Shariah is not worth the life of a single Indian soldier. But do not be fooled that Pakistan and India will be best friends. What you fail to realize is this isn’t, fundamentally, about Islam, nor is it about romantic nationalism. It’s about the fact that Pakistan is a failed state whose leaders need an enemy to distract the populace from their looming problems. The cynical elites that govern Pakistan need India the same way that George Bush needed the War on Terror.
I’m not sure why you keep insisting that I challenge Pakistan’s right to exist. I don’t. While I am generally a strong partisan of the Hindu cause through Indian history, and a strong opponent of the Muslim cause, I don’t deny that the Muslims see things differently, and locking Hindus and Muslims together in the same state (with a 2:1 demographic balance) would have been a disaster. Partition was the right thing in 1947 because as Jinnah said, a nation is based on shared historical narrative, and many Hindus and Muslims in 1947 had diametrically opposed one. Though I think one narrative was mostly true, and the other mostly false, doesn’t alter the fact that Partition was, in a pragmatic sense, the right thing to do.
July 24th, 2009 at 12:06 am
. But do not be fooled that Pakistan and India will be best friends.
There’s plenty of room between “3 wars” and “best friends” Hector. Israel and Jordan, for instance, are hardly “best friends”, but they also have a decent, very contentious relationship that isn’t likely to devlove into a shooting war.
And I agree with you that Pakistan is a failed state. But there’s all sorts of ways in which even a somewhat better relationship with India would make it a less failed state, from trade to reductions in military spending to the fact that Pakistan would be better able to fight the Taliban (which would win it more aid from Western powers). It would very much benefit Pakistan to achieve even a rather cold peace with India, and Kashmir stands in the way of that just like it does for the Indians.
July 24th, 2009 at 8:18 am
Dilan,
This is dropping off the front page so I’ll let you have the last word. I’ll just say this: I actually do agree with you as a matter of policy, though not with your reasons for getting there. Kashmir has been an albatross around India’s neck for six decades, and has cost India far more in blood and money then it’s worth. As a simple issue of pragmatic policy, giving up Muslim Kashmir would be the smart thing to do, however much one might dislike Pakistan and its history.
Just curious though- given that a third of Kashmiris are Hindu or Buddhist (and that they tend to live in distinct geographical areas- Jammu in the south and Ladakh in the northeast) what do you want to do with them?
July 24th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
I think the presence of non-Muslim Kashmiris is one of the things that is going to make independence, or perhaps some more symbolic recognition of Pakistani sovereignty, the ultimate solution here. But I also would suspect that if the solution did involve giving Kashmir to Pakistan, there would probably be an exodus of those folks (who hold Indian passports and papers) back to India, hopefully not as bloody as the Partition was.
Look, bottom line is that it is a real problem, and is one of the reasons that the PRACTICAL issue of implementing a Kashmir solution would be difficult. But that’s very different from the current Indian position which is to say that there’s nothing to talk about, and/or asking Pakistan to give its portion of Kashmir back to India. If India would move off that position, I suspect that there would be an improvement in the bilateral relations even if it took a long time to actually hammer out what is going to happen to Kashmir.