Pakistan’s Lame Lawmakers’ Resolution on Kashmir a Challenge for India

Sushant Sareen 

(Senior Fellow, VIF)

The highly provocative, extremely offensive, and utterly reprehensible resolution passed by the National Assembly of Pakistan condemning Indian ‘state sponsored brutalities’ and demanding the handing over the body of executed terrorist Afzal Guru to his family, allowing people to freely practise their religion (this coming from a state where an open season has been declared on Shias, Hindu girls are abducted and forcibly converted and Christians are subjected to the worst sort of Islamofascism), pulling out of security forces from Kashmir and repealing all ‘black laws’ in the Indian state, release of all ‘political prisoners’, implementation of the UN Security Council resolutions, and promising political, moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiris, has predictably enough raised the hackles in India.

While on the one hand the resolution has given an indication of the direction in which things are likely to move as far as Pakistan's export of terrorism in Kashmir is concerned, on the other hand it has exposed all the manufactured bonhomie and double-talk being indulged by the Pakistani politicians who tried to beguile Indian policy makers into believing that there was a political consensus in Pakistan in favour of normalisation of relations with India. Since around 1997, India has been sold the nonsense that neither Kashmir nor India is any longer an issue in Pakistani elections. The real reason why India and Kashmir didn’t figure as an election issue was that there was a broad based political consensus in Pakistan in favour of exporting jihad and delivering a ‘death by a thousand cuts’ to India. Since no one opposed this policy there was no gain to be made by raking this issue at the hustings.

Over the last few years, however, an impression had gained ground that the political consensus inside Pakistan in favour of export of jihad was breaking down. Not surprisingly, some political players smelled an opportunity to agitate on this issue to increase their vote bank. But the moment one player tries to exploit this issue, all others start falling over each other to swear their commitment to snatching Kashmir from India. The unanimous passage of this resolution bears out that no one in Pakistan is willing to question, much less stand up against, the Jihadist policy of the State. What this does to the policy of appeasement towards Pakistan being followed by the Manmohan Singh government and to the expressed desire of the Indian Prime Minister who had declared that he would think he had done his job well if he managed to normalise relations with Pakistan can well be imagined.

Apologists for Pakistan in India will of course argue that too much should not be read into this resolution which has been made for purely political reasons by legislators who are about to go in for fresh elections. After all, notwithstanding all the hyperbole of this National Assembly having made the ‘historic achievement’ of completing it term, the fact remains that in many ways it was an effete and powerless collection of people whose resolutions were not worth the paper they were written on because these resolutions were observed more in their violation. What is more, these ‘elected representatives’ of the people of Pakistan are perhaps the meekest and weakest part of the Pakistani state and are treated with contempt by the overbearing judiciary, meddling military and self-righteous media. And yet, this is a resolution that cannot and should not be ignored, both because it reflects the unremitting hostility towards India of the political class in Pakistan, as well as for what this resolution portends in terms of another upsurge in export of jihadi terrorism to India.

To the extent that this resolution is a mea culpa on part of the Pakistani state for its involvement in the dastardly attack on the Indian Parliament, it needs to be welcomed. Pakistan, it seems, has finally officially taken ownership of Afzal Guru and his terrorist action and accepted that he was a Pakistani agent working at the behest of his Pakistani masters to attack the Indian Parliament. The resolution is a tacit acknowledgement of Guru’s links with the Jaish-e-Mohammed, one of the terrorist outfits involved in the Parliament attack. The mover of the resolution, Maulana Fazlur Rehman (better known as Maulana Diesel for his involvement in Diesel smuggling) is a Deobandi cleric who shares fraternal links with Deobandi terror groups like the JeM, Harkatul Mujahideen, Sipah-e-Sahaba, not to mention the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Rehman also happens to be the Chairman of the Kashmir Committee of the Pakistani Parliament, which is basically an organisation for providing foreign junkets to Pakistani politicians at the expense of the bankrupt government of Pakistan.

The Maulana, who also happens to be leading an effort to effect a rapprochement between the Pakistani authorities and the TTP, probably intends to use this resolution not only to cement his credentials as a dyed-in-wool jihadist who stands firm on the so-called ‘Kashmir cause’, but also to appease terror groups like TTP which have been threatening retaliation against India for the hanging of Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru. The same Maulana had in 2001-02 issued a fatwa calling for the murder of Americans and the notoriety as well as popularity he gained catapulted him to the position of Leader of Opposition (he was actually more of a lap dog of the Pakistani military dictator Pervez Musharraf) in the National Assembly that came into existence after the 2002 elections. The Maulana’s party, Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI-F) also formed governments in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, which were used to promote Talibanisation in both these provinces.

Perhaps, a similar game is once again being played by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, only this time it isn’t the US but India which is being targeted. In the process, the Maulana, who has been a frequent visitor to India where he has tried to convince his Indian interlocutors of his bonafides and his intense and sincere desire to play a role in improving Indo-Pak relations, has more or less burnt his bridges with India. He is unlikely to be welcome anymore in this country. He has only proved his detractors, who pointed to the undesirable company he kept and his links with extremist and terrorist groups, right. For the sake of playing to the gallery back home in the hope of winning some brownie points and perhaps a few extra votes, he has effectively become a persona non grata in India.

But if people like Fazlur Rehman are becoming an anathema for India, their acceptability is growing among the Americans. If anything, the Americans seem to have given a free hand to Pakistani Islamists as part of their plan to exit from the region. Just recently, the US Ambassador to Islamabad held a meeting with Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Subsequently, the US envoy told the Pakistani media that the situation in Terror Central (North Waziristan) was something that Pakistan had to sort out domestically, thereby indicating that the US was willing to turn a blind eye to a terrorist safe haven in return for Maulana Fazlur Rehman using his influence and contacts to push forward with the ‘reconciliation process’ in Afghanistan. Worse, with two utterly clueless apologists for Pakistan now at the helm of affairs at the State Department and Pentagon, the US policy on Islamist terrorism is likely to undergo a major transformation with appeasement of Pakistan and turning a blind eye to its use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy becoming the order of the day as a quid pro quo for safe passage out of Afghanistan for Western troops. The result is an emboldening of Pakistan, and its natural corollary is the political and military adventurism that is being seen on Kashmir and the recent acts of terrorism in other parts of India.

India cannot afford to let this challenge to go unanswered. Not only does India need to disabuse the Pakistanis and the Americans of the notion that they can trifle with India for their own ends, but more importantly, the political class in India, especially the Manmohanistas need to disabuse themselves of the notion that Pakistan is genuinely interested in normalisation of relations with India. Instead of formulating policy on the basis of the sweet-talk coming from Pakistani politicians who neither control any wing of the ISI nor command a single division of the Pakistan army (comprising of jihadis, some in uniform, others in mufti), India would be better served by seeing action on the ground by the Pakistanis to prove their bonafides. The unanimous resolution passed by the Lok Sabha is the first right step in this direction. This needs to be followed up by setting metrics on the basis of which Pakistan’s intentions will be judged. Equally important, India needs to stop giving the unnecessary and unwarranted importance to the mythical Pakistani civil society which is nothing more than a powerless, if also vocal, fringe group comprising around 500 (and if you want to be very charitable, 5000) people. Most of all, India needs to stop depending on the US for pulling its chestnuts out of the fire. The US will do what is in its interest and if this means sacrificing India’s interests, then so be it. India, therefore, needs to prepare itself for the coming wave of terrorism and develop capabilities to counter this scourge as well as pay back the adversary in more than equal measure.

LoC Ceasefire Violation: Talking Peace only to Undercut The Dialogue by Other Means

Sushant Sareen 

(Senior Fellow, VIF) 

The flag meeting between the local Indian commander and his Pakistani counterpart has concluded in an utterly predictable fashion: India has protested the repeated violation of the LoC ceasefire by Pakistani troops and strongly took up the issue of barbarity displayed by Pakistani soldiers who crossed the LoC, killed two Indian soldiers and mutilated their bodies, carrying away the head of one soldier as a trophy; Pakistan has brazenly denied all the Indian charges and hurled counter-accusations at the Indians. 

Despite this talking at each other, the flag meeting could possibly have achieved the limited purpose for which it was being held viz. cooling down things so that hostilities don’t spiral out of control. Of course, how long the temperature remains lowered is another matter altogether. Sooner or later, efforts will be made from the Indian side to even the scores – the morale of the troops who are seething with rage over the savage actions of Pakistani soldiers depends on this. As far as the Pakistanis are concerned, they could well violate the ceasefire again, either to push in infiltrators and terrorists or in response to an Indian retaliation, or even in pursuit of some larger strategic game-plan which could very well have been the reason why tensions were ratcheted up in the first place. 

Basically, there are two possible explanations for the cross-LoC adventurism by the Pakistani forces at this stage. The benign explanation is that it was a routine ceasefire violation which spiralled out of control. In other words, it wasn’t part of any premeditated plan. Once the firing started, the two sides went up the escalation ladder with no easy way of defusing the situation because of political compulsions of all the main players. The civilian government in Pakistan is already coming under pressure of the Islamists and the military establishment for going soft on India and opening up trade and relaxing travel between the two countries. With general elections round the corner, the civilian government in Islamabad doesn’t want to appear as having backed down from giving a muscular response to an alleged Indian provocation along the LoC. 

The military leadership in Rawalpindi is also facing dissension within its rank and file for re-engaging with the Americans and opening up NATO supply lines post the Salala incident in which 26 Pakistan Army soldiers were killed in bombing by US aircraft in November 2011. For the Pakistan Army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani to now appear as adopting a pusillanimous approach towards India will be quite disastrous. What is more, the Pakistan Army probably feels that it needs to send out a signal to India to not think that it is on its knees because of the myriad problems within Pakistan. In other words, the Pakistan Army wants to convey that it still has a lot of fight left in it and India shouldn’t think it can trifle with Pakistan just because it is in a tight spot on both the western front and internally. 

The predicament of the Indian political leadership is no less. Already seen as a weak, vacillating and extremely corrupt and incompetent government which is also seen as bending over backwards to appease Pakistan, the UPA-II finds itself in an unenviable position. It doesn’t want hostilities along the LoC to spread and would like to cool things down but without being seen as having thrown in the towel. Adding to its problems is the seething rage in the armed forces which cannot tolerate the thought of letting the extreme provocation by the Pakistan Army go unanswered. The manner in which the Indian government is trying to resolve the matter is by playing good cop – the political leadership playing down the incident and taking a soft approach – and the military leadership talking tough to cool down the soldiery – the air chief talking about ‘other options’ and the army chief warning of an ‘aggressive’ response to future violations of ceasefire and assuring his troops that India will respond to the outrage of mutilation of its soldiers at a time and place of its own choosing.

The bottom-line as far as the benign explanation goes is that neither side wants things to go out of control and the ceasefire to collapse. Despite India taking the issue of the treatment meted out to its soldiers extremely seriously, it doesn’t consider the matter to be of a level over which it is willing to either suspend the dialogue with Pakistan or start a general shooting match along the LoC. Of course, the incident has once again laid bare Pakistan’s treacherous conduct – talking peace and cooing sweet nothings on the one hand and displaying barbarity and indulging in unprovoked firing on Indian soldiers on the other hand. But India has somehow come to expect this sort of treachery from Pakistan and at least the current dispensation is more than happy to live with it. 

Before we touch upon the second and more plausible, if also more sinister, explanation of the entire LoC affair, it is important to disabuse ourselves of the nonsense that the Pakistan army is a professional and modern army which doesn’t engage in the mutilation of corpses of its adversaries. The fact of the matter is that despite all the trappings and traditions of the old British Indian army, the mindset of the Pakistan army is that of a medieval Islamist or Jihadist army. The only difference between the Pakistan army and its illegitimate offspring, the Taliban, is that the former is a uniformed force while the latter is not. None other than the former leader of opposition in Pakistan, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, has revealed that the Pakistan army would hurl living Taliban fighters out of helicopters flying from a height of a 1000 feet and more to instil fear and terror among the Taliban ranks. During the 1990’s, Pakistani Urdu press were full of stories and pictures of beheaded Indian soldiers which were displayed as trophies by the jihadist proxies of the Pakistan army. 

Apart from the mutilation of Limit Saurav Kalia and his men during the Kargil conflict, there is also the incident of Gen Pervez Musharraf felicitating the terrorist commander Ilyas Kashmiri after the latter presented him with the severed head of an Indian soldier. A former Indian general has revealed that during the 1965 operations in Chammb, the Pakistan Army severed the ears and noses and even genitals of dead Indian soldiers. And for anyone to suggest that in this latest incident, it was perhaps some jihadist force which carried out the mutilation is nothing but an apology, if not an alibi, for the Pakistan Army. The simple fact is that given the saturation presence of the Pakistan Army along the LoC, it is inconceivable for a jihadist force to operate without the permission and assistance of the Pakistan army. Therefore, there is no way that the Pakistan Army can be absolved of this dastardly and barbaric act which was carried out as part of a larger game-plan to deliberately increase tension along the LoC and the Eastern front.

This is where the second and more sinister explanation comes in. Ever since 9/11 and the subsequent US-led NATO occupation and operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan has been trying hard to convince the Western bloc and the international community that the road to Kabul goes through Kashmir. But until now, this ploy hasn’t received much traction, partly because India reacted very emphatically against drawing any such linkage and partly because Pakistan’s own double-speak and double-game in Afghanistan lost it all support and sympathy of the West. Now however, with the Afghan endgame unfolding – ISAF troop withdrawals from Afghanistan moving into a high gear, reconciliation moves with the Taliban gathering pace and the US desperate to leave behind some semblance of order before it quits Afghanistan – Pakistan senses another opportunity to draw the attention of the West to solve the Kashmir issue in accordance with Pakistan's wishes and holding out the threat that unless this is done Pakistan would be forced to divert its focus on the eastern front with India leaving the Western forces in the lurch in Afghanistan. The perceptible US tilt in favour of Pakistan is also emboldening the Pakistanis to indulge in some sabre-rattling and indeed adventurism on the eastern front under the belief that if things get heated up on the Indian front, the US and its other Western allies will be left with no choice but to intercede on Pakistan's behalf against India. 

The timing of the latest provocation along the LoC also makes sense because Pakistan is holding the presidency of the UN Security Council in January and tensions in Kashmir allow Pakistan to try and internationalise the Kashmir issue at the UN. The alacrity with which the Pakistani officials proposed involving the UNMOGIP to investigate the entire incident suggests premeditation behind the cross-LoC raid. Not only has the Pakistan foreign office been trying hard to get the UN involved, it has also launched a diplomatic offensive with the American and EU ambassadors to internationalise the issue. 

As far as India is concerned, it needs to operate at two levels to scotch this Pakistani move. India must react strongly to any provocation along the LoC, something that the Army Chief Gen. Bikram Singh has indicated in his press conference. At the diplomatic level, it is important that India convey to the US that while we understand their compulsions in Afghanistan and the fact that the Americans will want to protect their interests in the Af-Pak region by reaching out to Pakistan, India has also its own vital interests to protect and there are certain red-lines the breach of which India will never allow. The US cannot expect India to surrender its vital interests for the sake of the Americans. Once India makes clear to the international community where it gets off, the so-called pressure that is likely to be brought on India will disappear. 

India needs to keep in mind the lesson of Kargil. Once hostilities started, the international community tried to pressure India against responding forcefully to Pakistani aggression, holding out assurances that they will try and resolve the matter. Had India agreed, the Pakistanis would have been still sitting on the heights they occupied with the international community twiddling its thumbs. But once India responded with force and refused to listen to the self-serving advice of the international community, the boot was suddenly on the other foot and Pakistan was seen as the aggressor and all the international pressure was then on Pakistan to vacate its aggression. This then is the reality of international politics and soft-peddling on issues of vital interest will only lead to surrender of these interests.