India - Pakistan relations
For any country, in the way of development, needs cordial
relations with its neighbors in political, social and global issues to create a
healthy environment for development. Pakistan, one of the most important
neighbor of India was once homogeneous political unit with India before
independence and the struggle for freedom was fought collectively. India’s
relations with Pakistan are the most complex of its ties with its neighbors and
can be understand by following historical events :
Historical background :
Before independence, India was a single unit in its
composition i.e. Hindus and Muslims were living together and the struggle for
freedom was fought collectively against British Empire. Indian national
congress & Muslim league were two groups among various others who fought
for freedom. During this struggle many differences of opinion were emerged
among the elites of Muslim league and Indian national congress. Muslim league
wanted to club all Muslim dominations to create separate country i.e Pakistan, but
INC was against it. Finally, when India got freedom, many small states,
provinces & princely states joined independent ‘India as Union of States’
except Hyderabad, Junagarh & Kashmir. Pakistan was separated from India and
became a Muslim country. Pakistan was in greed of assimilating these 03 states
who didn’t join India, but couldn’t succeed. Junagarh & Hyderabad joined
India and Kashmir accepted Indian sovereignty. Thus the Islamic country
Pakistan failed in its intention to enlarge its political boundary. This
bitterness travelled along with the time and still existing in terms of
Pakistan’s approach towards India in all international spheres. Four wars with
India, terrorism & Ceasefire violation along the boundary of Kashmir &
Gujrat depicts clear bitterness and bad intention of Pakistan against India.
Issues in bilateral relations with India & Pakistan:
We can categorize bilateral relations with India &
Pakistan in three ways
1. Difference in world
views
2. Dispute Over Kashmir
3. Nuclear Confrontation
Difference in world views
India and Pakistan, as two core countries of
South Asia had different worldviews that determined their foreign policies.
India’s world Views
1. During the early years after
independence, the Indian worldview had been dominated by concerns
about building a regional identity of the
post-colonial nations of Asia.
2. One of the important
aspects of this policy was opposition to the extra regional intervention in
South Asia. India sought to keep the South Asian issues within the ambit of
South Asian countries.
3. Opposition to the entry of Cold
War alliances in Asia and eventual path of non-alignment is part of this
worldview.
4. The period from 1947 to 1971 saw
two trends in India’s approach towards South Asia. One was the trend that was
initiated by Nehru. It focused on regionalism as
the dominant theme. The second emerged during the Lal Bahadur Shastri years.
This came in the aftermath of the 1962 war and the need for resetting the
Indian worldview keeping in mind its capabilities. Shastri was to stress
on bilateralism as the key to foreign policy, especially in
relationto South Asian countries.
Pakistan’s world views
1. Pakistan’s perception
of its role emerged from the realisation of two simultaneous forces—the
geopolitics of the country that was divided between East and West Pakistan and
the Islamic worldview. The former placed Pakistan firmly in the South Asian
regional state system while the latter brought it close to the Islamic world of
West Asia.
2. Pakistan thus saw
itself as a nation with two distinct identities and roles, that of a South
Asian power and that of an Islamic West Asian power that was to eventually
emerge as an important country of the Organisation of Islamic Conference.
3. One of the dominant security concerns that
Pakistan sought to address right from its inception is that of fear of India.
The problem of Pakistan’s foreign and defence policy revolved around this
central theme of Indian domination and safeguards that were to be instituted to
counter this threat.
4. Pakistan’s attempts to
establish linkages with the Islamic world, with China and participate in the
military alliances of the United States can be understood within this security
concern of Pakistan. These links provided an opportunity for Pakistan to
counteract India’s desire to dominate in what India considered its sphere of
influence.
Dispute Over Kashmir
This fundamental diversity in the views of
India and Pakistan manifests on the issue of Kashmir, an issue that
has come to be identified by Pakistan as the core of the bilateral
divide.
1. Kashmir, like Junagadh and
Hyderabad, opted to decide its future as to whether to join India or to merge
with Pakistan.
2. In case of Hyderabad and Junagadh, the
Indian government took steps to ensure that the wishes of the overwhelming
local Hindu populace were respected and hastened the process of merger of these
two states in the Indian Union.
3. Kashmir had a peculiar
problem. Ithad distinct distribution patterns of its population, with the
Ladakh area being predominantly Buddhist, the Jammu region Hindu and the
Kashmir valley Muslim. Pakistan sought to force the pace of the decision making
on Kashmir by permitting the ‘irregular army’ to enter Kashmir.
4. Maharaja Hari Singh,
realising the potential problems, signed the Instrument of Accession with
India, thus merging the state of Jammu and Kashmir with the Indian Union.
The first Indo-Pakistan war that followed the merger of
Kashmir into India left the state partitioned. India took the matter to the
United Nations and agreed to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir to ascertain the
wishes of the Kashmiris. According to the cease-fire resolution adopted by the
UN Security Council, the plebiscite was conditional upon the withdrawal of
Pakistani troops from Kashmir and the restoration of the situation to the pre
1947 position. This condition was never met by Pakistan and the plebiscite also
never came to be conducted.
Kashmir has seen a tumultuous history since the first war of
1948. The new government formed by Sheikh Abdullah, a Kashmiri leader of long
standing, came to be dismissed in 1953. Sheikh Abdullah was relieved of his
post as his party the National Conference refused to accept the accession to
India as final and vaguely talked of the final settlement of the state of
Kashmir in the future. Sheikh Abdullah was brought back to head the government
in Kashmir in 1975 after he and Indira Gandhi signed an agreement. Now Sheikh
Abdullah had given up the earlier separatist demand and had accepted Kashmir to
be legitimately a part of India. In 1965, India and Pakistan fought a war over
Kashmir. This war, as the Pakistani Air Marshal Asghar Khan put it, was a war
to solve the problem once and for all. The Tashkent Conference (1966) also
failed to provide any results. Though, the 1971 war was more a war about the
future of East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh, it had a definite
aspect of Kashmir about it.
The Simla Agreement of 1972 formalised the
emergent situation on Kashmir. The agreement sought to establish some basic
principles of Indo-Pakistan interaction. The Agreement specifically refers to
bilateralism and acceptance of durable peace as the framework of resolving
future India-Pakistan problems. On the very vital issue of Kashmir the
agreement states: ‘In Jammu and Kashmir the line of actual control resulting
from the cease fire of 17 December 1971, shall be respected by both sides
without prejudice to the recognised position of either side. Neither side shall
seek to alter it unilaterally irrespective of mutual differences and legal
interpretations. Both sides further undertake to refrain from the threat or the
use of force in violation of this line’.
The Simla Agreement sought to create a new framework of
interaction for India and Pakistan and freeze the issue of Kashmir along the
Line of Control indefinitely. One understands from the writings of Indian
leaders involved in the making of this agreement that there was an implicit
understanding of converting the LOC into a boundary in the eventual future. It
is in this context that the return of Sheikh Abdullah became significant. Now
India had a Kashmiri leader, heading a Kashmiri party the National Conference,
taking the position that Kashmir is part of India. This was tantamount to a
plebiscite. This was the test of the right to self-determination that the
Kashmiris had been promised by the plebiscite. India could now talk of
political legitimacy for the accession of Kashmir to India.
Several developments appear to complicate the problem in
Kashmir in the 1980s. Global Islamic resurgence came to be a force to reckon
with. The growth of fundamentalist Islamic groups and the spread in their
activity had become a matter of concern even for the United States. Pakistan
was in a unique position in those days. Given its relatively liberal Islamic
posture and the possibility of emergent democratic governments in Pakistan led
it to retain a relatively close relationship with United States. On the other
hand, it had excellent relations with the core Islamic world. It had an
excellent access to the new Afghan government of Taliban and also to other
radical Islamic organisations. Pakistan thus appears to have benefited from the
then international situation.
The post-1975 developments on Kashmir constitute the
beginning of an entirely new chapter in its history. Adverse reactions to
Sheikh Abdullah rule started in the late 1970s. Partly it was a product of the
growing divide between the ruling class in Kashmir and the common populace that
remained deprived of the fruits of development that the state sought to create.
Partly, it was the product of resultant frustration that came to be created in
the minds of the Kashmiri about the utility of Indian rule. One of the
significant popular level movements came in the form of the Jammu &
Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). As an organisation that had strong
Pakistani connections, the JKLF demanded the right to self-determination for
the Kashmiris to join Pakistan.
The 1980s saw two significant developments that had their
impact on the developments in Kashmir. One was the Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan that led to the massive arms supply by the United States to
the Afghan rebels (Mujahideen) situated in Pakistan. Second
was the change in Pakistani strategy regarding Kashmir. The American arms
supply to the Afghans had a spillover effect in Kashmir. This was linked to the
change in Pakistani tactics in terms of shifting from direct conflict to
insurgency.
Infiltration and insurgency has been a long pattern in
Pakistani strategy on Kashmir. Prior to the 1965 war Pakistan had used this
approach with little success. The failure to solve the problem
through the use of force in 1965 and 1971 had led to a
change in strategy. Now infiltration took the shape of low intensity conflict.
Efforts to paralyse the local law and order situation and create uncertainty in
the region came to be the tactics of the day. The large scale exit of the
Kashmiri pundits from the valley was part of this protracted
strategy.
This Pakistani strategy was buttressed with a new clarion
call of human rights violation. In the early 1990s, concern about violation of
human rights had suddenly acquired newly found acceptance. In Bosnia, Chechnya
and elsewhere, the world appeared to have suddenly become sensitive to human
rights. In Kashmir too, the old paradigm of self-determination was fast
replaced by the new paradigm of human rights violation. Suddenly the situation
in Kashmir came to be analysed almost entirely along the human dimension.
Demands came to be made by the Organisation of Islamic Conference
(OIC), followed by the European powers for an on-the spot survey of
violation of human rights by the Indian forces. The Indian government was
persuaded enough to create a National Human Rights Commission of its own to
monitor the problem. It took several years for the international community to
acknowledge that terrorist outfits also violate human rights and that the
responsibility of violation cannot be that of the Government alone.
In 1999 India and Pakistan came into conflict over an
intrusion by Pakistan into Kargil. Was the crossing of the LOC
by the Mujahideens, and the Pakistani troops a logical culmination
of the ongoing approach taken on Kashmir? Did it represent an assessment by
Pakistan that time was ripe to exert direct force by crossing the LOC and force
India to resolve the Kashmir problem? Several explanations may be given for
this Pakistani adventurism. One, that Pakistan must have assessed the time as
being ripe for such an action to achieve its goal about accession of Kashmir.
The political uncertainty in India and the obvious lack of consensus across the
political spectrum in India would have also been one of the considerations.
Two, this assessment must have been a military and intelligence assessment
based on the active participation of the militant outfits. It was quite likely
that the civil government was pulled into this decision after it was in place.
If this be true it confirms the pattern of Pakistani politics that is dominated
by competing interests of the army, the civilian representative elite, the
intelligence units and the Islamic groups. The Pakistani premier’s constant
disclaim about the involvement of Government in the Kargil action may not be
entirely true. Such actions cannot take place without the knowledge and
participation of the government (and that includes the army). But his statement
may also indicate the truth that he has very little control over the Pakistan
army and militant groups in Kargil. History shows that the creators of such
groups eventually cease to control them as they tend to have a momentum oftheir
own.
Having committed itself in Kargil, Pakistan appeared to have
taken on more than it could digest. The international public opinion has
shifted away from Pakistan. Its old and trusted ally China took a neutral
position and advised restraint and dialogue. The Pakistani premier was not able
to move the United States either. The US visit of premier Sharif proved counter
productive. The Americans asked Pakistan to withdraw its troops to the LOC and
begin a dialogue with India. Eventually, India did manage to push back the
Pakistani infiltration.
Wars with Pakistan
Indo-Pakistani War of 1947
This is also called the First Kashmir War. The
war started in October 1947 when it was feared by the Pakistan that Maharajah of
the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu might accede to
India as choice was given to him on the matter to accede to any of the newly
independent nations. Tribal forces from Pakistan attacked and
occupied the princely state, resulting in Maharajah signing the Agreement
to the accession of the princely state to India. The United Nations
was invited by India to mediate the quarrel resulting in the UN Security
Council passing Resolution 47 on 21 April 1948. The war ended in
December 1948 with the Line of Control dividing Kashmir into
territories administered by Pakistan (northern and western areas)
and India (southern, central and northeastern areas).
Indo-Pakistani War of 1965
This war started following Pakistan's Operation
Gibraltar, which was designed to infiltrate forces into Jammu and Kashmir to
precipitate an insurgency against rule by India. India retaliated by launching
an attack on Pakistan. The five-week war caused thousands of casualties on both
sides and was witness to the largest tank battle in military history since
World War II. The outcome of this war was a strategic stalemate with some small
tactical victories. However, most neutral assessments agree that India had
the upper hand over Pakistan when ceasefire was declared. The
war concluded after diplomatic intervention by the Soviet Union and USA and the
subsequent issuance of the Tashkent Declaration.
Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
The war was unique in that it did not involve the issue of
Kashmir, but was rather precipitated by the crisis created by the political
battle between Sheikh Mujib, Leader of East Pakistan and Yahya-Bhutto, leaders
of West Pakistan brewing in erstwhile East Pakistan culminating in
the declaration of Independence of Bangladesh from the state system of
Pakistan. Following Operation Searchlight and the 1971
Bangladesh atrocities, about 10 million Bengalis in East Pakistan took refuge
in neighbouring India. India intervened in the ongoing Bangladesh
liberation movement. After a large scale pre-emptive strike by
Pakistan, full-scale hostilities between the two countries commenced. Within
two weeks of intense fighting, Pakistani forces in East Pakistan surrendered to
the joint command of Indian and Bangladeshi forces following which the People's
Republic of Bangladesh was created. This war saw the highest number
of casualties in any of the India-Pakistan conflicts, as well as the largest
number of prisoners of war since the Second World War after the
surrender of more than 90,000 Pakistani military and civilians.
Indo-Pakistani War of 1999
Commonly known as Kargil War, this conflict
between the two countries was mostly limited. During early 1999, Pakistani
troops along with Kashmiri insurgents infiltrated across the Line of
Control (LoC) and occupied Indian territory mostly in the Kargil
district. India responded by launching a major military and diplomatic
offensive to drive out the Pakistani infiltrators. Fearing large-scale
escalation in military conflict, the international community, led by the United
States, increased diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to withdraw forces from
Indian territory. By the end of July 1999, organized hostilities in the
Kargil district had ceased.
Nuclear Confrontation
In 1998, India conducted a nuclear Test and shortly after
Pakistan too demonstrated that it possessed the nuclear bomb. South Asia
suddenly became a sensitive zone on account of these two antagonistic states.
Pakistan’s new nuclear deterrence made India hesitant in retaliating against
its support to the secessionist movement.
This nuclear blackmail continued with the infiltration in
Kargil. This was a challenging period for India and the American scholars
argued that South Asia was literally on a short fuse.
The nuclear conflict between both countries is of
passive strategic nature with nuclear doctrine of Pakistan stating
a first strike policy, although the strike would only be initiated if
and only if, the Pakistan Armed Forces are unable to halt an invasion (as for
example in1971 war) or a nuclear strike is launched against Pakistan while
India has a declared policy of no first use.
Breief details of wars between India & Pakistan is as
following :
· Pokhran-I (Smiling
Buddha): On 18 May 1974 India detonated an 8 Kiloton nuclear
device at Pokhran Test Range becoming the first nation to become
nuclear capable outside the five permanent members of United Nations
Security Council as well as dragging Pakistan along with it into a nuclear
arms race with the Pakistani prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto swearing
to reciprocate India. The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Munir
Ahmed Khan said that the test would force Pakistan to test its own nuclear
bomb.
· Kirana-I: In
1980s a series of 24 different cold tests were conducted by Pakistan
Atomic Energy Commission led by chairman Munir Ahmad Khan under
extreme secrecy. The tunnels at Kirana Hills, Sargodha, are reported to
have been bored after the Chagai nuclear test sites, it is widely believed that
the tunnels were constructed sometime between 1979 and 1983. As in Chagai, the
tunnels at Kirana Hills had been bored and then sealed and this task was also
undertaken by PAEC's DTD. Later due to excessive US intelligence and
satellite focus on the Kirana Hills site, it was abandoned and nuclear weapons
testing was shifted to the Kala Chitta Range.
· Pokhran-II (Operation
Shakti): On 11 May 1998 India detonated another 5 nuclear devices
at Pokhran Test Range. With jubilation and large scale approval from the
Indian society came International sanctions as a reaction to this test. The
most vehement reaction of all coming from Pakistan. Great ire was raised in
Pakistan, which issued a severe statement claiming that India was instigating a
nuclear arms race in the region. Pakistan vowed to match India's nuclear
capability with statements like, "We are in a headlong arms race on the
subcontinent."
· Cagey-I: (Youm-e-Takbir) Within
half a month of Pokhran-II, on 28 May 1998 Pakistan detonated 5 nuclear
devices to reciprocate India in the nuclear arms race. Pakistani public,
like the Indian, reacted with a celebration and heightened sense of nationalism for
responding to India in kind and becoming the only Muslim nuclear power. The day
was later given the title Youm-e-Takbir to further proclaim such.
· Chagai-II: Two days later, on
30 May 1998, Pakistan detonated a 6th nuclear device completing its own series
of underground tests with this being the last test the two nations have carried
out to date.
In spite of the many contentious issues, India and Pakistan have made major
strides in reducing the "trust deficit” over the past few years. Bilateral
dialogue was resumed after the two Prime Ministers met on the sidelines of
SAARC Summit in Thimpu in April 2010 and reaffirmed the importance of carrying
forward with the dialogue process with a view to resolving peacefully all
outstanding issues. Subsequent regular exchanges between the two countries,
including at the highest level, have kept the discussions active on Counter
Terrorism, Humanitarian issues, Commerce and Trade, Sir Creek and Siachen,
Peace and Security including Confidence building Measures and Jammu &
Kashmir. The second round of the resumed dialogue is nearing completion and the
two sides have expressed satisfaction on progress made so far.
India has welcomed Pakistan’s efforts to normalize trade relations by moving
from positive to negative lists and their eventual elimination. India in turn
has allowed foreign direct investment from Pakistan and is ready to formalize
new visa regime with Pakistan.
Prime Minister met with the President of Pakistan during his pilgrimage tour to
India in April 2012 and reiterated their willingness to find practical and
pragmatic solutions to all outstanding issues through constructive and result
oriented engagement. They reaffirmed that people are at the heart of the
relationship between the two countries and that people to people contacts and
cultural exchanges should be promoted.
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