In 1989 a group of desperate Kashmiri youths took up the gun to try to liberate their state from Indian rule. Over the years, the tactic has exhausted all its political potential and boomeranged on those who used and supplied it including the state of Pakistan. Finally, the assault by suicide terrorists on the Indian Parliament in Delhi on 13 December damaged the case for the violent movement in Kashmir beyond repair.
After the collapse of the terrorist-fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan, also sponsored and supported by Pakistan, the latters ability to sustain an insurrectionist movement in Kashmir, based on the same approach, is extremely limited. Najam Sethi, editor of the Friday Times of Pakistan admits this reality when he wrote: We have managed to survive destabilising debacle in Afghanistan. But we might not be so lucky in the event of a conflict with India over Kashmir. The Pakistan President, General Pervez Musharraf, has tried to distinguish the armed struggle in Kashmir from terrorism elsewhere. In the light of the universal condemnation of the attack in Delhi, this is decreasingly convincing in the eyes of the world. The New York Times, to cite only one of many such comments, said that in effect Bush has told Pakistan that after fifty years of battling India over Kashmir, it must now abandon the armed struggle there, and rely henceforth on political means.
The background of tension
The beginning of the current violent form of the secessionist movement in Kashmir can be traced to the state assembly election in 1987 and the way it was manipulated. Some of the candidates of the ruling party were trailing behind. As the democratic outlet of their protest was closed, they crossed the border, were trained and supplied with guns from the Pakistan government, and returned to start a militant movement for the independence of the state under the banner of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front.
This was a new phase of an old point of contention between the states of India and Pakistan. It may be recalled that after the birth of Bangladesh (out of East Pakistan) in 1971, and Indias agreement with the popular Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdullah, the former Information Minister and well known political commentator of Pakistan, Mushaid Hussain admitted that the word Kashmir did not exist in the lexicon of Pakistans foreign policy in the seventies and eighties. The reaction to the manipulation of the 1987 election which by 1990 had assumed the form of mass insurgency met with attempts at ruthless suppression by the Indian security agencies. Human rights violations highlighted the Kashmir issue as a matter of international concern.
Gradually, the Pakistan government tried to sideline the JKLF and replace it with organised pro-Pakistan and pro-fundamentalist groups. The leadership of the latter was controlled by the ISI, the intelligence agency of Pakistan. Some of the leading personnel were also non-Kashmiris. The Pakistan-based Kashmir movement was far more fanatic and ruthless than the indigenous one. Mass killings of Hindus, innocents and pro-India Muslims were its main objectives. It aimed not only at annexing Kashmir with Pakistan but also threatened to destroy Hindu India. The attack of 13 December was a culmination of this phase of the movement. Hence the terrorist tag.
Thus, just as human rights violations by the Indian security forces proved counter-productive, so terrorist acts within Kashmir and in New Delhi have discredited the movement and put Pakistan on the defensive. There is, now, near-universal sympathy for the deep hurt to Indian sentiments that has been caused by the assault on the most sacred symbol of Indian democracy. But there is also a universal concern over the possibility of this violation leading to another Indo-Pak war.
To what use can India put the universal sympathy for its sentiments? How far should India go in the direction of retaliatory action against Pakistan, to which the culprits of the 13 December outrage belonged and which has been sponsoring terrorism in India for the last two decades? Why should India not follow the US precedent, and attack the country which harbours the terrorists acting in Kashmir the way America did? Is it because the rules of international behaviour are different for a superpower and for a much less powerful country like India? Or because of the difference in the comparative strength between America-Afghanistan and India-Pakistan? Is it a question of double standards or merely a pragmatic and realistic compulsion?
Indias American example
India would be well advised to examine more closely the way America reacted to the challenge of terror, and then decide on the best options available to it. First, despite being the mightiest world power, America took one month to mobilise diplomatic support for its action in Afghanistan. In particular it made extraordinary efforts to neutralise the hostility of the Muslim countries, and to win over the fence-sitters. Secondly, it continued to draw a distinction between the people of Afghanistan and its Taliban rulers. Thirdly, it undertook attempts to gather a coalition that could be installed in Kabul after the start of military action in Afghanistan.
Let us take these points in turn to see how Indias response to terror compares with Americas. First, India has, if anything, a more convincing case than America. The dead bodies of terrorists were eloquent evidence of their Pakistani origin, whereas America could only hypothesise about the origin of the perpetrators of the crime in America on 11 September. But India started with a military build-up on its border and was only dragged to the diplomatic front mainly by America and Britain. No initiative was taken to mobilise the support of the Muslim countries. Instead, by publicly exaggerating the level of Indo-Israel understanding (as the welcome to the visiting Israeli Foreign Minister revealed), Indias diplomacy in this area was deficient.
Second, India needed to take note of the contradictions that exist within Pakistan. Instead, holding the Pakistan ruler and his government responsible for the attack on Parliament House (for which no evidence has been cited) was to ignore the open conflict between Musharraf and the terrorist camp that started when he joined the America-led war against the Taliban. The murder of the brother of the Interior Minister of Pakistan, who was responsible for putting curbs on terrorist camps, is one indication of this clash. Moreover, as the supportive response to Musharrafs speech of 12 January demonstrated, there is a liberal constituency in Pakistan that has been emboldened with the collapse of the Taliban and which should not be dismissed.
The current rhetoric against Pakistan in India presumes a unity within its government, its democratic opponents, liberals and radicals, and its army which does not exist. Instead of treating Pakistan like any other country, Pakistan has acquired in the Indian psyche the status of an eternal and monolithic enemy. Thus, unlike America which narrowed down its target to one man and to the regime which harboured him India is trying its best to enlarge the target and thus unite all contradictory elements against itself.
Third, those in India who clamour for a war to the finish with Pakistan must ponder the question: could India subdue Pakistan as America did fragile Afghanistan? And, even if India succeeded in doing so, does it have in mind any equivalents of Hamid Karzai, Younis Qanooni and Abdullah Abdullah to replace Pervez Musharraf? Thus war alone is no solution to the problem of terror India is faced with.
The cards in Indias hands
Yet despite these failings, India retains some advantages in dealing with Pakistan over Kashmir. It is not just the evidence of identity of the culprits of 13 December, but that from creating political unity out of the challenge of terror India has demonstrated (no less successfully than America) the strength and maturity of its democracy. Both the ruling coalition and the opposition dropped contentious proposals that were blocking the working of Parliament, and abstained from making political capital out of the crisis.
Democracy and terrorism are two opposite ideologies. Indias greatest assets in its fight against terrorism, and also in its rivalry with Pakistan, are its democracy and pluralism. These are also the reasons why India is receiving the attention and support of world powers.
A cool, self-confident and determined resolve, supported by calibrated pressure may continue to ensure that terror as a political weapon becomes totally ineffective. But care should be taken not to lose the international goodwill India has already earned in its war against terror. It should emphasise the fact that terror is a common threat to India and Pakistan; and that at a time when Pakistan is trying to recover from the reversal of its long-term Afghanistan policy, from its economic nadir and its international isolation, friendship with India should help its process of recovery.
But let there be no illusion that the defeat of terrorism alone will solve the Kashmir problem, even if it will make it easier. The current disillusion in Kashmir with Pakistan, with fundamentalism and with terrorism gives India an opportunity that is also a responsibility: to initiate a dialogue with leaders of all diverse regional and ethnic communities in the state, both about their internal relations, and on the overall status of the state. That would also be the right moment for India to start a dialogue with Pakistan, not only towards a resolution of the Kashmir dispute but to initiate a permanent friendship between the two nuclear neighbors.
