Book Review-III

 Conflict Unending: India–Pakistan Tensions since 1947

Sumit Ganguly[1]
Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2002.

 
Sumit Ganguly’s book, Conflict Unending: India–Pakistan Tensions since 1947, though a well-researched and well-written scholarly work, lacks objectivity. The book is divided into six chapters, all except one relating to the wars between India and Pakistan; the exception is a chapter that deals with the nuclearization of India and Pakistan.

            The author’s focus throughout the book is on the state of Jammu and Kashmir, where India and Pakistan have clashed four times since their creation. He claims objectivity, denying that his work is polemical; he is, nevertheless, prone to projecting the Indian point of view. He does not consider Kashmir “disputed territory”: Pakistan is blamed for having initiated all the conflicts. He has chosen to add appendices that support the Indian case, choosing to ignore all the UN Security Council Resolutions, which require a plebiscite to be held in Kashmir under UN auspices. For instance, article 9 of UN Security Resolution no. S/2883, adopted on 10 November 1951 requires:

a free and impartial plebiscite under United Nations auspices so that the people of the State can freely exercise their right of self-determination and decide the question of the accession of the State to India or to Pakistan.[2] (Emphasis added.)

            Ganguly says that “geographic location and demographic features” were the two requirements for the accession of the princely states to either India or Pakistan, at the time of Partition (p.15). This is not factually accurate, as the actual directive of the British Viceroy to the states was: “You cannot run away from the Dominion Government which is your neighbour any more than you can run away from the subjects for whose welfare you are responsible.”[3] (Emphasis added.) The word “subjects” refers to “the people”, but the author shies away from using either of these words.

            He does, however, admit that the ruler of the State of Jammu and Kashmir had concluded a “standstill agreement” with Pakistan and not with India (p.16) but he nullifies the force of this agreement by saying that the Maharaja acceded to India and not to Pakistan. He fails to bring out the fact that the Maharaja had left his capital, Srinagar, and was on the run. It was in these circumstances that Indian troops were airlifted to Srinagar on 26 October 1947 and the instrument of accession was obtained from the fugitive ruler. Similarly, he has referred to the support of Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah, “the founder of a mass-based political party, the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference” (p.16), as giving “legitimacy” to the accession in the absence of a referendum (p.17). He does not cite the Resolution of the Working Committee of the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference passed on 19 July 1947 which says:

[I]n view the geographical conditions, 80 per cent Muslim majority out of the total population, the passage of important rivers of the Punjab through the State, the language, cultural, racial and economic connection of the people and the proximity of the borders of the State with Pakistan . . .  the Jammu and Kashmir State should accede to Pakistan.[4]

            While discussing the reasons for continuing conflict between India and Pakistan, he affirms that, “certain structural features of both polities, embodied in their nationalist agendas, predisposed them toward conflict over the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir.” India wants to hold the Muslim-majority State to demonstrate that “all minorities could thrive under the aegis of a plural and secular polity” (p.5). He ignores the fact that, even without Kashmir, India will have more than one hundred and fifty million Muslims as well as a substantial number of other minorities to justify the “plural and secular” claims of India.  Ganguly asserts that the main cause of conflict is “ideological commitments of the dominant nationalist elites”, and “Pakistan’s irredentist claim of Kashmir” (pp.4-5). He thus attempts to refute the fundamental principle for the accession of states, i.e., geographical contiguity and the wishes of the people.

            The author is treading on firmer ground when he says that, “The organizational and ideological bases” of the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League were “diametrically opposed” visions of “nationalism and state-building”. However, his conclusion that this is the reason the two countries are “locked into a potential collision course” (p.10), is faulty. China and Pakistan are neighbours with divergent visions of nationalism and state-building, but there is no conflict between them. The cause of Pakistan–India tensions remains the denial of the right of self-determination to the people of Kashmir, a fact which Ganguly is loath to admit.

            He also attempts to negate the raison d’être of Pakistan. According to him, “Pakistan was created as a homeland for the Muslims of South Asia.” (p.5). This is certainly not the whole truth: the basis for the creation of Pakistan, besides being ideological, was territorial. It was created in Muslim-majority areas in the northwest and northeast of the subcontinent, in accordance with the wishes of the majority of the people (both Muslims and non-Muslims) living in these regions. Pakistan’s claim to Kashmir is also based on the same democratic right of self-determination.

            Ganguly considers Mohammad Ali Jinnah “responsible” for the creation of Pakistan because he “forged a mythical construct”, according to which Muslims were a nation and “only an independent Muslim-majority state could provide effective guarantees for their rights and privileges.” (p.3). Despite the establishment of a Muslim state, “millions of Muslims stayed on in India as loyal citizens.” (p.3). He refers to the breakup of Pakistan in 1971 as “giving the lie to the myth of primordial Muslim solidarity.” (p.3). He infers that a shared faith–Islam–“could not be the sole basis for state-building in South Asia.” (p. 71).

            He is right in that religion alone cannot be the basis for state building. Perhaps his aim is to indicate that the two-nation theory (i.e., that Hindus and Muslim are two nations) was invalidated when East Pakistan broke away from Pakistan to become Bangladesh. The author should have known that the two-nation theory of the Muslim League simply meant that the Muslims of the subcontinent, about one hundred million-strong, could not be subordinate to the Hindu majority and treated as a permanent religious minority. Thus, it was decided that the regions where about 70 million Muslims formed an absolute majority should be separated and declared independent from the rest of India. In fact, the Lahore Resolution of 1940 envisaged “independent and sovereign states” (in the plural); the creation of Bangladesh, therefore, in no way contradicted Jinnah’s two-nation theory, as the author perceives. In reality, it was the urge for an equitable share in power that caused Pakistan to separate from the rest of India: the same urge was at work in separating Bangladesh from Pakistan. Ganguly is, however, substantially correct when he says that Jinnah’s “successors failed to implement his vision of a religiously neutral but Muslim-majority state.” (p. 5).

            All the major armed conflicts between India and Pakistan are discussed in the book and the author places the blame on Pakistan for almost all of them. He considers Pakistan responsible for the Kashmir conflict of 1947–1948, and for the wars in 1965 and 1999. He states that the reason for these conflicts was the fact that Pakistan “grossly underestimated Indian military prowess.” (p.7). In the discussion on the Kashmir War of 1947-8, he blames Pakistan, ignoring the fact that it was India and not Pakistan which sent its armed forces into Kashmir first.

            The Indo–Pak War of 1965 is termed the Second Kashmir War by Ganguly. He assigns the blame entirely to Pakistan, stating that the purpose of the war was territorial gain. (p. 31). However, he does refer to amendments in the Indian Constitution that did away with the special status of Kashmir, by extending Articles 356 and 357 to the State, thus eroding its special status (p. 35). He refers to “Operation Gibraltar” and “Operation Grand-Slam”, carried out by Pakistan. He mentions infiltration from Azad Kashmir but does not say that the Indian forces were the first to cross the Cease-fire Line and, when Pakistan retaliated in Kashmir, the Indians were the first to cross the international border between the two countries on 6 September 1965.

            He refers to the Pakistan–India War of 1971 as the Bangladesh War. Having recounted the grievances of East Pakistan against the military leadership of West Pakistan, he refers to the military action of 25 March 1971, which led to the migration of thousands of refugees to India. The cost of maintaining these refugees was made an excuse for aggression. He justifies the crossing of the international border by the Indian armed forces, saying that, “[I]t was cheaper to resort to war against their long-time adversary than to possibly absorb refugees.” (p. 51). He does not mention the fact that President Nixon had assured India of the American intention “to continue to carry the main financial burden for care of the refugees.”[5]

            The author acknowledges the fact that India had armed, trained and provided sanctuary to the Mukti Bahini (liberation force) in East Pakistan. (p. 62). He also admits that Indian Artillery attacked Pakistani territory on 22 November 1971; the Pakistan Air Force retaliated on 3 December 1971, but ironically the author blames Pakistan for formally starting the war “with an Israeli-style pre-emptive air attack” on India’s northern air bases. (p. 67).

            In the late 1980s, Indian Punjab witnessed a Sikh insurgency. Pakistan is accused by the author of fomenting the rising and for that  reason “India launched a military exercise code-named ‘Brasstacks’ conducted in Rajasthan pointing towards Pakistan.” (p. 85). He admits that, “embedded in the Brasstacks military exercise was an element of coercive diplomacy.” (p. 85). Pakistan reacted by initiating its own scheduled winter exercise in November-December 1986 (p. 86). By January 1987, the armed forces of the two countries were face-to-face in the Punjab and Kashmir. The situation was defused by Secretary-level talks held from 31 January to 4 February 1987. It was about this time that Dr A. Q. Khan, Pakistan’s foremost nuclear scientist, warned, “Nobody can undo Pakistan or take us for granted. We are here to stay and let it be clear that we shall use the bomb if our existence is threatened.”[6]   

            Regarding the Indian occupation of the Siachin Glacier (about 10,000 sq miles) in 1984, in an area where the Line of Control between Azad Kashmir and Indian-held Kashmir is not marked, Ganguly argues on the authority of the Indian military, without presenting any independent evidence, that Pakistan plans to occupy the glacier resulted in the “pre-emptive Indian action . . . to establish its claim.” (p. 84). Since that time, the armed forces of both countries have remained locked in battle in Siachin.

            According to the author, the “critical turning-point in Kashmir’s fortune came in the aftermath of the deeply-flawed local elections of 1987. Widespread fraud and skulduggery characterized this election.” (p. 90). He assesses the situation correctly when he says that, unlike past generations of Kashmiris who “tolerated similar malfeasances”, the younger generation has “proved far less willing to passively acquiesce . . . they resorted to violence . . . throughout much of 1988 and 1989 . . . and very soon the valley was aflame.” (p. 91). He thinks that the insurgency in Kashmir and the tough stance of the Indian governor of Kashmir “emboldened the Pakistani military to aid the insurgency in Kashmir.” (p. 92). Thus, Indo–Pakistan relations remained strained throughout the decade of the 1990s. (p. 95).

            Regarding the Kargil War (1999), Ganguly believes that the Pakistan military planned the operation with the acquiescence of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, with a view to reviving the Kashmir issue. However, he fails to mention the fact that the Kargil peaks were part of Pakistan till the 1971 war and that they dominate the Indian road-link to Siachin. Capturing them would have facilitated the dislodging of Indian troops from the disputed Siachin Glacier.

            Referring to the expenditure incurred on armed forces, he discriminates between India and Pakistan by stating that India spends on “substantial defence” while Pakistan spends on “occasional offence against its neighbour.” (p. 1) This would signify that all Indian offensive actions including those against Junagadh (the state which acceded to Pakistan), Hyderabad Deccan (which did not accede either to India or Pakistan), Portuguese Goa and China were defensive measures, as was the 1971 breakup of Pakistan.

            While on the subject of the testing of a series of nuclear weapons in May 1998 by India and Pakistan, Ganguly does not indicate that India tested its weapons first and Pakistan retaliated. He debates whether or not the nuclear tests have made the “region more prone to war.” (p.110). Referring to a parallel situation during the Cold War, he feels that, “the overt nuclearization of the region may have contributed to nuclear security in the subcontinent while increasing the likelihood of lower-level engagements” (p. 110), concluding that limited wars, like the one in Kargil, are possible in the future.

            In conclusion, Ganguly advises Pakistan to abandon its “quest to wrest Kashmir from India”, though he feels that, “the institutional interests of the armed forces” will not allow this to happen. Nor will India yield much ground on Kashmir, as it fears a domino effect. This is another conjectural argument, which the author advances against self-determination. According to him, the only practicable solution is the acceptance of the LoC as a permanent border (p.12). He asserts that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Indira Gandhi had agreed in 1972 “to transform the LoC into a de facto international border.” (p. 71). He rightly concludes that, after the 1971 war, “India emerged as the dominant power in the subcontinent.” (p. 71).

            In the epilogue, the author discusses post-September 11 events. According to him, “Prior to September 11, Pakistan had been consigned to the status of a virtual pariah state in the international system and especially in the US foreign policy calculus.” However, after September 11, “Pakistan became a ‘valued ally’ in the fight against terrorism.” (p. 138). He is critical of the American policy of ignoring India, which supported the US wholeheartedly, while, according to him, religious parties in Pakistan and “key members of the ISI actively worked to undermine the attempts at co-operation with the United States.” (p. 139).

            Ganguly’s openly partisan work ends on an appropriately pessimistic note. His bleak prediction is that “There is little likelihood of any breakthrough in bilateral relations in the near future.” (p. 143).

Noor ul Haq

Research Fellow, IPRI