From the archives, 26 May 2001

COMMENTS ON ARTICLE: THE J&K PEACE PROCESS

The article under review (The J&K ‘Peace Process’: Chasing a Chimera; Faultlines, Vol 8, pp. 1-40)  carries a critique of ‘peace processes’ in general and of the ongoing one in J&K in particular. The broader reservation of the authors (Dr. A Sahni and Mr. KPS Gill) is that the search for peaceful political solutions is akin to appeasement. With respect to J&K, the contention is that the initiative is flawed in that it is neglectful of the context of the problem – the context being taken as the increasing presence of radical islam in the subcontinent through the instrumentality of a Pakistani state held hostage by its military and its intelligence agencies. This comment offers a diverse perspective on the issues raised in the article. The importance of expressing the same lies in the hope of a Hegelian synthesis emerging from an ensuing debate.

 

It takes as its starting point the theoretical proposition that ideological perspectives held apriori inform perceptions of reality. Thus the assumptions (on which perspectives are based) influence the way a problem is defined. Given that, the resulting alternatives considered, their examination and prioritization are axiomatically divergent. In other words, a conservative perspective will yield a markedly different analysis of a problem than one formed in the liberal perspective. If that is so, then it is the contention between the two perspectives that will determine the outcome. This contention is the arena of politics related to security. There seems to be a deterioration in the standard of democratic debate attending security issues lately that the space for reconciliation of these perspectives is being constrained by the invective that attends this ‘dialogue of the deaf’ in India. The article in question is also guilty of the same in this regard, for it does not seek to argue its point of view but to assert it. 

 

With regard to the allegation of peace initiatives through political dialogue with the militant groupings being ‘appeasement’, three points need to be noted. One is that it would be a symptom of a militarized polity, and worse a militarisation of society, should this not be undertaken. It is beholden on a liberal-democratic system to search for solutions outside the military template, even if the same is simultaneously operative. Second is that not doing so is to put too large a premium on a military solution. The violence spiral can be empirically demonstrated in the plethora of conflicts in which it was erroneously believed that a higher degree of military action would beget the desired result. The search for the elusive military ‘victory’ is to chase a receding horizon. Lastly, there is a need to operationalise strategies originating in the peace studies discourse. This is occasioned by the fact that these may offer hitherto untested avenues of exit from quagmires of violence.

 

In so far as the J&K situation is taken as an example of the futility of activating a ‘peace process’, the argument here is that indications are that the affected people are so inclined. If such reports are true, then it is incumbent on a representative government to seek to materialize the inchoate articulations of a people in the midst of what amounts to a human tragedy. Second, the military has had a fair share of autonomy to combat the anti-national menace there, and continues to do so. Any constraints that were there were inherent in the situation wherein the operations were incident in demographic terrain – e.g. the necessity to use minimum force. That it was temporarily constrained by the ceasefire from pursuing certain tactical options is to convey the message of the ceasefire and to act as both an incentive and a threat in being. In the event, the withdrawal of the same also carries its own message. Thirdly, the criticism that the intended talks are with anti-national elements begs the question – who else, pray, will they be with than the antagonist?

 

Having made the broader counter-point, the specifics of the article will now be engaged in the sequence the points are raised in the article.

 

Point One (p. 5). The Israeli experience in negotiating peace is derided, and equated with the pre-Second World War appeasement of Hitler. In doing so the intent is to give negotiations a bad name. This ‘far right’ critique of the Peace Process in Israel lacks credibility for three reasons. One is that the Israeli-Palestinian equation in no way replicates the Jewish-Nazi one, or the Hitler-Remainder Europe one. Secondly, the relevance of this digression to the problem of J&K is somewhat contrived, for it is unmindful of the domestic attributes of the J&K problem.

 

Point Two (p. 6). The criticism of Nehru is a jaded one. The ceasefire and resort to the UN were the acts of a satisfied power willing to be reasonable. Having got to the ethno-linguistic divide that marked the political pre-eminence of the National Conference, it was a logically sustainable line at which to rein in the army. It conceded to the enemy his gain – that of geographical depth to his heartland. In the former lies the political sense in the decision and in the latter its maturity.

 

Point Three (p. 7). That the political formations that were unyielding of Nehru’s critics are now seeking a negotiated settlement to the Kashmir problem is prompted by their larger agenda. The settlement they reportedly are in favor of is trifurcation along sectarian lines, which is to reenergize the ‘two nation’ theory. This is thinkable in their scheme, for this would enable the larger project of reducing the minority elsewhere in the country to second-class citizen status. However, in so far as the government is concerned, it is not hostage to this agenda. Ruling parties, particularly in coalitions, have a more restrained approach to governance. Therefore, in pursuing efforts to a ‘negotiated settlement’ with the ‘sponsoring nations’ they are doing no more than mandated in the Simla Accord. As for negotiations with ‘terrorist forces’, the dialogue through violence is also on – in keeping with the preference of the authors. So why the angst?

 

Point Four (p. 7). The outcome of negotiations cannot be predicted ab-initio. This is no reason not to undertake the same. There are advantages of the interregnum for such groups. However, they cannot be blamed for the ‘confusion’ if any in the minds of the SF. For that the blame must be squarely put on the operational leadership’s shoulders that have been unable to translate the strategic direction into tactical action and communicate the same to the spear end. It must be understood that the military instrument has to be flexible and responsive. Its mental mobility must therefore be of the order of the militant/terrorist/insurgent/underground/hostile/ANE. There may be times when the restraint imposed is to convey the intent of the government to talk. The interim can be equally well exploited by the SF, e.g. Op Rhino that followed a brief monsoonal hiatus after Op Bajrang yielded better results as the SF did their homework well. In so far as the ceasefire in J&K went, it was in part a self-serving one to see the winter through and to restrain alienative operations as large scale CASO,

Point Five (p. 8-9). There is talk of a trifurcation of J&K along religious/geographical lines in order to arrive at a modus vivendi with Pakistan over the subsequent status of the Valley. The liberal critique of this is that it harks back to the Partition for its basis for a further division. The fear is that this may have a backlash for the minority population elsewhere in the country. The problem with this formulation is that it is unimpressed with the specifics of the Kashmir situation. Any answer in this ‘solution’ will only emerge when it is considered. Besides it holds Kashmir hostage to the separate issue of minority management. Apprehensions on that score need not stay the hand with regard to Kashmir. It would be a double abdication of governmental responsibility to plead that the vulnerability of muslim Indians elsewhere to backlash prevents imaginative options with regard to the Kashmir problem from emerging.

 

Point Six (p. 11). There is logic to the American assessment (and indeed the Indian one) in not treating Pakistan as a ‘terrorist state’ for doing so could well turn out a self-fulfilling prophecy. As with Egypt, Algeria, Turkey and the Gulf states, the military in Pakistan is not as islamised as the propaganda tracts will have us believe. So in determining our policy we need to be careful not to be victims of our own propaganda.

 

Point Seven (p. 11). There seems to be an element of wishful thinking in the statement: ‘…had India followed a consistent and coherent counter-terrorism agenda in J&K ensuring that the civilian population did not suffer inordinately even as the state applied all necessary force to defeat the terrorists’. Such precision in engagement is not a practical proposition in so far as the SF is concerned. In fact, the recent ceasefire can be attributed to sensitivity to the same, for the alienation in the population was in some measure due to the unsubtle military actions of the SF. 

 

Point Eight (p. 14). The demise of the JKLF was partially owing to the enthusiasm in the bean count game by the SF – unmindful that the intelligence flowing in was on account of the Pakistani need to be rid of the autonomous JKLF.

 

Point Nine (p. 15). The explanation that the ‘mass support’ for the extremists disappeared when they had been defeated on the ground in Punjab is closer to reality when turned on its head. In other words, when the ‘mass support’ disappeared, the extremists could be defeated. One would hesitate to use the word ‘mass’ here, and it rightly enclosed in apostrophes even by the authors. No doubt, this would eventually be true of J&K, and therein lies the importance of a people-friendly approach.

 

Point Ten (p. 17 and 28). In page 17 readers are informed that the ‘major and effective secessionist groupings in J&K are simply agencies of the Pakistani game plan in the state’. At page 38 readers are told that Pakistan is ‘no longer in control of forces of extremism it has created and nurtured.’ While the former deals with these forces in J&K, the latter is with respect to them in Pakistan. Page 38 also informs that the two are inseparable for these suicide squads ‘will increasingly come to J&K to do the only things they know and understand: ‘kill and to die’.  There is an inherent contradiction in this – Pakistan can control them when in India but not in its own backyard!

 

Point Eleven (p. 19). A favorable quote from that ‘authority’ Yossef Bodansky – one who believes that the importance of Kashmir to Pakistan is in the rail based ‘trans-Asia axis’ it wishes to open to Central Asia through Kashmir!

 

Point Twelve (p. 19). A victory for ‘terrorism’ is deplorable. The point however is in how the situation in Kashmir is defined. If terrorism is seen as merely a tactic of the insurgency therein, then non-military efforts to end the insurgency are not inappropriate. Secondly, the search for ‘victory’ by the state cannot conscionably be to the last Kashmiri. The myth must be recalled that even the killing of all Jewish babies by the Pharaoh could not prevent the birth of Moses.

 

Point Thirteen (p. 19). It is regrettable that the anti-imperialist struggles of the afro-asian people that had the support of the Indian people and governments are categorized as ‘terrorist’. To club the terrorism/insurgency in J&K with these is to shoot oneself in the foot, for the use of violence in the freedom from metropolitan powers was legally and morally justified. By equating the two, the authors err in alleviating the militants, else denigrating the anti-imperialist freedom fighters.

 

Point Fourteen (p. 21). One reason for the use of ‘terrorist’ methods by groups is that states are impervious to ‘peaceful and democratic’ methods, subject as they are to what Ayoob calls the ‘third world problemmatic’ of nation building in an accelerated timeframe. Thus this advice to ‘ambitious and impatient groupings’ holds good for states too – an advice that is marked by its absence in the article. It is for this reason that the Indian government is rightly following a dual track approach.

 

Point Fifteen (p. 22). One reason for a ‘final settlement’ to the inter-state dimension of the Kashmir problem is that arriving at the same will help undercut the fundamentalist energies that the following paragraphs in the article tell us are welling up in Pakistan. Therefore it is not the ‘pressure’ that should focus our attention towards negotiations, but self-interest – for page 38 tells us that such a denouement may not be desirable from an Indian point of view. 

 

Point Sixteen (p. 22). The pan-islamic agenda to which this is attributed is the search by the West for fresh enemies to replace the Soviets. Pakistani insecurity arises owing to its strategic elite dominated by the military operating in the realist paradigm. It quite naturally sees the very magnitude of India along all and any parameter as a threat. Therefore, being the weaker power, it seeks to address the same by attempting to undercut Indian advantages. Therein lies the strategic sense in tying down Indian conventional superiority in LIC as in Punjab and Kashmir, and in unimportant theatres as Siachen and Kargil. Indian realpolitic approach likewise has not assuaged Pakistani fears any. India has intervened in pursuit of its self-interest in its neighbors’ domestic domain – remember East Pakistan and the LTTE in Sri Lanka! Secondly, it is unlikely that India would have pursued the Simla Agreement enjoined bilateral negotiations for the ‘final settlement’ of the J&K problem without the application of pressure in the manner it has been built up by Pakistan, given the Indian definition of the ‘unfinished business of partition’ – the vacation of POK by Pakistan.

 

Point Seventeen (p. 23). The late 80s were not a period when ‘terror broke out’ in Kashmir. Terror was a tactic in the larger population-based uprising in the early period of the insurgency. This facet needs to be put into perspective, lest we impose our preferences on contemporary history. The secular bases of the grievances and demands need to be factored in to our analysis. A view has it that the nature of the surprising uprising was such that to tackle it effectively its contours needed to be changed. This was a shared perception across the LOC. Therefore the religious angle was played up by both states for their own purposes. It is so much easier for India to engage with a ‘proxy war’ than an internal armed rebellion. For the Pakistanis the ‘azadi’ movement was equally distasteful. It is important therefore to vet the vocabulary we use – for it is the building block of perceptions. Calling it the outbreak of ‘terror’ surely blinds the reader to the wider and secular mass struggle that was commandeered by the two states to respective realpolitik purposes in the early years of the last decade.

 

Point Eighteen (p. 23) One aspect on the ‘hardening of beliefs’ is the simultaneous rise of the hindutva philosophy to political ascendance and credibility. A minority, already nursing perceived relative deprivation, is further ghettoized by violence. The false propaganda of having been ‘appeased’ (any set of economic indicators will reveal the falsity of the claim), and the few avenues thereby being threatened with closure in a dispensation that is no longer ‘pseudo secular’, is driving the minority to be defensive about its identity.

 

Point Nineteen (p. 23). The danger of putting too fine a point on the intelligence game of subversion is that doing so leads to the subconscious identification of anti-nationalism with the minority community. This plays into the hands of hindu fundamentalist elements in polity who would prefer this for their political and ideological ends. Therefore allusions to the supposed ‘recruitment of religious soldiers for a pan-islamic jihad in pockets of muslim populations all across India’ is dangerous. It reminds one of the dialogue in a hindi movie Fiza in which the heroine searching for her lost brohter lectures a muslim cleric on the futility of entertaining thoughts of the making the green stripe in the Indian tricolour take over the rest of the flag. The point is that any fervent in the green is not divorced from the same in the saffron, and secondly the green is at best merely trying to stay on under the push and shove of the saffron. Therefore it is sociological innocence to believe that ‘Pakistan’s covert agencies and extremist religious groupings’ are responsible. It denies agency to the extremist elements in both Indian communities, who incidentally have a symbiotic relationship – needing each other to capture power over their respective communities. It must be noted that analytical simplicity (such as viewing Indian society as binary as done here) is also dangerous and is the very project of the extremists. This further underlines the point that viewing the muslim communities as monolithic and homogeneous, and easily susceptible to inducement, without reference to their local political and economic situation is untenable.

 

Point Twenty (p. 23- 26). It bears mention that the local/sub-regional factors of consequence are neglected if we are to believe that there is a grand design behind the ‘process of encirclement’ the subsequent paragraphs in the article reflect on. For instance, firstly, the showing of its law enforcing agencies compromised the state, in riots in both Bombay and Coimbatore. The defensive retaliation/arrangements by the muslim communities there need to be seen in that light. There is a strand of opinion that the Bombay blasts have done much for the subsequent peace there, by restoring the sense of honor/local balance of power. In this regard it must be kept in mind that the party responsible for the Bombay riots was in power over the state. Secondly, the influx of Bangladeshis into India is divested of the socio-economic rationale that is at its core. As a result it is self-servingly made to appear as an ‘invasion’. This suits the purposes of certain political formations that wish to dramatize the issue of an in-the-make minority vote bank of their opposition for making of the majority community a vote bank for themselves. In effect, such a characterization of the Bangladeshi issue in strategic discourse is to legitimize the party line of these formations. Lastly, the politics of identity is not a one-way street. In a globalising world there is a corresponding return to the roots phenomenon by cultures that are threatened. These include those of both the majority and minorities. The efforts at cultural preservation by these communities as tablighi movement, madrassas etc. need to be seen also in this light. To see it entirely as a national security issue wherein these are seen as threatening is to betray a political agenda – for the article does not mention the equivalent efforts of revivalism in the majority community. As they cliché goes – ‘You don’t clap with one hand.’

 

Point Twenty One (p. 29). The phrase ‘process of encirclement’ metamorphoses to ‘strategy of encirclement’ within a space of few pages. ‘Strategy’ by definition implies purposive thought and action. Therefore the ferment in muslim communities elsewhere in the subcontinent (Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka) that is described without reference to the local dynamics is tried to be put in the framework of an ISI engineered grand strategy. Next we will be told that the ‘monkey man’ was an ISI plant!

 

Point Twenty Two (p. 31). Your survey of the islamist movement neglects a few pertinent issues. Firstly, the ‘extremist Islamic vision’ is not seen in the context of the international political economy. The neo-colonial embrace of the arab world by the West, legitimized by the energy security enamored, state-centric, world order, is the root of the revisionism of radical Islam. Secondly, the Afghan problem needs to be viewed in light of the formulation of Stephen Walt, in that the revolutionary energy dissipates in accordance with the levels of satiation reached by the regime (witness historical France and Russia, and lately Iran). The taliban in Afghanistan are being denied recognition by a concert of external powers (to include India) propping up their opponents. This increases their extremism directed without, lest the revolution collapse in on itself. In terms of Indian self-interest this is a regime we could reconcile to, in the hope of a ‘Frankensteinien dilemma’ (p. 32) overtaking their sponsors Pakistan. Doing so would help keep Afghan fighters out of Kashmir – presently sent their as a quid pro quo.  Lastly, is the issue of the drugs trade - the demand side is not above blame, for the market is the West. If arms could be sent into this region for US Cold War interests, surely these can be reciprocated with drugs – howsoever reprehensible may this be. The effect of arms is not invisible here, and by no stretch of imagination can it be equated with the effect drugs have on the consumer society – remember 1.5 million Afghans died to give the West its peace dividend! The weak will adopt the weapons they can.

 

Point Twenty Three (p. 32). The ‘cancerous malformation’ referred to in the quote is not the ‘non-islamic world’ as interpreted by the authors, but is a reference to the state system that is disrupting realization of the doctrinal tenet of ‘ummah’. Secondly, the ‘terror’ referred to in the second quote can be equated with the clausewitzian concept of imposing one’s ‘will’ on an enemy. 

 

Point Twenty Three (p. 34). On the gratuitous sectarian violence in Pakistan, within Pakistan exists a point of view that these are at least in part the doing of the RAW as part of the intelligence game (See recent book by Shahid Amin, a retired Pakistani diplomat). Sensibly, the RAW does not advertise its work. There is no evidence of democratic oversight of its budget. Therefore, the formulation - ‘what ISI is to India, RAW is to Pakistan’ - is not implausible.

 

Point Twenty Four (p. 35-6). It would suit us to project Pakistan as a ‘failing state’, an imminent victim of islamists. We need to take a second opinion on this. Interestingly, it is a projection that Pakistan itself manages equally well for its own ends! It must be recalled that as late as a 1996 (?) an islamist coup led by Maj Gen Abbasi was suppressed by the Pakistani army.

 

Point Twenty Five (p. 39). It is true that ‘terrorists’ and ‘mass murderers’ must not be accommodated in a democratic polity. However, the borderline between criminality and politics has been breached more blatantly in mainstream politics. Therefore, the distinction cannot solely be made in the periphery. Like charity, it must begin at home – at the center. Secondly, ‘freedom’ is indeed a ‘birth right’ that needs to be ‘fought for and defended’. That is a message that the restive periphery is sending the center by taking up arms for the democratic fruits of independence have not trickled down to them (In J&K there has been only one election that may be considered as a free and fair one, that of 1977). Therefore, these militant movements are not to be ‘defeated’, but deserve to be ‘accommodated’. Thirdly, the search for a ‘demonstration of this in Kashmir’ would be to put our eggs in a singularly militarized basket – the prudence and strategic sense of which is questionable.

 

Having made the counter-points with reference to the specifics, a major conclusion emerges from the exercise. It would appear that the dimensions of a problem seem to change with the kind of spectacles with which the problem is viewed. It is probable that both perspectives cannot be right at the same time, nor are both entirely wrong. It behooves the analyst and policy maker to take a bifocal view of a problem. In effect, the national security perspective in the realist state-centric mold needs to take its critique seriously by factoring in insights from diverse fields as socio-economics, organizational theory, domestic politics etc. As to what the implication of the above is on the nature of journal itself and on the drift of the articles therein, this writer leaves to the judgment of the editorial team.