A vale of tears

ASTROLOGERS CHOSE 15 August 1947 as a propitious day for India’s independent existence to begin. But by the 16th, when the Boundary Commission on future frontiers made its report, the Punjab was already in flames as five million Muslims began to cross from India to the newly-created state of Pakistan, while an equal number of non-Muslims were fleeing west Punjab for the east. It is estimated that by the time the massive movement was over more than a million people had lost their lives, often in massacres of appalling cruelty carried out by one side or the other. As so often in ensuing years, India and Pakistan blamed each other for starting and fomenting the slaughter and atrocities, while both blamed the British for having completed the transfer of power too soon.

The maharaja chooses India

Apart from the massacres in Punjab, serious trouble was building up in the mountainous province of Kashmir, whose Hindu maharaja Hari Singh was still undecided, months after Indian independence, whether to plump for India or Pakistan. His freedom of choice was limited by the fact that the majority of his people were Muslims, but also by strong pressures from India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, whose ancestors came from Kashmir, to choose India. The understanding was that states with non-Hindu majorities like his own should be allowed to join Pakistan, but the choice was left to the ruler. Foolishly, in October 1947 Pakistani ‘volunteers’ tried to influence his choice by invading Kashmir at the invitation of Muslim rebels, and headed for the capital, Srinagar. This stirred the lethargic maharaja into rapidly choosing India and sending for Indian troops to save him. By the end of the year they had done so. The Pakistanis withdrew, but not for long: in the spring of 1948 they resumed their offensive in spite of the imbalance in strength between their own weak forces and the greatly superior Indian armies. That first consequence of partition started an arms race and a situation of armed confrontation which have lasted ever since.

A missed chance

As early as 1948, the fledgling United Nations Organisation was persuaded to intervene in the dispute, and decided, reasonably enough, that the issue should be subjected to plebiscite. Muslims, aware of the predominantly Muslim population of Kashmir, supported it, but India opposed the proposal, and the plebiscite has never been held. Ever since then, the province of Kashmir has been divided by a cease-fire line, known as the Line of Control, which changes every time the two countries go to war and gain or lose territory. The Line of Control separates the so-called Vale of Kashmir on the Indian side from Azad (free) Kashmir on the Pakistani. There was, in fact, a momentary agreement in 1972 between the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Bhutto, that the Line of Control, which effectively left the two countries with half Kashmir each, should become the permanent frontier. But neither leader was bold enough to let ministers in on the agreement, which was never publicly admitted. Such an arrangement might not have worked , but it would almost certainly have been better than the no-war-no-peace situation which has dragged on since that time. Above all, it might have persuaded the two leaders to concern themselves less with Kashmir and get down to dealing with the vast array of serious problems, beginning with poverty, which afflict both sides so grievously.

The moment was not seized, the chance went begging, and the two countries have remained at war or on the brink of it. Each has at least 35,000 troops on permanent duty in Kashmir, to say nothing of the vast array of guerrillas, spies and assorted special forces that accompany armies. Kashmir, which must have been one of the most enchanting countries in the world, has become a vale of tears, a waste land of military debris and polluted lakes, the endless sound of gunfire and presence of death, all symbols of humanity’s division.

Successive wars

Apart from the initial encounter in 1948, the two countries went to war in 1965 and 1972, when Pakistan lost East Pakistan, now the independent republic of Bangladesh. On every occasion, the Pakistanis have been heavily defeated because of their weaker forces. These wars have cost both sides enormous losses in both men and material things but there is no indication that either side has any intention of seeking an end to them: indeed, they regard any attempt by outside agencies or non-partisan world leaders to mediate as unwarranted interference in their affairs.

Throughout the nineties, and up to the present, guerrilla warfare has continued on a much increased scale on both sides of the Line of Control. In 1999, Pakistani incursions were answered by air attacks by Indian planes on Pakistani positions near Kargil, and at least two Indian aircraft were reported to have been shot down. Only last month, Indian army units killed 14 Muslim guerrillas near Srinagar, bringing the total number of dead for this year to 800. There is no doubt that military and guerrilla activity is increasing and that the prospects of war have grown considerably in the past months. It should be noted that among the many Pakistani-financed guerrilla groups operating on both sides of the Line of Control are a growing number who do not call for union with Pakistan, or closer ties with India, but for Kashmiri independence.

The nuclear test explosions

The Kargil attacks in 1999 were the most serious since the two sides had, separately but almost simultaneously, conducted tests in 1998 of the nuclear devices which both had developed. It had been known for many years that both had been working on the bomb, but none the less it was a surprise when the explosions happened. Both India and Pakistan have expressed satisfaction at having broken into the nuclear club at last, and have welcomed their own success with triumphalist acclaim. Mark Tully, an English writer living in Delhi, on the other hand, has called the tests a spiritual defeat for India... a surrender to hatred of Pakistan. Unfortunately, neither side has yet shown any sign of realising the implications of possessing the nuclear bomb. For both sides, the only point in having it is to use it against the other, either as a threat or as a means of destruction. The strength of the threat is cancelled by the other power also possessing it, so one is left with the bomb as a weapon of destruction.

However, after the initial euphoria, both sides seemed to react more sensibly to the suggestion that, now more than ever, dialogue was the only way of settling Indo-Pakistani differences over Kashmir. The Pakistanis returned the body of an Indian pilot shot down over Kargil, and a meeting of foreign ministers was held to talk about problems. But it seems that such meetings are not held to advance the possibilities of a long-term solution, and, like the missed chance in 1972, the talks broke down into a high-level slanging-match. The real difficulty is that the only negotiation either side will accept involves complete surrender by the other.

After 11 September

There was a moment after the Al Qa’ida attack on the USA on 11 September when the two sides might have got together on the basis of ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’. Hitherto, Pakistan had traditionally been favoured by China, and India by Russia and the USA. It was remarkable, therefore, to see President George W. Bush setting his cap at Pakistan’s head of state, General Pervez Musharraf. The general, to his great credit, accepted Bush’s request for cooperation against global terrorism, and there followed the relentless, and mainly successful, attack on Al-Qa’ida and the Taliban. It could not have been undertaken without Pakistani support, and that support could not have been given if India had exerted contrary pressures on Pakistan. As Wellington said of Waterloo, it was a close-run thing, but it demonstrated that Indo-Pakistani enmity should not always be assumed.

Unfortunately, any thought that the two nations would take the chance of working together against a common enemy – global terrorism – was dashed by the attack made on the Indian parliament in Delhi at the end of the year 2001 by Muslim fundamentalists with strong ties to Kashmir. In recent weeks too, tensions in the area have increased with growing Indian impatience over Muslim intruders, whose activities General Musharraf had promised to curb. India has hinted that it is considering launching attacks on mountain passes used by the infiltrators, and bombing the training camps from which such militants are dispatched into Indian Kashmir. Washington is concerned enough about the increased threat to have sent a senior envoy to the area – Ms. Christina Rocca – to talk to Indian and Pakistani leaders on the ground.

The root causes of tension

The United Nations Security Council has accurately identified the Kashmir issue as being the cause of tension between India and Pakistan. Concern over the degree and depth of enmity between the two countries has greatly increased since the nuclear test explosions three years ago, and it now seems a shorter step than ever between war with conventional weapons and all out nuclear war that will inevitably involve many other nations. True, there is no confirmation that either side possesses enough enriched uranium for more than one bomb, or that they have solved the problem of a workable delivery system. To some extent, however, such arguments are irrelevant: the bottom line is that both sides have the bomb and, given their records of political irresponsibility, are quite capable of using it.