Brookings: Topics - Kashmir

Protecting and Promoting Rights in Natural Disasters in South Asia

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400

INTRODUCTION

On April 9-10, 2009, the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI)[1] and The Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement[2] co-convened a two-day workshop on “Protecting and Promoting Rights in Natural Disasters in South Asia: Prevention and Response” in Chennai, India. A total of 37 participants attended from Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the United States. Participants represented national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), civil society organizations, the UN, government representatives, the military, media, academic institutions and environmental organizations. The workshop brought together diverse policymakers, activists and practitioners to discuss the salient issues related to protecting and promoting human rights in South Asian disasters.

The objectives of the workshop were:

To introduce and raise awareness of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee’s (IASC) Operational Guidelines on Human Rights and Natural Disasters;
To discuss the added value of a rights-based approach to humanitarian response in natural disasters with an emphasis on the national and regional context;
To discuss good practices in terms of regional, national and local monitoring mechanisms of humanitarian response in natural disasters;
To generate specific recommendations to strengthen policy and action for rights protection at the local, national and regional levels.

Background

South Asia is a “theater for disaster.” In the past decade alone, floods, cyclones, earthquakes, droughts, and a devastating tsunami destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives and livelihoods and left millions more homeless. In each disaster, humanitarian responders rushed to the scene to preserve human life and reduce immediate suffering.

For many humanitarian agencies involved in immediate disaster response, human rights protection has been a secondary concern. It is the national government that is charged with the responsibility to protect the rights of its citizens–including when citizens are displaced. When governments are unable or unwilling to act, or require assistance, humanitarian actors must step in to fill this “protection gap.”

This workshop was organized with the aim of discussing The IASC Operational Guidelines on Human Rights and Natural Disasters[3], the practical guide to fill this gap. The Operational Guidelines, published by the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, were formally adopted by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee in June 2006 and include a list of easily accessible principles and guidelines for humanitarian actors to promote a human rights based approach in disaster response and relief. The accompanying Field Manual (currently under revision) explains the human rights legislation that undergirds the guidelines and outlines how they can best be implemented in the field.

Regional Context

This workshop was organized to develop a concrete strategy for rights promotion in South Asian disasters. All too often, egregious human rights abuses have been committed, either intentionally or unintentionally, in disaster response in South Asia. These abuses came to light most recently in the Koshi River flood in 2008 in Bihar, India, and Nepal; in the 2005 Kashmir earthquake in India and Pakistan; and in the 2004 tsunami that wreaked havoc across the region.

While disaster-affected persons of all groups have suffered rights abuses, monitoring and evaluation continually reveal the exclusion and abuse of particular groups, including women, children, persons from the so-called “lower-castes,” indigenous peoples, older persons, persons with disabilities (PWDs), persons living with HIV/AIDS, and others. Owing to the regional, national, and local contexts, these groups are more vulnerable to rights abuses and it is thus essential to design policies that protect their rights before, during, and after disasters.

National Context

This workshop brought together key practitioners and policymakers working at the national level who are engaged in promoting human rights in disaster response. In India, especially during the tsunami, post-disaster evaluations found many rights violations of marginalized groups. Women, Dalits, indigenous peoples, minorities, children, PWDs, and other groups are often given short shrift when it comes to protection of their rights. In relief, disproportionate aid is frequently disbursed to relatively advantaged groups while Dalits and indigenous minorities are completely neglected. Moreover, international and national humanitarian responders are often unaware of the specific needs of PWDs (such as assistive devices), women (such as feminine hygiene items, undergarments, and, critically, reproductive health care), Dalits, and indigenous groups (such as appropriate food and shelter).

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) of India has taken important steps towards improving human rights protection of marginalized groups in disaster. NDMA is engaged in conversations with human rights advocates at Action Aid India and with others to craft more inclusive and appropriate strategies for rights protection.

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[1] Established in 1989 after repeated droughts in India, the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI), Gujarat, is a community-based action research, action planning and action advocacy organization. It works towards bridging the gap among policy, practice, and research related to disaster risk mitigation, in an effort to link the local community with policy level activities. AIDMI sets agendas, shapes knowledge, and pilots projects in favor of the poor and excluded among disaster victims and the vulnerable.

[2] The Brookings Institution-University of Bern Project on Internal Displacement was created to promote a more effective national, regional, and international response to the global problem of internal displacement and to support the work of the Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons in carrying out the responsibilities of the mandate. The Project monitors displacement problems worldwide, promotes the dissemination and application of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, works with governments, regional bodies, international organizations and civil society to create more effective policies and institutional arrangements for IDPs, convenes international seminars on internal displacement, and publishes major studies, articles and reports.

[3] Available at: http://www.brookings.edu/projects/idp/2006_naturaldisasters.aspx.

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The Limits of U.S. Diplomacy in Kashmir

Anit Mukherjee and Dhruva Jaishankar — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:00:00 -0500

The Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan has once again received international attention following November’s terrorist attacks on Mumbai. Given the longstanding nature of the dispute, the series of wars fought over the territory, and the possession of nuclear weapons by both parties, the inaction by the U.S. government over the last few years is often a cause for lament in foreign policy circles. Reports that the next administration plans on appointing a special envoy for the region have raised hopes that this policy would be remedied. Unfortunately, renewed U.S. engagement on Kashmir – especially if it were led by a high-profile envoy – is likely to prove counterproductive, a setback for U.S. foreign policy, for the India-Pakistan peace process and, ironically, for Kashmir itself.

Over the last four years, an India-Pakistan peace process has made steady steps towards a mutually acceptable settlement. The so-called ‘composite dialogue’ between the two states, reinforced by back-channel talks between representatives of both countries’ leaders, made significant, albeit slow-moving, progress before it was derailed by domestic political turbulence in Pakistan and recurring terrorist attacks in India, Mumbai being but the latest – and most high profile – example.

Despite these setbacks, most Indian and Pakistani policymakers still believe that their two countries have reached a mutually hurting stalemate, which cannot end without a lasting bilateral settlement. Indian strategists have made sustained calls for a 'grand bargain’ with Pakistan, and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has followed Pervez Musharraf in making conciliatory statements regarding India. The two countries have moved towards lowering trade barriers (including in Kashmir) and greater regional cooperation. Yet for four reasons, active American engagement on Kashmir by the incoming administration risks reversing such positive developments.

First, both Islamabad and New Delhi view Washington as favoring the other side. Pakistan increasingly views the United States as preferential to India, an impression reinforced by Washington having brokered a civilian nuclear agreement with New Delhi. Indian policy elites, meanwhile, are worried that the United States will pressure India to make concessions in order to ensure continued Pakistani support in fighting the Taliban.

Second, the biggest remaining hurdle to a lasting Kashmir agreement is the inability of the two governments to sell it domestically, something American intervention can do little to alter. India’s raucous domestic politics will not tolerate any overt U.S. pressure on a Kashmir resolution, even if it matches India’s objectives. In Pakistan, an agreement on Kashmir will have to be accepted by the army leadership, on whom Washington has historically failed to exert much influence.

Third, unlike the disputes in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, both sides have not requested American mediation. Any attempt will face a similar fate to the efforts of a proactive Kennedy administration in 1963, which succeeded only in stoking both countries’ resentment of the United States.

Finally, American engagement would embolden Kashmiri separatists to raise their demands, thus complicating the ongoing bilateral negotiations. Political groups favoring independence for Indian-administered Kashmir were quick to welcome Obama's stated intention of American engagement in the run-up to his election. American involvement will also unintentionally justify the use of terrorism by organizations like Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group ostensibly behind the Mumbai assault, for political objectives.

A public decision by the next president and his national security team to engage the two regional rivals on a Kashmir settlement therefore looks certain to be a disaster. At the very least, such a move will embarrass the new administration and set back relations with New Delhi. At worst, it could prove counterproductive to what remains of the India-Pakistan peace process, and destabilizing for the region as a whole.

Instead, the two sides should be left to themselves to minimize the damage to the peace process caused by the Mumbai attacks. A real effort by Pakistan at permanently dismantling the terrorist infrastructure and bringing to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai massacre should be the first step. India, in turn, should consider a phrased withdrawal of troops from counterinsurgency duties in the Kashmir valley commensurate with a decrease in violence. Peaceful state-level elections in Kashmir in the immediate aftermath of the Mumbai attacks provide a good enough reason for such a move by New Delhi. Taken together, these steps offer the best hope for reviving the peace process in the region.

Undoubtedly, inaction might not appeal to the incoming Obama administration bent on renewing American engagement with the rest of the world. While well-intended, the idea that a focused American effort on settling the Kashmir dispute will dramatically stabilize the region to the benefit of American strategic goals is far-fetched and simplistic. Instead, the American role in this process should remain what it has been over the past four years: supportive, but from a distance.

Authors

Anit Mukherjee
Dhruva Jaishankar

Image Source: Amit Gupta / Reuters

What We Fear Most about the Mumbai Attacks

Bilal Y. Saab — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:00:00 -0500

It is absolutely critical we find out who committed mass murder in Mumbai. Beyond seeking justice, we need to know who ordered, planned, and executed this terrorist operation, for the answer might profoundly change how we think about global jihadist terrorism and how we fight it. Let’s just hope Mumbai does not herald a new chapter in our war against global jihadist terrorism.

Too many questions and uncertainties surround the terrorist attacks of Mumbai. India is still in a state of shock and it will take a while before its intelligence services are able to draw together a clear picture of the deadliest terrorist attack in the country’s history. One captured terrorist’s story is simply not enough.

This was not an operation of a local terrorist group no matter how high its determination or how severe its grievances may be against the Indian official establishment. India’s leaders are convinced—and American intelligence officials reportedly concur—that there was involvement by Pakistani terrorist elements in the attack. Specifically, they blame Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which along with Jaish-e-Mohammad was one of the two most dangerous militant groups set up with the connivance and assistance of Pakistan’s military-intelligence outfit, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to help wage an insurgency against Indian rule in the part of Kashmir it controls. These groups (or elements within these groups) are now allied with al Qaeda along the Afghan-Pakistani frontier. They are alleged to have been behind—or at least lent a helping hand in—a series of bloody attacks on India: the attempt in 2001 to kill India’s leaders in a raid on Parliament in Delhi; the bombing in 2003 of parts of Mumbai, including the Taj Mahal hotel, a target in the latest attack; and the even bigger slaughter entailed in the coordinated bombing of Mumbai’s commuter-rail network in July 2006.

We should not be surprised if al Qaeda was behind the Mumbai attacks. The attack had all the hallmarks of an al Qaeda operation: the hunt by the determined gunmen specifically for American, British, and Jewish victims smacks more of an al Qaeda agenda than that of a band of militants dabbling in the politics of Kashmir. An operation that would torpedo rapprochement between India and Pakistan, and maybe draw Pakistani soldiers away from hunting down al Qaeda and Taliban elements along the Afghan border, would surely win the approval of Osama bin Laden. Interrogation of the sole known survivor of the smaller attack group also suggests that the militants were youthful foot soldiers who must have been trained and directed and supported by more sophisticated officers. This was an operation long in the planning that required reconnaissance, training, money, and excellent communications.

But while most terrorism analysts and counterterrorism officials seem to be focused on the very likely al Qaeda link, nobody seems to have paid attention to the scary alternative. What if al Qaeda had no hand in this? If the investigations eventually reveal that the Mumbai attacks are not operationally linked to western Pakistan where al Qaeda’s central leadership resides, doesn’t this speak volumes about the future of global jihadist terrorism? Since 9/11, we have reasoned that only al Qaeda is capable of perpetrating catastrophic terrorism of global implications. Mumbai could profoundly challenge that assumption. We may be dealing with a new monster in the form of very capable terrorist groups that could pull off spectacular terrorist attacks without any direct material assistance from Osama bin Laden or Ayman al Zawahri (some people would argue that this “self-starters” trend started four years ago with the train bombings in Madrid, when Spanish intelligence services could not prove their linkage to al Qaeda). Indeed, Mumbai could reveal that the LeT, the primary suspect in the attack who is officially banned in Pakistan, is an independent terrorism threat. If so, American and European intelligence agencies now have two groups with international reach and serious terrorist potential to worry about: al Qaeda and LeT (according to the US National Counterterrorism Center and several American and European intelligence agencies, LeT has cells in the United Kingdom, Iraq, the Gulf, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan).

If this is the case, is the safe haven of al Qaeda in the tribal areas as critical as we thought it was (we all know it is relevant, but how critical)? This resurrects the important and much publicized debate between Marc Sageman, ex-CIA case officer and author of Leaderless Jihad, and Bruce Hoffman, terrorism scholar and author of Inside Terrorism, who offer contrasting assessments of the state of al Qaeda and the roots of jihadist terrorism. The two essentially feud over whether al Qaeda is a leaderless movement (Sageman) or a terrorist organization whose safe haven in western Pakistan is critical for its survival and lethality (Hoffman).

We usually dread the day when Osama bin Laden or Ayman al Zawahiri releases a message to assess their "state of the Islamic union". This time, however, we might be getting some awkward sense of relief if either of these two leaders publicly praises the Mumbai attack and claims responsibility. There is nothing scarier than the thought of fighting powerful, global terrorists whose leadership is a mystery. In the business of counterterrorism, spectacular and catastrophic terrorism has to have an address.

Authors

Bilal Y. Saab

The Kashmir Dispute: Making Borders Irrelevant

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:00:00 -0400

Event Information

June 4, 2008
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036

For decades, the Kashmir conflict has been viewed as intractable, but recent developments now offer the prospect of a new era. Pakistani and Indian governments have undertaken new approaches to managing the region once called the "most dangerous place in the world" and have adopted the mantra of "making borders irrelevant." As a result, the Pakistanis and Indians have increased interaction across the Line of Control which separates the two sides, including on issues such as trade. What does this slogan mean in practice and how committed are the various parties to change?

On June 4, the Brookings Institution and the United States Institute of Peace hosted scholars P.R. Chari and Hasan Askari Rizvi in a discussion about their upcoming study “Making Borders Irrelevant in Kashmir.” The study examines the opportunities and obstacles for increasing trade and movement across the Line of Control, the constituencies that would favor or oppose this approach, and the steps necessary to move the process forward. Brookings Senior Fellow Stephen P. Cohen provided introductory remarks and comments.

After the program, the speakers took audience questions.

Transcript

Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

20080604_kashmir

Participants

Panelists

P. R. Chari

Research Professor, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies

Hasan Askari Rizvi

Pakistan Studies Scholar, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

Four Crises and a Peace Process : American Engagement in South Asia

P.R. Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema and Stephen P. Cohen — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 12:00:00 -0400

Brookings Institution Press 2007 252pp.

India and Pakistan, nuclear neighbors and rivals, fought the last of three major wars in 1971. Far from peaceful, however, the period since then has been "one long crisis, punctuated by periods of peace." The long-disputed Kashmir issue continues to be both a cause and consequence of India-Pakistan hostility.

Four Crises and a Peace Process focuses on four contained conflicts on the subcontinent: the Brasstacks Crisis of 1986-1987, the Compound Crisis of 1990, the Kargil Conflict of 1999, and the Border Confrontation of 2001-2002. Authors P.R. Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema, and Brookings senior fellow Stephen P. Cohen explain the underlying causes of these crises, their consequences, the lessons that can be learned, and the American role in each.

The four crises are notable because any one of them could have escalated to a large-scale conflict, or even all-out war, and three took place after India and Pakistan had gone nuclear. Looking for larger trends of peace and conflict in the region, the authors consider these incidents as cases of attempted conflict resolution, as instances of limited war by nuclear-armed nations, and as examples of intervention and engagement by the United States and China. They analyze the reactions of Indian, Pakistani, and international media and assess the two countries' decision-making processes.

Four Crises and a Peace Process explains how these crises have affected regional and international policy and evaluates the prospects for lasting peace in South Asia.

Book Event: Four Crises and a Peace Process: American Engagement with India and Pakistan, Tuesday, November 27 at 9:30 a.m.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

P.R. Chari

P. R. Chari is research professor at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in New Delhi. His books include Security and Governance in South Asia (Manohar, 2001).

Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema

Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema is president of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute. His publications include The Armed Forces of Pakistan (Allen and Unwin, 2002).

Stephen P. Cohen

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Demystifying Kashmir

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 10:30:00 -0500

Event Information

January 25, 2007
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM EST

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan made a new offer to India regarding the status of Kashmir, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called for a treaty of peace and friendship with Pakistan. These developments, if successfully implemented, have the potential to strengthen relations between the two nuclear powers and lead to a resolution of the longstanding Kashmir dispute.

On January 25, Brookings hosted a panel discussion with Navnita Chadha Behera and other leading experts to discuss her book, Demystifying Kashmir (Brookings 2006) and its policy recommendations. Demystifying Kashmir offers a detailed examination of the history and present-day dynamics of the Jammu and Kashmir state. Behera discussed the upcoming meeting between Prime Minister Singh and President Musharraf, the effect this meeting will have on the peace process, and the internal politics of Kashmir on both sides of the line of control. Participants included Thomas Pickering, former U.S. ambassador to India; Hasan Askari Rizvi, former visiting professor of Pakistan studies, Columbia University; and Ashley Tellis, senior associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Transcript

Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

20070125

Participants

Moderator

Panelists

Navnita Chadha Behera

Author, Demystifying Kashmir

Ashley Tellis

Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Hasan Askari Rizvi

Former Visiting Professor of Pakistan Studies, Columbia University

Thomas R. Pickering

Former U.S. Ambassador to India, U.S. Department of State

India and the United States: A New Era

Bruce Riedel — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0500

President George W. Bush has signed legislation allowing the U.S. to sell civilian nuclear technology to India. In July, the relationship between the U.S. and India was bolstered when President Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the framework for this landmark deal. The new year offers an opportunity for a new era in U.S. relations with India and a new agenda in the "strategic dialogue" that has been underway between Washington and Delhi for nearly nine years. While the agreement has its downside—it could prompt other countries to seek similar exceptions to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty—it helps remove a 25-year-old obstacle to furthering U.S.-Indian relations: disagreement over India's decision to become a nuclear-weapons state. For decades this one issue has dominated U.S. and Indian diplomacy and prevented the world's oldest and largest democracies from dealing adequately with a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues.

Ironically, it was the Indian nuclear tests in 1998 that began the process of change. Following India's tests, President Clinton initiated an intensive dialogue—led by then-deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott—to restrain its nuclear program. Talbott's discussions with then-foreign minister Jaswant Singh began with a limited focus on proliferation, but expanded to crisis management during the 1999 Kargil war and then into a broad opening of the relationship that culminated in Clinton's watershed visit to India in 2000.

Now that President Bush has built on this foundation, he should use the new strategic partnership to move beyond crisis management between India and Pakistan to try to help the two countries resolve the underlying issue that has brought them repeatedly to conflict: Kashmir. America has avoided dealing with the Kashmir issue for decades, both because of its complexities and because India opposed outside involvement, preferring to deal bilaterally with Pakistan. This approach has not worked; the problem has gotten worse and has repeatedly taken the subcontinent to the brink of disaster.

Now is the time for quiet American diplomacy to exploit our stronger ties with India and our improved relations with Pakistan since 9/11 to try to resolve the Kashmir quarrel. It is in the self interest of all three nations to do so. The timing is particularly fortuitous since India and Pakistan have begun their own bilateral dialogue to improve relations since they were last at the brink of war in 2003. That dialogue has already produced some modest confidence-building measures in Kashmir but has not really engaged the underlying issues.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf says he is ready to engage India on Kashmir and has put some interesting ideas on the table. He should be tested now by both the U.S. and India. Helping him resolve Kashmir would also help him end Pakistan's long relationship with jihadist terror groups which have dangerous relationships with al-Qaeda. If Kashmir moved toward peace, Pakistan could more easily put those groups out of business and isolate al-Qaeda. A deal should not threaten India's territorial integrity; rather it should focus on improving the Kashmiri's lives.

Now that the nuclear deal is done, President Bush should make Kashmir a major part of his dialogue with India and Pakistan. Nudging them both toward a deal on Kashmir will not be easy, but the time may be ripe to try. Preventive diplomacy in South Asia in the next two years would be an enduring legacy for George W. Bush.

Authors

Bruce Riedel

Pakistan: Musharraf Ought to Give Up the Uniform

Stephen P. Cohen — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Is Musharraf our last hope? Will Pakistan truly go into the hands of fundamentalists if he is not supported?

Certainly not our (or India's or Pakistan's) last hope; when I testified before Congress several months ago I described his position as "help me, or else" with him holding a gun to his head. The fundamentalists are not really that strong in Pakistan, the Army has contempt for them, but uses them. A restored democracy would put them (and the Army) in their respective places, but that's a big leap across a chasm, and at least in the US, people are risk-averse to regime change.

To what extent has Musharraf delivered on his promise to the US and India of stopping the use of Pakistani territory by terrorists? Does the US believe he can deliver any more?

I can't speak for the US, but my view is that he's delivered just what he has to in order to keep the relationship moving ahead; I saw the same process when I was in the Reagan administration. Pakistan has tremendous leverage over the US, so it can pursue policies which are definitely not in our interest (or Pakistan's for that matter).

Would it make sense for Musharraf to give up the Army uniform? What might be its impact?

I argued in my 1985 book that the Army needed a staged withdrawal from politics, step-by-step; he ought to give up the uniform and as the politicians fill the vacuum, withdraw further. This can be a slow process, but it has to begin and it has to move continuously; of course, this also depends on the quality of the politicians who hope to supplant the Army. The Army believes, with some justification, that the politicians would prefer the Army in power to a political rival.

Can Musharraf derail the domestic Kashmir peace process?

I don't know about the capacity, but there are certainly elements in Pakistan who would like to derail it; India could theoretically finish off the issue accommodating Kashmiri interests. I don't claim to be an expert on Kashmir, so I can't say whether it is too late for a grand reconciliation. I think that the Mufti Mohammed Sayeed government has moved in this direction, but it is a process that is easy to subvert, and has gotten tied up with larger, 'global' Islamist movements, and, most dangerously, with non-Kashmiri Indian Muslim grievances.

Is Pakistani peace with India possible without a significant structural change in the Pakistani polity, State-society, military-society relations?

I'm an optimist, I think that there are enough sensible people in Pakistan now so that the two states can reach an accommodation on a wide range of issues; but India seems to be in no mood to offer any concessions, and some Indians would prefer to see Pakistan become a lesser State. The Pakistanis also are divided between doves and hawks. The siuation remains critical, one atrocity away from another crisis, and these crises can get out of control very quickly.

The overwhelming view emerging in India is that terrorism and talks can't go hand in hand. Would you say India is being inflexible?

I'm not going to pretend to advise the Indian government on such a sensitive issue, but I do know that in many cases India has negotiated with groups who have used terror tactics, offering both carrots and sticks; this is far more difficult in the case of groups that have international connections, but trying to isolate the hardliners is a realistic strategy. It would require assistance from Pakistan, however. I do see some movement in this direction, but the hardliners want to disrupt this process — hence the blasts.

Has the Musharraf regime done enough to make Pakistan an economically viable state?

Musharraf has done a great deal, but clearly Pakistan's economy has to be linked to its neighbours, especially India, and political considerations prevent that; also, there's an alarming growth of poverty and cost of living in Pakistan even as the cities thrive.

Is Musharraf in sync with the isi or is it an independent entity?

The isi is a branch of the Pakistan government, it does what it is told to do, and many of its members are professional. However, what is often most problematic are the "alumni" of these organisations, those who used to be in intelligence or covert services, but have gone off and joined the very groups that they used to direct. There's not a lot of evidence to support this theory in Pakistan, but my guess is that there are elements that are not under the government's control.

If you were the US Ambassador in Delhi/Islamabad at the moment, what would you advise the two sides?

I'd do several things. First, I'd ask both countries for advice on problems facing the US, especially in the Middle East. What would they suggest that we do to cope with the Arab-Israeli and Iraq problems? Perhaps India and/or Pakistan can provide some useful suggestions. Second, regarding South Asia, I'd point out problems associated with some alarming trends (a risky arms race, the spread of terrorist tactics to more groups in both countries, the costs of not collaborating on environmental issues and on trade); I'd do this privately but in a coordinated fashion with India and Pakistan. Third, I'd try to persuade Congress and the (US) President to put real rewards should there be more regional cooperation. Fourth, I'd be tougher with Pakistan regarding its failure to move steadily towards real democracy and its continuing winking at extremist groups that have an agenda in Afghanistan and India. Fifth, I'd ask the Indians to think through the long term costs of having a permanent enemy in Pakistan, and also engage in a dialogue with Delhi about the rise of China.

Do you think India and Pakistan need a third-party mediator for any progress as they get trapped in stated positions?

American mediation between India and Pakistan is definitely out of the question. We have too many problems elsewhere to start interfering in South Asia, especially when we would not be welcome. In fact there's no country that would be acceptable to India and Pakistan as a mediator. At best outsiders can offer ideas and stand ready to facilitate agreement, but mediation is out of the question. However, should there be another major crisis, then outside powers may be compelled to take a more active role. I am afraid that this is the most likely future, and it is important to prevent this if only for the sake of the health of the growing US-India relationship.

Authors

Stephen P. Cohen

Publication: Tehelka

Young Soldiers Used in Conflicts Around the World

Peter W. Singer — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Read the Full Online Chat
Listen to Peter W. Singer Discuss Children at War

P. W. Singer: Many thanks for having me today. I thought it might make sense to start us out with a brief summary of the issue we face.

When we think of warfare, children rarely come to mind. But while warfare has long been the domain of adults, juveniles have been present in armies in a number of instances in the past. For example, young pages armed the knights of the Middle Ages and drummer boys marched before Napoleonic armies. Child soldiers even fought in our own civil war, most notably when a unit of 247 Virginia Military Institute cadets fought with the Confederate Army in the battle of New Market (1864). More recently, U.S. forces fought against small numbers of underage Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) in the closing weeks of World War II.

However, these were the exceptions to what the rule used to be, that children had no place in war. Throughout the last four thousand years of war as we know it, children were never an integral, essential part of any military forces in history. But the rules of war have changed. The participation of children is now not a rarity, but instead a growing feature of war.

The practice of child soldiers is far more widespread, and more important, than most realize. There are as many as 300,000 children under the age of 18 presently serving as combatants around the globe. Their average age is just over 12 years old. The youngest ever was an armed 5 year old in Uganda. The youngest ever terrorist bomber a 7 year old in Colombia. Roughly 30% of the armed forces that employ child soldiers also include girl soldiers. Underage girls have been present in armed groups in 55 countries.

Children now serve in 40% of the world's armed forces, rebel groups, and terrorist organizations and fight in almost 75% of the world's conflicts; indeed, in the last five years, children have served as soldiers on every continent but Antarctica. An additional half million children serve in armed forces not presently at war. The children are often abducted to fight and participate in all the full horrors of war; indeed they are sometimes forced to carry out atrocities that adults shy away from.

The result is that war in the 21st century is not only more prevalent, but more tragic. With children's involvement, warlords, terrorists, and rebel leaders alike are finding that conflicts are easier to start. In turn wars are harder to end, such that the wars drag on, consuming societies and childhood itself for literally hundreds of thousands of children. A particularly troubling aspect then is not only what happens during the fighting, but the legacy it leaves for children after the fighting is done. That is, recovery from the traumas of war is hard enough; it's all the more difficult when the soldier in question is a child.

Washington, D.C.: How many child soldiers are being used currently in Iraq and Afghanistan?

P. W. Singer: The overall numbers of Iraqi children involved in the fighting are not yet known. But the indicators are that they do play a significant role in the insurgency. For example, British forces have detained more than 60 juveniles during their operations in Iraq, while U.S. forces captured 107 Iraqi juveniles determined to be "high risk" security threats, holding most at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.

Its important to note that with the global deployment of U.S. force after 9-11, from Afghanistan to the Philippines, child soldiers are present in every conflict zone U.S. forces now operate in. Indeed, the very first U.S. soldier killed in the war on terrorism was a Green Beret killed by a 14 year old sniper in Afghanistan. At least six young boys between the ages of 13 and 16 have been captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in the initial fighting and were taken to the detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They were housed in a special wing entitled "Camp Iguana." As the Pentagon took more than a year to figure out whether to prosecute or rehabilitate them, the kids spent their days in a house on the beach converted into a makeshift prison, watching DVDs (their favorites were Castaway and Call of the Wild) and learning English and math.

Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq built up an entire apparatus in the 1990s designed to pull children into the military realm and bolster populace control. This included the Ashbal Saddam ("Saddam's Lion Cubs"), a paramilitary force of boys between the ages of 10-15 that acted as a feeder into the noted Saddam Fedayeen units that proved more aggressive than the Iraqi army during the invasion. During the invasion, American forces engaged with Iraqi child soldiers in fighting in at least three cities (Nasariya, Mosul, and Karbala). This is in addition to the many instances of children being used as human shields by regime loyalists during the fighting.

The implications of this training and involvement in military activities by large numbers of Iraqi youth was soon felt in the guerilla war that followed. Beaten on the battlefield, rebel leaders sought to mobilize this cohort of trained and indoctrinated young fighters. A typical incident in the contentious city of Mosul just after the invasion provided a worrisome indicator of the threat to come. Here, in the same week that President Bush's made his infamous aircraft carrier landing proclamation, an Iraqi 12 year old boy fired on U.S. Marines with an AK-47 rifle. Over the next weeks and months, incidents between U.S. forces and armed Iraqi children began to grow, to the extent that U.S. military intelligence briefings began to highlight the role of Iraqi children as both attackers and spotters for ambushes. Incidents with child soldiers ranged from child snipers to a 15 year old that tossed a grenade in an American truck, blowing off the leg of U.S. army trooper.

In the summer of 2004, radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr directed a revolt that consumed the primarily Shia south of Iraq, with the fighting in the holy city of Najaf being particularly fierce. Observers noted multiple child soldiers, some as young as 12 years old, serving in Sadr's "Mahdi" Army that fought pitched battles with U.S. and British forces. Indeed, Sheikh Ahmad al-Shebani, al Sadr's spokesman, publicly defended the use of children, stating, "This shows that the Mahdi are a popular resistance movement against the occupiers. The old men and the young men are on the same field of battle." A 12 year old fighter in the group commented, "Last night I fired a rocket-propelled grenade against a tank. The Americans are weak. They fight for money and status and squeal like pigs when they die. But we will kill the unbelievers because faith is the most powerful weapon." Coalition forces also have increasingly faced child soldiers in the Sunni Triangle as well. Marines fighting in the battle to retake Falluja in November 2004 reported numerous instances of being fired upon by "children with assault rifles."

So one of the many, many difficulties of Iraq is the presence of children.

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Authors

Peter W. Singer

Publication: Washingtonpost.com

The Idea of Pakistan : Revised edition

Stephen P. Cohen — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Brookings Institution Press 2006 382pp.

In recent years Pakistan has emerged as a strategic player on the world stage—both as a potential rogue state armed with nuclear weapons and as an American ally in the war against terrorism. But our understanding of this country is superficial.

To probe beyond the headlines, Stephen Cohen, author of the prize-winning India: Emerging Power, offers a panoramic portrait of this complex country—from its origins as a homeland for Indian Muslims to a military-dominated state that has experienced uneven economic growth, political chaos, sectarian violence, and several nuclear crises with its much larger neighbor, India.

Pakistan’s future is uncertain. Can it fulfill its promise of joining the community of nations as a moderate Islamic state, at peace with its neighbors, or could it dissolve completely into a failed state, spewing out terrorists and nuclear weapons in several directions? The Idea of Pakistan will be an essential tool for understanding this critically important country.

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Stephen P. Cohen

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President Bush's Trip to South Asia: Challenges and Opportunities

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 10:00:00 -0500

Event Information

February 23, 2006
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EST

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

In the first days of March, President Bush travels to India and Pakistan, which are part of a region characterized both by crisis and promise. India-Pakistan tensions have diminished, but basic differences remain over Kashmir; a war rages in Afghanistan; and Al Qaeda and other terrorists are active throughout the Subcontinent.

Bush's host in Pakistan, President and Army Chief Pervez Musharraf, is in political difficulty at home, partly because of his close identification with American policy. In India, Bush will meet with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and he will undoubtedly praise India's strong secular credentials, its economic progress, and the prospect of greater U.S.-Indian strategic coordination. Yet doubts remain, as the historic civilian nuclear "deal" that the two signed in July has met with stiff opposition in both India and the U.S. What are Bush's objectives in making this long-awaited trip? Does Washington now see India as a safeguard against a rising China, and will India agree to play this role? Is Kashmir still considered a "flash point" that might trigger a nuclear war between Islamabad and New Delhi? p>To examine these questions, Brookings invited a group of leading experts including Barry Bosworth, a Brookings senior fellow; Stephen P. Cohen, a Brookings senior fellow and author of several noted books on India and Pakistan; Karl F. Inderfurth, professor, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, and a former assistant secretary of state for South Asia; and Marvin G. Weinbaum, scholar-in-residence, Public Policy Center, Middle East Institute, and a former State Department analyst for Pakistan and Afghanistan. Brookings President Strobe Talbott mode introductory remarks.

A question and answer session followed remarks.

Participants

Panelists

Karl F. Inderfurth

Professor, Elliott School of International Affairs

Marvin G. Weinbaum

Scholar-in-Residence, Public Policy Center, Middle East Institute

Strobe Talbott

President, Brookings

India and the Middle East

Stephen P. Cohen — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 00:00:00 -0500

Congressman Hyde, and Members of the Committee:

I am honored to appear again before the Committee and share my understanding of India's relations with the major states of the Middle East, especially in light of the newly announced American policy of helping India to become a major power, and of recasting our nuclear relationship.

I certainly agree with the latter, and have argued for something like the administration's proposal for many years.

As for India's emergence as a major power, this is not something that is in American hands to offer or deny; as I wrote in my book, India: Emerging Power, India has its own special qualities and advantages, as well as many liabilities, and while its power is balanced, many Indians remain leery of close cooperation with the United States, and none would subordinate Indian interests to American ones. India will not be a dependant state, nor will it become a close ally like Britain; it is more likely to emerge as an Asian France, a state with which we have many shared interests, and even an alliance relationship, but one that sees the world through its own prism, not ours.

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Publication: House Committee on International Relations

Children at War

Peter W. Singer — Wed, 01 Sep 2004 00:00:00 -0400

Pantheon Books 2004 269pp.

Children at War is the first comprehensive book to examine the growing and global use of children as soldiers.

P. W. Singer, an internationally recognized expert on twenty-first-century warfare, explores how a new strategy of war, utilized by armies and warlords alike, has targeted children, seeking to turn them into soldiers and terrorists.

Singer writes about how the first American serviceman killed by hostile fire in Afghanistan-a Green Beret-was shot by a fourteen-year-old Afghan boy; how an American Special Forces medic was killed by a grenade thrown by a fifteen-year-old al Qaeda recruit; how suspected militants detained by U.S. forces in Iraq included more than one hundred children under the age of seventeen, and how hundreds who were taken hostage in Thailand were held captive by the rebel "God's Army," led by twelve-year-old twins.

Interweaving the voices of child soldiers throughout the book, Singer looks at the ways these children are recruited, abducted, trained, and finally sent off to fight in war-torn hot spots, from Colombia and the Sudan to Kashmir and Sierra Leone. He writes abut children who have been indoctrinated to fight U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan; of Iraqi boys between the ages of ten and fifteen who had been trained in military arms and tactics to become Saddam Hussein's Ashbal Saddam (Lion Cubs); of young refugees from Pakistani madrassahs who were recruited to help bring the Taliban to power in the Afghan civil war.

The author, National Security Fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of the Brookings Project on U.S. Policy Towards the Islamic World, explores how this phenomenon has come about, and how social disruptions and failures of development in modern Third World nations have led to greater global conflict and an instability that has spawned a new pool of recruits. He writes about how technology has made today's weapons smaller and lighter and therefore easier for children to carry and handle; how one billion people in the world live in developing countries where civil war is part of everyday life; and how some children-without food, clothing, or family-have volunteered as soldiers as their only way to survive.

Finally, Singer makes clear how the U.S. government and the international community must face this new reality of modern warfare, how those who benefit from the recruitment of children as soldiers must be held accountable, how Western militaries must be prepared to face children in battle, and how rehabilitation programs can undo this horrific phenomenon and turn child soldiers back into children.

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Peter W. Singer

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Kashmir Must Not Fall to the Saboteurs of Peace

Stephen P. Cohen — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 00:00:00 -0500

In six months, we will know whether the forces in both India and Pakistan opposed to a South Asian peace initiative are able to sabotage the process launched this month by President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and Atal Behari Vajpayee, India's prime minister. This week's revival of direct rail links between the countries after a two-year hiatus is the latest sign of easing tensions. But by mid-year, weather conditions will permit Pakistani-based militants to infiltrate Indian-administered Kashmir. Then, we shall see how strong are their respective hawks and nay-sayers.

On past evidence, the thaw will not last. Since India's provocative military exercises in 1987, there have been three regional crises—the last, two years ago, barely defused by U.S. diplomacy.

Mr. Vajpayee, who takes the long term view, is working for the eventual transformation of Pakistan, but he cannot do it alone. If his initiative fails, it is hard to see how the next crisis could avoid nuclear overtones.

Why, though, should what Mr. Vajpayee calls this "third and last chance" for peace not simply lead to more crises? This time, concessions by both sides (as much in language as in deed) could conceivably bring the peace process to the point of no return. We have not reached that stage yet.

Gen. Musharraf and Mr. Vajpayee clearly see this as the moment for a new approach, Mr. Vajpayee because he believes he can bring a semblance of normality to South Asia. He knows India will never be counted among Asia's great states until it settles its affairs with the weaker Pakistan, and is aware that hardliners in his own party regard talk of peace as just short of treason.

The nay-sayers fall into two camps. In India, some believe Pakistan will eventually collapse and that there is no need to rescue it from this fate. Paradoxically, this approach has the same practical result as that of the Pakistani camp, which fears negotiating from a position of weakness and cites timing as the obstacle to negotiation.

His improbable dialogue partner, Gen. Musharraf, is harder to figure out. He lacks strategic vision, is a bad listener and believes that ruling Pakistan is like running an army division: give the orders and they will be obeyed.

He may have learnt, after four years, that this approach does not work. One suspects he is tired of water issues, sectarian rivalries and diplomatic double-talk. Even his strategy of using militants to force the Indians to the negotiating table has failed. Now that the militants are more interested in his death than victory in Kashmir, he is having second thoughts.

Such doubts are not peculiar to Gen. Musharraf. He represents a large civil-military oligarchy, dubbed the "Establishment" in local circles. This 800-1,000 strong group includes senior army commanders, bureaucrats, media leaders, politicians and even some Islamists. They know Pakistan is failing, that an economic and military race with an expanding India is a losing proposition and that Pakistan's friends are fair-weather. Once Afghanistan is stabilised and al-Qaeda mopped up, the Americans will disappear, leaving Pakistan without a major ally. The once-reliable China, alarmed at Pakistan's support for Islamic radicals, is moving towards an understanding with India over their border dispute even as India-China trade soars.

The next six months are critical. Will India be able to provide Pakistan with the one thing its army desperately needs, a reason to accept a border drawn through Kashmir? In the words of one Pakistani officer, the army understands it cannot wrest Kashmir from India, but it cannot turn its back on a 55-year struggle. At stake is its pride, and it literally calls the shots. Indians understand this, but many still observe "Chicago rules": the best time to kick a man is when he is down. But that only postpones the problem. India cannot afford a radical Pakistan as a neighbour and Gen. Musharraf, for all his shortcomings and bravado, represents the Pakistani establishment.

Treating Kashmir as a human rights issue rather than one of territory and law would maximise the interests of all parties. The Pakistanis can claim their struggle resulted in more humane treatment of the Kashmiri people, even if they do not join Pakistan or become independent. The Indians, meanwhile, will remove a blot on their own democracy and the Kashmiris, of course, will recover a semblance of normal life.

Authors

Stephen P. Cohen

Publication: Financial Times

Second generation diplomacy

Jeremy Goldberg and Parag Khanna — Fri, 12 Dec 2003 00:00:00 -0500

The ceremonial signing of the Geneva Accord last week is significant not for its content, but for what it reminds us about the challenge of peace-building. Peace agreements have often faltered because they are made between governments alone and not their citizens, yet they will never succeed without broad public engagement. In lacking concrete measures to bring broader segments of opposing populations together, both the Geneva Accord and the Road Map much resemble roads previously traveled.

Such plans will only succeed if the voices of the future are empowered today to play a constructive role and given a stake in implementation. Indeed, given the questionable durability of current leaders on both Israeli and Palestinian sides, it becomes even more critical to focus on the future ones. Thus the spirit of Geneva must be carried back into the Israeli and Palestinian people — particularly the youth — if it is to take hold with the next generation of leaders.

For every setback to the Oslo accords, Madrid peace conference, Wye treaty and now the Road Map, future casualties have been prevented through unofficial dialogues among the next generation of Arab and Israeli leaders, where they build relationships based on trust and mutual respect. It is a reality seen every summer since 1993 at the Seeds of Peace International Camp in Maine, where future leaders of Israel and an independent Palestinian state have come together to understand "the other," and managed to continue their relationships back home where it matters most. Such efforts to bring hostile populations together succeed in putting a face on the enemy — and it is more often than not a friendly face, with shared concerns and goals. Indeed, on both sides of the fence, people overwhelmingly claim they are tired of a conflict that has lasted their entire lifetime and, as the Geneva Accord shows, may even support a similar vision of final settlement.

But there is a long way to go. Ten years after the Oslo Accords, the debate over the construction of a more than 300 kilometer-long fence along the West Bank masks a far greater barrier between Arabs and Israelis which has existed for decades. As Egyptian President Anwar Sadat described to the Israeli Parliament in 1977, there is "another wall: This psychological barrier which constitutes 70 percent of the whole problem." But much like the Berlin Wall, the fence will preserve the status quo: fear, ignorance and misperceptions.

As playwright Berthold Brecht remarked, "War is like love; it always finds a way." Indeed, Hamas runs summer camps that are many times the size of the Seeds of Peace camp. Building the "peace constituency" in war-ridden societies therefore requires far greater resources for people-to-people diplomacy, as advocated in the recent Public Diplomacy Advisory Commission's report. Providing young people with opportunities to practice the principles of co-existence can temper the voices of radicalism.

We have reached a demographic turning point in world affairs where leaders who experienced decolonization and the conflicts stemming from it are passing from the scene. In many parts of the world, their replacements have grown up knowing only civil war, oppression and terrorism. The spoilers of negotiated progress are therefore not only intransigent leaders, but also disenfranchised and disillusioned teenagers who see no alternative to extremism. No movement has succeeded without the support of youth — a fact all the more relevant in the Middle East, where youth make up more than 50 percent of the population. Besides the Middle East, the world's other intractable conflicts — between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus, and the Northern Ireland dispute — are similarly "generational."

In all such cases, the true hope for a lasting settlement lies not in the treaties negotiated by governments but in the peace made by people, particularly by the youth. The U.S. House of Representatives, in its recent Concurrent Resolution 288, reaffirms that "youth must be involved in long-term, visionary solutions to conflicts perpetuated by cycles of violence."

Regional and world leaders strongly support such efforts which bring together those for whom they are negotiating future peace, and themselves preach tolerance and respect. Yet they fail to make the necessary investment in that future, using such programs as useful props for photo opportunities rather than as central to the peace process. Only by making young people a vehicle for peace — rather than mere bystanders to an incremental process — will agreements translate into a lasting commitment to peace in voting booths and on "the street."

By supporting small-scale local and international programs to promote coexistence now, new roads to a peaceful future are built, ensuring that when the brave graduates are in positions of authority, they will choose reconciliation over revenge.

Youth are on the frontlines of these conflicts; they are the soldiers, the victims, and all too often the suicide bombers. It's about time they were put on the frontlines in the battle for peace.

Authors

Jeremy Goldberg
Parag Khanna

Publication: The Washington Times

Kashmir Policy Needs a Fresh Appraisal

Moeed Yusuf — Fri, 13 Jun 2003 00:00:00 -0400

The state of Jammu and Kashmir has been disputed by Pakistan and India since their very inception. After half a century, the two countries persist in gnawing on this bone of contention and their zero-sum approach to the issue has allowed virtually no progress.

Both Pakistan and India claim the state to be part of their homeland in its entirety, Pakistan contending that Kashmiri secession to India in effect repudiates the founding "two-nation theory" which granted the Muslims of India a separate homeland, while India contends that giving up on Kashmir signifies an inability of India to exist as a secular state. Complicating the situation further are strategic factors as well as the mere fact that the two sides have held their positions long enough that any concession now from either is looked upon as a victory for the other.

While both countries continue to blame each other for continued tensions over the dispute, the Indians in the past decade have largely succeeded in bringing the heat on Pakistan for its Kashmir policy. This is despite the fact that the Indian authorities have failed to administer the Indian part of Kashmir adequately throughout its history. The resultant widespread resentment among the Kashmiri Muslims was manifested in the 1989-90 uprising in Kashmir against the Indian authorities.

The 1989-90 uprising was seen by the Pakistani authorities as a perfect opportunity to further their case with regard to Kashmir and to bring the Indian misdeeds in Kashmir to the international community's attention. It was at precisely that time that Pakistan initiated its current Kashmir policy, "moral" support for the Kashmiri natives and later, the insurgents that decided to take up arms for the Kashmiri cause. The Pakistani authorities saw this as a low-cost, low-risk policy that they hoped would raise the costs for the Indian side to the extent that it would abandon the Kashmiri cause in due course. By bringing the Kashmir issue in the headlines, the Pakistanis sought to establish moral legitimacy to their claim over Kashmir.

Since the uprising Pakistani authorities continue to hold the position that Pakistan only provides "moral" and "political" support to the freedom fighters for the liberation of their homeland from the oppressive Indian rule. India, on the other hand, holds Pakistan responsible for actively supporting the insurgents and their terrorist activities, and also maintains that Pakistani army personnel are involved with the insurgency.

None of the desired goals of Pakistan's current Kashmir policy have been achieved. In fact, in the last decade India has managed to highlight Pakistan's alleged support for the insurgency and has been largely successful in selling its view to the world. Despite Islamabad's denials, the world perceives a connection between the Kashmiri insurgency and Pakistan's active support. To an objective analyst, it is somewhat hard to accept Pakistan's stance, though Indian claims may also be exaggerated.

Pakistan's support to the insurgents (if there is any) though having kept the issue of Kashmir alive, has seen no positive results. The support for extremist organizations and the presence of radicals among Pakistani elements has caused great concern in the West. Had it not been for the reversal of Pakistan's pro-Taliban policy after 9/11, Pakistan would likely have been on the United States' list of terrorist countries as implied by George Bush's "with us or against us" ultimatum. The international community continues to be wary of Pakistan's nuclear capability. Moreover, the allegations of support of the Kashmiri insurgency that India fondly terms "terrorism" has witnessed fingers pointed towards Pakistan as a security threat.

With regard to Kashmir, Pakistan today is seen as part of the problem, rather than a solution. This in itself is a clear indication of Pakistan's failure to sell its view on Kashmir to the world.

Pakistan has even lost support within the Kashmiri Muslim population. From the inception of the Kashmir issue, when a United Nations suggested plebiscite presumably would have seen secession to Pakistan, Kashmiris now are likely to vote for independence. Just like the 1989-90 Kashmiri uprising was a result of India's misadministration in Kashmir, the reversal of Kashmiri opinion can be attributed to a miscalculated Pakistani policy towards Kashmir, off course exacerbated by Indian exploitation.

In effect, the Pakistani policy has neither produced any impetus for Kashmiri secession to Pakistan, nor has Pakistan been able to receive any international support for its stance. Most importantly, the Pakistani policy has seen no relief whatsoever in the plight of the Kashmiri Muslims, which officially is Pakistan's primary goal in Kashmir. On the contrary, India has largely been able to shrug off the brunt of its own misdeeds against the Kashmiri population and has managed to portray Pakistan as the aggressor. Kargil was a somber reminder for Pakistan of the lack of international support for Pakistan's stance when even its staunchest ally, China adopted a neutral posture.

It is time that Pakistani authorities rethink the country's Kashmir policy. The currently-in-development Pakistan-India dialogue provides a great opportunity to make inroads into this problem. While it is highly optimistic to expect a solution coming out of the present goodwill gestures, this is an opportunity for Pakistan to produce an overhauled policy that is more closely aligned with today's realities.

The new policy should ensure a reduction in the overall strain the Kashmir issue has put on the Pakistani economy. But more importantly, the new policy should make the alleviation of the suffering of Kashmiri Muslims its top priority, even if that requires a compromise on Pakistan's current stance on this issue. After all, alleviation of Muslim suffering is the basis for our claim to Kashmir.

Authors

Moeed Yusuf

Publication: Pakistan Link

India, Pakistan and Kashmir

Stephen P. Cohen — Sun, 01 Dec 2002 00:00:00 -0500

India has for several years been regarded as an emerging or rising state. After decades of unfulfilled promise, it now seems to be inching ahead, with more rapid economic growth, new attention from the major powers, and the development of a modest nuclear arsenal. These adding these developments to India's traditional strengths—a unique and persistent democracy and an influential culture—it is no wonder that many have predicted the emergence of India as a major Asian power, or even a world-class state. However, this remains a problematic development as long as India's comprehensive and debilitating rivalry with Pakistan continues, including that dimension of the rivalry that encompasses the fifty-year old Kashmir dispute.

Further, the India-Pakistan conflict is now especially alarming because it has implications for the international system itself. The region is the site and the source, of some of the world's major terrorist groups. Aside from Al Qaeda, these include a number of groups based in or tolerated by Pakistan, and India itself has tolerated or encouraged various terrorist groups operating in nearby states, and has its own internal terrorist problem quite apart from Kashmir. India and Pakistan have fought three wars in Kashmir and their conflict now contains the seeds of a nuclear holocaust. This chapter attempts a deeper probe of the India-Pakistan relationship, including the difficulties that India faces in managing, let alone resolving, the Kashmir dispute.

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Publication: Journal of Strategic Studies

A Distant Region Takes Center Stage: Pulling Up the Roots of Terrorism in South Asia

Stephen P. Cohen — Sat, 01 Jun 2002 00:00:00 -0400

Once Washington had established the linkage between the attacks of September 11 and Afghanistan, it confronted a cascading series of tasks in South Asia, each generating more and more demands on American military and diplomatic resources. To strike back at al Qaeda, which had sent the hijackers on their deadly mission, the United States had to confront the Taliban. Any action against al Qaeda or the Taliban required the assistance of Pakistan, inevitably entangling the United States in the complex India-Pakistan dispute. Nearly a year after the terrorist attacks, some of the original American objectives in South Asia have been achieved, some remain in doubt, and new problems have arisen, challenging a wide range of American political and strategic interests.

Afghanistan: Total War in a Small Place

Afghanistan had no formal relations with Washington, and the Taliban government not only tolerated al Qaeda but was militarily and financially dependent on it. After one last effort to split the Taliban from its "guest" terrorists, the Bush administration launched a concerted war against both al Qaeda and the Taliban regime.

Washington had two urgent aims. The first was an all-out war against al Qaeda, one aimed at obliterating it as an organization and killing, capturing, and punishing its top leadership and as many of its cadres as could be located. The Bush administration invoked the language of total war against an implacable and unscrupulous enemy, and the war against al Qaeda escalated to a war against "international terrorism." The term international terrorism was originally defined as terrorism directed against the United States, but ultimately included any group that America identified as "terrorist," though no precise definition of terrorism has yet been offered.

This phase of the war appears to have gone well. Although no reliable figures exist either on casualties or on the total number of al Qaeda fighters, the organization's effectiveness in Afghanistan has been reduced to guerrilla operations. Although the United States gathered considerable information about al Qaeda's global operations, only a few of the top leaders have been captured or killed, and the overall organization may be able to mount large-scale terrorist attacks.

The war brought some military innovations, the most impressive of which seems to be the skillful combination of special forces and precision-guided munitions delivered by long-range bombers flying from the United States and aircraft based in nearby countries (including Pakistan). American forces also worked closely with Afghan irregulars in search-and-destroy missions. No independent cost-benefit analysis of the war's tactics exists, however, and in the case of joint U.S.-Afghan operations, on several occasions Afghan forces either melted away or provided misinformation.

The way the war was fought ensured that few Americans and few allies would be killed, a strategy that has led to sharp criticism in Pakistan and elsewhere. Americans are judged to be fighting an aloof, high-technology war, wounding and killing hundreds if not thousands of Afghans while taking few losses themselves. This perception could yet haunt the United States, still viewed in much of the non-Western world as a soft country.

Regarding the Taliban and Afghanistan, American goals were more limited. The Taliban was to be removed from power and replaced with a regime that would no longer allow Afghan territory to be used by terrorist groups. The Taliban's demise was to serve as a lesson to other countries that might harbor terrorist groups, and Afghanistan itself was to be turned into a "normal" state, with a moderate, representative government.

Unsurprisingly, given Afghanistan's war-torn society, achieving this goal has been problematic.

From the first days the interim government assumed office, its weakness was evident—not only from the near-absence of government and administrative capabilities, but also from the presence of powerful "warlords" in many provinces and the remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban, who pose a security threat within Afghanistan. Although the United Nations, Afghanistan's interim government itself, and others called for U.S. assistance, only in late March did Washington conclude that Afghanistan could not build a state without addressing the security problem. American Special Forces were assigned the task of training Afghan military units, but no significant security infrastructure is on the drawing boards.

Further hindering the interim government's authority is Washington's unwillingness to allow the International Security Assistance Force to operate beyond Kabul. Despite the willingness of several nations to provide troops for the international force, Washington will not provide backup, and it is evident that the Pentagon does not want to become tied down in Afghanistan any longer than necessary.

The U.S. footdragging could imperil the interim government headed by Mohammed Karzai and whatever successor government follows it. A Loya Jirga, or tribal council, will convene in mid-June to approve writing a new constitution and developing procedures to select a permanent government, but its work will not be done until December 2003. Until then Afghanistan will be particularly vulnerable, and it must have enough military muscle to contain the truculent warlords, who are already making side-deals with various relief and reconstruction agencies. Without its own security force—or increased international military support—the Kabul government could lose its credibility, and Afghanistan could once again fall under the influence of outside powers and forces, including remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Pakistan

Islamabad was a major supporter of the Taliban and of terrorists operating in Kashmir, both of which groups it regarded as freedom fighters. The Afghan and Kashmir terrorist operations strengthened domestic Islamic radicals, who were visibly and publicly defiant of Islamabad, even after the military coup that brought General Pervez Musharraf to power as president of Pakistan in 1999. Before September 11 Washington's chief interest in Pakistan was to criticize its nuclear program and its military adventurism and support for the Taliban.

Recognizing that Islamabad's cooperation would be vital to any operation in Afghanistan, the Bush administration turned to Pakistan within a day of the attacks, offering both carrots and sticks.

Washington made numerous demands of Islamabad, including military and intelligence cooperation, terminating the flow of volunteers and fuel supplies to Afghanistan, and support for removing the Taliban. It also asked Pakistan to publicly condemn the attacks and curb all domestic expressions of support for terrorism.

President Musharraf agreed to these requests immediately. He had little choice: on the verge of bankruptcy, Pakistan was vulnerable to American economic pressure, and India had already offered to help the United States. The warm India-U.S. relationship had little impact on the war in Afghanistan but did give the United States tremendous leverage over Pakistan, because it made credible the implicit threat that if Pakistan did not cooperate with Washington, then the United States might side with India against Pakistan on the Kashmir and other issues.

Under Musharraf's leadership, Pakistan provided a big boost to the war effort. Pakistan's territory was used by American and allied forces, and Musharraf retired or transferred many of the hard-line military officers who were the Taliban's strongest supporters. Musharraf summarized Pakistan's new, liberal policies in a dramatic speech to the Pakistani people on January 12. If he were to implement even a few of his stated goals, then it could be said that Pakistan had turned a corner and was no longer a failing state.

In return for Pakistan's cooperation, Washington quickly lifted nuclear sanctions, suspended the "democracy" sanctions imposed after the 1999 coup, and put together a package of nearly $1 billion in debt relief. But the administration was unable to persuade Congress to increase Pakistan's textile quota substantially, and resentment simmered in Islamabad over Washington's inability to help Pakistan's leading export industry and also over what it saw as the Bush administration's desire to keep Pakistan on a short tether.

The United States and Pakistan now have a limited strategic partnership, but each remains wary of the other. Pakistan hoped that Washington would become more active on the Kashmir dispute, but America was in no mood to endanger its new relationship with New Delhi. Islamabad denied Washington's request for permission to pursue Taliban and al Qaeda forces operating on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Despite his florid rhetoric, Musharraf is unwilling (or unable) to crack down on Pakistan's home-grown Islamic radicals. Several Pakistani extremists were released from jail, others are no longer under house arrest, and the highly publicized murders of Americans and foreigners reveals how little control Musharraf's government has over radical elements in Pakistan.

To Washington's frustration, Pakistan remains fixated on Kashmir, a dispute in which American officials have been unwilling to play a more active role. Nor has the United States done more than offer polite criticism of a recent massive Indian military buildup, which, some evidence suggests, it regards as an additional way of applying pressure on Islamabad.

Although support for Musharraf may be tepid in Washington, it is weaker still in Pakistan. Musharraf has tried to walk the narrow line between Islamic radicals and moderates, but he lacks charisma, popular support, and an efficient civilian institutional structure. His power base is in the army, but a series of large-scale public protests could make him quite dispensable as far as his colleagues are concerned.

A critical test of the new U.S.-Pakistan relationship could come in October, when Pakistan is scheduled to hold its first national election in many years. Will Washington endorse the results of a rigged or mismanaged election? Will American relations with Pakistan be determined largely by that country's willingness to support the war on terrorism? The most difficult situation for the United States would be one in which Pakistan's cooperation in rounding up terrorists and political extremists was balanced by renewed meddling in Afghanistan or blatant support for violent forces in Kashmir and India.

The Indian Connection

India has been the regional "sore winner." Although it took no joy in seeing America restore its relationship with Pakistan after the September 11 attacks, the renewed link ultimately turned to New Delhi's advantage. Indian leaders looked on with concern as the United States came to Islamabad's rescue with large loans and the removal of sanctions, but India benefited because Washington lifted similar sanctions on India. The United States also exerted heavy pressure on Islamabad to cease its support for cross-border movement from Pakistan to Kashmir and pressed Islamabad to crack down on Islamic radicals—many of whom were targeting India. Further, Indian-American military cooperation increased dramatically, and Washington accelerated the pace of rapprochement between the two once-estranged democracies. India and the United States also revived earlier plans for closer defense cooperation, and big U.S. military sales to India may be in the offing.

During the last months of 2001, India was directly affected by terrorism, most sensationally by a December 12 attack on the Indian parliament. Soon thereafter India announced a total military mobilization, and for several months the India-Pakistan border was in crisis. Washington urged calm and restraint, but may have been secretly pleased at the added pressure on Pakistan. India was practicing a form of diplomatic compellence, threatening a wider war to get Pakistan to end its support for cross-border terrorism and to return 20 individuals to India, where they were wanted on various charges.

Lessons

The way in which the "war on terrorism" has been fought in South Asia offers several important lessons.

In an era of globalization, any region can suddenly become salient to American interests. Afghanistan and Pakistan had been dismissed by American policymakers as irrelevant, yet they took center stage in 2001-02. Washington will have to remain engaged in both countries to ensure that they will not again become central components of a global terrorist movement targeting the United States.

Defining the "war on terrorism" as a total war created several diplomatic and political problems. States that had their own terrorist problems,such as India demanded American support, and states whose cooperation was necessary to fight al Qaeda and the Taliban, such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, were described as close "allies" in the war, despite problematic past and present behavior regarding terrorist groups.

America has had to judge the transgressions of two friends, India and Pakistan, as each accuses the other of supporting terrorism, building up armies along their frontier, or issuing provocative nuclear threats. Will this role of friendly interlocutor continue? Washington has to determine its long-term regional role: will it be an umpire between the two states, calling the shots as it sees them, will it side with one or the other, or will it again retreat from South Asia? The attacks of September 11 came before a review of regional policy could be completed. That review should be undertaken now and should take into account the heightened importance of terrorism, but not ignore other regional concerns suhc as proliferation and strategic cooperation.

Finally, Washington must reassess its studied disinterest in "nation building" in South Asia. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan suffer acute domestic problems that could easily lead to the growth of extremist Islamic movements. Their problems are different—Afghanistan lacks the most fundamental state institutions, especially an army, whereas Pakistan's state institutions are in gross imbalance and its army too powerful. The remedies for each state will have to be different, but if Washington ignores their domestic political orders now, the cost, as the American ambassador to Pakistan remarked recently, could be measured in American lives in years to come.

Authors

Stephen P. Cohen

Terror Trail Leads from Kabul to Kashmir

Navnita Chadha Behera — Sat, 25 May 2002 00:00:00 -0400

With India and Pakistan poised on the dangerous precipice of a fourth war, global attention is shifting from Kabul to Kashmir. The first targets of the United State-led war on terrorism in Southern Asia were al-Qaeda and its host, the Taliban regime in Kabul. Operation Enduring Freedom sought to achieve three objectives: the overthrow of the Taliban regime; the capture or elimination of the Taliban and al-Qaeda leadership; and the dismantling of terrorist bases and networks in the region.

Kashmir was not in the picture. Although there was an appreciation of India's problem of cross-border terrorism in Kashmir, it was perceived to be an "Indian problem", at best a secondary issue. The US ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, did assure that terrorism against India would be addressed in the second phase of war against terrorism.

However, when India, in the aftermath of the suicide attack on its parliament on December 13, raised the military ante and threatened Pakistan with war unless it stopped cross-border terrorism, the George W Bush administration was forced to take notice. Washington banned the Lashkar-e-Toiba (Soldiers of God) and the Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed), the two groups blamed for the parliament attack, and also put enormous pressure on the regime of President General Pervez Musharraf to crack down on terrorist groups operating from Pakistan.

The primary objective was to avert a fourth war between India and Pakistan which, many in the Bush team believed, held the danger of nuclear cataclysm. Equally important, the US was keen to de-escalate the crisis on the Kashmir front because it posed an immediate threat to its critical interests in Afghanistan. First, Washington did not want Pakistan to divert its forces deployed on its Afghan border for mopping up operations against the fleeing Taliban or al-Qaeda leaders into Pakistan. Second, a war between India and Pakistan could directly threaten the lives of thousands of US soldiers on the Pakistani borders. Third, it would have put the international coalition against terrorism in jeopardy, in which both India and Pakistan are the US's partners.

However, once the war clouds dissipated, the US returned its full attention to its primary goal of pursuing al-Qaeda's remnants. The task of pursuing the Pakistan-based jihadi groups had, once again, become a secondary consideration entrusted primarily to the routine counter-terrorism groups in Islamabad and New Delhi. The bottom line had not changed. Kashmir was still viewed from the lens of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and hence appeared to be on the periphery.

What the Bush team appears not to have understood is that Kashmir and Kabul are closely knitted together, partly through the tangled web of terrorist networks in the region and partly due to Pakistan's—its frontline ally—vital national interests at stake in Kashmir, which it seeks to protect precisely through the instrument of jihadi groups.

Washington's al-Qaeda-first policy overlooks the ground reality that al-Qaeda thrives on a vast, deeply entrenched and integrated jihadi infrastructure that straddles the Afghanistan and Pakistan borders. This network includes more than 50 Pakistan-based radical groups who share deep bonds of an Islamic ideology, common political targets—the United States, India and Israel—training facilities and resources. These groups, unlike states, operate from a radically different frame of reference and are not predisposed to making rational calculations of the kind the West understands. They are unlikely to emulate the Musharraf regime and abandon al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

It was in the aftermath of Operation Anaconda in March that the realization first dawned on the US forces that al-Qaeda, in that instance led by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a mujahideen commander who had joined the Taliban, was able to mount military attacks and then melt away in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. With a growing perception that there were significant pockets of al-Qaeda and Taliban elements on the Pakistani side of the border, especially in Waziristan, Washington started putting pressure for joint military operations. The Musharraf regime was very reluctant to undertake any military operations on the grounds that the population of those areas was hostile to Americans and very well armed. Some openly acknowledged that Pakistan's administrative writ does not run there. Pakistan subsequently yielded and Operation Mountain Lion was jointly carried out with over 1,000 US and British troops on the Afghan side of the border, and nearly 8,000 Pakistani troops were deployed in the Waziristan area. But there is little information in the public domain to indicate that this operation was successful.

More important, this line of thinking rests on a key albeit flawed assumption that Musharraf is committed, sincere and willing to crack down on the terrorists on his home front, but only needs more time to do so. Musharraf's regime, it is argued, has alienated many jihadi groups by severing its ties with al-Qaeda and the Taliban; helping the US forces destroy their bases in Afghanistan; and expelling, arresting and handing over the Arab jihadis within Pakistan to US, and thus fears a backlash from them. This is true, but not the whole truth.

The other half of the story lies in understanding why Musharraf has held back from launching a concerted drive against the domestic jihadi network, which has been the chosen instrument of the Pakistan army's in securing its critical foreign-policy goals of liberating Kashmir. This is where the crunch lies. The centerpiece of Pakistan's Kashmir strategy has been to engage India militarily through a low-cost and increasingly privatized proxy war by arming and training militant groups in Kashmir. Before September 11, Musharraf insisted on distinguishing jihad from terrorism, and justified jihad as a legitimate instrument of the "freedom struggle" of the Kashmiris. Even after joining the international coalition against terrorism, Musharraf's public justification of helping the US military campaign against a neighboring Muslim country, Afghanistan, rested mainly on protecting its stakes in Kashmir.

During the first Afghan war in 1980s, the US had turned a blind eye to Pakistan's nuclear program. If Pakistan's unstated assumption based on this experience was that the reward at the end of the Afghanistan campaign would be a license to light the fires again in Kashmir, it was quickly buried after the December attack on the Indian parliament. The fundamental logic of the war on terrorism dismisses the fine distinction being drawn between jihad and terrorism. Musharraf grudgingly acknowledged it in his January 12 speech to the nation and conceded that Pakistan would not allow jihad in the name of Kashmir.

However, there is mounting evidence in the past eight months that it was a "tactical retreat" and not the harbinger of a paradigm shift. Consider the facts. Approximately 1,800 out of 2,000 persons arrested as part of the crackdown in October have been released. Hafiz Mohammed Sayeed, the leader of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, was released on the orders of the High Court, though he was again arrested last week. Maulana Masood Azhar, the leader of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (a group Bush listed only next to al-Qaeda in his State of the Union address and is suspected of involvement in the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl) is under house arrest and is receiving a government allowance. According to Fortune magazine, the Pakistan government's decision to freeze the bank accounts of these groups yielded paltry sums, including US$323.65 from the Taliban consulate in Quetta and $1.50 hauled off from an account of the Jaish-e-Mohammed. They continue to operate under different names and have shifted some of their bases to Azad Kashmir. As the snows melt, the infiltration patterns and terrorist-related deaths in the Kashmir Valley have shown a rising curve.

Washington is learning that since Kashmir, as Musharraf insists, "runs in our blood" and jihadi groups are the Pakistani army's only leverage against India, it is unlikely to backtrack on Kashmir. The Pakistani leadership's attempts to create a firewall between Kabul and Kashmir are bound to fail, partly because the jihadi groups do not respect such boundaries, and unless Pakistan changes course it will also inevitably clash with the Bush administration's immediate goal of dismantling the terror bases and networks in the region.

Authors

Navnita Chadha Behera

Publication: Asia Times

Kashmir: Lessons of History

Navnita Chadha Behera — Tue, 22 Jan 2002 00:00:00 -0500

The large-scale military buildup on the India-Pakistan border has once again upped the military ante on Kashmir. Pakistan has till now pursued its proxy war there with impunity. December 13 changed that. This was partly because the attack on Parliament crossed the Indian leadership's threshold of patience and partly because the post-September 11 international context provided a rare opportunity for India to persuasively make a case that this would no longer be tolerated. This needs to be complemented with a political strategy at home.

After all, the logic of New Delhi's demand that Pakistan jettison jehad as an instrument of state policy and Pervez Musharraf's televised speech conceding that "no organisation will be allowed to indulge in terrorism in the name of Kashmir" is that the battle for resolving Kashmir must shift to the political arena. Here the ultimate key would lie in meeting the popular aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. This is not a cliche but a lesson writ large in the political history of Kashmir. The records of both Pakistan and India prove this point.

In the first round of battle in 1947-48, Pakistan's entire strategy revolved around urging Maharaja Hari Singh to declare independence, the calculation being that in a Muslim-majority state, he would be forced to share power. Sheikh Abdullah in his autobiography quotes Jinnah's reply to a Kashmiri activist's question whether the people of Kashmir would decide its future as "let the people go to hell". Jinnah would pay a heavy price because when the raiders attacked the Valley, it was the local Peace Brigade and National Militia mobilised by Abdullah's National Conference (and not Maharaja Hari Singh as many Pakistanis like to believe) that resisted the raiders till the Indian Army landed in Srinagar.

Pakistan's debacle in the 1965 war also lay in not correctly assessing the pulse of the people in the State. Ayub Khan made a grave miscalculation that given support the Kashmiris would revolt against India. Instead, they turned in the infiltrators to the Indian Army. Gen. Musharraf's speech is another tacit acknowledgment that Pakistan's strategy in Kashmir has, once again, gone awry.

The Kashmiri secessionist movement, when it started in 1989-1990, was indigenous in character but Pakistan has only to blame itself for decimating that. Its first grave mistake was to marginalise the JKLF as early as the mid-1990s when it realised that "independence and re-unification of divided J&K State" and not accession to Pakistan was the latter's political goal which, it feared would backfire. Since 1994-95, Pakistan pushed in Afghan veterans and foreign mercenaries, radically changing the character of the militancy and completely negating the Kashmiris' political ethos and their political struggle. This alienated the Kashmiris not only from the militants but also from Pakistan. Gradually, even the Kashmiri militant groups realised that Pakistan did not have the military wherewithal, or the intention, (as they had been led to believe) to risk a full-scale war with India to liberate Kashmir. And, that Pakistan was merely using Kashmir as a pawn for ``bleeding India''. The honeymoon with Pakistan was over.

Pakistan's record for supporting the Kashmiris' right to self-determination in its own backyard?the Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas?is also very poor. Until October 1994, 47 years after they came under Pakistan's control, the people of the Northern Areas had no right to adult franchise. They had no elected Assembly and no elected representatives in the Federal Assembly. Azad Kashmir too, is free only in nomenclature. Its status was never defined in normal international legal terms by the Azad Kashmir Government, Pakistan or the United Nations. The right to adult franchise was first granted in 1970, two decades after `Independence'. Under Section 56 of the 1974 Constitution, the Pakistan Government could dismiss any elected Government in Azad Kashmir irrespective of the support it enjoyed in the Assembly. Constitutional regulations barred any person "propagating any opinion or acting in any manner prejudicial or detrimental to the ideology of the State's accession to Pakistan" from holding any elective office.

If Pakistan's record in the people's court is blemished, India, too, is on a weak footing. It has to learn its lessons from the history as to why Kashmir, accorded the pride of place in newly-independent India, has turned into a liability. Going back to the pre-Partition days, the affinity between the Indian National Congress and the National Conference was due to their shared ideals of secularism and democracy and because the INC led by Jawaharlal Nehru had mobilised nationwide support for the Quit Kashmir Movement of the Kashmiris against the Dogra Maharaja Hari Singh. Nehru's confidence in Kashmir's accession to India emanated not from the Maharaja's legal accession as much from the political choices of the Sheikh Abdullah-led National Conference which had a mass support base in the Valley.

Even after the State joined India, Nehru backed the Sheikh to the hilt vis-a-vis other political forces in the State: Maharaja Hari Singh in the Valley and the Praja Parishad movement in Jammu. But Nehru's first serious mistake was to put all his eggs in one basket?Sheikh Abdullah. He sought the people's support but his only instrument of strategy was Abdullah and once the latter started seeking complete internal sovereignty, or else an independent state, Nehru dumped the Sheikh as well as the people's constituency. Since then, democracy was never allowed to take root in the State, subordinated as it was to India's "national interests".

Herein lies the rub. The people of the State, especially Kashmiris, joined India because of the compatibility in their vision of ``Naya Kashmir'' and the nature of the Indian state. They believed that their political autonomy would be better protected in a secular and democratic India than a theocratic and feudal Pakistan. The root cause of fissures in the relationship between the Kashmiris and the Indian state lies in successive Central Governments' imposition of their political choices through a steady erosion of the State's special status and by manipulating the electoral processes over the years. By doing so, New Delhi has inadvertently allowed anti-Government protests to acquire anti-India overtones because in the popular mindset, New Delhi has been held responsible for the ills of the political system created say by Ghulam Mohammad Bakshi or Farooq Abdullah. The great Indian success story, that of having weathered a million mutinies, lies in its total faith in democracy as the key political instrument for governing a much diverse and plural India and devising the rules of the game in a way that allows power sharing among different communities. The challenge lies in extending that logic to Jammu and Kashmir: provide the political space for the people to make their own democratic choices.

Also, there is an erroneous belief shared by many in Delhi's ruling elite that the Kashmiri identity is a threat to the Indian identity and that it needs to be demolished because as long as it exists, it would be exploited by Pakistan. The failure to distinguish between Kashmir's secular identity and Muslim identity is a grave mistake because history has proved that Pakistan had never been able to take advantage of the Kashmiri identity. On the contrary, Kashmir's secular beliefs always militated against Pakistan's Islamic identity. When the Indian leadership had accepted the reality of Partition, only Kashmiris had defied the logic of Partition and the two-nation theory.

Pakistan has always sought to cultivate the religious identity of the Kashmiris and failed. The lesson, therefore, lies in reversing the communalisation of political processes in the State.

India and Pakistan have evidently traversed very different paths to reach this historical juncture. But the lesson for them is the same: both must conceptualise a new, a fresh political strategy for meeting the popular aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

Authors

Navnita Chadha Behera

Publication: The Hindu