The Weekly Telegraph (Kathmandu), Wednesday July 07th, 1999.
Avoiding War in South Asia
by Shambhu Lama
For the past four decades the division created by Cold War and the
repression of political pluralism in the world have coincided with an
unprecedented period of peace among the great powers on earth. The
South Asia region could not be spared in this division and the two
great powers of this region, namely India and Pakistan à two newest
nuclear rivals - maintained its own affiliation between the two
different superpowers. Although, Pakistan and India have fought 3 wars
after they got independence, it is this bipolar division of world power
structure that mostly kept these two countries refrained from any
potential disastrous aggression during the past 50 years. Now however,
the demise of this bipolar division of world power owing mainly to
collapse of Soviet Union and the resulting economic and political chaos
in its eastern block, the "new thinking" in foreign policy of any
individual country has taken dramatic shift. As the legitimacy of the
old institutions of the Communist era has collapsed and international
alignments have become more fragile, Pakistan and India lack the
necessary chain of power à either to hold on to, or to oppose to.
Consequently, the forces and reasoning of conflicts are free at play
with a complete lack of legitimate power structure that could
preventively intervene into the potential conflict. These forces of
conflict have historically been rather intense and are further
aggravated by the presence of "imbalance of military power" that exists
between these two countries. The military superiority of India over
Pakistan and the two third of Kashmir occupied by India will provide
continuing stimulus and the need for Pakistan to maintain the Kashmir
agenda sizzling in the region. The stability requires a sense of
caution, maturity, and responsibility on both sides. It requires the
ability to distinguish posturing à something in which all political
leaders indulge à from provocation, which is something else again. It
requires recognition of the fact that posturing between two adversaries
is a normal rather than an abnormal state of affairs in relations
between two conflicting nations.
The multi-polar power growth in different regions of the world and the
lack of adequate interest of international institutions such as United
Nations in the poverty-stricken region of South Asia have left these
two countries, Indian and Pakistan, in their own discretion. These two
countries are facing the classic problem: booming military expenditure
in terms of building nuclear arms and ineffectual political
institutions.
This is further exacerbated by the destructive pattern of social and
political forces confronting each other nakedly. No political
institutions, no corps of professional political leaders are recognized
or accepted as the legitimate intermediaries to moderate conflict. The
present stalemate could have avoided alarming number of military lives
that have been killed on both sides, had the parties in conflict could
have come to a consensus to employ a third party mediating the
conflict. Both sides have decided not to chose the legitimate and
authoritative methods for resolving their existing conflicts.
India and Pakistan are the two major powers in South Asia; and the
conflict between these two reflect the regional instability affecting
the countries in its surroundings: Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Maldives
and Sri Lanka. These two countries have accounted for most of the
secur?ty problems in the 2nd half of this century in the region. The
currently observed imbalance in the competitions of nuclear race is
expected to create even further security problems in the region. The
weak democratic institutions and the inherent political instabilities
in both the countries, they are unable to channel the exploding
energies of increasing mass political participation in constructive
directions. Instead, elite groups that have run these two countries
during the past 4 decades and are interested in militarism and
protectionism have used nationalist agenda to recr?it mass backing for
their parochial ends.
Some intellectuals argue that the presence of conflict between India
and Pakistan is essential to make South Asian political order more
peaceful. This is especially true for significant differentials between
these two powerful countries versus other small countries around their
periphe?ies.
Although China shares border with a number of countries in the region,
it's too far away to have any economic or socio-cultural impact of the
stability or instability. But considering the size of 978 million
population in India versus, say, 23 million population in Nepal or, 19
million in Sri Lanka or, 0.7 million in Bhutan or, 0.3 million in
Maldives, these countries need some perennial mechanism that assures
permanent security to them. The continued conflict between India and
Pakistan creates necessary environment where these small countries are
secured, nurtured and flourished. More importantly, this seriously
defeats India's soft interest of providing regional leadership and
representing it in the international political affairs.
The current understanding of international politics suggests that the
bipolar stalemate between the any two powerful countries is the most
stable possible power configuration. Given the growing gap in
demographic and military defense system between India and Pakistan,
this power configuration is gradually being eroded. And, India has been
heading towards the direction where it will have the unilateral power
dominance over Pakistan. In such case, Pakistan has no other option but
to support the guerilla militants by either recognizing them as
"freedom fighters" or by providing regular armies in their pretext. In
absence of effective international mediation efforts and the continuing
western support in favor of India, as it stands today, it is only
imperative that the numbers and intensity of such "freedom fighters"
will only increase in the future years to come. Many lives are sure to
go into waste, on both sides.
India acts naïve by insisting that it is the bilateral issue between
India and Pakistan; and that no further dialogue is initiated until
hundreds of militants holed up along an 88-mile stretch of Himalayan
ridges on its side of the military Line of Control (LoC) were
withdrawing. The July 4 meeting in Washington between President Clinton
and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif agreed that "concrete steps
will be taken" to respect and restore the 1972 cease-fire line
separating the Indian and Pakistani parts of Kashmir. As reported by
Washington Post July 5, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had
turned down an invitation the day before for his own talks in
Washington, insisting that no further talks with Pakistan will take
place until Pakistan withdraws all its forces from the Kargil sector.
The attempt to remain in deadlock holding on to one side of the
argument will fail any sight of peaceful resolution. Such
oversimplification of the issue over which they have fought two of the
three wars within the last 50 years leads to gross misunderstanding of
the perception that is leading to the present crisis. This
misunderstanding should not be allowed to waste many Indian lives,
especially considering the forthcoming national election in September
this Fall. Both diplomacy and the war could result to the resolution.
The difference is war cannot result in 'peaceful' resolution, but
diplomacy can. The international community can contribute to the
creation of a stable political order. In anarchic conditions between
two forces, the healthy dialogue and cooperation rarely emerge
spontaneously. Successful cooperation and dialogue requires a push from
some powerful provider of incentives to cooperate. The recent efforts
by United States to mediate this Line of Command (LoC) conflict is
expected to break the prevailing deadlock.
The importance of relative gains is obvious when war is almost
inevitable. The relative gains of territory of Kashmir will only
determine how and if both countries should be content with. Both
countries are concerned how it will perform in an armed contest with
its rivals and therefore will want to maximize its advantage over them,
or at least be sure that it is not disadvantaged. The current conflict
is deeply rooted in its relative disadvantage of Pakistan over India
when the Line of Command (Loc) demarcated in Simla Agreement 1972
grossly favored India by allocating two thirds of the territory to her.
As long as one side is over-advantaged while the other is
under-advantaged, the resolution to the conflict remains far from
reaching. Caught between this 'over' and 'under' remains the Kashmiri
icon that has time and again threatened the security in the whole of
South Asia region. More so, since both countries have openly
demonstrated their nuclear capability. The International Community's
pressure to Pakistan to maintain the Status Quo ante with 1972
cease-fire, which was basically agreed upon in India's terms, will only
postpone à but not eliminate - the inevitability of the eventual
conflict. At this point, one question remains crucial: Can South Asian
war be avoided in status quo ante? The historical record seems to offer
unfortunately the strong support for the war, as long as status quo is
in force.
The lack of bipolarity - equal military balance - between Pakistan and
India, equipped with nuclear capabilities in both is principally
responsible to transform the Himalayan Paradise into the frequently
violent region.
Return to: Citizens Against Indo-Pak War in Kargil