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India and Pakistan in the War on Terrorism

October 31, 2001
Council on Foreign Relations

[Note: A transcript of this meeting is unavailable. The discussion is summarized below.]

October 31, 2001

Not for Attribution

On October 31, 2001, the Council’s National Program continued its conference call series on America’s Response to Terrorism with members from across the country and around the world.

Sumit Ganguly led off with brief remarks on India and Pakistan in the war on terrorism, and Michael P. Peters, Senior Vice President of the Council on Foreign Relations, chaired the session.

Sumit Ganguly is Professor of the Departments of Asian Studies and Government of the University of Texas at Austin. His forthcoming book is called Conflict Unending: Indo-Pakistani Tensions Since 1947.

This summary report was adapted from the original transcript.

Michael Peters opened with the following question:

How will relations between India and Pakistan affect the war on terrorism and in particular, will our operations against the Taliban make it more or less difficult for India and Pakistan to deal with their crisis in Kashmir?

  • India is pressing the United States to recognize its concerns about Pakistani support for the insurgence in Kashmir. Pakistan, on the other hand, is saying the insurgency in Kashmir has absolutely nothing to do with the prosecution of the war—that Pakistan is supporting—morally, not materially—freedom fighters in Kashmir and that these people cannot be considered terrorists.

  • The prosecution of the war in Afghanistan is going to make it more difficult for India and Pakistan to come together. India increasingly feels that the United States is tilting disproportionately towards Pakistan because of the exigencies of securing Pakistan’s cooperation to prosecute the war. The mere fact of geography makes it necessary for the United States to elicit Pakistan’s cooperation and because of this the Indians fear that the United States will overlook its concerns in Kashmir.

Sumit Ganguly addressed the following questions:

Question from PA: Is there any likelihood that both countries can come together to open a dialogue and reengage on all issues, which will obviously mean the inclusion of the entire question of terrorism in Kashmir?

  • Sufficient political imagination in both Islamabad and New Dehli are needed, but unfortunately, both sides are focusing fairly narrowly on their particular concerns in a fairly parochial fashion rather than using this moment to seize an opportunity. General Musharraf has publicly stated that the people fighting against Indian rule in Kashmir cannot be considered to be terrorists and must be considered to be freedom fighters.

  • The only helpful statement has been made by George Fernandez, the Pakistani Defense Minister. He stated that the Pakistani nuclear facilities are safe. The Pakistanis are responsible and serious people and will not permit their nuclear weapons or nuclear infrastructure to fall in the hands of the wrong people.

Question from CA: Is Musharraf becoming even further out of touch with his public and will his cooperation in the coalition response constrain or undermine his ability to make concessions to India?

  • Musharraf is a master technician and a master of the moment. His position is quite tenuous, but it is not as tenuous as it is being made out to be for a number of compelling reasons.

  • First, the army is still firmly in control and shows no sign of fragmenting. It is an extraordinarily powerful institution with extraordinary prerogatives within Pakistani society.

  • Second, the civil service in Pakistan remains fairly intact and most of them guard their privileges from the lunatic and fundamentalist fringes within Pakistan. Most Pakistanis probably consider themselves to be devout Muslims, but they do not necessarily support the fringe political parties.

  • Third, the other critical elements within Pakistan connected to the state—the intelligence services and the like. As long as Musharraf can keep a grip on them, there is no danger of the Pakistani state fragmenting.

  • We have to start worrying about Pakistani internal stability when open dissent starts within the army. The fringe political parties have considerable street power—they can wreak havoc on the street, but they have not yet gathered the kind of critical mass that could overthrow the regime.

Question from CA: What was India’s goals and purposes of shelling across the line of control when Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Pakistan?

  • The Indians wanted to send a message to Secretary Powell and to the American administration that India’s patience was wearing thin on the Kashmir issue, particularly given Pakistan’s fairly explicit support to certain insurgent groups who do not really represent the best interests of the Kashmiris.

  • In 1989 when the insurgency erupted in Kashmir, it was an indigenous insurgency led mostly by local Kashmiris who were deeply disaffected from India. In 2001 what exists is a completely different matter. It is basically a protection racket being run by certain condotierri within Kashmir and Pakistan. More importantly, the Pakistani’s Interservices Intelligence Director (ISID) is deeply involved in supporting these insurgents. These people do not represent the best interests of the Kashmiris whether they are Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, or Buddhists.

Question from PA: Would bilateral or multilateral negotiations play a more useful role in resolving the differences between India and Pakistan over Kashmir?

  • India wants bilateral negotiations for a very simple reason—it is the more powerful party in the region and consequently it benefits the most from bilateral negotiations. India is basically the status quo power. It does not want to change the status quo in Kashmir whereas Pakistan, the weaker power, prefers multilateral negotiations and would like to involve the United States or the United Nations where it did receive a certain amount of sympathy in the 1950s and 1960s.

Question from TX: There are a lot of similarities between the situation between the Israeli and Palestinian situation and that of the Indians and Pakistanis, but can you outline the differences?

  • There are important historical differences in terms of the occupied territories with Kashmir, but the most immediate difference is the United States is disproportionately identified, whether correctly or not, with the Israeli position. There is a fundamental belief in the Arab world that the United States has almost invariably and unfairly tilted toward the Israeli course.

  • In the case of India and Pakistan, both parties revile the United States. The Pakistanis feel that the United States has not been forthcoming enough as far as the Pakistani call on Kashmir is concerned. India feels that the United States has been disproportionately sympathetic to the Pakistani position. It is only with the end of the Cold War that the Indians feel that the United States has tried to adopt a more even handed position and on occasion has even been supportive of the Indian position.

Question from CT: Why is India important if the United States’ declared objectives in the attack on Afghanistan are to eliminate Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and to help Afghanistan restore some kind of government?

  • First, there are extensive links between the Al Qaeda and a number of the other groups operating within Kashmir. So simply eliminating the Al Qaeda within Afghanistan is a fairly narrow goal. We have to think in the longer term about this hydra-headed monster that can manifest itself in other parts of the world and on other occasions.

  • Second, there is a certain kind of moral hazard that’s involved in being selective in our war against terror. We cannot say that it is only terrorism when innocent Americans are massacred in New York City, but when others get killed, we will be callous and simply walk away. If we do, then we cannot elicit the help of other countries when critical need arise.

  • Third, the Indians have fairly good intelligence on Afghanistan because of extensive connections that they had originally with the Najibullah regime and subsequently with the Northern Alliance. If we are to prosecute this war in Afghanistan, we do need to elicit the help of the Indians.

Question from GA: Do you see any changes in China’s relationship with India and Pakistan as a result of these changed events?

  • The Chinese will probably give this matter considerable thought because of the extraordinary problems they are starting to encounter with their Muslim minorities—they are acutely worried about the percolation of a brand of xenophobic fundamentalist Islam from Central Asia, Afghanistan, and portions of northern Pakistan into China.

  • The so-called all-weather relationship with Pakistan will have to be reconsidered because the Chinese are extremely pragmatic in their foreign policy and domestic policy behaviors.

  • To the extent that China moves away from Pakistan, it inevitably will improve relations with India. One of India’s central concerns has been the close Sino-Pakistani nexus which has led to the transfer of ballistic missile and nuclear weapons technology and arms transfers, and of course, political support for Pakistan at critical junctures.

Question from Mike Peters: There has been a lot of speculation about bombing pauses, of the effect of Ramadan, and the collateral damage—how is this playing into the calculus with regard to Musharraf and Pakistan?

  • It has significantly affected Musharraf’s calculations. He has already gone on record twice—he initially said the bombing has to stop fairly quickly, and then he specified it had to stop by November 17—the start of Ramadan. He is performing a very delicate balancing act within Pakistan because there are groups that are becoming restive. Musharraf is finely attuned to the possibilities that his regime might come under considerable pressure from the streets of Quetta and Peshawar where there is significant unhappiness to his commitment to the United States.

Question from CA: Is there any way that India by offering bases or logistical support can alter the geographic imperative of Pakistan in a way that will allow a balance in the relationship between the United States and India?

  • The Indians did initially offer extraordinary levels of cooperation with the United States. India has also afforded refueling facilities for American aircrafts and has permitted overflights of Indian territory. Intelligence cooperation is well underway, which is absolutely a sea change in terms of Indian attitudes. Whether or not, India has actually offered basing rights is murky.

  • But it is not simply a matter of basing rights and the ability to use Indian air force bases to carry out strikes into Afghanistan. The Indians have been at odds with the Taliban because they were deeply implicated in the hijacking of an Indian airliner that was eventually flown to Kabul and the hijackers were let go by the Taliban. The Indian relationship with the Taliban is quite a strained one.

  • It is not such a strained one as far as the Pakistanis are concerned. The Pakistanis have much deeper contacts with the Taliban than the Indians do. There is a Taliban Ambassador in Islamabad. The Interservices Intelligence Directorate has deep links with the Taliban. These are the links the United States needs to at least prosecute in the initial part of the war in Afghanistan, which is why Pakistan is so important even beyond the exigencies of geography.

Question from TX: Will the war hurt the India-Pakistani prospects for peace? Is there any hope for optimism and what can or should the policy of the United States be to move it forward?

  • The United States should make it clear to Pakistan that as long as they support groups that target innocent civilians, they will be a pariah state. By the same token, the United States should be extraordinarily critical of the excessive use of force on the part of Indian security forces in Kashmir—not so much the Indian army, but the paramilitary forces, which are not really well organized, which often suffer from poor discipline, and who often resort to rather cruel, unfair, and harsh methods in the treatment of the local population of Kashmir.

  • As America puts pressure on Pakistan to cut off support, to turn off the tap on the terrorist groups, it must simultaneously force India to improve its human rights record in Kashmir.

  • There are nested minorities—Buddhists, Hindus, and Sinks—and their rights must be protected in any final political dispensation that ultimately emerges in Kashmir. It cannot be simply the rights of Muslims, the majority, that are protected.

Question from OH: Can Musharraf control his intelligence services and others with links to the Taliban? How can we be sure that they are serving the interests of the campaign against the Taliban and not continuing to support them?

  • Musharraf has removed some of the key people in the ISID and others who were sympathetic to the Taliban. He knew he had little or no choice, but to throw in his lot with the United States. His country was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy—close to 90 percent of Pakistan’s national budget goes to the military and debt servicing.

  • Despite their newfound relationship with the United States, the Pakistanis do not entirely wish to abandon the Taliban because the relationship enables them to have access to Central Asia and to Afghanistan in the event of another war with India.

Question from CA: On Pakistan’s stability, the army and civil service is unified. But what are some things that you can see happening that would trigger the unraveling of the apparent unity of the Pakistani armed forces and what are the similarities to Iran in the mid to late 1970s?

  • There were critical people in the Carter administration who thought that if we stiffened the back of the Iranian military even after widespread protests against the Shah, we would have been able to stave off the overthrow of the regime. But there are important differences with respect to Pakistan.

  • First, the Pakistani middle class does not particularly care for General Musharraf, but they fear the fundamentalists much more. They are devout Muslims in their personal life, but they do not wish to live in a theological state and would like to be able to send their children to moderate institutions.

  • Second, significant sections of the Pakistani army still remain secular. This is an army that grew out of the same political conditions of the Indian army from the British army of pre 1947 days. Portions of the Pakistani army have been infiltrated by fundamentalists, but the entire army has not gone in that direction.

  • Third, there are elements of Pakistani’s civil society that still remains moderately secular in their orientation. So all of these groups fear the fundamentalists and the lunatic fringes.

Question from PA: The Taliban has been atrocious, but so has the Northern Alliance. Given the bloody history, is it possible for there to be a fundamental change in relations between Pakistan and India in Kashmir?

  • Afghanistan has been a significant policy failure, and the United States bears some responsibility for what transpired there. Once we had successfully achieved our goals in pushing the Soviets out of Afghanistan in 1989, we basically walked away. We said our interests had been served and maintained a minimal presence in the region, which has come back to haunt us today.

  • The United States needs to commit significant resources, time, and energy to the region—to the rebuilding of Afghanistan and a much greater engagement with both India and Pakistan. It is going to require a degree of political will on both sides and a fundamental change in American foreign policy toward the region.