Author: Sudhanshu Ranade
Publication: The Hindu
Date: September 23,
2000
KASHMIR IS in the news
every single day. And yet it is so little understood. Again
and again well-meaning intellectuals from both sides of the border harp
on the need for greater people-to-people contact to pave the basis for
a way out of the Kashmir imbroglio. But again and again it turns
out that, even at the level of intellectuals, leave alone the people and
Governments, there is no real meeting of minds on the issue.
The sharp and often acrimonious
divisions among journalists and intellectuals from India and Pakistan,
on what precisely the problem between the two countries is, was all too
evident in July this year. But the thing goes much further and much deeper
than that. This is seen for instance in the sharply different stereotypes
that the children of the two countries are indoctrinated with about Muslims
and Hindus, and the very different things they are taught about the history
of `Muslim India' (or `India under Muslim rule'); particularly under Akbar
and Aurangzeb.
Even in the heady dawn
of these people-to-people exchanges, a decade ago, when it was decided
with much fanfare to plant a tree to symbolise the growing friendship between
the common people of the two countries, no agreement could be reached on
what the tree should be called. In the end two saplings were planted;
the Pakistanis called theirs dosti; the Indians named theirs maitri.
The trees, surely, have since withered away. The intellectuals, sadly,
are still with us.
Most people are simply
not aware that Article 370 is not much of a concern to Muslims in India
outside Kashmir. And they are not at all curious about why the Hurriyat
Conference leaders, while calling on Pakistan's High Commissioner in Delhi
whenever they get a chance, have never attempted to put their case before
Indian Muslims outside Kashmir.
General Pervez Musharraf
never misses a chance to tell the world that India is ``waging a war''
against Indian Muslims both in and outside Kashmir. Dutifully supported
by `journalists' and `human rights activists' in India and Pakistan (to
be more precise, by well-meaning propagandists), and, as if unaware of
the ground realities in Kashmir (of the war that our troops have been forced
to fight blindfolded against the invisible, heavily armed, incredibly brutal
and deeply treacherous enemy from across the border), General Musharraf
pretends to be aghast at the way that `poor Muslims' in Kashmir are being
ridden roughshod over (or, in his words, `humiliated, raped and killed')
by hundreds of thousands of `armed and arrogant Hindus'; while trying somehow
to wiggle his way out when people talk about the way hundreds of thousands
of `armed and arrogant Muslims' of West Pakistan brutalised (or `humiliated,
raped and killed') the poor Muslims of East Pakistan, and that too simply
because they elected their own leader, rather than leaving it to leaders
from the West, who had always been a hopeless and oppressive minority from
day one.
Many Indians, both Hindus
and Muslims, are cynical about the BJP president, Mr. Bangaru Laxman's
recent effort to reach out to the Muslims. But most are totally unaware
of the dramatic difference between the stand of the VHP and the RSS on
building the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya. The VHP says it will do this,
come what may. The RSS, meanwhile, has been repeatedly expressing
the hope that some out-of-court settlement can be arrived at, with a degree
of reparation and compromise, so that the troubling issue can be put behind
us once and for all. Even so radical an RSS `official' as the Union
Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, has been saying for
years that he believed the Babri Masjid demolition to have been a grievous
mistake; and has been stressing over and over again that the BJP must move
on from being a mere interest group to becoming a `responsible party of
governance'.
Even after the way that
its `commander in chief', Syed Salahuddin, sitting safely in Islamabad,
sabotaged the efforts of the Hizbul Mujahideen in Kashmir led by Abdul
Majid Dar to usher in an era of peace and prosperity in Kashmir, most people
remain unaware about the uneasiness of the Kashmiris of the sort of `support'
that Pakistan has been giving to `their' struggle. Most people are
unaware, too, of the way in which this position was unambiguously expressed
this July by the JKLF chief, Amanullah Khan.
Few are aware that even
as Syed Salahuddin threatens to take to other parts of India Pakistan's
war `on behalf of the Kashmiris', this war has in the meantime begun spreading
to other parts of Pakistan. If things carry on like this, Ms.
Benazir Bhutto recently said in public, as Pakistan disintegrates under
the weight of its unsustainable ambitions, Sindh and Baluchistan too could
soon go the way of Bangladesh.
But most sad and most
scary of all is the profound ignorance about the `unofficial' nuclear doctrine
of Pakistan that was spelled out this spring in the journal of the Institute
of Regional Studies, Islamabad; by the American Rodney Jones, an establishment
`non-proliferation' man turned warmonger and `consultant'. Before
quickly sketching his thesis in the space that remains, a preface is necessary.
The map which appears on the cover of the journal shows all of Kashmir
as being outside Indian territory - and all of Sikkim as well. Ostensibly
for `want of space', the map does not show any of the Northeastern States
as being part of the undisputed territory of India.
Let us now let Rodney
Jones speak for himself: ``Kargil and the intensified nationalist feeling
it inspired in India during the parliamentary election campaigns in September
1999 only strengthened the inclination in both (!) countries to build up
strategic capabilities and to make them operationally available.
Assuming the weapons and delivery systems are mobile, dispersed, and hard
to detect at times of crisis, two dozen deliverable warheads might be considered
sufficient. As long as the inventory is so small, Pakistan would
be inhibited from relying primarily on a retaliatory posture. Key
export controls and other barriers to nuclear and missile proliferation
have usually been instituted after key Indian acquisitions from abroad,
but before Pakistan has had the time to do so. Pakistan has been
forced by this uneven playing field to procure nuclear weapons and missiles
wherever it could. Thanks to this, Pakistan can now assuredly cause
`unacceptable damage' to key centres such as Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai
and Bangalore.
That Pakistan has not
been well run under recent elected Governments is well known, but the cliche
that Pakistan has become a `failed state' is a regrettable digression from
serious thought and analysis. Today, Pakistan's worst nightmare is
the threat of Indian invasion, under some pretext or the other, to `teach'
it a `permanent' lesson; to impose on it lasting subservience to India's
wishes; or even to break up Pakistan as it currently exists. India
deliberately pursues a strategy of intimidation against Pakistan through
crises and covert probes manipulated to wear it down psychologically.
It tries to isolate Pakistan from its partners, to play on its internal
divisions, and to distract the nation from normal social and economic activities
by forcing the diversion of scarce resources.
While India pretends
to aim at `credible minimum deterrence', Pakistan, being a smaller country,
would be better off pursuing what may be described as `maximally credible
nuclear deterrence'. Pakistani planners must seek to identify red
lines. These would not be specified publicly, but they would be the
thresholds that set nuclear strikes in motion. A first strike doctrine
would be chosen not because it could disarm or defeat India, but because
it would signify that Pakistani escalation, as a last resort, would be
sudden and all out, with catastrophic consequences for urban India.
Being the weaker of the two countries, this is the only real option available
to Pakistan.
It should be emphasised
that this expedient is not the same as a bluff, that could be shown up
for what it is after the outbreak of a war, but rather a reputation earned
in advance that presents the opponent with an impenetrable (un)certainty
regarding what may happen in the course of an avoidable war."
