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Flashpoint Kashmir

On the night of Wednesday May 10, 1995 when Eid was being celebrated in Pakistan (and Kashmir), Indian security forces surrounding the small group of Mujahideen encamped inside the holy shrine of Charar Sharif and attempted to expel the occupants by force of arms. Houses in the vicinity of the shrine had been set on fire a day or so before, eye-witnesses have testified that the fire which destroyed the shrine was a deliberate act of wanton arson on the part of the attacking troops to gain their objectives. Quick of the mark, Indian Internal Security Minister Rajesh Pilot, immediately put the blame “squarely” on Pakistan and threatened that India “would complete the unfinished business of taking over (Azad) Kashmir” or words to that effect. In an outstanding display of rank calumny, Indian High Commissioner in UK appeared live on BBC last Thursday morning and labelled Charar Sharif as a Hindu shrine that “Pakistanis had desecrated”. That statement set the tone of the blatant falsehood churned out by the Indian propaganda machine in a sustained attempt at “damage control”, it was not till Saturday when foreign correspondents reached the vicinity of the outrage that details of Indian perfidy were sifted by the world media.

Since Rajesh Pilot has explicitly threatened Pakistan with war (as no incursion in Azad Kashmir could be confined to that region), Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Sardar Assef Ali, was obliged to issue a denial about Pakistan’s supposed involvement in the incident. He also made it clear that Pakistan would defend itself if attacked. Consequently, alarm bells have started to go off all over the world as the threat of a possible “Fourth Round” between Pakistan and India a distinct possibility. India put its security forces on its borders in a state of high alert and Prime Minister Narasimha Rao has called an All Parties Conference at short notice in New Delhi on Sunday May 14, 1995. On her part Pakistan’s PM Ms Benazir Bhutto has strongly castigated India for the atrocity and called an emergency meeting of the Federal Cabinet the same evening to consider the situation and Pakistan’s options. In the face of accelerating escalation, the first steps leading to an all-out war between Pakistan and India seem to have been taken and as the long, hot summer gets into its stride tensions will increase till we cross a mutually recognizable fail-safe line. But we in Pakistan must seriously ask ourselves, is war the answer to the Kashmir solution or for that matter other simmering disputes between Pakistan and India? For many reasons that need to be analysed in some detail, it is in Pakistan’s interest not to go to war while it is in India’s interest to force the issue at this time.

The situation inside Indian-Held Kashmir is that despite overwhelming numbers, Indian security forces have not been able to stop the various Mujahideen groups from proliferating while the guerilla activity has increased in a manner that has stopped economic and routine activity in the Valley. Indians have tightened security all along the Line of Control (LOC) in Kashmir to avoid material help from Pakistan and they were given a surprise gift by the closure of the logistics route which the Sikh militants provided to the Kashmiri Mujahideen through Indian Punjab when PM Ms Benazir Bhutto “helped” Rajiv Gandhi (by her own admission) in the tackling of the Sikh question during her first tenure as PM. In the face of such sanitization, any movement that is not indigenous is bound to fail. There is no way that any outside force can sustain guerilla movement inside Indian-Held Kashmir for so long without the people of Kashmir themselves being inherently involved in the forefront of a freedom struggle. Given that this armed struggle has now attracted adverse international pressure for India, intense diplomatic activity has intensified to solve the Kashmir dispute. Above all, the Indian Armed Forces have been drawn into a debilitating struggle that is sapping morale and equipment. As an endless black hole for hard earned revenues, the Indians see their “economic miracle” in jeopardy if there is no end to the budgetary revenues being drawn into supporting a no-win situation. At the same time the Congress Party has seen its support from Indian Muslims, who were attracted by its secular nature, gradually erode and transferred to other parties as atrocities and miseries of Kashmiri Muslim have become common knowledge. This withdrawal of traditional support has led to Congress losing many State elections.

India may well feel that Pakistan is diplomatically isolated with only lukewarm support possible from its traditional allies Iran and China. With Saudi support emasculated because of US-Iran diplomatic confrontation, India would possibly believe that Pakistan would be hard put to depend upon outside help to counter overwhelming Indian numbers and sophisticated weaponry. With Pakistan’s economy in shambles and the Armed Forces bereft of induction of new equipment and spares for some time. India may surmise that Pakistan would be at its lowest ebb in successfully sustaining a war environment. This is further jeopardised by the unnecessary civil strife in Pakistan’s only port city of Karachi. Whereas our struggle in Afghanistan should have created favourable conditions that would have ensured Afghanistan’s help in any future war with India, a short-sighted policy has seen India reap the dividends of a war she opposed tooth and nail in the 80s as a dependable Soviet ally.

If the Indians (and those who would appease them) think that given all those conditions, the Pakistan Armed Forces and the Pakistani people are going to roll over and play dead, they are sadly mistaken. Over the past few years there has been a qualitative change for the better in the Armed Forces and there is no better occasion to display that quality except when defending one’s homeland. The calibre of generalship has also much improved relative to what we have once had, the best is concentrated in the middle levels, the Brigade Group being the most probable composite fighting unit in a war in the near future with India. Motivation is a tremendous asset and that will be on Pakistan’s side rather than the Indians who incidentally have to contain the Sikh separatists their own backyard in Indian Punjab along their Lines of Communications. Ultimately the Indians will also have to ask themselves that given what has happened over the years, will the loyalty of the Sikhs, who still form the backbone of the Indian fighting machine, hold? So take heart, those who could believe that we are a lost cause, there is hope yet!
Given all the aforegoing, it is in Pakistan’s interest not to go to war. We should not lose our patience at India’s flamboyant rhetoric which is desperate to increase the tensions. Sun Tze Tzu said, “if you wait by the river long enough, you will see the corpse of your enemy go floating by” and Patton gave the immortal “no man ever won a war by dying for his country, he only won a war by making the other man die for his country.” Whatever hardships the heroes inside Kashmir are facing will be much worse if we should be drawn into playing the Indian game. Invoking late PM Shastri (circa 1965), let us wait for “a time and place of our choosing”. Let us not fall into the trap of threatening nuclear retaliation, let us keep cool while the Indians fret. It is in India’s interest to stop its haemorrhaging, it is in Pakistan’s supreme interest to let the Indians bleed without going to war.

In the meantime, we cannot afford to put our guard down as India will certainly use this opportunity to try and Balkan-ize us, incidentally an interest that western nations (and Israel) who are apprehensive of our nuclear potential share. Indians may launch a limited incursion in Kashmir, possibly heliborne operations to try and cut off Pakistani forces in Azad Kashmir or launch an air strike against suspected nuclear facilities in mainland Pakistan. Already Neelum Valley has been more or less cut off by the Indians for regular supplies, with about 50-60,000 people affected but we have kept our patience. We rushed into war in 1948 and 1965 while being forced into a self-created no-win situation in 1971. This time lets keep our heads. This is the time to stand together behind the Government as a united nation, encouraging the PM to use her considerable diplomatic and personal charm to gain world sympathy and material support for Pakistan, especially from the only remaining Superpower, the US. In this crisis there can be no debate, we must stand solidly with the Government no matter to what political or religious shade one belongs. In the end, one can only advise our leaders to keep their cool and not to succumb to grave provocation, “we should not rush in, where even angels fear to tread”.

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