After a lapse of about two decades following the Pakistan–India War of 1971 and the secession of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), South Asia suddenly became the focus of the world’s attention due to a series of events linked to relations between the two subcontinental rivals. Prominent among these developments was the eruption of a popular insurgency in the Kashmir valley towards the end of 1989 and in early 1990. It produced an “over-reaction” from the then Indian Government of Prime Minister V. P. Singh; tensions in South Asia in the early summer of 1990 were so high that some circles believed the two countries were on the verge of a war that could develop into a nuclear exchange. In view of the seriousness of the situation, the United States sent its Deputy National Security Adviser, Robert Gates, as a special envoy to the region. The objective of the Gates mission was to defuse the crisis between Pakistan and India caused by the eruptions in Kashmir, which India claimed had been instigated by Pakistan. Pakistan, however, denied the Indian claim and asserted that the insurgency in the Kashmir valley was indigenous.

            The principal reason why the 1990 crisis in South Asia attracted unprecedented attention from statesmen, academicians and experts, both in the region and outside, was the widespread belief that Pakistan and India were nuclear-weapon states and a war between the two could easily escalate into a nuclear clash with incalculably disastrous effects, not only for the region but for the whole world. All concerned shared the view that Kashmir had the potential of triggering a nuclear war between Pakistan and India. The crisis, however, was so deep and multi-dimensional that it could not be fully understood in isolation from other developments that had taken place in and around the region during the preceding years. In other words, the Pakistan–India crisis of 1990, primarily caused by the popular uprising in Kashmir, needed to be studied in a broader perspective, taking into account the linkages between the internal political dynamics of Pakistan and India and the external strategic environment with their cumulative impact.

            The book under review meets this need, discussing and analysing the events of 1990 in a broader perspective, with a focus on Kashmir and the nuclear dimension of the crisis. As stated in the Introduction, one goal of the book “is to explain how domestic and international factors intersected in a crisis that was not merely complex, but one that was a composite of several sub-crises.” In line with this argument, the book terms the crisis of 1990 a “compound” crisis and studies it in all its important contexts: strategic, political, historical and contemporary.

            The strategic context of the crisis (chapter I) constitutes the Geneva Accord on Afghanistan in 1988 that led to the withdrawal of the former Soviet Union in the following year, the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of the Cold War. With regard to Afghanistan, the United States thought that its strategic objective had been achieved with the withdrawal of the Soviet forces. It then became deeply involved in the Middle East, following the Gulf War of 1991 and the initiation of a peace process (the Madrid Talks) to bring about a resolution of the Arab–Israeli conflict. These developments constituted an entirely new context, in which the status of South Asia, and more precisely that of Pakistan, had to be defined. The authors observe that, “Islamabad had the most to lose by international change; its close relationship with China, the United States and the supportive Muslim States were all up for recalculation after the Soviet pull-out from Afghanistan.” The changed international situation also presented India with a new challenge. “As the Soviet Union dissolved”, the authors say, “New Delhi was rapidly losing its chief strategic ally, although the full extent of the decline of the Soviet Union was not yet apparent.”

            In support of its basic idea that the 1990 crisis was a compound crisis, the book also alludes to the unstable and turbulent political situation in Pakistan and India: 1988 saw the death of Pakistan’s military ruler of eleven years, General Ziaul Haq, and the formation of minority governments in both India and Pakistan. These developments transformed Pakistan and India into “uncertain political entities”. Between 1987 and 1989, there was a marked deterioration in the strategic relationships between Pakistan and India. The large scale-military exercise (Brasstacks, 1987) conducted by India close to the Pakistan border and Pakistan’s counter exercise on an equally large scale (Zarb-e-Momin) led to heightened tension between the two countries; this explains why Islamabad and New Delhi almost instinctively opted for a confrontational posture in the 1990 crisis, instead of trying to resolve it through rational means.

            Since the uprising in Kashmir was the main cause of the 1990 crisis, the book discusses the issue in a great detail in a separate chapter. Entitled “Kashmir: From Simla to Chaos”, the chapter contains a description of the physical features of Kashmir and the nature and character of the Kashmir dispute as perceived by Pakistan and India. This chapter also surveys various international and bilateral efforts made for the resolution of the dispute from 1948 to 1963, including the Simla Agreement signed by Pakistan and India in 1972. Sufficient space is allotted to an exhaustive discussion on the circumstances which ultimately led to the outbreak of the 1989 uprising in the Valley. These developments include the removal of Farooq Abdullah as the Chief Minister of the State, his somersault two years later in aligning the National Conference with the Congress (I) and the massively rigged elections of 1987.

            An important dimension of the Kashmir crisis as it unfolded from 1989 onwards is that the international community, particularly the United States, became overtly concerned about it. This concern, as mentioned earlier, was reflected in the hasty dispatch of the Robert Gates mission to Pakistan and India by President George H. Bush in May 1990. The mission, as claimed by its leader, did succeed in defusing the tension between Pakistan and India, thus averting a war that had the potential of escalating into a nuclear exchange. But the crisis gave rise to many questions which were not or could not be answered by the Gates mission. How close were Pakistan and India to war? Was there a real danger or probability of a nuclear exchange between the two? What would have happened had there been governments led by Ziaul Haq in Pakistan and Rajiv Gandhi in India? What was the role of the international community, and particularly of the United States, in defusing the crisis? To what extent were Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and V. P. Singh motivated by domestic political compulsions in their reactions to the crisis? What were the real factors behind the 1989 popular eruptions in Kashmir and how was the crisis was likely to develop in future? These are some of the questions that the authors have attempted to answer in this book.

The book gives extensive coverage to the diplomatic involvement of the United States in defusing the crisis of 1990 through the Gates mission and its results. It does not, however, discuss the impact of the concern shown by the international community on the Kashmir crisis itself.

            In chapter 6, the book discusses the nuclear dimension of the 1990 crisis and takes Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker article of 29 March 1993 as the basis of controversy. In his article, Hersh suggests that Pakistan and India were on the brink of a nuclear war in 1990, and that the timely intervention of the United States averted a catastrophe. But the authors conclude that Hersh’s view was “largely inaccurate”; they base their conclusion on their own assessment, relying on conversations with a large number of American, Pakistani and Indian civilian officials, diplomats, military and intelligence officers.

            Two features of the book make it useful for a better understanding of the 1990 crisis. Firstly, various perspectives and conflicting views have been presented; secondly, the authors have collected information through interviews with key personnel in both Pakistan and India. However, despite the amount of information presented, the book is not sufficiently focused and does not provide conclusive answers to the questions that the authors have raised.

Rashid Ahmad Khan

Senior Research Fellow, IPRI