SHOOTING for a CENTURY

THE INDIA-PAKISTAN CONUNDRUM

By STEPHEN P. COHEN

Brookings Institution Press

Copyright ©2013 THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8157-2186-4

Contents

Preface…………………………………………………………..xiAcknowledgments……………………………………………………xvii1 Context…………………………………………………………12 Conflicts……………………………………………………….333 India…………………………………………………………..604 Pakistan………………………………………………………..885 Explanations…………………………………………………….1186 Prospects……………………………………………………….1477 American Interests and Policies……………………………………179Notes…………………………………………………………….197Index…………………………………………………………….225Maps……………………………………………………………..India on the Eve of Independence, 1947……………………………….xviiiSouth Asia………………………………………………………..34Jammu and Kashmir………………………………………………….45

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Context

Since emerging as independent states in 1947, Pakistanand India have been engaged in one of the world’s most complex and sharplycontested rivalries. It is as long-lived as the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab dispute.Though the two states are similar in many ways, not least in their culturalcloseness, they began with a basic clash of national identities, soon followedby border and territorial disputes. Each then went on to support separatistelements in the other country. Now, after four wars and numerous crises,they are nuclear rivals, and a deep and near-permanent diplomatic hostilityshapes their relations with the rest of the world. The conflict continues toevoke international attention, although only rarely action. In comparativeterms, it has the dubious distinction of being one of the few conflicts that aretruly intractable, meaning conflicts that last more than twenty years despitemultiple attempts to end them. As one student of the subject notes, 95 percentof the world’s conflicts are resolvable, only 5 percent are not, the India-Pakistandispute being the longest-lasting in the latter group.

Relations between India and Pakistan, today the world’s second and sixthmost populous states, are far from static, however. They improve and deterioratewithin a certain range—generating new aspects and complications,giving rise to cautious optimism, but also feeding uncertainty. The emergenceof nuclear capability in both states after 1998 raised the stakes butalso reduced the chances of a new conflict. Although going nuclear did notprevent a small war in 1999 and nearly a major one in 2001–02, it did showthat these weapons affect the propensity for (and conduct of) war betweennuclear-armed rivals. All the same, intelligence errors or a strategic misjudgment—ofa kind common to all states, big and small, wise and stupid—could(and probably will) lead to another crisis.

History’s Trajectory

In the wide view of scholars and policymakers, the rivalry between Indiaand Pakistan is deeply rooted in the years 1858, when Great Britain assumeddirect control over a large part of the subcontinent, taking over from the BritishEast India Company, and 1947, when it partitioned India and decamped.During these years many princely states continued with ultimate authorityresting in the British Crown and Parliament. Over half of territorial India(approximately two-thirds of the population) was ruled by British administrators,magistrates, and military forces—collectively known as the Raj—aswell as a large army raised in India but officered by the British. The overallsecurity of the subcontinent was enforced by the unchallenged sea power ofthe Royal Navy. The Indian military (later divided between the two successorstates) tied the region together, its multiethnic, multireligious, and multi-casteregiments reflecting the region’s diversity as well as British expansionfrom the south and the east to the west and northwest.

Under the Raj’s system of direct and indirect governance, South Asiabecame a strategically coherent region. It served as an important commercialand military gateway to East and Southeast Asia; then as a source of capital,technology, manpower, and investment for Britain’s African and Mideastpossessions; and later as an imperial police force in two world wars.

Even before 1947, conflict arose as a result of the intertwining of twocompetitions. The first competition was between the nascent visions of Indiaand Pakistan, epitomized respectively by the Congress Party and the MuslimLeague. Both wanted independence from Britain; the Muslim League alsowanted independence from a perceived Hindu dominance. The second wasthe multisided rivalry between and among the princely states, the British Raj,and the leaders of these two competing nationalist movements. The visionsof the Muslim League and Congress also differed in the disposition of theprincely states; the rivalry was further complicated by their different military,strategic, and economic visions.

The Indian National Congress, formed as a lobbying group in 1885, wasinitially sympathetic to British rule (one of its founders was an Englishman).Until the group’s Lahore session in 1929, it regarded itself as a loyal oppositionmovement, seeking not independence but reform. By 1930 the Congress wastransformed into a mass movement seeking independence—albeit one stillled by elites—and included such notable Muslims as Mohammed Ali Jinnahand Maulana Azad. Still other Muslims called for a renaissance, leading to thefoundation of the Muslim League in Dhaka in 1906. The close analogy with theMiddle East has often been noted; there the concept of Israel as a homeland forthe Jewish people and that of Palestine as an Arab-dominated but multiethnicstate was intensified and enlarged by their incompatible territorial claims.

In response to pressure, the British introduced the elective principle in thegovernance of India under the Morley-Minto reforms of 1909 and accededto demands for separate electorates for Muslims, a step that was stronglycriticized both by Hindu-oriented parties and by secular groups such as theIndian National Congress. By 1940 the Muslim League, now with Jinnah atits head, was openly advocating a separate Muslim-dominated and -orientedstate, to be called Pakistan.

Despite the rivalry between the ideas of India and Pakistan, supporters onboth sides agreed on one major point: all wanted to rid India of the British,although the two differed in the proposed timing of the break. Note, too, thatmany prominent Muslims were members of the Indian National Congress,though the League ultimately claimed to speak on behalf of all of IndianMuslims. When partition finally took place, it drove the greater populationinto disastrous turmoil: hundreds of thousands lost their lives and millionsbecame refugees. About 7.2 million Indian Muslims migrated to Pakistan,forming about one-fourth of the population of West Pakistan. On the otherside, about 5.5 million Hindus and Sikhs left Pakistan for India.

The two states subsequently acquired extraregional, mutually exclusiveallies, became ideological rivals, and were shaped by quite different organizingprinciples. All of this happened despite a common history and geography,very similar cultural roots and economic systems, and a strategicenvironment that had been shared for centuries.

Partition was made even more complicated by the existence of a thirdvision of South Asia, that of the hundreds of princely and autonomous states,although only a half dozen really counted. Though nominally independent,even the major ones—Jammu and Kashmir, Hyderabad, Junagadh—werebound to New Delhi by treaty and by their inferior military capability.The British saw to it that no princely state acquired modern military hardwarein any significant amount and that the princely armies were deployedand manned in such a way as to ensure that they would never serve as thebasis for a breakaway movement. This control strategy was applied duringWorld War II when many of the princely armies were brought into the regularIndian army. The British exerted similar control through their treatieswith the princes and attendant political advisers residing in the state capitals.These ensured that the rulers did not stray in the direction of independenceand that affairs of state remained within boundaries tolerated by the British.The quid pro quo was that when a ruler got into trouble, he (or rarely she)could usually count on British military and political support. By and largethe system worked at very little cost to the British, as exemplified by Hyderabad,a princely state larger than France with a predominantly Hindu populationand a Muslim ruler, known as the nizam. The British provided adviceand security to the (Muslim) nizam, who presided over a cluster of smallerHindu rulers, who in turn governed a largely Hindu population, albeit onewith a sizable Muslim minority in one of India’s most stable regions—nowthe state of Andhra Pradesh. Some of these princes, including the nizam atone point, had thoughts of independence, but the costs of challenging theBritish were steep, and the rewards for loyalty, both fiscal and symbolic, weresubstantial, as was the assurance of British support against any usurpers.

When partition did come, the Indian princes were strongly advised bythe British to choose either India or Pakistan. The visions of a future Indiaand Pakistan rubbed against the ambitions of some of the princes, with theresult that the rush to force them to join one or the other ignited severalsignificant conflicts.

Although technically the decision to accede was in the hands of the ruler,not the ruled, India used force to incorporate Hyderabad and Junagadh(another largely Hindu state with a Muslim ruler). But it also proposed aplebiscite in the cases of Junagadh and Jammu and Kashmir, the latter alargely Muslim state with a Hindu ruler. The offer to Kashmir, subsequentlyregretted by Indian diplomats, came at a moment when the Indian and Pakistaniarmies were inconclusively battling for control of the state, and thestalemate has continued ever since.

The decision to coerce Hyderabad (in the middle of India) and Junagadh(on the western India-Pakistan border), both Muslim-ruled stateswith Hindu majorities, into joining India generated anger and unease aboutIndian intentions. Meanwhile, the handling of Kashmir, a Muslim-majoritystate with a Hindu ruler, sparked a conflict that would become the focus ofcompetition between India and Pakistan for the next sixty years. This disputereinforced Pakistan’s notion that the army was the most critical institutionfor the survival and advancement of the nation, which was to have a detrimentaleffect on Pakistan’s political order.

In the short view, it seemed natural that the British Empire should be succeededby only a few states. The Raj itself rose from the ashes of the MughalEmpire, which in turn was the heir to several regional empires. In the longview, stretching over two millennia, states of the subcontinent emerged ina pattern of imperial advance and retreat, of a single dominant power andthen diverse and often competing centers of power. No iron law decrees thatSouth Asia should be dominated by one state, or even two states. Indeed,other regions—China, Europe—have had their integrative moments as well,followed by long spells of competition and rivalry among the fragments.

The periods of imperial retreat were not necessarily marked by stagnation;modern historiography points to important cultural, economic, andeven military developments during the many hundreds of years when SouthAsia was politically less united. Of equal significance here, these years sawthe rise of durable regional and subregional political, economic, and culturalalignments. Some of these endured for centuries, especially in South Indiaand along India’s western coast, while Afghanistan was under North India’sthumb. As a result, even when South Asia was ruled from North India orDelhi, regional powers were usually in a bargaining position with the morepowerful rulers.

Bloodbath and Independence

On July 18, 1947, Britain’s Parliament passed the India Independence Actand less than a month later, on August 14 and 15, respectively, declared Indiaand Pakistan independent sovereign states. The dates were staggered to allowthe last viceroy of India, Lord Louis Mountbatten, to travel from India toPakistan for the transfer of power. He was then appointed governor-generalof India, but in Pakistan the title was assumed by Jinnah to spite Mountbatten,who in his view was too pro-Indian and too much under the influence ofJawaharlal Nehru, the leading Indian politician of his generation.

The vast catastrophe called Partition was prefigured in the ghastly Calcuttariots of 1946. I deal with its impact on the memories of citizens of bothstates later in the book; suffice to say that it shaped the views of millions ofIndians and Pakistanis, especially those who were forced to migrate fromone state or another, or who were the victims (or perpetrators) of atrocities.Many of their memories, often in wildly distorted versions of the truth, havebeen passed on to second and third generations.

Important stories of members of both communities who helped or rescuedmembers of a different faith are mostly undocumented. The great authorsand cultural figures who recognized and opposed Partition go unmentioned.Even official history projects in both countries pay little attention to thesestories and are devoted mainly to building national solidarity around negatives:distrust or hatred of another religious or ethnic community.

This is true of both countries, but not in equal measure. Taking the moralhigh ground, India has always seen itself as the regional power that does notneed Pakistan and as the prime inheritor of the Raj’s legacy of subcontinentaldominance. Pakistan, as the smaller and militarily weaker of the two states, hasassumed a more defensive and also a more assertive posture, strikingly reminiscentof Israel’s stance. In keeping with these attitudes, India rejects outsidesupport, whereas Pakistan cultivates it. In the case of Kashmir, Indians workhard to ignore what steps might change the status quo, whereas Pakistan iseager to seize upon them. India, which once sought UN intervention in Kashmir,now abhors it, and Indian diplomats scramble mightily to prevent it frombeing raised in any forum in the world, even as their government has beenunable to accommodate or suppress Kashmiri separatists and pro- Pakistanifactions. On the other side, generations of Pakistanis have been taught tobelieve that fundamentally India has not come to terms with Pakistan’s existence.This overall narrative was reinforced and legitimized by the educationalcurricula in both countries, perpetuating the divide in successive generations,and the role of partition in feeding this narrative is well documented.

As for the more material consequences, the second partition (which gaveEast Bengal independence) was also important. In 1947 India and Pakistanconstituted 94 percent of the South Asian land mass (not including Afghanistan)and 96 percent of its population. After the creation of Bangladeshout of the former East Pakistan in 1971 these figures changed: Pakistan wasreduced by half in population and size. Today, with the loss of East Pakistan,Pakistan accounts for 12 percent of the total population of South Asia, 18percent of the land mass, and 8.5 percent of the total economy. Its militaryspending remains very high, about 22 percent of government expenditure.India spends much more on defense, about US$44.4 billion next to Pakistan’s$5.6 billion, although as a proportion of GNP defense spending isabout 2.7–2.8 percent for both. Nevertheless, Pakistan is falling behind Indiain terms of overall defense spending and conventional weaponry, whichhas propelled its nuclear acquisition program; it probably has more nuclearweapons than India, although exact figures are difficult to come by.

From the outset, both states benefited from institutions established bythe British: a strong bureaucracy, a functioning judiciary, and a professionalmilitary. Contrary to its current status, however, Pakistan’s army did notstart out as the strongest institution in the state. Very few Pakistanis filledthe ranks above colonel, and for a number of years key positions were heldby British officers, who even served as the army’s first two chiefs. At the sametime, Pakistan had a uniting figure in a native son, Mohammed Ali Jinnah.Meanwhile, India had not only Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi but also a muchstronger second and third tier of leaders.

Created in two parts or wings, with the more populous but militarilyweaker East separated from the West by 1,000 miles of Indian territory,Pakistan held a critically important strategic position. Yet the chaos of partitionleft it with a proportionately weaker state capacity than India’s, aswell as limited financial resources. Many Pakistanis also claimed that Indiahad not fulfilled its part of the bargain when it came to sharing militaryassets, which quickly bred suspicion throughout official Pakistan, but especiallythe army—where it became one of the institution’s treasured grievances.Thus right off the bat Pakistan viewed India as a hostile neighborand considered itself vulnerable to India’s malevolence, which meant thatthe Pakistan army’s primary role from the beginning would be to counterIndia’s enmity. Actually, the lesson drawn by both sides in the aftermath ofpartition and the ensuing wars and crises was that some military capabilitydirected against the other was a prime necessity. Each saw the other as itsmost serious security threat, second only to the consolidation and absorptionof the princely states.

Four Crises

India-Pakistan relations were greatly affected by four post-partition crises,three of them involving the princely states of Kashmir (see chapters 5 and 6),Hyderabad, and Junagadh. A fourth crisis revolved around the 1950 communalriots in East Bengal, which led the two rivals to sign the Nehru-LiaquatPact protecting minority rights.

In the case of Junagadh, trouble erupted when on August 15, 1947, itsMuslim ruler acceded to Pakistan, which welcomed the move. Junagadh’slargely Hindu public responded with massive protests, however, whichprompted Indian forces to occupy the state on November 9, 1947, whereuponthe ruler reversed himself and acceded to India (on the border, theweak Pakistani forces were unable to intervene in the state). On February 20,1948, India held a referendum on the accession, and the state’s populationvoted in favor of it.

As for Kashmir, its maharaja toyed with the idea of independence butchanged his mind when the state came under attack from Pakistani raidersand was granted armed assistance from India. He then acceded to India,handing over powers of defense, communication, and foreign affairs. BothIndia and Pakistan agreed that the accession would be confirmed by a referendumonce hostilities had ceased.

By May 1948 the Indian army had regained control over much, but notall, of Kashmir, and the regular Pakistan army was called upon to mount anoffense. The war ended on January 1, 1949, when a cease-fire was arrangedby the United Nations, which recommended that both India and Pakistanabide by their commitment to hold a referendum in the state. The two sidesagreed to establish a cease-fire line where the fighting had stopped, whichbecame a de facto border monitored by a UN peacekeeping force, but thereferendum was never held.
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