Kashmir

What ails Pakistan? A new book from former Reuters correspondent Myra MacDonald shows how the country’s chronic struggle to somehow best India has instead led to deleterious results on all fronts. I had the chance to interview her by email on her compelling book, and our exchange appears below. 1. You have structured this as an account of multiple defeats in what you term “the Great South Asian War.” Some of these defeats are tactical, such as with the India-Pakistan peace talks, or the Kargil War, but it becomes clear by the end of your book that you mean this as a larger metaphor for a “Great War” that only exists in the minds of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Pakistan is “blinded,” as you say, to how the world has changed around it. How did you come to see so many episodes—of terrorism, of failed peace talks, the military standoff in 2001–02—as moments in this larger story of a profound defeat? There were two questions here that needed to be untangled. The first is about how well the Pakistani state serves its citizens relative to India. The second is about the domestic power struggle within Pakistan. Since the military has successfully retained its political and economic preeminence within Pakistan, how much does it matter that Pakistan’s external position relative to India has declined? I tried to find yardsticks to assess both: historically, what assumptions were made about how well the Pakistani state would serve its citizens, and what expectations did the Pakistan Army have of the policies it followed? On the first question about the Pakistani state, you have to go back to Partition to set benchmarks about how it was expected to perform relative to India. Implicit in the creation of Pakistan was an assumption Muslims would be safer in a separate country. There was also an expectation that a country run along Islamic principles of social justice would be fairer than one dominated by the Hindu caste system. Those assumptions took a serious hit in 1971 with East Pakistan breaking away to form Bangladesh. But even after 1971, Pakistan was able to retain a sense of superiority over India – its economy continued to perform much better than the Indian state-planned economy. It is only very recently that India began to emerge as a rising economic power. In terms of Indian GDP per capita, this rose above that of Pakistan only in 2009. Such is India’s current trajectory that we can now argue its success relative to Pakistan is irreversible. Thus by the standards Pakistan set itself at Partition—that its citizens would be better off in a separate country, or at least as well off as those in India—the Pakistani state has failed. Not only is it unable to offer its citizens the same promise of economic development, it can’t even offer them security. On the second question about the fortunes of the Pakistan Army within Pakistan’s domestic power struggle, it’s certainly true that the military has come out on top both politically and economically. But I’d argue that the Pakistan Army has fallen well short of its own expectations. This is particularly striking if you look at the period since the nuclear tests in 1998. Among the army’s assumptions at the time were that it would continue to be able to influence events in Kashmir and Afghanistan while managing Islamist militants well enough to keep them from turning on Pakistan. In 1998, Pakistan could still appeal to those Kashmiris who wanted to break away from India, while it dominated Afghanistan through the Taliban. Nowadays, Pakistan is too near to becoming a failing state to act as a magnet to Kashmiris and it is hated in Afghanistan for its role in supporting the Taliban. It has lost control of a sizeable number of jihadis who have turned on the Pakistani state. As such, I don’t subscribe to the argument that the Pakistan Army is a rational actor that has manipulated rivalry with India in order to maintain its own domestic dominance. In numerous episodes, from Kargil to Mumbai, it has suffered from such overreach and miscalculation that it has failed to meet the strategic aims it set for itself. 2. You situate Pakistan, with its sights set on India, as a supporter of jihadists that ultimately grow out of the Inter-Services Intelligence’s immediate control, and whose jihad itself globalizes to open up new fronts. (I had not known of al Qaeda in Iraq founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s time as a jihadi in Afghanistan, for example, or the links between North African terrorists and the assassination of Northern Alliance’s Ahmed Shah Massoud.) Why has it been so hard for Pakistan to change direction on this policy of supporting violent jihad? The question of how far Pakistan controls jihadis is subject to an intense debate that will run and run. I disagree with those who imagine the existence of an “on-off switch” that the Pakistani state just needs to flick in order to end the problem of jihadi violence. The different jihadi groups operate along a continuum with some supported by the Pakistani state, some potentially subject to its influence, and others well beyond its purview. Too much thinking is still stuck in the era of the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan, leading to an assumption that anywhere Islamist militants are active, they must have deliberate state support. But the global jihadi movement has been out of control for years, at least since the 1990s when it flourished in the cracks opened up by the end of the Cold War. Pakistan’s inability to change direction on jihadis stems from several factors. The first is its unwillingness to give up Islamist militants that can be used to counter India, whether in Kashmir or Afghanistan, The second comes from the factor mentioned above – that jihadis are impossible to control fully. The Pakistan Army says it fears that if it turns against all Islamist militant groups at once, they might join forces in a coalition that will threaten the Pakistani state. This fear is partly legitimate, though it also acts as a cover for ongoing support for anti-India groups. It is quite hard to tell where the line lies in Pakistan between unwillingness to disarm militants and inability to tackle them all. I fear that the army itself doesn’t know for sure. This brings me to my third point, which I find the most worrying. The multiple players who make up the Deep State in Pakistan have constructed an ideological environment in which jihadis flourish. The Pakistan Army can manipulate some of these players or deploy them for its own purposes. But I am not convinced it knows how to drain the ideological swamp since that would require a complete rethink of how it defines Pakistan as a state. In other words, even if the willingness to disarm all militants were there, the Pakistan Army doesn’t have the imaginative capacity to know how to get underneath the problem. 3. In a particularly poignant chapter looking at Pakistan’s relations with the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, you observe that Pakistan had “overstated an external threat while underplaying its self-created domestic problems,” leading to the alienation of so many ethnic groups within the country itself. Is it possible, in your view, for Pakistan to rebuild itself domestically if it does not abandon its external focus? It’s going to be extremely difficult for Pakistan to rebuild itself domestically. Rather like the frog in water that is boiled slowly so that it doesn’t jump out, Pakistan has deteriorated relatively gradually on multiple measures from economics to development to security to international standing. The likeliest outlook is that the situation in Pakistan never becomes so bad that it is forced into a paradigm shift, even as it continues to offer less and less to its citizens. On the domestic front, the status quo still benefits enough people, both in the armed forces and among the elite, for them to resist changes that would threaten their own privileges. In an ideal scenario, the democratic process will be allowed to mature to the point that ordinary citizens begin to demand more from the state. But I don’t see that happening for a long time and the country probably needs new political leaders to help it along. We’ll also have to see what happens now that China’s influence is growing in Pakistan with its investment in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. In the past, China has been impatient with Pakistani adventurism against India and it has no ideological sympathy for jihadis. But nor does it have much interest in nurturing democracy. Former Reuters journalist Myra MacDonald’s new book, Defeat is an Orphan, bluntly assesses Pakistan’s myriad woes as a conundrum of its own making. (Photo courtesy of Myra E. MacDonald) 4. Near the end of the book, you make the case that Pakistan’s attempts to “wrest control of the Kashmir Valley had come to nothing….it had sacrificed the interests of its citizens while propping up an overly powerful army and spawning a dangerous collection of jihadis on home soil. The nuclear weapons it had believed would prevent the Valley slipping out of its grasp had instead encouraged a recklessness that drove a Kashmir settlement permanently out of reach.” What, if anything, could lead Pakistan to stop this recklessness and focus on the domestic needs of its own citizens, usually the most important obligation for a state? I’d love to see more critical thinking from the Pakistani elite that focuses on the needs of the country’s citizens. As long as Pakistan styles itself as a champion of the global ummah, you’ll still end up seeing more outrage about, for example, Israel’s behavior towards Palestinians or India’s treatment of Kashmiris, than about human rights abuses and poverty within Pakistan itself. The country also desperately needs to rewrite its school textbooks which currently stress a hyper-nationalist and anti-Hindu view of history. In an ideal world, the media should also be contributing towards a more nuanced understanding of the origins of the Kashmir dispute. I’ve argued in my book that Jammu and Kashmir has been badly served by both India and Pakistan. But given the importance accorded to Kashmir in Pakistan, it’s disappointing that the media continues to parrot a simplistic Pakistani state line that dates back to 1947. As I have argued in the book, no solution on Kashmir is possible, if ever, until Pakistani society is prepared for the possibility of compromise. 5. Washington comes in for some tough criticism in your book—as a “damaging foreign entanglement” for Pakistan during the Cold War, and also as a naïve power willing to believe that General Pervez Musharraf was a bulwark against Islamists all while he undermined secular politics. What would you recommend to Washington policymakers as an alternative approach? There’s no magic bullet. If the carrots and sticks of the past 16 years or so failed to convince Pakistan to change course, nothing will. Nor is there any obvious punitive action that can bring Pakistan to its senses. Don’t forget this is a country that was cut in two in 1971 and responded by becoming more nationalist and developing nuclear weapons. In the recent period, it has been willing to countenance the deaths of thousands of its own citizens in pursuit of its “good Taliban/bad Taliban” policies. India needs to learn this lesson too – if the United States with all its economic and military muscle couldn’t force Pakistan to change, nothing Delhi does will make much difference either. The best the United States can do is to stop expecting Pakistan to change and be realistic. It should not imagine that if it makes itself vulnerable to Pakistani influence, for example by sending more troops to Afghanistan who need to be supplied through Pakistan, that it can expect a different outcome from the one it has seen since 2001. I’m not in favour of cutting aid to Pakistan altogether. Washington needs to maintain just enough aid to retain some influence in the country. It is also going to have to work with China on Pakistan, regardless of tensions between Beijing and Washington elsewhere. Finally, the United States could be less mealy-mouthed about calling out Pakistani support for Islamist militants. The diplomatic cover Washington has given Pakistan since 2001—rarely saying in public what it says in private about Pakistani support for jihadis—has only alienated allies in Afghanistan and India and fed confusion among the Pakistani public. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa. Or like me on Facebook (fb.me/ayresalyssa) or Instagram (instagr.am/ayresalyssa).

More than a week after the terrorist attack on an Indian army base in Uri, close to the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border between Pakistani and Indian-administered parts of Kashmir, on the Indian side, a familiar pattern has returned. Which is to say: a group of terrorists crossed the Line of Control, attacked and killed Indian soldiers, Indian officials cite specific evidence they believe links the terrorists to a group domiciled in Pakistan, and the Pakistani government then bristles that such an allegation would be made without a complete investigation. In this latest instance, within hours of the Uri attack, the Indian director general of military operations offered that he suspected the Pakistan-based terrorist group Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) to be responsible. JeM was the group held responsible for a remarkably similar attack on the Indian army base in Pathankot, Punjab, on January 2, 2016. Later in the week, presumably based on further evidence, unnamed Indian security officials pinned the blame for Uri on Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT). Pakistan has categorically rejected any blame for the attack. The Pakistani foreign office spokesperson, Nafees Zakaria, offered that “Pakistan has nothing to gain” and that it was India’s “habit” to accuse Pakistan of involvement after terrorist attacks. Such disavowals have no credibility at this point. While it is certainly true that Pakistani citizens have suffered enormously from terrorism, that does not excuse the fact that there is a long history of attacks in India that can be traced back to groups operating from Pakistan. What’s more, internationally proscribed terrorist leaders and organizations not only have safe haven on Pakistani soil, but in some cases are allowed to hold political rallies advocating violence in Kashmir, and openly with thousands of attendees. No reasonable observer could conclude this represents a fulsome effort to stem the terrorist tide within Pakistan, nor indeed meet Pakistan’s obligations under the UN Security Council Resolutions designating these Pakistani terrorist groups. Take just one example. The LeT and its leader, Hafiz Saeed, have been proscribed for years under both UN and U.S. terrorism designations. In 2012, the United States issued a $10 million Rewards for Justice request for information that could lead to Saeed’s arrest for his role in the Mumbai attacks, in which 166 people were murdered, including six Americans. Yet he has been given free rein in Pakistan. There’s almost nothing new to say about the outrage of his continued activities because it has been going on so brazenly for so long. In recent days, he led Eid prayers in Lahore in a huge public stadium, with a sermon focused on the sacrifices of Kashmiris. (Here’s the YouTube video this terrorist organization helpfully posted online.) He has no problem drawing crowds to his public jamborees, such as the “Kashmir Caravan” he organized in late July of this year that proceeded from Lahore to the country’s capital, Islamabad. Saeed was joined in his caravan by Sami ul-Haq, head of the Darul Uloom Haqqania in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, which has been called the “University of Jihad.” According to Pakistani press reports of the caravan, some 30,000 people joined. Saeed reportedly affirmed his group’s support for jihad in Kashmir, and threatened to “violate the LoC.” One can only conclude that Pakistani authorities do not seem to mind a major terrorist organization holding rallies to urge jihad in Kashmir. It certainly does not portray the country as one interested in preventing terrorism. It is also well known that the trial of the LeT terrorists accused of carrying out the Mumbai attack in 2008 has been slow-rolled to death. An arrest of an accused financier in August pointed to some progress (the first in years), but press reports suggest that the arrest has put the process “back to 2009” in terms of timeline. Once again, this does not portray a country acting decisively to bring to justice the perpetrators of one of the worst mass terrorist attacks of the past decade. And of course it is very well known that the Haqqani network remains in fighting form, attacking Afghan, U.S., and even Indian interests across the other border in Afghanistan. Last week General John W. Nicholson, commander of the U.S. force presence in Afghanistan, said in a press conference that there was “not adequate pressure” on the Haqqanis. This August the U.S. Department of Defense declined to certify that Pakistan was “taking adequate action” against the Haqqanis, which resulted in the withholding of $300 million in coalition support funds under U.S. law. * * * Let’s try to imagine a different outcome, one that would more credibly indicate an effort to end the terrorism that continually keeps this troubled region in the “tinderbox” category of concern. Here is an imagined scenario that illustrates how a very different response could be conceivable, and could catapult India-Pakistan ties into a better place: Scenario: A terrorist attack in India bears all the signs of LeT or JeM. Pakistani authorities, weary of the poor reputation their country has acquired around the world, act with dispatch. “We are alarmed by this attack” said the foreign office spokesperson, “It sets back our already-limited dialogue with India, and makes our country look like a supporter of terrorism.” Within days, a new counterterrorism task force identifies the planners of the attack, and arrests them based on copious evidence. Trials begin within six months. Pakistani officials continue to raise their concerns diplomatically about Kashmir, but adopt a zero-tolerance policy for terrorist organizations mobilizing on their soil. Pakistan’s zero-tolerance policy on terrorism allows a breakthrough in talks with India to take place; while neither side reaches agreement in the near-term, at least dialogue has reopened. Similarly, Pakistan’s ties with Afghanistan improve, as does the Afghan security situation, with Pakistan’s increased attention to counterterror efforts against all groups. I realize this scenario might appear far-fetched, but it is not completely impossible—and it indicates what a more credible response to the ongoing terrorism problem might resemble. The pattern of denial while designated terrorists openly exhort followers to jihad is simply not credible. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa Or like me on Facebook (fb.me/ayresalyssa) or Instagram (instagr.am/ayresalyssa) 

Narendra Modi has laid down the gauntlet. Sari-and-shawl exchanges, then birthday diplomacy, failed to produce breakthroughs with Pakistan. Cross-border terrorist attacks continued. This week, New Delhi signaled the end of its patience by expanding its diplomatic coercive strategies as well as military actions to deal with terrorism and Pakistan. On September 18, four terrorists crossed the Line of Control in Kashmir and mounted an attack on an Indian army base in Uri, resulting in the deaths of 19 Indian soldiers. India pointed to two Pakistan-based terrorist groups, the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) and the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) as perpetrators. Pakistan first rejected blame, calling it India’s “habit” to blame Pakistan for terrorist attacks. Then, Pakistan’s defense minister proclaimed in a looking-glass theory that Indian authorities had mounted the terrorist attack themselves, as an “inside job.” As if that weren’t irresponsible enough, on September 28 Pakistan’s defense minister gave a television interview in which he threatened the use of nuclear weapons against India. I wrote earlier this week that Pakistan’s denials of responsibility for terrorist attacks have no credibility because internationally-designated terrorist groups continue to operate openly in Pakistan. This month alone, individually-designated terrorist Hafiz Saeed, the head of the UN- and U.S.-designated LeT, led public Eid prayers in a major Lahore stadium. Over the summer he led a 30,000 person rally focused on jihad in Kashmir. If internationally-proscribed terrorist groups have permission to hold huge jihad rallies in Pakistan’s national capital, Pakistani authorities can hardly cry foul if people look to those same terrorists when attacks in India occur. This week we have seen India unfurl a new, more coercive diplomatic strategy. The Indian government has coordinated with neighboring countries Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Bhutan to jointly boycott the upcoming South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit planned for Islamabad. Modi has convened meetings with his ministers and senior advisors to examine India’s use of water resources under the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan. Modi has also scheduled an internal meeting to review the possibility of withdrawing the “most favored nation” designation granted to Pakistan in 1996 under the World Trade Organization, which Pakistan has never reciprocated. Each of these steps marked new arenas where the Indian government signaled a willingness to look for new diplomatic sticks, since the carrots haven’t worked. With the public announcement on September 29 that Indian forces had carried out “surgical strikes” on terrorist “launchpads” across the Line of Control (LoC) separating Indian- from Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, the Narendra Modi government has now indicated a willingness to escalate militarily, though with limited actions. It is not entirely clear what took place; the Indian director general of military operations described operations to “pre-empt terrorist infiltrations,” with no “plans for further continuation.” Pakistan has responded by saying that no strikes took place, and that there was cross-border shelling. Regardless, the Indian government has broken with past practice by announcing strikes across the LoC. As Siddharth Varadarajan has examined, the Indian government’s account of the strikes focused on pre-emption of a readying terrorist attack “set against the background of Pakistan’s refusal to act against these groups,” a defensive act. As tensions increase, the world will be looking to Pakistan to meet its obligations as a state to prevent terrorism and de-escalate tensions with India. Indeed, U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice has condemned the Uri attack and called upon Pakistan to “combat” terrorism emanating from its territory. The U.S. Senate India Caucus has written a letter to Modi expressing their concern about terrorism from Pakistan. No one wants to see escalation to a nuclear conflict in South Asia, and the recent events are alarming. In the new India, dialogue is the preferred option and first resort, but terrorist attacks from Pakistan will now be met with a wider array of responses. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa. Or like me on Facebook (fb.me/ayresalyssa) or Instagram (instagr.am/ayresalyssa).

Anna Feuer is a research associate in the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations. Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state and a historical flashpoint for separatist violence, terrorism, and border tensions, has enjoyed relative peace since 2010. However, recent incidents—including a violation of the Indo-Pakistani ceasefire that holds on the Line of Control (LoC) and a controversy surrounding Kashmir’s special constitutional status— point to the many stresses that could spark renewed unrest in the contested territory. External threats from Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based, anti-Indian militant group committed to jihad in Kashmir, and the ongoing risk of military conflict with Pakistan compound Kashmir’s insecurity. India’s new prime minister, Narendra Modi, should seek to reduce Kashmir’s vulnerability to these pressures by addressing Kashmiris’ longstanding domestic grievances, including militarization of the region, economic stagnation, and the preservation of Kashmir’s legislative autonomy. Modi should start by altering the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Jammu and Kashmir so that it applies only to the LoC. According to Human Rights Watch, AFSPA, which grants special powers to Indian armed forces in “disturbed areas,” protects soldiers from prosecution for abuses and violates international human rights law. The previous prime minister, Manmohan Singh, pledged to repeal the law but failed to overcome the army’s opposition. Recently, however, the Ministry of Defense may have signaled a change in attitude, indicating that the time has come for “a strategic shift from merely invoking control mechanisms to addressing conflicts at various levels.” (Defense Minister Arun Jaitley was more evasive during a trip to Srinagar last weekend.) Repeal, or at least reform, of the law would do much to  reassure Kashmiris concerned with human rights and militarization. As elsewhere in India, Kashmiris are deeply worried about unemployment and economic stagnation. Recognizing that some Kashmiris may understand socioeconomic issues, like they do security issues, in the context of their troubled relationship with New Delhi, the Modi administration should keep economic development at the center of its approach to Kashmir, and avoid communally-driven policies that could divert attention from economic goals. Kashmiri traders are hopeful that the new government will revitalize trade across the LoC , though the Pakistan army’s opposition may make this impossible. Finally, Modi should downplay his party’s commitment to eliminating Article 370, the constitutional provision that grants Kashmir significant autonomy. While the BJP and its ideological affiliate, the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, maintain that Article 370 stokes separatistism and hinders Kashmir’s full integration into India, many Kashmiri Muslims perceive Article 370 as a lifeline that preserves their political voice in a Hindu-majority nation. (Whether the provision provides for substantive autonomy is another issue; presidential orders since 1950 have ensured that most Union laws apply to Kashmir.) Some have suggested that the BJP may attempt to consolidate its support in Hindu-dominated Jammu by hastening the repeal of Article 370. However, as analyst Jonah Blank points out, Modi’s sweeping election victory gives him “the political space to reach out to Indian Muslims” and potentially soften the BJP’s hardline stance on Kashmir’s special status. Modi should not attempt to quietly dilute Kashmir’s special status without officially removing the provision; past efforts to weaken the state’s autonomy have not gone unnoticed by separatist leaders. The Modi administration has already committed itself to the return of Kashmiri Pandits, Hindu Brahmins displaced during the Kashmiri insurgency of the late 1980s and 1990s. But the time is ripe to address the many other enduring issues that could exacerbate communal tensions and secessionist violence in Kashmir; as reporter Myra MacDonald has pointed out, Pakistan’s deteriorating security situation makes it less and less desirable for Kashmiris who are seeking peace, stability, and economic opportunity. By taking steps to reform AFSPA, encourage economic development, and “douse the sparks” produced by the Article 370 controversy, Modi can demonstrate his concern for Kashmiris’ longstanding grievances. However, if Modi pursues the Hindu nationalist positions that characterized his tenure as chief minister in Gujarat and colored his campaign speeches, he risks a return to the insecurity that has plagued Kashmir for much of its recent history.