Abstract
India and Pakistan will try once more to work it out. The other options are not so good.
In the early hours of March 24, a group of armed men dressed in Indian Army fatigues entered the mountain village of Nadi-marg, in Indian-controlled Kashmir. They ordered the village's Hindu inhabitants out of their houses, and then shot those who complied, 24 of 52 villagers, including several women and children. The attack was only the latest in a series of massacres of innocent civilians, especially Hindus, since the eruption of an ethno-religious insurgency in Kashmir in 1989.
Five decades after the collapse of the British colonial empire in South Asia, the Indo-Pakistani dispute over Kashmir continues to wrack the region, exacting a depressing toll in lost lives. Kashmir is at the center of a seemingly unrelenting and bitter interstate dispute between India and Pakistan.
The dispute took a sanguinary turn in 1989 after India made a series of clumsy attempts to meld Kashmir into the Indian union, by means both fair and foul. Once the violence began, Pakistan entered the fray and the uprising was transformed from a spontaneous and disorganized movement of disaffected Kashmiris to a well-orchestrated infiltration of Pakistani-trained terrorists. Although some of the insurgents genuinely believe that predominantly Muslim Kashmir is oppressed by Indian rule, they have failed to command the sympathies of much of Kashmir's populace, Muslim or otherwise.
Yet the insurgency drags on. And should it become the focal point of yet another war between India and Pakistan, might that war involve nuclear weapons? Or might the United States play a useful role in seeking a resolution to this crisis?
These questions are hardly trivial. More than 50,000 people have perished in Kashmir since the onset of the insurgency–more than were killed in all four Indo-Pakistani wars combined.
Slouching toward war
India and Pakistan nearly went to war for a fifth time last year. The catalytic event was the December 13, 2001 attack on the Indian parliament by members of the Lashkar-i-Taiba, a Pakistan-based terrorist organization that had long wreaked havoc in Kashmir. Although a security lapse allowed the terrorists to enter the grounds of the parliament in New Delhi, they were detected and killed in a gun battle with Indian commandos before they could carry out their plan. Indian investigative agencies based their conclusion–that the would-be assassins were linked to elements in the Pakistani government–on a series of telephone intercepts.
Although a massacre of parliament was avoided, the event was electrifying, serving as the Indian equivalent of September 11. India mobilized several hundred thousand troops and deployed them along the Indo-Pakistani border, demanded that Pakistan hand over some 20 other individuals accused of terrorist acts on Indian soil, and recalled its ambassador from Islamabad. Pakistan denied any complicity in the attack on the Indian parliament, but did ban five extremist organizations, including Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, another especially vicious terrorist group. Simultaneously, it also moved a substantial portion of its military forces to the border.
Watching the steady troop deployments, many foreign observers and analysts suggested that war between the two states was all but imminent. The Bush administration reacted by counseling restraint and exerting some pressure on Pakistan, its new ally in the efforts to eviscerate the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
On January 12, 2002, Pakistani leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf promised to rid his country of all the terrorist organizations that were exploiting Islamic fervor. Yet he reiterated his country's commitment to the Kashmiri cause, saying: “Kashmir runs in our blood.”
Although somewhat mollified by Musharraf's speech, Indian authorities remained skeptical and refused to draw down their military deployments along the border or in Kashmir. And the attacks did not end. On May 14 a group of terrorists hijacked a bus and drove it into the compound of an Indian military base in Jammu, killing some 35 people, mostly the wives and children of Indian personnel. A week later, Abdul Ghani Lone, a former Kashmiri legislator and a member of the 20-party AllParty Hurriyat Conference, which opposes Indian rule in Kashmir, was assassinated while paying homage to a slain Kashmiri religious leader, Mir-waiz Maulvi Farooq.
Tensions, which were already high, reached a crescendo in the aftermath of this attack, as Indian leaders openly talked of war. Once again, the United States brought considerable diplomatic pressure to bear to restrain both parties. The Bush administration exacted a promise from General Musharraf to end terrorist infiltrations. American assurances to New Delhi, coupled with warnings that India and Pakistan were teetering on the brink of nuclear war, and the imposition of an American travel advisory to the region, contributed to a lessening of tension by mid-summer. The two sides lowered their level of mobilization, but maintained substantial military deployments along the border.
Kashmir's problems
New Delhi has sought in recent years to address Kashmiri grievances through state-level elections in Jammu and Kashmir, but neither India nor Pakistan has been willing to allow Kashmiris to vote for Indian or Pakistani rule, or for independence, although both nations agreed in 1948 to do so.
Despite repeated threats from terrorists, last year's state election campaigns were vigorous. Even the killing of several candidates and the systematic intimidation of potential voters by a range of terrorist organizations in the early fall did not daunt most politicians, although many members of the Hurriyat Conference refused to participate.
The results of the election proved that a mostly free and fair election could be conducted even under extremely trying circumstances. Despite the systematic targeting of both politicians and voters by militants, the turnout was an impressive 44 percent. The ruling party, the National Conference, which had long dominated the politics of the state, suffered a dramatic setback, winning a mere 28 of 87 seats in the state assembly. The party had had a two-thirds majority in the state assembly after the 1996 elections. Farooq Abdullah, the National Conference leader, had been accused of being an ineffectual and uninspiring minister, and chose not to run for re-election.
The principal winners in the election were the Congress Party and the People's Democratic Party, a Congress Party breakaway faction. The Congress garnered 20 seats and the People's Democratic Party managed to secure 16, with the remainder going to small, local parties. In the aftermath of the election, the two formed a new government with Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, a prominent Kashmiri politician as chief minister. The Prime Minister of India, Atal Behari Vajpayee, whose Bharitiya Janata Party (BJP) won a single seat, hailed the election as a victory for democracy.
Peering ahead
Although the presence of the newly elected government is a bright sign on an otherwise bleak horizon, it is not likely to bring peace. Terrorist attacks continue. And Pakistan, despite its promises to the United States to the contrary, continues to support them. Publicly, Pakistani authorities deny giving material aid to the terrorists and call for the resumption of a dialogue with India to resolve the Kashmir dispute. Privately, as the murders in the Kashmir village on March 24 show, little has changed.
Behind Pakistan's seemingly feckless behavior lies the belief that it can continue to facilitate infiltrations in Kashmir as long as it is of use to the United States in the military campaign against the Taliban and the remnants of Al Qaeda.
In Kashmir, the new government has the difficult task of addressing the genuine grievances of a sullen populace that has long suffered at the hands of both the terrorists and the Indian security forces. Thus far, its efforts to restore some semblance of public safety and security have sapped much of the state's energies. Other actions–efforts toward better revenue collection and the ending of illegal construction on public lands–have been mainly cosmetic.
Failing to agree
India's national government, led by the right-wing Hindu nationalist BJP, initially sought to improve relations with Pakistan. In February 1999, Prime Minister Vajpayee visited Pakistan to initiate a new bus service between Indian and Pakistani cities. Unfortunately, Pakistan's subsequent military forays at Kargil, Dras, and Batalik across the Line of Control (the working boundary in Kashmir) in May 1999 sparked a limited war and undermined any prospect of meaningful dialogue.
After international prodding, the Indian government made a half-hearted attempt at dialogue again in Agra in June 2001. That summit ended in a deadlock.
Given the slow progress of the government in Kashmir and the intractability of the governments in Islamabad and New Delhi, the possibility that the region is headed for yet another full-blown war cannot be entirely ruled out.
Last year the Indian government carefully arrayed its forces to convey a message to Pakistan that unless it desisted from supporting the terrorists, war could ensue. Yet after a nearly 10-month show of force, India pulled its military back from the border. The display of military might drew some U.S. pressure on Pakistan, but it failed completely to stop Pakistan's support of the terrorists. In effect, the deployments became a wasting asset.
Why has India not resorted to war despite the atrocities in Kashmir and elsewhere? The most likely explanation is the fear that Pakistan, a nucleararmed adversary, would threaten to escalate the conflict to the nuclear level. India could then find itself in the unenviable position of having to call Pakistan's bluff–or countenance the possible use of nuclear weapons against its forces and possibly its territory.
More people have been killed in Kashmir than were killed in all four Indo-Pakistani wars combined.
But whether India will continue to exercise restraint in the future is an open question. There are important indications to the contrary. Since the Kargil conflict of 1999, the Indian military has been formulating a doctrine of limited war under the shadow of nuclear weapons. Yet even as late as last year it had not worked out the modalities of that strategy. Its precise dimensions would be hard to spell out in detail, but it might well involve short, sharp forays into Pakistani military encampments across the Line of Control.
The seemingly robust propositions of nuclear deterrence should hold in South Asia, preventing the occurrence of nuclear war between India and Pakistan. But as in any war-prone, highly militarized environment, there is the danger that faulty intelligence or technological error could lead to inadvertent war.
An American role?
Given the U.S. preoccupation with Iraq and North Korea, it is hard to imagine the United States devoting any significant time or effort to addressing the dilemma in Kashmir. The Bush administration seems content to issue routine public condemnations of each tragic terrorist attack, renew its call for Pakistan to end infiltration, warn the two states about the danger of nuclear escalation, and urge India to resume talks with Pakistan.
This strategy is at best a holding operation, likely to accomplish none of its stated goals. Worse still, it is a recipe for continued bloodletting: Perversely, Pakistan counts on India taking the warnings to heart, and it is therefore emboldened to continue its support of the terrorists. Pakistan's assumption seems reasonable; so far, India has been deterred from launching an attack into the Pakistani heartland, despite repeated and grave provocations, for fear of nuclear escalation.
Yet Prime Minister Vajpayee's call in early May for a renewed dialogue with Pakistan and the generally positive response from Islamabad may have provided the United States an important opportunity to facilitate the onset of a peace process.
If the Bush administration genuinely believes what it says, that global terrorism is seamless and deserves to be suppressed on a worldwide basis, its actions must be joined with its rhetoric. It should be urging Pakistan to stop harboring terrorists, while simultaneously prodding India to address the legitimate yearnings of the disaffected Kashmiri population. It should use the occasion of this new dialogue to urge both sides to implement existing and agreed-upon confidence-building measures and to start discussions on less contentious issues. •