Feb 28, 2014
At a recent conference in the United States, a Pakistani interlocutor, when faced with questions about her country’s continuing dalliance with terror in Kashmir and elsewhere, neatly sidestepped the question. Instead of forthrightly confronting the country’s sorry record of involvement with a variety of terrorist organisations that it has spawned and continues to nurture, she deftly turned the tables on India. According to her, Pakistan’s possible involvement in any form of terror was merely a response to India’s support for Baluchi insurgents.
Quite apart from the paucity of evidence that clearly links India to any backing for the Baluchis, she failed to recognise that Pakistan’s association with Kashmiri insurgents long precedes the Baluch rebellion. Sadly, these verbal slights of hand are not only the staple of Pakistani diplomacy but also that of most Pakistani scholars and intellectuals. Consequently, it might serve a useful purpose to debunk at least five persistent myths that dog any discussion of Indo-Pakistani relations.
The tales are not of recent vintage. Indeed the first begins with the 1947-48 Kashmir war. Even Pakistani sources confirm that Pakistan, not India, initiated the conflict. Subsequently, following the referral of the issue to the United Nations and the passing of multiple resolutions, it is true, as Pakistani partisans argue, that India did not hold a plebiscite to determine the wishes of the Kashmiris. However, this statement overlooks a critical component of the relevant resolution: Pakistan was first expected to “vacate its aggression” before the plebiscite was held.
Even more egregious examples abound. Pakistanis loudly proclaim that India was responsible for its break-up in 1971. At one level, this is entirely correct; Indian intervention in East Pakistan was critical to the emergence of Bangladesh. However, this formulation overlooks the facts of the genocidal actions of the Pakistan Army and the flight of nearly 10 million refugees into India which had precipitated the crisis in the first place.
Other examples also abound. Pakistani defence intellectuals and strategists routinely argue that the Indian nuclear weapons test of 1974 contributed to the Pakistani nuclear weapons program. Obviously, there is little question that the Indian test boosted the Pakistani program. However, it is palpably false to argue that it was the trigger to the Pakistani program.
Pakistan’s program started in the aftermath of its defeat at the hands of the Indian Army in 1971. President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had quite correctly concluded that in the wake of the defeat Pakistan would be in a state of permanent conventional strategic inferiority vis-à-vis India. Accordingly, it made much strategic sense for Pakistan to pursue a nuclear weapons option.
Some myths, however, are more subtle than others and, consequently, require a bit more discussion to dispel them. There is little question that India’s decision to hold the massive military exercise, Operation Brasstacks, in 1987 had multiple and ambiguous objectives. Foremost among these was to send a clear-cut, dissuasive message to Pakistan that despite the vicious Khalistani insurgency in the Punjab, India was still capable of delivering a significant military punch. It was also designed to test the integration of some indigenously developed radar and electronic devices for use in battlefield conditions. Pakistanis, however, prefer to solely dwell on the coercive features of the exercise while carefully overlooking their involvement in Punjab insurgency, including the provision of training, weaponry and sanctuary for the insurgents. In the absence of Pakistan’s involvement it is most unlikely that India would have embarked on a threatening military exercise of such dimensions in the first place.
Finally, another convenient legend also pervades discussions of Indo-Pakistani relations. This involves Pakistan’s proposal for the creation of a nuclear-free zone in South Asia first made in 1978. The proposal was disingenuous at a number of levels. First, at that time India, having tested an initial device in 1974, had a lead over Pakistan in terms of its nuclear weapons capabilities. Second, the Indian program was not primarily focused on Pakistan but the People’s Republic of China. Contrary to the dishonest Western commentary on the subject, stemming largely from avid advocates of nonproliferation, the Indian program stemmed almost entirely from the country’s disastrous defeat at the hands of the PRC in the 1962 border war and the subsequent Chinese nuclear test of 1964. Given that India was forced to deal with the Chinese nuclear threat, it could ill-afford to respond positively to the Pakistani proposal for the creation of a nuclear-free zone in South Asia.
There are a host of compelling reasons for India to pursue good relations with Pakistan. The fate of nearly a fifth of humanity, among other matters, hangs in the balance. However, any effort to improve relations desperately calls for a more honest accounting of what has transpired over the course of six decades. Propagating a series of myths and drawing solace from them may well be comforting for the purposes of promoting nationalist zeal. However, they will not contribute in any fashion to an eventual relaxation of tensions with India, let alone facilitating steps toward the normalisation of relations.
The writer is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia
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