Pakistan's interest in Kashmir is as legitimate as that of Russia's in Crimea

By: HUSSAIN SAQIB

Russia has finally annexed Crimea, heretofore a part, and as much as 50% of landmass, of Ukraine, on the pretext of overwhelming majority of Russian population living in the peninsula. The annexation was formalized after a referendum, dubbed sham by the western media. Almost every member of the international community voiced concern over Russia’s actions. Even non-Western states such as China and even Iran also made clear their support for the principles of non-intervention, state sovereignty and territorial integrity – oblique criticisms of Moscow’s disregard for cornerstone Treaty of Westphalia norms. Russia got support from the countries in its area of influence like Cuba, Venezuela and Syria. The world was, however, bewildered at the stance adopted by India, claiming to be World’s largest democracy.

Has New Delhi, a new-found darling of the West, betrayed international community? Most probably yes, because West had pinned hopes on India to become a counterweight to China to serve US interests in Indian and Pacific Oceans and South China Sea.

Let’s see what India’s stance on Russian incursion into Crimea is: New Delhi respects Russia’s “legitimate interests” in Crimea.

Surprised anyone? No. This is because India has a history of its own incursions into its neighboring states that are weaker and dependent upon India. The cases of Bhutan and Sikkim are historical evidence to establish that for India, principles enunciated in the Treaty of Westphalia are not applicable as long as it can easily usurp and annex its weaker neighbors.  It even tried to make an incursion into China in 1962 but failed after a humiliating defeat at the hands of Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) of China.

Apart from the fact that the West feels betrayed at the hands of India, latter’s stance raises one disturbing question: If Russia has legitimate interests in the Crimean peninsula because of majority of Russian population, why this principle cannot be applied to the valley of Jammu and Kashmir and why India does not recognize, or respect, Pakistan’s legitimate interests in the valley? The basic principle for partition of India was faith; the Muslim majority Kashmir valley must join Pakistan as against its forcible occupation by India.

Why India has deployed a large chunk of its army in Kashmir to suppress the movement against Indian occupation in which tens of thousands of innocent lives have been lost? Why a demand for a plebiscite in Kashmir, promised by India’s prime minister, angers India every time it is raised at the UN?

India’s desire to realign itself with Russia in the upcoming bipolar world is welcome but even the most ruthless stance in international relations is taken on some principles. If the principle is that forcible occupation legitimizes the stance, then India is doing no favor to its democratic posture which is exposed to the risk of further erosion after the current elections being fought on the basis of Hindutva.  

Galbraith was the original author of Indo-US nuclear cooperation in 1962…..

The United States encouraged India in early 60s to develop a nuclear device to fight China without comprising its commitments as a Soviet ally. In the era of Cold War, as we all know, India was a bitter opponent of the USA and a close ally of USSR. India remained staunch ally of USSR till disintegration of the Soviet empire in 1991. During Afghan jihad (1979-89), when Afghans were fighting Soviet occupation forces with the help of Pakistan, US and Saudi Arabia, India was a sworn enemy of the US. Due to its alliance with USSR, India was a target of Afghan fury during and after the jihad. In fact, Taliban regime which came into being after departure of Soviet Army was opposed to India and was allied with Pakistan. It was due to pro-Pakistan regime in Afghanistan that the country was considered a strategic depth by Pakistani strategists.

Americans are, however, warming up to India in spite their past relations. This warming up is taking place at the expense of Pakistan which has so far remained more allied than the NATO allies of the US. Some analysts dub this sudden change of hearts as a compulsion of realist politics; Pakistan has outlived its utility after Afghanistan end-game and the US needs India to contain China in the Pacific.

But it has now been emerged that the US was trying to win Indian hearts from the very beginning. There are two factors which brought the two countries together; John Kenneth Galbraith, the American Ambassador to India appointed by President Kennedy and India’s humiliating defeat in Indo-China War of 1962. Galbraith befriended Nehru during his tenure. He rendered great help to India in its hour of distress and kept Pakistan away from taking advantage of India fragile position as a result of devastating defeat at the hands of Peoples Liberation Army.

It was the same Ambassador Galbraith who was very close to former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. This friendship was carried forward by his son Peter W Galbraith till Benazir's tragic assassination.

According to an article by Bruce Riedel, an analyst and a career CIA officer in The National Interest, Indi-China war also posed a crisis for America’s young president, John F. Kennedy, who had entered office determined to build a strong U.S. relationship with India. But his attention that fateful autumn was diverted to a more ominous crisis—the one involving Soviet efforts to place nuclear missiles in Cuba—that unleashed a dangerous nuclear face-off with the Soviet Union. Thus, Kennedy confronted two simultaneous crises, one far overshadowed by the other at the time and also later in history.

According to this article, when Kennedy became president in January 1961, the United States and India were estranged democracies. In the 1960 presidential campaign, Kennedy promised a departure from Eisenhower’s foreign policy and as a senator had sponsored legislation to increase food aid to India. And so it wasn’t surprising that as president he sought to woo India and its leader, Jawaharlal Nehru, into a closer relationship with Washington that didn’t require any formal anticommunist commitment from India. He sent his friend John Kenneth Galbraith to New Delhi as U.S. ambassador. Like presidents before and after, he tried to befriend both India and Pakistan and had invited Pakistan’s president Mohammad Ayub Khan to visit the United States twice during his thousand days in office. The Kennedy team hailed Pakistan as a reliable ally against communism and a model for development in the Third World.

But it was the India relationship that most preoccupied Kennedy as he contemplated U.S. relations with South Asia. Galbraith’s appointment put a Kennedy man and a firm advocate of his New Frontier at the center stage of U.S.-Indian relations. No president since has sent such a close friend and high-powered representative to New Delhi as ambassador.

According to Bruce Riedel, the most important development in the relationship emerged with the Chinese invasion of India in October 1962 to seize control of territories it claimed along the 3,225-kilometer border. The Chinese forces, superior in leadership and weapons, routed the Indian Army, which retreated in confusion from the Himalayas. The situation was most precarious in India’s easternmost regions, which were linked to the rest of the country only by a narrow land connection north of what was then East Pakistan. After maintaining its neutrality in the Cold War for fifteen years, India found itself the victim of a Chinese invasion it was powerless to halt. Nehru was devastated. He reluctantly turned to the United States and Britain, asking for immediate supplies for the Indian Army. In his panic, he also requested the deployment of American bombers to repulse the Chinese advance. America unexpectedly found itself arming both Pakistan and India, with no assurance they would not use the weapons against each other.

It is clear from Galbraith’s diary that Washington was surprised by the Chinese invasion. But, with the U.S. bureaucracy fixated on the life-and-death duel over Cuba, Galbraith was given almost no instructions from the White House or State Department during the key period of the Indo-Chinese crisis. Thus, he became the main decision maker on the American side, a role he relished. Working closely with his British counterpart, as U.S. diplomats typically do in South Asia, Galbraith fashioned a response that backed India and delivered much-needed military assistance to the Indians. Once a request for aid was formally transmitted, the first American shipments of military support arrived by air four days later. British support came as well.

Chinese intentions were impossible to decipher. After their initial victories, they paused for several weeks. Then they attacked again with devastating results, driving the Indians back in the East. Had they pressed on in the most vulnerable sector, they could have cut off Assam and eastern India and linked up with East Pakistan. Even Calcutta was at risk. Nehru asked for more aid—a dozen squadrons of American fighters and two squadrons of bombers—to redress the imbalance. In his desperation, he sought direct American military intervention, at least in the air. This would have meant war with China.

There ensued many anxious moments in New Delhi, Washington and London until China unilaterally announced a cease-fire on November 19, 1962. Kennedy never had to answer the request for air power. The war was over; India was humiliated; Nehru was devastated. But U.S.-Indian relations were better than ever before. America’s approval ratings among Indians soared from 7 percent at the start of the war to 62 percent at the end.

Galbraith’s Memoirs make it clear that, even as he faced the Chinese threat, he had to devote an equal measure of his energy and skill to managing Indo-Pakistani relations. Pakistan promptly sought to exploit India’s distress. Ayub’s government suggested to the American embassy in Karachi that Pakistani neutrality in the war could be assured by Indian concessions in Kashmir. Implicitly, an Indian refusal would bring Pakistan into the war. China tried to sweeten the deal by offering a nonaggression pact with Pakistan. Galbraith writes that throughout the crisis:

My concern . . . was about equally divided between helping the Indians against the Chinese and keeping peace between the Indians and Pakistanis. . . . The nightmare of a combined attack by Pakistan and China, with the possibility of defeat, collapse and even anarchy in India, was much on my mind.

In short, at a defining early moment in U.S.-Indian relations, when China and India were military adversaries, America found itself trying to manage the Indo-Pakistani rivalry to avoid Armageddon in India. Pakistan was outraged that America was arming its rival and wanted to be bought off in Kashmir. Working with his American and British counterparts in Karachi, Galbraith persuaded India and Pakistan to begin a dialogue on Kashmir. Nehru reluctantly agreed. Galbraith describes him as a much-diminished prime minister. He had devoted his entire life to Indian independence but now was forced to rely on Washington and London. American C-130s were delivering vital military aid, and an American aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise, was visiting Madras to show tangible support.

Galbraith suggested to Kennedy in one of his private letters that the United States and United Kingdom seize the opportunity to quietly move toward a Kashmir settlement. Galbraith opposed a territorial settlement; he envisioned a much more subtle deal that would transform the entire nature of South Asian politics, a fundamental rapprochement based on regional cooperation that would make Kashmir largely irrelevant.

JFK was determined to keep a strong alliance with Pakistan even as he improved ties with India. But as U.S. arms flowed to India in the wake of the Chinese invasion, the U.S.-Pakistani connection began to sink. Islamabad did not want an ally that armed both sides. It had not joined SEATO and CENTO to see American arms flowing to its archrival, India. Ayub feared the American arms sent to India were rapidly diminishing his qualitative advantage over his rival, and he was right.

Not surprisingly, Pakistan turned increasingly to China. After the border agreement, Pakistan signed an aviation agreement with the Chinese, which broke an American-inspired campaign to isolate that communist nation. Pakistan International Airlines began regular flights between Dacca and Shanghai. The Kennedy team responded with the first of what would become a long list of sanctions on Pakistan—canceling a deal to upgrade the Dacca airport.

The Sino-Indian war had one other major consequence: India moved closer to its decision to develop a nuclear deterrent. Nehru had begun a nuclear-power program early after independence and acquired reactors from the United States and Canada. But he insisted India would use them only for peaceful purposes. His worldview held the use of nuclear weapons to be unthinkable. But in the wake of the Chinese invasion, the first Indian voices emerged in favor of a nuclear-weapons program. The opposition party called for the development of the bomb to deter further Chinese aggression. Nehru still demurred, but the path to a peaceful nuclear-explosive test had begun.

Meanwhile, the Americans also came to realize that the United States and India likely would need the bomb in order to stop another major Chinese invasion. In 1963, Kennedy met with his military advisers shortly before his death to review options in the event of another Chinese attack. Secret tapes record Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara telling Kennedy, “Before any substantial commitment to defend India against China is given, we should recognize that in order to carry out that commitment against any substantial Chinese attack, we would have to use nuclear weapons.” Kennedy responded, “We should defend India, and therefore we will defend India if she were attacked.”

THE KENNEDY era underscores several key points about U.S. diplomacy in South Asia. First, it is virtually impossible to have good relations with both India and Pakistan. We may want them to stop being rivals, but they can’t escape their history and geography. Almost every American president has sought to have good ties with both, though none really has succeeded because it is a zero-sum game for two rivals who cannot abide America being their enemy’s friend. When we give one country a substantial gain, like the 2005 U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Agreement, the other feels hurt and demands equal treatment.

Second, China is our rival for influence in the region because it has the capacity to frustrate American goals. For Pakistanis, China is the “all-weather friend” that they can rely on, unlike the unreliable and quixotic Americans. China provided Pakistan with key technology to build the bomb in the 1970s while America was trying to prevent Pakistani acquisition of nuclear weapons. Today, Beijing is building new reactors to fuel the fastest-growing nuclear arsenal in the world in Pakistan.

Global peace demands Balkanization of India …

HUSSAIN SAQIB

India is the only major country of the world facing a fiercest insurgency of such a scale that nearly half of the country has plunged into instability imperiling the security of the remaining half. As a matter of fact, destabilized India poses grave risks to the peace and security of not only the region, the world at large will be exposed to destabilization. The sheer size of the country, its nuclear arsenal and its uncontrolled ambition to reign in the world makes it even a bigger monster than Al Qaeda and other such entities.

Presently, seven states of North East India, known as Seven Sisters, and an equal number of states from North East to South West of the country, known as Red Corridor, are up in arms against the Union of India. In the North Western State of Jammu and Kashmir, the independence movement is in full swing considerably eroding the writ of the government. The independence movements and insurgency in India have created security problems, not only for India itself, but the entire region of South Asia. In order to divert public and the world attention from internal security issues, India has kept itself engaged in reckless arms race and raised the bogey of external threat, most notably from Pakistan and China, both nuclear states.

Encircling Pakistan is a broader and medium-term strategic objective of India’s security establishment. The long-term objective is to disintegrate Pakistan and annex it in the Indian Union in line with India’s another strategic objective to reformulate Akhand Bharat. This is being achieved through efforts for extending its influence to Pakistan’s neighboring countries of Iran and Afghanistan. Opening of needless consulates along Pakistan-Afghanistan border to fund, fan and fuel Taliban and Baloch insurgency in order to destabilize its archrival is a part of the bigger game plan. Similarly, building of Chabahar port west of Pakistan’s deep sea port of Gwadar is an attempt to encircle Pakistan and deny China an energy corridor. Its extension of its sphere of influence to Indian Ocean and realigning itself with the states against China to serve American interests on the issue of South China Sea brings into conflict of a bigger proportion. In order to stop India from treading this dangerous trajectory, its internal insurgency needs to be brought under control.

There are serious tensions between Seven Sisters namely; Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland and the Indian government. The movements are generally homegrown and are separatist movements in character. Assam has been the hotbed of militancy for a number of years due to its porous borders with Bangladesh and Bhutan. The insurgency status in Assam is classified as very active. Insurgent groups in Manipur may be broadly classified into hill-based and valley based. While the former demand for tribal state to preserve their tribal cultures from outside influence, the latter based their demands for independence from historical perspective claiming that Manipur a princely state with its geographical area extending to as far as the Kabaw valley of modern Myanmar during the British colonialism and was never a part of India and continues to remain so. The situation is no different in other states.

The Red Corridor is a term used to describe an impoverished region in the east of India that experiences considerable Naxalite communist insurgency. These are also areas that suffer from the greatest illiteracy, poverty and overpopulation in modern India, and span parts of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal states. Naxalites have been declared as a terrorist organization under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of India (1967). According to Govt. of India, as of July 2011, 83 districts (figure includes proposed addition of 20 districts) across nine states are affected by Left Wing Extremism down from 180 districts in 2009.

The insurgency in Kashmir has existed in various forms since the controversial accession of State to Indian Union. Thousands of lives have been lost since 1989 due to the intensification of both the insurgency and the state brutalities to curb it. According to official figures released in Jammu and Kashmir assembly (Indian controlled), there were 3,400 disappearance cases and the conflict has left more than 47,000 people dead as of July 2009.A widespread armed insurgency started in Kashmir with the disputed 1987 election with some elements from the State's assembly forming militant wings which acted as a catalyst for the emergence of armed insurgency in the region. This region has been a source of tension and reason for three wars between India and Pakistan and, after both the states have become nuclear-armed states, it can become a flashpoint of nuclear showdown.

India's Northeast consisting of the Seven Sisters is one of South Asia's hottest trouble spots, not simply because the region has as many as 30 armed insurgent organizations operating and fighting the Indian state, but because trans-border linkages that these groups have, and strategic alliances among them, have acted as force multipliers and have made the conflict dynamics all the more intricate. With demands of these insurgent groups ranging from secession to autonomy and the right to self-determination, and a plethora of ethnic groups clamoring for special rights and the protection of their distinct identity, the region is bound to be a turbulent one.

Moreover, the location of the eight northeastern Indian States itself is part of the reason why it has always been a hotbed of militancy with trans-border ramifications. This region of 263,000 square kilometers shares highly porous and sensitive frontiers with China in the North, Myanmar in the East, Bangladesh in the South West and Bhutan to the North West. The region's strategic location is underlined by the fact that it shares a 4,500 km-long international border with its four South Asian neighbors, but is connected to the Indian mainland by a tenuous 22 km-long land corridor passing through Siliguri in the eastern State of West Bengal, appropriately described as the ‘Chicken's Neck.'

The situation in the Red Corridor is no less grave. The first 25 years of the Naxalite insurgency were characterized by the communist principles on which the movement was founded. Fighting for land reform, the rebels gained support from the impoverished rural populations of eastern and central India. The Maoist rebellion quickly adopted violence and terror as the core instruments of its struggle against the Indian authority. Primary targets included railway tracks, post offices, and other state infrastructure, demonstrating the Maoists’ commitment to undermining a central government that they believed exploited low castes and rural populations. As states and the central government employed uncoordinated and underfunded responses to the Naxalites, the threat expanded beyond West Bengal and its neighboring states.

In 2004, the two predominant rebel groups, the Maoist Communist Center (MCC) and the People’s War Group (PWG), merged together. The resulting Communist Party of India (Maoist) emerged as a solidified base of power for the Naxalites, with a stated goal of overthrowing the Indian government. It has developed in its modern form as a rebellion that comprises up to 40,000 permanent armed cadres and 100,000 additional militia members.

The nascent stages of the movement reflected the stark contrast between urbanized areas of India and the primarily rural, underdeveloped regions of Naxalite influence. With the Maoist rebels firmly entrenched in geographically remote areas, Indian government resources remained dedicated to urban security and development concerns. As India looks increasingly to its east for vital resources, the conflict continues to expand beyond the principles of its origin. With a growing population and new development initiatives that require additional coal-powered electricity sources, India’s urban centers have come into direct contact with the states most affected by the Naxalite uprising: West Bengal, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra. Containing 85 percent of India’s coal reserves, these states have presented insurgents with an opportunity both to strike at the heart of national interests and to seek economic profit of their own.

This brief description of Indian insurgency shows that India has serious problems with all its neighboring states who India wants to bully into submission in order to quell the insurgency. Its problems having potential of triggering regional wars of nuclear proportions are with Pakistan and China.

In the interest of global peace, it is essential to break India into smaller states to thwart the risk of global anarchy and regional wars. The long-standing demand of Jammu and Kashmir for independence, already accepted by the world community should be translated into reality. The states of the Red Corridor may be given autonomy and the Seven Sisters should be accepted as ethnic and cultural entity for statehood. If India gets rid of these warring states, it can progress as a vibrant country, it neighbors will have a measure of safety and security and the world at large will be immune to any disorder which is staring it in the face at the moment.