June 2002 Edition
Views and Analysis from India and the sub-continent
No careful or unbiased observer of South Asian politics could fail to notice the asymmetry in Western reporting concerning relations between India and Pakistan. The Western public is repeatedly informed how India and Pakistan have fought four wars, but rarely is it acknowledged that in each situation, in 1948, 1965, 1971 and 1998 - Pakistan was the aggressor. While mentioning Kashmir as the bone of contention, few mention how Jammu and Kashmir's unity with India enjoyed the backing of the majority of it's people. In 1996, over 55% of the Indian state's voters participated in Indian elections braving terrorist threats and boycott calls. (And in many districts, turnout exceeded 65%)
Most recently, (as reported by the UNI, May 31, 2002) a poll conducted by an Indian polling agency affiliated with the British-based MORI revealed that 61% of those polled in Jammu and Kashmir wished to remain Indian citizens and only 6% wished to become Pakistani citizens. An overwhelming 86% want an end to the infiltration of terrorists from across the Line of Control (LoC), and an end to acts of terror. Two thirds believe that Pakistan's intervention in the last decade has been detrimental rather than helpful to the interests of the people of the region. (Significantly, the military Government of Pakistan has disallowed MORI's pollsters from conducting a similiar exercise in PoK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir))
Since there were no provisions to account for the sentiments of Hindu refugees who fled the Srinagar valley, in all likelihood, this poll may understate support for unity with India. But rarely do Western reporters share such data with the Western public. Nor do they care to tell their readers about the oppression of the people in Gilgit and Baltistan, or that there are numerous groups opposed to Pakistan's unwanted occupation of these regions. (See this essay on Kashmir or Kargil) Neither does it occur to these self-styled Western media Pundits - how utterly ridiculous it is for military despots in Pakistan to be championing the cause of "self-determination" on behalf of a people who enjoy many more democratic freedoms in Indian Kashmir than do the average citizens of Pakistan. Does General Musharraf who seized power through a military coup have any moral or ethical right to be talking about the "rights" of the Kashmiris? What gives a general - who couldn't find a single political leader to attend his recent "all-party meeting to deal with India" - the authority to negotiate for the Kashmiri people?
But such questions rarely trouble the minds of most Western reporters or editorial columnists. In fact, after having expelled virtually all the Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan in a brutal campaign of terror and intimidation, what gives the right to any Pakistani ideologue to speak of self-determination for any grouping in India? If Pakistan's Sunni elites haven't even been able to ensure the safety of Shia Muslims in Pakistan, how could they possibly speak for the non-Sunni population of Jammu and Kashmir (which comprises almost half of the population of the state). Should Jammu and Kashmir be described as a "disputed" territory, simply because Pakistan's clerical and military establishment is unwilling to pare it's expansionist tendencies?
Not only do the people of India enjoy a much wider range of democratic freedoms than their Pakistani counterparts, they are also now economically better-off. That India is perhaps, the most pluralistic nation in the world, and that Pakistan (a state founded with the explicit purpose of privileging Sunni-identified Islamic elites) has embarked on an unceasing campaign of hate and violence against India is almost never acknowledged. Western journalists cynically and routinely equate India and Pakistan. The aggressor and the victim of aggression are lumped as one.
But perhaps, most egregious is how Pakistan's nuclear brinkmanship - how Pakistan's nuclear blackmail is justified or tacitly tolerated (or even covertly encouraged) amongst India-bashers in the West. Time and time again, India has asserted that it will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear nations. That it is willing to enter into reciprocal non-use treaties with other nuclear powers. And that in general, it rejects the first-strike nuclear option. No nuclear nation has gone as far in making it clear that it has no intentions of using it's nuclear strength for aggressive purposes. In contrast, Pakistan has repeatedly threatened the sub-continent with a nuclear holocaust. (See this essay on India's Nuclear Policy)
The very same Western journalists who are all up in arms over unsubstantiated rumors about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" are amazingly sanguine when it comes to reacting to Pakistan's nuclear threats. Whereas Iraq has been embargoed to the point where it's people are not even able to feed themselves, some of the military leaders of Pakistan openly boast of causing a nuclear winter. And they test nuclear-capable missiles to reinforce their chilling threats.
Yet, intellectual consistency has hardly been the hallmark of such intellectuals in the English-speaking world. Even as there has been little concern about such threats emanating from Pakistan's pro-US military leaders, the beleaguered nation of Iraq continues to excite the most venomous hatred in the US press. Neither does it appear that there will be any respite for the Iraqi people from talk of a renewed all-out bombing campaign.
The same Western media that engaged in a vicious campaign of vilification of Yugoslavia's popularly elected leader - (someone who never threatened anyone with nuclear annihilation) has been remarkably tolerant of officials who have threatened to cause the greatest human rights disaster the world might ever see. Whereas a popularly elected leader in one nation is demonized as "Hitler", an isolated and unpopular military hawk wins praise as a "moderate" ally in the war against terrorism.
Such disingenuousness is only possible when the reading public is either very poorly educated, or so incredibly intellectually-challenged that it cannot see through such hypocrisy and duplicity. But a reasonable person might well ask: what sort of a war on "terrorism" is this that marks non-nuclear countries such as Iran (or Libya and Syria) as amongst the "most dangerous" nations in the world - but leaves out Pakistan - a nation that has on more than one occasion threatened India with the use of nuclear weapons ?
The answer is obvious. How could American analysts chastize General Musharraf''s Government for making nuclear threats when their own Pentagon has always asserted the right to a nuclear first-strike - even against nations it is supposedly trying to befriend such as Russia.
It is also apparent that Pakistan is no "wayward" ally of the US, nor is it a "loose-cannon" as some might pretend in the West. It is merely doing what reliable US client states have always done - fight proxy wars and terrorize their relatively more progressive neighbors so that in the end both nations become beholden to the wishes and commands of policy-makers in Washington. Pakistan's nuclear blackmail is not that unusual when one considers how often it has been when American leaders have themselves threatened to push the nuclear button.
Whether such threats are real or merely intended as bluffs, they are utterly unconscionable. And they also set a precedent that could easily backfire. It is only a matter of time when nuclear weapons will spread to more nations. And a time may come when a nation who is not allied with the US might become emboldened or angry enough to make such a threat against the US. American analysts who recklessly joined in the frenzy of nuclear alarmism so as to frighten and intimidate Indian leaders into inaction or submission ought to recognize that they have been playing a very dangerous game.
A nation of a billion people with rising hopes and expectations, cannot be crushed or humiliated for ever. While Gandhian edicts (of turning the other cheek) might dominate the minds of India's older generation, India's younger generation is much less infected by such faint-hearted idealism. A time will come when India as a nation will find a way to transcend such nuclear blackmail and terrorism.
In spite of the tragedy of partition, and the numerous border wars, the majority of the Indian people have shown, time and again, that they are not averse to peaceful co-existence with Pakistan. But the patience and perseverance of the Indian people is not inexhaustible. While some (or even many) in India may feel cautioned by the nuclear subterfuge today, the recalcitrance on the part of Pakistan's rulers (and Western pandering or covert encouragement of such ominous behavior) may eventually trigger a reaction in India that might simply discount threats by Pakistan's military and diplomatic establishment of escalating a nuclear conflict.
Proponents of such nuclear brinkmanship must also realize that any nuclear attack by Pakistan couldresult in an Indian response that might quickly destroy all the major cities in West Punjab and Sindh, and decimate the ability of the Pakistani military to continue to do battle. In particular, Islamabad - Pakistan's lone showcase of gleaming modernity would be reduced to rubble. Would any Pakistani General, howsoever driven by hatred of India risk the destruction of Pakistan's stylish capital ?
But even if Pakistan's ruling classes were truly ready to embark on a suicidal course of launching a nuclear attack against India, the consequences will not be confined to the subcontinent alone. The effects would be earth-shattering, and could lead to unimaginable changes in the entire world's economic system - forcing new political equations, and decisive shifts in the balance of power. Western journalists ought not think that just because the Indian subcontinent lies on the other side of the globe, that their own lives will be immune from the effects of a nuclear conflagration in the Indian subcontinent.
Even if Pakistan's attempts to cause damage to India's major metros were to partially succeed, the price would not be paid by India alone. In the last decade, India's cities have attracted millions of dollars of investments from multinational giants in the manufacturing, energy and high-technology sectors. Consider just a brief list of companies that have expanding investments in India: Auto majors such as Japan's Toyota, Honda and Suzuki, Italy's Fiat, the US's Ford and Chrysler, Korea's Hyundai; European industrial giants such as Siemens, Philips and ABB; consumer majors like Lever Brothers and Cadbury's of Britain; technology giants such as Intel, Texas Instruments, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle; energy majors such as Cairns of Australia and British Gas. Consider too the airline industry which gets a sizeable share of it's revenues from it's India business, or the multitude of suppliers, small businesses and traders who support Indian imports and exports.
In the last decade, there isn't a single sector of the Indian economy that hasn't attracted foreign investment or outright purchases. Do the backers or apologists for Pakistan's nuclear renegades in the West wish to see such investments go up in smoke? In the last decade, excluding China, no other major world economy has performed as consistently, or as well. Even as the Japanese economy has been mired in an unending recession, and the economies of the US and the EU nations struggle to grow, India's consumer market continues to expand at a handsome clip. Is there any other growing market of corresponding size and future potential that could provide an outlet for the stagnation scenario that looms before the world's leading manufacturers?
Western interests cannot be so easily separated or isolated from Indian interests. Western political analysts who are still obsessed with trying to dominate and weaken India have failed to comprehend how technological and industrial globalization also leads to new dependencies and hence, new responsibilities. They could attempt to restrict India's advance by erecting new barriers to the expansion of trade ties between India and the West, but this too would be folly, as it would only lead to deepening the economic malaise and stagnation in the West.
Healthy economic growth in the world requires that nations respect each other's sovereign rights, and promote peace and cooperation amongst each other rather than promote incessant conflict.
While there is a tendency amongst many analysts to dismiss the differences between India and Pakistan, they are not insignificant. First it bears reminding that Pakistan was an utterly artificial creation. (See this essay on the 2-nation theory and partition) Secondly, whereas one nation (in spite of all it's problems) looks to the future - hopefully, to an era of accelerated social and technological progress, the other clings to an unapologetically sectarian outlook - where broad humanitarian concerns and democratic rights are too readily sacrificed at the altar of dictatorial military power legitimized in the name of religious demagoguery and sectarian expansionism.
It is time that mature and responsible intellectuals in the Western world learn to differentiate between these two approaches to nationhood in South Asia - one that is secular, pluralistic and democratic - and the other which relies almost exclusively on sectarian appeals to a narrow religious identity. Even as the people of Pakistan are able to express solidarity with other Islamic nations and Islamic people, they are unable to recognize the wisdom of living in peace with ones neighbors. Those genuinely devoted to democratic principles must appreciate that India has chosen the higher road to progress. Rather than impose a duplicitous peace on India, they should be more concerned with how the Pakistani military (with its Jihadi allies) not only threatens the progress of India, but how it also subjugates and suppresses it's own citizens.
Progressive forces throughout the world need to do their part in ensuring that terrorism in the name of religious expansionism, and related nuclear blackmail is not tolerated or ignored. It is in the interests of the entire world to rein in Pakistan's nuclear cowboys and their Western backers. India should not and cannot be brow-beaten into accepting an endless proxy-war at the hands of Pakistan's belligerent and misguided military and clerical elites.
It is especially important for the people of Pakistan to realize that this obsession with recovering Kashmir against the wishes of it's people is a political and economic dead-end, and needlessly divides the people of the Indian subcontinent long oppressed by colonial conquest and imperialist intrigue.
A genuine respect for pluralism, democracy and religious tolerance could however lead to a new era of friendship and cooperation in the subcontinent. Even as the majority of India's people are extremely frustrated and angry with the machinations of the Pakistani leadership, they remain open to responding positively to any honest and sincere gesture towards reconciliation.
Democratic forces in Pakistan must rise to the occasion, and effect a lasting change in policy. Influential voices in Pakistan should realize that no nation can advance while being incorrigibly hostile to it's neighbors. Islamic sectarianism will simply keep Pakistan permanently dependant on the US and its reactionary allies in the oil-rich kingdoms of the Persian Gulf. However, cooperation with India could open the door to much faster and more broad-based progress. It is in the interests of the majority of the people of Pakistan for their government to befriend India. Their representatives must do their part in encouraging this. For if they don't, Pakistan will languish in poverty and social backwardness, and may even disintegrate once again.
Related Articles:
Jammu & Kashmir: Self-Determination and Secession
Kashmir is not Palestine, India is not Israel
International Relations, National Aspirations and Economic Planning
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