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At Large
Pakistan and India: Get Real About the Enemy
Who’s the greater enemy: India, or the Taliban?
South Asia, with two nuclear armed rivals, India and Pakistan, was called the world’s most dangerous place by President Clinton ten years ago. Since then, with the Taliban’s ascent, the presence of the U.S. and NATO coalition in Afghanistan following 9/11, and the extensive terrorist bombings throughout India and Pakistan, it has only gotten worse. And last week, talks between prime ministers Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani in Bhutan produced form over substance.
Ironically, since the settlements of the ancient Indus Valley civilization centered in Pakistan but extending well into parts of India, much of the two countries have shared a common bond of antiquity, language, and culture.
In the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks of November 2008, which India has charged were carried out from Pakistani soil by the Islamist terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, there was the danger of miscalculation that could result in horrific consequences. Further, there is continuing belief that Lashkar and other Islamist terrorist cells desire war between India and Pakistan — to create further mayhem in tribal areas and throughout Pakistan, incite some of India’s 155 million Muslim population, which is mainly secular, cause a Kashmiri secessionist action, and fracture the statehood of the region. India to its great credit has shown remarkable restraint.
Pakistan perpetuates itself in the role of the victim: the recipient of angry, well-armed mujahedin from the Soviet era; an outlet for Saudi efforts to spread an austere Wahhabist theology; an American ally that bristles at what it sees as hectoring and interference in its affairs; and an adversary of India, perceived to have designs on its territory and a desire to undermine its stability — a new favorite of the U.S.
As a prerequisite and to earn more support within India and in the eyes of the world, Pakistan would be wise to mete out appropriate, swift, and transparent justice to the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks, and show results in its efforts to reduce corruption, viewed for years at colossal levels.
A breakthrough between India and Pakistan — a cooling of tensions over Kashmir — would allow Pakistan to redeploy some of its military to the west against the Taliban insurgency, where it needs more training from the U.S. in counterinsurgency. While by no means the only disagreement, the Kashmir dispute is by far and away the most divisive issue, at least within Pakistan. With U.S. diplomatic support, India could initiate a symbolic pullback from the Line of Control in Kashmir, with a pledge from Pakistan to then do the same, with intensified cooperation between the two countries to clean out the terrorist training camps.
While initiative is needed by Pakistan, there is much that India can do. It has emerged in the capitalist mainstream, an IT powerhouse, the back office for the world, and an active party in cross-border mergers and acquisitions. Further, India’s deal with the U.S. for the supply of nuclear fuel, construction of civilian reactors, and other high tech cooperation, coupled with its increasing influence in the sea lanes from the Persian Gulf to the Strait of Malacca, portrays a nation that aspires to economic and military leadership.
Although India desires this status, it must show more acceptance of the responsibility that comes along with it. The collective diplomatic equation of South Asia has embraced mainly the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan, each engaged in recriminations. India, the region’s most powerful economic and military force, is largely at the sidelines of its own volition — probably concerned that too much engagement will lead to internationalization of the dispute over Kashmir, a territory that India and Pakistan have fought two wars over since 1947, and an undeclared conflict in the Himalayas in the Kargil region in 1999.
Relations between India and Pakistan continue to wallow, affecting not only outsized military budgets in both countries which undermine the funding of critical social programs. They also make life for the U.S. and NATO coalition more difficult in Afghanistan, since Pakistan is unable to allocate the military resources to assert sovereignty in the tribal areas which are known sanctuaries for Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters.
All this assumes that Islamabad is convinced that Islamist extremism is more the enemy than India. This belief must be embraced, to secure a safe and stable South Asia. In view of the recent discordant talks initiated at the foreign secretary level, and now the insubstantial meeting between prime ministers, there is no indication of impending change to the unacceptable status quo.
About the Author
Frank Schell is a business consultant and former international banking executive. He serves on the Dean’s International Council of the Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago, where he is a lecturer, and on the editorial board of the Chicago-based National Strategy Forum, which focuses on national security issues.
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Pingback| 5.3.10 @ 7:05AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Pakistan and India: Get Real About t links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Shahzad| 5.3.10 @ 9:22AM
India doesn't want any dialogue because any dialogue will give Kashmir international recognition and shame India over its aggression and suppression against the will of Kashmiris. In the spirit of 9.11, India has twice staged dramas against its own people, attacking its own parliament once, and now the Nov 26 drama, in the hope of imitating the US and creating some kind of justification for hatred of Pakistan and maybe even an attack. But even they know that India is not the US and Pakistan is not Afghanistan.
Spetsnaz| 5.3.10 @ 5:32PM
Dear Mr. Shahzad,
You are a typical radicalised Pakistani citizen who lives inside his own dry pond of delusions. As rightly pointed out by Mr. Dan, it would be only be the most delusional nation which would have the lack of sense to not accept the atrocities that happenend on November 26 in India were not works of the LeT in collusion with ISI.
The moderate voices like Hamid Mir in Pakistan have spoken out against the ISI-terror combine. They have gone to the extent of tracking down Ajmal Kasab's hometown in Pakistan (a reality initially denied by the military controlled government of Pakistan). It is upto to Pakistani civil society to root out the rot of hatred that will consume Pakistan from within.
C.K. Amos| 5.3.10 @ 9:30PM
"In the spirit of 9.11, India has twice staged dramas against its own people, attacking its own parliament once, and now the Nov 26 drama, in the hope of imitating the US and creating some kind of justification for hatred of Pakistan and maybe even an attack."
Deluded won't adequately describe your remark insinuating that the U.S. is responsible for 9/11 attacks by Islamofascists.
Sandip| 1.3.11 @ 8:01PM
@Shahzad,
India will have dialouge with Pakistan regarding Kashmir if the following conditions are met...
1. All Hindus who resided in Kashmir for generations should be brought back
2. All three parts of kashmir (India controlled, Pakistan controlled and China controlled ) should be resolved with the votes of the people of Kashmir.
Are you willing to accept the verdict then?
Dan D| 5.3.10 @ 11:10AM
As our commenting friend proves, Pakistan remains gripped in delusions, besotted with conspiracy theories, fearful and lacking in the rational sense of most Western nations. Indeed, is Pakistan truly a nation?
Clearly a rational nation would recognize the insurgent threat to its existence, and would conceive of its national interests in ways amenable to diplomatic steps to advance its interests. Pakistan is not yet ready to fit into those roles. Let us hope it soon does so.
Netzen| 5.3.10 @ 12:01PM
Mr. Schell,
You write “With U.S. diplomatic support, India could initiate a symbolic pullback from the Line of Control in Kashmir”.
You sound so hypocritical and self-serving. With the next Pakistani terrorist attack on Indian civilians, you will immediately come forward and supply more military gadget and several billion dollars of dole money to Pakistan.
USA, “the champion of liberty and freedom” did everything in its power to undermine, multiethnic, multi-religious democracy called India for most if its 63 years since 1947. By massively supplying military equipment to a religious exclusivist, militarist state called pakistan. Simply because you preferred subservient puppets, and India was not one of them. After we withstood all this, and are standing on our own, you patronizingly advise what India should do become even bigger. We came this far despite your (US) negative role, what makes you think we are waiting to eagerly take your advise.
Sure, USA is a big power and Indian govt will play along in the diplomatic tussle.
Your column proves just how hypocritical Americans are. India will do what is in its best interest, the same way USA does what is in its best interest.
If you think Kashmir “dispute” is the reason for pakistan’s gazillion problems, I’ve a bridge to sell you.
Gian| 5.4.10 @ 2:34AM
The writer does not understand the commonality of India and Pakistan at all. There is no irony that the two countries share a lot of culture since Pakistan by intent and execution is the Hindu-free area of pre-1947 India.
Millions of Hindus that lived in West Punjab, Sindh, and Frontier provinces were en masse killed and expelled by State-sponsored actions in 1947.
The Kashmir problem is essentially the Pakistani frustration at incompleteness of the Pakistani program.
Please note that all the Hindus that lived in the Pakistani-occupied districts of Kashmir were killed or expelled while Muslims are still living generally unmolested in Indian-held Kashmir and enjoying greater degree of self-rule than in Muslims in Pak-held Kashmir.
evaporator | 5.4.10 @ 2:35AM
If you want to buy evaporator and air condition
condenser,you can contant to me .
Rich Rostrom| 5.4.10 @ 3:50PM
Gian: Nice try. But millions of Moslems were expelled from India in 1947, too. No Moslem majority area voluntarily joined India. Kashmiris were included in India against their will.
Netizen| 5.4.10 @ 6:08PM
"But millions of Moslems were expelled from India in 1947".
Ha. "Pakistan" castle built on lies and hatred is in shambles. Literaly surviving on US dole, still same venomos lies, terrorism and hatred..while begging and crawling.
The difference b/w India and "Pakistan" in 1947 was several Indian leaders assured and encouraged muslims to stay. Not so in Pakistan. Open season on Hindus and Sikhs who were executed, with encouragement from "leaders".
Gian| 5.5.10 @ 1:16AM
Re: will of Kashmiri Muslims in 1947.
Kashmir was a part of the Native State of Jammu and Kashmir whose Hindu Raja signed the accession to India, similarly to 538 other native Rajas. In none of these accessions (including to Pakistan eg State of Kalat in Baluchistan, the common people were consulted). So Kashmir was not a special case.
Pingback| 5.6.10 @ 6:34PM
Training/Conference Company looking to collaborate with sales company in India & Pk. links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Moin Ansari | 5.6.10 @ 10:35PM
Frank Schell's unmitigated bigoted drivel is biased, it has serious errors in it and is typical of the anti-Pakistan tripe so pervasive in some racist quarters these days. It is very disappointing to see this esteemed publication chose to reproduce such a rambling crypto-racist screed. The author’s Teutonic bloviations are an admixture of discredited Neocon assertions, unsubstantiated, or outright Indian distortion, and pure unadulterated balderdash. His nauseating fixation upon and paranoid conspiratorial delusions about Pakistanis are a transparent attempt to justify the murderous rampage, carnage and barbarism faced by West Asia. The twaddle fails to illuminate the confusing deluge of eerily inept and counter-intuitive claptrap masquerading as fact in the clumsily stage-managed "global war on terror" environment.
Mr Schell's selective amnesia fails to consider the fact that more than 4000 Pakistanis have died fighting the so called “war on terror”, and Pakistan has been a US ally since 1947. The author has flaunted the cynosure of neo-liberal romance with India, to justify his Pakistanphobic bigotry against Islamabad.
The US "aid" is neither magnanimous, nor huge. Peanuts cannot replace $20 billion per year losses incurred by Pakistan due to the US war in Afghanistan. The US abuses Pakistani roads and bases and pays nothing for the usage. Actually Kerry-Lugar's attempt to help US corporations. Half of the "aid" is spent on US consultants. 25% is spent on logistics and admin. less than 25% is handed out to the US Ambassador's favorite NGO to be deposited back in Swiss accounts. Pakistan needs market access, a Free Trade Agreement and ROZs.
This article is typical of the Ugly American which displays hubris of an ingrate nation.
http://rupeenews.com/2010/03/2.....s-from-us/
Editor Rupee News
http://www.rupeenews.com
Moin Ansari | 5.6.10 @ 10:55PM
There is the inconvenient truth as mentioned in history books about Shuddhi and Sangatham--Nazi type of organizations forcing the "Spanish Inquisition" on poor Muslims---
http://rupeenews.com/2009/10/1.....ajpat-rai/
Here is the "gentle encouragement" to minorities in Bharat.
Many years before the Pakistan Resolution (1940), Lala Lajpat Rai, a very astute politician and staunch Hindu Mahasabhite wrote, “I am inclined to think it is neither possible nor practicable to achieve Hindu-Muhammedan unity. Assuming that we can unite against the British, we cannot do so to rule Hindustan on British lines. We cannot do so to rule Hindustan on democratic lines.”
The Pratap of Lahore. In this statement, which he called his political testament, Lala Hardayal said:—
“I declare that the future of the Hindu race, of Hindustan and of the Punjab, rests on these four pillars:
(1) Hindu Sangathan,
(2) Hindu Raj,
(3) Shuddhi of Moslems, and
(4) Conquest and Shuddhi of Afghanistan and the Frontiers. So long as the Hindu nation does not accomplish these four things, the safely of our children and great-grandchildren will be ever in danger, and the safety of the Hindu race will be impossible.
The Hindu race has but one history, and its institutions are homogeneous. But the Musalmans and Christians are far removed from the confines of Hindustan, for their religions are alien and they love Persian, Arab and European institutions. Thus, just as one removes foreign matter from the eye, Shuddhi must be made of these two religions. Afghanistan and the hilly regions of the frontier were formerly part of India, but are at present under the domination of Islam. . . .
...Just as there is Hindu religion in Nepal, so there must be Hindu institutions in Afghanistan and the frontier territory; otherwise it is useless to win Swaraj. For mountain tribes are always warlike and hungry. If they become our enemies, the age of Nadirshah and Zamanshah will begin anew. At present English officers are protecting the frontiers; but it cannot always be. . . .If Hindus want to protect themselves, they must conquer Afghanistan and the frontiers and convert all the mountain tribes.” Excerpted from Dr. Ambedkar's book "Pakistan".
The 1920s may be regarded as a crucial watershed in the history of inter-communal conflict in northern India. Communal rioting saw a sudden upsurge in this period , playing a key role in the political dynamics that later culminated in the Partition of India.
One of the most salient developments in the 1920s was the launching of the shuddhi movement by the Arya Samaj to bring into the Hindu fold various groups considered outside the pale of what had now come to be defined as ‘Hinduism’, including untouchables and, later, Muslim, Christian and even Sikh communities.
The Arya shuddhi campaign provoked Muslim leaders and groups to respond, and this took the form of various tablighi or Islamic missionary initiatives intended to counter the Arya Samaj’s conversion drive and, going further, to attempt to spread Islam among non-Muslims as well. Yogi Sikand
Muslims would have to take the form of conversion of entire Muslim social groups if it was to really succeed.
As a prelude to the actual launching of this ambitious missionary drive, towards the end of the nineteenth century Maharaja Ranbir Singh, the Hindu ruler of the largely Muslim state of Kashmir, is said to have commissioned the preparation of a 21-volume encyclopaedia by the name of Ranbir Karit Prayaschit Mahanibandh ['Ranbir's Great Essay on Repentance'], which argued the case and suggested strategies for the mass conversion of all the ‘Neo-Muslim communities’ [nau Muslim aqwam] of India to ‘Hinduism’.
This book, Muslim leaders were to later allege, had been secretly circulated among leading Hindus so that the Muslims remained unaware of the plot.
The first attempts by the Aryas at mass conversions of Muslim groups date to 1908, when Arya missionaries began touring the area around Deeg in the Bharatpur State in eastern Rajputana, calling upon Muslims there to renounce Islam, which, they alleged, had been forcibly imposed on their ancestors.
In 1910, shuddhi sabhas were set up in several places in these districts, and although it was claimed that they had converted some 1000 Malkana Muslims to the Hindu fold, they were wound up the following year.
As in the case of Deeg, the Aryas are said to have met with little success, being successfully countered by the intervention of local Muslim bodies working in association with the Anjuman Hidayat-ul Islam, a Delhi-based Muslim missionary organization.
The shuddhi campaign among the Malkanas, which was launched in early 1923, reached its peak by the end of 1927, by which time some 1,63,000 Malkana Muslims are said to have been brought into the Hindu fold.
Shuddhi emerged as a powerful mobilizational symbol and tool to consolidate Hindu ranks, helping galvanize the process of the construction of a pan-Indian Hindu community rigidly set apart from the rest. It is hardly surprising that Shradhhanand, the leading force behind the Malkana shuddhi, was also the most ardent advocate of sanghathan, the consolidation and militarization of all Hindudom.
As testimony to the success of the shuddhi campaign in mobilizing and consolidating the Hindus, both Aryas as well as the Sanatanis who had initially been vehemently opposed to shuddhi, as one, transcending deep-seated caste, sectarian, racial, linguistic and regional divisions, the Tribune of Lahore, in its editorial of 2 May, 1927, remarked:
‘The shuddhi… propaganda is no longer the exclusive concern of the Arya Samaj; an overwhelming majority of the Hindus are identified [with it]‘. Yogi Sikand and http://www.jstor.org/pss/4406586
Nik| 5.17.10 @ 1:46PM
If this is the quality of analysis coming from a Dean at University of Chicago, I, with due respect, have little hope in the success of American foreign policy in South Asia.
Kashmir is not the problem but a symptom of deeper malaise, Mr Snell. It does not cease to amaze me how finer minds hope to solve complex problems by addressing the symptoms. India and Pakistan have been talking for decades; the most recent peace talks began in 1998, only to be interrupted several times by attacks from Pak based terrorists groups with the support from Pak army.
Abhishek| 7.30.10 @ 11:13AM
You seem to know little about India and Pakistan. Not absurd for Americans. Indus valley civilization has nothing do with the history both countries.
Abhishek| 7.30.10 @ 11:15AM
I further add that in the wake of the documents leaked about Afgan war, you will have to reconsider your opinion. Americans are doing a *big mistake* by trusting and helping pakistan.