From the Archives, 22 Oct 1999

LIMITED (NUCLEAR) WAR

  

In the nationalist hysteria succeeding the nuclearisation of  the 
subcontinent, a sobering fact seems to have been missed.  We  are 
told  that the nukes are not meant to be used.  That they  are  a 
political - not military - weapons.  We 've given unto  ourselves 
a  ground  strategy of `no first use'.  Our nuclear  weapons  are said  to be for the sole defensive purpose of  deterring  nuclear use by the adversary.  The fact is that we have entered a  quali­tatively different era, in effect war is quite a different  ball-game now. 

The  textbookish dIND promises `unacceptable costs'  to  dissuade 
any  use  by the other side of its nuclear weapons.   In  popular understanding  this  means we will be keeping   their  urban  and industrial  centres  as  hostage to their  good  behavior.   This imagery conjures up dooms-day scenarios across the  Indo-Gangetic plain,  thereby  making it unthinkable.  We are lulled  into  be­lieving that a nuclear war is neither fightable nor winable - and is therefore hypothetical.  Thus our acceptance of our supposedly enhanced  status, as a NWS, in world affairs - leaving aside  the details.  However, the devil is in the detail, in that there  are factors that have been deliberately left unaddressed in a  public debate  hither to fore dominated by the pro-nuclear  lobby.   The salient one is that the scenarios painted, being implausible, are not  how  strategy will orchestrate them.  Strategy  is  to  make nuclear war thinkable, by making us believe we can control  esca­lation.  The doctrinal aim of deterring nuclear war is to be  met by assurance of being able to fight one.
 

 Next is the fallout of nuclearisation in raising the threshold of outbreak  of war.  Given the consequently greater scope for  sub-conventional  engagement,  we are, post-Kargil, in the  midst  of also  enhancing  our conventional capabilities.  The idea  is  to deter LIC by conventional ascendancy.  The fact is that  Pakistan would respond by lowering the nuclear threshold in line with  the logic  -  `use it or lose it'.  Its menu of options is  from  the `green  field'  warning  shot-across-the-bow to  dropping  it  on military  targets in its own territory.  With our `no first  use' pledge  lapsing  as a result, we would have to make good  on  the promise  of `unacceptable costs'.  Thus, the problem  will  arise when  `first  use'  is  not in the envisaged  form  of  a  `first strike'.   

Having used the weapon, to blunt our conventional edge,  Pakistan would have `escalation dominance' - in that, the onus  will be on us  to  escalate.  In its use of the Bomb,  Pakistan  would  have taken care to deprive us of the option of inflicting  `unaccepta­ble'  damage in return.  In short, nuclear retaliation  would  be politically and militarily redundant, and morally outrageous.  We will  find  ourselves self-deterred.  This implies  in  one  fell swoop, Pokhran II has succeeded in presenting Pakistan a  compre­hensive deterrent.
 

 If  that  be the conundrum that faces Indian strategists,  it  is worth  enquiry  as  to their likely solution.   The  answer  very simply  is  Limited (Nuclear) War.  This presupposes  a  democles sword  of  a mutual nuclear exchange over  `counter-value'  (read people)  targets.   The strategists prefer to feel  that  holding this  in abeyance is a viable proposition - to believe  otherwiseis  to put themselves out of buisness.  They do not  reckon  with the power of the `mutilation' stories on the mob, the forces  and the  politician.  Its so much easier to drop a Bomb on the  hated `other'.  In short, escalation is axiomatic.   

In  fact, having reviewed the problem, the solution may  also  by
now  be obvious.  And its clearly not one the `strategists',  the forces, the scientific Establishment, or their present day political  master will let on.  It goes under the jargon  -`non-offensive defence'.  The idea is that since nuclear weapons cannot be disinvented practically, or disowned politically, it is best that under  their  umbrella the quest for  conventional  dominance  be discontinued.  The wiser answer to LIC is on the plane of  internal security management and is at the political level.  Thus  can India partake of any nuclear dividend,  while avoiding the costs. 

It  is  time therefore to revisit these details  of  the  nuclear debate,  lest inertia be mistaken for consensus.  Any  acceptance of  the pro-nuclear position rests, as we have seen,  on  partial and selective exposure to nuclear reality.  The latest twist  the spin  doctors and would-be strategists wish to impart has  to  be debunked  by  being unequivocal over the  synonimity  of  limited nuclear war and nuclear war.  It may save us, by a hawks calcula­tion, Rupees Seven followed by eleven zeros!
 

 

Viva Presentation – Ali Ahmed, 23 Feb 12

 PhD JNU - CIPOD, SIS

India’s Limited War doctrine: Structural, Political and Organisational Factors

The genesis of the dissertation was atop a canal obstacle where the battalion I was then commanding was deployed as exercise enemy, Nark force, in Exercise Sanghe Shakti in 2006. 1 Armoured Division of 2 Corps chose that site of the canal for the break in battle. It was fore ordained that they would have broken out by first light. In effect, my unit was cut to pieces in three hours. I did not have anything much to do thereafter and was able to from the vantage of an on-site bystander witness the proceedings over the next four days with exercise timings truncated. The strike corps ended up in its projection areas across the third obstacle, encompassing an airfield captured by a para-drop for substance and surge. I wondered as to what a nuclear armed enemy would make of all this. This experience has prompted the research question: Why has India gone in to an offensive doctrine despite nuclearisation?

 

It is fair to believe that the investment in nuclearisation should have made India secure. It was even advertised that now that both states, India and Pakistan, have the bomb, they could sit down and talk their differences through. Neither state has taken cue from this understanding. Instead, Pakistan launched Operation Badr in Kargil and later went way past the Indian threshold of tolerance in the terror attack on Parliament. India for its part has moved to a Limited War doctrine, dubbed colloquially as Cold Start. A counter factual can be hazarded that in case 9/11 had not drawn the US into the region, 26/11 would have been earlier and would not have witnessed a strategy of restraint on part of India. Given this offensive orientation by both states despite the nuclear backdrop, there is a case for believing that security is imperiled. There is therefore a need to investigate what impels offensive doctrines. Is this in response to threat perceptions? Is it instead originating in the body politic of the state? Or is this due to organizational compulsions?

 

But first I needed to demonstrate that there has indeed been a change in India’s military doctrine. In the first chapter I do an interpretive history since the 1971 War to demonstrate that there has been a movement in India’s strategic posture and in its military doctrine. The strategic posture has moved from defensive to offensive deterrence bordering on compellence, while the military doctrine has moved from defensive to offensive. This agenda setting chapter also carries a description of the Limited War doctrine, advertised as proactive and offensive, and discusses the conventional-nuclear interface.

 

Thereafter answering the three questions I posed, the dissertation in subsequent chapters tries to locate the drivers behind India’s conventional doctrine,. The search has consequently been located at the three levels of analysis: structural, unit and organizational. While the individual level is consequential for doctrine generation, it has been left out for some future doctoral study when the memoirs and records are available. Records are indeed scarce since that is the information policy or lack of it. The study therefore has attempted to compensate by forming a representative picture of military thinking. What was I looking for?

 

There is an extensive body of theoretical work connected to doctrine over the last two decades that has helped make this case study’s thick description a theoretically informed one. The well known realist theory served to provide the theoretical backdrop to the examination of the hypothesis at the structural level. The theory has it that the anarchical international system prompts self-help on part of states. The states attempt to create and leverage power against threats in the environment through internal and external balancing. Since military capability is a significant element of national power, harnessing it is done through formulating doctrine. Therefore doctrine is a form of internal balancing by states since doctrine lends coherence to military power.

 

Since the realism looks at the system and not at the unit and the doctrine process occurs within a state, there is a need to look at the unit. The cultural theoretical lens lent itself for examination of the unit level. Cultural theory has it that while imbalance of power may exist in a system, whether these are treated as opportunities or threats would depend on how they are viewed. In other words, domestic politics matters. How states make sense of the world, how other state actions are interpreted and what states wish to do with the military instrument owes to political culture arising in the domestic sphere. There are three variants of culture: political culture, strategic culture and organizational culture. Cultural theory, developed in relation to doctrine by Elisabeth Kier in her work Imagining War, has it that strategic or political-military culture impacts doctrine. However, its influence is mediated by organisational culture of the military in question.

 

A look at organizational culture necessitates ‘looking into the box’ or at the organizational level. Here Graham Allison’s three models provided a conceptual handle at this level. The rational actor model involving reasoned responses to external stimuli in the form of threats is equivalent to the realist response studied at the structural level. Therefore remaining at this level are the Organisational Process models and the Bureacratic Politics model. The organizational process model posits that doctrine, being a mandate of the military, is something that the military would generate as part of discharging its social obligation. In the process, organizations cater for institutional interests such as budgets, role salience, prestige, autonomy etc. Militaries prefer offensive doctrines for these reasons. The Bureaucratic Politics model has it that organisations compete with each other. Since the military is not a monolith, the doctrinal sphere becomes a battle space for bureaucratic fights. Doctrine therefore becomes a weapon and doctrine making a strategy in this contest.

 

I drew hypothesis from the theories – realism, cultural and organization theory - at the respective level studied and thereafter tried to make sense of the data gathered. The dependent variable at each level was doctrine. At the structural level, the threat perception was taken as the independent variable. The hypothesis at this level was: The change in India’s military doctrine has been due to continuing external security threats.

 

Doctrine being the depending variable, the independent variable at the unit level was strategic culture. Since the military as an organization reacts to its environment through the prism of organizational culture, organizational culture served as an intervening variable. The hypothesis at the unit level at which the political factor was studied, was: The change in India’s military doctrine owes to evolution of India’s strategic culture.

 

Lastly at the organizational level the hypothesis was: The change in India’s military doctrine has been to preserve the military’s institutional interest. The independent variable at this level was institutional interest.   

 

What did I find?

 

The chronology places the Cold Start doctrine as emerging after Operation Parakram. As we know, India was unable to leverage its military might in real time and as a result it had to settle for coercive diplomacy instead of compellence in face of a heightening of Pakistan’s proxy war in Kashmir and its spread elsewhere. The doctrine was apparently cognizant of Pakistan’s nuclear thresholds and therefore appeared as a suitable answer to India’s strategic predicament. Yet, when the time came exercise the military option furnished by the doctrine, at 26/11, India did not do so. This was due to the Limited War doctrine not having been credible on the question of nuclear thresholds and secondly, because the political complexion of the regime had changed in the interim from an NDA one, in which the doctrine was formulated, to the UPA one, that was expected to give the imprimature to the doctrine but has carefully refrained from doing so in both its avatars. This suggests that the structural explanation while true is only partially so. There are other places also that need to be looked at for an explanation. This has implications for realism in that its paradigm dominance is perhaps unwarranted. 

 

Looking at the political factor, the major aspect was the change in strategic culture through the preceding four decades. The ‘Indira doctrine’, with its emphasis on power, had displaced the Nehruvian world view. India thorugh the nineties had been challenged by the perspective, raised by for instance Tanham, that it lacked a will to power. The rise of India’s economy and its middle class led to a greater push for strategic assertion as India left the difficult Nineties behind. The NDA regime inspired by cultural nationalism had a self-image of being strong on defence, best demonstrated by Pokhran IIThe influence on strategic culture had been towards greater assertion. Viewing these changes at the national level through the prism of its organizational culture, the military opportunistically moved towards an offensive doctrine. The organizational culture of the military has been informed by the warrior ethic and a strong conventional war fighting tendency.

 

Taking the unit and the organization a dyad – state/organization – the next chapter examined the influence of institutional interest or organizational compulsions. Since the army was considerably embarrassed by the Kargil intrusion and by its inability to get into a position to exert military power in early enough a time frame, it sought to compensate by formulating an offensive doctrine. This enables it autonomy from its civilian masters, furnishes an offensive option by way of which it can shape the battle field and if the doctrine is to be operationalised legitimizes the budgets necessary. The bureaucratic politics framework is very useful in understanding the India situation since the military is not only pitched against the civilian bureaucracy but is also split within. The doctrinal issue is not so much a turf war but, I believe, a genuine and valid disagreement on how war is to be approached between the army and the air force. The doctrinal sphere is consequently very fertile.

 

What then are my findings?

 

Firstly, the case study is one of equifinality. Doctrine generation is multidimensional and with multiple causes. This is useful in terms of expanding the focus from threat perception to other factors.

 

Secondly, the finding is that doctrinal innovation occurs when all three factors are at play. The three independent variables need to be active in case there is to be movement in doctrine. In other words, not only does the threat needs to be coped with by doctrinal movement, but such movement is not only autonomously possible for the military to make. It needs an enabling environment at the unit level in terms of an amenable political factor. The organizational level factor must also be suitably positioned. This was the case with the Cold Start doctrine. The Pakistani threat had heightened; strategic culture was assertive and the organization wanted continued conventional relevance into the nuclear age.

 

What is the relevance of these findings?

 

The policy relevance is that the conundrum posed by the nuclear age has not been answered adequately well. While the Cold Start doctrine provides a blueprint for Limited War, there is currently no explicit doctrine for limited war. Only this month the Army Chief has indicated that a Limited War doctrine for the nuclear backdrop is under preparation. Secondly, since introduction of nuclear weapons into a conflict is a decision for the adversary to make, a nuclear war can yet occur. There is a need to stretch the limited war definition and concept to include Limited Nuclear War. The nuclear doctrine currently believes in ‘massive’ punitive retaliation for unacceptable damage. This is not only genocidal, but in the unmistakable equation of mutual assured destruction that the vertical proliferation resorted to by Pakistan has brought the situation to, it would also be suicidal. In effect, India needs moving towards limitation in both its conventional and nuclear doctrines.

 

However, equally importantly form point of view of the Division and Center, what are the implications for theory? The case study, by its very nature is not generalisable. Secondly, it was not designed to test the theories in terms of deriving hypothesis and testing these for validity in a comparative case study. The aim was not theoretically ambitious but limited to seeking an explanation to the puzzle. The finding is that theories can only partially claim to answer the complex phenomena observed in strategic studies. War is a social activity with multiple dimensions that cannot be explicated by a single theory. The case study however suggests that the cultural explanation has value. While a view has it that cultural realpolitic behaviour owes to socialization of states by the structural imperative, the reverse is possible truer depiction in that realpolitic behavior gives rise to the security dilemma that then forms the structural level environment for the state. This then leads to self-perpetuation and legitimates realism inspired behaviour. While finding suggests that states can choose to change the structural imperatives. This is in favour of the constructivist approaches.

 

My final point is in the policy feedback of this point. India’s carrot and stick policy towards Pakistan stands to be rejected because of Pakistan the carrot being relegated by the stick. If there is to be peace, then there has to be a mutually agreed stowing away of respective sticks. The thesis ends by suggesting a strategic dialogue towards this end.

 

I would like to end by thanking the faculty for this opportunity. Its inputs over my last five appearances before it over the past four years have made the thesis as it is. Of course the thesis would not have seen the light of the day but for my supervisor, Prof. Rajagopalan. Intellectually his suggestions of where to look and I believe more importantly the scholarly discipline he required of me were critical to the outcome. The shortcomings that remain are entirely mine.

 

Thank you for your patience.

 REPORT

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zizqpfdpgusbc2u/phd%20and%20report.pdf?dl=0

The Full Text of PhD

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/p3qe0obnat22iac/full%20text.pdf?dl=0

 https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/kashmir-resolved-fine-as-election

"Kashmir resolved": Fine as election rhetoric, not policy

ali

Oct 16

This week Prime Minister Narendra Modi credited himself with resolving the Kashmir issue. Immediately in wake of this victory lap, his home minister Amit Shah seconded the claim. Since both were speaking at rallies in Gujarat set to go to the polls early winter, this should be taken as a bit of excusable primping.

Expectedly though, Pakistan has taken umbrage and the usual India-Pakistan slugfest has been witnessed at meetings in international forums spanning three different continents over the week. Clearly, for Pakistan, Kashmir is not quite history as yet. Even though beset with the worst floods in its history and staring at a food deficit, it has chosen to do without Indian assistance, showing up Kashmir as its jugular.

Simultaneously, within Kashmir, there has been yet another instance of terrorism, the targeted killing of a Kashmiri Pandit. This means militants continue to have efficacy. If security forces are to be believed, their tactics of hybrid terrorism is suggestive of their being fish in hospitable water, the community. In other words, it’s not curtains on insurgency, such killings keeping it alive for a show down sometime down road.

This begs the question: Did the prime minister really mean what he said? Does his home minister know something that we don’t?

A theoretical lens

Three terms can help with the answer: Conflict Containment, Conflict Management and Conflict Resolution.

That the conflict in Kashmir has been contained - and, indeed, rolled back - over the last two decades is self-evident. India has been in a Conflict Management mode since, ministering upheavals between 2008-10 and 2016-18. Learning from the two episodes, it clamped down in 2019, saturating Kashmir with boots on ground. This crippled the mobility enjoyed by insurgents, precluding deaths – rightly observed by India’s foreign minister recently when he defended internet curbs as minimizing killings.

At best this has brought India negative peace, defined as absence (or near absence) of violence. Getting to positive peace – peace with an admixture of justice making it self-fulfilling - requires a look at Kashmir through Johann Galtung’s triangles on conflict, violence and peace.[1]

Galtung’s Conflict Triangle, popular in introductory courses to peace studies, has at its vertices: A-ttitudes; B-ehaviour; and C-ontradiction. The C-ontradiction is the dispute that has led up to hostile A-ttitudes and resulting violent B-ehaviour.

A corresponding Violence Triangle has as its vertices: Structural violence stemming from the C-ontradition; Cultural violence witnessed in adverse A-ttitudes; and Direct violence, result of adversarial B-ehaviour.

Theory juxtaposes a Peace Triangle to address the conflict, its vertices being: Peacemaking to engage with Structural violence or the C-ontradiction; Peacebuilding to address Cultural violence framed by A-ttitudes; and Peacekeeping for containing Direct violence.

Additionally, strategic (ends oriented) peacebuilding has three vertices: Structural peacebuilding; Cultural peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation. Structural peacebuilding is to get to normalization by tackling root causes through peacemaking and implementing agreements arrived at by elites. Cultural peacebuilding is facilitating reconciliation between parties estranged not only by the dispute but also holding grievances from the conflict. Conflict Transformation goes beyond conflict resolution, into forging deeper social and psychological bonds allowing for alternative means to address differences and tackle disputes, thereby transforming the relationship.

Negative Peace

Peacekeeping in the Galtung’s peace triangle can be substituted here with the counter insurgency, anti-militancy and counter terrorism measures and operations. All indices of violence are down, and comparatively speaking, it can be said that militancy is at ebb. The evidence of near normality trotted out is that tourist footfalls – that includes Hindu pilgrims to sites outside the Valley proper - have set new records. However, even as this is an important aspect of returning normalcy, it is not all.

It only bespeaks of a negative peace. It addresses violence through kinetic means. It does address root causes, that necessarily require engagement through other techniques: peacemaking and peacebuilding.  

A truism has it that militancy cannot be ended by military means alone, but requires a political solution. A political solution implies peacemaking resulting in a negotiated settlement. Military means are only to create the conditions for peacemaking to kick-in. We need look no furrther than Sri Lanka to refresh this in our minds.

With Pakistan, peacemaking is reportedly on. Ever since the Ladakh intrusion of the Chinese, India has worked a secret channel with Pakistan, with third parties in the Gulf acting as go-between. Its chief product has been the ceasefire reiteration on the Line of Control. Talks continue, though Pakistan is holding out for substantive movement on Kashmir.

Internally, there is little obvious effort at peacemaking. The list of antagonists has multiplied, including as it does these days mainstream regional political parties clubbed with separatists. After the crackdown that coincided with the vacation of Article 370 of substance, many political activists remain in jail – one having died recently from medical causes while in custody.

That the government is insincere is clear from the special interlocutor appointed in 2017 who only created the grounds for the parliamentary maneuver on Article 370. Episodic interaction, such as the meeting mid-last year of the prime minister with the political spectrum in the union territory, reveals the lack of consistency. As it turned out, it was to set in motion the delimitation exercise, while blindsiding the consensus in the political parties on restoration of statehood.

There is of course a political ‘solution’ in place, which portends denying Kashmiris agency into perpetuity. Its first step has been in relegating the territory to being Delhi-governed. The next step is Union Territory elections over the coming winter. The spadework has been done for elections, in the form of a delimitation exercise, to pave the way for the ruling party at the Center taking over reins at Srinagar untrammeled by a coalition.

Statehood is being withheld for the moment in order to see who the electorate returns to power. If the ruling party, then statehood will be conferred as a reward; if the Gupkar opposition, then retention of intimate control by New Delhi would preclude statehood.

Peacemaking absent, peace is sought to be bought. Infrastructure-heavy investment biased towards strategic connectivity and exploiting of water resources for electricity is ongoing. Though the figures are impressive, how much of this helps Kashmiris directly is questionable.

Even so, from reports of an apple harvest rotting in trucks unable to exit the Valley due to traffic hold-up on the national highway, it can be seen that even in this easy bit of peacebuilding, India’s showing is not encouraging. 

Often, throwing money at a problem does not make it go away. It is useful as a demonstration of commitment and to build momentum towards peace. Regenerating the economy and weaning it away from a conflict economy is a non-trivial essential step. But this cannot be mistaken for what it is not – positive peace - and cannot be implemented in isolation of non-material peacebuilding.

Positive Peace?

Peacebuilding as a line of operation has three strands: Structural, Cultural and Conflict Transformation.

Structural peacebuilding is not in evidence as of now. Structural peacebuilding assumes tackling root causes, in this case quenching the thirst for azadi. As of now, this is being denied to Kashmiris into the fifth year. When it was similarly denied in the early nineties for over six years, it was with plausible reason: security. By its fight year, efforts were underway – with redoubtable Seshan in the lead – to get the voters into the driver’s seat. Today, there is no excuse for central rule, but for the self-created exceptional circumstances arising from the erasure of content in Article 370.

As a former home minister found at long last, azadi is not self-determination but a community’s feeling of being responsible for and in control of its own destiny. Statehood without returning autonomy that can assure against fears of demographic change and cultural impositions will remain insufficient. Arvind Kejriwal’s experience in heading the lame duck Delhi administration indicates as much.

Constitution provisions exist for allaying such fears, such as enjoyed by neighbouring Himachal Pradesh. Not going down this route forthrightly shows the structural peacebuilding will continue to have a deficit that cannot but sabotage cultural peacebuilding.

The necessity of cultural peacebuilding and what it constitutes is well known to Indian security minders. The techniques were at play during the 2000s, when the outreach to Pakistan was underway. The five working group reports on Kashmir of the period and the report of the three interlocutors show how this could be done.

When the previous government had no use for these reports, it is easy to see the current-day security establishment oblivious to these. Today, they believe information war is all that is required.

This too is directed mostly at the populace in the hinterland. This is a hold-over from the past practice – taking the Vietnam lesson to heart – when the hinterland’s resolve to sustain a militarized template was seen as necessary to minister.  This continues, though its need is much less so – the populace in mainland India being sufficiently infused with cultural nationalism to of its own accord want more of a militarized template than warranted.

As for addressing the perceptions of the Kashmiris, the engagement is rather ham-handed, as exposed by a recent study. Indian flags on high masts are to elicit nationalism. The practice is borrowed from Turkiye. It is uncertain if anyone researched how these flags appear to Kurds. How Kashmiris might be taking the demise of Army Dog ‘Zoom' in a gunfight that saw two of their young men dead too does not figure in security calculus on the brouhaha surrounding the disposal of the canine's remains. Masterly has been the substitution of the holiday in memory of the Lion of Kashmir with one on its last Maharaja.

If the film The Kashmir Files is any indicator, a reverse gear is set in respect of cultural peacebuilding. Whereas the pain of the Pandits is projected, it is almost as if the intent is to paper over that of their brethren community. This is the abuse of the Kashmir Pandits’ plight in national politics for purpose of polarization. It only shows that for now the Kashmir issue has political utility, necessitating the conflict be kept alive.

The leitmotif of cultural peacebuilding would be the reconciliation between the liberal and radical, Pandits and Muslims and between communities in its differing regions. Going beyond is Conflict Transformation, which is a change of heart wherein peace is arrived at by restorative justice and moving from tolerance to acceptance of others’ narratives. But going that far is to get ahead of the story.

It is apparent that the two prongs of strategy – one external and the other internal – and the peace techniques – peacemaking and peacebuilding - are not in sync. Negative peace is at hand, but positive peace has been sabotaged.

Accounting for the sabotage

The external prong - in respect of Pakistan – is hardly an outcome of a strategic design, but one brought about by a need to keep the Pakistan front dormant, even as India pivots to the eastern, China front. It profits from Pakistan’s external (the dividend from its assistance of the Taliban has not quite materialized) and internal (politics in disarray) discomfiture.

Even though India has been put on the backfoot by the Chinese intrusion, the asymmetry with Pakistan is of levels of which it can be said that a peace prong can witness negotiations from a position of strength. The asymmetry is not going to attenuate further that India needs to wait for longer. It cannot hope to kick in the door once Pakistan folds up.

But the tentativeness of the peace process does not suggest it has much grist. That it remains under wraps – being intelligence-led - means the political master is uncertain of investing political capital in its outcome.

Consequently, it is at best tactical, designed to restrain Pakistan till India gets an administration of its choice in place in Srinagar and tides over the challenge in neighbouring Ladakh. The danger arises from not only India being tactical, but also Pakistan – waiting to get past its constraints of today.

As for Pakistan, even a change in its Army Chief – due next month – can herald a change in attitude to Kashmir – as was the change once with the baton moving from Musharraf to Kayani. Though the feared spillover from Afghanistan has not materialized, it can yet play out – after all, reports are that Swat is once again threatened by the Pakistani Taliban.

It is not in a fit of senility that United States’ President Biden said Pakistan’s nuclear weapons without cohesion in structures that manage them makes it the most ‘dangerous’ country. A new international security order is emerging. Once the Ukraine War ends, the weaponry injected into the region is bound to spill over. Already, the Security Council has met twice informally over Kashmir, with Germany, a heavy weight permanent seat contender, saying the UN has an interest in unresolved Kashmir.

Internally, negative peace has held at the price of some 1000 Kashmiri youth killed since operations were stepped up with the killing of Burhan Wani. It is unlikely that youth will take an imposition from New Delhi as the next chief minister with equanimity. While the apprehended explosion has not transpired, that troops continue in place betrays the security establishment fears as much.  

The external and internal impetus can potentially upset the current status quo. The Indian State’s suppressive capacity is infinite. Its military can rightly claim to a higher standard of ethical operational conduct. However, this is not so for its paramilitary or police. The recently released citizens’ report on North East Delhi violence reveals that these forces cannot be trusted when confronted with Muslims.

The army has been progressively disengaging from Kashmir. Some elements of Rashtriya Rifles have been deployed to Ladakh. The army is to reduce numbers too, reportedly numbering 200000. The Ladakh commitment is likely to see it tied down into the middle term. Its Agniveers are likely to be quick at the draw and imbued with cultural nationalism, coming of age in the Modi era, which makes it equally suspect when they deploy in aid to civil authority.

Consequently, keeping Kashmir quiescent is a national imperative. And yet, not buttressed by peacemaking, the negative peace is tenuous. Quite the reverse is being done by way of structural peacebuilding. It is mistakenly believed that cultural peacebuilding is only about changing perceptions though old-fashioned psychological operations, only with new media.

It is unclear how insertion of a Hindu chief minister from Jammu is seen as panacea. This only becomes clear when seen in relation to national politics. The messaging nationally is that Kashmir’s Muslim majority stands integrated into the Union.

As Modi put it, he has taken up and finished what Sardar Patel started and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee couldn’t. As election rhetoric, that’s understandable by standards set by Modi. As policy, his ‘solution’ will generate the next cataclysm.

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[1] Oliver Ramsbotham, Tom Woodhouse and Hugh Miall, Contemporary Conflict Resolution, Polity, 2011, p. 10.