KASHMIR CONFLICT
THE UNITED STATES INTERVENTION
NISHEETH BASNET
ABSTRACT
The root cause of instability and hostility in South Asia stems from the unresolved nature of the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. It has led to two major wars and several near misses in the past. Since the independence movement in India, the valley has been the source of repeated conflicts between India and Pakistan and a proxy war has developed. After evaluating the history of the conflict in and over Kashmir, this paper proposes a roadmap for peace in the region, drawing on strategic interests of Pakistan and India while reinforcing the conflict's significance to Asia Pacific politics. The paper advises Pakistan to resist further attacks against India in return for territorial concessions in Kashmir, encourages India, and due to the disproportional cost of attempting control of a region it has never ruled, to cede much of the region. This paper analyses the origins of the Kashmir dispute, its influence on IndoPakistan relations, and the prospects for its resolution and solve regional issues that continue to plague South-East Asia.
INTRODUCTION
Kashmir is large and diverse, a view not into paradise, but a microcosm of the world. Geographically, it has many barriers, and it covers plains, glaciers, mountains and lakes, forested foothills and high ranges such as the Himalayas and the Karakoram. In 1947, before British India was partitioned, there were around 600 princely states. Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, advised the rulers of these states to accede to either India or Pakistan. Regarding the criteria for deciding which of the two dominions a state should join, geographical situation and communal interests. These princely states acceded to either of the two dominions on these principles. Although the rulers of Junagarh, Hyderabad, and Jodhpur wished to accede to Pakistan, they were rejected by India on the grounds that they were contravening the partition plan because the majority of the populations in these princely states were Hindus. The problem over Kashmir arose as "India laid claim to every Hindu majority area, on similar grounds Pakistan laid claim over the Muslim majority state of Kashmir, but such claim was always rejected by India." Thus a dispute over the state of Jammu and Kashmir occurred and both the parties resorted to different methods and even fought wars to acquire this disputed state.
The tribal invasion in 1947, the "accession of Kashmir" to India, and the Indo-Pak war in the same year changed the entire map of Jammu and Kashmir and divided it into two parts—Indian administered Kashmir and Pakistan administered Kashmir. The "accession" of the state to the Union of India signed by the then ruler Maharaja Hari Singh did not mark the end of dispute over Kashmir for two reasons. First, the accession was made subject to the condition of the will of people to be ascertained after the restoration of normalcy in the state. Second, the issue became internationalized, as it was referred to the United Nations by the government of India. Besides, in both the Tashkent and Simla agreements following the wars of 1965 and 1971 respectively, it was agreed that the Kashmir issue constitutes a dispute that needs to be resolved through bilateral negotiations.
Since then, developments within and outside the state of Jammu and Kashmir had tremendous impacts on the psyche of the Kashmiri Muslims and resulted in their complete alienation from the rest of India. The installation of repressive regimes by the Union Government in New Delhi through unpopular and undemocratic methods, erosion of autonomy granted under article 370 of the Indian constitution, the systematic encouragement of corruption and nepotism, non-development of the state, problems of poverty and unemployment, impact of communal violence both within and outside the state, opportunistic alliances and accords between the National Conference (NC) and Congress Party, and electoral malpractices greatly influenced the young Kashmiri Muslims. Outside India, developments in Afghanistan, the Iranian revolution, the situation in Eastern Europe, and the breakup of the Soviet Union also contributed in influencing Kashmiri youths towards looking for an alternative road. Many youths in the late 1980s concluded that salvation lay in secession from India, which could be achieved only through an armed struggle. Meanwhile, Pakistan had been eagerly looking for an opportunity to exercise its influence over Kashmir and was also keenly waiting to avenge the humiliation inflicted upon it by India during the 1971 war. The growing situation in Kashmir Valley suited Pakistan, which started providing arms and ammunition to the angry young Kashmiri Muslims. As a result, an armed movement was established which received massive support in Muslim dominated areas of Jammu and Kashmir. The situation worsened to the extent that it became a question of re-establishing the Indian state summon over Kashmir.
UNITED STATES IN KASHMIR CONFLICT
The U.S. has influenced South Asian political and security affairs since the early stages of the Cold War. It has played an assertive role particularly in restraining India and Pakistan from launching a war over Kashmir several times in the last fifteen years. However, all these efforts were short-term crisis management. The U.S. has failed to bring any permanent solution to the conflict. From another point of view, too, U.S. policy towards South Asia lacks credibility. One reason for this is that the U.S. has changed its strategy and priorities several times based on its national interests. During the Cold War, Pakistan became an ally of the United States.
Due to India's close relationship with the Soviet Union, the U.S. and Pakistan signed a defense treaty in 1954 to contain Soviet influence in this region. During the Ind0- Pakistan war m 1965 and Bangladeshi independence war in 1971, the U.S. supported its ally Pakistan. Following Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979, the U.S. promoted its economic and military relationships with Pakistan to aid the forces (Mujahidin) against Soviet occupation in Afghanistan.
However, after the end of the Cold War, the U.S. began to alienate Pakistan, and tilt toward India as Washington and New Delhi turned from the 'estranged democracies of the Cold War to engaged democracies. Various actions by the U.S. revealed the priority it now gave to India. First, the U.S. promoted economic, political and military relationship with India. The U.S. asked Pakistan to respect the Line of Control (LOC) that was more favorable to India. During the Kargil crisis in 1999, the U.S. was critical of Pakistan and called for an urgent end to the Kargil conflict by restoring the LOC. Both India and Pakistan offered their full cooperation for the war against terrorism.
Following 9/11, the U.S. foreign policy towards South Asia has again undergone a fundamental change. The U.S. has rebuilt the alliance relationship with Pakistan. According to Teresita C. Schaffer, "The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon turned U.S. South Asia policy temporarily upside down, bringing Pakistan to center stage and putting parts of the U.S.-India agenda on hold." Both India and Pakistan offered their full cooperation for the war against terrorism. However, for strategic reasons the U.S. had to give priority to Pakistan's indispensable support for the war in Afghanistan. The U.S. has supported Pakistan with a great amount of economic aid for political, economic, and education reform in Pakistan since it joined the war against terrorism. Pakistan was also given the status of non-NATO ally of the United States for its cooperation in the war against Terrorism.
Nevertheless, the U.S. has been careful not to allow the new U.S.-Pakistan alliance to harm the U.S.-India relationship. In 2004, the U.S. government reiterated its commitment to the Indian government to increase Indian access to American high technology, nuclear power, and missile defense. However, even though the U.S. is committed to supporting India, New Delhi has remained deeply concerned about the Bush administration's increased links to Pakistan, particularly U.S. plans for renewed sales of F-16 fighter aircraft to Islamabad. The Bush administration seems seriously committed to improving its relationship with India. Nuclear cooperation between India and the U.S., announced in a Joint Statement on July 18, 2005, is the latest development in the U.S.-India relationship. President Bush agreed to give India virtual membership in the club of recognized nuclear-weapons states created by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Pakistan has become concerned about the warm U.S.-India relationship and India-s attempts to get equal treatment from the U.S. It seems to the author that current U.S. policy in South Asia is reasonably well-balanced. But both India and Pakistan have their doubts about U.S. policy in this region.
It is well known that Pakistan has always encouraged third party mediation for the termination of the Kashmir dispute while India opposes it. After 9/ll when the U.S. and Pakistan began to rebuild relations, Pakistan requested the U.S. to mediate the conflict. Due to the Pakistani request the U.S. expressed its desire to mediate the Kashmir dispute in 2001. However, India rejected any third party mediation of the conflict. Considering its relationship with India, the U.S. has encouraged both countries to resolve the dispute through a bilateral peace process. Concerning the settlement of the dispute, Ryan Crocker, the incumbent U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, noted that the U.S. can be helpful in advancing the ongoing peace process for the settlement of the Kashmir dispute, but will not get involved in the middle of it to mediate a solution.
However, for strategic reasons the U.S. had to give priority to Pakistan's indispensable support for the war in Afghanistan. The U.S. has supported Pakistan with a great amount of economic aid for political, economic, and education reform in Pakistan since it joined the war against terrorism. Pakistan was also given the status of non-NATO ally of the United States for its cooperation in the war against Terrorism.
In seeking to resolve the Kashmir conflict and release Indian efforts from the limiting scope of territorial defense, the primary concern is with a fulfilling the fifth goal of American grand strategy. With the rising power of China and its concordant affects on U.S. economic and security interest in Asia, aiding in the rise of India becomes even more critical. A balancing power in South Asia will become ever more crucial in protecting American interests in the region. The United States emerged from the Cold War with a strategy to prevent any Eurasian power from becoming sufficiently secure to divert resources to navy building. Since then, the United States has focused on creating continually shifting alliances designed to tie down any potential regional hegemony. This strategy will continue into the next century with the rise of Asian powers. As China mounts an ever-increasing rise into the foray of world politics, including launching a navy, American interest will prodigiously align with Indian and Australian incentives in the region. Securing strong alliances with the Australians and Indians in the region will become the twenty-first century's rendition of the "special relationship" and the United States must continue to aid India's rise as a regional power. From this perspective, it is clear that the United States must adopt a regional approach when addressing the war in Afghanistan and the other strategic and security concerns developing in South Asia.
During his successful 2008 campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama declared that he recognized that "working with Pakistan and India to try to resolve [the] Kashmir crisis in a serious way" would be among the critical tasks of his administration were he elected. Obama said that he knew the issue was "obviously a tar pit diplomatically." But he maintained that "there is a moment when potentially we could get [the Indians' and the Pakistanis'] attention." "It won't be easy," he concluded, "but it's important."
The comment, which Obama made in an interview with Joe Klein of Time magazine in October 2008 two weeks before the election, was very possibly the first time a U.S. presidential nominee had raised the Kashmir issue in a national political campaign. As anyone knowledgeable about South Asia could have told him, it aroused sharply differing reactions in India and Pakistan. The Indians, who have consistently called for the United States and other outside powers to steer clear of the Kashmir dispute, were troubled by candidate Obama's unexpected interest in the issue. As the more powerful of the two claimants and the one that holds the part of the state that is at the heart of the dispute – the Kashmir Valley – India has long insisted that the two claimants settle the issue peacefully and bilaterally without outside "interference." Just as predictably, Pakistanis and those Kashmiris alienated from Indian rule have taken an altogether contrary position. They recognize that without the involvement of the international community there is no serious prospect of India giving up the Valley. So they welcomed Obama's comments.
Neither India, nor Pakistan, nor the Kashmiris seem to understand the major change in the international community's view of the Kashmir issue brought about by the introduction of nuclear weapons into South Asia. The specter of a catastrophic nuclear war between India and Pakistan has made regional peace and stability the primary goal the United States and other interested outside powers now pursue in Kashmir. This objective has become far more important to them than the equities of the dispute. As the status quo power, India should recognize that this change in priorities works in its favor and become less fearful about the consequences to its interests of outsiders playing a role in settlement efforts. But New Delhi remains adamantly opposed to any such role. Similarly ignoring the change in the way the international community views the Kashmir dispute, Pakistan continues to call for one.
Many American commentators on South Asia were surprised by Obama's interest in a more robust U.S. role in Kashmir. It seemed to them a throwback to the 1950s and 1960s, when a succession of presidents became personally involved in designing and promoting Kashmir settlement proposals. In more recent decades Washington has followed a much less activist policy. It has called on India and Pakistan to settle the dispute peacefully and bilaterally, taking into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people. It has offered to play an undefined facilitating role in helping the two countries make progress, but it has declared that it will become more directly involved only if both wish it to. This, in effect, has given India veto power, as U.S. policymakers recognize.
Though it has shied away from efforts to devise formulas for a settlement, the United States has been ready to help India and Pakistan defuse dangerous crises triggered by the Kashmir dispute. On several occasions over the past quarter century these have seemingly led the two countries to the brink of full-scale war. Washington has also engaged in a good deal of cheering from the sidelines as India and Pakistan made bilateral efforts to develop and advance a peace process that would could eventually lead to a Kashmir settlement.
In his interview with Klein, Obama had talked about "devot[ing] serious diplomatic resources to get a special envoy in there [Kashmir], to figure out a plausible approach." After he was elected, it was rumored that former president Bill Clinton would be his choice for this mission. Instead, Obama called veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke back from private life to be his special envoy — not for Kashmir but for Pakistan and Afghanistan.
This appointment caused great dismay in New Delhi. Indians feared that Holbrooke's mandate would extend to India-Pakistan relations, and hence to Kashmir and that his legendary energy would make him an intrusive presence. In their alarmed view, Washington had concluded that progress toward a Kashmir settlement was a vital element in the U.S. effort to bring about a more cooperative and purposeful Pakistani approach in the struggle against Al Qaeda and the resurgent Afghan Taliban. Whether the Obama administration ever had such an extensive role in mind for Holbrooke is not clear. Before he died in December 2010 he told me that he had never had any intention of becoming involved in Kashmir.
But what was important was that the Indians believed that Washington might try to play what was for them a very unwanted role in India-Pakistan relations. They made it clear that this was not acceptable. They said they would welcome Holbrooke's coming to New Delhi from time to time to consult with them on Afghanistan and Pakistan, just as they would expect he would consult with other important powers interested in the issue such as China and Saudi Arabia. But they insisted that Washington give Holbrooke no mandate to deal with India-Pakistan relations.
The Obama administration accepted this position. It must have been clear to Washington that no useful purpose would be served in contesting New Delhi's stance. The Indians were very tough on the point and without their cooperation an extended Holbrooke mandate made no sense. It could only cause tension in U.S.-India relations at a time when Obama was determined to continue the progress George W. Bush had made in strengthening them. Like Bush, the new president believed that India was a rising global power whose friendship was vitally important for the United States. As he would tell the Indian parliament when he paid an official visit to India in November 2010, "the partnership between the United States and India will be one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century."
The way Obama dealt with the Kashmir issue during that visit made it clear that his administration would follow the lead of its predecessors in becoming involved in settlement efforts only to a point acceptable to the Indian government. It would not permit Kashmir to become a stumbling block to progress in developing the close ties with India it so valued. In the months preceding the visit, when the most serious anti-Indian demonstrations in years broke out in the Kashmir Valley and some 120 stone-throwing demonstrators, mostly teenagers, were shot dead, Obama administration spokespersons had little to say. It seems likely they did not want to spoil the atmosphere of the upcoming visit, a very important event for the president.
Since Obama's visit, India-Pakistan relations have improved. The bilateral dialogue initiated in 2004 that was broken off by India following the 2008 attack on Mumbai has resumed. It seems highly unlikely, however, that these conversations will confirm and further the impressive progress the two countries achieved in 2004-07 in the back channel negotiations on Kashmir they pursued as part of the dialogue. Those negotiations, sparked by surprisingly generous "out-of-the-box" ideas proposed to the Indians by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, came close to reaching a breakthrough. But that progress depended crucially on the presence in both New Delhi and Islamabad of strong governments willing to make unpopular concessions on a highly emotional issue. That is no longer the case in either capital.
It seems clear that for the balance of its current term the Obama administration will not change its approach to the Kashmir issue. It will continue to pursue a close relationship with India and will not want to disturb this. And it has enough problems with Pakistan without adding Kashmir to the mix. (The Pakistanis, as noted, would welcome U.S. intercession. But they would quickly become disillusioned at the actual form it would take.) Should another serious Kashmir-related India-Pakistan crisis develop, Obama will no doubt resume the crisis-management efforts which have been so central to America's role in Kashmir in the quarter-century dating back to the George H.W. Bush administration.
Nor is this policy likely to change should the Republican win the 2012 presidential election. Both U.S. parties favor strong relations with India, and there is no reason to expect that a Republican in the White House will want to jeopardize these by taking up the issue of a Kashmir settlement, especially at a time when the odds against success are so long. To date, none of the contenders for the GOP nomination has mentioned Kashmir, nor is it likely that any will do so.
So look for more of the same in America's position on Kashmir after January 20, 2013, whatever the results of the election. Indians will be pleased and Pakistanis disappointed as Washington continues to look to New Delhi and Islamabad to settle the issue themselves without significant help from the United States.
CONCLUSION
Kashmir has always remained a bone of contention between India and Pakistan. In fact, there are three legitimate parties involved in this conflict—India, Pakistan, and the people of Kashmir. Each party has taken its own position on the question of Kashmir. For India, Kashmir is one of its integral parts, and hence this aspect is not open for dispute. For Pakistan, Kashmir represents a problem of partition, which is yet to be resolved. But for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, Kashmir is not simply a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan, and cannot be resolved without the involvement of those who are the main party in this dispute. None of the parties involved in the dispute has shown any flexibility at any time in their stated positions on Kashmir, and as a result the dispute continued until it assumed the greatest degree of ferocity and finally became, in recent years, a nuclear flash point. All of the bilateral agreements signed over the years between different parties have proven to be exercises in futility.
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Maharaja Hari Singh was the last ruling Maharaja of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in India.
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