Untangling India and Pakistan

K. Shankar Bajpai

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2003

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Summary:  India and Pakistan remain caught in a dangerous deadlock over Kashmir. Pakistan-backed terrorists continue daily provocations against India, and an increasingly frustrated Indian government feels that it has no recourse short of full-scale war. The only way out is for both sides to accept that their current strategies are not working and to start talking. And only the United States can help them do that.

K. Shankar Bajpai served as India's Ambassador to Pakistan, China, and the United States, and as Secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs. He was a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation in 2002.

EVER ON THE BRINK

As one of the world's longest-suffering victims of terrorism, India had high hopes for the U.S.-led campaign against global terrorists that emerged in the wake of the September 11 attacks. But well into the second year of this "war," and despite full support for U.S. actions, India finds itself harder put to counter the violence inflicted on it. At the same time, the source of that violence, Pakistan, seems better placed to get away with it.

This bizarre situation arises from the importance of Pakistan to the ongoing effort to secure Afghanistan. Pakistan joined the campaign against the Taliban, its erstwhile client, in part due to international pressure but also in part because Afghan extremists were swiftly becoming a threat to Pakistan's own security. It is of course an old Wild West custom for the sheriff to co-opt the gunslinger in hunting bigger outlaws -- and the Afghan campaign resembles nothing so much as a Wild West manhunt writ large. But problems arise when he who helps the good guys also keeps his ties with the bad ones. The military government of General Pervez Musharraf doubtless confronts severe obstacles in any effort to root out Islamic extremism on its own soil. Islamists carry weight in the country and are said to be beyond government control. In addition, the army feels an irresistible temptation to use terrorists in its campaign against India in the state of Jammu and Kashmir (referred to hereafter as Kashmir). As a result, Pakistan has sought to let what India calls cross-border terrorism in Kashmir continue, as though exempt from the international war against terror.

Whether with Islamabad's connivance or tacit approval or despite its genuine willingness to stop them, groups directly linked to Pakistan-based extremists have perpetrated ever more intolerable attacks against India, resulting in the crisis that almost led to war last year. The first outrage followed so hard on the heels of the attacks in the United States that it seemed almost a show of defiance against the new international coalition. On October 1, 2001, groups trained and financed by Pakistan, Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed (which were soon designated as terrorist organizations by the United States), organized a brazen assault on the Kashmir state legislature. Then, on December 13, came an even bolder attack on the Indian Parliament, which triggered the deployment of Indian forces to the border with Pakistan. After intense pressure from Washington, Musharraf delivered his now famous January 12 speech asserting the cessation of all further terrorist activity from Pakistani territory. Although all attacks were formally disowned by Islamabad, non-Kashmiri militants based in and backed by Pakistan continued their lesser daily mischief and in May 2002 organized another audacious assault on families at the Kaluchak army base in Kashmir. Again officially denied, this outrage led to India's outright threat of war. The crisis was defused only by a flurry of U.S. diplomatic activity. And despite Pakistan's assurances of a crackdown, terrorist incidents continue, including the recent massacre ...

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