Ultimately, India will need to acknowledge that Kashmir is a disputed territory and resolve it, commentator Hasan Suroor writes in a Middle East newspaper insisting that unless the wound is lanced at the source it will keep lacerating
Improvising on an old proverb, a former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee used to say, “You can choose your friends but you cannot choose your neighbours. So you must learn to live with them.” India and Pakistan have struggled to do that over the years, and at the best of times their relations are on a knife’s edge.
But even by these standards, the latest crisis (sparked by the death of 19 Indian soldiers in an attack by Pakistan-based militants on an army base in Uri, Kashmir) is by far the most serious. The two nuclear-armed nations, who have already fought three wars over rival territorial claims on Kashmir, are hovering on the brink of another military conflict amid fears for the stability of the entire region.
“Armed to the teeth… any military conflict between the two neighbours could fast erupt into an uncontrollable disaster…” wrote Pakistan’s liberal newspaper Express Tribune in an editorial, while accusing India of “dangerous escalation”.
Rhetoric is running high on both sides, with Pakistan’s defence minister Khawaja Asif threatening an all-out nuclear war. “We have not made atomic device to display in a showcase. If such a situation arises we will use it and eliminate India,” he said.
This is the first time such a threat has been made by either country. The international community has long been concerned about an India-Pakistan conflict escalating into a nuclear conflagration. Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner in the United States presidential election race, recently expressed the fear that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons could fall into hands of militants, calling it “a threatening scenario”.
In India, the Uri attack is seen as a deliberate provocation at a time when the Kashmir Valley is in the throes of a new wave of insurgency following the police shooting of a pro-Pakistani separatist leader, Burhan Wani; Pakistan hailed him as a martyr.
India’s unusually swift and strong response reflects a new hardline approach, according to security analysts. Prime minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power vowing to be “tough” with Pakistan, and they wanted to demonstrate they meant business. Within hours, the government had mobilised a boycott of a forthcoming conference of South Asian leaders in Pakistan and forced its cancellation. With Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan joining the Indian boycott of the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) summit, Pakistan looked isolated.
Not all of those boycotting are necessarily India’s loyal allies but on terrorism they’re united; most have themselves been victims of Pakistan-based militants. Sri Lanka didn’t join the boycott but issued a strong statement on fighting terrorism.
New Delhi followed its diplomatic offensive with the so-called surgical strikes by special forces on what it called terrorist bases, which Pakistan’s prime minister Nawaz Sharif likened to “naked aggression”. Pakistan denied that such strikes had even taken place, calling it an exchange of fire across the designated border that divides Kashmir.
Rahul Roy-Chaudhury of the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) said the Indian response set the threshold for a “new normal” in its approach to Pakistan.
“This government has to be seen very differently not only from the previous Congress government but also from previous BJP governments. It is ruthlessly pragmatic in its approach,” he said. This meant that while pursuing talks with Pakistan it would not hesitate to take strong punitive action when required.
The new, more muscular line, he said, flowed from Indian “frustration” with Pakistan’s failure or unwillingness to control militants on its soil. More than eight years after the Mumbai attacks – regarded as India’s equivalent of 9/11 – Pakistan had still not brought its perpetrators to justice.
Critics have suggested that the newly-acquired toughness was intended to rebut criticism of Modi’s inconsistent Pakistan policy. Criticism mounted after the terror attack on an Air Force base in Pathankot in Punjab in January. It was widely interpreted as a personal snub to Modi as it came barely weeks after his dramatic dash to Lahore to greet Sharif on his birthday, in what the media portrayed as a grand gesture of friendship.
Following September’s even more deadly Uri attack, there is too much public and political pressure on Modi not to be seen as a pushover. And the gamble has paid off. His “decisive action” has been praised even by his critics including Congress, the opposition party:
“The Congress and entire India stand by him over this [cross-border surgical strikes],” said its vice president Rahul Gandhi, though he has since accused the government of politicising the crisis with an eye on the coming elections in two key northern states, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.
Modi’s government is considering a series of further punitive measures against Pakistan, including economic sanctions and freezing cultural cooperation. Pakistanis who work in the film and arts industries in India may be forced to leave. There’s also speculation that India might pull out of SAARC altogether and form a new regional bloc with its allies in its quest to establish its regional supremacy and further isolate Pakistan.
According to Dr Farzana Shaikh, a British-Pakistani academic and associate fellow of Chatham House, London, Pakistan has few friends left. Even its long-standing allies, the US and China, are beginning to lose patience, she says:
“While US secretary of state John Kerry has been careful to acknowledge Pakistan’s efforts in seeking to curb the activity of militant groups, the US House of Representatives introduced legislation on September 21 aimed at sanctioning Pakistan as a ‘state sponsor of terrorism’.
“With US$46 billion earmarked for investment in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor – with key sections running through the Taliban hotbed of Baluchistan – China too could soon become less indulgent towards its favoured partner.”
Pakistan’s traditional supporters also seem to be shifting towards India. As Shaikh says: “At the current juncture, an Indian attempt to isolate Pakistan economically may prove effective.” In a joint analysis with Chatham House colleague Gareth Price, Shaikh warns that the fallout from the latest crisis not only damages Pakistan’s “already weak international position” but risks shifting the delicate domestic balance of power between its civilian government and the military in favour of the latter.
There has been a flurry of meetings between the two sides and, according to Pakistan’s usually reliable Dawn newspaper, the blunt message that has gone out to the military establishment is to stop “shielding” banned militant groups.
The Dawn journalist Cyril Almeida, who broke the story, was banned from leaving the country this week. Almeida said he had been placed on the “Exit Control List’’ days after he wrote about a confrontation between Sharif and army spy chief Rizwan Akhtar at a meeting on October 3. The Press Trust of India news agency reported that Sharif had ordered “stern action” against Dawn for publishing a “fabricated” report.
Ironically, on the substantive issue of Kashmir – namely that it is a disputed territory and its future should be decided in accordance with the wishes of its people – there’s still considerable sympathy for Pakistan in the international community, but it has been overshadowed by concerns over terrorism. The two problems – Kashmir and terrorism – have become conflated, making it easier for India to argue that it will not discuss Kashmir unless the terror problem is first resolved.
“There have been no talks since 2012,” Roy-Chaudhury points out, stressing that there is “no alternative to a dialogue”. But in the prevailing climate of jingoism, no one in either in Delhi or Islamabad is talking about talks. The mood is ugly with moderate voices being drowned out.
“Peaceniks are being hounded,” a liberal Pakistani friend told me from Karachi. Ditto in India. Indian novelist Kavery Nambisan said the mood was so toxic that it was “difficult to have a rational discussion with even many liberals … they have become so hawkish”.
The attitude of Sanjaya Baru, a prominent liberal policy analyst who was media adviser to the former Congress prime minister Manmohan Singh at the time of the Mumbai attacks is typical.
He advocates “cooling off” all engagement with Pakistan in favour of a “Cold War” style approach until conditions are right for a dialogue.
“That is going to be the new normal,” he said in a television interview.
Where do India-Pakistan relations go from here? Experienced commentators point to history; relations have been at such “turning points” and “new-normals” before. And, in the end, both sides were forced to talk because there was no alternative.
But whatever the outcome of this crisis, India can no longer avoid discussing Kashmir.
Ultimately, India will need to acknowledge that Kashmir is a disputed territory and resolve it. Unless the wound is lanced at the source it will keep lacerating.
Note: Views expressed in this article – that originally was published by UAE newspaper The National, are those of the London based commentator and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Kashmir Life.
