Kashmir’s ‘educated’ militants

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

Hope and hopelessness are two extreme emotional reactions and yet there is a thin line separating them. Once you lose your last straw of hope and cross over towards the edge of hopelessness, just about everything around you ceases to make sense: you would then move on in search of new meanings to life. Joining the armed struggle in politically oppressive environments is something like that. Those living in the midst of political oppression and uncertainties keep their hopes of a better life alive, and when they lose it, they tend to move on to the next level of creating meanings to their political existence. Politics then becomes personal. Armed struggles are particularly attractive to the youth because youngsters are constantly on the lookout for meanings in their lives and armed action against perceived injustices sometimes gives more meaning to their lives like nothing ever could. 

Just about everyone in today’s Kashmir is concerned about the increasing phenomenon of educated youth joining militancy. From the Chief Minister to the Army Commander to senior police officials have raised concern about the disturbing phenomenon. They also argue that the number of those joining the militant ranks is very low and hence not a big problem. I think we should be extremely concerned about it for a number of reasons. Phenomenon of this kind often has a snowball effect: it’s the beginning that is difficult, one the threshold is crossed and gains a certain social legitimacy, it gathers strength, steam and, eventually, legitimacy. Is it religiously driven or politically driven? I am of the opinion that while religious inspirations are indeed part of this, much of this is a result of political disillusionment and in that sense the hanging of Afzal Guru has had triggering effect. 

The youth bulge argument Or should we blame it on the youth bulge in Kashmir? This statistically well-grounded argument is that youth bulge in the state is responsible for the increasing agitations in the valley. It could even be the reason behind educated youth joining militancy. I do not completely disagree with this argument about youth bulge being one of the factors behind Kashmir’s problems today, but then youth bulge is not limited to Kashmir alone. More importantly, the argument that ‘youth bulge leads to unrest’ is fundamentally an economic one, not a political one for at the heart of such an argument lies the premise that it is due to the lack of opportunities that the youngsters take to militancy. That is not so accurate in the case of Kashmir. In Kashmir, political arguments can better explain the unrest and related problems than economic ones. Hence treating youth bulge as the cause for militancy is treating the problem symptomatically sidestepping the fundamentally political nature of the problem. 

Our youth and their youthYouth bulge is not a problem confined to Kashmir alone as pointed out earlier. It is a phenomenon in the rest of India as well. This is increasingly seen as a phenomenon that can lead to social and political tension, and sometimes to socio-political change as well. The recent anti-rape protests across the country, which shook the seat of power in New Delhi for days together, is a direct result of this phenomenon. However, when the youth took to streets in New Delhi and protested against the government’s apathy, no bullet was fired and no one was killed. When the police used force against the protesters, there was widespread condemnation from all over the country. In fact, the reaction of India’s youngsters was perceived as praiseworthy by the media and the Indian middle class. Even though it was mostly an urban phenomenon, it is unlikely that when rural youngsters ask for good governance they would be mistreated by the state. 

Compare that to the reaction of the state in Kashmir. Kashmiri youth are generally seen as troublemakers. More importantly, the use of force against the protesting Kashmiris is extreme which is in complete contrast to how the state deals with the youth elsewhere in the country. The fact is that the Kashmir youngsters are also demanding good governance and accountability from the state just as their counterparts are doing in the rest of the country. In other words, the Kashmiri youngsters are no different from their counterparts in other parts of the country in what they do because their demands are similar. But they are treated differently because of deep-seated biases. Indeed, this differential treatment is one of the major reasons why the Kashmiri youth tend to cross over from hope to hopelessness and to militancy. The young Indian protesting against the government is well aware that he can make a difference through his protest, but the protest of the Kashmir youngster is stifled and he/she knows that his/her protest is unlikely to make any difference at the end of the day. 

Our governments have a tendency to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. A critical analysis of the political developments in Kashmir since 2008 shows that we brought this situation on ourselves thanks to our politically inept and sociologically unwise handling of the situation in Kashmir. Today, we have a new problem to be worried about, of the educated Kashmiri youth joining armed militancy, but this unfortunate turn of events is unlikely to teach us how to handle political problems with wisdom and statesmanship. That indeed is the sad part.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, June 16, 2013. URL: http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Jun/16/kashmir-s-educated-militants-12.asp )

On the Importance of Definitions

STATECRAFT

HAPPYMON JACOB

Research students at Universities are often reminded about the importance of asking the right questions as well asaccurately defining the problem/research puzzle even before they begin their research. Of course, defining a problem is done after having undertaken an initial study of the many variables that can have an impact on the issue at hand. The reason for this insistence is that uninformed, incomplete and underdeveloped definitions of a problem/situation can lead a researcher to wrong conclusions and disastrous policy prescriptions thereafter. More importantly, researchers are also often encouraged to reevaluate their definitions from time to time to weed out avoidable biases and make it more contemporary. While a research student’s conclusions may not have much policy implication, the definitions and the conclusions arrived at by politicians and officials can have serious implications for a lot of people. True, politicians and Babus may not be trained in such research methodologies, but one expects them to have learned such skills from their experiences of handling day-to-day political problems. But they often disappoint us. 

Sometimes our definition of a situation can affect the future trajectories of that situation. Let me give you an example. New Delhi’s definition of the contemporary nature of the Kashmir conflict does have a definitive impact on the manner in which the conflict evolves there. In New Delhi’s definition of the Kashmir conflict, the India-Pakistan dimension of the conflict looms large. It is worried that the Pakistan army might, after the current lull, revive militancy in the Kashmir valley. The alienation and the sufferings of the Kashmiri people are not central to its definition of the Kashmir conflict.  Nor has its definition of the Kashmir conflict improvisedbased on the changes in the external environment. New Delhi’s contemporary definition of the Kashmiri conflict is does not appreciate the fact that the most significant aspect of the Kashmir conflict today is the internal conflict between New Delhi and Kashmir. Refusing to accept this fundamental change, New Delhi continues to control Kashmir using its outdated definition of the situation. 

One of the many ways in which New Delhi’s – and Srinagar’s - outdated definition of the Kashmir conflict persuades it to exercise control in Kashmir is the way in which it denies democratic rights to the non-mainstream leadership in Kashmir. Syed Ali Shah Geelani has been under house arrest for such a long time and he is not even permitted to offer Friday prayers at the Mosque; indeed, he is not even allowed to come out of his house. Why is the world’s biggest democracy so scared about an 83 year old man who it believes does not even have much support in the valley? Leader of the other faction of the Hurriyat, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, is also often put under house arrest. His passport is expired for the last six months and the government is not in a mood to give him a new one because it is concerned that he will create problems for India internationally! The government also often uses the threat of not renewing the visa of Mirwaiz’s US-born wife.

Yasin Malik is yet another leader who finds himself locked up whenever things go wrong in Kashmir. Recently he, along with some of his party workers, had gone to the Doda district to distribute relief among the earthquake victims but was arrested and sent back to his home. His passport has not yet been renewed and there are rumors that it may not be renewed for a few years so as to teach him a lesson in patriotism! 

Sajad Lone is no more a separatist politician. He is the Chairman of a mainstream Kashmiri political party – the People’s Conference. But even he has not been lucky to get his passport renewed for the last six months. He often finds it difficult to get visas for his wife, a Pakistani citizen, and his children to visit him in Kashmir.  If this is what the government does to Kashmir’s mainstream political leaders who swear by parliamentary democracy, what might be the plight of the separatist politicians? 

For none of this, of course, can the Indian armed forces be blamed for this is clearly the doing of the J&K police and/or the Union Home Ministry. Sometime the local courts pass orders to release these leaders from house arrest but the local police often find ingenious ways to keep them confined. 
I often wonder why a robustly democratic state like India ends up violating the democratic and fundamental rights of sections of its citizens in a systematic manner. The argument seems to be that of making democracy safe. That is, the situation in Kashmir is not safe for proper democracy to function there and hence there is a need to ‘clean up’ the place before democracy can be properly established there, indeed forgetting that denial of democracy is one of the major causes for the conflict in Kashmir in the first place.

The other reason for this seems to be the existence of an unintelligent sort of policy conservatism thatdissuades governments from reevaluating their policies from time to time. Official assessments of anything is painfully difficult to change and it is notoriously so in India. Kashmir clearly needs some out of the box thinking, it needs to be continuously assessed by New Delhi to realize that the changed nature of the conflict in Kashmir requires newer ways of dealing with it. 

Why doesn’t the government have any incentive to change their assessment? I imagine that there is an ‘imagined consensus’ in India about Kashmir that it is a serious national security issue and therefore it needs to be contained at any cost. I say ‘imagined’ because even this so-called consensus in India on Kashmir seems to be undergoing a great deal of change in the recent years. 

Be that as it may, the governments in New Delhi and Srinagar should realize that the implications and results of depriving people of their democratic and fundamental rights could be dangerous and counterproductive.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, June 9, 2013. URL: http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Jun/9/on-the-importance-of-definitions-21.asp )

The Young, Political Kashmiri

STATECRAFT

HAPPYMON JACOB

It is widely believed that the new generation in Kashmir and its views on the Kashmir conflict will be decisive in how the conflict is defined and shaped in the years to come; but this fact is hardly ever clearly understood. To me, this is the primary point of analysis and investigation in my ongoing visit to the troubled valley. Interactions during my occasional visitsto the valley or following social network debates are certainly not sufficient in understanding the Kashmiri youth’s views on the present and future of the conflict. But then being based in a New Delhi-based university, all I can do is so much. In the following paragraphs I paraphrase some of the views that I gathered from my many interactions with the Kashmiri youngsters.  One caveat: as is to be expected from any politically charged region, there are differing views on any given issue, and so clubbing them is for purely analytical purposes.  

Increasing trust deficit 
I have known Kashmir for the last two decades and, at least to my mind, the trust deficit that exists in Kashmir is on a constant increase. One university student narrated how the university authorities keep a watch on the students when they engage in political debates and discussions within the confines of the university campus. Many non-Kashmiris may not know that that political activism is not allowed on university campuses in the Kashmir valley.  How can the government hope to produce thinkers and analysts out of its university campuses if it does not allow political activism and debates in its universities? New Delhi keeps announcing new economic packages and political initiatives to bridge the psychological gulf that exists between itself and Kashmir, but hardly anyone I met seems to trust those promises, not anymore. 

Resistance is personal, and ethical
There is a strong belief in contemporary Kashmir that it is unethical not to resist the injustice that is being done to the Kashmiris. People have different ways if responding to injustice; some are more vocal about it than others. But it would be unethical to not to respond to it one way or another, the argument goes. Life may go on as normal on Kashmir’s streets and people may seem happy too, but scratch that ‘normalised’ surface and you will see the rush of disgruntlement and anger coming straight at you. This personal and ethical act of resistance may assume religious forms, infuse violent outbursts, legitimize stone-pelting or simply continue to grow in the depth of their hearts only to find some form of expression one day. 

This enormous and ever-increasing reservoir of discontent, anger and rage that is constantly filling up will one day surely spill out on the streets of Kashmir as it happened more than once in the recent past, contrary to the belief in New Delhi that since there was protest in the last three years, there will be none in the years to come. Indeed, the more injustice and the various perceptions of it prolong, the more time and efforts it will take to assuage those perceptions and feelings. 

Chocked political space 
The worst sufferer in present day Kashmir is the legitimate political space available to young Kashmiris for political expression. The chocking of political space in Kashmir is evident in a number of ways. At one level it is a direct result of the state’s own activities such as shutting down the social media outlets and cellular services at the slightest miff of trouble in the valley. At another level, this is due to the constraints imposed on all kinds of progressive politics in the valley. This is also seen in the manner in which the Kashmiri media is put under a variety of constraints. But more importantly, this is also done by the mainstream political parties when they appropriate the political arguments of resistance without really being sincere to its basic premises and long-term implications.  Differently put, while on the one hand the state actively takes away their right to resist, the pro-state political parties are depriving the youngsters of their politics of resistance that dilutes the purity and sincerity of the politics of resistance itself. Is it not unjust, they ask, for their right to resist to be taken away in such a systematic manner? 

Implications of militarization 
For most Kashmiris, what the Indian armed forces do in Kashmir represent what India is all about. Hailing from where I am, I have different notions of India but I do not fault the young Kashmir for thinking about the way he/she does about India for the India they see is an ugly one. Not only do many of them feel physically insecure by the presence of the security forces in every nook and corner of their daily living space, but are also reminded, every day, of their own sheer helplessness. Women feel irritated by the harassing gaze of the security personnel and feel that their modesty is outraged by the might of the state. It is not just their land, they argue, is occupied by New Delhi’s armed forces but also their privacy, daily livesand political imaginations. As a number of young Kashmiris put it so bluntly the Kashmiri youth will not learn to speak the language of political reconciliation with India if their land continues to be occupied by the Indian armed forces. To make matters worse, when their own elected Chief Minister himself is unable to reduce the military presence from Kashmir’s streets, in spite of him wanting/attempting to sincerely do so, the Kashmiri’s sense of being occupied increases manifold.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, May 26, 2013. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/May/26/the-young-political-kashmiri-6.asp)

Pakistan Powershift

Will Nawaz Sharif better Indo-Pak ties?

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

Will the third coming of Nawaz Sharif better or worsen the bilateral ties between India and Pakistan? Will the Nawaz regime in Pakistan make South Asia a tolerably inhabitable region? Political pundits are upbeat about the possibility of Indo-Pak relations normalizing under the new Pakistan government. More so, optimists are also, when analyzing the future of Indo-Pak ties, factoring in the heightened level of enthusiasm about the future of Pakistan in general. Contemporary Pakistan is indeed making history in many ways: democracy seems to be triumphing and taking roots in Pakistan radically altering the landscape of the country’s non-democratic political culture which is alien to democratic power transitions; political institutions seem to be functioning, finally; rule of law is making new strides and the all-powerful Army is becoming a neutral bystander, at least for now. More so, the PM designate of Pakistan has used every opportunity since the recent elections to signal India that he is willing to do business with it and mend their relations. 

But before we conclude or analysis on what the future has in store for Indo-Pak relations, let us do some quick history reading. When the PPP government under Asif Ali Zardari came to power in 2008, the mood was almost the same. It was then praised as the triumph of democracy and Zardari, on his part, clearly wanted to do business with India. Kashmir was relegated to the backburner and the two countries wanted to make peace with each other. And the Indians were only willing to play ball with Zardari. 

Lets go further back into history. Although the mood was not so upbeat about Indo-Pak relations when Musharraff took over the reigns of Pakistan in 1999, the initial hesitation on the Indian side to deal with a military dictator eventually disappeared and  Musharraff and Manmohan Singh steered the most successful peace process ever between the two sides. In other words, every government in Pakistan in the last one and half decades did decide to normalize relations with India even though much was not achieved on that count in the years that followed.

What does this history of dialogue-diplomacy tell us about Indo-Pak relations? To my mind, the fact that every new government in Islamabad tries to send positive signals to New Delhi and show willingness to make peace with India means a number of things. First of all, there is a great deal of public opinion within Pakistan about the urgent need to normalize relations with India. Hence the governments in Islamabad, wanting to cater to this popular perception, attempts to make peace with India even though it may not become successful in doing so eventually. Take the recent elections in Pakistan for instance. India hardly figured in the Pakistani elections speeches or campaign in general. If anything, political leaders publically argued for improving relations with India. This is not something that should surprise us, as this has been the case in Pakistan for sometime now. It is indeed a pity that the changing perceptions of India in Pakistan have not been fully utilized by Islamabad to better its relations with India. 

Secondly, upon assumption of power, every government in Islamabad eventually recognizes the need to make peace with India in its own interest. Continued confrontation with India is not in the best interests of any government in Islamabad especially given the state of Pakistan today. Possibility of economic cooperation with India is an added advantage in this regard. It is another story that the plans to better ties with India lose direction and political commitment in Islamabad when dealing with the daily dilemmas of governing Pakistan. Dealing with the religious rightwing is one such existential dilemma. No government in Pakistan can ignore them even they might want to do away with them. When the choice is between bettering ties with India and being able to continue in power, the establishment in Islamabad is often forced to give into the pressures of the India-hating religious fanatics. 

Thirdly, every government in Islamabad also recognizes that talking peace with India also adds to its normative reservoir especially when dealing with the international community. Given the enormous goodwill that the international community has for India and the latter’s role as an ‘emerging’ and ‘responsible’ power in the region, the international community expects Pakistan to settle its differences with India by, first of all, stopping the export of terrorism into India. When Pakistan does not do so, the international community considers it as irresponsible behavior. “Settle your differences with India in an amicable manner” is the routines advise that every government in Islamabad gets from the world capitals. Thus any Pakistani leadership would recognize that if it wants to be in the good books of the international community it would have to reach out to India, whether or not it is keenly interested in it.

 
In other words, structural and domestic conditions are indeed conducive for the improvement of Indo-Pak ties and yet things seem to go wrong between the two sides every now and then. Why? My earlier GK columns have dealt with most of my answers to these questions at length. I would like to flag just two of them. One, the Indian middle class is clearly disinterested in seeing a sustained dialogue with Pakistan. Their primary aim vis-à-vis Pakistan continues to be shaming the terrorism-infested neighbour. With no interest or pressure from the country’s influential classes, the government in New Delhi would not lose sleep over its volatile relations with Islamabad. Secondly, Pakistan’s false sense of pride prevents it from accepting the fact that its grand strategy to hurt India and wrest Kashmir has gone completely wrong. It does realize it, but is not yet willing to accept it and mend its ways.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, May 19, 2013. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/May/19/pakistan-powershift-8.asp)

James Bonds of India and Pakistan

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

The story of India-Pakistan relations can be narrated as a series of incidents, accidents and unfortunate events and their intended or unintended consequences. The normalization process that was taking place between the two sides came to a grinding halt when a number of Indian and Pakistani soldiers were killed by each other along the Line of Control in January this year. Neither Islamabad nor New Delhi planned the LoC incident nor did they want its consequences to thwart the dialogue process. Relations between the two neighbours have since been cold but cordial. Both the capitals were indeed awaiting the election results in Pakistan to rejig their diplomatic toolboxes to restart diplomatic negotiations, till of course the recent frenzy over Sarabjit Singh’s killing begun. 

Impact on Indo-Pak relations
The killing of Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh in a Lahore Prison and the murderous attack on a Pakistani prisoner, Sanaullah Ranjay, in a Jammu prison, clearly in retaliation, are unlikely to derail the India-Pakistan peace process - only because there is none to be derailed. What the two countries have at the moment is a politically dispirited and diplomatically unpersuasive set of reluctant engagements. That, in a sense, is the good news. The bad news is that this nationalistic hysteria and media frenzy created by these two attacks, mostly in India and much less in Pakistan thanks to the election fever there, will further weaken the already feeble faith that a lot of Indians and Pakistanis have in a peace process. It will highlight the already prevalent feeling that no improvement is possible between the two countries. Status quo ante will be the default wisdom for the two countries in managing their relations in the near future. If stray incidents and unfortunate developments can derail a well-designed dialogue process, why invest so much in such accident-prone processes in the first place? 

Own up your people
India and Pakistan go to absurd levels to achieve deniability about what they do to each other. On this count, Pakistan clearly outsmarts India. During the height of the Kargil war, Pakistan, to the dismay and shock of many well-meaning Pakistani themselves, refused to own up that their soldiers were fighting and dying in hundreds in the killing fields of Kargil as they did when the Pakistani regulars stormed into Kashmir in the guise of Pathan tribals in October 1947. When Surjeet Singh was released from a Pakistani jail in 2012 after 30 years, he came back to India and publically announced: “I was a RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) agent. No one bothered about me after I got arrested. Don't ask me too much...” While in Pakistan, he had claimed, as was to be expected, that he had strayed into Pakistan by mistake. By most accounts, Sarabjeet Singh was also an Indian spy who did what he did in Pakistan. Going by the Indian accounts, Sanaullah Ranjay, who is currently battling for life in Chandigarh hospital, was operating in J&K at the behest of Pakistan based organisations. 

Covertly operating on foreign soil, let us face it, is something that most countries engage in. There is nothing abnormal or new about it even as it could be seen as unacceptable. What is sad about these cases is that both the countries refuse to recognize that they engage in spying on each other and by implication refuse to demand for the release of their operatives from each other’s jails. There must be an honorable ay of dealing with this problem. During the Cold war, the Americans and Soviets had large numbers of spies in each other soil. However, unlike India and Pakistan, they often actively campaigned to secure the release of their agents, mostly through backchannel negotiations and quid-pro-quo offers: sometimes the acknowledgement was indeed public.   

The Central and Punjab governments have now promised financial and other forms of compensation for Sarabjit’s family. If Sarabjit was not working for the government agencies, what makes his family eligible for any compensation? Is it because he was killed in a Pakistani jail? Why would the Indian government award such huge compensation when a common Indian man gets killed in a Pakistan jail? Indeed, the incident has invited a comment even from an otherwise silent Prime Minister who said: “The criminals responsible for the barbaric and murderous attack on him must be brought to justice”. The Indian media, even it huffs and puffs about Sarabjit’s killing, refuses to talk about him being a spy! It is difficult to imagine that the Central and state governments in India are compensating Sarabjit just because he was killed in a Pakistan prison. 

Instead of merely throwing money at his family, government of India should have the guts to acknowledge that he worked for an Indian agency. Indeed, both India and Pakistan should engage each other in a purposeful manner with regard to the release of their operatives languishing in each other’s prisons. 

Indo-Pak Judicial Committee on Prisoners
According to a government of India statement, “there are 535 Indian prisoners (including 483 fishermen) in Pakistani jails and a total of 272 Pakistani prisoners in Indian jails”. The Indo-Pak Judicial Committee on Prisoners, established in 2007, has managed to do some good work in the last few years in securing release of prisoners held in each other’s jails. There is an urgent need to reinvigorate this committee, and the governments on both sides should further strengthen the committee so that at least those prisoners who have completed their sentences and are eagerly awaiting their release should be allowed to go to their respective countries.  

(SOurce: Greater Kashmir, May 5, 2013. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/May/5/james-bonds-of-india-and-pakistan-6.asp )

Procrastination as grand strategy

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

There is something about us as a nation that makes our officials, politicians, and strategic thinkers unwilling to take decisions on major issues of national importance. Be it resolving conflicts, reforming the judiciary or the police force, restructuring the country’s civil services or making well thought out long-term strategies for defending and securing the country. When Pakistan watchers tell me that Pakistan’s grand strategy vis-à-vis India in Kashmir has gone completely wrong, I tell them, in jest, that India’s grand strategy can never go wrong because it simply does not have one. I increasingly realize that there is more than humour in such an argument – we as a country are simply unwilling to take major decisions. Procrastination seems to be the organizing logic of our national grand strategy. But why? 

Before I attempt to understand why, let me look at a few cases. My colleague at JNU, Rajesh Rajagopalan has argued, in his research work on insurgencies in India, that “The Indian state has always seen counter-insurgency as a political rather than a military problem, and it has insisted that the Indian Army accept it as such”. However, even as Rajagopalan focuses on India’s emphasis on the political nature of the solution, he highlights the importance of the time factor: “it is clear from the Indian experience that patience and a long-term perspective are essential attitudinal requirements in fighting counter-insurgency campaigns. What is not so clear is whether New Delhi chose patience from foresight, or whether it simply preferred to ignore difficult situations until, with the fullness of time, they resolved themselves.” I tend to broadly agree with the argument that Rajagopalan makes.

What is interesting to note here is that while the Indian state clearly understands that the solution for resolving insurgencies has to be political and not military, they are still unwilling to make those political concessions to end insurgencies. They, as Rajagopalan puts it, wait for it to resolve themselves in the fullness of time. To my mind, this is a classic case of procrastination, unwilling to take steps to resolve issues even when opportunities present themselves to do so. 

Kashmir, for instance, was ripe for resolution during the 2004-2008 peace process between India and Pakistan: New Delhi developed cold feet by early 2007 for no substantive reason and postponed the decision to finalise the deal on Kashmir with Pakistan, after having drawn up a historic deal, according to insiders’ accounts. In 2010, during the height of the uprising in Kashmir, New Delhi appointed a team of interlocutors who produced an exhaustive report which produced an array of recommendations for resolving the Kashmir issue: the government has since been silent about the report. The Government of India, at the initiative or the Prime Minister, organised a series of Round Table conferences on Kashmir during 2006-2007 and five working groups were formed to look into the various aspects of a resolution of the Kashmir issue: reports have been submitted to the government, but no action taken. 
These were indeed many excellent opportunities for resolving the Kashmir issue and yet no action was taken beyond merely initiating half-baked ‘political steps’ towards the resolution of the country’s most intractable insurgency. Today, faced with impending political uncertainty due to elections in India, Pakistan and Kashmir, and increasing instability in the region thanks to the US-NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan beginning 2014 Indian policy makers are reduced to crystal gazing to understand what might happen to Kashmir in the days to come. 

I do agree that dialogue and political reconciliation lay at the heart of the Indian state’s approach to conflict resolution and problem solving. India’s political culture and its national security policies, despite a large number of aberrations and shortcomings, still exhibit a certain tolerance of diversity and difference, non-violent approaches to dealing with social unrest and a celebration of political debates and disputations on deeply contested issues. That is certainly welcome and should be preserved. In other words, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the Indian state is likely to deal with most problems politically and non-violently. 

Why then do we see such appallingly numerous instances of human rights violations and political unwillingness to resolve political issues around the country especially in Kashmir? Even if the argument is true that at the end of the day the Indian state will resolve political problems politically, why does it take a violent, intolerant and muddled road to that destination? One explanation could be that the government is too busy managing too many day to day problems, and in a huge country like India there are far too many problems and hence it has no time to resolve deeply contested political issues. But that is an excuse, not an explanation. 

I am persuaded to accept a slightly more long-winding explanation. Clearly, as pointed out above, when dealing with problems such as insurgencies, Indian government’s efforts are marked by extreme levels of procrastination in deciding to negotiate a political resolution to resolve the conflict. During this period there is hardly any willingness on the part of the political or bureaucratic elite to take steps to resolve the conflict as creative, out of the box solutions to political problems are systemically disincentivised in our country. If that is the case, how can one make the argument that the insurgencies usually end with the implementation of a political solution? I would argue (and Rajagopalan indirectly refers to it in his writings) that the belief in the need to resolve conflicts using political strategies do not seem to operate at the conscious level of the political and bureaucratic leadership. The willingness to opt for political resolution of insurgencies comes from the country’s political and strategic cultures. Since this operates at the subconscious level, making it the default culturally acceptable solution, this can’t be termed as a strategy: it can at best be referred to as a product of deeply held political and strategic beliefs.

(Source: Greater Kashmir, 28 APril, 2013. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Apr/28/procrastination-as-grand-strategy-11.asp )

BMD and South Asian strategic stability

Statecraft

HAPPYMON JACOB

he logic of nuclear deterrence, at its simplest form, argues that the possession of nuclear weapons by a country would deter its adversary from using a nuclear weapon against it and if the use of nuclear weapons, the most destructive weapons by far, makes no sense when both the adversaries are nuclear armed, the use of conventional weapons makes even less sense. In other words, possession of nuclear weapons is likely to keep a country safe from enemy attacks. A related understanding with regard to nuclear deterrence is that it is premised on a certain level of mutual vulnerability. That is, for nuclear deterrence to continue to exist, the nuclear weapon countries should not try and become invulnerable to the nuclear weapon capability of the adversary. In other words, if India and Pakistan have to continue in a relationship of nuclear deterrence, there should be no attempt by India or Pakistan to build mechanisms to ensure that the other’s nuclear weapons do not land on its territory. Any attempt to do so by either country will not only destroy nuclear deterrence in South Asia but also ensue an arms race that would go far beyond the level, scope and scale of nuclear weapons themselves. 

India’s proposed BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense) programme is in a sense doing precisely that – trying to make Pakistani nuclear weapons ineffective against India. Still at the most initial level (even the United States of America has not been able to develop a fool-proof BMD system despite many decades of efforts), the proponents of the Indian BMD programme claim to have developed the capability to protect two Indian cities against incoming Pakistani nuclear-tipped ballistic (not cruise though) missiles. Let alone the fact that the BMD technology is still and unproven one, what is even more worrying is that India’s BMD developments are spearheaded by its defense scientific establishment, not by the civilian political establishment. 

In a report titled as “Government baffled over DRDO chief’s claim on missile shield”, the India Today wrote sometime ago: “The government of India has been baffled by DRDO chief V.K. Saraswat’s repeated claims that a ballistic missile shield is ready for deployment, and that two locations, presumably New Delhi and Mumbai, will be the first recipients of the BMD system. Speaking on a TV programme in early May, Saraswat said that “this system is now ready for induction”. Nearly two weeks later, the claim was repeated in an interview to Press Trust of India where Saraswat was quoted as saying, “The ballistic missile defence shield is now mature… We are ready to put phase I in place.”
Saraswat also argued that “India is putting together building blocks of technology that could be used to neutralize enemy satellites. We are working to ensure space security and protect our satellites. At the same time we are also working on how to deny the enemy access to its space assets”.

It is interesting that even as there is a consistent effort underway in India to build Ballistic Missile Defence capability, none of the civilian political leaders has ever made any public statement regarding this, nor has this been discussed in the various subcommittees of the Parliament despite the long term and dangerous implications that the introduction of BMD technology can have for Indo-Pak nuclear deterrence. While the defense technocrats of the country, such as Saraswat, gives out details regarding such strategic programmes from time to time, the civilian bureaucracy or the political class also do not make such statements. While it is easy to argue that members of the civilian bureaucracy or the political class do not understand the technical details of this and hence they do not talk about it, the fundamental reason behind this ‘technology-strategy’ divide is the manner in which technological imperatives are driving India’s strategic decision making. Indeed, this divide between the technological imperatives and the political declarations and posturing is not seen for the first time in the Indian strategic decision making scene. The role of the political class in decision-making in the field of strategic technology weapon systems has always been extremely limited.

Be it the Indian nuclear programme or the ongoing BMD programme, the role of the political class has been extremely limited which is the real cause for concern. I am also one of those who think that there is no clear strategic thinking taking place in New Delhi with regard to the future of India’s security, nuclear strategy or the kind of weapon systems the country should have. If there is no such grand strategic thinking taking place in the first place, it is possible that the government does not really appreciate the long-term implications of the country’s ongoing BMD programme. Optimists argue that India’s unwillingness to clearly state’s its security/defense policies is a clearly thought-out ‘policy of ambiguity’. I belong to the pessimists’ group which contends that there is no strategy behind ambiguity, it is confusion and lack of clear thinking at best. I would go one step further. Decades of ambiguous policy making has indeed landed the Indian state in a position wherein clear thinking about strategic affairs does not come naturally to it: being ambiguous has become part of its very mental makeup. 

Whether or not India actually develops the BMD system eventually, the civilian government - defense scientists divide and the high levels of ambiguity with regard to the BMD system in India can lead Pakistan to adopting a variety of countermeasures. Pakistan, in response to India’s BMD plans, is already carrying out a number of tests of its short-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile, Nasr, as it believes that it has the capability to frustrate the BMD capability that India is building. In other words, ‘India’s’ desire to build a BMD system is already witnessing the early stages of a strategic arms race, dangerous and destabilising, in the region. 

(Source: greater Kashmir, 21 APRIL 2013. URL: http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2013/Apr/21/bmd-and-south-asian-strategic-stability-10.asp )