Working paper 2013 by Institute of South Asian Studies ISAS

2013

ISAS Working Paper No. 164 – 6 February 2013 469A Bukit Timah Road #07-01, Tower Block, Singapore 259770 Tel: 6516 6179 / 6516 4239 Fax: 6776 7505 / 6314 5447 Email: isassec@nus.edu.sg Website: www.isas.nus.edu.sg

President Obama’s World in His Second Term Shahid Javed Burki1

Abstract The 2012 US elections showed clearly how rapidly America was changing. There was demographic change and perceptible changes in beliefs and attitudes. Several minorities – the African-Americans, the Latinos, the Asian-Americans – were on the way to collectively becoming a ‘majority’. There was increasing willingness to accept such tabooed practices as gay marriages and the legalisation of the use of marijuana. Those who wanted public policy to be cognisant of these developments voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama and gave him another term in office. Those who wished America to stand still opted for Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate. After Obama won the 2008 election with the slogan “yes we can” and presented himself as a candidate of change, there was much that was expected of him. But he ran into a solid wall built by the Republicans. In 2012, Romney campaigned for keeping America where it had been for decades. However, as Philip Stevens of the ‘Financial Times’ wrote a few days after Obama’s triumph, “piling up support of protestant white men in the south does not amount to a winning strategy.”2 Obama was on the right side of American history.

Mr Shahid Javed Burki is Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore. He can be contacted at sjburki@yahoo.com. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of ISAS. During a professional career spanning over half a century, Mr Burki has held a number of senior positions in Pakistan and at the World Bank. He was the Director of China Operations at the World Bank from 1987 to 1994 and the Vice President of Latin America and the Caribbean Region at the World Bank from 1994 to 1999. On leave of absence from the Bank he was Pakistan’s Finance Minister, 1996-97. Philip Stevens, “The world crowds in on Obama’s second term”, Financial Times, 9 November, 2012, p. 11.

The results showed which way the various parts of the American populace was leaning. About 93 per cent of African-Americans, 73 per cent of Asian-Americans and 71 percent of Latinos voted for Obama over Romney. “If minority voters continue to favour the Democratic Party to this extent, then demography will indeed prove to be destiny”, wrote the political commentator Eugene Robinson who is also black. “If they want to attract minority support, Republicans will have to take [into] account what these voters believe in a range of issues, from the proper relationship between government and the individual to the proper role of the United States in a rapidly changing world.”3 This Working Paper explores how some of the Asian and Muslimmajority countries and the West’s fight against Islamic extremism will be affected by the new America envisaged by President Obama.

Introduction The American electorate seldom factors in foreign policy in its voting behaviour. It was perhaps because of this that when President Barack Obama was asked to list his public policy priorities, foreign policy was not one of them. But given the constrained environment in which he will operate for the making of domestic policies, he is likely to achieve greater success in managing world affairs. That is where he may leave a real legacy – an Obama Doctrine. His challenge will be to accommodate the United States in a fast-changing world without measurably reducing his country’s influence and stature. According to Edward Luce’s article in the Financial Times Special Report on the eve of Obama’s second inauguration, “events will dictate the agenda. Managing the new leadership in China, the continued game of hide-and-seek with Iran and the ‘pivot to Asia’ – to name three – will demand time. They will also offer Mr Obama the chance of leaving an imprint on the world. He may even get to define an ‘Obama doctrine’. The world stage will loom larger as his term progresses.” 4 The extent of change that is likely to occur in the next decade and a half was indicated by a report on global trends to the year 2030 issued by the National Intelligence Council in November 2012.5 This report continued the stance adopted in the one issued on the eve of President Obama’s first election to the presidency.6 The Council’s work reflects that of the 16 intelligence agencies operating in the United States. According to the report, by 2030 China will be the world’s largest economy but even then the United States will remain “first among equals…No other power would be likely to achieve the same panoply of power under any possible scenario”. Also, “an economically restored US would be a ‘plus’ in terms of the capability of the international system to deal with major crises during this long period of transition.” Among other conclusions it sees the wave of Islamic terrorism ending by 2030, overcome by the sharp 3 4

5 6

Eugene Robinson, “Missed messages” The Washington Post, 29 January, 2013, p. A 15. Edward Luce, “World stage offers hope of compelling performance”, Financial Times Special Report: The US President’s New Challenge, 18 January, 2013, p. 2. National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, Washington DC, November, 2012. National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World, Washington DC, November, 2008.

increase in the number of people from the middle classes in the Islamic world. These people were more urbanised, better educated, and more tolerant of different points of view than was the case with those who supported Islamic extremism. The report saw the rise of Islamic extremism as a response to a set of circumstances that may not recur. According to one commentary on the report, “the world envisioned… is one in which Islamist terrorism, following the trajectories of earlier waves of violence from the 19th century anarchists to the New Left in the 1970s will exhaust itself and ebb. But the tactics of terrorism will persist. And new actors, whatever their motivation could shift their focus from mass casualties to massive economic disruptions caused through cyber attacks.”7 At the same time America will be less beholden to the Middle East having become self-sufficient in energy, possibly surpassing Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil exporter. How should Washington’s policymakers deal with this rapidly changing world?

From a “Team of Rivals” to a Team of the Like-Minded With the elections over and with Obama winning another term in office, Washington – both the government and the think tank community – turned towards the important task of designing a new approach towards a highly unsettled world. The direction Washington was likely to take in Obama’s second term became clear with the appointment he made to his national security team while preparing for his second inauguration. It was clear that the re-elected president was planning to follow a very different course in international affairs compared to the one he had chosen for his first term. Then he had decided to work with what Doris Kearns Goodwin, the presidential historian, had called a “team of rivals”. Goodwin used the term to label the people President Abraham Lincoln brought with him into office in 1861 at the beginning of his first term. Several of those he chose had been his political opponents before he became president. 8 Obama quite deliberately followed the Lincoln precedence. Inexperienced in many areas of governance, in particular in international affairs, he wanted his cabinet colleagues to openly debate with him and among themselves before reaching important policy conclusions. They did not disappoint. Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had as candidates vigorously opposed Obama’s candidacy as the president-to-be worked his way towards electoral triumph. Brought into the cabinet they became personally loyal to the president but did not always accept his world view. Moreover, as discussed later, Biden and Clinton took opposite positions on the issue of Afghanistan and Pakistan. For helping him to manage the world during his second term, President Obama turned to a group of people that shared his world view. Senator John Kerry was appointed to replace Hillary Clinton at the State Department. The senator was highly respected in the chamber in which he 7

Peter Finn, “Report foresees big middle class, no Islamist terrorism by 2030”, The Washington Post, 11 December 2012, p. A7. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, New York, Simon and Schuster, 2006.

had served for decades and where he had succeeded Joe Biden as the chairman of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee. He also worked as Obama’s trouble-shooter, stepping in whenever the president needed an experienced and steady hand. He had visited Pakistan and Afghanistan when these two countries had difficulties in their relations with the United States. Kerry’s appointment was approved by the Senate on 29 January 2013 with a vote of 97 to 3 in his favour. Former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel was chosen to head the US Defence Department that was led most of the time in the president’s first term by another Republican, Robert M. Gates. Hagel had to fight harder to get the Senate’s approval. Some of his earlier policy statements – especially those relating to Iran (he was in favour of dialogue with the Islamic Republic and not particularly keen to use force to stop that country from developing the capacity to make nuclear bombs), and Israel (he had implied that the Jewish lobby had a strong say in the making of the US policy concerning the Middle East) – were found troubling to the Republican legislators. At his confirmation hearing on 31 January 2013, conducted by the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, the nominee was grilled for eight hours. One analysis of the exchange gave a good indication of why several senators were not happy with Obama’s choice for the US Department of Defence. “Hegel faced relatively few nuanced questions about the Afghan war or terrorist threats. Afghanistan was mentioned just 27 times, and Al-Qaeda only twice, while Israel got 178 mentions and Iran 169.”9 It also concerned the scholars with views sympathetic to Israel that Hegel had once presented a biography of President Dwight Eisenhower to Obama. 10 “Today, another revolutionary wave is sweeping the Arab world, driven once again by internal factors”, wrote Michael Doran, a scholar at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center. “Meanwhile Hagel remains fixated on US-Arab-Israeli dynamic. This magical triangle has never had the allpervasive influence ascribed to it. As long as Hagel remains in thrall, Eisenhower’s true realism will elude him.”11 John O. Brennan was picked to head the CIA replacing the disgraced former director Retired General David Petraeus. All three picks for the national security team subscribed to the points of view different from those held by the people they were replacing. Both Kerry and Hegel were the veterans of the war in Vietnam. They had seen real war and how it affected those who fought in it and also the countries in which they were fought. Neither favoured the “boots on the ground” strategy for America in a fast-changing world. Brennan, while serving at the White House, was the author of the “light foot-print strategy” of limiting the US intervention, whenever, to the practice of cyberattacks and the use of Special Operations Forces. He was the most ardent advocate of the use of drones to eliminate a small number of people who provided leadership and ideology to groups such as Al-Qaeda. After transferring the CIA as the agency’s director, Petraeus had moved away from the counterinsurgency strategy he had authored and practised in Iraq. At the CIA he favoured an approach that had very little engagement of troops. Instead of “boots on the ground”, 9 10

Ernesto Londono, “Hegel sharply attacked at Senate hearing”, The Washington Post, 1 February, 2013, p. A3. The referred book was Evan Thomas, Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Secret Battles to Save the World, Boston, Little Brown and Company, 2012. Michael Doran, “Hagel, following a flawed map”, The Washington Post, 1 February 2013, p. A17.

for him drones became the weapon of choice as well. The appointments made by the president to lead America in the field of international affairs was a clear indication that in the second term Obama wanted a team of the “like-minded” rather than that of ‘rivals”. Freed from the constraints necessarily imposed by the need to win another election, President Obama opted for a fundamental reordering of America’s foreign priorities and expected to be fully supported by his new and like-minded team of advisors on national security. There are three aspects of the contemplated approach – an Obama Doctrine, as it were – that are worthy of note. The first was the recognition that the United States will be a much weaker economy when compared to some of those that were developing at a considerably higher rate. Among these were the continental powers of China and India. In this changed situation, Washington will not be able to always get its way. As Obama had emphasised during his first presidential visit to Asia, Washington would have to work with Beijing to lead the rest of the world. He gave that message in a well-attended meeting in Tokyo while on his way to China. On to the second approach from the first: a very difficult fiscal situation in the United States convinced President Obama that the country could not afford to continue with the defence policy it had pursued since the end of the Second World War. The size of the standing army will have to be reduced and the types of weapons deployed will need to be changed. The drone and cyber-warfare will be the weapons of choice. The third leg of the new approach was also based on the recognition of one more reality. This related to the relative economic decline of continental Europe. It was highly unlikely that any of the states located in this area will ever go to conventional war to settle their disputes. Even Russia, still an outlier in the European system, will not disturb the peace in the area. It had too many problems of its own to worry about acquiring assets beyond its borders. America did not need to station a large contingent of troops on the European mainland. As discussed later, America’s pullback from Europe was creating some space for relatively large European states such as France to deploy their military muscle to influence developments in the countries and in the areas in which they had strategic interests.

Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” and the China Factor President Obama’s second term will mean the pursuit of a very different approach towards several Asian countries from the one he adopted during his four years in office. Some of what he is likely to do in his second term was tested in his first visit to Asia as president. That was in November 2009. Then in a major speech in Tokyo the new president recognised that the Chinese economy had grown to the level at which it was necessary for Beijing to play, along with Washington, a major policy role in guiding the world economy. This approach was dubbed as a call for the creation of a G2 arrangement comprising the United States and China. This approach

was roundly criticised in the United States.12 The American political right was not prepared to dilute the concept of American exceptionalism which meant that of all the countries around the globe it was only the United States that had the right to provide worldwide leadership. Some even suggested that this role was given by God to the nation created by the descendants of the pilgrims who first arrived as settlers. Obama retreated from the position he took in the Tokyo address because of the flak he received from the domestic opposition. But in his second term he could afford to be more assertive. His approach to Asia will show up in the way he deals with two opportunities (China and India) and two continuing problems (Afghanistan and Pakistan). Our focus in the Working Paper will be on the last two countries with a passing reference to China. The problems posed by Islamic extremism and the way it was manifesting itself in different parts of the world will continue to attract the attention of Washington-based policymakers during the four years of the second Obama term. The president and his team will also have to deal with China – one of the two Asian giants – that is going through its own period of transition. One of the most important unknowns the world – and President Obama – will face is the policy stance China is likely to adopt in world affairs. There is now acceptance all around that China will become the world’s largest economy in the next decade or two. Will the Chinese translate their economic power into military prowess and browbeat their neighbours into submission? The Chinese aggressive approach towards some territorial disputes in East and South China Seas has begun to worry its Asian neighbours. Washington is also concerned. China had also begun the effort to solve the problem of being land-locked on three sides. As David Pilling wrote for the Financial Times, “in May something curious will happen to geography of China. The continental-sized country whose supercharged development has been concentrated in cities on its eastern coast, will gain something it has never had: a western seaboard. An 800-km gas pipeline will connect Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, to the Bay of Bengal, passing through central Myanmar. Next year an oil pipeline [will] open along the same route. Road and rail will follow.”13 On 31 January 2013 there was an announcement from Islamabad, Pakistan, that the management of the port of Gwadar was being handed over to a Chinese company, terminating a 40-year contract signed earlier with the Port of Singapore Authority. China Overseas Port Holdings, the chosen company, was expected to invest in the Pakistani port “which has failed to meet the lofty goals set by the military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf on its completion in late 2006 and now lies largely unused.”14

13 14

For a discussion of the first Asian trip by President Obama, see Shahid Javed Burki, “President Obama’s First Asian Visit”, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, Brief No. 138, 9 November 2009. David Pilling, “China’s pipeline marks the scramble for Myanmar” Financial Times, 31 January, 2013, p. 9. Declan Walsh, “Chinese company will run strategic Pakistani port”, The New York Times, 1 February 2013, p. A6.

China’s unrelenting economic rise was the product of a style of economic management that was quite different from what is perhaps best described as the Davos consensus which according to an analyst served “the world pretty well in the 30 years running up to financial crisis [of 200709]. The spread of capitalism, democracy, trade and investment coincided with a long period of rising prosperity and increasing freedom. Since the financial crisis, however, the ideas promoted at Davos have lost public confidence and support… Despite the often justified cynicism that Davos provokes, the end of an era when the world’s most powerful people embraced similar ideas – and co-operated closely – would be a sad and dangerous moment.”15 That era-end could happen if China took the position that it had developed a better way of managing the economic system than was the case with Western capitalism. Notwithstanding China’s extraordinary economic rise, it was not certain that the greater economic security it had provided its citizens would guarantee the country social and political stability. Whether the situation in the country will remain calm as it continues to grow and modernise its economy will be an important question, to which no categorical answer could be provided at the beginning of President Obama’s second term. The transition that was underway in China to a new generation of leaders following the November 2012 meeting of the Communist Party of China was an exceptional development. No other non-democratic government dominated by one political party had found a way of peacefully and systematically transferring power from one set of leaders to another. In the Soviet Union it was only the death of the paramount leader that brought about change. Vietnam, the other large remaining Communist country, has not developed a system of regime change. With the election of Xi Jinping as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, the Chinese kept the 10-year schedule for changing the leadership. Xi is succeeding Hu Jintao. Hu had followed Jiang Zemin who was the leader in the period following the 1989 Tiananmen Square crisis. There was another difference this time around. Both Jiang and Hu were picked by Deng Xiaoping, the supreme leader who followed Mao Zedong. Xi is the choice of a wider community of leaders.

Afghanistan and Pakistan: The AfPak Region The American approach towards Afghanistan and Pakistan needs to be viewed from the perspective of this fundamental change in America’s thinking about foreign affairs. This approach has to serve Washington’s long-term strategic interests. A year earlier, the Obama administration had already announced its pivot towards Asia which involved reducing the attention it had given in the past to Europe in favour of greater involvement in Asia. This involvement had both military and economic components. On the military side, it meant reducing the share of Europe in America’s troop deployment from 60 to 50 per cent of those stationed outside the United States. This meant positioning more soldiers in Asia. During 15

Gideon Rachman, “A conspiracy of reasonable people is a force for good”, Financial Times, 29 January, 2013, p. 9.

President Obama’s November 2011 visit to Asia, the third of the four he made during his first term, he announced the creation of a new base at Darwin, in northern Australia. It was announced that the base, when it became fully operational, will have 2,500 Marines stationed there. What about Central and South Asia? Should Washington continue to worry about the possibility of some places in this part of the world becoming bases from which the terrorists could yet again launch attacks on America and its assets around the world? The answer to the latter question is obvious. Washington cannot lower guard to a point of another 9/11 becoming possible. While this objective is clear, what is less apparent is the nature of the strategy needed to achieve it. Should the strategy be concerned only with the impact it will have for the security of the West, in particular that of the United States? Or should the US also factor in the conditions that prevail in the areas where Islamic extremism could take root? Obama’s initial policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan – the region that came to be called AfPak – was the consequence of intense internal US debate. That led to a compromise among different well-articulated positions. The hardliners – the “boots on the ground” advocates such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US Defence Secretary Robert Gates – supported the position taken by the generals, in particular David Petraeus. The generals wanted the American strategy in Afghanistan to be based on their seeming success in Iraq. In the case of the latter, an American surge in the number of troops, along with the decision to work with the Sunni dissidents who resented the rule by Shias, lowered the incidence of violence in the country. It stabilised Iraq long enough for the United States to completely pull out is troops. In Iraq, Petraeus had “single-handedly elevated counterinsurgency doctrine (known by its military acronym, COIN) into a sort of gospel. For a brief period, COIN held sway in Washington.”16 But if the strategy seemed to have worked in Iraq, it was not necessarily appropriate for Afghanistan. In his well-researched book, The Insurgents, Fred Kaplan blames General Petraeus for showing a great deal of hubris in managing the operation in Afghanistan. As worked out in Iraq, COIN meant mobilising counterinsurgency networks to pursue extremists while, at the same time, spending most of the resources protecting Iraqi civilians from carnage. Although Obama initially bought this strategy for Afghanistan and put Petraeus in charge for implementing it as the commander of the American forces in that country, the president did so only half-heartedly. Later he came to the conclusion that COIN made no sense for Afghanistan whose people, culture and terrain were so different from those of Iraq. “In part from overconfidence, in part from inertia”, Petraeus began to see his counterinsurgency doctrine “as a set of universal principles” writes Kaplan.17 Those opposed to basing the Afghan approach on the experience in Iraq correctly argued that the enormous difference between the two countries meant that a very different way had to be adopted for dealing with the situation in the South 16 17

Thananassis Cambanis, “How we fight”, The New York Times Book Review, 27 January 2013, p 16. Fred Kaplan, The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War, Simon & Schuster, 2013, p. 87.

Asian country. What was needed was a very limited engagement aimed at taking out the insurgents that did the most damage. It would be foolhardy to secure all of Afghanistan and turn it into a country that was governed by democracy and democratic institutions, they argued. Vice President Joe Biden was the most vocal exponent of this approach. However, President Obama opted for something in between the two strategies. He ordered a surge one-half as large as that demanded by the generals while laying a strict timeline for the pullback of these additional troops. The policy circles in the government as well as in the think-tank community got engaged in two discussions once the elections were over. These involved determining the type of presence in Afghanistan once America’s involvement in combat in that country would be over. And second, how should Washington manage the use of drones as the weapon of choice in the continuing war against terrorism. Drones could be deployed in different parts of the world while troops could only be used at best in a couple of places. Most think-tanks had reached the conclusion that Pakistan and not Afghanistan will be the centre of terrorist activity aimed at the United States. That was before Syria seemed headed towards a collapse. If Pakistan destabilises, many feared that the country could have a strong Al-Qaeda presence. “The principal terrorist concentrations in South Asia are in Pakistan’s federally administered tribal areas” wrote Kimberley Kagan and Frederick W Kagan, respectively, of the Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise in Institute. They argued for a large presence of American troops after the 2014 withdrawal and the manning of several bases in the provinces of Afghanistan that were close to Pakistan. The fact that the areas in Pakistan with terrorist concentrations were distant from the sea meant that the required anti-terror operations had to be carried out from land bases. “Bases in Afghanistan obviate all these problems”, explained Kagan and Kagan in their assessment. “US forces operating from Khost, Jalalabad and Kandahar can strike targets in Afghanistan (or Pakistan) with Predators and special mission units. Such operations have been critical to the success of counterterrorism operations in this region, including the killing of Osama bin Laden (Abbottabad is about 150 miles east of Jalalabad, 750 miles from the Indian Ocean).” They suggested a much larger American presence than the one the White House had in mind. “The United States can stabilise Afghanistan if it maintains around 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan into 2014, dropping to over 30,000 thereafter (about what we have in Korea). The idea that the war is inevitably lost [in Afghanistan] is a convenient mask behind which decision-makers hide to deflect responsibility for pulling out troops who are making a real difference. We have argued that the current defeatism about Afghanistan is overdrawn and unfounded. But it is more important for Americans to internalise a simple fact: We must either stabilise Afghanistan at this minimum level or abandon the fight

against Al-Qaeda and its allies in South Asia. Any alternative ‘light footprint’ strategy is a dangerous mirage.” 18 But these ambitions were not shared by the planners in the White House. They preferred a much smaller presence in Afghanistan, and that, too, was contingent upon Kabul and Washington reaching an agreement about the terms of deployment. The Americans wanted the grant of immunity against prosecution for the American forces operating in Afghanistan. There was a tentative agreement that such immunity could be given to the US forces in the country. During his visit to Washington in January 2013, President Hamid Karzai indicated that he will convene a loya jirga (an assembly of elders) to debate – and he hoped to– approve – such an arrangement. Also, the US force, if one were to remain behind, will have an advisory rather than an operational role. Adding to the uncertainty was Afghanistan’s political future about which discussions between the Taliban and Kabul government began in Paris in late December 2012. The United States’ experience in Mali – a situation discussed below – was not reassuring in terms of placing trust in the forces it had trained to handle extremism in the troubled countries. According to one newspaper account, “to the dismay of the US, junior Malian officers, trained as part of US$ 620-million pan-Sahelian [anti-]terrorism initiative launched in 2002 to help four semi-desert states counter Islamic militancy, took part in a coup in March2012. Others among them defected to the Tuareg revolt that saw a coalition of Islamist militias, allied Algerian militants from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, capture northern two-thirds of Mali. Potentially, these US trained officers are using US counterinsurgency knowhow against France’s intervention force.”19 Could there be a similar outcome with the much larger force that United States was committed to training in Afghanistan? Several incidents of what had come to be known as the “green on blue” attacks – the Afghan soldiers attacking those from the United States – had put into doubt the effectiveness and loyalty of the large Afghan force the Americans were hoping to leave behind after their departure.20 The presence of such a large and probably not a well-disciplined force on its borders also made Pakistanis nervous. As President Obama headed for his second inauguration in January 2013, the White House seemed inclined to leave, at best, a very small force once the withdrawal was completed by the end of 2014. On the eve of President Hamid Karzai’s visit to Washington when he met with the American president as well Secretaries Leon Panetta and Hillary Clinton at the US Department of Defence and the State Department, the American administration told the press that it was weighing the possibility of leaving no troops behind after 2014. In a conference call with news reporters, Deputy National Security Adviser, Benjamin J Rhodes, said that leaving no troops “would be an option that we would consider” adding that “the president does not view these 18

Kimberley Kagan and Frederick W. Kagan, “What we’ll need in Afghanistan: The realities of fighting terrorism after 2014”, The Washington Post, 25 November, 2012, p. A19. William Wallis, “Mali adds to list of boomerangs from Washington’s war on terror”, Financial Times, 19 January 2013, p. 2. See Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, “’Green on Blue’: Clash of Colours in the Afghan Coalition”, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, Insights No. 188, 25 September 2012.

negotiations [with the visiting Afghan president] as having a goal of keeping US troops in Afghanistan.”21 Another development that drew the attention of Washington’s policymakers as Obama began his second term was the realisation that Islamic extremism does not respect international borders. That is the case in particular where the state has a weak presence at its border or, as is the case with Pakistan, at one of its borders. It was the easy movement of militants across ill-defined borders that helped them to remain effective. They took advantage of the sanctuaries that were created in the areas where the writ of the government did not run. First Pakistan on its side of the border and then Afghanistan on its side did not – or, perhaps more accurately, were not able to – prevent extremists from operating on the other side and using sanctuaries for rest as well as training. The Haqqani network that operates out of Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal agency has been an active operator against both the government in Kabul as well as the NATO forces. It was able also to do great harm as it could not be easily reached by ground forces. The drone was the only weapon that was deployed by the United States. At the same time, Afghanistan was not able to stop Mullah Faizullah from operating in Pakistan’s Swat district. It was from his sanctuary on the other side of the border that he planned and carried out the attack on Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani teenager, who miraculously survived a direct hit on her while on her to way to attend her school in Mingora, Swat district’s largest town.

The Mali Factor and the French Connection In light of some of the developments in North Africa it became clear to the policymakers in Washington as well as in several West European capitals that Al-Qaeda could create bases in countries other than Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan. It could operate against western interests from these new bases. What Al-Qaeda was in search of were weak states that were failing to serve their people and thus creating a significant body of people who were drawn towards Islamic groups. The sudden collapse of the government in the Saharan state of Mali in January 2013 was an indication of the peripatetic nature of Islamic extremism. The rapid collapse of state authority meant that such developments could happen in geographic locations other than the AfPak region. Such developments had to be checked and not allowed to germinate as they did in Afghanistan in the 1990s. What occurred in Mali in several ways replicated what had happened a decade or two earlier in Afghanistan. There, as in Mali, Al-Qaeda was a foreign force drawing its strength from the Arab world. The locals were initially foot soldiers but later created organisations of their own. It was this aspect of Islamic extremism that worried the West, not only the United States, but also such European states as France. The insurgency in Mali was led by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, 21

Mark Landler and Michael R. Gordon, “US weighs leaving no troops in Afghanistan after 2014”, The New York Times, 10 January 2013, p. 5.

AQIM. France intervened, fearing that an established Al-Qaeda in North Africa could become a threat for its own security. Many among the millions of migrants who had settled in France traced their origin to the countries in North Africa. They could come under the influence of Islamic dissidents especially if the latter acquired some territory from which they could operate. This happened in Britain where some in the Pakistani community that had been present for several generations in the country came under the influence of Al-Qaeda and the extremist ideology that it espoused. The 7 July 2005 bombings sometime referred to as 7/7 were a series of coordinated attacks carried out by a group of young men of Pakistani origin. This episode was an example of the radicalisation of a Muslim community living in Europe. According to Sudarsan Raghavan of The Washington Post, “most of the rebels who took over [Diabaly] this central town for five days this month were Malian and spoke the local languages of the north and the south. But their commanders were different…They were foreigners who spoke Arabic.” Will France succeed in Mali when the United States had failed in Afghanistan? To quote Raghavan again: “But it also means that French could face a full-blown guerrilla insurgency punctuated by suicide bombings, homemade suicide bombs and ambushes, tactics used in Afghanistan, Algeria and neighbouring Nigeria. Many of the foreigners are veterans of these and other conflicts.” 22 There was some fear that the AQIM may launch another attack following the operation carried out on 16 January 2013 at an oil facility in south Algeria operated in part by British oil giant BP. According to one account, “new intelligence on Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in North Africa indicates that the militant group is seeking to carry out attacks on other Western targets after its deadly attack in Algeria…The push to mount follow-up strikes is seen as evidence that Al-Qaeda has been emboldened by the 16 January attack.”23 There were other parallels with the situation in AfPak. Initially the fight against the state was led by a local Islamic group called Ansar Dine or “defenders of the faith”. This was also the case with the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Malian group turned to AQIM for finance as well as guidance on guerrilla warfare. The foreign group – flush with cash from kidnapping foreigners and experience from other conflicts – was happy to oblige. Compared to the rule by the Taliban in Afghanistan, that by the Islamists in Mali was relatively short. The Taliban were in Kabul for five years; the Islamic groups in the northern parts of Mali held sway for only 10 months. The Islamic radicals occupied the desert towns of Gao and Timbuktu for a brief period but the record of their rule was even more brutal than that of the Taliban. They “summarily executed, stoned, and mutilated people for being non-believers.”24 Another difference was that while the Taliban were almost entirely Pashtuns, the main ethnic group in Afghanistan, the Malian occupation was by Arabs, Mauritanians, and Algerians.

22 23

Sudarsan Raghavan, “Foreigners in a leading role”, The Washington Post, 29 January, 2013, pp. A1 and A7. Greg Miller, “Al_Qaeda’s N. Africa branch said to seek more Western targets”, The Washington Post, 1 February 2013, p. A8. Peter Tinti and Rick Gladstone, Relief and anxiety meld in Mali towns freed of Islamists”, The New York Times, 30 January 2013, p. A4.

France’s decision also needs to be understood in the context of the country’s post World War II history. In 1966, then President Charles de Gaulle wrote to President Lyndon B. Johnson to announce that his country was quitting the NATO alliance. “France is determined to regain on her whole territory the full exercise of sovereignty, at present diminished by the permanent presence of allied military elements or by the use of which is made of her airspace; to cease her participation in the integrated commands; and to no longer to place her forces at the disposal of NATO,” wrote the French president to his American counterpart. Later Paris changed its stance and rejoined NATO but maintained its ability to send troops and equipment quickly to distant places. According to one assessment, France “should soon overtake austerity minded Britain as the world’s fourth largest military spender, after the United States, China and Russia.” However, the use of force outside its borders will be “on the basis of new conditions, which differ, French officials argue, from the old colonial habits and traditions known as Francafrique...France [now] means to act multilaterally, even when leading from the front, as it did in Libya, in the name of saving an ally and helping the Sahel region combat the spread of radical Islamists, some of them foreign jihadists, strongly connected to terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb…And the French take some pride in playing a leading role from a moral foundation. Even if French national interests are also at play, it is pushing other allies to act.” 25 Unstated in this approach to the projection of military power was the desire to fill the gap that will be left in Europe once the United States’ “pivot to Asia” is fully in place. As President Obama embarked on his second term, it was clear that he was prepared to work with other Western powers to beat back the spread of Islamic extremism. Not only that, he was prepared to let some Europeans take the lead in fighting the war. In both Libya and Mali the United States had played supporting roles to those of other European nations. He had left behind the swagger with which George W Bush, his predecessor, had walked the world stage.

Al-Qaeda 2.0 Intelligence agencies in the West have begun to talk about Al-Qaeda 2.0 which, according to the journalist David Ignatius, is “an evolving, morphing threat that lacks a coherent centre but is causing growing trouble in chaotic, poorly governed areas such as Libya, Yemen, Syria and Mali.” Many officials liken this new problem to the spread of cancer cells. “These cells have only a loose, ideological connection with what remains the core leadership in Pakistan but they are stubborn and toxic”. The reference to the core leadership situated in Pakistan is to Ayman al Zawahiri, who after the death of Osama bin Laden headed Al-Qaeda. He was hiding somewhere in the tribal belt of Pakistan most possibly in the rugged hills of North Waziristan. He was high on the list approved by President Obama of the people who could be targeted and killed by the use of American operated drones. “Striking at these local nodes – as the French are now doing in 25

Steven Erlanger, “France’s new way of military intervention”, The International Herald Tribune, 21 January, 2013, p. 6.

Mali – can disrupt the new terrorist cells”, continues Ignatius. But analysts stress there will be consequences: The cells may metastasize further, drawing new jihadists into the fight and potentially threatening targets in Europe and the United States.26 What has contributed to the spread of this disease is the change of some of the regimes in the Middle East following the Arab Spring. One element in the grand bargain that kept a number of autocrats in place was that they will not allow Islamic parties to develop strong roots in their soils. The strategy the United States followed after 9/11 was for the CIA to work closely with the security agencies in the countries where Islamists had a strong presence and could become a problem for the West. These agencies were strengthened and given both training and equipment to do surveillance and, if need be, disrupt the activities of the groups that were suspect. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, ISI, and the various Arab intelligence services known as moukhabarats were closely aligned with the CIA. After the fall of the regimes headed by Gadhafi and Hosni Mubarak in the Arab world and of Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, these links have been measurably weakened. Another looming threat was the possible change in the government headed by Basharat Assad in Syria. The most dangerous new Al-Qaeda threat may be the AlNasra Front in Syria. But as noted in the previously quoted 2012 survey by the National Intelligence Council, AlQaeda 2.0 may run into strong resistance from the Muslim middle class as it learns more about the atrocities committed by the Islamists during their occupation of some of the towns in Mali’s north. Stories such as those published by The New York Times on 1 February, 2013 27 were picked up by the websites that reach the relatively secular and more enlightened segments of the Muslim society. When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, they were accepted by many people on the basis of what they promised to a war-torn country and a war-weary population. Now they have accumulated a record of governance which will appeal to only a small minority of the Muslim population but repel the majority.

Conclusion Will Obama’s second term be better than his first? The second terms are not cursed as legend has it. Before going to his inauguration, the president invited a group of historians for dinner to talk about the performance of his predecessors who had been re-elected to serve again. According to Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian who attended the dinner, “Obama has read the

26 27

David Ignatius, “A spreading al-Qaeda cancer”, The Washington Post, 31 January 2013, p. A17. Lydia Polgreen, “Timbuktu endured terror under harsh Shariah law”, The New York Times, 1 February, 2013, p. A1 and A9.

literature and understands overreach. This puts him one step ahead of most re-elected presidents”.28 Even though and to the surprise of most economists, the American GDP shrank by 0.1 per cent in the past quarter of 2012, the economy was in a better shape than was the case when Obama began his first term. The decline was largely the result of “lower military spending, fewer exports, and smaller business stockpiles”. Although the October-December 2012 quarter was the worst since the economy crawled out of the Great Recession of 2007-09, the United States was expected to do much better than other older, industrial economies. However, it is in world affairs that President Obama is likely to face more challenges. The experience gained during his first term will likely help him steer his country and the rest of the world through the expected turbulence of the next few years. As Financial Times editorialised on the eve of President Obama’s second inauguration, “with each year of Mr Obama’s first term, the costs of Washington’s first term became increasingly visible. Yet in contrast to the ‘gathering clouds and raging storms’ that Mr Obama described in 2009, the US is in relatively better shape than most of its counterparts. This may be little better than taking the prize for the least ugly in a beauty contest.”29 Even though the Americans may be getting ready to surrender the first place to China in the global economic system, only they can provide the leadership the world needs as it restructures and transforms. The big test for the shaping of the new world order will be in the Muslim world, not only in the AfPak region but wherever there are weak governments unable to provide good governance thus leaving a great deal of space in which the forces of extremism could operate. Looking at some of the recent events around the world, it is not unreasonable to assume that the reordering in world affairs that is occurring may create a two-power arrangement in the area of global economics and a threepower link-up among the military powers. The first will involve the United States and China, and France added to the small group of international policemen in the second.

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Quoted in Albert R. Hunt, “For Obama high hurdles in 2 nd term”, The International Herald Tribune, 21 January, 2013, p. 2. Financial Times, “Barack Obama’s second term: US president must recapture promise of better politics”, 19 January, 2013, p. 6.

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ISAS Working Paper No. 165 – 15 February 2013 469A Bukit Timah Road #07-01, Tower Block, Singapore 259770 Tel: 6516 6179 / 6516 4239 Fax: 6776 7505 / 6314 5447 Email: isassec@nus.edu.sg Website: www.isas.nus.edu.sg

US Role in the 1971 Indo-Pak War: Implications for Bangladesh-US Relations Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury1

Introduction The year 1971 witnessed a major redrawing of the map of South Asia. It saw the emergence of a new nation, which a few decades down the line became the world’s sixth largest country in terms of population, the third largest Muslim State, a democracy, albeit a volatile one: Bangladesh. It was a bipolar world in those Cold War days, with two preponderantly dominant superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. After years of perceived exploitation by Pakistan of its eastern wing, East Pakistan, a rebellion, or a ‘struggle for liberation’ as the latter liked to call it, had flared up, with initially tacit and later overt support from the regional pre-eminent power, India. It obtained the backing of the Soviet Union. Pakistan, led by its military ruler, President Yahya Khan, a General, endeavoured to suppress the uprising which eventually led it into a war with India. The ‘Bangladesh Movement’ was being led by the Awami League (which had massively won the 1970 elections but was being denied transfer of power by a combination of Yahya and the Pakistani leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto), whose head Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was incarcerated in Pakistani prison. Despite many predictions, its superpower ally the United States did not come down in its support unlike India’s superpower ally the Soviet Union.

Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore. He is a former Foreign Advisor (Foreign Minister) of Bangladesh, and he can be contacted at isasiac@nus.edu.sg. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of ISAS.

The American decision of non-intervention appeared to run against the grain of the sentiments of the Nixon Administration. That was because – as this essay will demonstrate – of the deep dichotomy within the US community, with a huge segment of public opinion favouring the East Pakistani struggle. There were two major results - one immediate and the other long term. Immediately a Superpower conflict, that could have turned nuclear, was averted. In the long run over the years it facilitated a close relationship and partnership with Bangladesh that has lasted into the twenty first century.

Backdrop to the Crisis The South Asian Crisis of 1971 was ill-timed for the US. There appeared to be a brightening of prospects for the success of the US foreign policy both globally and in the Asian region. Globally the US Administration saw the beginnings of a new relationship between the US and the People’s Republic of China;2 concrete progress on important issues in US-Soviet relations;3 the Nixon Doctrine took effect reducing US military involvement in Vietnam; 4 all these leading to a maturing of the relationship with East Asia. With regard to Pakistan, Yahya’s continuation as the head of government (he had assumed power in 1969 after the resignation of President M Ayub Khan and the declaration of yet another Martial Law, Pakistan’s second in 1969. First, he had an ‘extraordinary relationship’ with the American Ambassador, Joseph Farland;5 and second, he was being of invaluable help as a conduit linking the US to China.6 Interestingly, had there been a peaceful transfer of power to the Awami League following the 1970 elections, the US would also have had no cause for worries. First, an Awami League government in Pakistan would have augured well for Indo-Pakistan relations thereby generally easing the security complexities in South Asia for the US, and second an Awami League government was likely to tack close to the US, given that its main leader, now late, Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy, onetime Prime Minister of Pakistan, and Mujib’s mentor, was staunchly pro-US. Indeed, the Americans would need to be more wary of Bhutto, never a friend.7 In other words, on the eve of the 1971 crisis, US interests dictated a united Pakistan preferably with Yahya at its head, or failing that, with Mujib at the helm. What the Americans 2

3 4

5 6 7

See, Henry Kissinger: Does America Need A Foreign Policy? Towards a Diplomacy for the 21 st Century, (New York: Simon& Schuster, 2001) pp. 134-149. The Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), later signed in 1972, was being negotiated. The ‘Nixon Doctrine’ was announced by President Richard Nixon in Guam on 25 July 1969, which stated that while the US would assist in the ‘defence and development’ of its allies, it would NOT attempt to undertake the defence of ‘all the free nations of the world’, implying ‘Vietnamisation’ of the Vietnam War. See Peter Beinart, ‘Return of the Nixon Doctrine’, Time, 1 April 2007. Jack Anderson with George Clifford, The Anderson Papers (New York: Ballantine Books, 1974), p. 274. See Henry Kissinger, The White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1979), p. 714. Bhutto’s anti-American sentiments find ample expression in his book, The Myth of Independence (London: Oxford University Press, 1967).

needed least was another global flashpoint that was likely to attract adversary attention which would, thereby, adversely impact on, in Nixon’s words,’ the emerging structure of peace’ in the 1970s.8

Role of the US Administration The US Administration perceived the emerging crisis in South Asia at three levels; first, the humanitarian problems of the Bengali refugees in India and of the millions who remained behind in Pakistan; second the problem of political settlement between East and West Pakistan; and, third, the danger of war between Pakistan and India.9 Nixon’s response to the first level, according to him, was the commitment of US$ 91 million through the United Nations for the refugees in India, and US$ 158 million for those suffering in Pakistan. At the second level he claimed that he had been able to obtain assurance from Yahya that Mujib would not be executed, that civilian government in East Pakistan would be restored, and rapprochement sought with the Awami League (to that end the American Administration said they were able to establish contact with some prominent exiled Awami Leaguers in Calcutta).10 With regard to the third level, Nixon stated that he sought to avert war by keeping India apprised of all US initiatives, talking to the Soviet Union, and culminating in the US Secretary of State William Rogers informing the Indian Ambassador on 11 August 1971 that the US would not continue economic assistance to a country that started the war11 – a clear warning to India. Unfortunately for the Administration, the responses at all three levels appeared to backfire. First, the assistance to India for refugees did not generate the kind of gratitude the US had hoped for, since it seemed an answer to the call of the UN Secretary General and was therefore viewed as discharging an international obligation.12 Indeed, the relief to East Pakistan, channelled through the Pakistani government evoked Bangladeshi criticism of possible, indeed probable, diversion to the Pakistan military.13 Second, the attempt to establish linkage with the Awami Leaguers, mainly the Foreign Minister of the Provisional Bangladesh Government set up on 10 April 1971, Khandker Mushtaque Ahmed, only led to his isolation from the Provisional Acting President Syed Nazrul Islam and Provisional Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmed, and the distancing of the latter two from the Americans.14 Third, the threats made to the Indian Ambassador only further 8

9 10 11 12 13 14

Richard M. Nixon, US Foreign Policy in the 1970s: The Emerging Structure of Peace, A Report to the Congress, 9 February, 1972. Ibid, p.143. Ibid, p.145. Ibid, pp. 145-146. UN Secretary General had made such an appeal on 19 May 1971. Asian Recorder, 18-24 June 1971, p. 10219. Ibid, 6-12 August 1971, pp. 10298-9. Ibid, p. 10299.

upset Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, already deeply annoyed at Washington and seeking linkages with Moscow. As events rapidly unfolded in South Asia, considerable evidence of Washington’s leanings towards Pakistan began to come to the fore. First, though on 20 April 1971 the State Department had assured Senator Edward Kennedy, a Bangladeshi sympathiser, that there were no arms supplies in the pipeline for Pakistan15, a Pakistani ship Padma sailed from New York on 21 June 1971 with arms for Pakistan.16 The Indian Foreign Minister Sardar Swaran Singh told an angry Parliament in New Delhi that India had urged the US Administration to stop the ship from proceeding to its destination.17 Not only was the shipment not prevented, there is no record of any pressure to dissuade the Pakistanis from using the American arms from their operations in East Pakistan. Second, the Administration was anxious to continue economic assistance to Pakistan thus appearing to prop up the Yahya regime. In June 1971 the Aid to Pakistan Consortium under the aegis of the World Bank met to consider a Bank report that suggested that contrary to Pakistan’s stated views, the situation in the East was far from normal, and under these conditions assistance could not be fruitfully utilised.18 Ten of the eleven members of the Consortium concurred with the Report, but the US did not.19 Later on 3 August 1971 when the US House of Representatives passed the Foreign Aid Bill after including the Gallagher amendment for stoppage of assistance to Pakistan, Nixon protested that engaging in ‘public pressures’ on Pakistan would be ‘counterproductive’, and the crisis demanded discussions ‘in private channels’ (rather than influencing legislation).20 Third, the Administration, even when the matter became public knowledge, did not disapprove of Pakistani use of American aircraft to shift troops from West to East Pakistan. The aircraft in question were two Boeing 707s, under lease from World Airways which reportedly did considerable business with the US Armed Forces. It was revealed that the lease was arranged with the knowledge and explicit authorisation of the State department, the Department of Commerce, and the Civil Aeronautics Board. The State Department described the deal as a ‘commercial matter’ but sources in the Department of Commerce revealed that the licenses, renewed on 18 June 1971 (over two and half months after the Pakistani military crackdown on the East), were subject to revocation and the leases would be invalid without the licenses.21

15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Bangladesh Documents, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, p. 556. New York Times, 22 June, 1971. Asian Recorder, 23-29 July 1971, p. 10269. New York Times, 13 July 1971. Ibid, 14 July 1971. Baltimore Sun, 5 August 1971. Lewis M. Simons, ‘Pakistan using US Jetliners to help Move Men to Bengal’, Washington Post, 19 August 1971.

Fourth, US concord with the Pakistani official line was evident in Secretary Rogers’ speech at the UN General Assembly on 4 October 1971. He insisted that “the events in East Pakistan are internal events with which the people of Pakistan must deal”.22 That was exactly Pakistan’s formal position. When Mrs Gandhi visited the US in November, the ensuing talks did not bring India and the US any closer to each other. Nixon derogated the Indo-Soviet Treaty signed in August that year, albeit indirectly, when he stated that India and the US were bound together by a ‘higher morality that did not need legal documents’.23 The series of evidence cited above demonstrates that if the Administration believed in the inevitability of Bangladesh’s independence, as National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger claimed it did, in his The White House Years24, the Nixon Administration seems to have made little attempts to befriend, or at least alleviate the suspicions of, the leadership that was likely to be in power in the eventually sovereign Bangladesh. When the actual hostilities between India and Pakistan broke out in the first week of December 1971, the Administration laid the blame for war squarely on Indian shoulders with immediate cancellation of arms supplies and economic aid to India.25 On 8 December 1971, while chairing a secret session of the Washington Special Action Group (WSAG), Kissinger said: “There can be no doubt what the President (Nixon) wants. The President does NOT want to be even-handed. The President believes India is the attacker. We are trying to get across the idea that India has jeopardised relations with the US. We cannot afford to ease India’s mind. The lady (Mrs Gandhi) is cold blooded and tough and will not turn into a Soviet satellite merely because of pique.”26 (Kissinger also wanted to assuage the fears of those who felt that the US actions could drive India into Soviet arms, which they eventually did). Washington’s ‘tilt’ (Kissinger’s expression) towards Pakistan was confirmed in a series of actions by it at the UN. On 4 December 1971 the UN Security Council met on US request and voted 11-2 asking for an immediate cease-fire and withdrawal of foreign (Indian) forces (from Pakistani soil), which the Soviet Union vetoed.27 Its adoption would clearly have prevented the creation of Bangladesh (that happened on 16 December 1971 with the surrender of the Pakistani troops in Dhaka to the Indians). When the UN General Assembly proceeded on 7 December 1971 to adopt a 14-nation draft resolution calling for cease-fire and withdrawal of forces, which 22

23 24 25 26

Cited in, Richard P. Stebbins and Elaine P. Adam (eds.), American Foreign Policy 1971: A Documentary Record (New York: New York University Press, 1976), p. 226. Asian Almanac, Vol.10, No. 3 (1972), p. 4988. Quoted in Time, 15 October 1979, p. 54. New York Times, 7 December 1971. The proceedings were leaked to the media and published in the New York Times on 6 January 1972.Later this was cited in Jack Anderson with George Clifford, op.cit., p. 281. Nixon, op. cit., p. 147.

was carried by 104 votes to 11, the US along with China, voted for it. On 12 December 1971, at the UN Security Council, Ambassador George Bush of the US criticised the ‘action of India to intervene militarily and place in jeopardy the territorial integrity and political independence of its neighbour, Pakistan.’28 As a final act of support for Pakistan, the Administration ordered a Task force of the Seventh Fleet including the nuclear powered aircraft carrier Enterprise into the Bay of Bengal on 10 December 1971.29 The Task Force entered the Bay on 15 December 1971, too late to make any difference to the outcome of the war.

Reasons for the ‘Tilt’ The reasons for the Administration’s ‘tilt’ towards Pakistan can be analysed at two levels, regional and global. At a regional level, first, there was the possibility (in American perceptions), at least at the initial stages, that Yahya might succeed in quelling the Bangladesh movement. In which case, for the Americans, it might have appeared that it would be wise to avoid any action (such as display of sympathy for the Awami League and the Bangladesh freedom-fighters) that might offend Yahya. Secondly, if Bangladesh came to fruition it was possible that the territory would withdraw from the American alliance (which as a part of Pakistan it technically was) and pass under Soviet influence. Thirdly, there were Nixon’s strong personal predilections shaped by mutually hostile relations with Indira Gandhi, and equally positive relations with a succession of Pakistani leaders.30 There were some globally relevant reasons as well, that some of his aides, particularly Kissinger, found compelling. First, the South Asian crisis had relevance to the politics of superpower relations, between the Soviet Union and the US. Kissinger saw a sinister Soviet design in breaking up the American alliance system as well as demonstrating Chinese impotence, by supporting India’s efforts to exploit Pakistan’s travails.31 Secondly, Pakistan was an American ally, a member of the Western Alliance, whose existence was now threatened by a powerful neighbour with support from a Communist superpower. Washington ought not to, according to 28

29 30

Stebbins and Adam, op. cit., p. 241. It was reported that Nixon personally instructed George Bush to be firm with India. See, T. V. Kunshi Krishnan, The Unfriendly Friends: India and America (New Delhi: Indian Book Co., 1974) p. 29. Stebbins and Adam, op. cit., p. 239. That there was little love lost between Nixon and Mrs Gandhi was well known. On the other hand, Nixon, who was instrumental in the conclusion of the 1954 US-Pakistan Mutual Security Pact, was assiduously cultivated by Pakistan, which he visited on several occasions as a private citizen in the 1960s, even when his political fortunes in the US were at low ebb. White House Years, op. cit., p. 286.

Kissinger, ignore its commitments. As he said: “The image of a great nation, conducting itself like a shyster looking for legalistic loopholes, was not likely to inspire other allies, who had signed treaties with us or relied on our expressions in the belief that the words meant approximately what they said.”32 Thirdly, Pakistan was a close friend of China. The Americans generally felt that China was gingerly feeling its way, encouraged by Pakistan, towards a new relationship with the US, based on the hope that the US would maintain the global equilibrium.

Voices of Dissent Significantly, a large segment of the American body politic did not share the views of the Administration. Dissent was voiced in the media, in the legislature and in the campuses. These built up pressure on the Administration gradually. On 1 April 1971, Senators Edward Kennedy and Fred Harris criticised the role of the Administration in the crisis, and were joined by Senator William Saxbe a week later.33 On 6 May 1971, 10 Senators cabled Secretary Rogers, urging refusal of further assistance to Pakistan unless measures were taken by the latter to alleviate “the sufferings of ‘millions starving in East Pakistan…’34 On several occasions Senators Frank Church and J W Fulbright lent their powerful voices to the pro- Bangladesh lobby.35 Apart from individual legislators, bodies in the Congress at times indicated a favourable attitude towards the Bangladesh Movement. In the House of Representatives, the Asia-Pacific Subcommittee commenced a hearing on the South Asian situation on 11 May 1971 when Congressman Cornelius E Gallagher described it as “potentially equal in terms of human misery to a combination of Vietnam and Biafra”.36 In the Senate, the Subcommittee on Refugees, chaired by Kennedy, held three hearings on the matter between the months of June and October 1971. Both the Senate and the House passed amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act urging the cutting off of further aid to Pakistan on 3 August and 11 November 1971 respectively.37 Prominent members of the US intelligentsia joined the large number of legislators. They counselled moderation on Pakistan, and also brought to bear pressure on the Administration to 32 33 34

35 36 37

Ibid, p. 895. Asian Recorder, 14-20 May 1971, p. 10162. The Senators were Walter F Mondale, Clifford P Chase, Fred R Harris, Thomas E Eagleton, George McGovern, William Proxmire, H E Hughes, Hubert H Humphrey, Birch Bayh, and Edmund S. Muskie: Congressional Records, cited in Bangladesh Documents, op. cit., p. 536. Ibid, pp. 581-582. Ibid, p. 542. A.M.A. Muhith, Bangladesh: Emergence of A Nation (Dhaka: Bangladesh Books International Ltd., 1978), p.329. Muhith has been the Finance Minister of Bangladesh since 2009. In 1971 he was a diplomat in Washington who had defected from the Pakistani Embassy in support of Bangladesh.

do so. On 12 April 1971 a large number of American intellectuals who described themselves as ‘Friends of Pakistan’ made a press statement, urging upon Pakistan that no government had the “right to impose its will by force of arms on a populace that (had) spoken so unanimously as the people of East Pakistan and whose aspirations (were) so reasonable”.38 Important sections of the Press took a similar stance, and they are too numerous to mention here. As early as on 31 March 1971, there were editorials in prominent newspapers asking the Administration to withhold military aid to the Pakistan government.39 Within the American bureaucracy there were some opposing voices, particularly from among the officials in the State Department involved with South Asia. The US Ambassador to India was urging a position of genuine neutrality.40 Unlike the Administration, who initially saw the crisis as an internal affair of Pakistan, Keating stated that it could be described as such “only to the limited extent that it was happening in Pakistan”.41 Dissent in much stronger terms was expressed by officials posted in the US Consulate General in Dhaka. Its head, Archer Blood sent a cable to the State Department on 6 April which read: “With the conviction that US policy related to recent developments in East Pakistan serves neither our moral interests broadly defined, nor our national interests, narrowly defined, numerous (American officers) consider it their duty to register strong dissent with fundamental aspects of this policy”. 42 Allowing for a modicum of localitis43, this was a trenchant criticism of his superiors in the Administration!

Conclusion The views of a large number of prominent American legislators, academics, sections of the media, as well as many officials at various levels had a two-fold effect: First, in public perceptions they moderated the extent of the Administration’s ‘tilt’ in favour of Pakistan. The dissent was a deterrent to Washington’s greater involvement in the crisis on Pakistan’s side. Second, the views of the liberal Americans, who stood up to their highest policy-makers, helped to moderate the negative sentiments of the Bangladeshi leadership, and public, who separated informed public opinion from the official stance adopted by Washington. This was underlined by 38

The signatories were: Frank C Child, Edwin H Clarke II, Paul G Clark, James Coleman, Edward C Dimock Jr, Robert Dorfman, Walter P Falcon, John C H Fee, Richard M Guble, Robert Gomer, Gary Hufbauer, John Isaacs, Kirmitsu Kaneda, Maurice D Kilbridge, Stephen R Lewis Jr, Edward Mason, John W Mellor, Gustav C Papanak, Hanna Papanak, Stefan H Robock, Peter Rogers, James A F Stoner, John W Thomas, Wayne Thorne, Barbara Ward, Stanislaw Wellisz, Jerome B Weisner, and Wayne Wilcox. Washington Post, 12 April, 1971. 39 For instance, the editorial in New York Times, 31 March 1971. 40 See W Norman Brown, The United States and India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Third Edition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 414. 41 Asian Recorder, 14-20 May 1971, p. 10162. 42 Quoted in Lawrence Lifschultz, Bangladesh: The Unfinished Revolution (London: Zed Press, 1979) p.157 43 The tendency noticeable among diplomats at times to become more involved with host societies, often adversely impacting on their connections with their own headquarters.

the Acting President of the Provisional Government of Bangladesh, Syed Nazrul Islam, when he said: “We have been disappointed in the United States’ but ‘do not hold this against the American people”.44 It is the complexity of the manner in which US policies evolve, the competition among competing constituencies within the system often called ‘bureaucratic politics’ in foreign policy literature, that often help to rationalise the policy-outcome.45 This is also what happened in this case. That is why it was eventually possible for both Bangladesh and the American sides to develop a healthy partnership and relationship over the following decades. Kissinger once cited a Spanish poet as saying: ‘Traveller, there is no path; paths are made by walking’. 46 Relations between United States and Bangladesh also grew through interactions as they went along, fed by mutual needs and interests, with history serving nothing more than a matrix or a backdrop and not as any impediment.

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44 45

New York Times, 29 December, 1971. For similar analyses, see, Graham Allison, Essence of Decision (Boston: Little Brown, 1971), M Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 1974), and William Wallace, Foreign Policy and the Political Process (London: Macmillan, 1971) Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1982), p. 8.

ISAS Working Paper No. 166 – 21 February 2013 469A Bukit Timah Road #07-01, Tower Block, Singapore 259770 Tel: 6516 6179 / 6516 4239 Fax: 6776 7505 / 6314 5447 Email: isassec@nus.edu.sg Website: www.isas.nus.edu.sg

India’s Security Cooperation with Myanmar: Prospect and Retrospect C Raja Mohan1

Introduction In the first-ever visit to Myanmar2 by an Indian defence minister, A K Antony travelled to Nay Pyi Taw for two days from 21 January 2013. Antony’s trip to Myanmar followed the visit by Manmohan Singh to that country in May 2012, the first by an Indian prime minister in nearly 25 years. Although no major agreements were signed during his visit, Antony’s brief sojourn in Myanmar underlined Delhi’s political commitment to deepen security cooperation between the two countries. India and Myanmar have had defence contacts going back to the early-1990s, when India began a constructive engagement with the military rulers of Myanmar. The scope of the defence engagement was, however, significantly constrained by the international isolation of Myanmar and India’s own ambivalence about Myanmar’s internal political situation. The political reforms in Myanmar since 2011 and the growing international engagement with this important eastern neighbour have freed Delhi from some of the earlier constraints. The paper locates India’s defence diplomacy with Myanmar in a historical perspective, reviews the expansion of bilateral security cooperation in the last two decades and examines the near-term prospects. 1

Dr C Raja Mohan is a Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore. He is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi and a Non-Resident Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC. He can be contacted at isascrm@nus.edu.sg and crmohan53@gmail.com. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of ISAS. Both terms, Myanmar and Burma, are used in this paper.

The Colonial Era The series of conflicts known as the Anglo-Burmese Wars from early- to late-19th century resulted in the Raj seizing different territories of the Kingdom of Burma and eventually annexing the whole nation as part of British India.3 The years that followed saw the integration of Burma and its economy with undivided India and its economy; and the burden of defending Burma naturally fell on the Raj. The separation of Burma from the Raj in 1937 did not in any way reduce the responsibilities of the Raj in defending what was its large eastern flank. With British India establishing comfortable relations with Siam that borders Burma, there was little concern in Calcutta (and later Delhi) of a threat to the Raj from the East. The weakening of the Chinese empire limited any potential threats from the north. The Second World War, however, shattered the quiescence on the eastern front. The fall of Singapore and the rapid advances of Japanese armed forces almost to the doorstep of India in the Second World War underlined the huge strategic significance of Burma. Located between India and China, and between the subcontinent and the East, Burma became critical to the new theatre that was widely described as CBI (China-Burma-India). The Southeast Asia Command was set up by the Allies to push the Japanese out of Myanmar; and undivided India contributed nearly 750,000 troops. Burma also provided the backdoor to China that let the Allies supply the Chongqing government in the fight against Japanese occupation. The American General Joseph Stilwell built the famous Ledo Road from India to Yunnan through northern Burma.4 Writing during the Second World War and looking ahead to the security of the region after the decolonisation of the Subcontinent which was then on the cards, the Indian historian and diplomat K M Panikkar highlighted the indivisibility of Indian and Burmese security: “the defence of Burma is in fact the defence of India, and it is India’s primary concern no less than Burma’s to see that its frontiers remain inviolate. In fact no responsibility can be considered too heavy for India when it comes to the question of defending Burma”.5 Panikkar was convinced that Burma was not in a position to defend itself and the country’s domination by another power would be disastrous for India. Panikkar also understood that post-colonial nationalisms would make substantial defence cooperation between Delhi and Rangoon difficult. Yet, he was confident that the logic of a defence union will suit Delhi and Rangoon. What emerged, however, was a more complex story of India-Burma defence cooperation after the Second World War. 3

For a comprehensive historical account, see Htin Aung, The Stricken Peacock: Anglo-Burmese Relations, 17521948 (Lieden: M. Nijhoff, 1965). See Ashley Jackson, The British Empire and the Second World War (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2006), pp. 351-404; for a history of the road to Burma, see Leslie Anders, The Ledo Road: General Joseph W. Stilwell’s Highway to China (Oklahoma; University of Nebraska Press, 1965) K.M. Panikkar, The Future of South East Asia (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1943), p. 45.

Nehru-Nu Friendship Treaty The decolonisation of India and Burma in the late-1940s set the stage for redefining the framework of their bilateral relations, including defence ties. The Indian national movement strongly supported the aspirations of Burmese people for separation from the Raj and independence from Britain. The Indian National Congress, in its very first session in 1885, opposed the annexation of Upper Burma, and its leaders including Mahatma Gandhi strongly backed the Burmese nationalist demand for separation from the Raj.6 The strong bonds of friendship between Jawaharlal Nehru and Burma’s first premier U Nu provided the basis for managing the transition to nationalist rule. While Burma sought to reclaim its national economy from foreigners, the large Indian population present in the country was badly affected. Nehru did not let the issue derail the bilateral ties. India and Burma also shared the commitment to empower the newly liberated states, articulate their independent viewpoints on world affairs and create an area of peace in Asia amidst the then-unfolding Cold War. Panikkar had argued that a “long-term alliance between India and Burma” would be advantageous for both countries. He considered and rejected two potential arguments against a strategic union between the two countries. He argued that the massive difference in the sizes of the two populations and the emerging Burmese nationalism could raise questions about India’s dominance over Burma and might undermine the potential defence partnership between the two. He argued that the resources and location of Burma would make it so important for India that it could not afford to sour the relationship and that it was in India’s interest to make a success of voluntary security association between the two.7 On his part, Nehru seemed fully conscious of Burma’s geopolitical significance and the need for great patience and understanding in building a long-term partnership with Burma. The severe internal security threats faced by Burma in the immediate aftermath of independence provided the context for substantive Indian military assistance to Rangoon. Immediately after independence Rangoon confronted major insurrections by the Burmese Communist Party, ethnic Karen and other militias in 1949. Rangoon was under direct threat from the rebel forces. Nu sought military assistance from the India and other Commonwealth nations as well as the United States. Nehru helped convene a meeting of the Commonwealth representatives in Delhi in lateFebruary 1949. While being empathetic to Nu’s request, the meeting suggested that Burma reconcile its differences with the Karens and offered the good offices of the Commonwealth for talks on reconciliation. Rejecting the proposition as an unwanted interference in Burmese affairs, Nu reached out again to Nehru. Facilitating eventual Commonwealth assistance, and working with Pakistan and Ceylon to strengthen the hand of Rangoon, India also provided direct bilateral 6 7

Bimla Prasad, The Origins of Indian Foreign Policy (Calcutta: Bookland, 1960), pp. 36-38. Panikkar, op. cit., pp. 45-50

military and financial assistance to Burma that was acknowledged with much grace by Nu once the situation was brought under control.8 The Indian assistance prevented the fall of Rangoon to rebels and included the supply of six Dakota transport aircraft to Burma.9 Speaking in the Indian Parliament in March 1950, Nehru declared that India’s support to Burma was not about interfering in the internal affairs of its neighbour. “It is not our purpose and is not right for us to interfere in any way with other countries, but whenever possible, we give such help as we can to our friends, without any element of interference”.10 Beyond immediate crisis management, Nehru and Nu sought to put the bilateral relationship on a firmer footing. Nu apparently wanted an explicit agreement for military cooperation but Nehru sought to keep the defence ties informal and flexible. The idea of defence and security cooperation, however, is hinted at in the peace and friendship treaty that Nehru and Nu signed in July 1951. Article IV says: “The two States agree that their representatives shall meet from time to time and as often as occasion requires to exchange views on matters of common interest and to consider ways and means for mutual cooperation in such matters.”11 Article II outlines a broader sentiment declaring that “there shall be everlasting peace and unalterable friendship between the two states who shall ever strive to strengthen and develop further [the] cordial relations [already] existing between the peoples of the two countries”. Seen from the perspective of Delhi, the treaty would seem akin to the kind of security treaties that Nehru had signed with Bhutan, Nepal and Sikkim during 1949-50. The language of Article II in the treaty with Burma is entirely similar to the one found in the other three treaties. More fundamentally, it could be argued that much as Britain had developed a treaty system to secure the subcontinent from external threats, Nehru too had to structure a similar system. At the same time Nehru understood that Myanmar was very much unlike those three Himalayan kingdoms and had to be approached very differently. Unlike those Himalayan kingdoms towards which Nehru adopted the British protectorate framework, the Burmese Republic became India’s partner in articulating Asia’s voice on the international stage. Therefore, the security clauses were subtler and the Indo-Burmese defence cooperation was part of a larger effort to create an area of peace in Asia. It is important to note that the India-Burma friendship treaty was signed at around the same time as both countries concluded similar agreements with Indonesia. The three countries became the most vocal proponents of Asian identity in the early-1950s.12 While all three were votaries of non-alignment and opposition to the emerging military blocs in the East 8 9 10

11 12

See Richard Butwell, U Nu of Burma (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1963), p. 186. Soe Myint, Burma File: A Question of Democracy (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish), p.89. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s Foreign Policy: Selected Speeches, September 1946-April 1961 (New Delhi: Publications Division, 1974), pp.292-293. Available at < http://www.commonlii.org/in/other/treaties/INTSer/1951/12.html> The India-Burma agreement was signed on 7 July 1951; India-Indonesia accord on 3 March 1951; and Indonesia and Burma signed their agreement on 31 March 1951.

and the West, they also understood the importance of greater military cooperation among themselves. However, with the passage of time and the growing focus in Delhi and Rangoon on questions arising from the impact of the Cold War on Asia, the salience of the special security ties at the bilateral level steadily diminished.13

The China Factor India’s current defence diplomacy towards Myanmar and their broader political engagement are widely viewed through the prism of its rivalry with China. India’s Defence Minister Antony’s visit to Nay Pyi Taw has been projected in the media as part of this rivalry. 14 Yet when they became independent in the late-1940s, it was India that loomed large over Myanmar. But Indian strategists were conscious of the historic links between China and Myanmar and the reemergence of China as a power of consequence after the Second World War. Panikkar also foresaw that the rise of China would complicate India’s strategic calculus in Myanmar and Southeast Asia. China’s “mere existence as a great military power on the borders of Burma”, Panikkar argued, “and the increasing importance she will attach to the Burma Road and access to Rangoon, and the dynamics of Chinese population problems in relation to Burma and Malaya will create grave complications in India’s foreign policy”.15 The triumph of the Communist Party of China in the civil war and its establishment of a people’s republic in Beijing became an important factor in the evolution of political relations between India and Burma. The emergence of China as a communist state generated deep anxieties all across Asia; Delhi and Rangoon were no exceptions. With communist insurgencies raging in both India and Burma, there was incentive for Delhi and Rangoon to consult each other. The initial logic of bilateral defence cooperation was driven by the same consideration. At the same time, Nehru and Nu had to come to terms with the fact that they should actively seek a working relationship with communist China, a neighbour of both India and Burma. The two also concurred on the proposition that they had no interest in supporting Western efforts to isolate China. Nehru had agreed to Burma’s request to be the first to recognise the People’s Republic of China and India soon followed.16 A series of developments relating to China since then have had an effect on political and security cooperation between India and Burma.

13 14

15 16

Uma Shankar Singh, Burma and India, 1948-1962 (New Delhi: Oxford and IBH, 1979), p 63. Vivek Raghuvanshi, “India, Myanmar seek closer ties with an eye on China”, Defense News, 22 January 2013; see also Press Trust of India, “Myanmar’s ties with India, Japan and Western countries concern China”, Times of India, 6 January 2013. Panikkar, op. cit., pp.35-36. K.M. Panikkar, In Two Chinas: Memoirs of a Diplomat (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1955), p. 66.

One issue was the fallout of the Chinese civil war in Burma. Rangoon was deeply concerned at the presence of Kuomintang troops—the stragglers from the civil war who drifted into Burma— on its territory. Rangoon objected to the transgression of its frontier by the PLA in pursuit of its defeated rivals. When Rangoon went to the United Nations in 1953 for international support, India strongly backed the resolution, demanding disarmament, internment and evacuation of foreign troops. Speaking in the debate, India’s Permanent Representative Krishna Menon said, “What hurts Burma hurts us equally. We have no military alliance but Burma is closely linked to us and it is naturally of great concern to us that she should suffer”. 17 As Rangoon and Delhi pushed the Western powers to get the Formosa (now Taiwan) government to evacuate the Chinese nationalists who were in Burma, China had every reason to be pleased. The improvement in Sino-Burmese relations during the mid-1950s was tested in 1956 amidst reports of the PLA’s incursions into Burma in pursuit of the nationalist troops. Nu sought Indian assistance, and Nehru asked the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai to discuss the problems on the frontier with Nu; Zhou accepted the advice.18 By the turn of the 1960s though, India’s ties with China were headed south and Sino-Burmese ties on the upswing. As tensions on the border with India rose, China signed a boundary settlement with Burma in 1960 that generated much unhappiness in Delhi. Rangoon sought to placate Nehru, but what irritated him was the suggestion that India should emulate Burma in resolving the boundary dispute with China. Of special concern to Nehru was the map attached to the agreement that conformed to Chinese territorial claims against India at the tri-junction with Burma.19 Burma’s neutrality during the Sino-Indian border clashes of 1962 also shocked the political classes in Delhi that had gone out of the way to support Burma in the preceding years. During this period, China offered its first aid package to Burma and began to purchase rice at higher than market prices. Burma also discussed the possibilities of facilitating the transit of goods produced in Yunnan. The idea would not make much progress in the 1950s, but it acquired great traction by the turn of the 21st century. The Sino-Burmese warmth, however, was disturbed once again during the years of the Cultural Revolution that rocked China for nearly a decade from the mid-1960s. Meanwhile India and Burma signed an agreement in 1967 to delimit and demarcate their 1643 km land boundary. The China factor came to the fore again in the late1980s, when Burma’s military rulers drew close to Beijing in the aftermath of their crackdown on the pro-democracy movement and the resulting international condemnation. India’s strong support to the pro-democracy movement increased the political distance between Delhi and Rangoon. But as Burma found itself isolated and China’s influence began to grow rapidly, Delhi reviewed its policy and moved towards ‘constructive engagement’ with the military regime. 17 18 19

Cited in Uma Shankar Singh, op. cit, pp. 63-65. Butwell, op. cit., p. 187. Uma Shankar Singh, op. cit., pp. 74-79.

Security cooperation was at the heart of India’s new engagement with Burma since the early1990s.

Security Cooperation: Incremental Advance Scholars have identified many drivers of India’s intensive outreach to Burma in the last two decades. These include the competition with China for influence, access to natural resources, connectivity to India’s Northeast, and building a land bridge to Southeast Asia. These factors are indeed important, but none of them more consequential for India than the imperatives of border management. While the China factor certainly shapes the overall strategic environment in which India will have to pursue its relations with Myanmar, Delhi’s approach in many sectors has an autonomous logic of its own. Having inherited a complex frontier with restive minorities that were not fully integrated with their respective new nation-states, both India and Myanmar confronted quite early on the problems of securing their borders and recognised the importance of bilateral cooperation. After India outlined a policy of constructive engagement with the military in Myanmar in the early-1990s, cooperation between the security forces on both sides of the border has steadily deepened. To be sure, there were many initial glitches. When the two armies were conducting an important joint operation—code-named Operation Golden Bird—in 1995, the President of India announced that Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader, was chosen for the 1993 Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding. The Burmese army suspended the operations. India then moved to a more consistent position of engagement with the Burmese armed forces.20 While India stepped up its efforts to improve connectivity with Myanmar, develop road links through Myanmar to Thailand and beyond, and encouraged its companies to take up projects in Myanmar, security cooperation remained the most sustained feature of the bilateral relationship. The joint and coordinated campaigns against the insurgents on both sides of the border since the mid-1990s have been rooted in the shared political understanding and confidence that neither side would give shelter to elements hostile to the other. On other borders of India, with Pakistan and Bangladesh, Delhi’s strategy had focused on fencing, in the absence of requisite cooperation from its neighbours. In the case of Myanmar, Delhi would focus on prevailing through cooperation with Nay Pyi Taw’s security forces.21 The general assessment is that the security cooperation between India and Myanmar has been a major success. “The drastic reduction in 20 21

Soe Myint, op. cit., p. 99. Bibhu Prasad Routray, “Myanmar and India’s Northeast: Border Cooperation, Better Connectivity and Economic Integration”, IPCS Article no. 3788 (New Delhi: Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, January 10, 2013.)

insurgency-related violence in Manipur and Nagaland—states sharing borders with Myanmar— has allowed New Delhi and Nay Pyi Taw to explore policy options to seal the gains”. 22 These include stronger institutional exchanges between local governments and military units across the border, arms supply and capacity building. The initial focus on security cooperation on the land frontier has steadily been complemented by maritime cooperation. The institutional exchanges have intensified over the last decade to include all the major stakeholders on both sides—including the paramilitary forces, the armies, and the defence and interior ministries. Frequent high-level exchanges at the national level have been complemented by local liaison among the officials at the border. During Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Myanmar in 2012, the two sides chose to expand their security cooperation to a more comprehensive partnership for development cooperation in the border regions. Manmohan Singh and Thein Sein signed a Memorandum of Understanding on India-Myanmar Border Area Development that would help promote prosperity along their shared frontiers. In the joint statement issued at the end of Manmohan Singh’s visit, the two sides identified “the need for special focus on the development and prosperity of the people in bordering areas”, agreed on cooperation “to bring about overall socio-economic development in the border areas by undertaking both infrastructure development and micro-economic projects, including upgradation of roads and construction of schools, health centres, bridges, agriculture and related training activities”.23 The framework detailed in the MoU on border area development is a new approach, and it remains to be seen how the two sides will implement this. While recognising the importance of non-traditional security, India has also slowly expanded its focus on hard security cooperation. There has been greater frequency of exchanges by senior military officials. The three service chiefs were in Myanmar within a span of 18 months during 2011-13. “These visits and other exchanges”, according to a statement in Delhi following Antony’s visit to Myanmar, “had provided each side a better understanding of mutual concerns, needs and strengths”.24 Although there were no specific agreements, the two sides reportedly discussed the possibilities of greater Indian support for building up the capacities of Myanmar’s armed forces. Media reports quoting defence ministry officials have said Delhi is willing to respond to requests from Myanmar for across-the-board expansion of training opportunities in India.25 Upgrading of Myanmar’s military equipment has been another item on the bilateral agenda. During a visit to Myanmar in 2006, the chief of Indian Air Force reportedly offered to

22 23

Ibid. See the joint statement issued at the end of the visit; available at , http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?r elid=84517 Press Information Bureau, Government of India, “India and Myanmar should work together to address common concerns: Antony”, New Delhi, 22 January 2013. Rajat Pandit, “Now, Antony headed for Myanmar to bolster defence ties”, Times of India, 5 January 2013.

modernise the avionics in Myanmar’s fighter inventory. India also had plans to establish a naval aviation training centre in Myanmar.26 Of special importance to India has been the expansion of naval engagement with Myanmar. While the initial and enduring Indian focus has been on cooperation between the armies and security forces along their long border, the maritime significance of Myanmar was not lost on the Indian defence decision-makers. Reports of a Chinese base in the Cocos Islands owned by Myanmar in the Bay of Bengal generated much public awareness of maritime issues in the Bay of Bengal.27 Myanmar was quick to dispel India’s concerns. It offered Delhi access to the Cocos Islands and let its officials see for themselves the inaccuracy of those reports. This episode and the Chinese plans to develop a commercial port at Sittwe on the Arakan coast triggered strong interest in the Indian Navy for sustained engagement with Myanmar. This has covered frequent port calls by India’s naval ships, the negotiation of turn-around arrangements for Indian ships while transiting to the Malacca Straits, the inclusion of Myanmar Navy in the biennial ‘Milan’ exercises in the Andaman Sea, coordinated naval patrols to secure the long maritime frontier between the two countries in the Bay of Bengal, and the Indian Navy’s participation in the humanitarian relief operations after Cyclone Nargis devastated Myanmar in 2008.28 Transfer of Indian arms to Myanmar is a more interesting but controversial issue. India’s supplies of military hardware “ranged from Islander maritime patrol aircraft, naval gun-boats to 105mm light artillery guns, mortars, grenade launchers and rifles” as well as non-lethal equipment including radars.29 More recently India has reportedly offered the sale of military helicopters to Myanmar and has agreed to train Myanmar pilots.30 The supply of Indian hardware has unsurprisingly invited political controversy. At a time when Myanmar’s military regime was isolated and was the target of many international sanctions, the Indian supply of arms was criticised by the international community as well as by Myanmar’s political activists. Delhi responded by arguing that much of the equipment it had supplied was non-lethal and defensive in nature. At the end of 2012, India was accused of transferring weapons, bought from Sweden, to Myanmar’s armed forces in violation of European sanctions. These weapons have been reportedly used by the Myanmar forces against Kachin rebels in the north of the country. 31 While 26

28 29 30

Vijay Sakhuja, “India and Myanmar: Choices for Military Cooperation”, ICWA Issue Brief (New Delhi: Indian Council of World Affairs, January 2013). For a comprehensive discussion of the issue, see Andrew Selth, “Burma, China and the Myth of Military Bases”, Asian Security, Vol. 3, No. 3, 2007, pp. 279-307. Sakhuja, op. cit. Pandit, op. cit. Vivek Raghuvanshi, “Amid warming ties, India may give Helos to Myanmar”, Defense News, 26 November 2012. David Stout, “Indian officials accused of providing Burma with embargoed weapons”, Democratic Voice of Burma, 25 January 2013, available at http://www.dvb.no/news/indian-officials-accused-of-providing-burmawith-embargoed-weapons/25199

India promised to investigate the issue, some Indian analysts are cautioning against entering into a substantive arms supply relationship with Myanmar at a time when its armed forces are continuing operations against a number of rebel groups. They suggest, instead, that India “work towards facilitating a rapprochement among the Burmans and other ethnic groups”.32

Towards Finding a Niche Since the mid-1990s, India’s security cooperation with Myanmar has expanded, in a steady and incremental manner in scope as well as substance. As we noted, security cooperation between India and Myanmar is not new and is rooted in the reality of geography and shared history. The nature of the current security engagement is very different from the defence engagement in the late 1940s and 1950s that was one-sided and based on Indian paternalism rooted in the Raj legacy. By the turn of the 1960s, Myanmar became non-aligned in its approach to India and China. Today, India’s security cooperation with Myanmar is rooted in shared interests and mutual benefit. At a general level, India’s contemporary engagement with its eastern neighbour has been marked by a big gap between potential and performance.33 In the defence field, in particular, structural constraints in Delhi have limited India’s record on the ground. These include the absence of an effective institutional framework for security diplomacy, the inadequate defence industrial base, and the inability of the Indian government and the private sector to undertake and operate critical dual-use infrastructure like ports. As Myanmar seeks to modernise its military, India’s emphasis for quite some time to come is likely to be on training and capacity building rather than arms supply. In terms of objectives, India’s main goal will continue to be the stabilisation of its land frontiers with Myanmar. What started in the early-1990s as simple cooperation in the area of counterinsurgency across the frontiers has been transformed into a more comprehensive engagement on ‘border management’. This transformation is now being reinforced with the ambitious plan for bringing development into the restive areas. As India’s stakes in the maritime space rise, Myanmar’s importance in India’s naval calculus is likely to steadily rise. As the major powers begin to see the eastern Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific as a single maritime theatre, the Indo-Pacific, the Andaman Sea is gaining strategic salience. Along with the South China Sea, it forms the critical link between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. 32

Gautam Sen, “Cooperation Between Indian and Myanmar Armed Forces: Need to Move Away from a Weapons & Equipment Supply-Based Relationship”, IDSA Comment (New Delhi: Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, 15 January 2013.) For a critique of Indian engagement, see Renaud Egretau, “India’s Ambitions in Burma: More Frustration than Success?”, Asian Survey, Vol. 48, No. 6, November/December 2008, pp. 936-957.

As China seeks to protect its vital sea lines of communication through the Malacca Straits amidst fears of American efforts to disrupt them, and develops alternative routes to the Indian Ocean, Myanmar’s waters in the Bay of Bengal are likely to become contested zones in the coming years.34 Myanmar provides the natural outlet to the sea for the provinces in Southwest China as well as a route to import oil and natural gas into China by skirting the Malacca Straits. The emerging Chinese interest in the Bay of Bengal has aroused concerns in India. If China is focused on North-South connectivity through Myanmar, India is looking at developing EastWest connectivity through the land and waters of Myanmar. Realists in Delhi have begun to recognise that India’s objectives cannot be about preventing deeper cooperation between China and Myanmar but expanding India’s own engagement with the eastern neighbour. It is not a surprise that India’s recent security diplomacy with Myanmar has too often been framed in terms of a rivalry with China.35 While a rising China does shape the regional environment, Indian security cooperation with Myanmar, as we have noted, has its own logic and limitations. While there is an undeniable element of rivalry between India and China, their competition in Myanmar has never been symmetric.36 As its international isolation comes to an end, Myanmar is diversifying its great power relations, and it no longer has to rely on the goodwill of China and India or seek to play one against the other. The United States’ outreach to Myanmar and the prospect of resuming defence contacts between the two set a very different context to the geopolitics of Myanmar.37 Myanmar’s incipient defence contacts with the West, its participation in the construction of an ASEAN defence community, and its expanding engagement with Japan and Russia tend to liberate India’s own security diplomacy with Nay Pyi Taw. For, Delhi no longer needs to bear the presumed burden of balancing China in Myanmar. The threat to India, as Panikkar argued 70 years ago, is from the potential dominance of Myanmar by another power. The emergence of a vibrant and independent Myanmar embedded in a strong regional institution like the ASEAN, therefore, is in India’s strategic interest. The reality is that, since partition and independence, India has not been in a position to guarantee this outcome on its own in Myanmar. An outward-looking and self-assured Myanmar will have enough common ground with India to facilitate deeper security cooperation, the foundation for which has already been laid. The real challenge for India lies in improving its own defence

Vijay Sakhuja, “Bay of Bengal Littorals in Chinese Strategic Calculus”, China Brief, Vol. 10, No. 14, 9 July 2010. See, for example, J. Mohan Malik, “Sino-Indian Rivalry in Myanmar: Implications for Regional Security”, Contemporary Southeast Asia , Vol. 16, No. 2, September 1994, pp. 137-56. For a more recent analysis in the same framework, see Harsh V Pant, “China Shakes up the Maritime Balance in the Indian Ocean”, Strategic Analysis, Vol. 36, No,3, May-June 2012, pp. 364-68. For a reflection on the Burmese disappointments with India’s engagement, see Thant Myint U, Where China Meets India: Burma and the new Crossroads of Asia (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012). Gwen Robinson, “US courts military contact with Myanmar”, Financial Times, 20 September 2012; Sam Holmes, “U.S. Military visits Myanmar, Stepping Toward New Role”, Wall Street Journal, 21 October 2012.

capacities to respond to some of Myanmarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s security needs and demands and emerge as a reliable partner for Nay Pyi Taw in a few specific areas.

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ISAS Working Paper No. 167 – 6 March 2013 469A Bukit Timah Road #07-01, Tower Block, Singapore 259770 Tel: 6516 6179 / 6516 4239 Fax: 6776 7505 / 6314 5447 Email: isassec@nus.edu.sg Website: www.isas.nus.edu.sg

Dhaka-Moscow Relations: Old Ties Renewed Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury1

Introduction On 30 May 1919, the great Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, following the massacre perpetrated by British troops at Jallianwala Bagh in the Punjab, renounced his knighthood through a letter written to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford. Tagore stated that his action was motivated by a desire “to give voice to the protest of millions of my countrymen suppressed into a dumb anguish of terror”.2 On the broad canvas of India’s struggle for freedom, it was but a small act. But Tagore shared the sentiment of another contemporary literary genius from a distant part of the globe, Leo Tolstoy of Russia, who had argued that true life is lived through tiny actions that occur. Both great men struggled against oppression through their articulations, wrote of war that savages societies, and peace that humankind constantly seeks to achieve. This was evidence of the intellectual bond that tied Russia and Bengal, then, and which continued to percolate down through ages. Subsequently, during the height of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, another Bengali, M N Roy, became a close comrade and confidant of the Soviet revolutionary, Vladimir Lenin. Indeed 1

on Lenin’s invitation, he critiqued some of his leader’s ideas.3 Following the partition of British India in 1947 into India and Pakistan, a segment of the left parties in East Pakistan, such as the National Awami Party (NAP) led by Comrade Muzaffar and the pro-Soviet Communist Party (Moni Singh), continued to remain linked to Moscow.4 So it was not a complete surprise that as the Bangladesh war of liberation began with Indian support (following the military crackdown in Pakistan’s eastern wing by President Yayha Khan, Pakistan Army’s strongman, in March 1971)), the Soviet Union would come down heavily on its side. But the decision was by no means without serious political assessments.

Background of Soviet Wartime Role in 1971 Several factors determined the Soviet attitude towards South Asia on the eve of the 1970s. First, following British withdrawal from the ‘East of Suez’ in late-1960s, it was felt in Moscow that the United States and its allies (including Australia and Japan) were casting longing glances towards the region.5 This, together with the growing rivalry with China, occasioned the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev to announce what came to be known as his ‘Doctrine of Collective Security’ at the World Communist Party Conference in 1969. 6 Both India and Pakistan were looked upon as potential allies in the scheme (somewhat ambitiously). An essential requirement of its success was stability in South Asia. Second, not only did the Soviets favour South Asian stability but also saw themselves as its principal guardian. This dated back to the Tashkent Conference which the Soviets initiated between India and Pakistan following the 1965 war. The Tashkent Declaration that followed reflected the peacekeeping and mediating role of the Soviet Union, and its anniversaries were duly observed. On the eve of one such anniversary on 9 January 1971, Tass wrote: “The spirit of Tashkent Declaration confirmed that in the present conditions the only possible approach to the settlement of disputes between states is the renunciation of force and the settlement of these problems at the Conference Table”.7 The initial Soviet aim, therefore, was to bring India and Pakistan together. The Soviets were pleased with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, when she credited Moscow with being more

6 7

See John P Haithcox, ‘The Roy-Lenin Debate on Colonial Policy: A New Interpretation’, Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 23, No. 1, November 1963. For detailed analyses of the politics of left parties in East Pakistan, see Talukdar Maniruzzaman, Radical Politics and the Emergence of Bangladesh (Dacca: Bangladesh Books International, 1978). V V Matveyev, ‘A Filled Vacuum’, Izvestia, 29 May 1969. Cited in Current Digest of the Soviet Press (CDSP), Vol. XX1, No.22 (1969), p. 14 Tass, 7 June 1969,CDSP, Vol. XX1, No. 21 (1969), p.16 Quoted in Asian Recorder, 29 January-4 February 1971, Soviet Policy Towards India, p.9987.

interested in economic cooperation than in military alliances. 8 Indian Foreign Minister Dinesh Singh was quoted in the Soviet Press as saying that “the essence of the Soviet [security] plan is the development of cooperation among Asian countries for the strengthening of peace”. 9 Small wonder Izvestia exulted in Gandhi’s election victory in March 1971 as “another convincing evidence of the fact that the Indian people came out consistently for strengthening their national independence for social progress and for peaceful foreign policy”.10 A ‘promising momentum’ in relations with Pakistan was initiated by a visit to Moscow of Yahya’s predecessor, President Field Marshal Mohammed Ayub Khan.11 Up until then, the Soviets were also happy with the political developments in Pakistan, where after the election victory of 1970, the Awami League leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of East Pakistan was poised to assume office. Over the years, Moscow had an unfavourable attitude towards the Awami League. Its one-time leader and Prime Minister, H S Suhrawardy had led Pakistan into Western anti-Soviet alliances.12 But now the left-wing parties in Pakistan were leaning towards Moscow’s rival, Peking, and the Soviets were reassessing the so-called ‘bourgeois’ parties such as the Awami League as having a positive role. It was being argued that the most radical parties were objectively aiding “reactionary forces by narrowing the united front”, and that “the correct path of non-capitalist development was through bourgeois democratic reforms”.13 To the Soviets, the Awami League was such a party, though a ‘centrist’ one.14 It also was seen to be having reformist tendencies and desiring of friendship with the Soviet Union.15 Mujib was now seen in Moscow as “the Nehru of Pakistan – a votary of secularism, socialism, and non-alignment”.16

Initial Appraisal: Pakistan’s ‘Internal Affair’ Moscow’s hopes were rudely jarred by Yahya’s military crack-down of 25 March 1971, the incarceration of Mujib, and the escape to India of the Awami League leadership. On 2 April 1971, N Podgorney, the Soviet Prime Minister, sent a message to Yahya which is quoted in full 8

9 10 11

13 14 15 16

Robert H. Donaldson, Soviet Policy Towards India: Ideology and Strategy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974) p. 220. ‘Pravda’, 29 September 1969, CDSP, Vol.XX1, No. 38 (1969), p.16. Asian Recorder, 16-22 April 1971, p. 10102 Jamsheed Marker, Quiet Diplomacy: Memoirs of an Ambassador of Pakistan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 75. See Ian Clark. ‘Soviet Policies Towards India and Pakistan’, Unpublished PhD thesis, Australian National University, Canberra, 1973. I Borisov, Pravda, 10 October 1971. N Nakargakov, Izvestia, 12 March 1970. A Filipov, Pravda, 14 August 1970. Vijay Singh Budhraj, ‘Moscow and the Birth of Bangladesh’, Asian Survey, (May 1973), p. 489.

because of its importance. He wrote: “…We have remained convinced that the complex problems that have arisen in Pakistan of late can and must be solved without the use of force. Continuation of repressive measures and bloodshed in East Pakistan will undoubtedly make the solution of the problem difficult and may do great harm to the vital interest of the entire people of Pakistan. We consider it our duty to address you… with an insistent appeal for the adoption of the most urgent measures to stop the bloodshed and repression against the people of East Pakistan and for turning to methods of peaceful political settlement”.17 The letter was significant in that, while it urged ‘peaceful political settlement’ which implied transfer of power to the Awami League, the use of the words ‘bloodshed’ and ‘repression’ (twice each) were calculated to transmit Soviet firmness and cognisance of Pakistan’s ‘repressive’ policies. However, the mention of ‘the entire people of Pakistan’ seemed to favour a solution that would retain Pakistan’s territorial integrity. Yahya’s response was sharp. He asked the Soviet Union to use its “undeniable influence” over India to prevent the latter from “meddling in Pakistan’s internal affairs”. No country, including the Soviet Union, could allow “anti-national and unpatriotic elements to proceed to destroy or to countenance subversion”. Mujib’s rival, the West Pakistani, pro-Peking, Pakistan People’s Party leader, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto described Podgorney’s letter as “blatant interference” and found it “regrettable” that “the Soviet Union could have forgotten Lenin’s socialist principles, the foremost of which was to refrain from interference in the affairs of other countries”.18 The Soviet Union reacted strongly to this attempt to tutor its leadership on the principles of Leninism. But this was confined to unpublished confidential notes between Moscow and Islamabad, which, according to a Minister in Yahya’s cabinet, were more acrimonious than the published exchanges.19 However, in the interest of maintaining the unity of Pakistan, the Soviets publicly continued their efforts to convince Yahya of the need for “a political settlement” rather than a “military solution”.20 Reiterating Soviet support for the “territorial integrity of Pakistan”, one journal warned that “the imperialists would not be averse to taking advantage of the situation in Pakistan to further their selfish neo-colonial aims”.21

17 18

20 21

Asian Recorder, 14-20 May 1971, p. 10160. Ibid., p. 10158. Bhutto was taking some liberty with Lenin’s position on such issues. In fact Lenin championed ‘self determination of nationalities’ and it would be unsurprising were he to favour the Bangladesh movement. See V V Zenin, ‘Lenin on the National and Colonial Question’, Lenin: The Great Theoretician (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970) pp 316-317. G W Choudhury, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh and the Major Powers: Politics of a Divided Subcontinent (New York: The Free Press, 1975), p.205. I Ratnikov, Pravda, 1May 1971. New Times, No. 15, 14 April, 1971, pp. 8-9.

So far, the Soviets, while disapproving strongly of Yahya’s methods, were urging solutions upon only Islamabad. Implicit in this was the Soviet view that this was an “internal matter” for Pakistan. Moreover, Moscow was firm in reiterating the need to retain the unity of Pakistan as a single state, lest China and the “imperialists” (like the US) are positioned to take pickings from any situation arising out of the disintegration of that country.

Soviet Reappraisal: More than ‘Internal Affair’ Thus, it appears that till around May 1971, the Soviets were content to treat the troubles in Pakistan as the latter’s internal affair. Little note was taken of the fact that in April 1971, the Bangladeshi leadership-in-exile had constituted a separate ‘provisional government’, which almost immediately had begun to press India for recognition.22 The nascent Bangladesh ‘provisional government’ sought and obtained the support of the proMoscow left-wing parties, which, in turn, were now turning towards Moscow. Muzaffar Ahmed of NAP, known to be pro-Moscow, combined his declaration of allegiance to the new government with an appeal to Moscow for such support on 20 April 1971.23 A few days later, Abdus Salam, the Secretary of the Communist Party of East Pakistan, emphasised their struggle as one “against a ruthless and barbarous enemy armed to the teeth by the imperialists, and having the support of the Maoists of China”.24 In May, the Communist Party of Bangladesh (ProMoscow) adopted an 18-point programme whose salient features concerned the complete ‘liberation’ of Bangladesh as an “independent, sovereign, democratic, and republican state with a view to advancing along the path of socialism”.25 The pro-Moscow Bangladeshi parties were pointing out three things to the Kremlin: One, the newly formed Bangladesh Provisional Government-in-exile, conformed to the ‘correct path’ within the framework of the broad Leninist concept of the ‘United Front’; two, the situation exemplified a classical Marxist-Leninist scenario that called for support to the struggle for ‘self determination’; and three, China was beginning to be seen as ranging on the other side (more significant at that time to Moscow than any intellectually theoretical propositions!) These were powerful arguments for a government that claimed ideology as the basis of state-policy. 22

23 24 25

In a letter dated 24 April 1971 (the government was formed in Mujibnagar, a slice of ‘liberated Bangladesh territory’, on 10 April, with Tajuddin Ahmed as Prime Minister), the Acting President of the Provisional Government Syed Nazrul Islam requested the Indian President V V Giri that immediate recognition be given and envoys exchanged. Indira Gandhi, India and Bangladesh: Selected Speeches and Statements, March to December 1971 (New Delhi: Orient Longman’s, 1972), p. 180. Bangladesh Documents (Madras: Ministry of External Affairs, India) pp 228-229. Ibid., p.317. Eric Stromquist, Yearbook of International Communist Affairs (Hoover Institute Press: 1972), p. 567.

The Soviets were therefore constrained to make a concession, not directly to the Bangladesh provisional government but to India. On 8 June1971, following a visit of the Indian Foreign Minister, Swaran Singh, to Moscow, the Joint communiqué noted that both the Soviet Union and India considered it necessary that Pakistan should take urgent measures “to stop the flow of refugees from East Pakistan” and that “… steps be taken to ensure that peace is restored for the safe return of the refugees to their homes”. Furthermore, Moscow and Delhi agreed to hold ‘exchange of views’ in the future in this connection.26 An analysis of the Joint Communique brings out that the Soviets now recognised the refugee issue as having drawn India into the vortex of what was earlier seen in Moscow as “Pakistan’s internal affair”. Commitments on further interactions on the subject were also pointed out. However, the Soviets, while reappraising the situation, were refusing to draw India into discussions over and beyond the refugee problem to more substantive issues. The steps to be “taken to ensure that peace is restored” were related only “to the safe return of the refugees”, in which India was involved, and not to the ultimate political solution, in which India was not. Reference to the troubled province as East Pakistan in the Communique was on Soviet insistence, as the Indians would have preferred East Bengal. 27 The Indians, however, played their cards well. For years, the Soviets had been anxious to formalise their close ties with India, and the increasing possibility of a Sino-American entente, signalled by National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger’s secret trip to Peking in June 1971, heightened its need. India now indicated its willingness to sign a treaty, and in course of Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko’s visit to New Delhi on 9 August 1971, the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation was signed. It is likely that in signing the Treaty, Moscow was motivated by three considerations: First, the desire to formalise bilateral links with India; second, to checkmate Chinese diplomatic and political incursions into South Asia; and third, to restrain both India and Pakistan from adventurist actions. The Soviets tried to convince Pakistan that the treaty was not directed art any third party, at least not Pakistan.28 Indeed, the Pakistani Foreign Secretary, S M Khan, while actually justifying such an agreement between two states as being sanctioned by the United Nations Charter, expressed the hope that the Soviet Union would now use its influence to prevent India from attacking Pakistan.29

26 27

28 29

Pravda, 9 June 1971. India had by now begun to refer to the delta as ‘East Bengal’. Willem Van Schendel, A History of Bangladesh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 169 Times of India, 12 August 1971. Kayhan International (Tehran), 25 August 1971.

But given Pakistan’s strong links with China, such a view could not be sustained for long, as the pact had obvious anti-Chinese implications. Moreover, whatever the Soviet Union’s motivations might have been, it was now allied to India. Pakistan needed to seek out its own allies, and the obvious candidates were the US and China. The treaty, therefore, contributed to deepening the sub-continental divide. Any Soviet hopes for a united Pakistan under the Awami League stewardship were rapidly eroding, as were the prospects of peace in the Subcontinent. The actions of the Pakistani government were running contrary to Soviet advice. First, Mujib’s trial had reportedly opened in Pakistan.30 Second, Yahya installed a civilian government of his own choice in Dhaka, 31making it obvious that his kind of ‘political solution’ did not involve the Awami League. Third, visiting the Soviet Union in September, Gandhi indicated to the hosts that a conflict in South Asia was imminent and sought Moscow’s support.32 Fourth, Podgorney’s initiative to bring Yahya and Giri together during the 2500th celebration of the Iranian monarchy failed.33 Fifth, the Bangladeshi leadership was adamant in its claim to independence and when Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Nikolay Firyubin’s met Provisional Prime Minister, Tajuddin Ahmed, on 24 October 1971 to persuade him to scale down the demand, his efforts failed.34 The events in the Subcontinent were rushing towards a denouement. It would be necessary for Moscow to choose sides soon. The options were now closing off fast.

Soviet Support to India and Bangladesh The last straw on the camel’s back was Pakistan’s public and explicit courting of Chinese support when Bhutto led a military mission to Beijing in November 1971. In a banquet speech there, Bhutto spoke of “some countries” as having succumbed to Indian pressure, which was interpreted to be critical of the Soviet Union.35 Pakistan further annoyed Moscow by refusing to permit the aircraft of a senior Soviet official, Marshal Kutakhov, to overfly its territory during his visit to India in November.36 Also in the Kremlin’s mind, unless the Liberation War in Bangladesh was brought to an end soon, there was a danger that more radical groups would come to the fore of the struggle.

30 31 32 33 34 35

Asian Recorder, 17-23 September 1971, p. 10366 Ibid.,1-7 October, 1971, p. 19389. Ditto. Times (London), 18 October 1971. Ibid., 25 October 1971. Asian Almanac, 1972, p. 5004. Also see A Yabukov, ‘Conflict in Hindustan and Mao Group’s Provocation Role’, Pravda, 28 December, 1971. Statesman (Calcutta), 5 November. 1971.

As the December 1971 hostilities between India and Pakistan commenced, the Soviet strategy came out in broader relief. In a public speech to the Sixth Congress of the Polish United Workers’ Party, Brezhnev analysed the conflict as being caused by the “bloody suppression of the basic rights and clearly expressed will of the population of East Pakistan”. Brezhnev suggested what was to be the theme of the critical Soviet argument and action at the United Nations that made the emergence of Bangladesh as a sovereign nation possible. He called for a ceasefire and insisted that Pakistan simultaneously take effective action aimed at a political settlement, based on the will of the East Pakistani people “as expressed in the December 1970 elections”. He insisted that these two points were inseparably linked [emphasis author’s].37 A Soviet analyst explained this. It was a stupendous diplomatic strategy, eventually to be executed with great skill by Soviet diplomats in the Security Council of the United Nations. He stated: “It was impossible to separate the question of cessation of military operations from a political settlement in East Pakistan. These are two aspects of the same problem. Anyone who insists on resolving the first question while brushing aside the second, is, whether he wants it or not, objectively preserving the causes of the current conflict and facilitating its resumption sooner or later”.38 This strategy deserves minute analysis. On the surface, it appeared that by urging cessation of hostilities and political settlement, the Soviets were happy to stop short of the complete independence of Bangladesh. But by linking the two ‘inseparably’, the Soviets vetoed in the Security Council the prospects of the first preceding the second. Thus, by allowing the fighting to continue, since settlement was impossible while the fighting lasted, the Soviets ensured the ultimate end of the drama: the surrender of the Pakistani troops in East Pakistan to India on 16 December 1971 and the resultant creation of Bangladesh. This was contrary to the US stand in the Security Council which called for the ceasefire to come first. This was opposed by the Soviet Ambassador at the UN, Yakov Malik. He argued that it evaded the root cause of the fighting, that is, West Pakistan’s military suppression of East Pakistan, and equated the two belligerents, India and Pakistan, which was manifestly unfair.39 While at the United Nations, the Soviets assisted the fulfilment of Indo-Bangladesh aims by preventing a ceasefire and allowing for a fight to the finish, direct support was also being rendered close to the conflict theatre. As a signal to the world, and more significantly to Pakistan’s friends like the US and China, of firm Soviet commitment to the Indo-Soviet Pact, the 37

38 39

For complete text of speech, Pravda, 8 December 1971, pp 1-2. Also see Yurig Zhukov, ‘Where is the Way Out?’, Pravda, 10 December, 1971. V Kudryavtsev, ‘Flames Over South Asia’, Izvestia, 12 December 1971. Asian Recorder, 1972, pp 5014-5015

first Deputy Foreign Minister, V V Kuznetzov arrived in New Delhi on 11 December 1971 when the war was raging in full.40 Reassurance came from the Soviet Ambassador in New Delhi, N Pegov, who told Gandhi on 13 December 1971 that in case of Chinese intervention, the Soviets would open diversionary action in Sinkiang, an assurance that buttressed Indian morale.41 Finally, and importantly, the Soviets reacted to the American fleet in the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal with their own presence, precluding the former’s intervention in Pakistan’s favour, which would have doubtless triggered a conflict of global proportions.42 All in all then, Soviet support was absolutely invaluable in bringing to fruition the emergence of Bangladesh in the global scene as an independent and sovereign nation-state.

Post-War Soviet Bangladesh Relations Despite such critical support, aimed perhaps more towards India than towards Bangladesh itself, the Soviet Union was circumspect in not recognising the new state too hastily. The recognition finally came on 24 January 1972, more than a month after independence. Bangladesh, on its part, did not take this Soviet delay amiss. It may have calculated that since the support of the Socialist bloc was a given, to obtain acknowledgement of the Western world China was now more essential. For Mujib, who had returned from Pakistani prison to assume the mantle of power, ‘non-alignment’ was more a cornerstone of foreign policy than leaning on either of the superpowers.43 Quite appropriately, though, the Soviet Union was the second country that Mujib visited, in March 1972, the first, quite understandably, having been India. Due to a variety of reasons, including global geo-political, Soviet–Bangladesh relations contained some built-in structural difficulties. First, if the Soviet grand design towards the Third World was to detach those countries from close links with either the West or China, Bangladesh posed some difficulties because of its heavy economic dependence on the former, including on such Western-led financial institutions as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. However, Moscow’s help was critical in clearing the Chittagong port of mines. Moreover, an attempt was under way to remove China’s opposition to Bangladesh’s membership of the United Nations, a primary foreign policy goal. Second, the higher priority the Soviets placed on India tended to affect at times their relations with Bangladesh, because of the fluctuating nature of 40 41 42

Pran Chopra, India’s Second Liberation (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 1974), p. 199 Basant Chatterjee, Indo-Soviet Friendship: An Analytical Study (New Delhi: S. Chand & Co., 1974), p. 138. The US Task Force 74, comprising the Aircraft Carrier Enterprise, helicopter Carrier Tripoli, and seven destroyers and frigates, detached from the Seventh Fleet, sailed through the Strait of Malacca on their way to the Bay of Bengal on 14 December 1971. They were followed three days later by six Soviet ships including one Kresta and one Kynda-class frigates. Hearings before the Subcommittee on the Near East and South Asia of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Ninety Third Congress, Second Session , February/March 1974, p. 205. A L Khatib, ‘Mujib Sets a Limit on Gratitude’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 1 April 1972, p. 14.

Indo-Bangladesh ties. Third, in spite of serious endeavours, the cultural impact of the Soviets on the Bangladeshi elite was limited; as Bangladesh middle class grew, so did its intellectual and financial linkages with the West. Because of these reasons, the Soviets may have felt that Bangladesh did not merit too great an economic and political investment. Significantly, not a single Soviet Cabinet Minister ever visited Bangladesh. As Bangladesh’s ties with the West and the Middle East grew stronger, in the 1980s, Dhaka called for “the withdrawal of all foreign (meaning Soviet) troops from Afghanistan”.44 Bilateral relations never quite recovered till the demise of the Soviet Union, and there was not much resumption when the Russian Federation replaced it in the early-1990s.

Resumed Relations with Russia The author, as the Bangladesh Foreign Advisor (Foreign Minister) in the Caretaker Government, was the first Cabinet Minister from Dhaka to visit Moscow after the emergence of Russia in place of the Soviet Union.45 He undertook the visit in September 2007 to resuscitate DhakaMoscow relations which had remained on the backburner, “on invitation of his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who was his erstwhile colleague at the UN in New York, where they both had served as Permanent Representatives”.46 Apart from signing a Consular Agreement between Bangladesh and Russia with Lavrov, the author called on the Vice Prime Minister, S E Naryshkin, and Deputy Minister for Industry, Ivan Materov, and raised with them the possibilities of state credit for power generation and cooperation for a nuclear power plant, “which, however, since it was a complex issue needed to be discussed at national level to arrive at a final decision”.47

Hasina Goes to Moscow Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina became the first head of government of Bangladesh to visit Russia in January 2013, after her father, Sheikh Mujib’s travel to Moscow in March 1972. She fondly recalled Moscow’s support during Bangladesh’s liberation war, and stated: “When we speak of Russia, we must also bear in mind that the Soviet Union had helped us greatly in the war for independence and continued to give assistance even after the war when the need arose to clear 44 45 46 47

Bangladesh Observer 1 January 1980. ‘Iftekhar leaves for Moscow’, Daily Star (Dhaka), 29 August 2007. ‘First Bangla Visit to post-Soviet Russia’, Indo Asian News Service, 2 September 2007. Dr. Joyeeta Bhattacharjee, Russia willing to ‘cooperate with Bangladesh in nucler energy plant’ Iftekhar, Observer Research Foundation Monitor, 13 September 2007. Also see Financial Express, 10 September, 2007.

mines at the port of Chittagong”.48 She lamented that “human memory is very short and people quite often forget what roles powers friendly to us played both in the war and in peacetime, and that the Soviet Union defended us at the United Nations”.49 Hasina was giving Russia the credit for the policies of the Soviet Union. Moscow was obviously not chary of reaping such benefits. Though unstated, this was also a time, as in 1971-72, when Dhaka-Washington ties were not at their happiest for a variety of reasons. The visit was most significant in that a number of key agreements were signed. This included the one on technical and financial cooperation on the 2000-MW nuclear power plant at Rooppur, which Hasina described as a “shining example of our deeper engagement”.50 Hasina met with President Putin, and during the visit, three agreements on defence purchases and the nuclear power plant were signed, as well as seven Memoranda of Understanding on different sectors. 51 Importantly, a US$1 billion agreement for arms procurement was also effected, which included “orders for armoured vehicles and infantry weapons, air defence systems, and transport helicopters”.52

Conclusion The Bengal-Russia relations seem to have come a full circle. After a long hiatus, these appear to have now received a jump-start. For Bangladesh, even though present-day Russia is no longer the Soviet superpower rival of the US, it is still a reminder to Washington that alternatives are available if Bangladesh should ever be marginalised. The Dhaka-Moscow proximity is developing at a time when Indo-Bangladesh relations are on the whole, wholesome, and generally this has also been the pattern in the past. One point to bear in mind for Dhaka would normally be to avoid giving Beijing any unnecessary cause for annoyance. But closer Bangladesh-Russia ties are unlikely to cause such an effect. Indeed, the new Chinese leader, Xi Jinping has chosen Moscow to be his first foreign capital to visit as President. His predecessor Hu Jintao had also done the same thing but Xi’s trip has a special significance in that some analysts see that as a part-answer to the US Administration’s current so-called pivot towards Asia.53

48 49 50 51 52 53

‘Russia has always been true friend of Bangladesh, says Hasina’, Daily Star (Dhaka), 14 January 2013. Ibid. ‘Dhaka, Moscow sign defence, nuclear power agreements’, Financial Express. 16 January 2013. ‘Hasina Returns Home’, bdnews24.com , 17 January 2013. Straits Times, 16 January, 2013. Jane Perlez,‘New Leader of China Plans a Visit to Moscow’, New York Times 21 February 2013.

Though such global matrix may be too large a backdrop to view the burgeoning Dhaka-Moscow relations, this does signal a renewed resurgence of Moscow’s interest beyond its ‘near-abroad’ in the region, greater ties with major Muslim-majority nations like Pakistan and Bangladesh in South Asia, and an acknowledgment of the strategic importance of the Bay of Bengal. In the global power game, in which the Kremlin now sees itself as a player, Moscow too wishes to keep up with the Joneses like Washington and Beijing.

ISAS Working Paper No. 168 – 7 March 2013 469A Bukit Timah Road #07-01, Tower Block, Singapore 259770 Tel: 6516 6179 / 6516 4239 Fax: 6776 7505 / 6314 5447 Email: isassec@nus.edu.sg Website: www.isas.nus.edu.sg

India’s Regional Security Cooperation: The Nehru Raj Legacy C Raja Mohan1

Abstract The paper explores the logic of continuity in independent India’s security policy from where the British Raj had left off. Much like the Raj, Nehru’s India sought to provide security to its smaller neighbours. Although the British Raj and the newly independent Republic of India were different political regimes, they were responding to the enduring geographic imperatives and the burdens that came with being a large entity with significant military capabilities. Newly independent India was indeed less powerful than the Raj thanks to a much weaker economic base, the partition of the Subcontinent, and a geopolitical environment shaped by the Cold War. Yet the first decade after independence saw Nehru sustain the Raj legacy as the provider of security in India’s neighbourhood. As India becomes one of the leading economies of the world and a significant military power, that tradition is gaining a fresh lease of life and a broader sphere of application than its immediate neighbourhood.

Dr C Raja Mohan is a Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore. He is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi (India), a columnist on foreign affairs for The Indian Express and a NonResident Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC (USA). He can be contacted at isascrm@nus.edu.sg and crmohan53@gmail.com. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of ISAS.

Introduction Any suggestion that India’s foreign and security policies under its first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru were similar in many respects to those of the British Raj that he inherited would evoke serious contention. The international relations scholarship has largely held that India’s foreign policy originated at the dawn of independence and was largely inspired by the vision of one man, Jawaharlal Nehru. There are few studies that have explored the roots of India’s foreign policy in the two traditions that it had inherited – one was the worldview of the national movement and the other was the foreign policy imperatives of the Government of India before independence. Further compounding this was the near-universal interpretation of Jawaharlal Nehru’s foreign policy vision as entirely idealist in its orientation. To be sure, a strong sense of liberal internationalism permeated Nehru’s worldview, the articulation of India’s foreign policy and its actual conduct. At the same time, Nehru also had a strong realist tendency in his worldview that was reflected most acutely in his approach to security cooperation with the neighbours. The general one-dimensional characterisation of Nehru’s policy is also rooted in the lack of empirical studies of India’s foreign policy record, the comprehensive neglect of Nehru’s approach to the neighbours and an unwillingness to confront the great power aspirations that guided his foreign policy. A closer look at Nehru’s policies of security cooperation might offer insights into how India’s future role, in contemporary parlance as a ‘net security provider’, might emerge. Revisiting Nehru also undercuts the so-called ‘Nehruvian’ critique of India’s current search for a larger security role in the neighbourhood and beyond.

The paper has four parts. It begins with a review of the sources of continuity in the security policies in the neighbourhood of the Raj and Nehru’s India. In the second, it offers an assessment of Nehru’s efforts to sustain the security structure for the Subcontinent inherited from the Raj especially in the Himalayan region. The third section looks at Nehru’s attempt to build security cooperation beyond the northern frontier. The fourth and concluding section of the paper offers a brief reflection on the legacy of Nehru’s security diplomacy.

The Enduring Geopolitical Imperative In a comparative study of the security frameworks of the British Raj and independent India in their geographic neighbourhood, Martin Wainwright pointed to the huge continuities across the great chasm of decolonisation that separated them. “Although the two regimes differed markedly in their constitutional basis of power, their ethnic composition, and their long-term goals, the attitudes of their members toward South Asian security were remarkably similar”.2 While many of India’s neighbours have seen India’s regional policy as a determined effort to 2

A Martin Wainwright, “Regional Security and Paramount Powers: The British Raj and Independent India”, in Chetan Kumar and Marvin Weinbaum, Eds., South Asia Approaches the Millennium (Boulder, Colo: Westview, 1995), p. 43.

sustain Delhi’s primacy in the post-Raj era, the nationalist discourse within India did not, unsurprisingly, feel comfortable with the notion of India pursuing a policy not very different from that of the colonial masters. The significant opposition of the Indian National Congress to many of British India’s regional policies also meant that the temptation to see a clear break from the colonial past was irresistible. Adding to the problem was the growing idolisation of Nehru at home and the domestic and international perception of his foreign policy as being driven by high-minded idealism. Others, opposing Nehru from the right at home, also vigorously criticised his foreign policy for not being realistic enough. In the more recent period, the rule by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition at the centre during 1998-2004 saw the emergence of a debate on whether the government of Atal Behari Vajpayee was abandoning the founding principles articulated by Jawaharlal Nehru.3 On the worship and demonisation of India’s first Prime Minister, A G Noorani wrote in sharp polemic: “It has been Jawaharlal Nehru's lot, as that of any other great figure in history, to be subjected either to denigration or adulation. Informed, critical assessment, which recognises both the sterling qualities and the grave flaws that belong to any mortal, is regarded as apologetics by traducers and belittlement by professional sycophants”.4 If one looks beyond the contemporary political correctness and the domestic argumentation, the nature of continuity between the policies of the Raj and those of Nehru’s India is not difficult to trace. One is the fact that both were paramount powers in the Subcontinent. “The term paramount is historically appropriate because the Raj used the term, paramountcy, to describe its sovereignty over the princely states, and because the Indian National Congress objected when the British Parliament allowed the Indian government’s paramountcy to lapse with the transfer of power. Independent India did not, of course, exercise paramountcy over Pakistan, but after 1947 India was by far the most powerful state in South Asia and therefore dominated matters pertaining to the region’s security”.5 Neither Nehru nor his successors employed the term paramountcy, which was entirely inappropriate to the post-colonial times that new India has inhabited. Yet the notion of primacy has been a major impulse for independent India’s regional policy and the importance of keeping other powers at bay from the region. Indira Gandhi’s muscular approach to the region has often been described as the ‘Indira Doctrine’ and Rajiv Gandhi’s use of diplomatic and military force have been more explicit assertions of India’s search for regional primacy.6 Undergirding the search for primacy has been the notion of the ‘strategic unity’ of the Subcontinent that many practitioners and observers of India’s foreign policy have continuously used through the decades. As George Tanham put it, the Indian elites 3

5 6

See Chirs Ogden, “Norms, Indian Foreign Policy and the 1998-2004 National Democratic Alliance”, Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 99, No. 408, 2010, pp. 303-15; see also Achin Vanaik, “Making India Strong: The BJP-led Government’s Foreign Policy Perspectives”, South Asia: A Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol. 25, No.3, 2002, pp. 321-41. A G Noorani, “Nehru: A Democratic Curzon?”, Frontline, Vol. 17, No. 26, December 23, 2000 to January 5, 2001, available at <http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1726/17260780.htm> Wainwright, op. cit., p. 42. See Devin Hagerty, “India’s Regional Security Doctrine”, Asian Survey, Vol. 31, No. 4, April 1991, pp. 351-63.

share a fundamental belief that “the unity of the subcontinent reflects the integrity and dreams of a people and constitutes an integral part of their social fabric”.7 The commonplace understanding of India’s foreign policy pre-1947 is that it was driven by British imperial interests rather than those of India itself. The nature of the continuity between the foreign policies of the two regimes becomes clearer when we recognise that the Raj had considerable autonomy from Great Britain and that it tended to reflect the geopolitical imperatives of India. An eminent historian of India, Ainslie Embree, argued that the Government of India, despite ultimate control by Great Britain, was responding to the needs and interests of the physical territory that it controlled in the Subcontinent and that the “content and style” of the Raj diplomacy “was a formative legacy for modern India”.8 Embree reinforces this conclusion by a number of propositions. One, the Government of British India pursued policies in foreign affairs that “reflected the political, economic, and geographic realities of the Indian situation, with the impulse for these policies coming from within the structures of the bureaucracy of the Government of India, not of Great Britain”. Second, the foreign policies of the Raj “were the product of territorial control by a well-organized authority, and, given the fact of power, the alien origin of the ruling group is not decisive factor”. Third, Embree suggests that “any strong power” based in the Subcontinent, “would have behaved much the same in relation to neighbouring states”. Finally, Embree concludes that the British Raj sought to develop ‘diplomacy of dependency’ in its neighbourhood. Seeking to prevent rival powers from undermining its authority in India, the Raj was determined “not to permit any genuinely independent country to exist on its borders”. Although there was no explicit statement to this effect it reflects a deep-rooted imperative in structuring India’s security. “The usual formulation of policy was that the government did not desire to control its neighbours; it did, however, insist [that] governments were not hostile. The translation of this insistence on friendly neighbours into policy often led to outright conquest, as in the case of Burma, or as in the case of Afghanistan, a combination of military intervention and diplomatic pressures”. This diplomacy of dependency developed in the 19th century was not something that disappeared with the Raj. The system of protectorates and buffer states that were part of the ring fence erected by the Raj could not simply be discarded by the rulers of independent India. To be sure, the leaders of the national movement were critical of the Britain’s imperial expansionism and its relentless efforts to consolidate decisive influence across its claimed boundaries.9 Once in charge of India’s security, the geopolitical imperatives compelled

George K Tanham, Indian Strategic Thought: An Interpretative Essay (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 1992). Ainslie T-. Embree, Imagining India: Essays on Indian History, Edited by Mark Juergensmeyer (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 117-20. For statements of the Indian National Congress on issues relating to British frontier policies see Bimla Prasad, The Origins of Indian Foreign Policy (Calcutta: Bookland, 1962).

Nehru and his successors to sustain the Raj legacy to the extent that they could and within the new limitations on its freedom of manoeuvre.

The Himalayan Inner Ring As it became a strong and expanding territorial entity in the Subcontinent, the Raj constructed for itself a three-fold frontier.10 The first frontier of administration or the inner line covered areas over which the Raj exercised full sovereignty, excluding of course the princely states that were under indirect rule. The second un-administered frontier or the outer line covered regions where the British had strong relations with local ruling groups, provided them with subsidies and protection in return for their help in defending the Raj and left them largely self-governing in internal affairs. The third was the frontier of influence, where the Raj created strong alliances with the local rulers that explicitly ruled out security ties with hostile powers beyond, initially France and West European rivals and later Russia and China. The regions between first (inner) and the second (outer) lines is often described as the inner ring and included Balochistan, the North West Frontier Province, Kashmir, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, the North East Frontier Agency, and the tribal regions of Upper Burma. The buffer regions beyond the un-administered frontier are often described as the outer ring fence and included arrangements with the tribes of the British Somaliland, the alliances with Oman and the Trucial states of the Gulf, Persia, Afghanistan, Kashgharia (for a short while), Tibet, Siam, Malaya and the fully controlled Aden at the mouth of the Suez and the Straits Settlements (Meleka, Penang and Singapore) in the Malacca Straits.11 This extraordinary double ring-fence system structured to protect the Raj began to be modified well before decolonisation. The separation of the Straits Settlement (1867) and Burma (1935) and Aden (1937) ended the direct administration of these territories from India. Britain avoided making Nepal a fully controlled territory and restrained the Raj from turning Tibet into a protectorate after it opened the region and made it a buffer. If its rapid decline in the early 20th century was making it difficult for Great Britain to cope with its burdens around the world, it was equally challenging for independent India to sustain the security structures created by the Raj. Partition made India weaker but also relieved it of the burden of securing frontier regions with Iran and Afghanistan. But the British Parliament’s decision to end the paramountcy of the Raj within the Subcontinent generated the massive national imperative of reconsolidating India’s territorial sovereignty. The first task was to integrate the princely states – more than 550 of them 10

For a comprehensive contemporary description, see Lord Curzon, “Frontiers”, Romanes Lecture, 1907, available at < http://www.dur.ac.uk/resources/ibru/resources/links/curzon.pdf> For brief descriptions of this complex system, Peter John Brobst, Future of the Great Game: Sir Olaf Caroe, India’s Independence and the Defence of Asia (Akron, Ohio: University of Akron Press, 2005); James Onley, “The Raj Reconsidered: British India’s Informal Empire and Spheres of Influence”, Asian Affairs, Vol. 40, No. 1, March 2009, pp. 44-62.

which had covered nearly two-fifths of undivided India – with independent India. The dispute with Pakistan over the accession of Jammu & Kashmir would endure complicating India’s regional security. The second was to cope with the immediate and calamitous consequences of the Partition of Bengal and the Punjab and the creation of new frontiers in these states. The third and equally challenging was the question of independent India’s future relationship with the Himalayan kingdoms. Addressing this challenge would remain very important for India’s security policy after independence. For emerging India two choices presented themselves in dealing with the new situation in the Himalayas. One was to sustain the old framework that bound these kingdoms to the Raj and the other was to simply annex them into the Republic and reduce any ambiguities about their status. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who was the Home Minister in Nehru’s Cabinet, believed that the kingdoms must be treated as princely states that should be brought into India’s fold. Nehru, however, opted for a more complex policy that viewed these kingdoms as part of India’s security perimeter and calculus of frontier defence – avoid forcible accession but bind them into stronger economic interdependence with the Republic.12 This approach essentially meant sustaining the Raj framework of treating these kingdoms as allies and protectorates. There was some variation in the relations between the Raj and the three kingdoms. Nepal was treated as an independent country, Sikkim as a full protectorate of India and Bhutan enjoyed a status in between. All three, however, were strongly bound into the security framework of the Raj through the treaties signed with Nepal in 1819 and 1923, Bhutan in 1865 and 1910, and Sikkim in 1817 and 1890. After independence, Nehru curbed the temptations in the three kingdoms to separate themselves from India, and signed treaties with all of them during 1949-50 that largely followed the template of the earlier agreements signed by the Raj. The first to be signed was the agreement with Bhutan in 1949 under which India retained the right to guide the kingdom’s foreign policy and promised not to interfere in its internal affairs. Under the agreement India also had a say in Bhutan’s import of arms. The treaty did not have a strong defence clause, for the agreement was signed before Communist China’s occupation of Tibet in 1949. The agreements India signed with Nepal and Sikkim in 1950 were more attuned to the challenges that China’s control of Tibet posed to the security of the Subcontinent. India’s July 1950 Treaty with Nepal covered a wide range of aspects and included an article on mutual defence and another on regulating arms transfers. Earlier in 1947, India signed a tripartite agreement with Nepal and Britain that allowed India to recruit soldiers from Nepal, a right that was limited to Britain until then. India’s December 1950 Treaty with Sikkim reaffirmed its status as a protectorate of India and gave Delhi the right to deploy troops on its territory.13

For a brief but critical review, see Srikant Dutt, “India and the Himalayan States”, Asian Affairs, Vol. 67, No. 1, February 1980, pp.71-81. The full texts of the treaties are available on the website of the Legal Information Institute of India, <www.liiofindia.org>

Nehru’s reconstruction of the security ties with the Himalayan kingdoms was not just a replication of the treaties that the Raj had with them. For one he sought to accommodate many of the interests of the kingdoms in an effort to encourage them to remain part of the structure of securing India’s northern frontiers. Nehru, unlike the Raj, fully recognised the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Nepal and strongly affirmed India’s commitment to Bhutan’s internal autonomy. He increased the annual subsidies to these kingdoms and significantly expanded the economic and technical assistance. He also offered territorial concessions to Bhutan which sought the return of some of the territory annexed by the Raj. Nehru invited the representatives of Nepal and Bhutan to participate in the First Asian Relations Conference held in Delhi in early1947, thereby facilitating the two isolated kingdoms to establish international contacts. India’s first Prime Minister also cut some slack for Nepal in putting the military relationship on a more equal footing. For example Nehru encouraged the establishment of ties between Nepal and China after India signed an agreement with China on Tibet in 1954. While he was generous in areas where he could be so with the Himalayan kingdoms, there was no doubt in his mind about the centrality of the Himalayan kingdoms to India’s defence of the northern frontiers. Speaking in the Constituent Assembly on 6 December 1950, Nehru declared abiding interests: “So far as the Himalayas are concerned, they lie on the other side of Nepal, not on this side. Therefore, the principal barrier to India lies on the other side of Nepal. We are not going to tolerate any person coming over that barrier. Therefore, much as we can appreciate the independence of Nepal, we cannot risk our own security by anything not done in Nepal which permits either that barrier to be crossed or otherwise leads to the weakening of our frontiers”.14 The system of security treaties that Nehru erected with the Himalayan kingdoms, however, faced three important challenges – the internal orientation of these regimes, the steady expansion of the international profile of the kingdoms and the emergence of China as a strong state across the Himalayan frontier in Tibet. It was relatively easy to operate the protectorate system between a powerful colonial patron, the British Raj, and the feudal rulers of the Himalayan kingdoms. The essential bargain involved in the treaties – security cooperation in return for internal autonomy was not easy to sustain in the post-colonial era. Forces of democratisation and modernisation that began to emerge in the kingdoms were aligned closely with the Indian National Congress, and other political trends in India had a stake in changing the status quo rather than reinforcing it. Some of these forces sought accession to India and others pressed Delhi to support political change in the kingdoms. India’s security bargain, on the other hand, was with the rulers, whom Nehru was loath to simply abandon. Yet as a nascent democracy whose main political classes had a deep solidarity with those seeking change, Delhi chose to adopt a middle path of gradual change that neither appeased the rulers of the kingdoms nor satisfied the popular aspirations for change.15 India could neither sustain the pretence about the internal autonomy of these 14 15

Cited in Kavic, op. cit., p. 56. For a comprehensive discussion of the dynamic between Delhi and Kathmandu, see S D Muni, India and Nepal: A Changing Relationship (Delhi: Konark, 1992); see also Leo Rose, Nepal: Strategy for Survival (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971).

kingdoms nor could it hold down the rulers to the naturally unequal terms of a protectorate. This resulted in unending instability in the relations between the Himalayan kingdoms, which in turn provided an opportunity for other powers to undermine India’s primacy.16 Amidst the general decolonisation of the developing world, the growing international interest in the Himalayan frontier as part of the Cold War competition, and the emerging sense of national identities, it was inevitable that the ruling elites of the Himalayan kingdoms sought to end their traditional international isolation. Winning new partners, the rulers knew, would increase their autonomy vis a vis India and secure them greater room for play. Support from external powers was also seen as critical for sustaining the feudal order within these kingdoms and fending off pressures for internal democratic change. Both China and the West encouraged, for different reasons, the attempts by these kingdoms to loosen their strategic bonds with India. The methods that the rulers of these kingdoms employed included, “the establishment of diplomatic relations with other states, acceptance of external aid besides Indian, the use of events like coronations, the issue of postage stamps and attendance at international meetings”.17 While they sought to increase their international profile, the feudal rulers were acutely conscious of pushing India beyond a point. This set up a consistent brinkmanship with India which, more often than not, saw India ceding some room while trying to hold on to the relationship. Delhi in turn often used the threat of support for the democratic forces to rein in the ambitions of the Himalayan rulers. The biggest challenge to India’s Himalayan treaty system was the emergence of Communist China on its frontiers through its occupation of Tibet in 1950. The first half of the 20th century saw the expansion of the influence of the Raj into Tibet and the steady accretion of special rights in that kingdom which was treated as a buffer. The next half a century would see Tibet emerge as a major source of discord between India and China. The emergence of the communist threat in Tibet initially raised the stakes of the Himalayan kingdoms in security partnerships with independent India. Nehru’s policy of avoiding a conflict with China over Tibet was balanced by his determination to secure the Himalayan glacis in 1950. In return for accepting Chinese control of Tibet, Nehru hoped he could win Beijing’s acceptance of India’s primacy in the Himalayan kingdoms. Beijing, however, never really accepted this proposition and its charm diplomacy towards Nepal helped ease some of the concerns of the Himalayan kingdoms. Nepal, which established diplomatic relations with China under Nehru’s encouragement, was the principal target of Chinese overtures. Nepal steadily began to wriggle out of the tight framework of military cooperation it had agreed with India. Nehru’s policy towards the Himalayan kingdoms after the Chinese occupation of Tibet has been summed up as “politically discreet, diplomatically cautious, and projected over a long term”. Kavic argues that “the overriding determinant of its policy was to avoid giving provocation to 16

S D Muni, “India’s Diplomacy Towards the Himalayan States, 1947-1975”, School of International Studies Staff Paper (New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University, January 1977). Srikant Dutt, op. cit., p. 76.

Peking at almost all costs and to continue the tranquillity of the Himalayan region primarily by astute diplomacy. Prudence dictated that certain precautionary measures be taken to deter surreptitious Chinese intrusions of the long and difficult Himalayan frontiers but these measures were modest in scope”.18 Although the Chinese control of Tibet helped India reconstruct the security system of the Raj, sustaining it proved a great challenge. The perception that India suffered defeat in the 1962 war with China tended to reduce India’s prestige with Nepal as well as Delhi’s leverage with Kathmandu. Writing about the concerns of the Himalayan kingdoms in the aftermath of the 1962 war between India and China, Leo Rose observed that “the fear of China is uppermost in their minds, but apprehensions over Indian policy can also be perceived, for it is feared that New Delhi, faced with overt Chinese aggression, may feel impelled to intervene in the border states to safeguard its own vital interests. The desire to be left alone by both their powerful neighbours is overwhelming. How realistic this attitude [is] may be open to serious question”.19 But there was no denying the shock for the foreign policy assumptions of the kingdoms that were caught between the temptation of neutrality and the need for cooperation with India and for treaty relationships with Delhi. While Nehru’s treaty system would come under increasing strain after 1962, there was no way Delhi could simply abandon the security framework created by him. Nor did the Himalayan kingdoms have the power to fully break their geopolitical bonds with India.

Beyond the Inner Ring If Nehru’s reinvention of the security framework of the Raj was not entirely successful, it nevertheless presents an important empirical counter to the general perceptions of Nehru as an idealist. He was deeply geopolitical in his thinking and his attitudes towards the Himalayan kingdoms underlined his vision of India as a major power that is prepared to defend its security interests, however cautiously and carefully. Nehru’s interest in security diplomacy was not limited to the northern frontier. The early years of independence saw Nehru embark on significant cooperation with other neighbours, especially Burma (now Myanmar) and Indonesia. Writing before independence, K M Panikkar underlined the importance of Burma for India’s security: “the defence of Burma is in fact the defence of India, and it is India’s primary concern no less than Burma’s to see that its frontiers remain inviolate. In fact no responsibility can be considered too heavy for India when it comes to the question of defending Burma”. 20 Panikkar was convinced that Burma was not in a position to defend itself and the country’s domination by another power would be disastrous for India. Panikkar also understood that emerging nationalisms in the post-colonial period would make substantial defence cooperation between 18 19

Kavic, op. cit., p. 61. Leo Rose, “The Himalayan Border States: ‘Buffers’ in Transition”, Asian Survey, Vol. 3, No. 2, February 1963, p. 116. K.M. Panikkar, The Future of South East Asia (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1943), p. 45.

Delhi and Rangoon difficult. Yet, he was confident that the logic of a defence union will work for Delhi and Rangoon. What emerged, however, was a more complex story of India-Burma defence cooperation after the Second World War. The severe internal security threats faced by Burma in the immediate aftermath of independence provided the context for substantive Indian military assistance to Rangoon. Immediately after independence Rangoon confronted major insurrections by the Burmese Communist Party, ethnic Karens and other militias in 1949. Rangoon was under direct threat from rebel forces. Burmese leader U Nu sought military assistance from India and other Commonwealth nations as well as the United States. Nehru responded with alacrity, helping mobilise diplomatic, political, and military assistance to Burma as well as extending direct bilateral assistance that was critical in preventing the fall of Rangoon to the rebels and included the supply of six Dakota transport aircraft to Burma.21 Nehru’s valuable support to Burma was acknowledged with much grace by Nu once the situation was brought under control.22 Speaking in the Indian Parliament in March 1950, Nehru declared that India’s support to Burma was not about interfering in the internal affairs of its neighbour. “It is not our purpose and is not right for us to interfere in any way with other countries, but whenever possible, we give such help as we can to our friends, without any element of interference”.23 Beyond immediate crisis management, Nehru and Nu sought to put the bilateral relationship on a firmer footing. Nu apparently wanted an explicit agreement for military cooperation but Nehru sought to keep the defence ties informal and flexible. The idea of defence and security cooperation, however, was hinted at in the peace and friendship treaty that Nehru and Nu signed in July 1951. Article IV says: “The two States agree that their representatives shall meet from time to time and as often as occasion requires to exchange views on matters of common interest and to consider ways and means for mutual cooperation in such matters”.24 Article II outlines a broader sentiment declaring that “there shall be everlasting peace and unalterable friendship between the two states who shall ever strive to strengthen and develop further cordial relations existing between the peoples of the two countries”. Seen from the perspective of Delhi, the treaty would seem to be of the same kind as the security treaties that Nehru had signed with Bhutan, Nepal and Sikkim during 1949-50. The language of Article II in the friendship treaty with Burma is entirely similar to the one found in the other three treaties. Nehru understood that Myanmar, being unlike the three Himalayan kingdoms, had to be approached very differently. Unlike the Himalayan kingdoms, towards which Nehru adopted the British protectorate framework, the Burmese Republic was viewed as India’s partner 21 22 23

Soe Myint, Burma File: A Question of Democracy (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish), p.89. See Richard Butwell, U Nu of Burma (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1963), p. 186. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s Foreign Policy: Selected Speeches, September 1946-April 1961 (New Delhi: Publications Division, 1974), pp.292-293. Text available at < http://www.commonlii.org/in/other/treaties/INTSer/1951/12.html>

in articulating Asia’s voice on the international stage. Therefore the security clauses were subtler. It is important to note that the India-Burma friendship treaty was signed at around the time when both countries concluded similar agreements with Indonesia.25 The three countries became the most vocal proponents of Asian identity in the early-1950s. While all three, as votaries of nonalignment, opposed the emerging military blocs in the East and the West, they also understood the importance of greater military cooperation among themselves. This aspect of the relationship has remained largely unexplored in contemporary discussion of Nehru’s Asian policy. The context of this interesting aspect of defence diplomacy between Delhi and Jakarta was set by the extraordinary warmth between the nationalists of the two countries, especially Nehru and Sukarno. One important factor that contributed to the warmth was Delhi’s mobilisation of international support for Indonesian independence and Nehru’s active opposition to the Dutch aggression against Indonesia in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Nehru also convened a conference of 18 governments to voice support for the Indonesian Republic and its membership of the United Nations in 1949, generating a fund of goodwill for India. The language of the India-Indonesia Friendship Treaty, signed in 1951, was virtually identical to that in the accord which New Delhi was go sign with Burma a few months later. Article I had a reference to the standard formulation about “perpetual peace and unalterable friendship” between the two countries.26 Article III outlined the provisions for consultations and provided the basis for security cooperation: “The two Governments agree that their representatives shall meet from time to time and as often as occasion requires to exchange views on matters of common interest and to consider ways and means for mutual cooperation in such matters”. The friendship treaty was followed by substantive cooperation between the armed forces of the two countries, under separate agreements between their respective navies (1956), air forces (1958) and armies (1960). The focus was on high level military exchanges, cross-attachment of officers, training, supply of equipment, and the grant of Indian loans to facilitate this.27 Indonesia is the only country outside the Commonwealth that India conducted naval exercises with. India also helped Indonesia with military assistance to put down some of its internal revolts and secessionist movements in the 1950s. The bilateral security cooperation between the three self-proclaimed non-aligned countries did not last, notwithstanding the proclamations about ‘perpetual’ and ‘unalterable’ friendship. Their focus on their internal troubles, the distractions of other regional conflicts and the divisive impact of the Cold War increasingly reduced the salience of India’s security cooperation with old 25

26 27

The India-Burma agreement was signed on 7 July 1951; India and Indonesia had signed their accord on 3 March 3 1951; while Indonesia and Burma followed suit on 31 March 1951. Text of the treaty is available at < http://www.commonlii.org/in/other/treaties/INTSer/1951/7.html> See Pankaj K Jha, “India-Indonesia: Emerging Strategic Confluence in the Indian Ocean Region”, Strategic Analysis, Vol. 32, No. 3, May 2008, pp.443-44.

and new friends beyond the inner ring. If there was one single factor that had the biggest impact on the prospects for security cooperation, it was the rise of China and the border conflict between Delhi and Beijing. The emergence of Communist China generated deep anxieties all across Asia; Delhi, Rangoon and Jakarta were no exceptions. At the same time, Nehru, Nu and Sukarno had to come to terms with the fact that they must actively seek a working relationship with China, their giant Asian neighbour. They also concurred that they had no interest in supporting Western efforts to isolate China. All three believed that integrating China into the regional network of international relations could mitigate many of the potential dangers of the emergence of Communist China. Beijing’s charm diplomacy towards Southeast Asia in the 1950s and the worsening Sino-Indian relations at the turn of the 1960s complicated the prospects of any deepening strategic cooperation between Delhi on the one hand and Rangoon and Jakarta on the other. As tensions on the border with India rose, China signed a boundary settlement with Burma in 1960 that generated much unhappiness in Delhi. Rangoon sought to placate Nehru, but it irritated him by suggesting that India emulate Burma in resolving its own boundary dispute with China. Of special concern for Nehru was the map attached to the agreement that conformed to Chinese territorial claims against India at the tri-junction with Burma.28 Burma’s neutrality during the Sino-Indian border clashes of 1962 also shocked the political classes in Delhi that had gone out of the way to support Burma in the preceding years. As India turned angry at what it saw as China’s ‘betrayal’ of Nehru, Peking remained, in the eyes of Sukarno, an anti-imperialist progressive power worth cooperating with. As an Indian diplomat concluded, “the differing images of China began to cause serious misunderstanding between India and Indonesia. The Indonesians were dismayed by India’s persistence in clinging to the British-made frontiers and refusing to understand Peking’s viewpoint. This in turn led India to question Jakarta’s friendship”.29 The differences between Nehru and Sukarno boiled over at the first summit of the non-aligned nations, where the former sought moderation and the latter demanded a radical approach to global issues. Nehru’s security diplomacy was not limited to the East. He signed a series of friendship treaties with key countries to the west that were once part of India’s frontier of influence. The first treaties of peace and friendship to be signed were with the Royal Government of Afghanistan (January 1950)30 and the Imperial Government of Iran (March 1950),31 both of which were central to the evolution of India’s regional policy, defined by the metaphor of the Great Game, from the early nineteenth century. Both treaties underlined ‘perpetual’ or ‘everlasting’ peace and friendship between the two countries; and unlike the treaties of the Raj, they noted the ‘ancient 28 29 30

Uma Shankar Singh, Op. Cit., pp. 74-79. L P Singh, “Dynamics of Indian-Indonesian Relations”, Asian Survey, Vol. 7, No. 9, September 1967, p. 657. The text of the treaty is available at < http://www.liiofindia.org/cgibin/disp.pl/in/other/treaties/INTSer/1950/3.html?query=india%20afghanistan%20friendship%20treaty> The text of the treaty is available at < http://www.commonlii.org/in/other/treaties/INTSer/1950/7.html>

ties’ between India on the one hand and Afghanistan and Iran on the other. Neither treaty had an explicit or implicit reference to security cooperation and any focus on consular affairs and the treatment of respective nationals. Yet, having lost the frontiers with both Afghanistan and Iran after the Partition, Nehru’s India was underlining the enduring significance of the two countries in its strategic calculus. In March 1953, India signed a treaty of friendship and commerce with the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, with special emphasis on cooperation on navigation by sea and air.32 India also negotiated but could not conclude a friendship treaty with Yemen. Further afield, the Nehru Raj signed treaties of peace and friendship with Turkey (December 1951), Syria (February 1952), and Egypt (April 1955). Many of these agreements did not turn out to be consequential, but they reflected India’s search for stronger engagement with its extended neighbourhood that was part of Raj’s frontier of influence. But one of those treaties led to the development of interesting defence cooperation between India and Egypt from the late-1950s to the mid-1960s. India participated in the development of a jet fighter and jet engine in Egypt. Nehru saw this as being complementary to India’s own efforts at developing an indigenous aerospace industry. According to one account, Nehru’s India “participated in Egypt’s Helwan HA-300 jet fighter program and sent various professionals from its aeronautics industry and the Indian Air Force on detached service to Egypt, where they joined the local aircraft project. India also participated – with contributions of money, experts and equipment – in Egypt’s attempt to produce an indigenous jet turbine engine, the Brandner E-300. Critically, India assured that this engine would have a viable market by pledging to power its own indigenous jet fighter, the HAL HF-24 "Marut," with the Egyptian engine”.33 Although the projects did not succeed, they underlined Nehru’s deep interest in defence collaboration with friends and political partners, notwithstanding his opposition to military alliances.

Legacy of the Nehru Raj The traditional discourse on Nehru’s foreign policy and its roots in idealism is focused on his response to the emergence of the Cold War, his activism in favour of international peace, and his search for Afro-Asian solidarity. Our review of Nehru’s treaty diplomacy underlines the very different universe that independent India had to contend with. The logic of India’s security was bound to the nature of its territoriality that was constructed under the Raj, and a measure of continuity in India’s security politics was inevitable. Nehru sought to reconstruct such continuity in security politics in the Himalayan inner ring on a modified basis, showing accommodation where possible towards the interests of the smaller neighbours but making it absolutely clear that 32 33

Text of the treaty available at <http://www.commonlii.org/in/other/treaties/INTSer/1953/3.html> See Gil Feiler, “India’s Economic Relations with Israel and the Arabs”, Middle East Security and Policy Studies, No. 96 (Ramat Gan: The Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies, 2011), p. 16.

they were an integral part of India’s defence system. India’s significant prestige in the international system and its military weight were also recognised by other countries, small and large, as they sought security cooperation with it. Unlike the ‘Nehruvians’, India’s first prime minister did not conflate the logic of strategic autonomy and non-alignment with the absolute necessity of pursuing India’s security interests with whatever means possible. This necessarily included reordering the Himalayan glacis as well as extending security cooperation to friendly countries that sought it, especially Burma, Indonesia and Egypt. Nehru’s ability to construct and maintain an inherited security system was constrained by a number of factors, including the emergence of a unified and powerful China on its northern frontiers. While the perceived threat from China initially created the conditions for stronger security cooperation, Beijing’s determined quest to improve relations with India’s neighbours and the deterioration of SinoIndian relations constrained Delhi’s room for manoeuvre. China would remain an important factor in strengthening the essence of India’s Himalayan policy in the following decades, while its articulation and implementation had to be continuously adjusted. If Nehru had difficulties in managing this new dynamic in the inner ring of the Himalayas, his successors struggled continually to adapt and offer concessions to the neighbours but never agreed to undo the framework that he had put in place. While this is not the place to go into a detailed discussion, Indira Gandhi absorbed Sikkim into the Indian Union and revitalised the engagement with Nepal and Bhutan. Rajiv Gandhi made NEFA into a full-fledged state of the Indian Union, embarked on coercive diplomacy against Nepal when it sought to break the terms on importing arms. Both Indira Gandhi and Rajiv reaffirmed India’s right to shaping its immediate security environment. The former intervened in East Pakistan during the movement for Bangladesh in 1971 and followed up with a friendship treaty with Dhaka in 1972 – with an explicit article on security cooperation. Indira Gandhi also put in place measures to assist Mauritius in coping with its internal security problems and signed an agreement on defence cooperation with Oman. Rajiv Gandhi intervened to promote ethnic reconciliation in Sri Lanka (1987) on the basis of a bilateral agreement to establish peace and normalcy. He also helped secure the legitimate regime in Maldives against a coup in 1988. In the more recent period, the Manmohan Singh government revised the 1949 treaty with Bhutan in 2007 to put the bilateral partnership on a stronger foundation and in tune with contemporary reality. It signed a strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan, agreements for comprehensive cooperation with Bangladesh and Maldives and put in place trilateral cooperation on maritime security with Colombo and Male, all in 2011. As India’s economic strength and military capabilities grew and its interests became important once again on the frontiers of its historical influence in the postreform era, Delhi dramatically expanded security cooperation in its extended neighbourhood – stretching from Japan and Vietnam in East Asia to Qatar and Oman in the Arabian Peninsula, and Seychelles and South Africa in the Western Indian Ocean.

Underlying India’s intensive security diplomacy in recent years are the propositions which Nehru had laid down clearly that Delhi’s interests would extend beyond its borders – Aden to Malacca or Suez to South China Sea. As a large geopolitical unit, Nehru believed, India had the responsibility to assist friends and partners in the military domain. Nehru’s sights were not limited to promoting narrowly defined national interests of India. He recognised that India should contribute to international peace and security and took the initiative to participate in United Nations peacekeeping operations. It was a legacy that his successors would pursue despite deepening military challenges on India’s frontiers. They would make its armed forces one of the largest contributors to international peace operations and invite the characterisation of India as a ‘net provider of security’ in the Indian Ocean littoral and beyond. But that is a different story that must be told in greater detail at another place and time. ......

ISAS Working Paper No. 169 – 12 March 2013 469A Bukit Timah Road #07-01, Tower Block, Singapore 259770 Tel: 6516 6179 / 6516 4239 Fax: 6776 7505 / 6314 5447 Email: isassec@nus.edu.sg Website: www.isas.nus.edu.sg

Financing Infrastructure in Bangladesh – Some Options Ishraq Ahmed1

Introduction

The inadequacy of economic and physical infrastructure – with respect to both financing needs and quality itself – is a common characteristic in developing countries. The World Bank has estimated that developing countries need about US$ 1.1 trillion in annual infrastructure expenditure through the year 2015, of which low-income countries need the greatest share – 12.5 per cent of their GDP.2 Establishing a comprehensive financing framework – which will meet developing countries’ infrastructure needs and in the process cover investment, maintenance and repair costs – poses significant challenges for policymakers. To attract foreign direct investment and achieve long-term growth, it is imperative that there are an efficient transport system nationwide, modern telecommunication systems and reliable supply of energy and water. The investment required for improving infrastructure is massive – various estimates have pointed out the need for considerable investment in developing countries. For instance, the International Energy Agency (2003) estimated that developing countries would have needed to invest US$ 120 billion in the electricity sector annually from 2001 to 2010 and US$ 49 billion for water and sanitation from 2001 to 2015.

Mr Ishraq Ahmed is Research Associate at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore. He can be contacted at isasishr@nus.edu.sg. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of ISAS. Transformation through Infrastructure, World Bank (2011)

The need for quality-oriented and consistent investment is pressing indeed for a country like Bangladesh. The country has been undergoing consistent economic growth since the 1990s, the quest for which has led to enormous strains on the country’s transport and energy infrastructure – there has been a general deterioration in infrastructure nationwide. The services provided to users have not kept pace with the increasing demand. The quality of the road network is abject, with roads being dilapidated and too narrow to handle traffic. The power sector is marred by a yawning gap between supply and demand leading to power outages which, in the process, has led to adverse impacts on firm-level productivity and economic growth. Public finances over the years have played a vital role in the infrastructure sector and will continue to play a major role. The private sector has also invested significantly in infrastructure, with 35 per cent of total investment coming from this sector in the late-1990s and early-2000s.3 However, expenditure has been beset by poorly targeted spending, low allocation of resources, limited sources of finance, governance and institutional challenges among others – all these, despite allocations to infrastructure being prioritised by past governments, albeit rhetorically. This paper seeks to outline the infrastructure needs of Bangladesh with respect to domestic sources of finance. While infrastructure encompasses energy, transportation, telecommunications, water and sanitation, and social infrastructure such as education and health, the paper focuses on the financing needs of the transport and energy sectors. The transport network and energy sector have a more immediate bearing on economic activity and therefore growth. If Bangladesh is to step up its growth and truly graduate to a middle-income status, these two sectors are in need of greater, more targeted and immediate financing.

II. Spending on Infrastructure Patterns and Allocation in Spending To conduct an appraisal of spending on power and roads, the overall spending on infrastructure has to be seen in context. Total national spending on infrastructure for the period 2000-2007 has fallen over time, while spending on the social sectors has increased. Spending on infrastructure has been consistently falling over time – from around 33 per cent in 2000 it has fallen drastically to 17 per cent of total government expenditures as of 2007. Excluding spending on science and technology, infrastructure spending proper has been halved from 26 per cent in 2000 to 13 per cent in 2007.4 Spending in the transport sector, excluding rural roads, has declined while total spending on fuel and energy has increased. The increasing allocation for fuel and energy includes transfers to the loss-making state-owned enterprises (SoEs) to cover their increased losses due to the global oil price hikes (Figure 1). Judging from the spending by the relevant ministries, the Ministry of Transport and Communication has seen its share of spending go down 3 4

Ibid The World Bank (2010), Bangladesh Public Expenditure and Institutional Review

from a high of about 13 per cent to eight per cent in FY 2007, although it still has the largest share among the four relevant ministries.

Percentage of Total Expenditures

Figure 1: Composition of Infrastructure Expenditure (FY00-FY07) 40 35 30

7.7

25 20

11.9

15 10 5

6.6

9.3

12.4 5.3

7.8

8.3

13.3

1.1

10.3

11.3

13.5 6.2

4.7

6.6

5.3

4.7

6.2

FY 2000

FY 2001

FY 2002

FY 2003

1.1

8.7

7.6

6.7

6.4

7.6

6.7

6.4

FY 2004

FY 2005

0.8 8 4.1 4.1

FY 2006 FY 2007‐ R

Ministry of Science & Technology

Fuel and Energy

Transport and Communication

Housing and Community Services

Source: Ministry of Finance and World Bank Staff Estimates

The Annual Development Program (ADP) allocations to the power and transport sector reveal a couple of trends. Allocation to the power division had fallen drastically from around Tk. 36 billion in FY 2007 to Tk. 27 billion in FY 2010 and represented around nine per cent of the total national development budget. However the share has increased in FY 2011 to Tk. 50 billion (14 per cent of the national development budget), which to some extent reflects the increasing government emphasis on the need to spend more in the power sector. Economic activities have been increasingly hampered due to frequent power outages and an ever-increasing demand for electricity by factories and businesses. The supply deficit has been accumulating due to the energy policies of successive governments. Insufficient power had been added to the grid while exploration of gas reserves for power plants had proceeded at a snail’s pace. All these were in addition to the persistence of various operational and maintenance inadequacies in the power sector. The Ministry of Communication, which consists of the Roads Division, saw its allocations decline from 12.7 per cent to 10.5 per cent in 2008. After 2009, the ADP allocations towards the transport sector were channelled into Roads and Railways Division, the share of which was still quite low – in FY 2011 Roads Division had 10 per cent of the total development budget. Given the value of the road assets under the Roads and Highways Department, the ADP allocation is not quite enough. According to the Sixth Five Year Plan (SFYP), the value was estimated to be around US$ 7.4 billion. The slated allocation of around US$ 430 million is inadequate for the purpose of maintenance works, a fact that has been identified in the Plan. As a 3

share of national income, transport spending was around 1.4 per cent of GDP in 2006/07, of which the largest share of spending was on investments. Investments on new roads comprised about 69 per cent of the total, while rehabilitation and maintenance to improve road conditions accounted for 31 per cent. Developing countries normally invest 2.5 per cent to three per cent of GDP in transport, and by those standards, Bangladesh appears to be spending quite low.5 Very little amount has been allocated to maintaining roads and as such they have suffered increasingly. It has been suggested that maintenance expenditure for infrastructure in the long run lowers operating costs and greatly expands the life of the assets – such “savings” are not considered when maintenance budgets are cut back. Solely investing in assets is not sufficient.6 The overall quality of fiscal performance and expenditure management has been weak in Bangladesh. According to the World Bank (2010), consumption expenditure has exceeded investments in infrastructure, particularly on power and ports. Recurrent expenditure as a share of GDP has risen to about nine per cent of the GDP as of 2007, while capital spending has fallen to about 3.4 per cent of GDP in 2008. The recurrent expenditure budget includes components such as subsidies and transfers and interest payments that made up 30.5 per cent and 13.4 per cent of total spending, respectively, as of fiscal year 2007 – these expenses have shown major increases over time. Subsidies particularly represent inefficient spending in Bangladesh, with the urban middle and upper classes being the main beneficiaries of subsidies – the poor sections benefit very little. Subsidy spending as proportion of total spending is too high and has increased over time. This has imposed significant opportunity costs on the government, with investments in social and the physical sector being constrained. This under-spending in infrastructure can be attributed to various factors. Poor fiscal management and negligence with respect to allocating sufficient funds to the infrastructure sector in general, combined with poor planning and implementation of projects, can explain why infrastructure in Bangladesh has been unable to cope with growing economic activities, especially in the road and power sectors. For a while now, policymakers have exhibited inadequate foresight in focusing on the physical infrastructure and have failed to upgrade it in line with the country’s increasing economic growth. So far, the steady growth of the economy has taken place in spite of the inadequate attention paid to infrastructure. The allotments to ministries and divisions in charge of maintaining and providing the infrastructure services display a declining trend overall. Constant or increasing shares are devoted to social sectors like health, family welfare and education. The government itself is having budgetary constraints and running up budget deficits – total borrowing from the financial system as of fiscal year 2011 was US$ 3 billion and fiscal deficit was around four per cent of the GDP. The government’s resort to borrowing money could mean that budgetary allocations to some ministries will not be consistent; furthermore spending on fuel subsidies, the social sector, agricultural input subsidies 5 6

Ibid Estache and Goicoechea (2005)

and the import of crude oil have been prioritised. Increasing the spending in social sectors is generally viewed as a political strategy to alleviate poverty; and, therefore, some competition for government resources could have an impact on infrastructure spending. Spending on infrastructure is not generally viewed as a direct effort to alleviate poverty. This might have been the case for Bangladesh in recent years. While falling allocations do not fully explain why the provision of infrastructure is insufficient, it however does suggest the need for greater and targeted financing from other sources. The relevant ministries in the process can be endowed with funds to invest in power and transport sectors, an option that has not been explored much. As between the two parallel budgets of the government â&#x20AC;&#x201C; revenue and development â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the development budget is more flexible and subject to less strict rules of allocation and financing. By economic classification, a greater portion of the development budget (84 per cent) finances capital expenditure such as acquiring assets, purchasing land, construction activities and so on, while the rest covers the recurrent/revenue expenditures. An increasing amount has been reallocated from the development budget to finance revenue spending and might have crowded out development expenditures/capital expenditures gradually. A very slow disbursement of development funds has also been attributed to poor project management in large infrastructure projects. At a time when Bangladesh needs to boost its economic growth through physical infrastructure, capital spending has fallen quite dramatically. The government also appears to take on too many projects at the same time, which implies that financial resources are spread thin over diverse projects leading to small annual allocations per project. Long delays in project completion are also symptomatic of the inefficient project management. An average Roads and Highways (RHD) project takes six years to complete. The time it takes to complete a project is far in excess of the international average of two years. The overall trend indicates that in addition to under-spending and low allocation of resources, the institutional capacity in implementing projects is very weak, and undue political influences play a role in misallocating resources and distorting priorities.7

Quality of Spending in Infrastructure Investment in infrastructure can be assessed by looking at the gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) in the economy. The GFCF measures the value of the purchase of new or existing fixed assets in the economy that includes the public and the private sectors. As such, the GFCF measures the gross net-investment in fixed capital within the domestic economy and includes the tangible assets such as residential and non-residential buildings, roads, bridges, airports, etc. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it is a reliable measure of the net-additions to the stock of fixed capital. The time series data on GFCF is also used to investigate trends in investment activity over time and when taken as a ratio to GDP, it gives a measure of the investment in modern infrastructure and technology. 7

The World Bank (2010), Bangladesh Public Expenditure and Institutional Review

Gross fixed capital formation has increased consistently in Bangladesh over the period 20002011 and latest data suggest that it is around US$ 24 billion. The period saw a doubling of the GFCF from US$ 10.8 billion.8 This indicates that investment activity with respect to fixed assets and acquisition of tangible assets has been significant – the decade prior to this also exhibited a similar trend. The scale of this increased investment activity is aptly illustrated by the comparison with neighbour Pakistan. Up until the year 2000, the GFCF of Pakistan was greater than Bangladesh’s at US$ 11.7 billion, but Bangladesh has overtaken Pakistan – Pakistan has a GFCF of US$ 16 billion now. The investment rate – as measured by the ratio of GFCF to GDP – for Bangladesh has exhibited an increasing trend over the period 2000-2011, reaching around 28 per cent. This means that around 28 per cent of the total factor-income has been reinvested in new fixed assets and indicates that longer-term investments in fixed assets have been consistent. To some extent, it would appear that infrastructure deficit have been closed over time. However when compared to its neighbours India and Sri Lanka, investment rates have been low in Bangladesh. From comparable levels of investment rates in 2000 (23 per cent in India and 28 per cent in Sri Lanka), the rates in these two countries have increased to 31.6 per cent and 42 per cent respectively. Bangladesh’s investment rate should be in line with the SFYP targets of 32 per cent by FY 2015, but an increasing public investment has to be the main driver. Public investment to that end has fallen when compared to the private sector investment in Bangladesh. A greater public investment is expected to be a catalyst for more investment in infrastructure and a significant proportion of investment can also be achieved through PPPs. Although there is an assumption that scarce capital might be freed up for efficient use by the private sector once the public sector “retreats” (a reversal of the “crowding-out” effect), this argument might be debatable. Fiscal retrenchment by the Euro-zone governments in the aftermath of the global financial crisis did not lead to the anticipated burst of private-sector activity. The economy was depressed and the private sector did not find the economic environment conducive for taking on large capital projects. However, the Bangladesh government has to ensure that the private sector is not starved for capital, but neither should it curtail its own investment drastically to make room for the private sector to move in. The gap between investment and savings has gone up in recent times. That poses some problems for financing large-scale investment activities. While gross domestic investment as a proportion of GDP has increased from 23 per cent in 2001 to about 25 per cent in 2011, gross savings have not increased at the same rate – in the 10 year period from 2001 to 2011 it has increased by about one percentage point to 19.4 per cent. This has resulted in the savings gap to increase to six percentage points, whereas it had previously hovered around the four per cent mark (Figure 2). Gross domestic investment has consistently exceeded domestic savings and the disparity between them indicates that investment financing is not quite channelled from national savings. 8

WDI and IMF WEO

As such, gross domestic savings in Bangladesh has been inadequate to finance investment activities. Another gap lies in the foreign exchange market, where earnings of foreign exchange are much less than the demand for foreign exchange. If the objective is to direct a part of the savings pool by contractual means through investors wanting to finance infrastructure projects, then the data suggests that savings in Bangladesh are quite low for these to be considered a feasible source of finance – the domestic savings pool is very modest for galvanising infrastructure funds. Domestic finance is needed in addition to external financing such as foreign aid, grants and commercial borrowing by government to address this investment gap in infrastructure.

Savings Gap(percentage of GDP)

Figure 2: Domestic Savings Gap (FY 2001-FY 2012) 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 FY01 FY02 FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 FY09 FY 10 FY11 FY12 (R) (P)

Source: Bangladesh Bank Quarterly April-June 2012, Volume IX No.4

The tax system despite recent reforms is still underdeveloped, and expenditure management in SoEs is still wasteful. Mobilisation of revenues is one of the lowest in the world and old policies and rigid administrative practices mean that the tax planners have been very slow to bring in new income-generating activities within the tax net. Such weaknesses also mean that a significant portion leaks away along with tax evasion.9 All these result in Bangladesh having the lowest taxrevenue-to-GDP ratios in South Asia (Figure 3) – tax revenues have exhibited a very slow upward trend over the period 2004-2009. Compared to the world average of 13.5 per cent, Bangladesh can collect tax revenues amounting to only 8.6 per cent of GDP. This is also important for financing purposes – as of FY 2010, tax revenues still comprise around 83 per cent of the total government revenues, with the remainder being accounted by non-tax revenues.10 9

The World Bank (2010), Bangladesh Public Expenditure and Institutional Review National Board of Revenue

The inadequacy of tax receipts despite these being the major source of revenue posits some problems for financing. This has implications for allocating spending towards infrastructure from a limited revenue pool.

Figure 3: Tax Revenues 18

Tax Revenues (% of GDP)

16 14 12 Bangladesh

India

Pakistan

SriÂ Lanka

World

2 0 2004

2005

2006 2007 Years

2008

2009

Source: WDI 2012

III. Sources of Infrastructure Finance The nature of infrastructure spending is such that it involves the commitment of a relatively large amount of capital. While every infrastructure project is unique with respect to providing a certain type of service or dealing with various actors and customers, the means of financing general infrastructure will be discussed. The need for targeted investment in infrastructure, coupled with a few secure and stable sources of financing, is a pressing issue for Bangladesh. While other countries and the private sector have initiated a few innovative and successful financing strategies, a similar path should be pursued by Bangladesh government in the immediate future. Although the private sector has become a sizeable source of financing globally, experience from the 1990s shows that it cannot be the sole alternative to the public sector. The public sector still remains essential to the provision of infrastructure services â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in this regard it can act as the facilitator or the actual provider of services.

The Power Sector Master Plan (PSMP) of 2010, although designed specifically with the gas sector in mind, aptly depicts the investments required in Bangladesh. The Plan recognises the fact that investment, at least in the energy sector, is beyond the capacity of the public sector and requires other sources of financing to fill the gap. Besides garnering other sources, the energy sector needs to set a tariff structure to cover maintenance costs and future investments. Given the limitations imposed by the institutions and the financial structure of Bangladesh, the actual amount that may be raised, along with the efficacy through which the investment may be channelled, is debatable. However there are some untapped sources that should be explored. Traditional channels such as foreign direct investment and public-private partnerships are the obvious sources of financing, and they have enjoyed varying degrees of success in Bangladesh and abroad. An equal emphasis should be placed on galvanising domestic sources, whether it is through the capital and bond market, utilising tax revenues, mobilising pension and insurance funds, etc. The finances garnered can then be channelled through PPPs, which should be the most effective avenue for infrastructure funding. Similar to the Investment Promotion and Financing Facility (IPFF) scheme of the central bank, projects can be selected by the public sector and then implemented by the private sector, selected by a competitive bidding process.

Foreign Exchange Reserves Bangladeshâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s foreign exchange reserves could be a potential source of funding. Countries in the Asia-Pacific have considered using the huge pool of reserves in the region, which amounts to about US$ 5 trillion. An ESCAP study suggested that spending in infrastructure for the region could be supplemented by utilising at least five per cent of the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reserves. Bangladeshâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s foreign reserves have been consistently increasing over time and are estimated to be worth around US$ 13 billion. A portion of the reserves, to the tune of one per cent or even two per cent, results in a sum of US$ 130 million to US$ 260 million, which is sufficient to fund small-scale to medium-scale annual projects. This significant pool of savings is sufficient to finance infrastructure development, provided the exact mechanisms to direct such savings can be developed. Furthermore, this amount corresponds with what multilateral funding can cover as well. The large development finance institutions have been estimated to focus their funding on large-scale projects that can exceed US$ 30 million. The typical size of infrastructure projects for the IFC and ADB ranges between US$ 1 million and US$ 100 million.11 In this case, financing from a portion of the reserves to the tune of US$ 100 million essentially means that domestic financing is very feasible and may even exceed multilateral financing in some cases. Such small and medium-scale projects may include the financing of distributed power-generating plants and any major highway project.

World Bank, IFC, AfDB, ADB, EBRD, IADB, Annual Reports for 2010.

For Bangladesh, which consistently runs balance of payments deficits, it is critical to have a stable reserve for import purposes and currency stabilisation. Furthermore the foreign reserves are not significant enough to warrant self-financing of infrastructure. Foreign exchange reserves cannot be directly invested in infrastructure by the central bank – such quasi-fiscal operations are not possible to be conducted. One of the possibilities is to tune the role of the central bank. Its functions can be that of a central bank as well as an infrastructure-financing bank. The central bank has taken some steps in this regard. It has already initiated a project named Investment Promotion and Financing Facility (IPFF) whose role is to finance private infrastructure projects based on PPP. The IPFF is a mostly IDA-funded project and whose funds from this facility are disbursed to various financial institutions and banks for financing the PPP projects. The facility funds projects in the power sector, and the second phase of the project has been expanded to have a portfolio of around US$ 318 million as the on-lending component up to 2015. While this facility can provide long-term loans for private infrastructure projects like power generation, port development, waste management, water supply and distribution, highways and expressways etc., the IPFF has so far funded projects in the power sector only. The portfolio is not sizeable enough to finance projects in the other sectors. The total amount disbursed as of 2012 is not significant – US$ 60 million to seven small power plants generating only 78 MW and to one water treatment plant in Chittagong.12 The budget for the IPFF has to be scaled up in order to fund more significant capital projects that involve establishing medium-sized power plants generating significant power; and then IPFF can possibly branch into other sectors such as roads and highways, port development, industrial estates and land development among others. The operations and processes of IPFF should be developed further to disburse more funds.

Bond Market Bangladesh’s bond market is the smallest in South Asia, accounting for only 12 per cent of the country’s GDP. Government bonds dominate this market in Bangladesh while there are a couple of corporate sector bonds. Only the primary market is sufficiently developed – government bonds are being auctioned off by the central bank of the country, the Bangladesh Bank, to the primary dealers consisting of banks and financial institutions like leasing companies. The secondary market has not been developed yet, although steps are being considered to establish it. Currently, only the government can float bonds to finance the various infrastructure projects – the potential of the secondary market is still largely untapped. The market is dominated by the fixed income debt instruments, among which, the savings of small investors are mobilised through the National Savings Certificate. The interest offered on this saving certificate is higher than that on other bonds in the market, but the amount raised is far-too low.

Investment Promotion and Financing Facility (IPFF), Bangladesh Bank.

Along with the primary market, the secondary market can greatly augment the amount of funding that can be available for infrastructure financing. Over-reliance on government funding for infrastructure has meant that the private bond market markets have not been developed well. If the secondary bond market is developed, it may not be lucrative for investors to invest immediately due to the uncertain economic condition of Bangladesh. The current volatility of the stock market makes it a somewhat expensive financing mechanism for domestic borrowers. To facilitate large-scale infrastructure financing, a strong regulatory role by the central bank and the Securities and Exchange Commission is required through which funds can be directed into the capital market. Future cash flows can result from infrastructure bonds issued in the capital market. Initial public offerings (IPO) by private companies can also help mobilise funds for infrastructure. Moreover, there is need to introduce corporate bonds in the market and further deepen the corporate bond market over time. It is possible to issue bonds to international investors, but the return has to be high to encourage investors to invest. The Sri Lankan bond market has been successful in this regard, and Bangladesh will have to offer competitive rates to entice international investors.13 However, domestic investors, let alone international investors, are unable to invest in corporate bonds due to the restrictive guidelines set out or the lack of professional fund management. The major institutional investor owned by the government, Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (ICB) is the one dealing with mutual funds – there are no private mutual funds that can mobilise savings. The monopoly position of the ICB has prevented new investor companies from entering the market, and, as such, mutual funds have not developed in Bangladesh. Furthermore, it is difficult to develop any depth in the market – there are not enough players with significant demand. Overall, the secondary bond market should be more stable and worthwhile in the long-run, by which time there should be ample scope of funds for investment in infrastructure.14

Land-based Financing Land-based financing opens up some possibilities to finance infrastructure. Cities such as Shenzhen and Shanghai have permitted sale of the usage rights in regard to state-owned lands through auction or tendering. As such, developers take over such lands and construct office buildings and housing – with local amenities such as roads, water and electricity services being developed by the public sector or private contractors. Around 40 per cent of the income generated in China by the sale of usage rights was initially channelled to the central government, and the city governments kept the remainder. The 1994 fiscal reforms then led to the entire landleasing revenues to be allocated to municipal governments.15 This mechanism, heavily influenced by the Hong Kong land-leasing model, arose from the de facto decentralisation of China’s fiscal system in the late-1980s and early-1990s. Land-leasing was tied to infrastructure 13

Central bank officials. Central bank and commercial bank officials. 15 Peterson (2006). 14

investment from the onset and therefore provided a significant source of income. The revenues were then invested mostly in infrastructure systems which enhanced the cities’ potential for economic growth. This mode of financing is especially relevant for Bangladesh since the value of land is already very high – the potential for revenue mobilisation is immense. The government can lease huge parcels of land to commercial developers to construct houses, office buildings and the like – such projects can be deemed as being “self-financing” in a way. If the government adopts this mechanism widely, this will not only increase revenues for the state and subsequent infrastructure financing, this is also expected to lead to multiplier effects in the form of largescale development of roads and other public utility services in the vicinity. The effects of implementing such land-usage rights are therefore multifaceted. It is debatable whether Bangladesh can adopt China’s mechanism of municipalities being allowed to lease lands and grant usage rights, which in effect will enable them to gain control over a revenue source. This falls under the purview of whether the central government will allow some devolution of power to be granted to the city and municipal authorities in the future. If municipal governments are allowed to finance infrastructure investment through asset sales, more specifically, land sales, they will not have to rely on central government for revenues. The central government in Bangladesh has control over the tax policies and as such municipalities cannot change tax rates, introduce new taxes or even abolish inefficient local taxes. Increases in urban land values can be captured, and the sale of land or land rights can generate revenues quickly; this is a viable proposition than administering betterment taxes or property taxation. Furthermore, sale of locally-owned land can sustain infrastructure finance for a longer period of time and, therefore, is a very valuable asset on the municipal books. The municipality should earmark a specified amount of land-leasing proceeds for infrastructure investment so that land-leasing revenues are directly tied to municipal spending in infrastructure. The infrastructure investments that are financed in this case could be very basic in nature, consisting of minor upgrades to water distribution, road surfacing, and electric lines maintenance, among others. The federal landleasing proclamation in Ethiopia has a similar policy, where a municipality shall allocate 90 per cent of land-leasing revenues for infrastructure spending.16 This concept of urban-land self-financing mechanism is also possible if the government initiates a start-up on a small scale. This linkage between land-leasing, investment and debt is illustrated by a highway project in the Hunan Province in China. To fund the project, the municipality transferred leasing rights to a public-private development corporation, which undertook the construction of the highway. Half of the amount to build the highway was financed directly from the sale of leasing rights to the land with infrastructure already in place, while the other half was financed through borrowing. To that end, the agency was able to borrow against the future predicted value of the improved land and thus raise money from commercial banks. The agency 16

Ibid

was then able to meet the debt servicing obligations by selling off the parcels of land, whose value had been enhanced after the highway was completed. A similar scheme can be undertaken in Bangladesh as well. Neighbouring India is on its way to institute a similar scheme, known as the land parcels scheme. The “development model” consists of the government providing “trunk infrastructure” such as utility services and feeder roads linking to highways. With such infrastructure in place, the private sector can be induced to develop business units in such areas and stimulate commercial activities.17 The “corridor” where rapid urbanisation is taking place in Bangladesh provides ample opportunities for this to be implemented.18 Towns such as Bogra, Rangpur, Gazipur and Tangail are becoming more urbanised leading to business activities becoming more and more concentrated in those areas. The government can lease out lands to businesses and commercial developers, while feeder roads leading to the highways and various utility services are provided for the enterprises. The available land is therefore leveraged for funding infrastructure services; and, with more and more successful projects, increasing funds can be channelled towards creating a revolving infrastructure fund. In addition to the proceeds from land-leasing sales, borrowing from state-owned commercial and development banks against the anticipated future value of the land can finance the remaining urban infrastructure investment. An important precondition should be to formalise informal payments and receipts made to the government from such sales. These sums have to become publicly accountable. When government land is leased or sold commercially, the relevant government officials keep a significant portion of the fees as bribes, while a minor component accrues to the government authority.19 This mechanism deprives the government of major revenues and therefore these informal payments have to be brought within the formal net of government fees. In sum, in line with the Chinese land-leasing strategy to kick-start infrastructure investment particularly in urban areas, such monetisation of land that is generating little or no economic return at the moment could play a major role in infrastructure finance in Bangladesh.

Pension Funds An important potential source of long-term financing for infrastructure is pension plans. Such pension plans have experienced tremendous growth in many developing countries in recent years. Given the demographic composition of most of these developing countries where there are a sizeable number of young people, the assets held by such funds are accumulating rapidly. One of the advantages of using pension funds for infrastructure investment is that the payments from these funds are spread over a long term and are stable – this makes it easier to invest in long-term assets such as infrastructure which can provide constant long-term returns. Life insurance 17

Perspective Plan for DMIC Region, DMICDC, 2009. Dr. Hossain Zillur Rahman suggested the concept of small “start-ups”. 19 Dr. Fouzul Kabir Khan, Professor, North South University, Dhaka. 18

policies can be an appropriate source of funds for long-term investments. However there are some pitfalls in using pension funds in Bangladesh. Firstly, there are no universal pension schemes; only government officials get pensions. As such the pool of pensions in Bangladesh is very limited for such a large-scale use. Secondly, like most countries, the government regulates pension-fund investments and as such can limit the amount and the ability to invest in infrastructure projects directly. There are some legal restrictions on the use of pension funds by the government and autonomous agencies for investment. Regulations could be framed to enable the government to use these funds. Finally, Bangladesh does not possess the expertise and means to channel investments from pension funds into the various infrastructure projects. The mobilising of pension funds will be quite difficult given these circumstances. If proper mechanisms and regulations are instituted along with a significant and universal pension scheme, then using pension funds could become a viable option in the near future.

Privatisation While privatisation of the various utility companies may be a radical solution to easing the infrastructure bottlenecks and solving the financing deficit, it is a viable option in the mediumand long-run. While no direct financing is involved in privatisation, the nature of private enterprises seeking to avoid losses means that wasteful expenditure is avoided and there is a stream of revenue. If there are private electric companies in Bangladesh for instance, the electric power distribution network can be divided and segmented to enable an easier operation. Each network can then be sold off or leased out to a different private electric company to prevent monopoly and promote competition. Another option could be to install many small power stations that are privatised, instead of building large stations that run into operational inefficiencies. This system would consist of â&#x20AC;&#x153;distributed power generationâ&#x20AC;? and is suitable for gas-fired power stations. These small stations can occupy small parcels of land and can raise capital to install several 10 MW to 50 MW power stations. This power-sector privatisation could work because of the profit motive that private enterprises possess. Any power outage would entail a loss of revenue, lower profits and hence financial loss for the companies. Therefore, investors and managers of private electrical companies would actively prevent any such power interruptions to safeguard their financial investments and incomes generated from the sale of electricity. A sense of urgency and purpose will enable them to immediately fix faults in the machines and electrical network to restore electricity supply.

IV. Conclusion and Policy Implications While it is possible to draw upon the various financing sources in Bangladesh, the reality might be different. The political will of the government, along with the vested interests will dictate how feasible the avenues for self-financing are. The land-based financing option seems viable at the current time, followed by the bond market as a source. This is not to suggest that mobilising pension funds, using foreign reserves to create a non-commodity sovereign wealth fund, and privatising are not practical at all â&#x20AC;&#x201C; they might become more workable in the long run as the Bangladesh economy strengthens and attains middle-income country status. The economy has to achieve greater financial integration and penetration, marshal greater sources of revenue and develop strong institutions safeguarding property rights. More broadly, ineffective governance and corruption will have to be addressed. The governance framework has to be transparent and efficient for infrastructure projects to be taken on. There is greater need to strengthen supervisory capacity in the various ministries looking after infrastructure; improve the ability of infrastructure regulators, competition agencies; to improve the systems of procuring capital goods; and to strengthen the auditing bodies that can supervise the proper allocation and use of public funds. A sound macroeconomic and legal framework has to be established so that the country-risk is reduced for private companies. While this paper has focused solely on harnessing domestic sources of infrastructure finance, it does not mean that multilateral financing should be disregarded. To that end, domestic financing will complement multilateral funding and will rely heavily on the technical expertise that multilateral organisations offer. The international multilateral agencies, along with the bilateral agencies, can and do offer funds on favourable terms. Increased foreign direct investment, as well as foreign portfolio investment, is also required to plug the savings-investment gap in Bangladesh. There is also greater need to scale up infrastructure on the social side as well â&#x20AC;&#x201C; focusing solely on physical infrastructure will not drive the Bangladesh economy forward. While social infrastructure includes schools, hospitals, judiciary and police, small-scale social infrastructure such as health centres, clinics and community schools will also be necessary to enable key services to be accessible to rural communities.

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ISAS Working Paper No. 170 – 26 March 2013 469A Bukit Timah Road #07-01, Tower Block, Singapore 259770 Tel: 6516 6179 / 6516 4239 Fax: 6776 7505 / 6314 5447 Email: isassec@nus.edu.sg Website: www.isas.nus.edu.sg

Conflicts in South Asia: Causes, Consequences, Prospects S D Muni1

Studying conflicts is a big intellectual enterprise. More than 60 per cent of the top 100 thinktanks listed in the University Pennsylvania survey in 2012 study conflicts and issues related to conflicts. These conflict studies concentrate mostly on inert-state wars and intra-state armed conflicts.2 The conflicts generated by great power interventions or the imperatives of global order receive only occasional or incidental attention. This area of conflict studies would perhaps gain in salience as the phenomenon of “Arab Spring” spreads to other regions, and as interventions invoking “Responsibility to Protect” within the United Nations framework are more frequently taken resort to as was evident in Libya or could be tried in Syria. For yet another reason, the role of “global political conditions” needs to be factored in seriously in the study of conflicts. Making this point, Spain‟s former Foreign Minister and the former Secretary General 1

Professor Sukh Deo Muni is Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He can be contacted at isassdm@nus.edu.sg and sdmuni@gmail.com. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of ISAS. The paper was presented at an international seminar in New Delhi on 27 February 2013. The theme of the seminar – organised by the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University – was „Conflicts in South Asia: EU‟s Role in Conflict Resolution‟. Uppsala University in Sweden has been compiling and putting out data on internal and inter-state conflicts on annual basis since 1988 as part of the Uppsala Conflict Data Program. Annual data is published as “States in Armed Conflict”, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden. IISS London also maintains an Armed Conflicts database (ACD). This is updated annually and contains information on more than 70 conflicts around the world.

of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Javier Solana and the President of Eurasia Group Ian Bremmer jointly commented (21 January 2013): In today‟s world, identifying and managing hotspots is not simply a matter of pulling out a map, spotting the wildfires and empowering diplomats to douse the flames. To understand today‟s major conflicts and confrontations, we must recognize important ways in which global political conditions enable them. Conflicts are much more likely to arise or persist when those with the means to prevent or end them cannot and will not do so.3 One may even go further than this and say that conflicts will persist until the major powers of the world and the global power system that they create, perpetuate and manage, do not stop precipitating or fuelling them for their strategic and other interests. In conflict studies, the questions of resource conflicts and human security concerns, neglected until the end of the last millennium are gradually being taken up on board but the effort and resources allocated to them are not adequate as yet. South Asia has earned a status of its own as an important area of focus in conflict studies; and why not? After all, it is a region which has witnessed five full-scale inter-state conflicts, where adversaries are nuclear-armed and Asia‟s major powers, some of its states have earned the distinction of becoming a part of the hub of global terrorism and where no country has been free from insurgencies and separatist movements. The Armed Conflict Database (ACD) produced by the IISS (London) has been identifying nine South Asian internal and international conflicts. A large number of South Asian think-tanks, including those funded by governments as also those affiliated to established universities, are involved in conflict studies, with one of them based in New Delhi, the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS), running an annual conference on the study of “Armed Conflicts in South Asia” for the past six years. 4 The Pak Institute for Peace Studies has also been computing information on conflicts in South Asia on a periodic basis.5In this paper, we propose to identify the conflict types in South Asia and discuss their causes and consequences.

Javier Solana and Ian Bremmer, “A New Year of Global Conflict”, Project IIIV Syndicate, http://www.project.syndicate.org/print/a.new.year.of.global.conflict.by.javier. (Accessed on 28 January 2013) See the IPCS report of the “Armed Conflicts in South Asia 2012” for the Sixth Annual Conference. The Conference was addressed by India‟s National Security Advisor, Shivshankar Menon. See for instance Khurram Iqbal and Safdar Sial, “Armed Conflicts in South Asia: Overview and New Dimensions”, dated: 07-06-2007, Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies. In this report only Maldives was reported as the South Asian country free from any internal or external conflicts.

Conflict Types Conflicts in South Asia, or for that matter in most of the other parts of the world, can be broadly put in four categories, namely (i) those imposed and escalated by the global political, strategic and developmental dynamics, including the role of great powers; (ii) those inherited and strategically induced in inter-state engagements; (iii) those precipitated and nurtured by the internal political turbulence, socio-cultural fault-lines and developmental distortions; and (iv) those that are caused and covered by the non-state actors. The first category includes conflicts inflicted by the forces and factors from outside the region. For example, conflict generated in or between the South Asian countries as a result of the United Statesâ&#x20AC;&#x; post 9/11 intervention in Afghanistan to wage a â&#x20AC;&#x153;global war on terrorismâ&#x20AC;?, the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in 1979-80 and the US-led resistance to this intervention during 1980-89, both propelled by the exigencies of the Cold War, will come under the first category. The Chinese war on India in 1962 was also a war inflicted on a South Asian country from outside the region. The Cold War had also impinged on South Asia to deepen and sharpen various regional divides and complicate internal and inter-state conflicts. A typical example is the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. While the strategic imperatives of the world order dynamics have directly contributed to South Asian conflicts, the global developmental and ideological issues have done so indirectly and gradually by stimulating and reinforcing many internal conflicts. Globalisation as a process, for instance, has, besides its many positive and creative dimensions, negative fallout as well; and that has added to South Asian woes and worries.6 In the second category, India-Pakistan conflicts would assume an important place. In the third category would fall all the insurgencies and ethnic/sectarian conflicts in South Asia and the fourth category would cover the activities of the terrorist groups, like the attacks on Mumbai in India in 2008, or the operations of the insurgent and criminal groups across the borders in South Asia. The conflicts included in these categories could both be armed and violent as well as those that manifest diplomatic tensions, strong disagreements and non-violent popular protests. Both armed and unarmed conflicts have a tendency to feed into each other and get transformed into each other. The science and art of conflict management also focuses on transforming violent conflicts into non-violent conflicts and preventing the non-violent conflicts from assuming violent dimensions. Non-violent inter-state conflicts in South Asia have been triggered by territorial disputes, disagreements on access to or sharing of resources of the region like water, energy fisheries as also by disputes and disagreements on issues related to trade, transit and investments, migration of people across the borders etc. The fourth category of conflicts, related to the operations of non-state actors, is being drawn attention to in recent years, particularly after the 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks on the US and the 6

For a discussion of the negative aspects of globalisation, including on South Asia, see, George Heine & Ramesh Thakur (Ed.), The Dark Side of Globalization, United Nations University Press, Tokyo, New York, Paris, 2011.

proliferation of terrorist groups that operate across international borders with or without support from any established state. Underlining the importance of non-state actors in conflict studies, India‟s National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon said in his address to the IPCS Conference in 2012: Today, there is a fundamental change in the nature of conflict, which is not just evolving from one stage to another, but is undergoing change as a result of shift in the character of a conflict. The age of global interdependence has ensured the decline in conflicts between states. Nevertheless, there is escalation in the conflicts involving non-state actors, particularly when the lines between state and non-state actors are considerably becoming vague…The cocktail of NGOs, social media and the like, as spotted in West Asia, induce kinetic and physical consequences ultimately culminating in regime changes. In addition, the technology has also empowered the non-state actors to pose an important challenge to the state. The obliteration of distinction between state and non-state actors along with the punctured boundaries of state sovereignty has created new situations demanding novel perspectives.7 The categories of conflicts identified above are analytical and therefore, the conflicts thus generated do not necessarily remain confined to any single category in their practical and reallife manifestations. More often it is the spill-over of one category of conflict into the other one that makes real-life conflicts complex and intricate for the states and the analysts to address. This was amply demonstrated in the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war that led to the emergence of a sovereign independent Bangladesh. This inter-state conflict was generated by the internal turbulence in Pakistan, by the military regime‟s authoritarian and ruthless way of dealing with the demands of the Bengalis of then East Pakistan. This has been admitted even in the Pakistan governmentappointed Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report.8 This is not to deny India‟s strategic interests in exploiting Pakistan‟s internal conflict, but such interests could not have come into play if there was no internal conflict in Pakistan and the spill-over of this conflict did not affect India adversely. There were 10 million refugees pushed from then East Pakistan into India as a result of Pakistan‟s military crackdown that resulted in genocide.9 The spill-over of this conflict and international community‟s indifference towards these consequences forced India to get involved. The regional inter-state conflict then sucked the US and China into it directly because of the imperatives of their respective strategic interests in South Asia in the context of the then prevailing Cold War and the US military alliance with Pakistan. 10 There are many more 7 8

Ibid. p.4. The text of this report can be downloaded from Bangla2000.com. http://www.bangla2000.com/Bangladesh/Independence-War/report-Hamoodur- Accessed on 8 March 2013. The number of refugees burdened on India was acknowledged by the UN high Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). For details see, Antara Data, Refugees and Borders in South Asia: The Great Exodus of 1971, Routledge, New York, 2013. Considerable literature is available on this conflict. For some representative studies see, Ayoob, Mohammad and K. Subrahmanyam, The Liberation War, S.Chand & Co. Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi 1972; Sisson, Richard and Leo e.

instances of internal conflicts spilling over into a neighbouring country to precipitate inter-state conflict in South Asia. The categories of conflicts in South Asia listed above also do not represent any chronological or hierarchical order. There is a general assumption globally, and for good reasons, that inter-state conflicts have increasingly given way to conflicts within the states.11 South Asia is no exception to this but the boundaries of conflicts should be seen as porous and not rigid in South Asia and elsewhere. Also the trends in conflict types are also not uni-linear. Howsoever remote it looks the possibility of another India-Pakistan war or even an open India-China conflict or India facing a two-front war situation exists in real.12 Some of the most intractable and protracted internal conflicts in South Asia like the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka and the Maoist insurgency in Nepal have been brought to an end in rather unexpected ways. No one predicted either a total military annihilation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka at the hands of the Sri Lankan military in 2009 or the acceptance of a peaceful, democratic transformation by the Nepal Maoists through their joining hands with the mainstream political parties, facilitated by the quiet and informal good offices of India and the international community in 2006.13 However bringing an end to a conflict does not mean that it has been resolved and its root causes have been fully addressed and eliminated. In Sri Lanka, even after the end of the war, political resolution of the ethnic issue is awaited and the promise of building a New Nepal, that brought the Maoists into the mainstream of national politics remains to be fulfilled and institutionalised though monarchy has been removed and a republican political order has been established.

The Causes Two major roots of South Asian conflicts have been their colonial legacies and turbulent processes of post-independence nation- and state-building. Three sets of colonial legacies having considerable conflict potential were; (i) the creation of unnatural and absurd state systems, (ii) unresolved boundaries of these states and (iii) undefined status of a diversity of its ethnic and religious minorities and social groups. The end of colonial rule in South Asia came as a result,

Rose, War and Secession: Pakistan, India and the Creation of Bangladesh, University of California Press, Berkeley 1990; Matinuddin, General Kamal, Tragedy of Errors: East Pakistan Crisis, 1968-1971, Wajidalis, Lahore, 1994. IDEA, Democracy, Conflict and Human Security: Pursuing Peace in 21 st Century, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Stockholm, 2006. Also see the Uppsala University annual reports on States in Armed Conflicts. India‟s Army Chief Gen. Deepak Kapoor told a closed door army seminar in December 2009 that India was revising its war strategy to prepare for a two-front war with Pakistan and China. Times of India, December 31, 2009; also see Nirupama Subramanian, “General Kapoor‟s remarks betray hostile intent, says Pakistan”, The Hindu, January 3, 2010. For some idea of India‟s role in ending Maoist insurgency in Nepal, see, S.D. Muni, “Bringing the Maoists down from the Hills‟ in Sebastian von Einsiedel, David Malone and Suman Pradhan, Nepal in Transition: from People‟s War to Fragile Peace, Cambridge University Press, New York 2012, pp.313-331.

not of any war of independence but a peaceful struggle waged by India. The success of this struggle ensured decolonisation of other South Asian countries like Myanmar (then Burma) and Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) as well. However, partition of India created an unnatural and absurd state of Pakistan as a two-piece entity, in east and west, separated by a huge chunk of Indian territory. This absurdity was rectified only 23 years after partition and as a result of a fierce regional conflict, when Bangladesh emerged as a separate sovereign, independent nation. The colonial rulers‟ communal rationale of partition, though endorsed for short-sighted political gains by the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League, had a strong strategic under-current to create a strong but pliant state of the Muslims of the subcontinent that could be rallied against the oil-rich Muslim states of the region and resist the suspected Soviet march southward. The traditional British colonial interests converged here with the emerging US interests that shaped the contours of the Cold War in strategically dividing the whole world. The communal basis of the state of Pakistan however, kept Pakistan internally uncertain of its national identity and created a potentially volatile and almost perennial cause of communal conflict not only between India and Pakistan but also within India and Pakistan. The absurdity of the methods used for transfer of power was also inherent in the application of the principle of paramountcy. This principle not only made the task of building and consolidating new states in India and Pakistan difficult and conflict-prone but contributed to the persisting source of tensions and war between them, such as on Kashmir question.14 Colonial mind set to keep India and Pakistan divided was evident in many other forms as well. Recall India‟s first Governor General Mountbatten‟s insistence on accession and „plebiscite‟ at the same time. Accession as a condition to India‟s defence of Kashmir against Pakistan‟s tribal invasion denied Pakistan to covet Kashmir by military means, and the „plebiscite‟ rider in turn made „the accession‟ to India incomplete, fragile and disputed. The colonial legacy of unresolved borders also continues to keep South Asian relations conflictprone. Two of the longest imperial boundaries of British India left unsettled were with Afghanistan (Durand Line) and China (McMahon Line). While the former is a major contentious issue between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the latter resulted in a war between India and China in 1962 and continues to be vulnerable to another Sino-Indian conflict. Tensions have also cropped up between China and Bhutan due to the unsettled McMahon line between British India and Tibet. Radcliff‟s partition line between India and (East) Pakistan still remains to be settled as boundary between India and Bangladesh. The two countries signed a boundary agreement in 1974 and again in September 2011 and the complicated question of enclaves of one country in the territory of another was resolved. However, both these agreements remain to be ratified by the Indian parliament owing to internal political pressures. The unfinished business of firming up the Radcliff line also keeps the India-Pakistan border fragile and sensitive in the Sir-creek area. It 14

The details of British withdrawal and India‟s partition have been studied from different perspectives. For a somewhat dispassionate account see, Stanley Wolpert, Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India, Oxford University Press, 2006.

is also unfortunate that India and Pakistan left the task of drawing the Line Of Control (LOC) incomplete after the Shimla Agreement of 1972, resulting in the bilateral conflict in Siachen glacier region. Disputes on defining borders have also haunted India in its relations with Sri Lanka and Nepal. India-Sri Lanka border now is settled peacefully following their bilateral agreement on Kachchativu Island (1974) and settlement of maritime boundary in the Palk Strait (1976). In case of Nepal the boundary issue gets complicated by the changing course of common rivers with India. We mentioned earlier about the conflicts of South Asia resulting from sources located outside the region, in the global political and strategic order. The more-than-a-decade-long “war on global terrorism” that has engulfed two of the major South Asian countries Afghanistan and Pakistan directly and the third major country India indirectly resulted from the US attack and intervention in Afghanistan in 2001. The US attack on Al Qaeda in Afghanistan can in many legitimate ways be explained as retaliation against Al Qaeda‟s 9/11 aggression and its acts of unprecedented terrorism on the US. However, there was something more in 9/11 attacks than just an act of terrorism. To say that terrorism was a collateral damage may amount to stretching the argument a bit too far, but one must objectively assess that the three attacks on the White House (an apparent target, by all accounts), the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were carefully planned against the US political, military and economic power. The targets were not American people but the icons of American power and dominance which Al Qaeda has been resenting and preparing to challenge. 9/11 in another way was therefore an attack on the uni-polar global political order as it existed after the end of the Cold War. The US and NATO forces have set their programme to withdraw from Afghanistan by July 2014. However, the nature of end-game in Afghanistan and its consequences for conflict in South Asia remains to be seen, and they promise to be hugely challenging to South Asia‟s peace, stability and long-term security. This is however not for the first time that an extra-regional power‟s intervention or an imperative of the global political dynamics has resulted in conflict in South Asia. The then Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979 was an even worse example of an extra-regional intervention in South Asia which also involved Pakistan in the ensuing conflict. The strong impulse of Cold War between the then prevailing superpowers was clearly the driving force behind this intervention. While the Soviet Union explained its intervention as a reaction to the US covert operations in Afghanistan, considered the soft under-belly of its Central Asian region, the US viewed the Soviet military push as an attempt to access the warm waters of the Indian Ocean through Pakistan. The US therefore put in all its efforts, in collaboration with countries like Pakistan, to roll back the Soviet military intervention. China had joined the US in this resistance to the then Soviet Union, as the Cold War had taken a new dimension, splitting China from its ideological alliance with the Soviet Union and bringing it closer to the US to help settle its differences with its former communist ally.

Yet another example of a war inflicted on a South Asian country from outside the region was the Sino-Indian conflict of 1962. This war has generally been presented in the history text books as a border war precipitated by territorial dispute between Asia‟s giant neighbours. So was it in many respects. But if China initiated this war only in pursuance of its territorial claims and to settle the issue with India, then why did it withdraw almost completely and unilaterally even from the areas that it continues to lay claims on, like Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh and parts of Sikkim. China of course, continues to keep the disputed Aksai China region in the western sector of the Himalayan border under its occupation since 1958, much before the war of 1962. The decision to launch the attack on India was surreptitiously taken by Chairman Mao Tse Tung, in consultation with a coterie of close advisers around him and not through the legitimate organs of the Chinese State. What irritated Chairman Mao and the Chinese leadership most, more than India‟s refusal to accept the Chinese proposal of a package deal involving the swapping of territories claimed, was his feelings about China‟s isolation. India was seen to be enjoying support both from the US and the Soviet Union. If this support continued, India could emerge as the major Asian power which was unacceptable to China. The war of 1962 therefore humiliated India militarily in Asia and exposed the extent of poor support that the two superpowers could extent to India in its hour of need. China chose the right time to launch its attack when both the superpowers were trapped in the worst moment of their mutual rivalry, the nuclear standoff in Cuba. There are also reports that China had diplomatically ascertained that the US was not in a position to come to India‟s help if the latter got involved in any conflict. The above instances underline the important role that the then prevailing global strategic system, Cold War, played in imposing conflicts on South Asian countries. The Cold War had also widened and sharpened the India-Pakistan divide and made the Kashmir conflict intractable. Cultivating Pakistan as a bulwark of Muslim anti-communist resistance against the Soviet Union in the energy-rich Central and West Asian regions was an important objective of the US-led Western alliance system. For this, supporting Pakistan on the Kashmir question was a relatively small price that the US was more than willing to pay. US military establishments were also hopeful that Pakistan would be willing to spare troops for Asian operations of the Western alliance system if the Kashmir issue could be settled to its satisfaction. India‟s Prime Minister Nehru tried in vain to resolve Kashmir issue in cooperation with Pakistan before the latter could be inducted into the Western alliance system.15 During the early years of the Cold War, the US drive to keep China contained also resulted in complicating the Tibetan question as a result of the Dalai Lama‟s flight to India and the US waging of a covert anti-China war in Tibet through the Tibetan tribe of Khampas. These developments contributed to the breakdown of Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai phase in Sino-Indian relations and the deterioration in these relations on the border and Tibetan issues. While these issues remain unresolved, the turn in the great-power relations

See, S.D. Muni, Chapter 3, “South Asia”, in Mohammad Ayoob (Ed.), Conflict and Intervention in the Third World, Croom Helm, London, 1980, pp. 38-72. Man and Development articles.

from the Cold War to the emerging rivalry between China and the US following China‟s rise may have conflict-fuelling impact on Sino-Indian relations. The strategic aspects of the world order have directly contributed to the conflicts in South Asia, but its ideological and developmental aspects have created conditions that have encouraged, intensified and sustained conflicts in South Asian societies. Globalisation which has otherwise stirred up the global developmental processes and opened up several opportunities for the countries of South Asia, have also induced distortions by widening inequalities, creating and sustaining poverty, enhancing consumerism, encouraging crony capitalism and intensifying cultural alienation. These distortions in the development processes have generated conditions for conflict identified in World Bank Conflict Analysis Framework.16 Globalisation has unleashed three explosions in the developing world, namely of information, of identity and of aspirations. Political systems have not been able to cope with the imperatives of these explosions, in the face of severe governance and leadership deficits. A telling example of governance deficit can be seen in the failure of the South Asian regimes not only in leaving large social constituencies and marginalised sections ungoverned and un/under-developed but also in not rehabilitating large numbers of people uprooted as a result of mega developmental projects like high dams, mining and deforestation.17 Numerous examples of leadership failure in South Asia in the recent years are evident in the failure of institutionalising democratic gains in Nepal, Maldives and Pakistan, and thus the creation of potential for conflicts. In Sri Lanka, even three years after the defeat of the Tamil insurgency, the ruling regime has failed to find credible answers to the root causes of the ethnic conflict. Excessive preoccupation with personal and group (party) power has been a very important reason behind the leadership failures in such cases. Struggles for power and influence at various levels in the South Asian polities have sustained and vitiated raging conflicts. Recall the political use of Sikh extremist Bindrawale in Punjab during the 1970s by India‟s Indira Gandhi, hobnobbing of the Sri Lankan President Premadasa with the LTTE to humiliate the Indian Peace Keeping Force during the late-1980s and the patronising of the Maoist insurgency by King Birendra of Nepal during 1996-2001, as some of the typical examples in this respect. South Asia‟s domestic conflicts are also rooted in its turbulent and unfinished processes of stateand nation-building. Unsettled social equations and political hierarchies sharpen ethnic and sectarian conflicts. Identity and ownership of the state- and the nation-in-the-making bring diverse social groups at daggers drawn. Pakistan‟s unsettled national identity, accentuated by the dominance of Punjabis over the Sindhi, Baluchi and Pathan social groups, and Sri Lanka‟s decision in 1959 to carve itself out as a Sinhala-Buddhist State by ignoring the sensitivities of the minority groups of Tamils and Muslims have been at the root of serious internal conflicts in 16

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTCPR/214574-1112883508044/20657757/CAFApril2005.pdf> (Accessed on 31 January 31 2013) Displacement of marginalised populations and alienation of cultural (tribal) groups is considered one of the important reasons behind the rise of left-extremist insurgency in India.

these countries. In India, the past 60-plus years of democratic evolution had to confront numerous challenges of integrating the marginalised social groups; and now the surge of hitherto neglected and discriminated caste and tribal groups are putting huge pressure on the capacities of the state and its political processes. Unequal distribution of the fruits of development and the widening gap between aspirations and acquisitions of the social groups also fuel conflicts. In Nepal, the 10 years of Maoist insurgency from 1996 to 2006 was sustained by the marginalised tribal and regional groups who are now demanding equal and respectable status in „New Nepal‟ which has in turn paralysed the process of constitution-writing and institution-building. South Asia‟s unnatural and open borders along with its contiguous ethnic and social spread have easily allowed one country‟s internal conflicts to spill over into the other, leading to bilateral conflicts. Such spill-over(s) have been spurred by conscious decisions of one country to employ and exploit the internal conflicts of its neighbouring country in pursuance of its strategic, foreign or domestic policy interests. Most of the South Asian countries are guilty of exploiting the neighbour‟s predicament in this respect at one time or another. India‟s involvement in Sri Lanka‟s ethnic conflict and the emergence of Bangladesh, Pakistan‟s cross-border terrorism against India and Afghanistan,18 Nepal‟s resentment over the flow of Nepali refugees from Bhutan, are well known examples of internal conflicts turning into bilateral and regional conflicts in South Asia. Some of these transformed conflicts have also been resolved by a radical shift in the policies of the aggravating state towards the conflict-affected state and forging cooperation to deal with the spill-over. India‟s shift from helping the Tamil insurgency to fighting the LTTE in 1987 through the Indian Peace Keeping Force may be seen as a representative example of such radical policy shifts.19 There are signs of such shift since 2010 in Bangladesh‟s attitude towards India‟s northeast insurgent groups seeking support and shelter in its territory.20 It may not be out of place to mention here that India succeeded in enlisting credible cooperation from Bhutan (in 2003) and Myanmar (1995) in launching joint operations against insurgent groups operating in India‟s northeast region but seeking shelter and sanctuaries in these countries.

The Consequences The consequences of South Asia‟s conflicts are clearly evident in the structure of its states as well as in the societies that constitute these states. We noted earlier that conflicts were inherent 18

19 20

For a discussion of Pakistan‟s „State sponsored militancy and Pakistani Taliban‟, see a CSIS Report on “Religious Movements, Militancy, and Conflicts in South Asia: Cases from India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan”, July 2012, Centre For Strategic & International Studies, Washington DC, pp. 11-15; 18-19. S.D. Muni, Pangs of Proximity, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1993. See on this issue; Wasbir Hussain, “Insurgency in India‟s Northeast Cross-border Links and Strategic Alliances”, Frontline, Vol. 17, February 2006, pp. 105-125. S. Binod Kumar Singh, “India-Bangladesh relations: Continuous Consolidation”, South Asia Terrorism Portal, February 05, 2013.

in the way South Asian states were structured after the colonial rule, and these inherent conflicts also restructured the states of South Asia. Three examples stand out in this respect. One is the obvious question of Kashmir which has, at least temporarily, altered the boundaries of India and Pakistan. It is not possible to say at this stage as to what the eventual solution of the Kashmir problem would be. But it needs to be kept in mind that a large chunk (nearly 5000 sq. km.) of its occupied Kashmir in the Himalayas was ceded by Pakistan to China under its boundary agreement concluded in 1963. Though the agreement left room for renegotiating this boundary after the final resolution of Kashmir between India and Pakistan, one wonders if China would ever transfer the ceded territory if and when the whole of Kashmir (including the Pakistanoccupied) de facto becomes a part of India. Second was the already mentioned creation of Bangladesh in 1971 out of the absurdly structured territories of the state of Pakistan, as a result of a fierce conflict between India and Pakistan which involved the United States of America, China and the United Nations. The third example was that of Sikkim, a British protectorate in the Himalayas, inherited by India as a protectorate ruled by its feudal king; the Chogyal. As a result of internal conflict between Sikkim‟s majority Nepali community led by Lhendup Dorji and the Chogyal, Sikkim abandoned its feudal ruler, ended its protectorate status and became an integral part of the Indian Union in April 1975.21 The question of redefining and restructuring South Asia‟s state structures as a result of its conflicts remains relevant. The military elimination of the LTTE has closed the option of a separate Tamil Eelam, but if the ethnic question is not resolved politically and amicably, the reemergence of separatist Tamil tendencies in future cannot be ruled out. In India, the persisting conflicts in Northeast, especially of the Nagas, and Kashmir, have the viruses of separatism, though it may be hoped that India‟s resilient polity would not let these issues explode. In Nepal, if Terai is not integrated through a federal structure and socio-economic accommodation, it is feared by Nepalese that a separatist demand would gain momentum. There is however, no support for Terai separatism in India.22 Pakistan is also afflicted by the separatist sentiments in Baluchistan which is facing insurgency. Pakistan‟s frontier province facing Afghanistan continues to have strong separatist sentiments based on Pashtu identity. There is a serious debate among analysts and policy makers if Pakistan would be able to keep its unity and territorial integrity intact in the face of multiple internal conflicts and religious extremism.23 The uncertainty in Afghanistan particularly after the US and NATO withdrawal may result in a

For a critical assessment of India‟s role in Sikkim‟s integration see Sunanda K. Datta-Ray, Smash and Grab: Annexation of Sikkim, Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi 1984. See, Nishchal N. Pandey, “Nepal: Terai – Based Militancy and its Transnational Implications”, Peace and Security Review, Vol. 2, no.2, 2009, pp. 1-18, Bangladesh Institute of Peace and security Studies, Dhaka. Krishna Hari Puskar, “Seeds of Ethno-Civil War in Terai, http://www.nepalmonitor.com/2007/12/seeds_ofethno-civil_war_in_nepal_terai.h , (Accessed on 6 January 2013). See the reports on this theme prepared by important think-tanks like the Brookings Institute, The Future of Pakistan, edited by Stephen P. Cohen and others, 2011, Washington DC; and Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) Pakistan on the Edge, IDSA Pakistan Project Report, 2012, New Delhi.

violent redefining of the Afghan state and Pakistan-Afghanistan border, as seen by a number of analysts.24 In addition to creating new states and altering state boundaries, conflicts in South Asia have also changed regimes and political systems. Some of the representative examples may be flagged here. The 1971 India-Pakistan conflict that resulted in a humiliating defeat for Pakistan Army enabled the first popularly elected civilian regime headed by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to last for a full term of five years since the birth of Pakistan. The army again staged a comeback in 1977 after the elections, but that became possible due to the weakening of the civilian regime and resurgence of army due to conflict in Baluchistan. The Maoists insurgency in Nepal encouraged King Gyanendra in 2002 to thwart democratic governance and take power directly into his hands in 2005. However, the success of the Jan Andolan II (Peoples Uprising II) in April 2006, which resulted from the Maoists joining hands with the mainstream political parties, led finally (in 2008) to the abolition of monarchy and establishment of a republican democratic order. In Sri Lanka ethnic conflict was a driving force behind the 1982 Constitution that established the presidential system. Distortions in this system, resulting from the abuse of powers vested constitutionally in the executive presidency, have initiated debate in Sri Lanka if this is the best system and whether the time to review and revise it is already ripe. Even when systems and regimes have not been changed substantially, conflicts have induced incremental changes in the institutions of governance, especially those dealing with law and order, judiciary and development of the social sectors. Strengthening of the institutions of national security, including military, police and intelligence agencies has been a common feature in most of the South Asian countries. Some of the states like Pakistan, and to some extent Sri Lanka, increasingly display the characteristics of being national security states. Conflicts have also brought violence to South Asian societies in a big way. Many of the prominent South Asian leaders like Mrs Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi of India, President Premadasa and prominent ministers like Lalith Athulathmudali, Gamini Dissanayake, Ranjan Wijeratne and Lakshman Kadirgamar of Sri Lanka, and Mrs Benajir Bhutto of Pakistan fell to the bullets and blasts of assassins. Deaths of innocent South Asians in civil wars and terrorist attacks run into thousands, women and children having been subjected to untold abuses.25 Terrorist attack on Mumbai in November 2008 alone resulted in 166 deaths and nearly 270 seriously injured. Such widespread violence and transmission of its gory images through television into the South Asian living rooms and at dining tables are adding to the brutalisation of societies. Insurgencies and conflicts have also made South Asia a prominent place of child 24

The debate on the breakup of Afghanistan was enlived by the former US Diplomat Robert D. Blackwell, see his „Plan B in Afghanistan: Why a de Facto Partition is the Least Bad Option”, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2011. Also see Ramtanu Maitra, „Long-term Planning for A Post-War Afghanistan”, Executive Intelligence Review, August 13, 2010. A number of Human rights watch groups have continuously been drawing attention to these violations of rights to life, dignity and freedom.

soldiers. South Asian conflicts have significantly contributed to the deepening and aggravation of ethnic, communal and sectarian fault-lines; and identity-based polarisations have further fuelled political fragmentation and instability. The impact of conflicts on economic growth and social development may be a matter of debate in South Asia. Many experts argue that there are examples of conflict areas being quarantined to let economic activity go uninterrupted elsewhere. For instance, the dynamism of Sri Lanka‟s tourism and garment manufacturing sectors remaining unaffected by its ethnic conflict is often being referred to in this respect. Similarly, Indian economy has grown impressively while still coping with internal and external conflicts. But these examples are not very definitive as contrary examples of the countries like Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan recording poor growth under the impact of conflicts also exist simultaneously. There is however no denying the fact that conflicts escalate opportunity costs in the affected countries. In India it has been publicly admitted by the Prime Minister and other leaders that the left-extremist insurgency is a major deterrent to India‟s growth. With the ending of insurgencies in Nepal and Sri Lanka, prospects of growth have brightened. Leaders of India, Pakistan and China have also repeatedly stressed that peaceful relations between them are necessary to maintain the momentum of growth and development. It is acknowledged in South Asia that one of the greatest obstacles to the success of regional cooperation under South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has been the conflict between India and Pakistan. As bilateral trade channels are being activated between India and Pakistan, it is hoped that regional trade will grow to the advantage of all the membercountries. Conflict and regional rivalry between India and Pakistan is also obstructing the prospects of their mutual cooperation with Afghanistan, which, if facilitated, can in turn help both Pakistan and Afghanistan fight their internal insurgencies better.26 Conflicts in South Asia have impinged adversely on the autonomy of the region and its countries. They have made the South Asian states porous and vulnerable to external interventions and influences. Such influences have been both benign and destructive. The induction of Cold War in the region as a result of India-Pakistan conflict has been mutually reinforcing and is well documented.27 Pakistan which was initially enthusiastic of the American alliance subsequently resented it.28 In the context of the US role in the “war on terror” in Afghanistan, the US presence and influence in Pakistan has become a major issue of national controversy, particularly after the US intelligence operation to kill Osama bin Laden in his Pakistani hide-out. Sri Lanka‟s invitation to Norway for facilitating talks with the LTTE in the year 2000 eventually was criticised and stopped by the Rajapaksa regime. 26

See Shahid Javed Burki, South Asia in the New World Order: The Role of Regional Cooperation, Routledge, New York, London, 2011. See Howard B. Shaffer, Limits of Influence: America‟s Role in Kashmir, Brookings Institute, Washington DC 2009. Dennis Kux, has written separate books on the US relations with India and Pakistan. Robert McMahon, Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India and Pakistan, Columbia University Press, 1994. See Pakistani President General Mohammad Ayub Khan‟s autobiography; Friends Not Masters, Oxford University Press, London 1967. Z.A. Bhutto‟s The Myth of Independence.

At the regional level, India‟s involvement in Sri Lanka during the 1980s and in Nepal during 2005-2006 in resolving their respective insurgencies also eventually came under heavy criticism. The Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka had to pack up and leave under pressure from the host government though its assigned mission had not been fully completed.29 Thus we find that consequences of conflicts in South Asia have been diverse and damaging. These consequences have affected all the vital sectors of life in the region such as security, stability, political order, economic growth and development and social harmony and stability. South Asia‟s people need to learn from these conflicts and commit themselves to resolving them in the interests of their own security and well-being.

Prospects Conflicts are inherent in human nature and people are going to live in states and societies.30 South Asia or any other region cannot be an exception in this respect. Almost all the causes of South Asian conflicts listed in this paper, ranging from historical legacies to turbulent state- and nation-building processes and distorted developmental dynamics, continue to be relevant. Even when one set of conflicts is resolved, another set appears, maybe in a somewhat transformed or redefined form, to be dealt with. The root causes of conflict between Pakistan and India as also China and India remain unresolved and unmitigated despite efforts to put in place confidence-building measures (CBMs). Between India and Pakistan, Kashmir question remains unresolved; and the spill-over of Pakistan‟s internal identity crisis and dominance of army in politics generates instruments of conflict like cross-border terrorism that continue to thrive, undercutting expressions of peaceful intent and CBMs. Any repeat of a Mumbai-type cross-border terror attack or violation of LOC cease-fire can trigger passions and political moves leading to an unmanageable situation. The rise of Taliban in Afghanistan and Jihadi extremism in Pakistan may create conditions for such an attack. Generally however, in the coming years, Pakistan is expected to be preoccupied with its north-western front Afghanistan and would want to keep the eastern front with India peaceful and stable. India and China both have stakes in peace and stability so that their growth dynamics can go forward uninterrupted. China‟s deepening engagement on territorial disputes with Japan and South China Sea neighbours, hopefully, will keep it keen on having peace and understanding with India. China‟s new leadership has also laid greater emphasis on its perceived core interests 29 30

See Muni, Pangs of Proximity, op.cit. For instance, Max Boot‟s latest study of guerrilla warfare traces its history from 3000 BC when guerrillas of different tribes fought against each other. See Max Boot, Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present, Liveright Publishing Corporation, New York, 2013.

in South China Sea where war drums are sounding louder than ever. Despite the imperative of keeping the India front peaceful and stable, China seems less prepared to resolve the border issue and is worried about the possible firming up of strategic partnership between US and India, impinging on its interests in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly South-China Sea. In such a situation, China making moves to disturb India either directly on the pretext of border and Tibetan issues, or indirectly by encouraging Pakistan to keep India engaged on its western front cannot be ruled out, howsoever remote it appears. It has been noted earlier that in 1962, India‟s strategic equations with the US and the then USSR were a major factor prompting China to undertake the border offensive. Inter-state conflicts within South Asia, barring the India-Pakistan dyad, may be ruled out for any foreseeable future. There could be tensions on a number of other issues from the spill-over over of internal conflicts to the sharing of resources (common rivers, territorial waters and extended maritime economic zone, trade and investment-related issues, human migration etc.), but outright war looks nearly impossible. However, internal conflicts within South Asian countries do not seem to be coming to an end in a foreseeable future. India‟s insurgencies (Kashmir, Northeast and the left-extremism) seem likely to persist. The Indian state is resilient in dealing with identity challenges and has also shown promise in coping with ideological insurgency, but the task of coordinating state actions in a divisive and federal polity with highly bureaucratised state institutions is not an easy one. Tensions within Sri Lanka on the ethnic question nowhere seem to be dying out. In Bangladesh, a new polarisation between the secular and sectarian forces on the question of „war crime trials‟ is gradually assuming threatening dimensions. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, Islamic extremism and sectarian clashes may experience surge, and in Nepal the breakaway faction of the Maoists continues to adhere to the concept of “people‟s war”. Capabilities of the South Asian states to effectively manage and/or resolve these internal conflicts would depend critically on two aspects. They are: institutionalising of democratic functioning and ensuring of a respectable pace of economic growth with distributive justice. Both these have so far proved to be formidable challenges in most of the South Asian countries. For example, both Nepal and Maldives have so far failed to institutionalise the democratic upsurge witnessed in the first decade of the 21st century. It is to the credit of Pakistan‟s elected civilian regime led by the Pakistan Peoples‟ Party that it has completed its full term (only second time in the entire history of Pakistan so far), but the tensions among the principal governing institutions like the executive, army and judiciary look considerably chaotic. Reinforcing of democratic norms and economic growth will also strengthen South Asian countries internally and will also improve the prospects of regional integration and cooperation through SAARC.

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ISAS Working Paper No. 171 – 2 April 2013 469A Bukit Timah Road #07-01, Tower Block, Singapore 259770 Tel: 6516 6179 / 6516 4239 Fax: 6776 7505 / 6314 5447 Email: isassec@nus.edu.sg Website: www.isas.nus.edu.sg

India’s Role in 1971 Bangladesh War: Determinants of Future Ties Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury1

Introduction The past is always an important ‘input’ as a determinant of the present in international relations. This is no different in the case of the shaping of ties between two major South Asian countries, Bangladesh and India. An examination of India’s role in the emergence of Bangladesh as a sovereign entity in the global scene provides a significant key to the understanding of their mutual behaviour-pattern in contemporary times. This paper will seek to demonstrate that while a large majority of Bangladeshis, with ample reason, were overtly grateful to India for the support rendered during the war of 1971, without which it is broadly agreed the independence of Bangladesh could not have been achieved, at least within that limited time-frame of nine months, yet ironically developments linked to such a role also contained elements that would render the future relationship between the two countries full of complexities. As East Pakistan’s disenchantment with the Central Martial Law government in Pakistan, now headed by President Yahya Khan, the general who succeeded Field Marshal Ayub Khan in 1969,

grew, so did separatist tendencies.2 Ironically, there was considerable unease when it was felt that East Pakistan was left undefended against India during the 1965 War! There were ‘confrontations …over issues such as language, autonomy, food security and economic policy’. 3 For some time, there had been a burgeoning demand for greater autonomy, bred of a sense of exploitation by the western wing of the east and perceptible ‘disparities’ in many sectors of development, which found fruition in the ‘Six Points’ of the Awami League headed by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Mujib won the elections in 1970 overwhelmingly, but his natural claim to prime ministerial post in Pakistan was thwarted by a combination of Yahya and the West Pakistani Chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Violent political agitation in East Pakistan followed, which assumed the form of a severe non-cooperation movement. Mujib’s dictates were virtually law. Negotiations held in March 1971 among the protagonists failed, and this was followed by a military crackdown on 25 March. Mujib was incarcerated and taken to West Pakistan, and the senior Awami League leadership fled to India, whose sympathy for them was very clear.

Initial Indian Reaction The policy of India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi towards the growing political agitation in East Pakistan and the now-explicit demands of autonomy (swadhikar) was of utmost circumspection. There were three main reasons for this. First, an open support to any secessionist tendencies would be unpopular with other members of the international states system and would be most certainly construed as a gross interference in the ‘internal affairs’ of another country, a contravention of a key principle of the ‘non-aligned movement’ to which India claimed deep commitment; second, there was still the possibility that the leaderships of East and West Pakistan could arrive at a rapprochement during the Yahya-Mujib-Bhutto tripartite talks that would make any Indian interference look awkward; and third, any encouragement to the incipient secessionist movement by New Delhi could have adverse ramifications for such similar sentiments in some of India’s own states. This caution was evident when India, though aware of the large movement of Pakistani troops into East Pakistan, made no attempt to forestall it either by initiating some sort of tension along the West Pakistani borders that would render the shifting of troops from West Pakistan strategically difficult, or by giving Pakistani troop movements wide publicity to draw international opprobrium to this development. Of necessity, therefore, Indian positions that evolved in 1971 were extremely complex. Broadly two phases can be marked off. One was at the outset when a political settlement was considered desirable, and action on the part of India to 2

For the gradual evolution of East Pakistani or East Bengali sense of nationalism historically see Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, ‘The Roots of Bangladeshi National Identity: Their Impact on State Behaviour’, ISAS Working Paper No. 63, 10 June 2009. Willem Van Schendel, A History of Bangladesh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 109.

force a settlement an alternative option. This phase lasted from March to August 1971. The second phase was roughly from August onwards to the War in December, when the alternative option gained increasing salience, transforming action, including a military one, into the principal strategy. The political settlement, considered during the first phase could consist of a wide variety of options or status for the eastern wing of Pakistan between ‘autonomy’ and ‘independence’. Of course that had to have a wide measure of political acceptance. Indian Foreign Minister Swaran Singh told the lower house of the Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha) on 28 March 71 (three days after the military crackdown in Dhaka and elsewhere in East Pakistan): “We naturally wish and hope that even at this late stage it would be possible to resume democratic processes leading to the fulfilment of the wishes of the vast majority of the people there”.4 However, it is worthwhile noting that even while hoping for a settlement at this stage, the prospect of a military intervention as an alternative was not ruled out. Hundreds of thousands of refugees were streaming into India from East Pakistan. Gandhi issued formal instructions to the Army Chief, General SHFJ Manekshaw to prepare for the eventuality of a war. Manekshaw was told that if the government’s efforts to find a peaceful solution did not succeed, the armed forces would be ordered to achieve ‘specific objectives of opening the door to the return of the refugees’, and because of the international public pressure that India was likely to invite upon itself if it intervened, the Army would be given ‘three to four weeks’ to achieve those ends.5 With the passage of time, the option of a military intervention began to come to the fore. The desire, and the possibility, to seek some sort of political settlement began to recede. This assumed a sharper relief around August when it was clear that Yahya’s version of a political settlement involved Bengali ‘collaborators’ and obscurantists ( thereby excluding the Awami League), something that was far from satisfactory to India. Indeed such a cabinet was installed in Dhaka. This development was unlikely also to ensure the return of the refugees. It would be a mistake to assume that Gandhi herself was transformed over time from a ‘dove’ to a ‘hawk’. At no stage was she one or the other. Various options were being simultaneously considered by her, their pros and cons being continuously weighed. At the initial stages she moved a resolution in the Parliament that was unanimously adopted. It stated that: “The House records its profound conviction that the historic upsurge of the 76 million people of East Bengal will triumph. The House wishes to assure them that their struggle and sacrifice will receive the wholehearted support of the people of India”. It was still East Bengal rather than Bangladesh, and people rather than government (of India), subtle but politically significant. Pressure for formal recognition of Bangladesh came from the provisional government of Bangladesh set up on 10 April 1971 with Syed Nazrul Islam as Acting President and Tajuddin 4 5

Asian Recorder ( 14-20 May 1971) , p. 10158 Krishan Bhatia, Indira: A Biography of the Prime Minister Gandhi (London: Angus and Robertson, 1974), p. 243.

Ahmed as Prime Minister. In a letter dated 24 April 1971, Islam requested President V V Giri of India that ‘immediate recognition’ to Bangladesh be given and ‘envoys exchanged’.6 Such calls were also forthcoming from West Bengali leaders like Pranab Mukherjee Member of Parliament and Secretary of the Bangla Congress, and Tridib Chaudhuri, MP and General Secretary of the Revolutionary Socialist Party of India.7 A strike was observed in West Bengal on 31 March 1971 to express popular solidarity with the Bangladesh movement.8 Gandhi, however, appeared at this stage to take the position that Indian recognition might hurt the Bangladeshi cause by seeming to substantiate the Pakistani allegations that the struggle was engineered by India and was being sustained with Indian assistance.9

Eventual Option The eventual military option by India was influenced by a number of factors. First, the economic pressure on New Delhi was reaching massive proportions. The exodus into India threatened to stunt its economic development. The number of refugees was expected to swell to nine million by December. The expenditure on this count in Fiscal Year 1971-72 was stipulated at US$ 700 million. Foreign donors pledged only US$ 200, leaving India with the responsibility of locating the massive balance resources. The total Aid to India Club commitment for that year was likely to be US$ 1 billion, of which US$ 600 million was expected to be used for amortisation and debt-repayment. The remainder US$ 400 million was insufficient to cover the refugee bill, let alone other development expenses. A large call on internal resources was therefore appearing to be increasingly unavoidable.10 Second, as the civil war raged unabated, it was apprehended that the hold of the moderate Awami League would slacken and Maoists and left-wingers would gain ground, forging an alignment between extremist-Bangladeshis and pro-Peking West Bengali elements.11 Such developments were likely to have adverse consequences from New Delhi’s point of view, and, therefore, needed to be nipped in the bud. This called for an intervention, if there was to be one, before the grip on the movement of the Awami League weakened.

8 9

10 11

Indira Gandhi, India and Bangladesh Selected Speeches, Statements, March to December 1971 (New Delhi: Orient Longman’s, 1972) p. 180. Times of India, 28 March 1971. Indeed when Pranab Mukherjee, as President of India, paid his first-ever state visit abroad to Bangladesh in March 2013, his contribution to Bangladesh’s independence struggle was formally acknowledged. Guardian (Rangoon), 2 April 1971. Sydney H. Scanberg, ‘Indian Position is Wait and See on Recognition of Bangladesh’, New York Times, 8 May 1971. New York Times, 16 September 1971. Times London, 26 April 1971. Also, 5 May 1971.

Third, by the autumn of 1971 it was becoming clear that the United States and China, particularly the former, were urging Yahya to seek a political solution. The Nixon Administration had managed to establish links in India with certain Awami League leaders.12 Yahya was also holding out the olive branch to some Bengalis. It could not be entirely ruled out that some sort of Bangladesh could emerge, under Sino-American auspices, which would serve their interests and would be contrary to India’s. Such a solution would be unacceptable to the Hindus among the refugees who would remain a burden on India. An intervention was, therefore, felt necessary to arrest this development.13 Fourth, the influx of refugees into India portended a threat to certain balances in the Indian polity. Most of the refugees were Hindus, so as they poured into the Indian State of West Bengal, they upset the demographic balance of some Muslim-majority West Bengali border districts, increasing the communal tension of those areas. Also since the refugees were Bengali speaking, those who went to the Indian northeast states of Assam and Meghalaya threatened to heighten the dormant Bengali-Assamese conflict in that region. In fact Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya, observed a 12-hour general strike on 9 June, in response to a call by the Tribal Youth Welfare Association to protest the presence of Bengali refugees in that State. 14 It was clear, thus, the refugees had to return, and they could only go back to an independent Bangladesh achieved under Indian aegis. Fifth, there was growing pressure to act emanating from the general Indian community which a popular-based government could hardly afford to ignore. Almost without exception, all other political parties wanted Gandhi to extend moral and material support to the liberation struggle, and even accord Bangladesh recognition.15 The Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of India regretted New Delhi’s failure to ‘discharge the responsibility in due measure to support the freedom struggle in Bangladesh’.16 Demand for recognition came from such varied quarters as Indrajit Gupta, the pro-Soviet Communist leader,17 AB Vajpayee of the Hindu nationalist Jana Sangh Party,18 P C Chunder, President of the West Bengal Parliamentary

14 15

16 17 18

Richard M. Nixon, US Foreign Policy for the 1970s: The Emerging Structure of Peace, A Report to the Congress, 9 February 1972, p. 145. This point is elaborated in G S Bhargava’s Indian Security in the 1960s (Adelphi Papers, No. 125), p. 11. He also argues that if East Bengali commandos remained in India in the long run they could pose a security threat to it. To him, the emergence of Bangladesh was not in itself a security gain for India except in the marginal sense that these commandos would be gone, and that sanctuaries for Mizos and other insurgents or rebels in the northeast of India would no longer be available. Times of India, 10 June, 1971. One opposing voice was that of M R Masani, the Swatantra Party leader, who commended Gandhi’s ‘policy of caution’, and said that India should not be the first country to recognise Bangladesh, for ‘besides the authority of the West Pakistani Government, what authority is there in Bangladesh to recognise?’ Times of India, 19 May 1971. Ibid., 7 July 1971. Peter Hazelhurst, ‘Mrs. Gandhi refuses Bangladesh Recognition’, Times (London) 8 May 1971. Ibid.

Congress Committee19, and Dinesh Singh, former External Affairs Minister.20 In fact within Gandhi’s own cabinet a ‘hawkish’ strain emerged. A study of public statements at that time shows that while Foreign Minister Swaran Singh toed the cautious line, Defence Minister Jagjivan Ram pressed for early action.21 Sixth, there was the understandable psychological satisfaction to be derived from the ability to hit the implacable enemy Pakistan where it hurt gravely, especially when from the debris of the enemy’s anticipated defeat in any direct conflict, was likely to emerge a friendly neighbour. India would no longer be flanked by enemies.22 In New Delhi’s calculations if the Movement came to fruition it would help negate the religion-based ideology of Pakistan, and bolster the secular Indian ethos.23 Seventh, a research report from the prestigious Indian Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, prepared by its Director K Subrahmanyam, urged that India would be well-advised to go to war. The report entitled ‘Bangladesh and India’s National security - the Options for India’, suggested that India carve out a segment of East Bengal, vest it with the attributes of ‘de facto’ and ‘de jure’ independence, relocate the refugees there, and attempt to win for it international recognition. The newly established state of Bangladesh could be thus made a recognised party to the dispute without whose approval no ceasefire could be agreed upon and which would not approve such ceasefire till all the objectives were attained. The report argued that the chance of a Chinese intervention was minimal. Even if China doubled her force strength of 100,000 that she retained in Tibet, the mountain passes would pose acute deployment problems, especially now against the well-armed Indian presence in the region. Even if a Chinese intervention were to take place against these odds, they could hardly stay for long as winter was approaching when snow in passes would render withdrawal impossible. Considering the limited Chinese stakes in the

19 20 21

22 23

Times of India, 16 May 1971. Ibid., 26 May 1971. The Swaran Singh line was clearly expressed in his Upper House (Rajya Sabha) statement: ‘If at any stage we feel that recognition is necessary, we will not hesitate to give it …There are certain norms which have to be carefully weighed such as the extent of territory controlled by the quantum of support, the extent of writ, and the repercussion of recognising a country which was till now a part of Pakistan’; Times of India, 26 May 1971..As late as October, Singh argued at the All-India Congress Committee that the political solution of the Bangladesh issue which India had been advocating could take the form of a settlement within the framework of Pakistan, or an independent Bangladesh , or greater autonomy for the region. Times of India, 9 October 1971. This was long after the exiled Awami League leaders publicly rejected as unacceptable anything less than independence. Jagjivan Ram, on the other hand, held that it was true India was in favour of a political solution, but what this solution should be had already been spelt out by the elected representatives of Bangladesh, who had opted unequivocally for independence and sovereignty. Times of India, 10 October 1971. Gandhi, who had earlier been sympathetic to the Swaran Singh line and was gradually drawn towards Ram’s over time, found it necessary to ‘reconstruct ’Singh’s AICC statement by saying that what Singh meant was if the Awami League leaders agreed to remain within the framework of Pakistan, the Indian Government would have no objection! Times of India, 14 October 1971. Though later developments did show that relations with Bangladesh were not necessarily trouble-free! See Ajit Bhattacharya, ‘Fumbling for a Policy: India and Bangladesh’, Times of India, 17 July 1971.

issue, the report concluded that it would not be militarily meaningful for them to intervene. Without that possibility, the Indian military position vis-à-vis Pakistan was vastly superior.24 Finally, what may have clinched the decision in favour of Indian military action was the evaporation of the hopes that the international community would bring to bear pressure on Yahya for an acceptable settlement. In May Gandhi said that she wanted the international community to realise that what had begun as Pakistan’s internal problem was gradually transforming into an internal problem for India.25 She was getting increasingly critical of the fact that assistance was not forthcoming from the wealthier nations. At the Lower House of the Parliament (Lok Sabha) she regretted that the western countries, who had allegedly fought the Second World War ‘to save democracy’, were not responding now when, in her view, democracy was ‘so flagrantly and so brutally being destroyed’.26 She rejected United Nations Secretary General U Thant’s offer to place observers on both sides of the border. She argued that in the first place it tended to equate India and Pakistan, implying part-Indian responsibility for the crisis, and secondly, it would support the Pakistani projection that the issue was a bilateral one between the two countries.27 Gandhi was now convinced that neither the world community nor the UN could be relied upon to act, and India would have to go it alone, if necessary.

Lead-Up to War India’s decision to intervene militarily could not be acted upon at once. Its armed forces needed three to four months to undertake the necessary preparations. Moreover, the appropriate time to act logically would be winter. That is when there would be no monsoon rains to bog down the invading Indian forces; and the northern passes would be snowed in. reducing sharply the possibility of any Chinese intervention. Gandhi had thus some time at hand to concentrate on politics, whose extension, in a Clausewitzian sense, the forthcoming war was likely to be. She now had two major objectives: One was to seek a superpower deterrence to any possible SinoAmerican (either singly or in a combined fashion) resistance to Indian plans, and the second was the creation of favourable international public opinion to dilute as much as possible adverse reactions to any future Indian intervention, that would break up a recognised global state, Pakistan, which was also a member of the United Nations, and not without friends. As to the first, the Sino-US rapprochement boded ill for India, now being driven by America’s willingness to ‘facilitate and not obstruct China’s participation in a stable international world

24 25 26 27

Peter Hazelhurst, ‘Shadow of War on the Indian Subcontinent’, Times (London), 13 July 1971. Times of India, 19 May 1971. Indira Gandhi, op.cit., p. 20. Peter Hazelhurst, ‘Indian Anger at the UN Observer Plan for Both Sides of the Border’, Times (London), 27 July 1971.

order’.28 (Incidentally Pakistan was acting as a conduit connecting the two). Concern was evident in Swaran Singh’s statement that India could not view with equanimity if it means the domination of the two superpowers over the region or a tacit agreement between them to this effect.29 The Soviet Union was the only possible counter to any possible Sino-American entente in acting with regard to South Asia. As yet the Soviet Union had a somewhat ambivalent attitude towards this crisis.30 Gandhi calculated that the best way to win over Moscow was to sign the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation which had been under discussion for two years now. She knew her offer to do so would be an enormous sop to please the Soviet Union. The Treaty was signed in August. Indo-Soviet consultations were held in terms of the Treaty thus signalling to all concerned, including Peking, Washington and Islamabad, that both signatories took the Treaty seriously. The fact that the Soviets in private actually advocated ‘restraint’ did not matter so long as the world read into the pact a firm commitment to India’s security by the Soviet Union. Though New Delhi had by this time very nearly ruled out the possibility of any serious Chinese military intervention, the pact provided a critical reassurance. The second objective of creating favourable international public opinion was being simultaneously pursued. The methods employed were the holding of symposia, seminars and conferences, and visits abroad by Indian leaders. The Gandhi Peace Foundation organised a three-day international seminar in New Delhi in September, attended by 60 unofficial delegates from 20 countries. Memories of the Spanish Civil War were rekindled by such suggestions as the formation of an International Brigade and the staging of an international march to Islamabad.31 As an additional public relations project, Gandhi travelled to foreign capitals for a period of three weeks. The countries were Belgium, Australia, the United Kingdom, the US, France and the Federal Republic of Germany, mainly western countries as the empathies of the socialist bloc led by the Soviet Union (but sans China and Albania, China’s closest ally those days) were in any case forthcoming. In her own words, she undertook this journey ‘to leave nothing unexplored which might lead to an easing of the burden imposed upon us and to discourage those who are bent upon excuses to threaten our security’.32 The visits were only partially successful. First, because of her recent rejection of the UN offer, and second, because it was by now clear that the only solution to the crisis acceptable to her was the dismemberment of a member-state of the United Nations, many leaders of the world, particularly those from the west, seemed to fight shy of her. Her dissatisfaction was evident, for 28

29 30

31 32

Henry Kissinger, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), p.136. Times (London), 21 July 1971. For details of how the Soviet position gradually evolved, see Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, Dhaka-Moscow Relations: Old Ties Renewed, ISAS Working Paper No. 167, 6 March 2013. Asian Recorder (8 – 14 October 1971), pp. 10396-7. Indira Gandhi, op. cit., p. 59.

on her return she said: “I must make it clear that we cannot depend on the international community or even the countries I visited to solve our problems for us. We appreciate their sympathy and moral and political support, but the brunt of the burden has to be borne by us and by the people of Bangladesh”.33 There were some benefits accrued to her, however. Though her personal relations with Nixon marked no improvement, she was able to take a reading of the attitudinal division within the American community on the South Asian crisis.34 Understandably the Indian efforts now were directed towards deepening this division. The idea was to neutralise the strength or capability of the US Administration to militarily commit itself on the Pakistani side when the actual conflict would occur. Sensing the deep danger he was now in, Yahya mellowed and on 19 November 1971 he sent a message of greetings to Gandhi on the occasion of the holy Muslim festival of Eid, in which he appealed for easing of tensions. It read: “India and Pakistan have long frittered away their energies and resources arming themselves against each other, resources which should have been used to reap the benefits of independence for our two peoples”35 India rejected this overture as the offer of a ‘denuded olive brunch’.36 For Gandhi it was too late to stem the tide of the surge towards the ultimate denouement. India’s armed forces were now ready, awaiting only the government’s green signal. The entire nation was poised for action. The Provisional Government of Bangladesh was getting increasingly restive. As was the Mukti Bahini or the Bangladesh liberation forces. As December began, war had become inevitable. Pakistan, by now, was also eager to broaden the conflict. This was primarily for two reasons. First, a full-scale bilateral war between India and Pakistan would attract international intervention, necessary for Pakistan. This was because even without the war, Pakistani troops in the eastern wing were being harassed and mauled by the Mukti Bahini. Pakistan hoped that the outbreak of war would force on both India and Pakistan a cease-fire after which the Mukti Bahini would hardly be in a position to carry out its guerrilla activities (very difficult without Indian support) without international approbation. Second, by then there had already been considerable fighting involving both ground and aerial troops in the eastern sector. The Pakistanis, therefore, saw no reason not to extend the fighting to where they were comparatively in a better position than in the east, i.e., in the western sector. Immediately after midnight of 3 December 1971, Gandhi ordered Indian troops into Pakistan’s eastern wing, 33

35 36

Ibid., p 105. ‘East Bengal’ had now been supplanted by ‘Bangladesh’ in her formal speeches, though she was still referring to its ‘people’ rather than ‘government’ which India was yet to recognise. This was stated by her to the author at a later date when she received him at her residence as the then Leader of Opposition. The author had earlier served as an aide to General MAG Osmany when the latter was a Cabinet Minister in Bangladesh (1972-1974). General Osmany, it may be mentioned, was the Commander-in-Chief of the Bangladesh Liberation Forces during the War of 1971. Times (London), 20 November 1971. Age (Melbourne), 22 November 1971.

declaring that Pakistan’s Air Force had already initiated action.37 Thus commenced the war that was to conclude with the surrender of Pakistani troops to the Indian Army in Dhaka on 16 December 1971 and the emergence of Bangladesh.

Impact on Indo-Bangladesh Relations The impact that the Indian policies had through the unfolding crisis on the Bangladeshi leadership is of cardinal importance, as it was certain to have considerable bearing on future Indo-Bangladesh relations. Needless to say that the exiled Bangladeshi leaders in India were all profoundly grateful to the Indian authorities for providing them refuge, and letting them organise the government-in-exile, before India was able to fully formalise its attitude towards the issue.38 The Awami League leaders were, however, anxious to obtain formal Indian recognition, as evidenced in Acting President Nazrul Islam’s letter to President Giri, on 24 April 1971, cited earlier. Even when the war seemed imminent, and recognition was still being withheld,39 Nazrul Islam and Provisional Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmed pressed again. The long-awaited recognition finally came on 6 December 1971. However, it does not appear that this delay had any substantial adverse impact on their mutual relations. In fact, once the Indian decision to intervene had been taken, there were numerous contacts at senior levels between the Bangladeshi exiled leaders and the Indian authorities. In September the Indian Foreign secretary T N Kaul visited Calcutta to brief Bangladeshi leaders. D P Dhar, Gandhi’s close confidant, continued the liaison. Shortly after Dhar’s visit, three emissaries of the Provisional Government went to New Delhi and attended meetings at the External Affairs Ministry.40 Tajuddin Ahmed, who had earlier welcomed the Indo-Soviet treaty,41 had close personal relationship with the Indian leaders. Not all Awami Leaders shared this close rapport with the Indians. One noteworthy exception was Khandkar Mushtaq, who was all too willing to compromise with the US, and even, as was widely believed, with Pakistan!42 The bureaucrats of the Mujibnagar Foreign Office, set up in Calcutta, seem to have attempted a dispassionate assessment of the Indian position. A position paper, circulated in the office, read, and it is worth quoting at length: “India’s support for Bangladesh basically comes out of her 37 38

39 40

41 42

Indira Gandhi, op. cit., p.128. The government-in-exile was sworn in on 10 April 1971 on a chunk of ‘liberated Bangladeshi territory’. Thereafter it shifted to Calcutta and was informally known as the ‘Mujibnagar government’. Indira Gandhi, op.cit., p.193. The three emissaries were Abdus Samad Azad (future foreign minister of independent Bangladesh) and two senior diplomats who were Bengali members of the erstwhile-Pakistan Foreign Service, Abul Fateh and Mahbub Alam (Chashi), Times of India, 8 September 1971. Ibid., 2 September 1971. See Laurence Lifschultz, Bangladesh: Unfinished Revolution (London: Zed Press, 1979) p. 115

negative approach towards Pakistan. For political, historical, and economic reasons, India desires to weaken Pakistan, both West and East. It is not for her love of democracy or sense of brotherhood of [sic] the people of Bangladesh that India wants to uphold the cause of the liberation struggle of our people. The whole thing has a deep political motive…”43 Another similar document warned: [After independence] we may resign ourselves to a period of Indian influence but we must try to minimise it as much as possible. In this way the interests of both Bangladesh and India would be served”.44 It appears, therefore, that Bangladeshi bureaucrats-in-exile, who were destined to play a key role in the shaping of their country’s post-independence policies, were calculating that Indian policies and actions were arising from their own self-interest rather than from any nobler motives. This was of course only logical, but the point was that it was also consciously being seen as such. Some elements in the Bangladesh Army (also known as Niyamito Bahini or ‘Regular Forces’ who comprised Bengali segments of the Pakistani military and were now fighting the war on the Bangladesh side) and the Mukti Bahini were unhappy with the overall Indian strategy.45 This was partly evidenced by the fact, as well as exacerbated by it, that the Bangladesh Armed Forces Chief Colonel (later General) M A G Osmany was absent at the ceremony when the Pakistanis formally surrendered in Dhaka on 16 December 1971. Some Bangladeshis felt, not just marginalised at the event, but also denied the privilege of accepting the Pakistani surrender as part of the ‘joint command’ under which the war was being fought by the Indians and Bangladeshis. Also, immediately after independence, senior leaders of the Bangladeshi and Indian armies were locked in a series of tough negotiations over ‘prize court’ or war booties. These included Pakistani military equipment including vehicles and vessels that were captured by the allies. In February 1972 a delegation headed by Foreign Secretary S A Karim of Bangladesh visited Rangoon to obtain the return of Pakistani aircraft, both civilian and military, flown to Burma by Pakistan. They failed to do so, and there was a perception that there was insufficient Indian backing to these efforts. Also the agreement in Simla of 2 July 1972, whereby all 93,000 Pakistani prisoners of war including 195 war criminals were returned to Pakistan, caused some heartburning in Bangladesh. The feeling was that the Bangladeshi delegation to Simla was left with a Hobson’s choice.

‘ Position Paper: Crisis of Bangladesh Movement’ (Calcutta), 23 September 1971. This and some other similar papers, which were not in any way official documents but individual memos were shown to the author as private collections of some of the Bangladeshi officials/public figures who were active participants in the Liberation Movement. 44 ‘Position Paper: An Analysis of Indian Plans on Bangladesh’, No. 4/2 Reference Coll. (Calcutta), 2 October 1971. 45 Laurence Lifschultz, op.cit., p.395.

There were various shades of the left-wing of Bangladeshi political leadership, excluding the pro-Moscow National Awami Party (Muzaffar Group),that were not won over by India. Mowlana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, head of the pro-Peking National Awami Party (Bhashani Group), a strong and early advocate of the Bangladesh movement, was said to find his movement ‘restricted’ in India.46 Many further to the pro-Peking left were opposed to the Indian involvement from the very outset.47 All these meant that while a preponderant majority of the Bangladeshis were deeply appreciative of India’s support in the struggle for Bangladesh’s independence, there were also seeds for discord buried underneath that had the potential for germination.

......

Ishtiaq Hussain, India and the War of Liberation in Bangladesh (Dhaka: Forum for International Affairs, August 1978), p.8 Badruddin Omar, ‘India-Bangladesh Relations’, Holiday (weekly publication) (Dhaka), 28 August 1972.

ISAS Working Paper No. 172 – 8 April 2013 469A Bukit Timah Road #07-01, Tower Block, Singapore 259770 Tel: 6516 6179 / 6516 4239 Fax: 6776 7505 / 6314 5447 Email: isassec@nus.edu.sg Website: www.isas.nus.edu.sg

A Turbulent Pakistan: India’s Choices in Response S D Muni1

The fate and future of Pakistan has been an issue of considerable concern and anxiety not only inside Pakistan but in the world at large and South Asia in particular. The Fund for Peace project on the ranking of failed and failing states has been placing Pakistan in the top category of ‘critical alert’ year after year. According to this ranking Pakistan was 13th in 2012. It was 12th in 2011 and 10th in 2010 and 2009.2 In an analysis of Pakistan for the 2012 listing, Robert D Kaplan, who organises these rankings, said: “Perversity characterises Pakistan”. Several academic institutions and scholars have come forward to explore the fate of Pakistani state and society.3 The Brookings Institution undertook such a project in 2010 with the support of US Institute of Peace and the Norwegian Peace Foundation, and the results of the study have since been published. The coordinator of this project and an acknowledged American scholar on Pakistan Stephen P Cohen wrote after completing the project: “With its declining social indicators, crumbling infrastructure and the military’s misplaced priorities, Pakistan is a deeply troubled state and, were it not for the large number of talented Pakistanis, one would be tempted to judge it to be in terminal decline”.4 1

Professor Sukh Deo Muni is Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) at the National University of Singapore. He can be contacted at isassdm@nus.edu.sg and sdmuni@gmail.com. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of ISAS. The results of the project are published in Foreign Policy magazine of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, Washington. For the global ranking of 2012 see http://www.foreignpolicy.com/failed_states_ind ex_2012_interactive. (Accessed on 15 September 2012). A review of these studies can be found as ‘Appendix” to Stephen P Cohen, “Pakistan Future: The Bellagio Papers”, Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC, 2011. Stephen P Cohen, “The Future of Pakistan”, Brookings, February 23, 2011. <brooking.edu/…/01_paki stan_cohen.as> (Accessed on 17 October 2012)

The listing of the failed and failing states is done on an elaborate 12-point index that includes variables ranging from demographic pressures to uneven development, economic decline, factionalised elites and external intervention. This concept is highly debatable as it is heavily culture-biased.5 Mostly countries that are considered to be source of threat to the West, besides being anarchic in their governance, are referred to as failed or failing states. The basic thrust of the concept is that a state that cannot provide basic public goods should be treated as failed or failing. This assumption is based on the concept of a democratic and welfare state which is not a necessary reality in most of the developing countries of Asia and Africa. The character of the state is defined by the character of the people that control the state and from where the state draws its support and sustenance, which at times could only be a section of people and not the entire populace. Historically, monarchical, colonial, racial and autocratic states had no commitment or obligation to provide ‘public goods and services’ to the people governed; but they were not considered failed states and were in firm control of the people they ruled over. Many states that do not have even adequate resources for one reason or another also get lumped together in this category. States also undergo turbulence and transformation for a variety of factors; and to term them during the period of their transition as failed or failing states would be misleading.

The Crisis in Pakistan Notwithstanding the degree of relevance of the concept of failed and failing states to Pakistan, there is an acceptable consensus even among the Pakistani analysts and policy makers and the international strategic community that the country is passing through a serious crisis; and one is not sure what shape or size it will be in, in the coming decade. The areas of concern from where this sense of Pakistan’s crisis emanates have been defined and articulated in various ways by scholars and policy makers. They may be seen as falling within five broad categories; namely: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Unresolved National Identity Religious and Sectarian Extremism Divided Polity Economic and Developmental Dilemma Isolation from Allies

The unresolved national identity question is rooted in the original concept of Pakistan at its birth when leaders like Mohammad Ali Jinnah struggled to create an independent sovereign and secular state for the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. However, soon after the death of leaders like Jinnah who fought for the creation of Pakistan, his vision of building a ‘State for the Muslims’ came in confrontation with the idea of a ‘State of the Muslims’ or 5

Sonali Huria, “Failing and Failed States: the Global Discourse”, IPCS Issue Brief, No. 75, July 2008.

‘Muslim/Islamic State’. The seeds of this confrontation were sowed by the adoption of the “Objectives Resolution” in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on 12 March 1949. This resolution was moved by the then Prime Minister of Pakistan and Jinnah’s trusted colleague Liaquat Ali, possibly with the intent of making Pakistani democracy different from that of the European model (then adopted by India), as the “Objectives Resolution” vested sovereignty of Pakistan in Allah (God), not in the Pakistani people. Other developments like the cultural conflict between East and West Pakistan on the question of Bengali language in 1952, and sectarian conflict on the question of Ahmedi sect of Muslims in 1953-54 on a good or real Muslim, nursed the divide between ‘State for the Muslims’ and the ‘Muslim/Islamic State’. The rise of a ‘Muslim/Islamic state’ also had a greater compatibility with the Western (mainly British) strategic thrust in the then evolving Cold War which saw Islam as a powerful bulwark against the spread of communism in Asia. The ‘Islamic State’ idea got a tremendous boost and precedence during General Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime (1977-88) which also saw the rise of Mujahedeen groups backed by the US and western forces in countering the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.6 Cultural and ethnic fault-lines of Pakistan have also for long been vitiating the search for a viable national identity in Pakistan. The Bengali-speaking and inherently secular Muslims of the then East Pakistan separated from the mainland in 1971 to become the sovereign independent Bangladesh. The remaining ethnic cleavages separating Sindhis, Baluchis, Pushtoons and the Punjabis from each other remain to be resolved creatively. Some of these cleavages have precipitated internal turmoil and strife in Pakistan, like in Baluchistan, and pose a serious challenge to its unity, integrity and survival as a nation.7 It is the unresolved question of identity which has given rise to religious and sectarian extremism that is further tearing the Pakistani society and the state apart. 8 The roots of these forces go back to the anti-Soviet war of liberation in Afghanistan during the 1980s, but since the rise of Taliban in Afghanistan and the global ‘war on terror’ following the 9/11 attacks, the Jihadi terrorism has taken its most destructive form. The Frankenstein creation of Jihadi terrorism that Pakistan initially cultivated as a powerful strategic instrument against its neighbours like India and Afghanistan has become an ally of Al Qaeda, not only to emerge as the global security menace but also a challenge to the very existence of the state of Pakistan which patronised it. Jihadi terrorism that sprang from the frontier region of Pakistan and Afghanistan borders has spread extensively to cover the heartlands of Punjab and Sindh. The 6

For a discussion of Islamic factor in Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime see, Hasan-Askari Rizvi, Military, State and Society in Pakistan, New York, St. Martin’s, 2000. For a discussion of some of these issues, see Stephen P Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, 2004. Farzana Shaikh, Making Sense of Pakistan, Columbia University Press, New York, 2009. Saroop Ijaz, “So What is our Pakistani Identity”, The Express Tribune, July 05, 2011. Adeel Khan, “Ethnicity, Islam and National identity in Pakistan”, South Asia (A Journal of South Asian Studies), Vol. 22, No.1, 1999, pp. 167-182. Fahd Ali, “A New voice for a New Pakistan”, Daily Times, July 28, 2010. Husain Haqqani, “The Ideologies of South Asian Jihadi Groups”, Current trends in Islamic Ideology, No.1, 2005. Also see, Mohammad Waseem, “Political Sources of Islamic militancy in Pakistan” in Ian Talbot (ed.) The deadly Embrace: Religion, Violence and politics in India and Pakistan; 1947-2002, Oxford University Press, Karachi 2007. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, “Sectarianism in Pakistan: The radicalisation of Shi’i and Sunni Identities”, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 32, no.3, 1998.

Pakistani state woke up to this challenge only after 2007, but as yet, it has not been able to distance itself fully from the Jihadi terrorism as an instrument of state policy.9 While facing the fire from a section of the Jihadi groups such as the Tehrik-e-Taliban of Pakistan, it continues to patronise another set of such groups, like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harkat-ulMujahedeen and the frontier-based Haqqani group, in pursuing its strategic policy goals in Afghanistan and India.10 A well-known US expert on Pakistan, Bruce Riedel, wrote recently: But Al Qaeda is not alone. Allies in Pakistan like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the group that attacked Mumbai in 2008, or the Afghan and the Pakistani Taliban are under little or no pressure. LeT and the Afghan Taliban, focused as they are on non-Pakistani targets, still enjoy Pakistani intelligence patronage, even as the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) fights the Pakistan Taliban. The capacity of some of these groups, especially LeT, to cause global mischief, even provoke a war in South Asia between India and Pakistan is undiminished. Three of the five most wanted on America’s terrorist list, Zawahiri, LeT’s founder Hafeez Saeed and Taliban leader Mullah Omar are in Pakistan. Zawahiri is in hiding but the other two enjoy the ISI’s backing. Zawahiri too, likely has powerful protectors.11 In addition to the de-stabilising presence of the extremist and terrorist forces, Pakistan’s internal peace and stability has also been adversely afflicted by sectarian violence involving the dominant sect of Sunni Muslims and the religious/sectarian minorities such as Shia and Ahmedi Muslims, Hindus and Christians. Militarisation and spread of Shia-Sunni conflict has been particularly unmanageable. There is organised militancy led by the Sunni organisation Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the reactive Shia group Sipah-e-Mohammad Pakistan. Analysts suspect external involvement of other Muslims countries like Saudi Arabia (Sunni) and Iran (Shia) on the side of the warring groups, and there are accusations that Pakistan’s military intelligence establishment, ISI, is using Sunni militancy for the ‘genocide’ of the minority Shias.12 Pakistan’s inability to cope with its internal conflicts arises largely from its divisive and fragmented polity. The fundamental internal political contradiction is between the army and the civilian regime. Ever since it first took over power in Pakistan in 1958, the army has not 9

11 12

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Clifford D May (Ed.), The Afghanistan-Pakistan Theater, Militant Islam, Security and Stability, Foundation for Defence of Democracies, Washington DC, 2010. There is considerable literature on Jihadi terrorist groups in Pakistan and the threat that they pose to regional and international security as well as to the survival of Pakistan. For instance, see Ahmed Rashid, Descent Into Chaos, Allen Lane, Penguin Group, London, New York, 2008; Imtiaz Gul, The Al Qaeda Connection: The Taliban and Terror in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas, Viking, Penguin Group, New Delhi 2009. The Straits Times (Singapore), October 24, 2012. Considerable literature is available on Pakistan’s sectarian conflicts. See, for instance, Khaled Ahmed, Sectarian War: Pakistan’s Sunni-Shia Violence and its links to the Middle-East, Oxford University Press, Karachi 2011. Abdul Nishapuri, “ISI-sponsored Shia genocide or Sunni-Shia sectarian violence”, in the website “Let Us Build Pakistan”, March 31, 2012, http://criticalppp.com/archives/74987 (Accessed on 24 October 2012). Zofeen Ebrahim, “If this is not Shia genocide, What is?”, Dawn (Karachi), August 12, 2012.

allowed any credible civilian regime to come to power and function effectively. It has maintained its dominance not only by staging coup(s) to take over power but also to keep the political parties divided, and by manipulating elections to ensure victory of pliant and more amenable candidates and political parties. In a recent case, related to the election of 1990 which Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan People’s Party lost and brought Nawaz Sharif, then of Islami Jamhoori Ittehad, to power, the ISI’s role in manipulating elections through use of money was exposed, and the court verdict strongly indicted the generals for interfering in politics.13 There is a persisting fear in Pakistani civil society that the army can take over power any time it wants, but it is not capable of ensuring stability and development of the country. At present, however, caught in its own internal weaknesses and loss of credibility as also international pressures, the military may maintain a visible distance from active Pakistani politics.14 It has developed strong economic stakes and would not like to see real democracy evolve in Pakistan, though Pakistan’s problems cannot be solved without a popular government and trust of the people.15 Many analysts and close observers of Pakistani situation see its political and religious turbulence being precipitated and intensified by poor performance on the economic front. The Director of ‘Global Economic Attitudes, Pew Research Centre’ Bruce Stokes wrote: The news out of Pakistan is unrelentingly bad. Terrorist bombings have become a regular occurrence. Friction is mounting between the military, judiciary and the civilian government. Recent confrontations with India on the Line of Control in Kashmir have ratcheted up tensions… These headline-grabbing events obscure a more insidious problem: the profound economic challenges facing Pakistani society. These conditions both nurture and aggravate the country’s security, political and social troubles. And this economic malaise is worsening…16 Pakistan’s economic difficulties have been compounded by ‘sluggish growth, high inflation, extreme corruption, and lack of jobs for young Pakistanis’. The budget deficit in 2012 13

“1990 Election was rigged, rules SC”, Dawn.com October 19, 2012, http://dawn.com/2012/10/19/asgharkhan-case-sc-resumes-hearing-3/ (Accessed on 22 October 2012). Shamila N Chaudhary, “Is Pakistan military out of politics for good?” Foreign Policy, ‘THE AFPAK CHANNEL’, March 12, 2013, http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/03/07/is_pakistans_military_out_of_politics... Accessed on 8 March 2013. On army’s economic stakes in Pakistan see Ayesha Sidiqqa, The Military Inc: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economics, Pluto Press, London, 2007. Bruce Stokes, “Seeds of Unrest in Pakistan’s Economy”, Pew Research: Global Attitudes Project, February 07, 2013. http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/02/07/seeds-of-unrest-in-pakistans-economy/. Accessed on 18 March -2013. For an analysis of the linkages between Pakistan’s political difficulties and economic decline, see Shahid Javed Burki, “Which Way is Pakistan Heading: The Sick Man of South Asia” and also by him, “Which Way is Pakistan Heading? Politics of an Economy on the Brink”, Working Papers No. 154 and 155, 21 August 2012, Institute of South Asian Studies, Singapore.

reached an unsustainable level of 8.5 per cent of the gross domestic product, according to the International Monetary Fund. There are also growing trade deficit, galloping inflation, increasing levels of poverty, power outages, water shortages, and food insecurity. 17 Pakistan spends nearly 25 per cent of its total governmental expenditure on defence, and both its domestic and foreign investments have severely declined creating difficulties for the coming years as well.18 While the official explanations for this economic situation rest on global recession, declining inflow of foreign assistance and terrorism and sectarian conflicts, objective analysts blame poor management of economy, high corruption, poor governance and huge ‘leaks and poking holes’ in revenue collection. According to officially admitted facts, Pakistan has only 768,000 tax payers, a meagre 0.9 per cent of the entire population. As such, its total tax revenue accounted only for 9.1 per cent of GDP in 2011-2012, one of the lowest in the world. Pakistan has failed to carry out seriously needed reforms in the fields of tax collection and infrastructure, despite being cautioned by the World Bank and the IMF. There are no signs of Pakistan’s economy taking a positive turn in the near future, and without economic revival, social and political difficulties cannot be addressed. While facing challenges on the political and socio-economic fronts at home, Pakistan has also suffered in its international standing and image. Pakistan is increasingly seen as the hub of international terrorism where sections of its state connive at and patronise terrorist groups and extremist organisations. Pakistan’s tardy and often-below expectation performance in the USled ‘global war on terror’ has precipitated serious ‘trust deficit’ between the two longstanding allies. The roots of this ‘trust deficit’ can be traced to the mid-sixties when the then President and army chief General (later Field Marshal) Muhammad Ayub Khan had warned his American allies that they were “Friends; Not Masters”.19 The signs of the latest phase of ‘trust deficit’ started emerging in 2002, soon after the launching of the war on terror; and they assumed serious dimensions following the killing of the Al Qaeda founder and chief Osama bin Laden in his Pakistani hide-out in Abbottabad in May 2011. In May 2012, then Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani publicly admitted that “There is a trust deficit between both the countries, between both the governments … That is the reason we are wanting to work for new terms of engagement and cooperation with the United States”. 20 He admitted that Washington and Islamabad differed on how to fight terrorism and that Pakistani electorates were increasingly hostile to the US. He said: “I am not an army dictator; I am a public figure. If public opinion is against you (i.e. US and its allies) then I cannot resist it to stand with you. I have to go with public opinion”.21 President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari

Muhammad Nawaz Khan, “Reasons and Cures for the Economic Situation of Pakistan”, Islamabad Policy Research Institute, Islamabad, 2012. Victor Mallet and Farhan Bokhari, “Dark prospects haunt Pakistan”, Financial Times, December 26, 2012. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ccd68074-48db-11e2-b94d-00144feab49a.html. Accessed on 20 March2013. This was the title of Gen. Ayub Khan’s political autobiography published in 1967 by Oxford University Press. He expressed his unhappiness with the way the US was treating Pakistan as an ally. This was stated in an interview with the CNN on May 09, 2012. http://articles.cnn.com/2012-0509/asia/world_asia_pakistan_gilani-1_drone-strike Accessed on 15 February 2012. See Gilani’s interview in TIME magazine on May 12, 2011; soon after the US raid on Osama hide-out.

had also echoed these sentiments and asked for bridging the US-Pakistan ‘trust deficit’.22 On the popular front, the percentage of the Pakistanis considering the US as an enemy has been consistently increasing. According to public opinion surveys conducted by the Pew Research Centre, this percentage was 64 in 2009; 69 in 2011 and 74 in 2012. 23 This extent of dislike in Pakistan has led some analysts to argue that it may not be difficult to break the US-Pakistan alliance. The former Pakistani Ambassador in Washington Husain Haqqani wrote recently: Americans see Pakistan as the ungrateful recipient of almost [US] $40 billion in economic and military assistance since 1947, $23 billion of it for fighting terrorism over the last decade alone. In their view, Pakistan has taken American dollars with a smile, even as it covertly developed nuclear weapons in the 1980s, passed nuclear secrets to others in 1990s, and supported Islamist militant groups more recently. No matter what Washington does, according to a growing cadre of US senators, members of Congress and editorial writers, it can’t count on Pakistan as a reliable ally.24 Alienation from the US has seriously affected Pakistan’s image and standing in Europe, and elsewhere including with the western-dominated financial and monetary institutions. Iran factor has also affected the US-Pakistan equation and tensions periodically arise in Pakistan’s relations with Saudi Arabia as a result of alienation between Pakistan and the US, especially on the question of Islamic extremism. However, the US and its strategic allies will continue to depend upon Pakistan so long as they have their men and material trapped in Afghanistan. It is anybody’s guess as to how the closing down of the US-led ‘global war on terror’ in Afghanistan in 2014 will affect the US-Pakistan alliance. Pakistan’s relations with India and Afghanistan have always remained mired in mutual conflict and distrust. Afghan officials have been publicly blaming Pakistan for taking money in under-hand dealings to release Taliban prisoners under its custody.25 China remains Pakistan’s “all-weather friend” and a reliable supporter, but there also, on the question of Islamic extremism and Jihadi terrorism that affect China’s Xinjiang region directly, there are signs of mutual unease in bilateral relations.26 There are reports that at the trilateral discussions between China, India and Russia on the unfolding Afghanistan situation, China did not seem concerned about Pakistan’s interests and stakes.27

22 23 24

The News, June 13, 2012. “PEW Report: Anti-American sentiment rife in Pakistan”, The Express Tribune, June 28, 2012. Husain Haqqani, “Breaking Up Is Not Hard to Do: Why the U.S.–Pakistani Alliance Isn’t Worth the Trouble”, Foreign Affairs March/April 2013. “Ex-Spy Chief: Pakistan Sees Afghanistan As ‘Sub-Nation’, Radio Free Europe, March 13, 2013. http://www.rferl.org/articleprintview/24927930.html. Accessed on 16 March 2013. See Isaac B. Kardon, “China and Pakistan: Emerging Strains in Entente Cordiale”, The Project 2049 Institute, Arlington Virginia, March 25, 2011. Peter Lee, “Taliban Force a China Switch”, Asia Times Online March 06, 2009. Charles Horner and Eric Brown, “Beijing’s Islamic Complex”, The Wall Street Journal, June 02, 2010. Manoj Joshi, “The great American betrayal”, The Hindu, March 12, 2013.

Prospects Analysts of Pakistan’s present predicament have projected many scenarios of how Pakistan will come out of its crises. All these scenarios fall broadly into three categories namely: a complete collapse of the state; emergence of a strong, stable, modern and moderate Islamic state; and a muddling through i.e. a state continuously adrift.28 We do not subscribe to the theory of failed and failing states and do not see any prospects of the Pakistani state withering away under its present many-fold crises. This is also the broad consensus of the studies prepared on the theme of Pakistan’s crisis. According to these studies, the state of Pakistan will not collapse nor would it be just taken over by the Islamic extremist and Jihadi forces. The rise of Taliban in Afghanistan after the projected complete draw-down of American and allied forces in July 2014, as also the continuing uncertainty and political malaise in Pakistan, may give a boost to extremism, but not to the extent that such forces take control of the state. There is also no possibility of Pakistan’s further breakup and territorial erosion either in the form of separation of turbulent areas like that of Baluchistan or redrawing of the boundaries of its frontier region with Afghanistan as a result of territorial and ethnic polarisation in post2014 Afghanistan. Such a drastic development would need a massive external intervention which is most unlikely. There are clearly three forces that will strongly resist any collapse of the Pakistani state. One is its most powerful army; which even after losing some of its credibility and shine, continues to be a strong force for unity and stability of Pakistan. There is a visible impact of Islamist forces in army’s lower cadres but the institution as a whole would resist relapse of the state into an extremist theocracy. Then there is Pakistan’s growing civil society and the inherent resilience of the Pakistani society. The extremist forces may be strong in street power and gun control, but their social legitimacy and support is still fragile. The strength of the civil society is evident in its free press. It could also be seen during the lawyers agitation against the then President Gen. Musharraf to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and restore the independence of judiciary.29 The second robust indication of the strength of civil society was evident in the successful campaign launched by Tahir-ul Qadri to ensure elections under an independent authority. 30 Lastly, the international community, including its two harassed neighbours Afghanistan and India, seem fully cognisant of the adverse implications of Pakistan’s collapse. They have stakes in peace, order and stability of Pakistan and would do their best to ensure that Pakistan comes out of its present crisis.

For a discussion of these scenarios, see Bellagio Papers, op.cit., n.2. An Interactive “Crisis Guide: Pakistan” prepared by the Council on Foreign Relations, Washington DC, http://www.cfr.org/interactives/CGPakistan/index.html?cid=otc-marketinguse-p. Accessed on 13 November 2012. Also see Pakistan on the Edge, Pakistan Project Report 2012, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, December 2012, New Delhi. James Traub, ‘The Lawyers Crusade”, New York Times, June 01, 2008. Ehsan Zaffar, “Amid a Turbulent Year; a Rare Sign of Hope in Pakistan” Huffington Post, ‘The BLOG’ May 01, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ehsan-zaffar/education-activism-and-po_b_801752. Accessed on 10 March2013. Kazi Anwarul Masud, “Pakistan in Crisis Again”, South Asia Analysis Group, Jan 20, 2013. http://saag.org/node/11427. Accessed on 11 March 2013.

The second scenario of a strong and modern Pakistan with a moderate Islamic identity emerging out of the present mess also looks unlikely. It is true that for the second time in Pakistan’s past more than 60 years of turbulent political evolution, an elected civilian regime under President Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party has completed its full five-year term. First time also it was done under Z A Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party regime during 1972-77. The elections that are scheduled for May 2013 will hopefully produce another coalition civilian regime. However, despite the unlikely prospects of the army stepping in to assume direct governance, the new civilian regime will have to work under the army’s shadow, and it may not be strong enough to lead Pakistan out of its present worries. Pakistan’s judiciary has of late become active and assertive as an independent source of authority, but many of its judgments are seen as politically motivated and unduly intrusive for smooth functioning of the executive.31 For Pakistan to move in the direction of a strong, stable and moderate Islamic state, there are four essential conditions: (i) strong and entrenched democratic governance, completely free from army’s political interference; (ii) firm control over terrorist and extremist forces as well as on sectarian strife; (iii) forward-looking economic dynamism and (iv) firm international support including peaceful and cooperative relations with immediate neighbours like India and Afghanistan. There are no indications that any of these conditions will come into operation in foreseeable future. Pakistan will most likely follow the third course of being a state adrift; muddling through with more of the same situation continuing. This means that sectarian conflict and religious extremism/terrorism will remain unrestrained, perhaps growing incrementally; economy will continue to struggle to come out of debt, deficit and depression; an elected but weak civilian regime will make its efforts to cope with the challenges of governance under tense civilmilitary relations amid signs of the judiciary asserting itself as an alternate pole of authority. In case of any serious deterioration in the internal situation, or failure of the election to throw up a viable coalition, the possibility of a take-over by the army, though less likely, may not be ruled out. Pakistan’s relations with the international community may also not witness any major improvement. Engagement with the US has been restored to a normal level of functioning essentially because both the US and Pakistan need each other to navigate the transition through to the date of withdrawal of US-led coalition forces in July 2014. The future of these relations will considerably depend upon the situation unfolding in Afghanistan and the role that Pakistan plays in it. Any major improvement in Pakistan’s relations with its immediate neighbours, India and Afghanistan, also looks unlikely.

Chaudhry Faisal Hussain, “Outcome of Judicial Activism’, Dawn (Karachi), January 02, 2013. Farrukh Khan Pitafi, “Perils of judicial Activism”, The Express Tribune, December 29, 2012. Also see Syeda Saima Shabbir, “Judicial Activism Shaping the Future of Pakistan”, Social Science Research Network, January 30, 2013. http://papers.ssrn.com/so13/[papers.cfm?abstract_id=2209067. Accessed on 3 March 2013.

India’s Response What should be India’s response to a Pakistan precariously perched on a precipice? The strategic community in India is divided along three approaches to be pursued in relation to Pakistan. One group shares Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s vision of an integrated and cooperative subcontinent where one can have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul. Addressing a Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) gathering in January 2007, Dr Singh said in relation to Pakistan: I dream of a day, while retaining our respective national identities, one can have a breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul. That is how my forefathers lived. That is how I want our grandchildren to live… I earnestly hope that relations between our two countries become so friendly and that we generate such an atmosphere of trust between each other that the two nations would be able to agree on a Treaty of Peace, Security and Friendship.32 Among the votaries of this approach are a number of civil society groups and newspapers. The Times of India from the Indian side has joined hands with a Pakistani-language (Urdu) newspaper group The Jung to launch a movement called ‘Aman Ki Asha’ (Hope of Peace) to build better relations between India and Pakistan. Moves in the direction of institutionalising “comprehensive dialogue” to resolve bilateral issues, normalising trade and economic cooperation and improving people-to-people exchanges are part of this approach. This approach, however, faces a big challenge from Pakistan’s inability to restrain and control its officially-patronised non-state actors from their cross-border acts of terrorism against India. The violations of ceasefire on the Line of Control can also vitiate cooperative engagement. Pakistan also uses every possible opportunity to interfere in India’s sensitive internal affairs. The adoption of a resolution by Pakistan National Assembly even under a civilian regime on 13 March 2013 condemning the hanging of a Kashmiri militant leader Afzal Guru for his role in the attack on Parliament House in New Delhi in 2001 is the latest example of such interference. The second approach is that of exploiting Pakistan’s present predicament and crippling its capabilities to an extent that Pakistan is unable to pose any security challenge to India. This approach gives legitimacy to the Pakistani allegations that India is supporting insurgency in Baluchistan. India’s “Operation Parakram”, initiated in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on Indian Parliament in December 2001, wherein India massed troops on its western borders to take retaliatory action if any such cross-border terrorist attack was to be repeated from Pakistani side, was also a manifestation of this approach.33 This approach has not yielded any positive results for India. It must also be understood that neither has India the mindset or capabilities to hasten Pakistan’s internal disintegration nor would the international 32 33

Indian Express, January 08, 2007. Brig. Gurmeet Kanwal, “Lost opportunities in Operation Parakram”, Indian Defence Review, December 13, 2011.

community at the present juncture let India proceed in that direction. Moreover, chaos, turbulence and disintegration within Pakistan are not in India’s immediate or long-term enlightened interests. And the third approach is to leave Pakistan on its own, ignoring it and isolating it: let Pakistan come to terms with itself, put its own house in order; and India should be prepared to engage it when Pakistan is prepared to deal with India constructively. The difficulty here is that even by completely ignoring and disengaging with Pakistan, India cannot ensure that it will not receive the adversarial spill-over of Pakistan’s internal difficulties. While none of the three approaches identified earlier may on a stand-alone basis serve India’s interest, any credible Indian policy towards an internally beleaguered Pakistan should have the creative elements of all these three approaches. Accordingly, India should leave Pakistan’s internal challenges for Pakistan to handle: neither exploit them nor offer any support to help Pakistan come out of them. But at the same time, India must be prepared to fend itself from any undesirable impact on its vital interests from Pakistan’s distortions. India should also demonstrate a credible deterrence against any Pakistani initiative to harm India either through cross-border terrorism or any other similar action. Pakistan has to be convinced, through firm actions, that the costs of such actions would be unbearable. While guarding its vital interests, India should be forthcoming to constructively engage Pakistan, if the latter is willing and prepared, in any area of mutual benefit and India should accordingly help Pakistan brave its multi-faceted challenges.

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ISAS Working Paper No. 173 – 18 April 2013 469A Bukit Timah Road #07-01, Tower Block, Singapore 259770 Tel: 6516 6179 / 6516 4239 Fax: 6776 7505 / 6314 5447 Email: isassec@nus.edu.sg Website: www.isas.nus.edu.sg

Youth and Politics in India-I Rahul Advani1

Introduction

This paper spells out the ways in which, and the reasons why, young people in India today engage in politics. An answer to this research question is attempted by first locating the politics of youth within its economic and educational contexts so as to identify the factors that draw young people into politics. Explored in the process are the problems of boredom, exclusion, unemployment and the desire to escape, all of which are closely connected to the contexts in which young people operate. Finally discussed is the issue of alienation, a condition deriving from various identified issues, which causes youth to turn to politics in search of identity.

Defining „Youth‟

The Wall Street Journal has recognised the growing importance of the youth population in India, calling it “one of the youngest countries in the world, where youth accounted for 20% of the total population in 2011”.2 Based on the “United Nations' definition of youth” as

Mr Rahul Advani is Research Assistant at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore. He can be contacted at isasra@nus.edu.sg. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of ISAS. Kundu, K.K., 2012, „Young, Jobless and Indian‟, The Wall Street Journal [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/11/23/young-jobless-and-indian/>.

“people from 15 to 24 years of age”,3 “the proportion of people in the age-group 15-24 years has increased over time”.4 It is, therefore, timely to study and understand the features and ramifications of their behaviour. It is difficult to settle on a specific definition of youth, considering that “the operational definition and nuances of the term „youth‟ often vary from country to country, depending on the specific socio-cultural, institutional, economic and political factors.”5 However, “given the rise in average life expectancy, longer education and the problem of lumpen youth (that is, remaining with the family with no apparent professional activity until an advanced age), people of up to 30 years old could be regarded as being youth.”6 This is especially applicable to India‟s youth, as many of them live with their parents past their teenage years due to (alongside cultural factors) the problem of youth unemployment which in India “has consistently been above the national average”.7 Therefore, if we are to take this definition of youth, the implications of India‟s youth politics become even greater as “nearly 40 per cent of the Indian population is aged 13 to 35 years”.8 The variations between states, in the population share of youth, suggest that the politics of young people unfolds in various ways across region. Based on the age range of 13 to 35 years, Delhi and Chandigarh are the most-highly youth-populated places in India, with youth making up 46.19 per cent and 47.19 per cent of the total population of these territories, respectively. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, on the other hand, are at the lowest end of the spectrum, with youth populations of 37 per cent and 38.34 per cent respectively. 9 However, given that these are still sizeable youth populations, the politics of young people throughout India is potentially powerful and transformative.

3 4

7 8

Ibid. Dev, S.M. and Venkatanarayana, M., 2011, Youth Employment and Unemployment in India, Goregaon: Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, 2. Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports, Government of India, 2011, Report of Working Group on Adolescent and Youth Development, Shastri Bhavan: Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports, 1. Ghimire, K.B., 2002, „Social Movements and Marginalized Youth in Brazil, Egypt and Nepal‟, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 30 (1), p.38. Kundu, K.K., 2012, op cit. Decent Work for Youth in India, 2012, International Labour Organization [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.ilo.org/newdelhi/info/WCMS_175936/lang--en/index.htm>. Total and Percentage of Youth Population (2001) – All India and State-wise, 2001, Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.youthportal.gov.in/statistics/TotalandPercentageofYouthPopulation2001AllIndia-Statewise.htm>.

Total and Percentage of Youth Population (2001) – All India and State-wise10

State/UT

Total Population

Youth Population (13-35 Years) Number

Percentage

INDIA

1028610328

422337315

41.05

JAMMU & KASHMIR

10143700

4314348

42.53

HIMACHAL PRADESH

6077900

2574931

42.36

PUNJAB

24358999

10396346

42.67

CHANDIGARH

900635

425099

47.19

UTTARANCHAL

8489349

3466298

40.83

HARYANA

21144564

8961393

42.38

DELHI

13850507

6398304

46.19

RAJASTHAN

56507188

22206872

39.29

UTTAR PRADESH

166197921

63725261

38.34

BIHAR

82998509

30710453

37.00

SIKKIM

540851

244467

45.20

ARUNACHAL PRADESH

1097968

450543

41.03

NAGALAND

1990036

909099

45.68

MANIPUR

2166788

961671

44.38

MIZORAM

888573

390915

43.99

TRIPURA

3199203

1394159

43.57

MEGHALAYA

2318822

948404

40.90

ASSAM

26655528

11349077

42.57

WEST BENGAL

80176197

34016100

42.42

JHARKHAND

26945829

10525981

39.06

ORISSA

36804660

15309375

41.59

CHHATTISGARH

20833803

8255402

39.62

MADHYA PRADESH

60348023

24197997

40.09

GUJARAT

50671017

21754353

42.93

DAMAN & DIU

158204

85366

53.95

DADRA & NAGAR HAVELI

220490

103971

47.15

MAHARASHTRA

96878627

41347821

42.68

Ibid.

ANDHRA PRADESH

76210007

32756234

42.98

KARNATAKA

52850562

22915253

43.35

GOA

1347668

612451

45.44

LAKSHADWEEP

60650

25628

42.25

KERALA

31841374

13207561

41.47

TAMIL NADU

62405679

26794108

42.93

PONDICHERRY

974345

434474

44.59

356152

167600

ANDAMAN ISLANDS

NICOBAR

47.05

The employment patterns among youths are also particularly telling about their attraction towards politics. In 2007-2008, only 15.5 per cent of India‟s youth (aged 15 to 24) were employed in regular salaried work, whereas 49.8 per cent and 34.7 per cent were selfemployed and casual labourers, respectively.11 Not only are the majority of youth excluded from regular salaried work, but they are also “more likely than adults” 12 to be casual workers. The socioeconomic vulnerability of youth and its implications for the viability and benefits of youth politics, therefore, become apparent when considering that “casual work is the least secure and lowest-paying type of work in the Indian labor market.”13

II.

The Youth as a „New‟ Class of Political Actors

Literature has described youth as an important part of Indian society in relation to the surge of political participation amongst young people in the country. More interestingly, the literature has consistently depicted these youthful populations as „new‟ in one form or another. This has been done, not only to depict the increasing involvement of Indian youths in politics as a relatively new phenomenon, but also to convey the ways in which new cultures, both political and social, have emerged out of the spaces in which youth and politics intertwine. This includes the “emerging culture of political entrepreneurialism”,14 evident in the practices of extortion by youths in Uttar Pradesh, Meghalaya and Kolkata. Whether it concerns Shiv Sena activists in Maharashtra, Naxalites in Bihar and Jharkhand, jute workers in Kolkata, students in Meghalaya, young Dalit men in Uttar Pradesh, or even IT (information technology) professionals in Bangalore, the literature has consistently portrayed 11 12

13 14

Dev, S.M. and Venkatanarayana, M., 2011, op cit., p.15. Biavaschi, C., Eichhorst, W., Giulietti, C., Kendzia, M.J., Muravyev, A., Pieters, J., Rodriguez-Planas, N., Schmidl, R. and Zimmermann, K.F., 2013, Youth Unemployment and Vocational Training (Washington, D.C.: World Bank), pp.67-68. Ibid, p.68. Jeffrey, C., 2010, Timepass: Youth, Class and the Politics of Waiting in India (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press), p.161.

the youth of the past few decades as „new‟ in terms of their levels of political engagement as well as their political behaviour. The studies by Pai (2000, 2002) on four villages in western Uttar Pradesh explored the emergence of a new class of educated Chamar men who optimistically link their education with the BSP (Bahujan Samajwadi Party) and ideas of Dalit mobility. The studies by Ciotti (2002) on eastern Uttar Pradesh similarly depict the impact of low-caste politics on the formation of ideas about low-caste identity and mobility. It documents “educated young Chamars who have successfully obtained government employment and identify closely with the BSP‟s idealised model of social mobility.”15 Even in the case of unemployment, some young men have responded by “cultivating an image of themselves as local political operators: urbane, knowledgeable and part of a wider low-caste movement”.16 Anirudh Krishna‟s (2002) study of educated unemployed people in rural western India in the 1990s argues that “educated „new politicians‟, some Dalit and some from middle-caste backgrounds, challenged caste prejudices in rural parts of Gujarat and Rajasthan”.17 There are no published sources that have fully captured the meanings and implications of the protests, by mostly middle class college students in Delhi and other parts of India, in the past two years. However, many newspapers reporting worldwide on India‟s recent cases of corruption and rape have hinted at the significance of these protestors. They have done so by noting their increased presence in the public and political sphere. However, in spite of these attempts by youths to resist and ultimately transform the social ills of caste, corruption and sexual discrimination through politics, there is much literature to suggest that the consequences of youth politics, especially that of unemployed youth, are less positive for social progress (due to the reinforcement of caste), cohesion (due to the divisions along identity lines) and security (due to the possibilities of violence).

The Idea of “Escape”

Politics as an Escape from Education

The common experience of boredom within the education system in India helps to explain the dynamics of youth politics. Young men are often expected “to take up streams which have high earning potentials and are so-called more „masculine‟ in nature”.18 Due to their prestige and potential earning capacity, such streams increase the eligibility of young men, thereby 15

16 17

Jeffrey, C., Jeffery, P. and Jeffery, R., 2005, „When Schooling Fails: Young Men, Education and Low-caste Politics in Rural North India‟, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 39 (1), p.11. Ibid. Jeffrey, C. and Young, S., 2012, „Waiting for Change: Youth, Caste and Politics in India‟, Economy and Society, 41 (4), p.642. Goswami, P. and Suvarna, S., 2007, „Who are the Victims of Gender Discrimination in the Choice of Stream of Education: Boys or Girls?‟, A Study on Undergraduate Bengali Students of West Bengal, India. Social Science Research Network [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://ssrn.com/abstract=985272>.

providing their families with greater bargaining power within the process of arranging marriage and determining dowry. As a result, many men are encouraged and in some cases even forced by their families to pursue “prestigious professional programs such as engineering, medicine, or business”.19 With this pressure to conform academically, many young men in universities end up studying subjects they have little interest in, leading to an unsatisfactory and uninteresting academic experience that causes them to view politics as a more exciting alternative and a way to pass the time. The poor quality of teaching by faculty members in Indian universities is another contributing factor to the problem of boredom. Mohan (1987) writes that the “good ones leave for another new institute or for greener pastures abroad. Since the average age of teachers in India is low, universities are then doomed for decades”.20 With students “adrift and bored by their uninspired professors, courses and miserable surroundings”,21 politics serves not only to overcome boredom but also provides an „escape‟ from college life. This is evident in the escapades of many of the student politicians and political fixers interviewed in Craig Jeffrey‟s book, Timepass (2010), who admit to poor attendance records, frequently skipping lectures to conduct their political activities.

II.

Politics as an Escape from Manual Labour

In addition to creating boredom, from which young men seek to escape through entering politics, the experience of education in India is identified in some of the literature as a fundamental part of the problem of unemployment (which is also cited as a primary cause of youth politics). For example, Shaljan (2002) argues that “the disdain for manual labour inculcated among the pupils at the schools and colleges has resulted in the high incidence of unemployment among the educated youth”.22 Education, therefore, not only contributes directly (through boredom) but also indirectly to the appeal of politics. Attitudes and social capital accumulated through education lead young people to perceive politics as more socially acceptable than manual labour. Political participation enables them to preserve their status, as many young men who are unable to access employment to white-collar work choose to enter politics instead of labour-intensive work.

21 22

Kurien, P., 2003, „Gendered Identity: Creating a Hindu Indian Identity in the United States‟, in HondagneuSotelo, P., Gender and U.S. Immigration: Contemporary Trends (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press), p.158. Mohan, D., 1987, „Science and Technology Policy in India: Implications for Quality Education‟, in Ghosh, R. and Zachariah, M., Education and the Process of Change (New Delhi: Sage Publications), pp.142. Ibid, pp.149. Shaljan, A.M., 2002, „Other Side of Unemployment in Kerala‟, Economic and Political Weekly, 37 (46), pp.4651.

Moreover, Shaljan‟s argument strengthens the idea mentioned previously of politics as an escape. Whilst it has been argued previously that the literature hints at how politics, in part because of its active and exciting nature, is seen to represent an escape from the boredom of college life, what can be drawn from the work of Shaljan and others is that politics provides another escape route. It also allows educated men to escape a hard, physically draining, lowpaying, and, in their eyes, socially demeaning life in manual labour. Politics is not only far less physically intensive and repetitive than manual labour, but also able to “mask de facto downward mobility”.23

II.

Politics as an Escape from Unattractive Work/Life Options

The increasing relevance of youth is evident in Chitralekha‟s (2010) research on Naxalites in Jharkhand and Bihar, as it seeks to uncover the reasons behind the increasing membership of youths in these parties. It makes a connection between the “rapidly changing” profile of Naxalite parties and the “influx of young people from landed, relatively well-to-do and even upper caste families into these parties”.24 The research findings from Chitralekha‟s “sample of forty Naxalite armed cadre”, 25 from across Jharkhand and Bihar, suggest the possibility that the Naxalite lifestyle may be more powerful than ideology in drawing young people to join such parties. Where ideology is concerned, Chitralekha states that “only eight (a fifth of the sample) had in fact killed for it, or because of it”.26 This may be because of the way in which the prospects of danger, unpredictability and violence, commonly associated with Naxal parties, are seen by youths as solutions to their problems of unemployment and restlessness and their desires to experience excitement and “make something”27 out of their lives. It is, therefore, possible that, rather than joining Naxal parties because of convictions regarding political ideologies or as a way to react against the injustices of the state, the incentives for young people to join such parties are driven more by their desire to escape the problems and circumstances of young adulthood and enjoy aspects of the perceived Naxalite lifestyle.

25 26 27

Li, T.M., 2012, „Waiting to Enter, or Locked Out? Educated Unemployed Youth in Craig Jeffrey‟s Timepass‟, Dialogues in Human Geography, 2 (1), p. 105. Chitralekha., 2010, „Committed, Opportunists and Drifters: Revisiting the Naxalite Narrative in Jharkhand and Bihar‟, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 44 (3), p.315. Ibid, p.299. Ibid, p.302. Ibid, p.319.

III.

Politics as an Escape from Boredom

In addition to the repetitive routines of labour and schooling in India, common experiences of boredom outside the space of education contribute to the increasing attraction of politics amongst young men. Newspaper reports have commented on the changing nature of India‟s movie theatre industry, with multiplexes that cater to the middle class replacing single screen cinemas as “the profile of filmgoers changed to shop-eat-catch-a-flick at multiplexes”.28 These multiplexes often charge “exorbitant ticket prices”,29 thereby excluding much of the working class who are frequent cinema goers. Such an analysis may be useful in explaining the growing problem of boredom in India and why working class men increasingly use strategies to cope with it. With “diminishing access to theatre, art, music and sport” in Indian cities, coupled with the fact that “movie theatre prices exclude large parts of the youth population”,30 young men have gravitated towards politics to fulfil their recreational needs. In the place of cinema theatres and concert halls, “the street becomes the stage for acting out adulthood”.31 The politics of youth, which is highly active both in orientation and in practice, requires the open spaces of streets and college campuses to play host to restless demonstrations and strikes.

IV.

Exclusion, Boredom and Escape as Causes of Youth Politics

Whilst there is no explicit connection made in the literature between the lack of recreational facilities in cities and the politics of youth (though the creation of a violent and abusive youth culture is noted), this may very well prove useful in helping to understand the dynamics of youth politics. This is because parallels can be drawn between the narrowing access to entertainment and factors commonly influencing youth politics, such as unemployment. Parallels include the similarity between the feeling of boredom and the experience of “living in limbo”32 which Craig Jeffrey commonly refers to when writing about young men being stuck in a phase of their life where they are expected to swiftly transition from education to employment. Another similarity is the feeling of exclusion that occurs as a result of being unable to access both formal employment and forms of entertainment that are not self-created (like youth politics) but formalised and institutionalised. 28

31 32

Govindarajan, N., 2012, „Curtains Come Down on Another Single Screen‟, The Times of India [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-1227/bangalore/36021078_1_single-screens-pallavi-multiplexes>. Rizvi, A., 2013, „Objects on Screen Only Reflect a Partial Picture‟, Tehelka [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://tehelka.com/objects-on-screen-only-reflect-a-partial-picture/>. Swami, P., 2013, „The Rapist in the Mirror‟, The Hindu [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-rapist-in-the-mirror/article4295240.ece?homepage=true>. Ibid. Jeffrey, C. and Young, S., 2012, op cit., p.641.

Unemployment

The issue of employment forms a substantial part of the youth politics equation. It is by no means exclusive from the other causes of youth politics, considering that unemployment is sometimes a choice made by educated young men who desire to escape a life of manual labour. However, the issue will be dealt with separately whilst acknowledging its linkages with other causes for the purposes of uncovering its complexities in depth. I.

The Reality of Educated Unemployment

The literature reveals that the problem of educated unemployment is not only intense but also widespread across India. If we are to apply the theoretical link between unemployment and youth politics (which will be discussed later in the section on „alienation‟), it would suggest that the former plays a large and highly pervasive role in pushing young people towards politics. In the case of Kerala, the mismatch between the “excess supply of educated” youths and “the small size and low growth of the organized sector”33 has resulted in large numbers of educated unemployed youths in the state. In Bangalore, IT institutes and private industrial institutes have “led to an oversupply in technically trained workers and an inflation in entry level requirements for basic jobs”.34 Since liberalisation, Andhra Pradesh‟s local labour market has witnessed “decreasing opportunities for recruitment into the public sector and few prospects of anything other than insecure, flexible, temporary and poorly remunerated work”.35 These examples alongside similar findings on other states in India suggest that the problem of educated unemployment is a national rather than a regional one. It, therefore, explains patterns of youth politics across the country.

II.

The Political Behaviour of Unemployed Youth

Patterns of unemployment are also discussed in the literature dealing with a topic not wholly dissimilar to youth politics – youth gangs. Given the similarities between the employment prospects of young men involved in politics and gangs, this would suggest that unemployment has a part to play in leading young men to participate in activities that are informal, public, group-based and potentially violent. This highlights the usefulness of viewing gangs and youth politics as similar patterns of behaviour. Whilst the literature on 33

Prakash, B.A., 2002, „Urban Unemployment in Kerala: The Case of Kochi City‟, Economic and Political Weekly, 37 (39), p.4073. Nisbett, N., 2009, Growing Up in the Knowledge Society: Living the IT Dream in Bangalore (New Delhi: Routledge), p.53. Cross, J., 2009, „From Dreams to Discontent: Educated Young Men and the Politics of Work at a Special Economic Zone in Andhra Pradesh‟, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 43 (3), p.358.

youth politics clearly identifies the extent to which unemployment is a fundamental part of the process, the “absence of career routes and job opportunities seem largely to account for the development of youth gangs”.36 Sirnate‟s (2009) study, on the politics of uranium mining in Meghalaya, shows how the consequences of unemployment and the characteristics of youth play into young people‟s political behaviour, determining the spaces they inhabit within the wider political arena. She conveys how students “from both rural and urban areas”,37 who join the Khasi Students Union (KSU), are similar to most youths in India who find themselves inadvertently drawn to politics, in that they do so as a response to their economic insecurity. This trend can be traced historically to 1978 when the KSU was first “started by students who faced high levels of economic uncertainty”.38 The KSU, which over the last three decades “has turned into the self-appointed custodian of Khasi culture and identity”,39 forms the subject of much discussion in the study. KSU members approach the public space in Meghalaya in a way that indicates a desire to establish a sense of importance, agency, power and respect from other citizens of the state. Extortion is a common method to achieve such aims as “businessmen in Shillong‟s thriving business district, Police Bazaar, talked of “polite extortion” and “voluntary contributions”, i e, KSU members asking for a full tank of gas, taking small favours and on some occasions even borrowing private vehicles for short periods of time.”40 These acts bear links to the acts of intimidation and extortion practised by some of the young working class men featured in Gooptu‟s (2007) study on declining jute industrial areas in Kolkata. In illustrating the link between underemployment and politics, Gooptu explores how working class men in Kolkata have responded to the casualisation and irregularity of their employment in contradictory ways, “ranging from petty crime and extortion to social service”.41 Despite being decidedly different in nature, these can all be categorised as innately political forms of behaviour. The concern of these activities is using power as a vehicle for achieving personal aspirations and erasing emotional insecurities. Gooptu highlights the way in which they are both political as she terms extortion as “criminalized politics” and social service as a form of “responsible and accountable politics”, with both being driven by the same intention – to “search for identity and agency in the context of a loss of sense of self”.42

38 39 40 41

Spergel, I.A., 1995, The Youth Gang Problem: A Community Approach (New York: Oxford University Press), p.4. Sirnate, V., 2009, „Students Versus the State: The Politics of Uranium Mining in Meghalaya‟, Economic and Political Weekly, 44 (47), p.19. Ibid, p.21. Ibid, p.19. Ibid, p.21. Gooptu, N., 2007, „Economic Liberalisation, Work and Democracy: Industrial Decline and Urban Politics in Kolkata‟, Economic and Political Weekly, 42 (21), p.1930. Ibid.

The common motivation behind these activities is clear from how they both constitute “expressions of power in the locality”.43 As a result, practising petty crime and intimidation, not for material gain primarily, but as an end itself, represents an “aspiration for recognition of adult malehood and a sense of exercising local influence”.44 Similarly, those involved in community activities try to “define a leadership role and autonomous agency for themselves in the locality and in the community.”45 The idea that both intimidation and social service are intrinsically political activities can also be linked to the history of Indian politics which has shown that both activities provide a viable route to entering politics – convicted criminals stand just as strong a chance as „good boy‟ leaders in becoming politicians.

Alienation

Alienation as a Consequence of Exclusion from Employment and Entertainment

What often results from unemployment and in turn precipitates the desire to establish or reestablish a sense of masculinity through politics are feelings of alienation. Unemployed young men experience these emotions due to the perception of employment as crucial to male identity. Under the obligation system, which typifies child-parent relationships in India, parents wait for returns on their investments in their children. As a result, “obtaining employment is essential for a son to maintain himself and meet the consensual and normative demands of both the family and society.”46 Young men without employment experience a sense of confusion. The ramifications of one‟s inability to perform his expected social role are evident from how unemployment imbues young men with a “sense of self-defeat and frustration”.47 As this leads to “deterioration in interpersonal relationships”, what in turn develops are “feelings of loneliness” and “isolation”.48 This description of the emotional trajectory of unemployed men helps in explaining much of the literature which consistently portrays social alienation both as a condition that afflicts many unemployed youths in India and as a driving force in the process of searching for masculinity through politics.

43 44 45 46

47 48

Ibid, p.1929. Ibid. Ibid, p.1930. Singh, L.B., 1996, „Alienation: A Symptomatic Reaction of Education Unemployed Youth in India‟, International Journal of Psychology, 31 (2), p.106. Ibid, p.107. Ibid.

II.

Depictions of „Alienation‟ in Literature on Youth Gangs

In addition to this idea of alienation as one that covers, or rather stems from, a sense of identity dislocation, its other connotations of loneliness and isolation bear resemblances to the literature on youth gangs. In Pitts‟ (2008) East London study of youth gangs, some joined these groups “because gang members were friends they had grown up with. A lot of these young people were not that interested in being „gangsters‟, they wanted to play football, make music, dance, or just „have a laugh‟.”49 The tendency of youths to gravitate towards gangs in search of fun can also be seen in India. In the case of Hyderabad, the idea of fun for many young people “often borders on criminal behaviour” which in turn leads them to participate in gang activities such as street fights and damaging public property in order “to satiate their lust for thrills”.50 The intentions to socialise and seek friendship, which seem to drive many young men to integrate within gang structures, arguably carry with them a fear of loneliness and a desire to avoid isolation. Such fears are similarly contained within the alienation felt by unemployed men in India who hope to improve their circumstances through politics. Therefore, the literature on gangs has much to offer in relation to understanding the politics of Indian youth. For example, to take this idea of friendship, which appears in the literature on gangs, and extend it to the situation of youth politics in India, is a particularly useful way of highlighting both the nature of and the driving forces behind youth politics. Concentrating on the idea of friendship points us towards the fact that the politics of young people in India is by no means conducted in isolation. Instead, it involves groups of men from similar circumstances partaking in various activities that are particularly conducive to social interaction and exchange. It, therefore, provides a platform for men (who are likely to identify with each other) to perform alongside each other in a way that allows them to connect and consequently overcome feelings of alienation they may have prior to their political engagement.

Conclusion

The literature reveals that social isolation and alienation, which commonly arise from unemployment (or in the case of the men in Gooptu‟s study, unstable and informal employment), are deeply responsible for the political engagement of young people, although such engagement manifests itself in a myriad of ways. Problems of unemployment and alienation do not necessarily determine the political direction or path of young people, as it

49 50

Pitts, J., 2008, „Describing and Defining Youth Gangs‟, Community Safety Journal, 7 (1), p.30. Henry, N., 2010, „Youth Gangs on the Prowl‟, The Times of India [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-11-08/hyderabad/28229957_1_youth-gangs-spraypaint-street-rage>.

may range from criminal behaviour to social service. However, they certainly cause men to respond in a way that is distinctly political, whichever way that may be. For some young men, the excitement and action of politics represent an escape from a life in manual labour or from boredom within the college or outside. For other men, politics is sometimes the only path left when faced with exclusion from employment and entertainment. Whilst boredom is the driving factor in the case of men who desire to escape through politics, for those excluded, alienation contributes heavily to the „push‟ towards politics. Boredom also certainly features in the lives of unemployed youths who are constantly in a state of waiting. Unemployment and underemployment, in particular, are characteristics distinct to youth politics as evident from the politics of young working-class men in Kolkata‟s jute industry, students in Meghalaya and young Shiv Sena activists in Maharashtra, all of whom come from backgrounds of economic insecurity. As a consequence of unemployment and underemployment, alienation influences the likelihood of youth political participation in several ways. Identity dislocation and isolation both produce the desire for a sense of relating and belonging – this is satisfied by the many informal political movements and groups that emphasise the importance of identity. In mobilising along religious, caste, class or ethnic lines outside formal politics, youths seek and discover a common identity in relation to other participants and a heightened sense of physical interaction. Even in the realm of party politics where youths typically play a less active role in the shaping of politics, the emphasis on identity nevertheless pervades. This conveys the link between youth and identity which even political parties have become attuned to. The Shiv Sena in the 1990s, for example, very deliberately deployed multiple forms of identity such as caste, class, religion and ethnicity simultaneously in its strategy to mobilise youth. This is evident from how “the typical activist in the Sena organization, then, was young, in his late twenties to early thirties; was at least a matriculate; was Maharastrian, native to Bombay; and came from a middle or lower-middle occupational and class status.”51 The casualisation of the labour market has led to common experiences of anxiety and instability as well as uncertainty over identity. For those yet to enter or already excluded from the workforce, emerging practices of timepass have come to represent “expressions of a souldestroying boredom now afflicting millions of educated, unemployed young men in India today”.52 Both patterns, in conjunction with narrowing access to entertainment, disdainful attitudes towards manual labour and the poor state of education, have provided the conditions for youth politics to spread beyond the confines of its romanticised past. Historically associated with the “upper-caste male – either a decadent young man who gets politicized” or

51 52

Katzenstein, M.F., 1977, „Mobilization of Indian Youth in the Shiv Sena‟, Pacific Affairs, 50 (2), p.234. Fuller, C., 2011, „Timepass and Boredom in Modern India‟, Anthropology of this Century [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://aotcpress.com/articles/timepass-boredom/>.

“an already politicized upper-caste youth showing his elders the error of their feudal ways”,53 youth politics now occupies the imagination of an entire generation of youths trying to navigate the fast-changing landscape of neo-liberal India.

Sources Cited Books Jeffrey, C. 2010. Timepass: Youth, Class and the Politics of Waiting in India. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Kurien, P. 2003. Gendered Identity: Creating a Hindu Indian Identity in the United States. In: Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. Gender and U.S. Immigration: Contemporary Trends. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Lukose, R. 2009. Liberalization’s Children: Gender, Youth and Consuming Citizenship in Globalizing India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Mohan, D. 1987. Science and Technology Policy in India: Implications for Quality Education. In: Ghosh, R. and Zachariah, M. (eds.) Education and the Process of Change. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Nisbett, N. 2009. Growing Up in the Knowledge Society: Living the IT Dream in Bangalore. New Delhi: Routledge. Pai, S. 2002. Dalit Assertion and the Unfinished Democratic Revolution: The Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh. Delhi: Sage. Spergel, I.A. 1995. The Youth Gang Problem: A Community Approach. New York: Oxford University Press.

Journal Articles Chitralekha. 2010. „Committed, Opportunists and Drifters‟: Revisiting the Naxalite Narrative in Jharkhand and Bihar. Contributions to Indian Sociology. 44 (3): 299-329. Ciotti, M. 2002. Social Mobility in a Chamar Community in Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Northern India. Ph.D. dissertation, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Lukose, R., 2009, Liberalization’s Children: Gender, Youth and Consuming Citizenship in Globalizing India (Durham, NC: Duke University Press), p.139.

Cross, J. 2009. From Dreams to Discontent: Educated Young Men and the Politics of Work at a Special Economic Zone in Andhra Pradesh. Contributions to Indian Sociology. 43 (3): 351379. Ghimire, K. B. 2002. Social Movements and Marginalized Youth in Brazil, Egypt and Nepal. The Journal of Peasant Studies. 30 (1): 30-72. Gooptu, N. 2007. Economic Liberalisation, Work and Democracy: Industrial Decline and Urban Politics in Kolkata. Economic and Political Weekly. 42 (21): 1922-1933. Goswami, P. and Suvarna, S. 2007. Who are the Victims of Gender Discrimination in the Choice of Stream of Education: Boys or Girls? A Study on Undergraduate Bengali Students of West Bengal, India. Social Science Research Network [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://ssrn.com/abstract=985272>. Jeffrey, C., Jeffery, R. and Jeffery, P. 2005. When Schooling Fails: Young Men, Education and Low-caste Politics in Rural North India. Contributions to Indian Sociology. 39 (1): 1-38. Jeffrey, C. and Young, S. 2012. Waiting for Change: Youth, Caste and Politics in India. Economy and Society. 41 (4): 638-661. Katzenstein, M. F. 1977. Mobilization of Indian Youth in the Shiv Sena. Pacific Affairs. 50 (2): 231-248. Krishna, A. 2002. “Enhancing Political Participation in Democracies: What is the Role of Social Capital?” Comparative Political Studies, 35 (4): 437-60. Li, T. M. 2012. Waiting to Enter, or Locked Out? Educated Unemployed Youth in Craig Jeffrey‟s Timepass. Dialogues in Human Geography. 2 (1), 104-106. Pai, S. 2000. New Social and Political Movements of Dalits: A Study of Meerut District. Contributions to Indian sociology. 34 (2): 189-220. Pitts, J. 2008. Describing and Defining Youth Gangs. Community Safety Journal. 7 (1): 2632. Prakash, B. A. 2002. Urban Unemployment in Kerala: The Case of Kochi City. Economic and Political Weekly. 37 (39): 4073-4078. Shaljan, A. M. 2002. Other Side of Unemployment in Kerala. Economic and Political Weekly. 37 (46): 4561.

Singh, L. B. 1996. Alienation: A Symptomatic Reaction of Education Unemployed Youth in India. International Journal of Psychology. 31 (2): 101-110. Sirnate, V. 2009. Students Versus the State: The Politics of Uranium Mining in Meghalaya. Economic and Political Weekly. 44 (47): 18-23.

Government and Research Institute Publications Biavaschi, C., Eichhorst, W., Giulietti, C., Kendzia, M. J., Muravyev, A., Pieters, J., Rodriguez-Planas, N., Schmidl, R. and Zimmermann, K. F. 2013. Youth Unemployment and Vocational Training. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. Dev, S. M. and Venkatanarayana, M. 2011. Youth Employment and Unemployment in India. Goregaon: Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research. Total and Percentage of Youth Population (2001) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; All India and State-wise. 2001. Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.youthportal.gov.in/statistics/TotalandPercentageofYouthPopulation2001AllIndi a-State-wise.htm>.

Online Newspaper and Magazine Articles Govindarajan, N. 2012. Curtains Come Down on Another Single Screen. The Times of India [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-12-27/bangalore/36021078_1_singlescreens-pallavi-multiplexes>. Henry, N. 2010. Youth Gangs on the Prowl. The Times of India [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-1108/hyderabad/28229957_1_youth-gangs-spray-paint-street-rage>. Kundu, K. K. 2012. Young, Jobless and Indian. The Wall Street Journal [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/11/23/young-jobless-andindian/>. Rizvi, A. 2013. Objects on Screen Only Reflect a Partial Picture. Tehelka [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://tehelka.com/objects-on-screen-only-reflect-a-partialpicture/>.

Swami, P. 2013. The Rapist in the Mirror. The Hindu [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-rapist-in-themirror/article4295240.ece?homepage=true>.

Websites Decent Work for Youth in India. 2012. International Labour Organization [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.ilo.org/newdelhi/info/WCMS_175936/lang-en/index.htm>. Fuller, C. 2011. Timepass and Boredom in Modern India. Anthropology of this Century [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://aotcpress.com/articles/timepassboredom/>.

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ISAS Working Paper No. 174 – 7 May 2013 469A Bukit Timah Road #07-01, Tower Block, Singapore 259770 Tel: 6516 6179 / 6516 4239 Fax: 6776 7505 / 6314 5447 Email: isassec@nus.edu.sg Website: www.isas.nus.edu.sg

Youth and Politics in India-II Rahul Advani1

1. Introduction This paper aims to uncover the features that make India’s youth politics so distinct from other forms of politics within the country, the kinds of politics young people participate in, and the kinds of young people who participate in it. First, there is a detailed discussion of the various identities that political parties have used for mobilising youth, as well as those that the youth themselves have used as a basis of political mobilisation on their own terms and in their own ways. This report also deals with the dynamics of youth politics to make the argument that it is far more behavioural than ideological. The practice of youth politics, which often operates outside the sphere of formal politics, is not only highly informed by the distinctly youthful traits of restlessness, spontaneity and insecurity, but is also more about participating for the sake of participation itself. Rather than an ideological, policy-focused type of “participation for the fulfilment of a certain goal”,2 participation in youth politics is driven by the desire to experience a sense of action, identity and masculinity, given that India’s youth politics is portrayed in the literature as a male-dominated domain. However, there is evidence that this is beginning to change, as the number of protesters in the weeks following the rape of a 23year-old medical student in South Delhi on 16 December 2011 had “been roughly half women and half men”.3 1

Mr Rahul Advani is Research Assistant at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore. He can be contacted at isasra@nus.edu.sg. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of ISAS. Sika, N. 2012. Youth Political Engagement in Egypt: From Abstention to Uprising. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 39 (2), 182. Upton, J. 2012. Why Mostly Men at the Indian Anti-Rape Protests? Slate [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/12/india_s_anti_rape_protests_are_women_getting_ groped.html>.

For developing this argument regarding the character of youth politics, an attempt has been made to explore the practices of friendship and fun that are part and parcel of the political activities of youth, the highly masculine orientation of young men’s political behaviour, and the ways in which they both view and practice politics as a form of public performance. Investigated, in the process, are the implications that youth politics carries for the personal lives of those who engage in it, as well as its consequences for wider society and for the overall politics of the state. This section of the paper covers the argument that youth politics not only carries implications of violence such as armed conflict and riots, but it is also becoming increasingly powerful in creating policy changes as young middle class youths have begun to politically express themselves, in recent years, in reaction to the unravelling social situation and the actions of the state.

2. Identity in Youth Politics Much of the literature reveals patterns of young people being drawn into politics on the basis of identity – mobilising on caste, ethnic and/or religious lines. Caste, ethnicity and religion have not only increased in importance as markers of identity among youth as result of politics, but have also been reconstructed. During the process of political mobilisation, young people negotiate and reconsider the meanings of their caste, religious and ethnic identities. I. Caste Identity Michelutti’s (2004) study of Yadav men in Uttar Pradesh, which is particularly relevant to youth politics considering that “most Yadav males begin their political careers or interest in politics at a very young age”,4 conveys how political responses are not only encouraged by, but also based upon, caste stereotypes. The disposition of Yadav men towards politics is strongly influenced by the stereotype of Yadavs as “a caste of politicians”,5 which in turn affirms their caste identity. Michelutti describes how “ordinary Yadavs constantly trace their ‘caste’ predispositions and skills”,6 such as “the skill of ‘doing politics’”,7 to their caste “descent”.8 Similarly, while their political rhetoric is intrinsically tied to notions of caste, depicting democracy as a “primordial phenomenon inherited by contemporary Yadavs from the ancestor-king-god Krishna”,9 their political behaviour in action is also influenced by their sense of masculinity and the idea of Yadavs “as thugs who base their strength on muscle power.”10 Jeffrey, Jeffery and Jeffery (2005) reveal the positive impact of caste politics on young people as it provides opportunities for empowerment and social mobility by removing caste prejudices. Low-caste political activity has helped mobilise Dalits by “providing a powerful 4

5 6 7 8 9 10

Michelutti, L. 2004. ‘We (Yadavs) are a Caste of Politicians’: Caste and Modern Politics in a North Indian Town. Contributions to Indian Sociology. 38 (43), 69. Ibid. Ibid, 48. Ibid, 47. Ibid, 48. Ibid, 47. Ibid, 53.

model of Dalit masculinity based on education and white-collar employment”.11 However, in contrast to much of the literature, Jeffrey and Young (2012) observe how young men in Meerut College in Uttar Pradesh have “mobilized politically across class, caste and religious lines”.12

II. Regional and Class Identity Unlike the findings of Jeffrey and Young, many of the other studies on youth politics have found different political movements that cater to young people to be highly exclusive in terms of identity. These include Hansen’s (1996, 2001) studies of young men in Maharashtra who were mobilised on the basis of their religious identity as Hindus and also Sirnate’s (2009) study of youth in Meghalaya who were mobilised on the basis of their ethnic identity as Khasis. Whether it is a difference in opinion or theory among the authors discussed above, on whether youth politics erases or reinforces identity, what has more likely contributed to the difference in findings is the fact that these studies took place in highly different regional contexts. Geographical differences are especially important in the case of India, considering its vast geography and different regional cultures, which will inevitably influence politics to differ greatly from region to region. The issue of class also explains why youth politics has spread in different directions. Class differences account for different types of political behaviour among young men, for example, “an upper middle class style of being masculine may be strikingly different from a working class style of masculinity”.13 These multiple class dimensions of masculinity help to provide an understanding of why it manifests itself in wildly different forms of political behaviour. The differences in masculinity across class are evident from how young men from different class backgrounds conceive of masculinity in different ways. They identify different values and activities as markers of their class and gender identity. According to Jeffrey, Jeffery and Jeffery, “educated young Chamar men emphasised schooling as a source of individual dignity and masculine prowess” contrasting themselves with uneducated Chamar men who, according to them, exhibited a highly different form of masculinity by watching “violent, crude and badly acted dramas starring ‘wild man’ actors”.14 However, the extent to which these different types of masculinities, varying according to class, have fed into the politics of these respective class groups, is unclear from the literature. Nevertheless, the potential of class to impact on caste within youth politics can be discerned from how “most middle-class students are from the politically dominant intermediate castes” while “working-class students are mainly Scheduled Caste”.15 11

Jeffrey, C., Jeffery, P. and Jeffery, R. 2005. When Schooling Fails: Young Men, Education and Low-caste Politics in Rural North India. Contributions to Indian Sociology. 39 (1), 32. Jeffrey, C. and Young, S. 2012. Waiting for Change: Youth, Caste and Politics in India. Economy and Society. 41 (4), 653. Ferguson, J. 1999. Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life in the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 95. Jeffrey, C., Jeffery, P. and Jeffery, R. 2005. Dalit Young Men and Formal Education. In: Chopra, R. and Jeffery, P. (eds.) Educational Regimes in Contemporary India. New Delhi: Sage, 265. Rogers, M. 2008. Modernity, ‘Authenticity’, and Ambivalence: Subaltern Masculinities on a South Indian College Campus. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 14 (1), 80.

III. Ethnic Identity Perhaps what is most interesting and most different about members of Meghalaya’s Khasi Students Union (KSU), in relation to other political youth groups in India, are their objectives which underlie all the activities they participate in. The operation of the KSU involves “taking over the contentious and electorally unrewarding positions national parties may shy away from – against institutionally correcting the influx of “outsiders”, anti-mining and power projects and re-instituting the “inner line permit” regime in Meghalaya”.16 The literature claims that the KSU represents a rejection of political ideology. However, a highly anti-establishment, anti-development, pro-tradition ideology that is very much in line with the group’s mission to preserve Khasi culture can be extrapolated from the various positions the group has taken on issues such as mining and migration. In spite of an implicit ideology, what nevertheless makes the KSU so typical of many other political student groups is its concern with identity and challenging the state system. Whilst many young men in India enter politics for the purpose of establishing an identity, the KSU aims to protect the Khasi identity, evident in its opposition to activities and populations such as mining and foreigners, respectively, that threaten to modernise and re-organise the culture of the state. Similar to the politics of youth in other parts of India, KSU members engage in identity politics. In response to the state’s handling of development of the Northeast and its marginalisation of the region’s inhabitants, the politics of youth in Meghalaya represents mobilisation against the state and against the idea of being ‘Indian’. Like the men featured in Gooptu’s (2007) study of jute workers in Kolkata “who try to steer clear of democratic party politics”,17 the “KSU’s antagonistic career against seemingly unrepresentative state power in Meghalaya”18 represents a challenge to the political system of the state and a rejection of the dominant political ideology. Moreover, the fact that the KSU takes electorally unrewarding positions on contentious issues may reveal that its politics is not necessarily about finding a place within the party system, but rather, is about finding an outlet for expression and voicing concern.

IV. The Role of Party Politics in the Construction of Identity Much of the literature portrays youth politics as operating outside the confines of party and electoral politics, as it is “oriented towards, and fashioned through, the informal political spheres”19 in which youth operate. However, in many cases, political parties play an important role in mobilising young people. Even as “political parties are using these students' unions only as their ‘vote banks’ and for political support”,20 in the process they often end up shaping the political identity, if not ideology, of youth. 16

18 19

Sirnate, V. 2009. Students versus the State: The Politics of Uranium Mining in Meghalaya. Economic and Political Weekly. 44 (47), 19. Gooptu, N. 2007. Economic Liberalisation, Work and Democracy: Industrial Decline and Urban Politics in Kolkata. Economic and Political Weekly. 42 (21), 1927. Sirnate, V., above n 16: 19. Jeffrey, C. 2010. Timepass: Youth, Class and the Politics of Waiting in India. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 181. Prasad, C. 2007. Students’ Movements in Arunachal Pradesh and the Chakma-Hajong Refugee Problem. Economic and Political Weekly. 42 (15), 1378.

An example of party politics reinforcing and reinventing religious identity is how the availability of young, unemployed, mainly other backward class (OBC), middle-class Hindu men in Maharashtra “provided the conditions for the success of the Shiv Sena and the BJP”21 in the 1990s. In addition to reinforcing the ‘Hindu-ness’ of the young men, the Shiv Sena mobilised them on the basis of altering the meaning of the Hindu identity in a way that spoke directly to the youths and their desires – the party’s “brash, self-confident, ‘street smart’ style represented to many young men in villages and towns the essence of what Bombay’s tantalising modernity was imagined to be”.22 The construction of a multi-faceted identity through which the Shiv Sena was able to attract unemployed young men not only explains the youthful appeal of the party but also the contradictory and complex nature of youth politics. According to Hansen, to be a Shiv Sainik is “to be respectable, to indulge in the enjoyment (maza) of one’s newfound status, to play by the rules; the other is to remain angry, to display courage (sahas) and manliness, to be the opposition”.23 The juxtaposition of these two ideas is particularly appealing to unemployed young men. The gaining of respect overcomes the shame they often feel as a result of their unemployed status. The ability to project anger, on the other hand, allows them to express their masculinity as well as vent their frustration at the socio-economic situation in which they have floundered. Whilst these contradictory ideas of commanding respect and expressing anger are reconciled within the Shiv Sainik identity, they emerge as differences in the identities of working class men in Kolkata who, according to Gooptu, either go down the path of social service or crime when engaging in politics, but rarely both. In the same vein as the Shiv Sena, the literature on Dravidian politics reveals a tendency by parties to emphasise ethnic identity in the quest for mass mobilisation. Much like how the Shiv Sena mobilised young men around the creation of a distinctly Maharashtrian identity and past, the “DMK deployed Tamilness as a category of analysis and expression, thus constructing an imagined community which took pride in its past and longed to translate that past to the present”.24 These similarities between Maharashtrian and Dravidian politics convey how parties across India resort to tactics of glorifying ethnicity. Political parties therefore play a critical role in politicising the identities of young men; whether it is the ‘Hindu warrior’ of the Shiv Sena or the ‘Goonda’ of the Samajwadi party, the use of symbols, images and even the reimagining of history by parties are powerful in their ability to influence the political engagement of young people.

22 23

Hansen, T.B. 1996. The Vernacularisation of Hindutva: The BJP and Shiv Sena in Rural Maharashtra. Contributions to Indian Sociology. 30 (2), 178. Ibid, 184. Hansen, T.B. 2001. Wages of Violence: Naming and Identity in Postcolonial Bombay. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 198. Rajadurai, S.V. and Geetha, V. 2002. A Response to John Harriss. Commonwealth and Comparative Politics. 40 (3), 121.

3. The Nature of Youth Politics I. Youth Politics as a Form of Behaviour The apparent nature of youth politics, rather than the actual type of politics and political ideas youth engage in, is the subject of much focus in the literature. This is likely because of the fact that, according to the literature, politics is less of an outlet for political expression of ideas than it is an opportunity to overcome the “feeling of limbo” 25 experienced by many young people both during schooling and afterwards when the problem of unemployment is a common occurrence. As a result, it is the character of politics, more than anything else, that is actively informed and shaped by young people. Their own insecurities and personal aspirations are often the factors that drive them towards politics, consequently determining the manner in which they express themselves politically, more so than the issues they choose to debate. Presenting a certain type of behaviour and identity through engaging in politics, rather than pushing for a certain policy, provides a quicker and more direct solution to the problems of boredom, restlessness, shame, alienation, social immobility and unemployment.

II. The Behaviour of Youth Gangs The literature on youth gangs is useful in providing a possible explanation as to why youth behaviour overpowers political objectives as a driving force behind youth politics. One similarity between youth politics and gangs that conveys this particular dynamic is the indifference youth have towards the activities that define the organisations they join. As is evident from Pitts’ (2008) study of youth gangs in East London, the prospect of “criminal involvement”26 or being a gangster is seen to have little weight in the decision to join a gang in contrast to the possibility of social integration and interaction. In the case of politics, it is unlikely that many of the young men involved have serious thoughts about becoming a politician or even have a genuine interest in political thought. Participating in youth groups, not because of what the group means or stands for in terms of its objective, but for the opportunity to have fun, is a common incentive that links young men involved in gangs and political groups together. The similarities in the composition and organisation of youth gangs across the world and youth politics in India point to the distinctiveness of youth groups that operate in public spaces as ‘visible’ and, to a certain extent, ‘controlling’ entities. Like most gangs around the world which mainly consist of groups of boys, young college-going men in Kerala, according to Osella and Osella (2000), are often “segregated from girls and socialising in all-male gangs”.27

25 26 27

Jeffrey, C. and Young, S., above n 12: 658. Pitts, J. 2008. Describing and Defining Youth Gangs. Community Safety Journal. 7 (1), 30. Osella, F. and Osella C. 2000. Social Mobility in Kerala: Modernity and Identity in Conflict. London: Pluto Press, 228.

III. The Gang Phenomenon in India The link between youth gangs and politics becomes further magnified when considering the phenomenon of youth gangs in India, as the country has had a “long history of groups that could be considered youth gangs”.28 Much like India’s youth politics, Varanasi’s street gangs, according to Singh (1969), “were mostly comprised of adolescent males”.29 In addition to the similar profiles of participants in youth gangs and in politics are their similar experiences of unemployment. Grennan’s et al.’s (2000) description of gangs noted that “Indian youth who joined gangs between 16 and 18 years of age were unemployed and had prior criminal involvement”.30 The tendency of youth to politically mobilise along caste lines can be compared with Srivastava’s study of Bombay gangs (1955) which concluded that “gang participation and membership was based on caste, with members only joining within their caste”. 31 The similar choices youth make and the factors they consider when joining gangs or politics indicates their desire for a space in which they can both display their identity and organise themselves socially outside the realm of the family and college/workplace. Participation as a way of replacing inaccessible and unsatisfying institutions is another common feature across youth gangs and politics. Just as “street gangs in Bombay were viewed as substitutes for other social organisations, such as school and family, which failed to meet the needs of youth”,32 many young men in India have turned to politics in the face of exclusion from employment and entertainment. The activities of gangs and politics that sometimes overlap suggest, to a certain degree, that youth gangs and politics are not always easily distinguishable. The similarities between the driving forces behind both activities can be viewed as causing gang and political activity to merge into one. For example, according to Sidhva (1997), the street gangs in Bombay “had political support from high places and ties to the police”.33 Furthermore, references to groups of the Congress Party’s youth wing “as gangs” that are “involved in street crimes” but “are most likely not true street gangs”34 convey the grey area that lies between the participation of youth in gangs and politics. This would suggest that young men are able to fluidly transition from politics to gangs, as seen in the example above demonstrating how youth politics can descend into violence and crime, and vice versa, as evident from the example of some young men in Kolkata who resort to extortion “to break into the exclusive, though corrupt, world of privilege and power”.35 The similarities of composition, alienation, unemployment, friendship and the need for fun between youth gangs and youth politics, reveal a set of patterns that identify youth as a separate social category containing its own set of distinct features. Not only are the youth unique in their behaviour - they are also powerful. Rather than consisting of people who do nothing more than participate as mere actors, the literature conveys that the youth in fact are 28

30 31 32 33 34 35

Franzese, R.J., Covey, H.C. and Menard, S. 2006. Youth Gangs. 3rd Edition. Springfield, IL: Charles C Publisher, 143. Covey, H.C. 2010. Street Gangs Throughout The World. 2nd Edition. Springfield, IL: Charles C Publisher, 188. Franzese, R.J., Covey, H.C. and Menard, S., above n 28: 143. Covey H.C., above n 29: 187. Ibid, 187. Ibid, 189. Ibid. Gooptu, N., above n 17: 1929.

made up of highly complex characters who display the ability to shape and transform whichever activity they involve themselves in, be it within the space of politics or gangs.

IV. The Behaviour of Young Men in the Arab Spring The distinctiveness of youth and its impact on politics becomes further evident when comparing and contrasting the literature in question to that on the Arab Spring. Much like the young men in India who participate in politics, “the street revolutions that overthrew the presidents of Egypt and Tunisia” comprised mainly of “alienated street youth”36 (the word ‘street’ indicating the space in which they practise their politics, much like India’s youth, rather than destitution). Upon reviewing the literature, both examples of political activity can be said to represent a manifestation of youthful behaviour. Whilst youth politics in India is informed by the practices of friendship, improvisation and masculinity by young men, those in the Arab Spring “bring youth's character to their fight for change”.37 In reference to the Arab Spring, Pollock (2011) states that “youthful protests can feel messy and chaotic. They are sometimes fun. They are often innovative. Organising or attending protests gets fitted between flirting, studying, and holding down a job”.38 However, the marked differences in objective and operation between the politics of young people in India and those in Egypt and Tunisia highlight the features that make India’s youth politics unique and specific to its cultural context. Firstly, whilst protests and riots in the region of Gafsa in Tunisia “have traditionally focused on issues such as unemployment”, much like in India, the Tunisian rebellion in February 2011 was directed “toward a particular end: removing Ben Ali”.39 The rebellion not only tackled a completely different issue from unemployment, but was also highly specific in its aim, thereby differentiating it from the far-less objective-focused protests of young men in India. Secondly, the use of online tactics, such as those “that had become popular in Egypt: uploads on YouTube and Facebook”,40 have yet to play a large role in connecting alienated and politically-minded young men in India together in the same way that it did in Egypt during the rebellion. This is because in India, “the key provider of oxygen to protest is the television”.41 In contrast, the “weak force” of social media in India was most clearly displayed in June 2012 when a group of internet activists, who called for a nation-

37 38 39 40 41

Pollock, J. 2011. Streetbook: How Egyptian and Tunisian Youth Hacked the Arab Spring. MIT Technology Review [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.technologyreview.com/featu redstory/425137/streetbook/?p1=Mag_story1>. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Joshi, M. 2012. 2012 Year of the Fighter: Never Before has India Seen a Previously Apolitical Class Take to the Streets with Such Alacrity to Change the System. India Today [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/year-of-the-fighter-2012-protests-across-india-anna-hazare-arvindkejriwal/1/240096.html>.

wide protest against internet censorship, were not even able to “attract more than 300 people in the five big metros of India”.42 Exploring the literature on the behaviour of Egyptian and Tunisian youth prior to the uprising, however reveals the politics of Arab and Indian youth to be far more similar than would seem at first glance. Rather than indicating a heightened sense of politicisation that sets Arab youth apart from their Indian counterparts, the literature suggests that the Arab Spring was in fact a manifestation of several different factors that were specific to the space and time in which it occurred. Shahine (2011) describes the Arab Spring as indicative of “the political awakening and activism of this new generation of secular Egyptians”.43 Sika (2012) comes to a similar conclusion, stating that “youths were civically and politically disengaged prior to the uprising”.44 This was according to a 2008 study conducted on the social and economic returns on education in Egypt which found that “the large majority of youth (98.8 per cent) are not members of civil society organisations, which is generally indicative of low political and civic engagement levels”.45 The Arab Spring was a significant conjuncture and a matter of opportunity, as Sika states that “when the political opportunity was available for young people to participate and change the political game, they did so, contributing forcefully to the ousting of a long-time authoritarian leader”.46 Therefore, it cannot be deduced that Arab youth are innately more political than Indians. It is possible that young Indians are equally capable of demonstrating such political will, provided the conditions are such that change is seen by them as necessary. In fact, indications of such politicisation are beginning to be seen in India today as middle class youth are, unlike ever before, protesting for change, whether it is regarding corruption within the government or society’s treatment of women.

V. The Importance of Masculinity in Politics What seems to be unanimous in the literature is that the politics of young people in India reflects male youth behaviour – it is active, spontaneous and even aggressive. Jeffrey and Young argue that “local forms of student leadership also reflected masculinised cultures of youth politicking”.47 This idea that youth politics represents a space for the expression and projection of masculinity, however, begs the question of why masculinity is so important for young men in the context of unemployment. This question is crucial in understanding the attraction that politics has for young men, because it helps to provide a fuller picture of youth politics and its complexities. Masculinity not only explains the connection between the effects of unemployment (such as alienation) and the appeal of youth politics, but also manifests itself within the practice of youth politics. According to Rogers (2008), masculinity, for young men, provides a way of assuming “authority over the disruptive and negative forces in the world around them, particularly 42 43 44 45 46 47

Ibid. Shahine, S.H. 2011. Youth and the Revolution in Egypt. Anthropology Today. 27 (2), 2. Sika, N., above n 2: 198. Ibid, 193. Ibid, 199. Jeffrey, C. and Young, S., above n 12: 649.

locally high levels of graduate unemployment and economic insecurity resulting from rapid economic change and India’s integration into the global market”.48 The reasons why expressions of masculinity are seen by young men as forces for confronting unemployment lie in the fact that masculinity acts as a coping-mechanism. Specifically, masculinity provides a mask with which men can “recover a loss of self-esteem, while conversely concealing weakness and social dependency”.49 Through projecting, and in turn, feeling a sense of strength and confidence, the insecurities regarding unemployment essentially become hidden, though not necessarily erased. As a result, young men in response to unemployment turn towards political performance as it provides a space for the expression of identity, particularly one that is masculine. If it can be argued that dealing with insecurity through the display of masculinity allows men to conceal their fears without directly confronting or reflecting on them, then it can be suggested that projecting masculine identity does not really deal with insecurity at all, at least in a substantive sense. Whilst no such argument seems to appear in the literature, this leads to the possibility that the politics of young men, at least in its initial stages, operates at a superficial level in terms of its ability to solve insecurity. It works only to distract men from their problems rather than overcome them. Nevertheless, politics remains fundamental to the societal fabric of youth groups in India. What is evident is the power with which politics is able to transform and redefine other aspects of young men’s lives such as their behaviour, activities, social groups and identity.

VI. Youth Politics as a Form of Performance Representations of youth politics as performance in the literature are especially helpful in several ways. In addition to uncovering the highly active and emotive nature of youth politics, they help to illustrate both why young people turn to politics in search of identity and how these identities are played out. For the Shiv Sena, which “attempted to remain rooted in political society as a site for permanent protest”,50 its presentation of politics as a form of performance was especially successful in increasing the accessibility of politics to young people. The performance-based nature of Shiv Sena politics allowed young men to act out their idealised gender roles publicly. It therefore becomes evident how the Shiv Sena’s focus on political identity through performance, which touched on many of the insecurities that young men in the region faced such as emasculation and powerlessness, was able to empower, and in the process, politicise youth. Lukose’s (2005) fieldwork among college students in Kerala traces the way in which the college environment has provided space for young men to organise demonstrations and protests. More specifically, she identifies a link between the nature of politics in the state and the age and gender identities of the actors who engage in it within the space of the college. In

48 49 50

Rogers, M., above n 15: 80. Ibid. Hansen, T.B., above n 23: 231.

highlighting the importance of this linkage, she states that “youth as a space of masculine political agency has been key to the articulation of public politics in Kerala”.51 Her research conveys the contemporary relevance of youth, stating how Kerala’s politics is “driven by the political agency of revolutionary or revolutionizing young men”. 52 It also probes further into the educational institution as a specific space in which a highly youthful and gendered type of political performance is practised. This is evident from how “colleges as spaces of civic virtue” are “incarcerated by politics” by being subject to strikes, “fasts and demonstrations”.53 These types of performances offer a glimpse into the impact of “masculine sociality that is reckless and restless”54 on youth politics, as well as the extent to which youth politics is, as a result, highly active and impulsive in nature. However, the questions of political ideology and the relationship between specific youth activities and politics are left unanswered. The literature prompts several questions. The first is on the patterns of political attitudes among youth, and the second is whether their experiences of “fun, friendship, and romance in public”55 determine in any way the type of politics they engage in. VII. The Lack of Political Ideology The young ‘community-leading’ men that feature in Gooptu’s study on declining jute industrial areas in Kolkata saw themselves as “non-political, staying clear of power plays, patronage nexus and factional rivalries”.56 However, their political aspiration cannot be denied. They claimed to be interested in the community at large, in direct contrast to the politicians whom they viewed as self-seeking. This reveals their perception of the idea of politics to be both negative and intrinsically tied to formal and party politics. In attempting to distance themselves from the actors and institutions that have come to define what they know as ‘politics’, it becomes clear that their own form of politics is less institutional and ideological than formal politics. Rather, their politics is much more individualistic and expressive of their aspirations. Similar to the young men in Kolkata, the youths of Meghalaya who are members of the Khasi Students Union distanced themselves from the political system and ideologies of the state. This is evident from how “the KSU today remains a non-ideological organisation sporadically engaging in activism and functioning as a springboard for politically ambitious young men”.57 In the case of Egypt’s youth, whose political behaviour resembles that of India’s, ideology takes a backseat to the importance of protest and performance. This is evident in the new youth movements that have “taken shape outside the mainstream political parties”58 such as the Youth for Change movement and the Sixth of April movement. Sika describes these movements as having “no single or unified political agenda”, instead representing “a broad 51

52 53 54 55 56 57 58

Lukose, R. 2005. Empty Citizenship: Protesting Politics in the Era of Globalization. Cultural Anthropology. 20 (4), 512. Ibid, 506. Ibid, 515. Ibid, 516. Ibid, 514. Gooptu, N., above n 17: 1930. Sirnate, V., above n 16: 22. Sika, N., above n 2: 188.

spectrum of dissent”.59 She goes on to argue that “they have been involved mainly in expressing their discontent with public policies, on the streets or on social networking sites, without presenting any distinct form of political platform”.60 Such expressions of discontent can be observed too, amongst middle class Jat men in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. According to Jeffrey, they have been protesting “around issues of corruption, students’ progression through academic institutions, educational mismanagement and government officials’ harassment of students”.61 This reveals a pattern of politics that, despite being issue-orientated, has little coherence ideologically. Many of the issues that form the subject of such protests also suggest youth politics to be both highly critical without providing policies or proposals, as well as being driven by the desire to advance individual well-being rather than deal with wider issues of concern to the state. An indifference to ideology was also displayed by the young Maharashtrian men who joined the Shiv Sena in the 1990s. The extent to which the Shiv Sena pursued an identity-based strategy of mobilisation, instead of a politically ideological one, is evident from how the party “never published elaborate manifestos or programs, and even its election proposals have generally been brief”.62 This ambivalence towards specific policies in their electoral campaign may have been strategic given that it connects closely with the way in which youth often disregard policy matters when participating in politics. By delimiting the focus on policy objectives and proposals, the Shiv Sena was therefore able to gain the interest of young men through symbols, speeches and activities such as protests. All of these were particularly powerful modes of mobilisation as they offered “young, powerless, insecure men the opportunity to view themselves as strong, enterprising men, accepting of their male desires, able to control women and to command respect simply by their association with Shiv Sena”.63 In the case of speeches, the party’s founder, Bal Thackeray, relied heavily on “mythical parables and metaphors” evoking ideas of “violence, bravery and manliness”.64 This reveals a highly powerful and evocative style of language, full of imagery that readily appealed to the young man’s desire to redefine his own identity. Moreover, the Shiv Sena managed to appeal to young men and their desires to prove their masculinity as it offered “masculinity through violence – for example, through annihilation and humiliation of the Muslim “other,” who has long deprived Hindus of their masculinity”.65 Katzenstein’s study (1977) on the mobilisation of youth by the Shiv Sena, during the 1960s and 1970s, explicitly highlights the distinctiveness of youth in terms of political behaviour, stating that “ideology or material incentives, central to most organisations, count less for youth”.66 Her argument that emotions such as “the exhilaration of being involved” provided

59 60 61

62 63 64 65 66

Ibid, 189. Ibid. Jeffrey, C. 2011. On His Book Timepass: Youth, Class, and the Politics of Waiting in India. Rorotoko [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://rorotoko.com/interview/20110323_jeffrey _craig_on_timepass_youth_class_politics_waiting_india/?page=4>. Hansen, T.B., above n 23: 200. Ibid, 93. Ibid, 85. Ibid, 93. Katzenstein, M.F. 1977. Mobilization of Indian Youth in the Shiv Sena. Pacific Affairs. 50 (2), 231.

the “central impetus for mobilizing young party activists”67 substantiates this literature review’s findings regarding the centrality of collective identity, overcoming isolation and avoiding alienation in youth politics.

4. The Implications of Youth Politics I. The Political Violence of Educated Unemployed Youth There is a theme in the literature on educated unemployed youth (McNally, Unni, and Cassen 2004 p. 162) regarding the causality between unemployment and political participation. Many scholars have cited how educated unemployed young men around the world have reacted to economic uncertainty by “entering youth or student politics”68 (Altbach, 1984; Nasr 1992; Humayun & Khalid, 1996; Sykes, 1999; Obeng, 2000; Matin-Asgari, 2001; Rhoads, 2001). The literature reveals the politics of educated unemployed youths in India to be, more often than not, a threat to the physical safety of religious/caste groups as well as to the project of abolishing caste identity. Chowdhry’s (2009) study of unemployed Jat men in Haryana portrays their political engagement, through the channel of the caste panchayat, to be violent in nature and deeply informed by strict notions of social separation on the basis of caste. Rogers argues that “educated unemployed Dalits on a south Indian campus tend to retreat into caste-specific, violent action in the face of joblessness”.69 Regarding the nature and character of youth politics, much of the literature which focuses on the connection between youth bulges and politics concludes that problems of unemployment, limited employment opportunities and urban crowding may steer large youth populations to engage in politics of a violent nature (Moller, 1968; Choucri, 1974; Braungart, 1984; Huntington, 1996; Goldstone, 1991, 2001; Cincotta, Engelman & Anastasion, 2003).

II. Types of Political Violence In India specifically, Urdal (2008) argues that youth bulges not only increase the risk of lowintensity political violence, such as strikes and riots, but also “increase the risk of more organised forms of political violence like internal armed conflict”.70 Along with the studies on college students in Kerala, students in Meghalaya, working-class men in Kolkata, and Naxalite parties in Jharkhand and Bihar, these findings from Urdal’s study of political violence in 27 Indian states from 1956 to 2002 reveal an undercurrent of violence that lurks within the political activities young people participate in.

67 68

69 70

Ibid. Jeffrey, C., Jeffery, P. and Jeffery, R. 2004. “A Useless Thing!” or “Nectar of the Gods?” The Cultural Production of Education and Young Men’s Struggles for Respect in Liberalizing North India. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 94 (4), 962. Jeffrey, C. and Young, S., above n 12: 642. Urdal, H. 2008. Population, Resources and Political Violence: A Subnational Study of India, 1956-2002. Journal of Conflict Resolution. 52 (4), 595.

Urdal’s argument that “youth bulges increase the risk of armed conflict, particularly in states with large male compared to female populations”,71 can be said to be compatible with Chitralekha’s (2010) research on the states of Bihar and Jharkhand - both of which have highly male-dominated populations, with 916 and 947 women per 1000 men, respectively (Census, 2011). Chitralekha argues that the possibilities of “holding a gun”72 and engaging in violence have, among other factors, drawn young people in both states to join Naxalite parties in increasing numbers, thereby increasing the likelihood of armed conflict. Urdal’s other argument is that “youth bulges are associated with higher levels of rioting”.73 This seems to confirm Lukose’s (2005) research which suggests that the “restless, aimless movement”74 and energy of young men in Kerala has contributed to the riots, strikes and demonstrations that take place at their college campuses. Urdal’s findings support those of Lukose to the extent that they both suggest a connection between youth bulges and riots. However, they differ on the importance of whether the youth bulge associated with riots is male-dominated. Urdal’s argument claims that male-dominated youth bulges are associated with armed conflict while youth bulges in places marked by high levels of urban inequality are associated with less intense forms of political violence such as riots. He mentions that “states with a large excess male population unexpectedly have fewer riots”75 because the “relationship between youth bulges and riots is not conditioned on the gender balance”,76 but instead, is dependent upon high levels of urban inequality. These findings suggest an idea different from that in Lukose’s study which points towards the influence of typically young male patterns of behaviour (such as restlessness and spontaneity) on the riots, strikes and demonstrations that have characterised the student politics of Kerala. However, the fact that Urdal’s study is India-wide and therefore more general in its overall argument whereas Lukose’s is state-specific may account for the difference in findings between the two studies.

III. Crime and Politics Some young men, excluded from employment, move towards dangerous and criminal forms of behaviour. Parallels can be drawn between the conditions that provide for this inclination towards crime and the politics of unemployed youth which sometimes takes a violent and aggressive turn. For example, the dissatisfaction felt by young Chamar men in Uttar Pradesh, in relation to their “experience of competing for secure white-collar employment”, was identified by Chamar parents “as an important factor in the perceived rise in alcoholism, suicide and criminal activity in the local area, including murder, assault, sexual harassment, rape, bullying and vandalism”.77

71 72

73 74 75 76 77

Ibid, 601. Chitralekha. 2010. ‘Committed, Opportunists and Drifters’: Revisiting the Naxalite Narrative in Jharkhand and Bihar. Contributions to Indian Sociology. 44 (3), 321. Urdal, H., above n 70: 605. Lukose, R., above n 51: 514. Ibid. Ibid. Jeffrey, C., Jeffery, P. and Jeffery, R., above n 11: 20.

The underlying forces behind this wide array of criminal activity do not seem dissimilar to those in Kolkata which drive some young men into criminal politics. The casualisation of the labour market has led a small section of young men to commit “certain specific types of crime like petty extortion and intimidation”.78 These types of crime are innately political in that they are highly public performances intended to be seen and experienced (unlike other types of crimes such as murder and theft which are usually private and committed for the end goal rather than the experience of the process) and enable men “to define a new persona as the powerful, rather than as a common criminal”.79 Whilst the literature explores the criminality of youth politics, there is little discussion of the parallels between the politics and crimes of youth as separate categories of behaviour. This is a highly interesting comparison that could be not only potentially useful for understanding youth politics but also further explored.

5. The Politics of Middle Class Youth I. The Politics of Youth from Elite Sections of the Middle Class Whilst much of the literature on youth politics in India focuses on young men from the lower middle classes, the working classes and those who are unemployed, little attention is paid to those who come from the upper middle or upper classes. The section of the middle class that comes into focus most clearly in the literature is what Jeffrey refers to as “the “real middle class” of people in provincial India who are not poor but who are also excluded from many of the benefits of metropolitan modernity”.80 Specifically, most of these middle class men featured in the literature are identified as unemployed. What the literature seems to suggest is that their status as ‘unemployed’, rather than as ‘middle class’, is key in determining their political engagement, as “unemployment is often a setting for reactionary political assertion”.81 This is evident in how reservations have provided space for the political assertion of unemployed, upper middle class men as “educated unemployed young men from urban middle-class elites have been key players in protests against positive discrimination for lower castes.”82 In response to government policies introducing reservations for OBCs (Other Backward Castes) in higher education, unemployed “young men from prosperous backgrounds” have “articulated their goals in the language of the upper classes in urban India (English)”, circulating “political messages on internet blogs”.83 There has even been “involvement of richer sections of the educated unemployed” in party politics, as is evident “in studies of Hindu right-wing political parties in India”.84 There is clearly a gap in the literature regarding the politics of rich and employed sections of the middle class which may be due to the fact that they “seem to have little faith in 78 79 80 81

82 83 84

Gooptu, N., above n 17: 1929. Ibid. Jeffrey, C., above n 61. Jeffrey, C. 2008. ‘Generation Nowhere’: Rethinking Youth Through the Lens of Unemployed Young Men. Progress in Human Geography. 32 (6), 747. Ibid. Ibid, 748. Ibid.

government institutions and the political class”.85 However, to completely rule out this fraction of the middle class as a significant force in politics and therefore view middle class youth as apolitical, would be incorrect. According to Donner, “the view that the middle class is disengaging from politics only holds if politics are narrowly defined as party and electoral politics”.86

II. The Recent Protests over Rape and Corruption What must be understood about upper middle class youth is that their political behaviour is typical of modern middle class politics – it falls under the remit of ‘civil society’, which is “the arena for middle-class activism and assertion”.87 Their activism is evident in the recent protests against corruption in 2011 and against the Delhi gang rape in 2012. The fact that “there were no political parties orchestrating the demonstrations”88 conveys the nature of middle class youth politics in that it operates outside the space of party politics, which “generally, is oriented toward the denizens of political society”. The protests over the rape were “mostly urban and upper middle class”,89 comprising of “women and men — many of them college students”.90 This reveals the political agency of upper middle class youth. However, the fact that there has been “greater participation in protests by the middle class” only “over the past year and half”91 may explain the lack of literature on this particular demographic - the public political expression of the upper middle class youth has only just begun.

III. The Politics of Middle Class Youth in Chennai A part of the literature that hints at the political agency of well-employed, socially mobile middle class youth is Fuller and Narasimhan’s (2007) study of Chennai. It “looks at one of the most high-profile sections of the new-rich middle class in urban India: the professional staff in the new information technology (IT) companies”.92 Most of the informants in the study do not indicate any sign of political interest or participation, though as to why, it is unclear. From interpreting the wider literature, their (presumed) political apathy may result from the view that they might hold of politics as the concern of the working class. It could also be because they do not share any of the feelings of alienation that drive unemployed and underemployed men to enter politics. This is because their jobs in the IT sector provide them 85

88 89

90 91 92

Sen, R. 2013. The Delhi Rape Protests: Observations on Middle Class Activism in India. Singapore: Institute of South Asian Studies, 3. Donner, H. 2012. Marriage in Modern India: “The Middle-class Ideal of an Indian Marriage has not Changed”. India at LSE [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/indiaatlse/2012/10/01/marriage-in-modern-india-the-middle-class-ideal-of-an-indianmarriage-has-not-changed-henrike-donner/>. Harriss, J. 2006. Middle-class Activism and the Politics of the Informal Working Class. Critical Asian Studies. 38 (4), 461. Sen, R., above n 85: 1. Bhattacharya, D. 2013. Two Cheers for the Anti-rape Movement. IBN Live [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://m.ibnlive.com/blogs/debrajbhattacharya/3422/64190/two-cheers-for-the-antirapemovement.html>. Sen, R., above n 85: 1. Ibid. Fuller, C.J. and Narasimhan, H. 2007. Information Technology Professionals and the New-Rich Middle Class in Chennai (Madras). Modern Asian Studies. 41 (1), 122.

financial stability and prestige. Or simply, it may be that they do not have the time nor the energy to participate in politics due to the long working hours associated with the IT sector. This is especially so in the case of call centres, which, in addition to their “long working hours”, are distinctive in terms of their “late or nightshift working and long travelling times”93 that make it difficult for workers to invest time in outside activities, let alone political engagement. What is particularly interesting is that the youngest informant among the group of IT professionals in the study, “Raghu, an unmarried 22-year-old software engineer”,94 admitted to behaviour of a political nature. However, this behaviour was said to be displayed in the realm of activism rather than politics. Two ideas regarding middle class politics could possibly be extrapolated from the fact that he “does voluntary work for a well-known charity in Chennai that provides counselling for the depressed and suicidal” and that “he strongly disputed the perception that IT professionals are selfish materialists”.95 The first is that his volunteering conveys that not all of the middle class are politically apathetic. Despite not engaging in explicitly political activity, his choice of being an activist can be considered a form of political behaviour, since the upper middle class, through activism, “specializes in the production of ideologies and articulates the ruling bloc with the rest of society”.96 The second is that there may be different levels of interest in political engagement between generations of the middle class, as Raghu, the youngest informant among those surveyed, displayed a political orientation. If the informants are in any way representative or indicative of middle class behaviour and if we consider the profiles of those who protested against corruption and the rape case, it may then be possible to view the youth of the middle class as distinct from the rest of the middle classes, in that they show a greater tendency to question and engage with the state.

6. Conclusion In the last two years, India has witnessed what has been described as the ‘political awakening’ of its youth. The increasing concern over national issues among youth has translated powerfully into political action as thousands of young people had taken to the streets in 2011 to protest against corruption and in 2012 to protest against rape. Despite the encouraging signs of female participation and demand for policy change in both these movements, youth politics in India remains dominated, for the most part, by men and by questions of identity. With young men gravitating towards politics by appeals to identity instead of policy, behaviour becomes salient within, and highly indicative of, youth politics. The behaviour of youth men, characterised by “mischief, irreverence, a certain emphasis on manliness” and “bravado”,97 not only infuses into their politics, but also determines it. As a result, the display of masculinity, the resort to protests and other forms of assertion such as intimidation and extortion, and a shift in focus away from any ideology that would detract from the activity 93

94 95 96 97

Taylor, P., D’Cruz, P., Noronha, E. and Scholarios, D. The Experience of Work in India’s Domestic Call Centre Industry. The International Journal of Human Resource Management. 24 (2), 441. Fuller, C.J. and Narasimhan, H., above n 92: 132. Ibid, 133. Harriss, J., above n 87: 461. Ruud, A.E. 2012. Timepass and Politics. Dialogues in Human Geography. 2 (1), 98.

and informality of youth politics, are its defining characteristics. The implications of this â&#x20AC;&#x153;protest lifestyleâ&#x20AC;?98 include the tendency for political performance to drift into violence. The fact that unemployed young men in particular often gravitate towards violent politics, such as riots, intimidation or even armed conflict, is not a mere coincidence - violence in India, outside the realm of politics, is resorted to by gangs of unemployed and disenchanted or disgruntled young men. The middle classes of India that have been the subject of much optimism and excitement among those seeking to target this rapidly expanding and therefore increasingly important consumer market, rarely feature in the literature on youth politics. It is the poorer sections of the middle class that instead, appear to be at the forefront. However, both a peek into the IT sector and an examination of Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recent developments regarding public engagement, over issues such as rape and corruption, will reveal that middle class youth who do not experience unemployment, alienation and a loss of male superiority (as young women are now involved too) are, in fact, starting to establish political presence in ways that are, interestingly, quite similar to most other political youth in India who face these problems. As rapid social and economic changes affect what it means to be young in India, the politics of youth will not only claim greater attention in their everyday lives, but will begin to leave its own distinctive mark on the political culture of the state.

.....

Rogers, S. 2012. Timepass: Youth, Class and the Politics of Waiting in India. Journal of Occupational Science. 19 (4), 376.

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Rhoads, R.A. 2001. Freedom's web: Student Activism an Age of Cultural Diversity. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Journal Articles Altbach, P G. 1984. Student Politics in the Third World. Higher Education. 13 (6): 635-55. Braungart, R.G. 1984. Historical and Generational Patterns of Youth Movements: A Global Perspective. Comparative Social Research. 7:3-62. Chitralekha. 2010. ‘Committed, Opportunists and Drifters’: Revisiting the Naxalite Narrative in Jharkhand and Bihar. Contributions to Indian Sociology. 44 (3): 299-329. Chowdhry, P. 2009. ‘First Our Jobs Then Our Girls’: The Dominant Caste Perceptions on the ‘Rising’ Dalits. Modern Asian Studies, 43 (2): 437-479. Fuller, C.J. and Narasimhan, H. 2007. Information Technology Professionals and the NewRich Middle Class in Chennai (Madras). Modern Asian Studies. 41 (1): 121-150. Gooptu, N. 2007. Economic Liberalisation, Work and Democracy: Industrial Decline and Urban Politics in Kolkata. Economic and Political Weekly. 42 (21): 1922-1933. Hansen, T.B. 1996. The Vernacularisation of Hindutva: The BJP and Shiv Sena in Rural Maharashtra. Contributions to Indian Sociology. 30 (2): 177-214. Harriss, J. 2006. Middle-class Activism and the Politics of the Informal Working Class. Critical Asian Studies. 38 (4): 445-465. Humayun, S. and Khalid, T. 1996. Student Politics and Bengali Nationalist Movement. Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society. 44 (3): 273-88. Jeffrey, C., Jeffery, R. and Jeffery, P. 2004. “A Useless Thing!” or “Nectar of the Gods”? The Cultural Production of Education and Young Men’s Struggles for Respect in Liberalizing North India. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 94 (4): 961-891. Jeffrey, C., Jeffery, R. and Jeffery, P. 2005. When Schooling Fails: Young Men, Education and Low-caste Politics in Rural North India. Contributions to Indian Sociology. 39 (1): 1-38. Jeffrey, C. 2008. ‘Generation Nowhere’: Rethinking Youth Through the Lens of Unemployed Young Men. Progress in Human Geography. 32 (6): 739-758. Jeffrey, C. and Young, S. 2012. Waiting for Change: Youth, Caste and Politics in India. Economy and Society. 41 (4): 638-661. Katzenstein, M.F. 1977. Mobilization of Indian Youth in the Shiv Sena. Pacific Affairs. 50 (2): 231-248. Lukose, R. 2005. Empty Citizenship: Protesting Politics in the Era of Globalization. Cultural Anthropology. 20 (4): 506-533. 20

Michelutti, L. 2004. ‘We (Yadavs) are a Caste of Politicians’: Caste and Modern Politics in a North Indian Town. Contributions to Indian Sociology. 38 (43): 43-70. Moller, H. 1968. Youth as a Force in the Modern World. Comparative Studies in Society and History. 10: 238-60. Nasr, S. V. R. 1992. Students, Islam, and Politics - Islami Jami'at-i Tulaba in Pakistan. Middle East Journal. 46 (1): 59-75. Obeng, S. G. 2000. Doing Politics on Walls and Doors: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Graffiti in Legon (Ghana). Multilingua. 19 (4): 337-66. Pitts, J. 2008. Describing and Defining Youth Gangs. Community Safety Journal. 7 (1): 2632. Prasad, C. 2007. Students’ Movements in Arunachal Pradesh and the Chakma-Hajong Refugee Problem. Economic and Political Weekly. 42 (15): 1373-1379. Rajadurai, S.V. and Geetha, V. 2002. A Response to John Harriss. Commonwealth and Comparative Politics. 40 (3): 118-124. Rogers, M. 2008. Modernity, ‘Authenticity’, and Ambivalence: Subaltern Masculinities on a South Indian College Campus. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 14 (1): 79-95. Rogers, S. 2012. Timepass: Youth, Class and the Politics of Waiting in India. Journal of Occupational Science. 19 (4), 376-376. Ruud, A.E. 2012. Timepass and Politics. Dialogues in Human Geography. 2 (1): 97-99. Shahine, S.H. 2011. Youth and the Revolution in Egypt. Anthropology Today. 27 (2), 1-3. Sika, N. 2012. Youth Political Engagement in Egypt: From Abstention to Uprising. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 39 (2): 181-199. Sirnate, V. 2009. Students versus the State: The Politics of Uranium Mining in Meghalaya. Economic and Political Weekly. 44 (47): 18-23. Sykes, K. 1999. After the "Raskol" Feast: Youths' Alienation in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Critical Anthropology. 19 (2): 157-74. Taylor, P., D’Cruz, P., Noronha, E. and Scholarios, D. The Experience of Work in India’s Domestic Call Centre Industry. The International Journal of Human Resource Management. 24 (2): 436-452. Urdal, H. 2008. Population, Resources and Political Violence: A Subnational Study of India, 1956-2002. Journal of Conflict Resolution. 52 (4): 560-617.

Government and Research Institute Publications Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India Ministry of Home Affairs. 2011. Census 2011. New Delhi: Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India Ministry of Home Affairs. Sen, R. 2013. The Delhi Rape Protests: Observations on Middle Class Activism in India. Singapore: Institute of South Asian Studies. Online Newspaper and Magazine Articles Bhattacharya, D. 2013. Two Cheers for the Anti-rape Movement. IBN Live [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://m.ibnlive.com/blogs/debrajbhattacharya/3422/64190/two-cheers-for-the-antirapemovement.html>. Joshi, M. 2012. 2012 Year of the Fighter: Never Before has India Seen a Previously Apolitical Class Take to the Streets with Such Alacrity to Change the System. India Today [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/year-of-thefighter-2012-protests-across-india-anna-hazare-arvind-kejriwal/1/240096.html>. Upton, J. 2012. Why Mostly Men at the Indian Anti-Rape Protests? Slate [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/12/india_s_anti_rape_protests_are_w omen_getting_groped.html>. Websites Donner, H. 2012. Marriage in Modern India: â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Middle-class Ideal of an Indian Marriage has not Changedâ&#x20AC;?. India at LSE [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/indiaatlse/2012/10/01/marriage-in-modern-india-the-middle-classideal-of-an-indian-marriage-has-not-changed-henrike-donner/>. Jeffrey, C. 2011. On His Book Timepass: Youth, Class, and the Politics of Waiting in India. Rorotoko [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://rorotoko.com/interview/20110323_jeffrey_craig_on_timepass_youth_class_politics_ waiting_india/?page=4>. Pollock, J. 2011. Streetbook: How Egyptian and Tunisian Youth Hacked the Arab Spring. MIT Technology Review [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/425137/streetbook/?p1=Mag_story1>.

ISAS Working Paper No. 175 – 14 August 2013 469A Bukit Timah Road #07-01, Tower Block, Singapore 259770 Tel: 6516 6179 / 6516 4239 Fax: 6776 7505 / 6314 5447 Email: isassec@nus.edu.sg Website: www.isas.nus.edu.sg

Bangladesh at a Crossroads: A Political Prognosis Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury1

Introduction Bangladesh is in the cusp of great changes. At this point in time it is standing at a crossroads. This is when its friends and its responsible citizenry must help point towards the right direction: one that leads towards stability and a structure of democratic good governance, and not the one towards chaos. There are two impending key watershed points: 25/26 October 2013, when the government in its existing form is expected to be dissolved; and 25 January 2014, by which time the next general elections are to be held. It is how the intervening period is managed which will determine the future of this country in the short or longer term. The choice of the path to traverse would be critical.

Societal Base The justification for Bangladesh’s political independence from Pakistan, and earlier from India, lies in the identity of the nation-state as both ‘Bengali’ and ‘Muslim’. There is thus this duality of heritage. Historically, what is now the Bangladesh nation evolved through having to deal with the West Bengali Hindu community through the nineteenth and the first half of

the twentieth centuries, and later with their fellow-Muslims in Pakistan. It had taken three partitions to reach this point: Partition Mark I in 1905 when East Bengal was hived off from West Bengal and connected to Assam; Partition Mark II in 1947 when East Bengal became a part of Pakistan, separated from India; and finally Partition Mark III when East Bengal or East Pakistan delinked from Pakistan to emerge as a sovereign and independent State, Bangladesh. The two streams of this nationhood , the Bengaliness and the Muslimness eventually and largely found expression in the two major political parties, the Awami League led by Sheikh Hasina, and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) headed by Begum Khaleda Zia, though this may not be the whole truth. The volatile relationship between the two ladies notwithstanding, the ideological divide between the two is perhaps more in nuances than in substance. It is not easy to place the contemporary Bangladeshi in neat and rigidly separate boxes, linked to religion or community. Thanks to a Socratic, or an argumentative intellectual tradition that delights in challenging received wisdom, developed through decades of having to protect his flanks, the average Bangladeshi tends to be moderate and tolerant. As in all situations there are exceptions and ‘out-liers’ of course as reflected in the Sharboharas on the left, and Jamaat-e-Islami and the Shibir on the right. History demonstrates that stability depends on the ability to maintain equilibrium between the two attributes. Any imbalance causes conflict, and the restoration of stability is dependent on the correction of that imbalance.2 Mention must be made at this stage of another powerful component of the Bangladeshis, their middle class, and the very vibrant civil society. It refers to the intelligentsia, the professionals and the commercial sectors, among others. It comprises what may be said to be the new bhadralok of Bangladesh, akin to the earlier generation of Calcuttans of the same ilk. The term, literally meaning ‘gentlefolk’, denoted a ‘Weberian status group’ in Colonial Calcutta, who were oftentimes criticised for being overly fraternizing with the colonials. They were actually progressive Protestants in faith, who had broken off from the mainstream of Hinduism. According to the Chicago sociologist J.H. Broomfield, who was among the first to give the term a sociological connotation, they were distinguishable by many aspects of their behaviour, deportment, speech, habits, cultural values and sense of propriety.3 Civil societies act to prevent the State from monopolising truth and power. Partha Chatterjee sees postcolonial civil society as a ‘political society’, a part of horizontal international elite. Today they are linked mainly to the West, psychologically, intellectually, emotionally, and economically. Their membership with political parties is at times co-terminus. This category has an important role in correcting any imbalance between the two national attributes that could destabilise the society.

For a fuller analysis, see: Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, ‘Prehistory of Bangladeshi Nationalism and a Theory of Tripartite Balance’, Asian Affairs, Vol IV, Number IV, December 1982, pp. 407-432 J.H. Broomfield, Elite Conflict in Plural Society, University of California Press, 1968, pp.5-6

Issue of National Reconciliation The purpose of the International Criminal Court set up to try the alleged transgressors of human rights was not perhaps the traditional reconciliation that becomes necessary in a postconflict situation. In Bangladesh the conflict occurred over four decades ago. Therefore it appears that the goal was the simple carrying out of justice rather than attempting reconciliation, albeit after a long time. But the time-gap threatened to erode the perception of absolute integrity, according to some analysts. This, despite the overwhelming sentiment in the country that the perpetrators of ‘human rights violations’ during the 1971 War of Liberation must be brought to the book in order to bring about a closure to that sad chapter of ‘collaboration’ of some locals with Pakistani repressive actions. The increasing alienation among different groups is tending to resurrect old conflicts. This is evidenced in the ‘Shahbag Movement’ that started in February 2013 spearheaded by largely secularist urban youth, and the ‘Shapla Chattar’ reaction of the younger generation of the opposite mould. That could be because a reconciliation process was in fact never effected or even initiated. In my own peace-building experience in other societies, during my time at the United Nations, to render reconciliation in a post-conflict society durable and self-sustainable, three dimensions need to be addressed: first, structural; second, relational; and third, personal. With regard to the structural dimension, the parties must analyse the substantive causes of the conflict and initiate remedial measures. This must be borne in mind when organs within the state-system are created such as in the executive, legislative and judicial domains, and peaceenhancing elements must be put in place, such as human rights and rule of law. The relational dimension reduces war-related hostility through repair and transformation of damaged relationships. Parties must acknowledge responsibility and guilt voluntarily and seek forgiveness and reconciliation. ‘Future-imaging’ that is, having a shared view of the future and knowing where they can go together can make it easier to get there. Past injustices can be recognised (through Truth and Reconciliation Commissions) and punished (through tribunals). However, retributive justice can often exacerbate wounds. Another option is to have reparative and restorative justice, with emphasis on building relationships between victims and offenders. To address the personal dimension, the individual, or families who have experienced trauma must be helped through a process of healing. At the national level, Truth Commissions can uncover facts and render justice. At the community level, various rituals and ceremonies can alleviate pain. At an individual level, a micro-activity would be counselling, or if that is difficult, family units and activities can be supported. In other words, ‘victim-empowerment’ should be a key goal. Throughout the ‘peace-building’ process, ‘peace constituencies’ can be created. These would comprise teachers, social workers, religious leaders and others. They could initiate ‘hierarchical interventions’ at different levels. Eliminating intra-mural conflict

in societies will enable them to be moved along the path of progress, peace and development, all contributing to stability.4

The Changing Role of Religion ‘Muslimness’ is a defining attribute of the Bangladeshi national identity, which distinguishes it from neighbouring India, just as ‘Bengaliness’ distinguishes it from Pakistan. Therefore it is not possible to discount its role, which also finds a mention in the Constitution as the State Religion. It features largely in the public domain. This does not mean Bangladesh cannot create for itself a pluralist secularist society within the broad Muslim structure. Interestingly, wherever religion and the State have been structurally integrated, as in the United Kingdom, religion takes a back seat. Indeed, paradoxically, where the two are kept apart, as in the United States, the power of religion tends to burgeon because it becomes the champion of causes against wrongs perpetrated by the State. In contemporary Muslim-majority countries, the State is usually weak, so a linkage between State and religion does not strengthen the power of religion. And in fact may weaken it. But where the two are distinct, religion can become a powerful tool to take on the errors committed by a weak state (Egypt? Turkey?) It is true that 85 per cent to 90 per cent of Bangladeshis are Muslims. But they represent two sets of values. There are those grounded in the religion by faith and behaviour, and practise all rituals. Others are Muslims by heritage, as they are born as such, and are not strict practitioners. Yet they will answer to belonging to the Muslim community. They will also resist any overt attempts to undermine their religion. This larger group appears to have insufficient space in Society. According to received wisdom, exposure to the Gulf countries and the Middle East of a huge number of migrant labour might have enhanced extremist fundamentalist and salafist tendencies in the worker-sending Muslim states. But empirical research by scholars at my Institute in Singapore, the Institute of South Asian Studies, shows that it is not the case. Very often the opposite is true in Pakistan and in Bangladesh. First, the South Asian workers are rarely exposed to the host community in a substantial way. Second, because of the remittances sent home by contractual workers, their children are often better-schooled, and, therefore, less likely to have extreme views, though this causal relationship cannot be logically established. More of negative consequences flow from madrassas (religious schools) that the Gulf State authorities help set up in these countries, though , ironically, many of the ideas said to flow from ‘madrassas’ would be unacceptable to the authorities in those very States.

John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies, U.S. Institute of Peace, Washington DC, 1997

The Increasing Mobilisation of Youth Like many other developing or Muslim-majority countries, there is a huge imbalance between the youth and the aged among the population in Bangladesh, the former preponderantly outnumbering the latter. Half the population is 24 years or under. This youthbulge is seen as a ‘demographic dividend’ by some, and a ‘demographic curse’ by many. There are elements of truth in both perceptions. The greatest challenge to the governance system is to be able to mainstream them. This can be done through appropriate education (including the nationalisation of the madrassa curricula), through generating employment through Keynesian methods, and mobilising them through channelling their energies through sports and similar organised social activities. While on the one hand they can be modernising and progressive, on the flipside they can be inward-looking and even regressive. The aim should be to make the youth the tool to create a society based on doubt and reason as opposed to one based on so-called truth and conviction.

The Changing Gender Roles Gender balance, indeed gender mainstreaming, has between for some years the success story of Bangladesh. Impressive indices have been recorded in terms of female education, income through tools like microcredit, employment as in the garment sector. Approximately 3.5 million people work in the garment sector, in roughly 5,000 factories, of which 2.9 million, or about 85 per cent are women, recent critique of such progress (by the leader of ‘Hefazat-eIslam’) notwithstanding. The empowerment of women is palpable in day-to-day life. It is noteworthy, though, that the time may have come for women to move up the ‘technology-chain’. The garment industry provides some skills, but these are minimal. Its greatest contribution lies in the empowerment and emancipation of women. The famous ‘telephone-ladies’ of the Bangladesh villages in the last decade demonstrated the women’s capacity and hunger for greater technical know-how. The wherewithal to satisfy this appetite would lead to great social benefits.

Political Party Dynamics It seems that political parties in Bangladesh provide a classic example of what is generally known as ‘Duverger’s Law’. It comprises two hypotheses observed by Maurice Duverger, a French sociologist in the 1950s. One is that plurality voting system, first past the post, in a single-member constituency, favours the development of a two-party system. A second is that double-ballot voting system or proportional representation tends to lead to multi-partism. Of course this is not an absolute law (counterexamples exist) but mere tendencies. In Bangladesh one can extrapolate another corollary. A slight majority can lead to an overwhelming preponderance in the legislature, with the slight minority nearly being 5

eliminated. This has led to minority abjuring the Parliament. Proportionate representation could correct this imbalance by reflecting the percentage of support in the legislature (say 34 per cent as opposed to majority 38 per cent). The numbers will provide an incentive to participate which otherwise would not be the case.

Poverty Reduction According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics 2010 Household Survey 31.5 per cent of the population live below poverty line and 17.6 per cent were ‘extremely poor’. According to a recent World Bank Report, in 2000, 48.9 per cent were living below poverty line, and 34.3 per cent were ‘extremely poor’. Considering this, Bangladesh reduced poverty by 1.74 per cent every year since 2000. The UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG) target was to bring poverty down to 29.5 per cent by 2015. According to the World Bank, Bangladesh should achieve the target two years ahead of the schedule. Multiple factors are responsible for the steady success of poverty alleviation efforts. Over the past years there has been a steady Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of 5.5 per cent to 6 per cent. The garment industry is thriving , earning US$ 18 billion to US$ 20 billion in exports, though some recent unfortunate accidents, including the collapse of a factory-building called ‘Rana Plaza’ leading to deaths of over 1,000 workers, have attracted serious negative attention in the importing world. The government and the industry are desperately seeking to correct these negative perceptions by initiating measures to improve working conditions.

Possible Scenarios In the preceding decade and half, the Constitution provided for a Caretaker government, comprising non-political individuals, for a period of three months, to hold elections (except for the one installed in January 2007, under Emergency rules, that held office for two years, till January 2009). The Awami League led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina swept the polls in the elections then held, and occupied an overwhelming over-two-third majority in the Parliament. Much to the chagrin of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party of Begum Zia, the Awami League thereafter struck off the Caretaker system from the Constitution, insisting that the next elections scheduled to take place in January 2014 would be held under her aegis. The BNP then initiated a movement, that included a series of hartals or ‘general strikes’, many turning violent, demanding restoration of the caretaker, or at any rate a non-party neutral system to supervise the polls, without which they argued the elections would not be free, fair and credible, and hence they would not participate (deemed necessary, for the polls to be judged as such). This debate, in a fierce fashion continues. It is likely to intensify at the end of the ‘fasting month’ of Ramadan in August 2013. Meanwhile, in a string of mayoral elections, the BNP was victorious. The Awami League points to this as a demonstration of fair polling under the current system. The BNP draws a distinction between municipal polls and a national vote which might involve change of State6

wide political power. The need for cutting this Gordian knot of impasse becomes sharper with each passing day as the government would need to be dissolved three months ahead of the polls, that is around 25 October (elections due next 25 January). The issue is what happens thereafter; how is the country to be governed, and under whose watch should the elections be held? With the Prime Minister in office, insists the Awami League; totally unacceptable, the BNP retorts. So, is a train-wreck inevitable? Not necessarily. But some kind of a formal or informal agreement between the two major protagonists, AL and BNP would be required to avoid such a disaster. But alas, sometimes there have been in this country the propensity of some political units to self-destruct. The best scenario after the dissolution of the current government on or around 25 October 2013 would be an agreement between the two major parties, a German-style ‘Grand Coalition’ of the AL and BNP for the intervening period, with that government holding elections. Best, but unlikely. Nothing so far suggests that the two parties can develop that kind of understanding in the short time available. A second scenario is that the incumbent Prime Minister remains in office (a backing-down on this count may not at this stage seem feasible to her, though she can voluntarily reduce her influence), appoints a set of neutral technocrats (who are also perceived as such) as ministers for the next three months from 25 October, who hold elections under close domestic and international monitoring, and allow for ‘peaceful passage’ to the post-election system.5 It is possible that the BNP, many of whom already smell victory, may see this as the best available bargain (particularly if they can be intellectually persuaded that the election would not be unduly influenced by the head of the cabinet), and less clumsy than the idea of nonparticipating in the elections and pulling down an elected government (with a modicum of national and international support). This government need not be described as ‘caretaker’ or ‘interim’ but merely ‘transitional’, with such wordage or terminology satisfying all sides. A third scenario would be that the incumbent Prime Minister steps aside, the President forms a government of entirely new faces, comprising some apolitical persons and others with political views but perceptible social acceptance. This might include members of the Awami League and BNP as well. What will vastly help all around, and also contribute enormously to a positive electoral culture for the future, is an accord on a ‘Code of Conduct’ against post-election reprisals by the winning side. This could be negotiated by the Election Commission, or by some designated ‘facilitators’(by the President?), and should neither come to pass, by the ‘good offices’ of a recognised international authority (Should the UN play this role, no side need perhaps object, particularly if the end-result is the possibility of a period of post-polls stability.) A fourth scenario, a tragic one, would be continued intransigence on all sides, heightening of violence leading to utter chaos, with the armed forces intervening. In all fairness to them, they have as yet displayed no such predilections to do so, and indeed do not appear to have 5

According to the Bangladesh Constitution, a government holds office for a period of five years or less.

the stomach for it. Should this transpire, the new authorities would perhaps need to undertake some fundamental reforms before a return to the status quo ante. This may have uncertain consequences for the democratic process, as well as for any specific time-frames. An important point about the scenarios is that they are not conceived as neatly organised boxes. What might actually happen could be an amalgam of two or more of these, with some elements drawn from each. But public acceptance of the method is an essential prerequisite. People must see the endeavour in its entirety as something ‘good’. As Plato had said famously, and it is both a philosophical and ethical axiom today, that a ‘part’ cannot be good if the ‘whole’ is not.

Conclusion What will happen to Bangladesh in the long run will be determined by the developments in the short run between now and January 2014. Bangladesh is a country of huge potentials, and can become a model for many developing countries of comparable milieu to emulate. The Greek sage Heraclitus had said, and it is an incontrovertible axiom, that everything is in a flux, and you can never step into the same river twice. This is also true of Bangladesh. The challenge to the leadership is to ensure that the moving stream is flowing in the right direction.

.....

ISAS Working Paper No. 176 – 24 September 2013 469A Bukit Timah Road #07-01, Tower Block, Singapore 259770 Tel: 6516 6179 / 6516 4239 Fax: 6776 7505 / 6314 5447 Email: isassec@nus.edu.sg Website: www.isas.nus.edu.sg

Economics of Pak-Afghan Relations Shahid Javed Burki1

Abstract This paper examines the economic relations between Pakistan and its neighbour Afghanistan in the context of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s visit to Pakistan in August 2013. These ties have been under strain for as long as Pakistan has been an independent state. Recognising that each country needs the other, a serious effort is being made by the leaders from both countries to find a common ground for working together. There are, however, major differences in the way Islamabad and Kabul would like to fashion their relations.

Introduction President Hamid Karzai has a very limited time at his disposal. Between now and the spring of 2014, the country’s Constitution demands that he must, after having served two terms, transfer power to another elected president. If that happens, it will be the first time that political power is 1

transferred peacefully from one head of state to another in Afghanistan. The United States plans to pull out its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, formally ending its involvement in the Afghan conflict after 13 years. Given this timetable, Karzai wants to leave a legacy. He wants to go down in the Afghan history as the leader who brought peace to a long-troubled country. To achieve that goal, he must find a way to work with the Taliban, a group of highly conservative Islamists who had ruled the country before Karzai became President. They would like to return to Kabul in some fashion or other. To accommodate the Taliban without surrendering the country to them, Karzai believes that he must persuade Islamabad to get the Taliban to the negotiation table. Nawaz Sharif, the newly elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, has a different timeline and also different objectives in mind. He expects to be in power for at least five years, four of which will be coincide with a substantial part of the term of a new Afghan President. Sharif would like to keep his options open. He is also interested in developing a more productive economic relationship with the country to Pakistan’s northwest than in solving the long-enduring political problems that have soured relations for so long between the two nations. But in domestic as well international affairs, politics cannot be separated from economics. One influences the other. There is much to be gained by working simultaneously in the two areas.

President Karzai’s August 2013 Visit to Pakistan Pakistan had set the stage for the meeting with Karzai by sending to Kabul Sartaj Aziz, the veteran Pakistani diplomat who was Foreign Minister during Sharif’s second tenure of Prime Minister (1997-99). Aziz is now the Foreign and National Security Affairs Advisor in Sharif’s latest government. The Sharif government took some other steps as well to ease the tensions that had marred relations between the two countries. It encouraged the Pakistani side to play a soccer match against the national Afghan team in Kabul, an event that took place after a lapse of 10 years. Pakistan lost the match in front of a large and enthusiastic Afghan crowd. But a great deal of ground had to be covered to cast off the burdens of a troubled history of almost seven decades. From the time of its independence in 1947, Pakistan had found Afghanistan a hard neighbour to live with. The relationship was difficult for a number of seemingly intractable reasons, among them the 1893 “Durand line” arbitrarily drawn by a bureaucrat in London and designated as the boundary between British India and a weak Afghan state. The line had cut the Pakhtun areas, leaving a number of tribes and clans divided. That unhappy history notwithstanding, Pakistan’s new Prime Minister believes that economics is a good tool to work with. In his first TV address to the nation as Prime Minister for the third time, Sharif had said, “We have to think afresh about Afghanistan. We have to devise a strategy which will enable Pakistan to be recognised as a new shining face all over the world”. He gave no specifics but said that he was “keen to emphasize economic – and therein energy – denominator in the relations between the two countries”. 2

Now, Karzai went to Pakistan hoping to get some help to move forward the stalled dialogue with Taliban. He took a large team of officials with him including the Afghan Finance Minister. The purpose of the mission was to explore cooperation in both politics and economics. Karzai focused on the political side, leaving the economic agenda to be managed by the finance minister. This was his first visit to the Pakistani capital in 18 months. It was also the first time Karzai was to meet Sharif since the latter’s latest ascent to power. Karzai went to Islamabad on 26 August with the intention of staying in the Pakistani capital for only 10 hours. He had committed himself to only one meeting with Pakistan’s new Prime Minister. In the event, he stayed instead for two days and met Sharif twice. The second meeting was held in Murree, a hill station in the Himalayas only 20 miles east of Islamabad. The fact that the stay was extended by one day created some hope but only for a brief period on the political side. Not much was expected from his visit, and not much was achieved, at least in the political field. If any progress was made, it was in the area of economic cooperation. “Karzai has often accused Pakistan of providing shelter and support for Islamic insurgents seeking to undermine Afghanistan’s stability”, wrote Pamela Constable of The Washington Post in her coverage of the Afghan president’s visit. She has covered both Pakistan and Afghanistan for her newspaper for many years and understands the two countries well. “He has visited Pakistan at least 18 times as president since 2002 but has always failed to secure meaningful cooperation in fighting terrorism reining in the Talibans”.2 There was some speculation that the Afghan leader might return to Kabul, possibly accompanied by a freed Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar who was languishing since 2010 in a prison in Pakistan.3 Baradar once served as deputy to Mullah Mohammad Omar, who had presided over the Taliban regime in Kabul. Karzai believed that Baradar could be the bridge between the Karzai regime and the “Quetta Shura” in Pakistan. The latter functioned as a “government in exile” for the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan. If Karzai tried at all to win the release of the imprisoned Afghan leader, he did not succeed. But there were reports that Baradar himself was not enthusiastic about the role that was being assigned to him by Kabul. He presumably believed that any association with a regime that many in the ranks of the Taliban considered to have a short life expectancy would compromise him and hurt his future position. Pakistan facilitated a meeting between Baradar and Umar Daudzai, the then Afghan Ambassador in Islamabad. The former deputy to Mullah Omar was apparently unequivocal in not agreeing to play the role of an intermediary.4

Pamela Constable, “Karzai brings away little from Pakistan visit”, The Washington Post, 28 August 2013, p. A11. Fahd Humayun, “Karzai in Pakistan: Tailoring great expectations”, 28, August, 2013, Jinnah Institute, Islamabad. Najamuddin Shaikh, “The Karzai visit”, Dawn, 28 August 2013, p. 7.

When Karzai arrived in Islamabad, the much-talked-about Afghan attempt to negotiate with the Taliban was totally stalled. There were serious differences between the two sides, some of them unexpected. When the Mullah Omar group was allowed to open an office in Doha, the capital of Qatar, it was meant to serve as the site for holding discussions on Afghanistan’s future. But the Taliban had other ambitions. They offended Kabul by putting up a plaque at the rented building which announced that the Doha office represented the Emirate of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the name they had given the country while they ruled over it from 1996 to 2001. They also flew the Taliban flag on the building. These acts were seen by Karzai as deliberate provocations by the Taliban leadership and were clearly not acceptable to Kabul or to the Americans. Even though these symbols of the Taliban rule over Afghanistan were removed, the intended negotiations did not begin. Karzai was firm in his belief that the Quetta Shura Taliban must come to the negotiating table as one part of the Afghan political society, not as a separate entity. The Taliban, on their part, were also not prepared to hold bilateral discussions with Kabul, insisting on the presence of the Americans at the negotiating table. They often called Karzai a “lackey of the Americans” – a person who is not free to decide Afghanistan’s future without American participation. Some Pakistani analysts, including those with a deep knowledge of Afghan-Pakistan affairs, were of the view that in approaching the Afghan President, Islamabad should make clear that Pakistan had already paid a very heavy price living next to a highly troubled neighbour. Najamuddin Shaikh, Pakistan’s former Foreign Secretary, wrote an op-ed article for Dawn that appeared while Karzai was still in Pakistan. He suggested that the Afghan leader should be reminded that Pakistan “provided shelter to some five million Afghans but which is nevertheless painted as the principal villain. Afghanistan has just cause for complaint but Karzai needs to acknowledge the contribution that Afghanistan and its leadership have made towards creating this situation…This does not seem to resonate in Kabul. This then is the background against which the Karzai visit is to be viewed”.5 The presence of such a large number of Afghans in Pakistan is discussed in a later section. Karzai travelled to Pakistan believing – and saying as much in several statements he gave before heading for Islamabad – that Mullah Omar and his Quetta Shura were under the influence of the ISI, Pakistan’s premier intelligence service. Islamabad was not prepared to accept that the Pakistani military in general, and the ISI in particular, had influence, let alone control, over the Afghan Taliban. This was the case even if their activities were largely guided and administered from Quetta in Pakistan. That said, it was of some significance that General Ashfaq Kayani, Chief of Staff of the Pakistani Army (COAS), and Lt General Zaheer ul-Islam, the Director General of ISI, participated in the discussions with Karzai and his team. Their involvement was a clear indication that Sharif did not appear to have a totally free hand in the shaping of his Afghan policy. As the newspaper Dawn noted in an editorial, it is “interesting to note that, 5

Ibid.

however, the Sharif government is still allowing such a visible and public role to the military high command”, in the formulation and conduct of its foreign policy. Karzai’s team did not include army and intelligence officials.6 Even if he had wished to help Karzai over the Taliban issue, it was not what the Pakistani military wanted him to do. As noted below, he had greater freedom of movement in the economic field. The press in both countries underscored the Afghan leader’s disappointment with the Islamabad/Murree talks. According to a headline in Dawn, Pakistan’s premier English language newspaper, Karzai went back to Kabul “disappointed”.7 The same sentiment was reflected in a story in the Afghan daily, Hasht-e-Subh. The statement issued by the Afghan presidency after Karzai’s return to Kabul said that “the Pakistani side is expected to take specific and practical steps in accordance with the decisions made during the negotiations”. The suggestion in the statement was that something was accomplished; but what Islamabad promised was not made clear. The Pakistani Foreign Office also gave its own version of the outcome. Both sides had “reaffirmed their commitment to deepen and broaden” their bilateral relations and “agreed to work together for the promotion of peace and reconciliation” in Afghanistan. The Pakistani statement did not mention the Taliban by name.

American Withdrawal from Afghanistan The US plans to pull out its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 will have enormous political and economic consequences for both Afghanistan and Pakistan. If the American withdrawal leads to political upheaval in Afghanistan, similar to the one that followed the Soviet pull-out in 1989, there will be serious political and security implications of that for Pakistan. The fear that this might happen causes enormous anxiety in Pakistan, one reason why the new government wants to see some accommodation between Kabul’s current and future leaders and the Taliban. At the same time, Islamabad is anxious that the American withdrawal should not increase the influence of India in Afghanistan. This is the main reason why Islamabad has not been prepared to move against the Haqqani group which had been closely aligned with the ISI ever since the war against the Soviet occupation. The Haqqanis, an Afghan group that had created a sanctuary for itself in Pakistan’s North Waziristan, has been loosely aligned with the Quetta-Shura Taliban. Its operations have been conducted entirely against foreign troops in Afghanistan. Unlike the South Waziristan-based Tehrik-e-Taliban which has targeted the Pakistani state, the Haqqanis have shown no hostility towards Pakistan. The Pakistani military has not been inclined to end this equilibrium. But the Americans as well as the government in

6 7

Dawn editorial, “Unresolved issues: Afghan president’s visit”, 28 August 2013, p. 7. Baqir Sajjad Syed, “Afghan leader returns disappointed”, Dawn, 28 August 2013, 2013, p. 1.

Kabul have been urging Pakistan to move against the Haqqanis. Pakistan has wanted to leave them alone, counting on their help in the post-2014 Afghanistan. In the area of economics, the American withdrawal will hurt Afghanistan enormously. The data in Table 1 below provides some indication of how dependent is the country on foreign assistance, most of which comes from the United States. For instance, without foreign grants the current account deficit in 2012-13 was almost 45 per cent of GDP. Including grants, the current account turns positive – nearly four per cent of GDP. It is clear that without foreign help, the Kabul government will not be able to sustain the current level of imports. This will have consequences for Pakistan. As discussed later, without aid, Kabul will not have the resources to pay for the large trade deficit it has with Pakistan. That said, there may be some short-term benefits for Pakistan because of the enormity of the withdrawal operation and the compensation Pakistan is likely to receive for allowing its territory to be used by the American forces for their withdrawal. The newsmagazine, The Economist, has provided some estimates of what the American withdrawal is likely to involve. “In the next 18 months America expects to remove as many as 28,000 vehicles and 40,000 shipping containers of equipment. In military jargon, the whole action is ‘the retrograde’. Shifting that much kit, with an estimated value of $30 billion, is daunting enough. The retrograde will itself cost as much as $6 billion and involve about 29,000 personnel for the American part alone (each of the 50 coalition countries is responsible for its own logistics). The job is unprecedented in complexity…the region’s terrain and politics make it a mover’s nightmare”. 8 But the cost and complexity of the operation is not the only problem the Americans are likely to face. As William Dalrymple reminded his readers in his latest book, Return of a King which tells the story of the 1842 pull out by the British, the last time such a large withdrawal was carried out the result “was one of the great imperial disasters”.9 The militants on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border will do their best to harass the Americans as they head for the exit, moving their equipment through the two mountain passes through which Pakistan’s road system connects with that of Afghanistan. The Khyber Pass is one the gateways to Afghanistan from Pakistan. The Americans got a foretaste of this on 2 September when, according to the Associated Press, “militants attacked a U.S. base in Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan setting off bombs, torching vehicles, and shutting down a key road use by NATO supply trucks. All three people – apparently all attacking insurgents – were killed. The Taliban claimed responsibility for this in the Torkham area, the latest in a surge of attacks in Afghanistan as US-led foreign troops reduce their presence, en route to a full withdrawal by the end of the year”. 10 The 2014 withdrawal will not be quite like 8 9 10

The Economist, “Withdrawal from Afghanistan: The big retrograde”, 27 April, 2013, p. 34. William Dalrymple, “Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan”, New York, Knopf, 2013, p. 76. The New York Times, “Taliban attack U.S. base in Afghanistan”, 2 September, 2013, p. A13.

the 1842 pull-out but it will create serious problems for all the parties involved – the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Unsettled Politics in Afghanistan A question for Pakistan’s new prime minister, that will remain unanswered for at least a year, is who will take over the reins of power once Karzai, who has dominated Afghan politics for more than a decade, leaves the political stage – if he leaves at all. A few days after his return from Islamabad, Karzai recalled Umar Daudzai, Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan, and appointed him as Minister of Interior. He was the man Pakistan had helped to meet the imprisoned Taliban leader Mullah Baradar. Daudzai was already the favourite to succeed Karzai after the elections, scheduled for April 2014. Since he knows Pakistan well and has had good contacts with Pakistan’s senior leadership, it would help Islamabad if he were to take over from Karzai. By placing him in the cabinet now, Karzai took him out of contention. According to the Afghan law, the process of nominating candidates for the electoral fight must be completed by October 2013. According to one newspaper account, the Daudzai “move bolstered speculation about who would, in fact, receive Mr. Karzai’s blessing”. Western diplomats and some Afghan officials said that Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul now appeared to be the front runner, and some said that they expected an announcement from him soon. If Rassoul does become the next president, it is clear that Karzai will pull strings from behind the stage. Rassoul’s “main qualifications were that he is the weakest and least offensive candidate”.11 Faced with such political uncertainty across the border, it seemed right for Pakistan’s Sharif to focus his attention on improving economic contacts with Afghanistan. How the Sharif government will seek to achieve that goal is the subject of a later section. Even after the 2014 elections are over and a person to succeed Karzai has been chosen, the state of politics in the country will remain turbulent. With the American umbrella that provided considerable political cover to the Karzai regime lifted, the successor government will be on its own. It will have to contend not only with the increasing level of insurgency but will also need to settle the many ethnic divides that have bedevilled Afghan politics for centuries. The most consequential of these is the accommodation of the Pakhtuns in the emerging political system. This is the largest ethnic group in the country, accounting for two-fifths of the country’s population. This group was mostly sidelined during the ten-year rule by Karzai who relied on the non-Pakhtun groups such as the Tajiks and the Uzbeks in the country’s northeast for support. These are the groups that had helped the United States to overthrow the Taliban government in 11

Rod Nordland, “Karzai appointment sidelines possible candidate”, The New York Times, 1 September, 2013, p. A11.

December 2001. Their reward was a disproportionate amount of power in the political structure created after the fall of the Taliban. This cannot be a stable system in the post-2014 and postAmerica era in Afghanistan. Compounding the problem for Afghanistan’s future political system is the way some of the regional powers have aligned themselves with the various ethnic groups in the country. Pakistan, with about 25 million Pakhtuns in its population of 190 million, is understandably involved in Pakhtun affairs across the border in Afghanistan. India has always had good relations with the minority communities in the northeast. Iran supports the country’s Shia population. Unless the regional powers work together to bring peace to this long-troubled country, its political evolution will become even more complicated.

The Afghan Economy Whether peace will return to the country that has been at war for three and a half decades remains an open question. It is only with political stability that the country can hope to recover what it has lost in terms of economic development. The rates of GDP growth have been high in recent years; the economy grew by 21 per cent in 2008-09, slowing down to 8.4 per cent in the following year, and further slowing down in 2011-12, The World Bank expects the rate of growth to have picked up to 11.8 per cent in 2012-13. However, these impressive rates are not sustainable. They represent some recovery from the devastation caused by the prolonged war and the copious external assistance that flowed after the Americans moved into the country in December 2001. Donor grants have ranged between 10 and 16 per cent of national income. These will decline significantly after the American and NATO troops leave by December 2014. (See Table 1 for the data on the performance of the Afghan economy.) In spite of the rapid GDP growth of recent years, the economy’s output is still below that reached in the late 1970s when the Soviet Union invaded the country. In 2012-13, nominal GDP (excluding opium) was estimated at US$ 19.8 billion which, for a population of 33.4 million, works out to only US$ 595 per capita. While exports brought in US$ 2.61 billion into the country, as much as US$ 11.17 billion were spent in buying imports. This left a trade imbalance of about US$ 8.6 billion, or approximately 43.1 per cent of GDP. This was financed by the donors, mostly the United States. As shown in Table 3, in 2010-11, the trade deficit with Pakistan alone amounted to almost US$ 2.2 billion, or almost 26 per cent of the total. With a squeeze on the flow of foreign assistance into the country after the departure from the country of United States and its allies, this will adversely affect the Afghan-Pakistan trade.

Table 1: Afghanistan’s Economic Performance

Nominal GDP ($ billion) Population (million) GDP per capita ($) Exports ($ billion) Imports ($ billion) Current account balance (excluding grants) Current account balance (including grants) Trade balance Trade balance ($ billion)

2007/8 9.8

2008/9 10.2

2009/10 12.5

2010/11 15.9

2011/12 18.0

2012/13 19.8

29.1

29.8

30.6

31.4

32.4

33.4

338

342

408

507

557

595

1.85

2.46

2.52

2.64

2.75

2.61

7.39

8.95

9.47

9.95

10.62

11.17

-60.6

-66.0

-58.6

-48.5

-45.9

-44.9

5.2

5.3

1.6

2.8

2.2

3.9

-56.3

-63.6

-55.6

-45.9

-43.6

-43.1

-5.54

-6.49

-6.95

-7.31

-7.87

-8.56

Source: The World Bank, Afghanistan Economic Update, April 2013, p. 24

Even when opium is excluded from the picture, the economy remains mostly agricultural and pastoral. In 2012, agriculture contributed 33.2 per cent to GDP, a slight decline compared to its contribution (31.8 per cent) in 2005. The share of manufacturing, which is mostly small scale, declined from 16.9 per cent to 14.1 per cent while that of services increased from 40.9 per cent to 46.4 per cent. Construction – a relatively big sector, given the need for reconstruction from the extensive damage caused by war – contributed considerably more to national income than is normal for a country at Afghanistan’s stage of development. However, its share declined from 10 9

to 7.5 per cent. The share of mining – a sector with considerable potential – increased from 0.3 to 1.8 per cent, a six-fold expansion.12 For the future, Afghanistan will have to rely more on its own resources than on foreign help. This will entail rebuilding the sectors of agriculture, having local and foreign entrepreneurs invest in small and medium enterprises, and inviting foreign mining companies to exploit the country’s mineral wealth. Pakistan can help in each of these three areas. It has the expertise in the first two, and its cooperation will be needed in the third. Sharif and his team have focused much more on economic issues and cooperation in that area than on helping the Afghans reach an understanding with the Taliban. This stance is in keeping with the new Pakistani Prime Minister’s overall approach to foreign affairs. He is of the view that difficult inter-country problems could be resolved more easily once strong economic ties have been established. He is using the same approach in reaching out to India. In this context, it is of some significance that Karzai was not the first foreign head of the state or government to visit Islamabad after Sharif became Prime Minister. That honour was given to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra of Thailand with whom Sharif had a detailed discussion on how to improve economic relations with a country that he believes is an important member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. So far Sharif seems not to have decided whether, in bringing Pakistan out of an economic recession that has lasted for six years (the longest in its history), he should look east towards China, India, and Southeast Asia or to the west towards Afghanistan, the Middle East, Europe and North America. Or Pakistan could become a bridge between these two areas of economic activity. In spite of the difficulties on the political front, Pakistan’s Prime Minister is convinced that serious and palpable progress could be made in the field of economics. Although as discussed below, Pakistan had served as the gateway to Afghanistan for years, no effort was made to develop strong economic ties and to link, in any meaningful way, the economies of the two countries. Most contacts were of informal nature. Before the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 that made passage between the two nations difficult and hazardous, tens of thousands of Afghan nomads used to spend winter, with their animals, in the plains of north Pakistan. Called the “pawanidas”, they moved in and out of the two countries without being constrained. While the Soviet occupation put an end to this free flow of people, it generated another kind of human movement. Millions of refugees moved from Afghanistan to Pakistan to escape the harsh environment created by the Soviet Union’s occupation. While most of these internally displaced people, in the language of the United Nations, were accommodated in dozens of temporary camps along Pakistan’s long border with Afghanistan, tens of thousands went and settled in several large cities. 12

These data are from The World Bank, Afghanistan Economic Update, April 2013.

The Afghans in Pakistan In spite of the repatriation of an estimated 3.8 million registered refugees back to Afghanistan, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the UNHCR, has estimated that Pakistan still “hosts over 1.6 million registered Afghans, the largest and most protracted refugee population in the world”. The UN agency has continued to remain active in Pakistan, moving into the phase of creating a more secure environment for the Afghan people who remained out of their country. It called its approach the “Solutions Strategy” to distinguish it from the provision of relief which was its main preoccupation. The agency remains concerned with the security situation in Pakistan. “The overall security situation remains fragile, and State operations to restore law and order in 2013 are expected to result in new displacements. Despite the Government’s commitment to the Solutions Strategy for Afghan Refugees endorsed by all concerned stake holders, in Geneva in May 2012, there is as yet no national legal framework for asylum in Pakistan. UNHCR will continue to advocate to Pakistan accession to the Refugee Convention and the drafting of a refugee law”.13

Table 2: Displaced People in Pakistan

Type & population From Afghanistan Other countries Internally displaced Returnees Total

December 2012

January 2013

1,555,630 750 700,000 100,000 2,359,880

1,649,630 750 745,000 100,000 2,497,880

Source: UNHCR country operations profile: Pakistan, July 2013

The economic, social, and political impact of this large movement of people – the largest since the arrival of eight million refugees from India in 1947 – is still not fully studied and understood but is profound. This is particularly the case with the influx of the Afghan displaced people in the violence prone mega-city of Karachi.14 The Afghans in Pakistan have also come to dominate some of the economic activities in their adopted homeland. They have become active in the trucking industry, playing a significant role in transporting the supplies from the port city of 13 14

UNHCR, The UN Refuge Agency, “2013 UNHCR Country Operations Profile: Pakistan”, July 2013. For the impact of the arrival of Afghans on the unsettled conditions in Karachi, see Shahid Javed Burki, Exploding Karachi, ISAS Brief No. 212, 15 August 2011. http://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/Attachments/P ublisherAttachment/ISAS_Brief_212_-_Email_-_Exploding_Karachi_22082011094422.pdf

Karachi to the American and NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan. They also entered smallscale mining, especially in exploiting the deposits of precious and semi-precious stones in many border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan. With the increase in attention paid by Islamabad and Kabul in building strong economic ties, a more productive deployment of the Afghan population in Pakistan should become possible. The human resource is not the only one the two nations could use for mutual economic benefit.

Working Together in the Economic Field Ever alert to Pakistan’s economic potential and the public policy to realise it, Sharif is focused on what his country can achieve by working closely with Afghanistan. There is enormous amount of untapped mineral wealth – including energy – to be found below the ground in both countries, some of it in the areas that stretch across the border. In 2011, it was reported in the American press that the Pentagon had estimated Afghanistan’s mineral wealth at $1 trillion, some of it in the areas adjacent to the border with Pakistan.15 Mineral veins do not stop at political borders. Several stretch across Afghanistan and Pakistan. Afghanistan has in the ground impressive deposits of iron, copper, and rare metals. So, it seems, does Pakistan. On the day Karzai was in Islamabad, it was reported that the Energy Information Agency had come out with an impressive ‘read’ on Pakistan’s energy endowment. It estimated that Pakistan, in the areas adjacent to Afghanistan, had shale gas reserves of 105b trillion cubic feet (TCF) and more than nine billion barrels of oil.16 The new Pakistani Prime Minister believes that his country and Afghanistan should work together to exploit their enormous mineral wealth. This could perhaps be done with China’s assistance, a matter raised during Sharif’s visit to China that began in July 2013. If the plan to develop the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor materialises, it could provide the infrastructure that would be required to exploit the mineral deposits in both countries.17 The second Karzai-Sharif meeting, at Murree, was preceded by a detailed discussion between the finance ministers from the two sides. The statement issued following that meeting was more detailed in substance than the short Karzai-Sharif press conference on 27 August. The finance ministers announced a number of concrete steps. Pakistan will help build the second carriageway linking Torkham (a town on the Pakistani side of the border) with Jalalabad, the largest city in eastern Afghanistan. That would extend Pakistan’s motorway system from Lahore to well within Afghanistan. This would facilitate not only trade between Afghanistan and Pakistan but also between India and Afghanistan. The latter, of course, would depend on Islamabad’s 15 16 17

James Risen, “US identifies vast mineral riches in Afghanistan”, The New York Times, 13 June, 2011, p. A1. Khaleeq Kiani, “Pakistan said to have large reserves of shale gas and oil”, Dawn, 28 August, 2013, p. 1. Shahid Javed Burki, China’s ‘Look-West’ Policy; A New Link with Pakistan, ISAS Brief No. 293, 20 August 2013. http://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/Attachments/PublisherAttachment/ISAS_Brief_No__293_-_China's_'LookWest'_Policy__A_New_Link_with_Pakistan_20082013172936.pdf

willingness to open its space for India’s commercial traffic to Afghanistan and the countries beyond in Central Asia. The Pakistani side also committed itself to the full implementation of the Transit Trade Agreement (TTA) between the two countries. Signed on 28 October 2010 under considerable American pressure, the new treaty included Lahore as the point of exit – but not of entry – for the goods and commodities exported by Afghanistan. This was a partial step towards the use of Pakistani territory for facilitating trade between India and Afghanistan. The 2010 TTA allowed the passage of Afghan goods and commodities to India, but not those from India to Afghanistan. The TTA has been negotiated several times since 1950 when the first version was signed. This treaty and its subsequent incarnations essentially opened the port of Karachi to landlocked Afghanistan. Table 3: Pakistan-Afghanistan Trade (US$ Million)

2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11

Pakistani exports 140 169.2 315.7 492.9 747.7 1063.4 753.9 1143.6 1398 1572 2336.7

Pakistani imports 29.5 22.9 34.8 47.4 38.9 47.5 76.2 91.3 93 139 172

Total trade

Balance

170 192.1 350.5 540.3 786.7 1110.9 830.2 1235 1491 1711 2508.7

110.9 146.4 280.8 445.4 708.7 1015.9 677.6 1052.3 1305 1433 2164.7

Source: Pildat, Pak-Afghan trade, Islamabad, December 2011

As shown in Table 3, Pakistani exports to Afghanistan have increased almost 17-fold since the fall of the Taliban regime and the arrival of the Americans and its allies in that country. There was some increase in Pakistan’s imports, but not by as much as the growth in exports. This left Pakistan with a large trade surplus in its favour. Some of the Pakistani exports were the result of the presence of large foreign forces in Afghanistan, some of whose needs could be met by Pakistani suppliers. Some were the result of increased construction activity which grew as the Americans made significant investments in rebuilding the war-torn country. These exports will be seriously affected as the Americans pull out. And as already indicated, Kabul will not have the resources to finance such a large trade deficit with Pakistan.

As a businessman, Sharif knows that the old and new trade transit arrangements are not always popular with the some members of the business community. The series of treaties allowed Kabul to import goods free of Pakistani tariffs as long as they were not off-loaded in Pakistan. But there were serious leakages as the treaties opened opportunities to the Pakistani traders and smugglers to bring in banned goods or those that faced a high wall of tariff in Pakistan. The arrangements were resented, in particular, by the Pakistani manufacturers who saw the smugglers’ ability to breach the high wall of tariff as a major problem for their businesses. Large scale smuggling hurts domestic manufacturers when an economy is closed with a high wall of tariff and other restrictions on international commerce that protect the domestic industry from international competition. Illegal entry of foreign manufactures reduces the protection many local businesses enjoy. That was the case in Pakistan at the time the first Sharif government (1990-93) took office. The then Finance Minister Sartaj Aziz presided over the preparation of a reform programme that lowered trade tariffs, encouraged foreign capital flows, and invited private foreign investment. Aziz is now an advisor to the prime minister and has a palpable influence over the making of public policy, in particular, foreign policy. He sees the benefits a good working relationship with Afghanistan would bring to his country. Easing of trade restrictions is an important part of this strategy. For instance, allowing India access through Pakistan to Afghanistan and beyond will be not only good politics but also good economics. As a part of the overall economic opening to India which Sharif is keen to undertake, the 2010 TTA could be modified to allow two-way trade between Afghanistan and India. This would bring enormous benefits not only to those two countries but also to Pakistan.18 Islamabad could charge a significant transit fee for the use of its territory for this purpose of trade.19 The Pakistani and Afghan governments have also agreed to collaborate on the issue of water, in particular, the sharing of this precious and highly-stressed resource. Pakistan and Afghanistan share nine rivers, with annual flows of 18.3 million acre feet with the bulk (16.5 MAF) accounted for by the Kabul River. It joins the Indus at the town of Attock on the border between the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The Kabul River system is an interesting waterway since one of its major tributaries, the Kunar River originates in Pakistan. There, called the Chitral River, it flows into the Kabul and re-enters Pakistan. The Kabul River, therefore, has Pakistan both as an upper and lower riparian state. This system of rivers was once navigable. The valleys through which they flow were the easiest way to travel from the Pamir mountain passes in western China to the plains of what is now Pakistan The development of the long Kabul River valley could add another link of commerce between China and South Asia. Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to set up a joint commission on the development of the Kabul River for exploiting it and its fast-flowing tributaries for generating electricity. At the 18

For a discussion of this aspect of India-Pakistan relations, see Shahid Javed Burki, “South Asia in the New World Order: The Role of Regional Cooperation”, London, Routledge Contemporary South Asian Series, 2011. See Aparna Pande, “Explaining Pakistan’s Foreign Policy: Escaping India”, London Routledge 2011, p. 82

meeting in Islamabad on 25 August, a day before Karzai landed in the Pakistani capital, an agreement between Islamabad and Kabul was reached between Ishaq Dar and Hazrat Omer Zakhilwel, the two finance ministers, to create institutional mechanisms for economic cooperation. The two governments agreed to give priority to the construction of a hydroelectricity plant for generating 1,500 MW. The project will be designed, constructed and managed by a new entity called the Kabul River Basin Management Commission. The KRBMC will be modelled after the Indus Waters Commission that was created after the signing of the Indus Water Treaty by India and Pakistan in 1960. Some preparatory work has been done by the World Bank which is encouraging Pakistan and Afghanistan to develop this resource. It has already spent $12 million studying the project.20 In order to ensure that the decisions taken in Islamabad by the two economic teams would be implemented, Afghanistan and Pakistan have agreed to hold a meeting in October under the Joint Economic Commission. The JEC will meet in Kabul. It is Pakistan’s hope that enough momentum will be built up fairly quickly to overcome some of the inevitable hiccups on the political front.

Conclusion There are some fundamental differences between the policy priorities of the leaders who are currently in power in Kabul and Islamabad. Karzai is more concerned with the immediate while Sharif is more focused on the long-term. The Afghan president’s second term is approaching its end; the constitution does not permit him a third-term. The Pakistani Prime Minister has just begun his third term in office and has less than five years to go. Karzai wants to bring peace to his country without surrendering it to the Taliban. Sharif is more interested in reviving the stalled economy of his country. With such differences in the goals to be reached and policies to be followed, can the two sides relate to each other? Will the attempts to realise economic opportunities triumph over the need to deal with political exigencies? Will the likely American withdrawal from Afghanistan create difficulties for both Afghanistan and Pakistan? Will the regional powers – Pakistan, India and Iran – use Afghanistan as a competing ground or will they cast off the burdens of a troubled history and work together to bring peace to this long-troubled land? Only time will provide answers to these important questions.

..... 20

Khaleeq Kiani, “Pakistan, Afghanistan mull over power project on Kunar River”, Dawn, 26 August, 2013, pp. 1 and 3.

ISAS Working Paper No. 177 – 24 September 2013 469A Bukit Timah Road #07-01, Tower Block, Singapore 259770 Tel: 6516 6179 / 6516 4239 Fax: 6776 7505 / 6314 5447 Email: isassec@nus.edu.sg Website: www.isas.nus.edu.sg

Factors Driving Drug Abuse in India’s Punjab Rahul Advani1 Abstract This paper explores the phenomenon of drug abuse among the youth of Punjab, India. In aiming to identify the factors influencing the problem, the paper focuses on the importance of the exceptional aspects of drug abuse in Punjab, including the core demographic of users and the types of drugs being commonly used. These unique characteristics point towards the contextual factors that have possibly influenced the scale and character that the state’s drug problem has taken on. For example, the rural background of Punjab’s drug-user demographic hints at the influence of factors including historical developments in the state’s rural economy and the Punjabi culture of masculinity which is deeply tied to images of strength and physical labour. On the other hand, their relatively-affluent class background suggests that the impact of unemployment, the cultures of consumption and aspiration and the modernity associated with injectable drugs are all particularly powerful in driving them to use drugs. The literature referred to in this paper includes both quantitative and qualitative studies of drug abuse in Punjab and throughout India, the history of Punjab’s rural economy, unemployment, participation in higher education, masculinity, as well as ethnographies of young men in Punjab.

Introduction Only a decade ago Punjab, one of the wealthiest states in India at the time, was heralded as one of the country’s “crown jewels”.2 In 2004, it was ranked as the “second richest” state in 1

Mr. Rahul Advani is a Research Assistant at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore. He can be contacted at isasra@nus.edu.sg. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of ISAS.

terms of GDP per capita, according to a report by the Confederation of Indian Industry, “with a per capita income of Rs 25,652”.3 Now, however, the success story of Punjab’s economy has seemingly come to an end. What was once the fastest-growing state in the country is now one of India’s slowest. During 2011-2012, Punjab’s growth rate slipped to “5.79 per cent – the lowest in the last five years of the Parkash Singh Badal government”.4 The “inherent edge of skilled manpower and entrepreneurial skills” that Punjab had been praised for having ten years ago when there was much excitement over its “vast potential in the manufacturing and service sector”,5 no longer exists. What has instead put Punjab in the national headlines is a drug epidemic that has swept across the state, accompanying the decline in economic growth. The extent to which the problem is specific to the state can be seen from the fact that “roughly 60 per cent of all illicit drugs confiscated in India are seized in Punjab”.6 The recent nature of the problem can be deduced from a 2008 UNAIDS/SPYM report estimating the extent of Injecting Drug Use (IDU) which found that in Punjab, “the IDU phenomena was observed to be of relatively recent onset”, with “more than half of the IDUS reported injecting 2-6 times a week while another third reported injecting daily, once per day”. 7 With young men making up the majority of those consumed by drug addiction in Punjab, it seems that the state’s demographic ‘edge’ may not be so much of an edge after all. This paper seeks to contextualise the problem of drug addiction in Punjab by examining its links with ideas of Punjabi masculinity and the culture of consumption. Furthermore, this paper will examine Punjab’s drug epidemic in relation to the developments in Punjab’s rural economy that have unfolded over the last few decades. The problem of drug addiction in Punjab is, in many ways, unique and therefore needs to be understood with reference to its social and economic context. In most countries, “drug use is linked to urbanization”8 as well as poverty. The situation in Punjab paints a very different picture. Firstly, the problem is occurring on a scale of exceptional proportion. According to a 2011 report on drug abuse and alcoholism in Punjab by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, “40 per cent of Punjabi

3 4

Punjab second richest state in country, Times of India [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2004-04-08/chandigarh/28336153_1_northern-states-capitaincome-total-software-exports>. Ibid. Kaur, S, 2012, Punjab ‘growth’ story derails, slips to lowest in last 5 years, The Indian Express [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.indianexpress.com/news/punjab--growth--story-derailsslips-to-lowest-in-last-5-years/917547/1>. Punjab, Haryana among 5 richest states in India, The Tribune [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040408/biz.htm#6>. Yardley, J, 2012, Indian State Finds Itself in Tight Grip of Addiction, The New York Times [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/world/asia/drug-addiction-is-agrowing-problem-in-punjab.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=world>. Ambekar, A, 2012, HIV prevention among injecting drug users and their female sex partners: Implementation gaps and barriers, New Delhi: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Regional Office for South Asia, p.9. Travis, A, 2012, Global illicit drug users to rise 25% by 2050, says UN, The Guardian [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/26/global-drug-users-rise-un>.

youth in the age group of 15 to 25 years have fallen prey to drugs”.9 If we were to apply this statistic to the total youth population of Punjab,10 this would suggest a population of roughly 1.5 to 2 million young Punjabis addicted to drugs. The long-term effects this would have on the demography of the state could be potentially devastating, especially since many within this population of drug addicts are soon to enter their productive and re-productive years. Such a sizeable population of drug users could lead to, in the future, increasing levels of crime, broken marriages, destroyed families and children who face psychological, emotional and developmental problem as a result of drug-addict parents. Secondly, the demographic of users (most of whom are middle- and upper-middle class rural youth) varies vastly from the global stereotype of the drug-addict as a poverty-stricken urbanite. Therefore, an analysis of Punjab-specific social and economic factors may help explain why and how so many of Punjab’s youth have gone down the path of drug addiction.

Demographic Many of the newspapers that cover the issue provide an overview of the general situation, yet do not often identify specifically which groups of people are fuelling the drug subculture in the state. In this case, an understanding of exactly what kind of people are part of the problem may be useful in providing clues as to why it is occurring on such a large scale. The middle class-specific nature of the problem is alluded to in claims in Firstpost India that drug addiction in Punjab “isn’t about rich boys scoring heroin or coke” or “some poor farmers languishing quietly in the throes of an opium haze”. According to Doctor J P S Bhatia, who runs a rehabilitation clinic in Amritsar, “the middle class and the affluent are the worst victims of this crisis”.11 However, much of the media coverage reveals little else about the specifics of the problem. For example, the BBC mentioned that “all sectors of society have been affected”12 while the New York Times referred to the problem as occurring “throughout the border state of Punjab, whether in villages or cities”.13 This gives the impression that drug abuse in Punjab is happening as much in rural contexts as it is in urban areas. Digging deeper into the literature reveals this to be simply not the case. In a study of 200 patients in a drug de-addiction centre in Punjab, Kalra and Bansal (2012) found the majority of patients to be young married men working either as labourers or farmers in the rural areas of Punjab. Their findings reveal most patients to be male (100%), married (76%), residing in rural areas (85.5%), and working as farmers (42.5%). 14 Whilst most of the patients were perhaps too old to be considered youth, the problem of drug 9

10 11

12 13 14

Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, 2011, Awareness and Education for Prevention of Drug Abuse & Alcoholism in Punjab, New Delhi: Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan, p.3. See Appendix. Dummett, M, 2010, Punjab’s drugs epidemic, BBC News [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11925617>. Ibid. Yardley, J, above n 6. Kalra, I, and Bansal, P D, 2012, Sociodemographic Profile and Pattern of Drug abuse among Patients Presenting to a Deaddiction Centre in rural area of Punjab, Delhi Psychiatry Journal, 15 (2), p.328.

addiction itself can nevertheless be framed as a youth problem. This is because it marks the time around when men are most vulnerable to addiction and most likely to begin taking to drugs. The study found that the average age of patients at the time they began substance abuse was 25 years of age.15 Singh, Gupta and Jindal’s (2000) study similarly finds a large demographic of drug users in Punjab coming from the agricultural sector. In addition, it reveals the abnormally large scale in which drug addiction is occurring. In interviewing 289 female attendees at the Annual Farmers Fair (Kisan Mela) in Ludhiana, March, 2000, they found that “about half of the respondents were of the opinion that fifty per cent, or more, of male adult inhabitants in their native villages were addicted to one or more than one type of drugs”.16

Punjab as an Exceptional Case of Drug Addiction The demographic of drug addicts in Punjab represents an anomaly when framed within the wider context of drug abuse in India. Upon comparison with the data from other parts of the country, it becomes clear that the situation in Punjab represents an extreme in terms of the extent of drug addiction as well as an exception in terms of its character. Starting with the extreme nature of the problem, those residing in Punjab are far more likely to be drug addicts than those from most other states in India. For example, the types of drugs that are most popular vary greatly from region to region. A 2004 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report detected high levels of alcohol abuse in the northeast states of Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, whereas Manipur, Bihar and Orissa topped the list when it came to cannabis abuse. The extent of drug abuse in Punjab, by comparison, is evident from the fact that for two of India’s most popular drugs, Punjab tops the list. The UN report, based on data from 203 drug treatment centres across India (collected during March 2000 to November 2001), singled out Punjab as the state with the highest levels of abuse of opium as well as propoxyphene, a commonly injected drug. Specifically, it stated that “the highest number of opium users was reported from Punjab (around 56%) followed by Rajasthan (around 11%) and Haryana (around 6%)”. It also mentioned that “the use of propoxyphene was restricted to Punjab and the two north eastern states namely Nagaland and Mizoram”.17 While the sample of the report was non-random and therefore cannot be generalised for the entire population, it certainly gives an indication of the type, as well as the extent, of drug use in Punjab. Perhaps more interesting, and possibly helpful in terms of explaining Punjab’s abnormally high levels of drug addiction, are the characteristics of Punjab’s core demographic of drug users which differ greatly from most other Indian drug addicts. A comparison with the rest of 15 16

Ibid. Singh, S, Gupta, A K and Jindal, B R, 2000, Menace of Drug abuse in Punjab: An Opinion Survey, Ludhiana: Department of Economics & Sociology, Punjab Agricultural University, p.1. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Regional Office for South Asia, 2004, National Survey on Extent, Pattern and Trends of Drug Abuse in India, New Delhi: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Regional Office for South Asia, pp.32-33.

India will reveal the exceptional nature of the drug phenomenon in Punjab. The report found that, nationwide, users of cannabis “were generally from a rural background” whereas people from an urban background were more likely to report “injecting drug use (IDU) and needle sharing”.18 In this case, Punjab represents an anomaly given that IDU is one of the most popular forms of drug abuse among the state’s rural population. According to a 2012 UNODC report, “the IDU phenomenon exists in many smaller towns and even villages of Punjab”.19 In addition to the rural/urban distribution of drug use, the class demographic of Punjab’s drug abusers presents another exception. Drug use on a national level is most noticeable “among the working poor”20 whereas in Punjab, “the problem is prevalent in middle-class enclaves”.21

The ‘Rural’ Element of the Problem One of the unique aspects of Punjab’s drug addiction problem which provides the starting point for this paper is the extent to which it occurs predominantly in the rural context. The extremely skewed distribution of drug users in Punjab across the rural/urban divide becomes especially significant when compared to the distribution of drug users across India. At the national level, the 2004 UNODC report found, based on a sample, that “31,159 (76.6%) were from a rural background and the remaining 9,538 (23.4%) were from an urban background”.22 This is much in line with the distribution of India’s total population between rural areas (“68.84%”) and urban areas (“31.16%”23). However, while the distributions of Punjab’s general population and drug user population are both heavier in rural areas, the difference between the former and latter is staggering, unlike at the national level where the two distributions fit relatively closely. The argument that a heavy concentration of drug abusers in rural areas is simply a matter of numbers and a result of “the majority of the population residing in the rural areas”24 could be posed for India as a whole, yet it cannot be applied with equal confidence to the case of Punjab. Punjab’s population is distributed somewhat more heavily in urban areas than India’s total population, with a 62.5% rural population and a 37.5% urban population, according to the 2011 census.25 In fact, “Punjab is one of the most highly urbanized states in India”, 26 yet its population of drug abusers is one of the most-rural compared to those in other Indian states. 18 19 20

21 22 23

Ibid, p.35. Ambekar, A, above n 7, p.9. DARA, 2011, Drug Addiction in India, DARA (Drug & Alcohol Rehab Asia) [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://alcoholrehab.com/alcohol-rehab/drug-addiction-in-india/>. Yardley, J, above n 6 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Regional Office for South Asia, above n 18, p.23. Chandramouli, C, 2011, Census of India 2011 – Rural Urban Distribution of Population, New Delhi: Ministry of Home Affairs, p.5. Mohan, D, Sundaram, K R, and Sharma, H K, 1986, A study of drug abuse in rural areas of Punjab (India), Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 17 (1), p.57. Chandramouli, C, 2011, Census of India 2011 (Provisional Population Totals): Punjab Profile, New Delhi: Ministry of Home Affairs, p.1. Kaminsky, A D and Long, R D, 2011, India Today: An Encyclopedia of Life in the Republic, Volume 1, Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, p.574.

Equally significant is the fact that Punjab’s population of drug abusers is much more rural than its general population. While it is not representative, Kalra and Bansal’s study (2012) on a drug de-addiction centre in Punjab found far more rural drug abusers (85.5%) than urban ones (15.5%) in Punjab. Both the extremely skewed distribution between Punjab’s rural and urban drug users, and the disturbingly large number of addicts within rural Punjab suggest that the state’s rural economy and socio-cultural factors specific to the rural community may help explain the state’s drug phenomenon.

Punjab’s Agricultural Economy Traditionally, Punjab has been popularly known as the ‘bread basket of India’, indicating high levels of productivity and growth in agriculture. Such a title seemed fitting until “the late 1980s” when even though “the per capita income remained among the highest in the country, the growth in agriculture in Punjab levelled off”.27 Among other factors, the use of fertilizer “at levels exceeding the recommended amounts” led to “increasing stress on natural resources”.28 Tactics such as these which were responsible for the high rates of growth in Punjab’s agriculture sector during the 1970s and 1980s led to what is now an unsustainable farming culture. As a result, the “income of the farmers in Punjab has stagnated due to stagnation in the productivity of rice, significant fall in the productivity of cotton, rise in fixed cost and increase in the inputs use and their prices”.29 According to Sidhu and Bhallar, “technology has shown the signs of fatigue, the income growth has slowed down and employment has shrunk”.30 Singh, Singh and Brar (2003) similarly argue that Punjab’s “highly seasonally characterised and mechanised development process of agriculture has led to the considerable decline of the labour-absorption capacity of this sector”.31 In addition to the over-mechanisation of the agricultural sector, the “huge influx” of “cheap migrant labour”32 into Punjab, both during and after the Green Revolution, has contributed to the inability of Punjab’s farms to provide suitable employment for local youth. The Green Revolution in Punjab, which started in 1966 with the introduction of high-yielding varieties of wheat, “brought about a substantial increase in farm employment”.33 This created additional demand for labour which was “largely met by migrant labourers from Rajasthan

30 31

Chaturvedi, R, 2010, Review of ‘Pritam Singh, 2008, Federalism, Nationalism and Development: India and the Punjab Economy’, Journal of South Asian Development, 5 (1), p.171. Gulati, A, 2007, Withering Punjab Agriculture: Can It Regain Its Leadership? International Food Policy Research Institute New Delhi [online]. Available from World Wide Web <http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADK223.pdf>. Sidhu, R S and Bhallar, R S, 2004, Changing Structure of the Farm Economy in Punjab: Impact of Livestock on Income and Employment, International Journal of Agricultural Economics, 59 (3), p.580. Ibid, p.578. Singh, B, Singh, S and Singh, J, 2003, Extent of Unemployment in the Border Districts of Punjab: A Case Study of Rural Ferozepur District, Centre for Research in Economic Change [online]. Available from World Wide Web <http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/sereport/ser/stdy_unempnjb.pdf>. Singh, G, 2002, Review of ‘Himmat Singh, 2001, Green Revolutions Reconsidered: The Rural World of Contemporary Punjab’, Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, 57 (2), p.276. Sharma, R K, 1974, Green Revolution & Farm Employment: An Analysis of Experience in the Punjab, Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 9 (3), p.419.

and Uttar Pradesh”.34 With an already prominent presence in the state’s agricultural scene during the 1970s and 1980s, migrant labourers came to dominate farming jobs during the 1990s. It was during this period that the “massive attack of American bollworm” led many farmers to leave cotton cultivation and “forcefully adopt paddy cultivation”.35 Until then, many of them were employing local labourers for cotton cultivation, yet local labourers were “not well equipped with paddy cultivation”.36 Consequently, during the switch-over from cotton to paddy, “many farmers started employing migrant labourers from the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar”.37 In spite of slow growth rates, Punjab is still, in many ways, reaping the benefits of its former economic glory. The state has one of the lowest poverty rates in India – with a total poverty headcount ratio of 15.9 per cent in 2009-10, Punjab is far closer to resembling Himachal Pradesh (its poverty headcount ratio of 9.5 per cent is the lowest in India) than Bihar (the poorest state in the country with a ratio of 53.5 per cent).38 Based on the most popular demographic of drug abusers in the state (middle and upper-middle class rural youth), it can be argued that the practice of extreme drug abuse emerges out of tension created by the combination of a relatively wealthy and aspiring rural population with a slowing agricultural economy.

Unemployment and Aspiration Punjab has faced a slowdown in agricultural productivity, a mismatch between educational qualifications of high school graduates and the skills required as an agricultural labourer, a “demand for migrant labourers instead of local labourers”39 and stagnating incomes in the sector. All these have meant that farm jobs are no longer an attractive option for Punjab’s growing mass of increasingly educated rural youth. What has made matters worse is the fact that “higher education expanded in Punjab”40 during this process of decline, creating a wider gap between the availability of labour and actual employment opportunities in the rural sector. However, with many more youths completing education till matriculation level (10th standard), they are “no longer interested in tilling the land or going back to the old ways of their fathers”.41 As a result of aspiration and expectation, “educated rural youth do not find farming profitable enough”.42 The problem is that they find “no other jobs to absorb them”.43 34 35

36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43

Ibid, pp.419-420. Dutta, S, 2012, Green Revolution Revisited: The Contemporary Agrarian Situation in Punjab, India, Social Change, 42 (2), p.237. Ibid. Ibid. Ministry of Finance, 2013, Economic Survey 2012-13, New Delhi: Ministry of Finance, pp.276-277. Dutta, S, above n 36, p.238. Ibid. Manish, S, 2012, What hit this land of plenty? Tehelka [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ne140412WHAT.asp>. Singh, S, 2005, Political Economy of Contract Farming in India, Mumbai: Allied Publishers, p.35. Manish, S, above n 42.

This is due to a variety of reasons. One is the “poor quality of education in Punjab” that makes “graduates incapable of making the cut for the few high-skill jobs that are available”.44 At the same time, they are also unsuited to the low-skill industrial jobs for which urban people are preferred “as they are more tuned to industrial or corporate work culture”.45 Another factor is that “almost all (95 per cent) the unemployed want jobs within Punjab”,46 yet for those seeking non-farm jobs, very few are available due to the process of deindustrialisation that is happening in the state. For example, “there were 127 textile processing units in Amritsar in 1990. There are now only 20”.47 Unemployment of Punjab’s educated rural youth has left them with little to do – indulging in drugs possibly provides a way to while away the time. But time alone fails to explain the inclination towards drugs. In other parts of India, unemployment has led many young men to engage in politics, extorting money or ‘timepass’ – a term indicating their sense of aimlessness and dislocation as they while away the time by “wandering, chatting to friends, going to the tea stall”,48 etc. In the case of Punjab, however, it is the reaction to unemployment of those who enjoy a fair degree of prosperity in both financial and cultural terms that may be the influencing factor. When met with the issue of unemployment, this produces, in some cases, an outcome of confusion and even depression. J P S Bhatia suggests that “the prosperity Punjab is renowned for (at least prior to the recent economic sluggishness) may be part of the problem”49 of the state’s spiralling levels of drug addiction. In addition to the state’s former status as an economic powerhouse, the widespread practice of family members migrating abroad helps to explain the culture of prosperity. In Punjab, there is an “influx of young men moving to the city to gain the language and vocational training they need to migrate abroad”. 50 Many go to Canada, Australia, England or the United States, after which they “remit money home, helping retain and improve the family’s fortune”51 and “invest in the region’s economy”.52 Prosperity therefore not only features financially in the individual lives of rural Punjabi youth, but also pervades the overall economy, culture and lifestyle of the state, thus fuelling aspirations and expectations. As “the tide of rising expectations” created by the accumulation of wealth and economic confidence within the state “has not been met by either rising skills or opportunities”, the “hit of smack or injection of Avil, or sip of cough syrup offers a way out of a morass of ennui and frustration.”53 Unemployment has a clear part to play in driving Punjab’s youth to experiment 44 45 46 47

50 51 52 53

Ibid. Singh, S, 2000, Crisis in Punjab Agriculture, Economic and Political Weekly, 35 (23), p.1891. Ibid. Simha, V, 2010, Punjab: Rich & Ruined – The Poverty of Plenty, Tehelka [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main47.asp?filename=Ne021010Cover_story.asp>. Jeffrey, C and Young, S, 2012, Waiting for change: youth, caste and politics in India, Economy and Society, 41 (4), p.645. Ghosh, P, 2013, India’s Punjab State Engulfed In Drug Epidemic, International Business Times [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.ibtimes.com/indias-punjab-state-engulfed-drug-epidemic996678>. Chopra, R, 2010, Militant and Migrant: The Politics and Social History of Punjab, London: Routledge, p.55. Ibid. Gill, H S, 2012, Becoming Men in a Modern City, Ann Arbor: ProQuest, p.49. Chaudhry, L, above n 11.

with drugs. How exactly it does so, however, is more complex – it seems that there are different routes through which unemployed youth move towards drug abuse. There are two main types of responses by young unemployed Punjabi drug addicts that are depicted in the literature, though it is probably the case that the lines dividing them are far more blurred than would seem to be the case. One set of responses are from those driven to addiction by unemployment and frustrated economic expectations. According to sociologist Ravinder Singh Sandhu, “Punjabis are very aspirational people, and when their aspirations are not fulfilled, then they are depressed”.54 The other set of responses come from users like a 23-year-old engineering student who seems less affected by the lack of opportunities and instead sees drugs as a way to overcome boredom that comes with not having to work. His drug use appears not to be driven by desperation or depression as he says “I have my entire life to live on the farm so it's all right for me to have a little bit of fun”.55 Based on these differing narratives that emerge from the literature, several hypotheses can be conceived to explain the link between unemployment and drug abuse in the state. In some cases, it may be that unemployment, for rural Punjabi youth, results in great frustration as their strong aspirations (shaped by the culture of economic security and prosperity in which they have grown up) are unfulfilled. Arguably this leads them to turn towards drugs. According to a study conducted jointly by Ludhiana-based organisations Guru Gobind Singh Study Circle and Aas Kiran on 192 drug addicts at Aas Kiran De-addiction Centre, “about three fourth respondents belonged to the age group of 15-35 years”, out of which the majority “were hooked to this deadly habit during 21-25 years of age.”56 This is precisely the age period when many youths graduate from high school and university, and in the case of Punjab, find themselves facing unemployment. This is evident from a 2002 study on unemployment in Amritsar District, Punjab, which found that “fresh matriculates are the single largest category of unemployed”.57 The possible outcomes of frustration and depression resulting from unemployment may be a factor leading to the high levels of drug abuse among Punjab’s educated youth. For others, the desire for drugs in the context of unemployment may simply be a case of boredom rather than anxiety. Their financial security may lead them to develop a sense of comfort instead of aspiration. As a result, instead of being pushed to look for alternative sources of income such as crime (as has happened to less-financially-secure youth in other parts of India who face unemployment), unemployment merely leaves them in a position where they can sustain themselves without having to work. Unemployment has driven 54

Denyer, S, 2013, Drug epidemic grips India’s Punjab state, The Washington Post [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-01-01/world/36323657_1_afghan-heroingolden-crescent-pharmaceutical-drugs>. Sra, G, 2010, Punjab: Substance state. India Today [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/punjab-substance-state/1/124458.html>. Drug abuse on the rise in Punjab, The Times of India [online]. Available on World Wide Web: <http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2002-07-25/chandigarh/27306124_1_drug-addicts-drug-abuseillegal-drugs>. Ramachandran, H, 2002, Extent of Unemployment in the Border Districts of Punjab: A Study of Amritsar District, New Delhi: Institute of Applied Manpower Research, p.iii.

working class and lower-middle class youth across India to engage in activities such as timepass, politics, extortion, and continuing to study for further degrees. The sons and daughters of farmers in Punjab, on the other hand, live a relatively comfortable life from a financial point of view as “farmers’ incomes in Punjab are higher than in other states”.58 They are therefore much more able, even when unemployed, to afford indulging in drugs on a daily basis. In addition to this, their free time as a result of unemployment not only enables but in some cases even causes their drug abuse – their free time may turn into boredom which they seek to counter through drugs. In both these situations, drugs can be considered an attractive option. In the former, where prosperity leads to expectations of employment, it may be that the biological effects of drugs allow those facing stress and frustration, due to unemployment, to experience a temporary ‘high’ which absolves them of their worries. In the latter, it might be because the nature of drug abuse is such that the process itself is a non-strenuous and stationary activity compared to the physically and emotionally demanding practices of extortion or politics. Connected to the idea of prosperity is the sense of privilege and entitlement that stems from economic security. The incentives for unemployed yet affluent youth to use drugs rather than actively search for employment are evident from the fact that “they are not labourers who don't have to worry about getting up in the mornings. They can sit at home taking heroin, while someone else does their work”.59 It is likely that in most cases the situation is more complex. The two experiences described above are by no means mutually exclusive. It is highly possible that most cases are ‘mixed’ whereby frustration, boredom and laziness are all experienced simultaneously. Some would be frustrated by their boredom while others may only outwardly experience boredom, yet have deep-seated feelings of frustration that unconsciously drive them towards drugs. Some may also be depressed by their inability to gain employment they aspire for and yet choose to remain unemployed by refusing to take up the jobs they feel overqualified for: this may result in boredom. The mix of conflicting emotions that has likely led unemployed youth to drug abuse is evident from Singh’s study (2010) of Punjabi male drug abusers between the ages of 20 and 25, in which most respondents cited that “many factors acted collectively for the continuation of drug abuse”,60 rather than just one factor.

Masculinity and Consumption In addition to youth unemployment, several other Punjab-specific factors such as practices of consumption and the Punjabi sense of masculinity may help explain the growing phenomenon of drug abuse in the state. According to Kalra and Bansal, the most popular reason for drug abuse given by abusers was “to enhance sexual performance. These people 58 59 60

Gulati, A, above n 29. Ghosh, P, above n 50. Singh, A, 2010, Drug Abuse among Rural Youth: A Sociological Study of Punjab, Research Analysis and Evaluation, 1 (9), p.17.

had started taking opioids to enhance sexual performance as per the popular belief among them”.61 The notions of strength, endurance and performance contained within this desire link closely to the traditional forms of Punjab masculinity. This suggests that drug abuse is, at least in part, practised for both the display of, and the consequent realisation of, masculine identity. The centrality of strength within ideas of Punjabi masculinity is evident from how the male body is seen as the main site of masculine identity. In particular, the male body’s physicality is a defining feature of Punjabi masculinity in that it is shaped, culturally and physically, by the intensive labour typically practised in Punjab’s agricultural landscape. Chopra (2004) argues that the body of the Punjabi farmer and the markers of physical work on the body signify a specific middle class Jat farmer and landowner masculinity, one where men are produced through the act of farming and the cultivation of land.62 The desire to enhance the capability of the body through drugs, be it for strength or for sexual performance (though both purposes are arguably perceived as connected, influencing each other), indicates the influence of masculinity as a factor in drug addiction. Further reinforcing this influence is the fact that the specific type of Punjabi male who most closely fits this model of masculinity – the middle class farmer or farmer’s son – is the one who is most susceptible to drug abuse. The desire to enhance sexual prowess, a highly ‘macho’ form of behaviour, is frequently cited by drug abusers. This conveys the link between masculinity and drug addiction in Punjab. However, other aspects of Punjab’s “macho culture”, such as the fact that it is “very prone to consumerism”,63 also make Punjabi men especially vulnerable to drug addiction. The culture of consumption is visible in the day-to-day lives of rural Punjabis. Goyal and Kaur have observed “increasing consumerism among the noveau rich middle class in rural areas”64 of Punjab. The everyday practices of consumption have arguably influenced the way that drugs are perceived – as something to be consumed rather than avoided. According to sociologist Akhila Verma, in Punjab, “drugs are deemed acceptable to a certain extent; poppy husk and afeem are seen as a common way of recreation in villages and every boy is encouraged to drink”.65 The acceptability of these drugs has undoubtedly had a spill-over effect, influencing the rising popularity of “synthetics such as lomotil, painkillers and morphines”66 that are at the centre of the epidemic. The extent of Punjab’s (largely male) drug problem, in comparison to the rest of India, can be linked to the fact that Sikh males are outperformed by Sikh females and males from other religious groups when it comes to university attendance. According to a study by Raju (2005) 61 62

63 64

65 66

Kalra, I and Bansal, P D, above n 15: p.330. Chopra, R, 2004, Encountering Masculinity: An Ethnographer’s Dilemma, in Chopra, R, Osella, C and Osella, F, South Asian Masculinities: Context of Change, Sites of Continuity, New Delhi: Women Unlimited, pp.44-47. Ghosh, P, above n 50. Goyal, P and Kaur, N, 2009, Human Resource Management Practices In Selected Organised Rural Retail Outlets in Punjab, Ludhiana: Punjab Agricultural University, p.3. Sra, G, above n 56. Ibid.

on 18-23 year olds in higher education, Sikhs are the only religious group in India (apart from Christians whose women outnumber men in higher education though only marginally) where women have a higher gross enrolment ratio (GER) in higher education compared to men. With the difference in the number of enrolments between Sikh men and women amounting to almost fifty per cent (Sikh women have a ratio of 14.99 while Sikh men have a ratio of 10.77), Sikhs greatly deviate from India’s total population where men (14.42) strongly outnumber women (10.57) in higher education.67 While the study does not address the state of Punjab directly, it is nevertheless relevant in the case of Punjab’s university students, most of whom would be Sikh given that the majority of India’s Sikhs reside in Punjab (a Sikhmajority state as “more than 60 percent of the population is Sikh”68). Moreover, given that Punjab is one of the less progressive states in India when it comes to matters of gender equality and female empowerment, it is much more likely that the statistics are a sign of less Sikh men going to university than other Indian men, rather than a sign of Sikh women outperforming other Indian women in university enrolment. Therefore, from the study’s findings, it can be argued that there is clearly a problem affecting the ability of young men in Punjab to participate in higher education in ways that other men across the country are able to. It is likely that the popularity of drug abuse among Punjab’s young men and its consequent effect on their lifestyle interferes with their ability to enrol and regularly attend college. Furthermore, the patriarchal culture of the state perhaps means that young men are given a greater degree of freedom to control their own lives. They would have a greater ability to make decisions independently of their parents and engage in activities such as drug abuse without their parent’s knowledge. The higher participation rate of their female counterparts in higher education, on the other hand, may be due to the fact that they are more closely regulated by, and more pressured to obey the wishes of, their families. Both the frequency with which the average drug abuser in rural Punjab experiments with drugs and the way that drugs are accessed suggest that the state’s drug addiction problem is very much about the process of consumption. There are elements of both financial and cultural consumption at play. According to Akhila Verma, the younger generation’s “access to money” and its exposure to “different cultures through the Internet and television” have led to its obsession “with the idea of a global lifestyle”.69 The consumption of global media has possibly influenced the young persons’ desire to purchase synthetic drugs from medical stores. Moreover, their financial capital has provided them with the means to do so frequently, even daily or several times a day. This becomes especially important when considering the expenses required for constantly purchasing such drugs, evident from the “thousands of chemists and pharmacies that sell pills at two to three times the official price without prescription”.70 67

68 69 70

It is therefore, not surprising that these kinds of drugs, in keeping with the image of a more global and consumerist lifestyle, are “beating alcohol and poppy husk”, 71 as found in a study of Punjab conducted by the Institute for Development Communication (IDC). The popularity of these drugs is further evident from a 2011 UNODC Report which found that Punjab has been “negatively impacted by pharmaceutical and injecting drug use”, with the “use of buprenorphine and pentazocine and a variety of sedatives”72 becoming increasingly common. From observing the origins of these drugs, it becomes clear that the problem of drug addiction in Punjab cannot be explained solely by geography. The state’s proximity to Pakistan and Afghanistan (where it is suspected many of the drugs that are smuggled into India come from) is apparently not as influential a factor as it would seem to appear. According to Kunal Kishore of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, “the bulk of the injectable pharmaceuticals are being produced illicitly in India”.73 The visibility of injectable drugs in the state, available over the counter in pharmacies, rather than only underground, has increased both the access to and the acceptability of drugs, leading to its growing usage among youth. One of the major parts of this puzzle is the question of where the pharmacies are obtaining these drugs from, as there appears to be little information in the literature on the drug supply chain. What this does indicate, however, is that there needs to be further exploration of the major loopholes in the law and the pharmaceutical industry that are allowing injectable drugs to be illicitly obtained and sold on such a wide scale.

Conclusion This paper has attempted to portray the state of Punjab in India as an extreme and exceptional case of drug addiction. In unpacking the extremities and exceptionalities of the problem, what this paper has specifically aimed to do is to provide an explanation of why it has acquired the scale and character that it has. This has been done by hypothesising connections between the characteristics of drug addiction in Punjab, many of which are seen to be ‘exceptional’, and the socioeconomic factors that have potentially influenced the state’s growing problem. The unique aspects of drug addiction in rural Punjab explored in this paper include the demographic of users (most of whom are relatively affluent, unlike the majority of drug addicts in India, as well as far more rural), the kinds of drugs being used (such as injectable drugs which are more commonly associated with urban contexts), and the extreme extent to which it has occurred, not only in terms of the number of addicts but also in terms of the intensity of the addiction. The contextual factors identified, on the other hand, include conceptions of Punjabi masculinity, the declining growth rates of Punjab’s rural economy, the influx of migrants, the impact of unemployment on educated rural youth, and the culture of aspiration and expectation that has traditionally been associated with the Punjabi community. 71 72

Sra, G, above n 56. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Regional Office for South Asia, 2011, Misuse of Prescription Drugs: a South Asia Perspective, New Delhi: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Regional Office for South Asia, p.8. Denyer, S, above n 55.

The failure of Punjab’s industrial sector to effectively absorb the increasing number of matriculate-level and college-educated graduates from rural areas, and the “cultural attributes that inhibit educated youth from taking up certain kinds of employment”,74 especially in the agricultural sector, have arguably influenced the rising drug use among educated yet unemployed rural youth. Yet this alone does not explain why drug abuse is so much more prevalent in Punjab than in other states that are similarly impacted by unemployment. Rather, it may be the clash between unemployment and the culture of aspiration that exists among the many affluent young men in rural Punjab who are at the centre of the problem. The class background of these users is unique to drug abuse on such a large scale; their particular experience with unemployment – which may be extreme in that it could be depression (due to ruined expectations), or complete indifference (due to their ability to sustain their lifestyle without working), or more likely a mixture of both – has generated an equally extreme response – drug abuse, thereby increasing the extent of the problem. Another feature of the Punjab problem that is unique to drug abuse in rural areas is the popularity of injectable pharmaceuticals. According to Tehelka, “the epidemic of young people in the state injecting drugs like Coaxil directly into their bodies has hardly any parallel elsewhere in the country. Not even in Manipur, the other Indian state ravaged by addiction”.75 These drugs have increased the extent of the problem through their easy availability. Similarly influencing the extent of drug abuse in Punjab is the culture of masculinity and consumption deeply embedded in the social fabric of the state. It is no secret that Punjab has had a long “history of drug use”.76 However, the interaction between the fast-changing economic circumstances and the deep-rooted cultures of consumption and masculinity has made Punjab the perfect setting for addiction to spiral out of control. It therefore becomes clear that not only do factors such as unemployment and masculinity influence both the exceptional and extreme nature of drug abuse in the state but the exceptional aspects of Punjab’s drug abuse, including the types of drugs and the demographic of users, also play a part in furthering the extent of the drug problem. Drug abuse in the state has led to serious health consequences such as death and the spread of AIDS. While the use of injectable pharmaceuticals has made drug users especially susceptible to contracting HIV, the scale in which drug abuse has occurred has made the spread of AIDS a growing reality in Punjab. For example, “of the 65 AIDS deaths reported from Patti tehsil in Amritsar during the past few years, at least 50 per cent of the victims were suspected to be drug addicts. It was the frequent use of the same needle for injecting drugs that led to the spread of the fatal disease”.77 Whilst drug treatment centres “have proliferated across the state”,78 these are reactive measures rather than preventive ones. Many of them only come into action far too late in the process of addiction when the patient has already 74 75 76 77

Ramachandran, H, above n 58, p.8. Manish, S, above n 42. Denyer, S, above n 55. Kaur, R and Gulati, J K, 2007, Drug Abuse: Trends and Issues, Ludhiana: Punjab Agricultural University, p.393. Yardley, J, above n 6.

done so much damage to himself that he requires professional help. More action needs to be taken to prevent drug addiction from occurring in the first place. The frightening possibility of an entire generation in Punjab being lost to drugs, whether it is through AIDS or drug overdose, signifies an urgency required for recognising the problem’s socio-economic dimensions and tackling it through preventive measures.

Sources Cited Books Chopra, R, 2004, Encountering Masculinity: An Ethnographer’s Dilemma, in Chopra, R, Osella, C and Osella, F, South Asian Masculinities: Context of Change, Sites of Continuity, New Delhi: Women Unlimited. Chopra, R, 2010, Militant and Migrant: The Politics and Social History of Punjab, London: Routledge. Kaminsky, A D and Long, R D, 2011, India Today: An Encyclopedia of Life in the Republic, Volume 1, Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. Singh, S, 2005, Political Economy of Contract Farming in India, Mumbai: Allied Publishers.

Journal Articles Chaturvedi, R, 2010, Review of ‘Pritam Singh, 2008, Federalism, Nationalism and Development: India and the Punjab Economy, Journal of South Asian Development, 5 (1), pp.169-172. Dutta, S, 2012, Green Revolution Revisited: The Contemporary Agrarian Situation in Punjab, India, Social Change, 42 (2), pp.229-247. Jeffrey, C and Young, S, 2012, Waiting for change: youth, caste and politics in India, Economy and Society, 41 (4), pp.638-661. Kalra, I and Bansal, P D, 2012, Sociodemographic Profile and Pattern of Drug abuse among Patients Presenting to a Deaddiction Centre in rural area of Punjab, Delhi Psychiatry Journal, 15 (2), pp.327-331. Mohan, D, Sundaram, K R, and Sharma, H K, 1986, A study of drug abuse in rural areas of Punjab (India), Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 17 (1), pp.57-66. 15

Ravallion, M and Datt, G, 2002, Why has economic growth been more pro-poor in some states of India than others? Journal of Development Economics, 68 (2002), pp.381-400. Sharma, R K, 1974, Green Revolution & Farm Employment: An Analysis of Experience in the Punjab, Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 9 (3), pp.417-426. Sidhu, R S and Bhallar, R S, 2004, Changing Structure of the Farm Economy in Punjab: Impact of Livestock on Income and Employment, International Journal of Agricultural Economics, 59 (3), pp.578-587. Singh, G, 2002, Review of ‘Himmat Singh, 2001, Green Revolutions Reconsidered: The Rural World of Contemporary Punjab’, Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, 57 (2), pp.273-276. Singh, S, 2000, Crisis in Punjab Agriculture, Economic and Political Weekly, 35 (23), pp.1889-1892.

Government Publications Chandramouli, C, 2011, Census of India 2011 – Rural Urban Distribution of Population, New Delhi: Ministry of Home Affairs. Chandramouli, C, 2011, Census of India 2011 (Provisional Population Totals): Punjab Profile, New Delhi: Ministry of Home Affairs. Ministry of Finance, 2013, Economic Survey 2012-13, Delhi: Ministry of Finance. Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, 2011, Awareness and Education for Prevention of Drug Abuse & Alcoholism in Punjab, Delhi: Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan.

Reports Ambekar, A, 2012, HIV prevention among injecting drug users and their female sex partners: Implementation gaps and barriers, New Delhi: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Regional Office for South Asia. Gulati, A, 2007, Withering Punjab Agriculture: Can It Regain Its Leadership? International Food Policy Research Institute New Delhi [online]. Available from World Wide Web <http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNADK223.pdf>.

Raju, S, 2005, Gender Differentials in Access to Higher Education, in Thorat, S, Higher Education in India: Issues Related to Expansion, Inclusiveness, Quality and Finance, New Delhi: University Grants Commission. Ramachandran, H, 2002, Extent of Unemployment in the Border Districts of Punjab: A Study of Amritsar District, New Delhi: Institute of Applied Manpower Research. Singh, B, Singh, S and Singh, J, 2003, Extent of Unemployment in the Border Districts of Punjab: A Case Study of Rural Ferozepur District, Centre for Research in Economic Change [online]. Available from World Wide Web <http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/sereport/ser/stdy_unempnjb.pdf>. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Regional Office for South Asia, 2004, National Survey on Extent, Pattern and Trends of Drug Abuse in India, New Delhi: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Regional Office for South Asia. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Regional Office for South Asia, 2011, Misuse of Prescription Drugs: a South Asia Perspective, New Delhi: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Regional Office for South Asia.

University Publications Goyal, P and Kaur, N, 2009, Human Resource Management Practices In Selected Organised Rural Retail Outlets in Punjab, Ludhiana: Punjab Agricultural University. Kaur, R and Gulati, J K, 2007, Drug Abuse: Trends and Issues, Ludhiana: Punjab Agricultural University. Singh, S, Gupta, A K and Jindal, B R, 2000, Menace of Drug abuse in Punjab: An Opinion Survey, Ludhiana: Department of Economics & Sociology, Punjab Agricultural University.

Dissertations Gill, H S, 2012, Becoming Men in a Modern City, Ann Arbor: Pro Quest.

Websites Chaudhry, L, 2013, The story beyond Vijender Singh: Punjabâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mammoth drug problem, Firstpost India [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.firstpost.com/india/the-story-beyond-vijender-singh-punjabs-mammoth-drugproblem-681313.html>.

Denyer, S, 2013, Drug epidemic grips India’s Punjab state, The Washington Post [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-0101/world/36323657_1_afghan-heroin-golden-crescent-pharmaceutical-drugs>. Dummett, M, 2010, Punjab’s drugs epidemic, BBC News [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11925617>. DARA. 2011. Drug Addiction in India. DARA (Drug & Alcohol Rehab Asia) [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://alcoholrehab.com/alcohol-rehab/drug-addiction-inindia/>. Ghosh, P, 2013, India’s Punjab State Engulfed In Drug Epidemic, International Business Times [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.ibtimes.com/indias-punjabstate-engulfed-drug-epidemic-996678>. HT Correspondent, 2012, 57,000 HIV/AIDS patients in Punjab, Hindustan Times [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.hindustantimes.com/Punjab/Chandigarh/57000-HIV-AIDS-patients-in-Punjab/SP-Article1-966090.aspx>. Kaur, S, 2012, Punjab ‘growth’ story derails, slips to lowest in last 5 years, The Indian Express [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.indianexpress.com/news/punjab--growth--story-derails-slips-to-lowest-in-last-5years/917547/1>. Manish, S, 2012, What hit this land of plenty? Tehelka [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ne140412WHAT.asp>. News Week India, 2011, India’s 10 Lowest Poverty States, News Week India [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.newsweekindia.com/content/?p=12516>.

Simha, V, 2010, Punjab: Rich & Ruined – The Poverty of Plenty, Tehelka [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main47.asp?filename=Ne021010Cover_story.asp>. Sra, G, 2010, Punjab: Substance state, India Today [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/punjab-substance-state/1/124458.html>. The Tribune, 2004, Punjab, Haryana among 5 richest states in India, The Tribune [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040408/biz.htm#6>.

Times of India, 2004, Punjab second richest state in country, Times of India [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2004-0408/chandigarh/28336153_1_northern-states-capita-income-total-software-exports>. Travis, A, 2012, Global illicit drug users to rise 25% by 2050, says UN, The Guardian [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/26/global-drug-users-rise-un>. Yardley, J, 2012, Indian State Finds Itself in Tight Grip of Addiction, The New York Times [online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/world/asia/drug-addiction-is-a-growing-problem-inpunjab.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=world>.

Appendix Population distribution across age groups in absolute numbers79

Source Punjab Census (2001)

5 to 9 years

10 to 19 years

Age Groups 20 to 35 35 to 49 50 to 59 years years years

2,657,368

5,387,703

6,053,927

Census 2011.

4,332,878

1,512,790

60 years & above

Total

2,285,595

22,230,261

ISAS Working Paper No. 178 – 2 October 2013 469A Bukit Timah Road #07-01, Tower Block, Singapore 259770 Tel: 6516 6179 / 6516 4239 Fax: 6776 7505 / 6314 5447 Email: isassec@nus.edu.sg Website: www.isas.nus.edu.sg

Non-Proliferation and WMD Debate: The Relevance to South Asia Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury1 Introduction The 2013 session of the United Nations General Assembly has commenced in New York, as per the usual schedule in New York. On the first day of the General Debate all eyes were focused on the Presidents of the United States and Iran, and the softening of postures by both sides on the nuclear dispute, the West’s suspicion that Iran is aiming at nuclear weapon acquisition which President Hassan Rohani has denied. Still, as the session develops the debate will gain traction. For any breakthrough in terms of global non-proliferation, the existing regime will need tweaking. That would involve Pakistan and India, two countries in South Asia with fast growing nuclear arsenals, who are looking for appropriate seats at the global negotiating table – as ‘recognised nuclear powers’, which are being denied them.

Historical Background We shall begin our substantive discussions by defining our key terms: ‘Nuclear Proliferation’ refers to the spread of nuclear weapons, fissile material and related technology to states which do 1

Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury is Principal Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), an autonomous research institute at the National University of Singapore. He is a former Foreign Advisor (Foreign Minister) of Bangladesh, and he can be contacted at isasiac@nus.edu.sg. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of ISAS.

not possess them. Technically, as per the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that we will examine later, it applies to the acquisition of such capabilities by any country other than the five recognised Nuclear Weapon States (NWS), i.e., the United States, the Soviet Union (now Russia), the United Kingdom, France and China, those that had tested their weapons before 1968. Sometimes scholars call its spread from country to country as ‘horizontal proliferation’, as distinct from qualitative improvement of weaponry or acquiring greater numbers of the same, called ‘vertical proliferation’. They argue both are destabilising.2

Nuclear Weapons A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions of a fission variety or a combination of fission and fusion. Fission weapons are commonly known as atom-bombs. In such weapons a mass of fissile material, enriched uranium or plutonium, is assembled into a supercritical mass to start a series of exponentially growing nuclear chain reaction. The most common other-basic-type of nuclear weapon produces large quantum of energy in nuclear fusion reactions. Such fusion weapons are known as thermonuclear weapons, or more colloquially as hydrogen bombs. These are considered more difficult to produce than those of the fissile kind. Long-distance nuclear weapons are deliverable on Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). These are strategic weapons. Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) can be launched from under the seas. These can also be strategic. Besides, smaller nuclear devices are known as tactical, theatre or battlefield weapons. Their production is destabilising as they imply the possibilities of an actual nuclear conflict, since the damage they will inflict will be limited and it may be felt that these would not invite massive retaliation.

Weapons of Mass Destruction A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) on the other hand is one that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures (e.g., buildings), natural structures (e.g., mountains) or the biosphere in general. The scope and application of the term has evolved and been disputed, often signifying, more politically than technically. Coined in reference to aerial bombing with chemical explosives, it has come to denote large-scale weaponry of other technologies, such as chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear. During the Cold War it was at times used synonymously with nuclear weapons. As in 2

For an elaboration of the argument, see Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, “Non-Proliferation Versus Disarmament: A Destabilising Dichotomy”, ISAS Working Paper No. 94, 21 October 2009, http://www.isas.nus.edu.sg

early-2000, in the West the fear of asymmetrical war grew, it acquired somewhat sharper connotation. The most-widely used definition of WMD now is that of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons (NBC) although there is no treaty or customary international law that offers an authoritative definition. For the general purposes of national defence, the US code defines a WMD as: “Any weapon or device that is intended, or has the capability, to cause death or serious bodily injury to a significant number of people, through the release dissemination or impact of: toxic or poisonous chemicals, or their precursors, a disease organism, radiation or radioactivity.” For the purposes of the prevention of nuclear proliferation, the US Code defines WMD as “chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and chemical, biological, and nuclear materials used in the manufacture of such weapons”.

Non-Proliferation Treaties While the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation effort remains the NonProliferation Treaty of 1968, this was preceded by other modest efforts made earlier. Before we address the NPT let us briefly look at some other such initiatives. These began after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis took the world to the brink of a nuclear war. Two of the earliest such treaties were the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT), an agreement that prohibited nuclear test explosions in the atmosphere, under water, or in space, signed in 1963 by the US, the UK, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, a superpower treaty that banned biological weapons and provided for the destruction of existing stockpiles. The 1972 convention was the first and only example since 1945 of the disarmament of an entire category of weapons. Meantime, negotiation on a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was continuing. In 1974 the superpowers signed the Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT) which limited nuclear tests to explosive yields of less than 150 kilotons. But the TTBT did not prevent the superpowers from developing nuclear warheads with power exceeding 150 kilotons. In 1976 the superpowers signed the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty (PNET) which banned the so-called peaceful nuclear testing. The NPT, which was negotiated in 1968 and entered into force in 1970, rests on three pillars – horizontal non-proliferation; vertical non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament; and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The following needs to be explained: Acquisition of capabilities by new states, or state-to-state spread of nuclear weapons is known as ‘horizontal proliferation’, whereas improvement of existing arsenals, usually undertaken by NWS, is known as ‘vertical proliferation’. The earlier-generation of nuclear powers see the former as more destabilising, while others argue that the latter is more immoral and dangerous, as it enhances the propensity to use by appearing to be able to limit collateral damage due to greater precision in targeting. 3

Because the US has not developed any newer weapons since 1992, they have evolved a programme to check reliability and maintenance of nuclear arsenals without testing, known as ‘stockpile stewardship’. Since the need for testing was eliminated, this would normally draw the US close to CTBT. But under the Bush Administration, a new programme was introduced known as the ‘reliable replacement warhead’, to expand on ‘stockpile stewardship’ and seek to enable the development of newer weapons within 18 months, and construct newer designs within four months – without testing but using computer simulations, thus remaining largely within the letter, but not the spirit, of non-proliferation norms. The signatories were of two kinds – first those who possessed nuclear weapons at the time of signing, the five NWS, and those who did not, the Non Nuclear Weapon States (NNWS). The NNWS were to forego acquisition in return for assistance in developing the capacity to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The NWS were to accord such support, and at the same time seriously pursue nuclear disarmament, starting with a cessation of tests. The CTBT complemented it in 1996. The NPT, to be reviewed every five years, was indefinitely extended in 1995. The next Review is due in 2015. What was to be a partnership between the NWS and NNWS soured quickly. The NNWS saw the NPT as “discriminatory”, and tilted against them. The NWS did not keep their word in engaging in serious negotiations for disarmament. They did not assist in the transfer of knowledge for peaceful uses of nuclear energy (mostly for fear that it could be used for proliferation by some countries). Also they did not provide any structured and binding assurances, apart from some individual commitments, that they would not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against the NNWS.

Reduction of Nuclear Weapons While it is true that the actual number of weapons, of which 130,000 to 140,000 were built, were eventually reduced to 25,000 or so, still enough to blow up the planet many times over, the chasm of misunderstanding between the two groups did not close. Indeed some countries such as India, Pakistan and North Korea acquired the capability overtly and Israel covertly, Iran began its ‘peaceful’ nuclear programme with such zeal as to arouse considerable Western suspicion. A number of Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates suddenly began to evince keen interest in ‘peaceful nuclear power’, not much unlike the Iranian mode. The delay in progress regarding the goals of the treaty led to complications as it afforded time for some to effect acquisitions, and thereafter claim their place at the table as formally recognised NWS. While the current NWS were chary of granting their wish, these countries, India and Pakistan, are militarily too powerful to be ignored or to have any global regime developed 4

without their positive assent and indeed explicit support. Washington’s current pivot to Asia is designed to link up with India in terms of security arrangements, though the Indians are not entirely willing. Pakistan is also a stated ally of the US. But if US President Barack Obama wants to make any headway with the NPT, as he has said he wants to, it would be extremely important to integrate India and Pakistan into the global non-proliferation regime. The big seemingly irresolvable question is in what capacity, as formally recognised nuclear weapon state or as a non-nuclear weapon state? The problem of Israel remains. As Iran’s substantive discussions with the West begin in Geneva in October, questions on why Israel should not be subjected to non-proliferation regime are bound to arise. Actually Iran’s deep underground site called Fordo is hardened to be immune to Israeli attacks, and unless Israel disarms, it is difficult to see how Iran can dismantle this silo, which would surely be a major Western demand.3 Another facility, buried deep under earth and concrete, is the one at Natanz.

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty As stated earlier the CTBT complements the NPT. There are three main reasons why a country would want to test its nuclear weapons. First, if it has acquired the weapon for the first time, it may deem necessary to announce this fact to the rest of the world, so that any potential adversary can take note and be deterred. Second, if it is already an NWS, then the test would largely be focused on improving the weaponry in terms of kill-power, precision, deliverability and survival under a situation. Finally, a country may test to seek recognition and prestige as a higher power, and thereby stake its claim to play a greater role in shaping global affairs in consonance with its perceived national self-interest. These are powerful incentives. The only way to wean away states from these would be to counter each of the above through the creation of norms and legislations and also a strong negative public opinion with the aid of the civil society, academics, and experts among others. For instance with regard to the first point , testing may induce or provoke the potential adversary to

The progress of the Iran-West nuclear negotiations, due to recommence in Geneva in mid-October 2013, would be critical for global disarmament. Apart from Fordo and Natanz, Iran would also be called upon to destroy a multi-billion dollar heavy-water reactor nearing completion at Arak. It is a potential source of plutonium (There is also a uranium conversion facility at Esfahan). Also Iran would be asked to reduce its 18,000 spinning centrifuges. But Iran would demand comparable returns. One would be the reduction of the West’s sanctions that have halved its oil revenues. The other would be the resolution of the Israeli nuclear question (As to a preemptive strike by Israel, experts agree that it will be difficult given the distance, number of targets, and Israeli capabilities). This again is linked to Palestine. So there is this great risk of going round in circles. This is so despite the iteration that the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, has said about any Iranian position being tempered by ‘heroic flexibility’.

follow suit rather than submit to awe, as it happened in the case of Pakistan vis-à-vis India. Secondly, getting the powers to realise that seeking qualitative improvements can lead to a race in the area where each would strive for a higher level of superiority as between the US and the USSR during the Cold War era, and currently among the US, China and India. Finally, and this is a major challenge, to create an international climate, whereby both new acquisitions and qualitative improvements would attract international opprobrium, backed by practical steps to deny them advantages, such as seats at significant tables including the United Nations Security Council, unless the states display sufficient conformity with the generally agreed norms, whether they are formal signatories to the relevant agreements or not. As of now, just over 2,000 nuclear tests have been conducted by eight countries, some in the atmosphere, some underground, and others underwater. In the past, radioactive elements from the tests not only polluted the atmosphere but also led to direct casualties, as in the case of a Japanese sea-craft ironically named “Lucky Boat”, which was not at all lucky when its entire crew was killed by a fall-out in 1954 from a hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific. The then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, floated a proposal for a “standstill” agreement a few weeks after the incident. Indeed, it was he who had made “the earliest and the most notable public calls for a cessation of testing”.4 As a result of such moral pressures, eventually a Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) was agreed upon banning tests in the atmosphere, underwater and in the outer space. It was flawed in that it allowed for underground tests, which continued for decades, and seemed to address the problems of only ‘horizontal proliferation;’ in line with the wishes of the big powers. When the NPT was extended indefinitely in 1995, the CTBT was the result of the ‘package deal’ connected with the extension. I was a Vice-Chair of the first Bureau of the Organization created to oversee the CTBT. Unfortunately it could not enter into force for want of requisite number of ratifications. While 180 countries had signed the Treaty, of the required 44 states, 35 ratified it, and nine did not. Three did not become signatories at all. Pressure for ratification, including on the US, are growing. Pakistan has now said it will sign and ratify the CTBT if India does so. The consequences of inaction are becoming starker. Hans Blix, the well known Disarmament expert has said: “The (WMD) Commission believes that a US decision to ratify the CTBT would strongly influence other countries to follow suit. It would decidedly improve the chances of entry into force of the treaty and would have more positive ramifications for arms control and disarmament than any other single measure. The US should reconsider its position and proceed to ratify the Treaty. Only the CTBT offers the prospect of a permanent and legally binding commitment to end nuclear testing”.

Keith A. Hansen, The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: An Insider’s Perspective (Stanford, Stanford University Press, California, 2006) p. 5.

Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty Currently the 65-member Conference on Disarmament in Geneva (CD), which apart from the CTBT has not had much to show for in activity, is grappling with the issue of the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT). Its purpose is to prohibit the further production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other explosive devices. On 27 September 1993 the then US President Bill Clinton, called for such a multilateral convention. In December the same year, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 48/751 calling for the negotiation of a “non-discriminatory, multilateral and international effectively verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices”. In Geneva, the CD decided to establish a committee for such negotiations, but no substantive talks have taken place. But fearing such a Treaty cannot be effectively verified, the US cast the sole negative vote in the UNGA First Committee in 2004 against a resolution in this regard. Later, in April 2009, Obama reversed the decision, and in May that year the CD established the FMCT Negotiating Committee. However since then, Pakistan has single-handedly blocked the CD from implementing its agreed programme of work with regard to the FMCT. Decisions in the CD are by consensus and any member has a veto. Pakistan has argued that an FMCT should clearly and comprehensively deal with the issue of asymmetry of existing fissile material stocks (between India and Pakistan). Even though existing stocks may be at near-par, Pakistan contends that India’s ability to procure from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which the US spearheaded, is the ‘game-changer’.5 This means India can use the NSG material for civilian purposes and divert its pre-existing stocks towards weapons production. This will give India a clear advantage over Pakistan, till such time Pakistan is accorded similar NSG facilities. It is, of course possible that the negotiations can be moved out of the CD into the UNGA itself, which will pose understandable difficulty for the Pakistani position.

Chemical Weapons Convention The other main WMD, chemical weapons, is addressed by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). It was drafted in 1992 and signed in 1993. Currently 189 States are party to the CWC which came into force in 1997. It is administered by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Seven UN States are not party. These are Angola, Egypt, Israel, Myanmar, North Korea, South Sudan and Syria. Israel and Myanmar have signed but not ratified the convention. On 14 September 2013 Syria deposited its instrument of accession to the treaty, 5

For a study of burgeoning India-US relations, see John Pomfret, ‘Obama welcomes Singh, hails India’s leadership role in Asia’, Washington Post, 25 November 2009.

and agreed to provisional application pending its entry into force effective 14 October 2013 (So the accession of Syria takes effect that day). The main obligation under the Treaty is the prohibition of use and production of chemical weapons, as well as the destruction of all existing stockpiles. The OPCW verifies the destruction activities. As of January 2013, around 78% of the declared stockpiles have been destroyed. The Convention also has provisions for systematic evaluation of chemical and military plants, as well as for the investigations of allegations of use and production of chemical weapons based on intelligence of other parties. However, only the UN Security Council can authorise the use of force against a state that resorts to the use of chemical weapons. The total stockpile of chemical weapons in early 2010 was about 30,308 tons. But before the destruction activities began, a total of 71,315 tonnes and 8.67 million munitions and containers and 70 production facilities were declared to the OPCW. By May 2012, 50,619 tonnes or 71.10% of declared chemical weapons were destroyed. It is believed Albania, South Korea, and India have completed this operation. Russia, and the US, the largest possessors, are said to have completed 57% and 90% respectively (the deadline set for both countries, April 2012, was not met). Libya has destroyed 54% of the stockpile and Iraq, which joined the Convention in 2009, is yet to commence it (though most were destroyed under UN reduction programme in 1991). As of the end of March 2012, all 70 declared facilities have been deactivated. Destruction is a costly process and the US programme may cost as much as US$ 60 billion in total. The UN Security Council has recently adopted a unanimous resolution calling for the destruction of Syrian facilities (even though there are no punitive measures appended for non-compliance) Why should chemical weapons be considered immoral, and are they worse than other forms of WMD? Perhaps chemical warfare is considered immoral because those under attack in conventional warfare can surrender and escape further harm. The same option does not exist with a chemical attack. The gas may be colourless and odourless, and so the victims may not even know what hit them. Also the long-term after-effects place them in a more reprehensible category. There could be genetic mutilation in survivors and their off-springs. In Halabja, long after the Saddam attack, a study found raised incidence of childhood leukemia and lymphomas. But if moral comparison is to be made, other WMDs like nuclear weapons can cause the same effects. More have been killed by conventional weapons than any other kind. Chemical weapons cost less, and because they balance military asymmetries, sometimes ‘poorer’ states resort to them. In reality, however reprehensible chemical weapons may be, and they are, other weapons of mass killings too cannot be placed on any higher moral ground.6

This argument is powerfully made by Andy Ho, in ‘The ‘immorality’ of Chemical Weapons’, The Straits Times, 19 September 2013.

UNSC Resolution 1540 and the Middle East The adoption of the UN Security Council Resolution 1540 in April 2004 was a response to the growing threat that non-state actors might acquire and use WMD. It is a legally binding document that requires all states to implement domestic legislation to prevent non-state actors from manufacturing, acquiring, or transporting WMD within or from their territory. All states were required to submit a report on implementation to a Committee. UNSC Resolution 1540 is critical to the Middle East, because one-third of the states there possess some WMD capability or are said to have related research programmes. Although every state in the region has submitted an initial report to the 1540 Committee, these vary dramatically in terms of quality and comprehensiveness. Some do not also address critical obligations notably in the border control and trafficking domains. Generally adherence to non-proliferation treaties and related instruments varies greatly in the Middle East. For instance, Israel has not joined the NPT and many states in the region are yet to sign or ratify the CTBT. It is noteworthy that at a disarmament meeting during the current UN General Assembly session in New York, the new Iranian President Hassan Rohani called upon Israel to join the NPT7 (Israel is already said to have 100-200 nuclear warheads).8 While he did not link this to Iran’s nuclear policy on that occasion, it should surprise no one if the subject should resurface over the next three to four months, the time-line that the Iranian President has mentioned for the completion of nuclear issue negotiations with the West. Apart from political reasons, non-adherence to international instruments is sometimes also owed to administrative and legislative inertia. Middle Eastern regional organisations like the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council could potentially play a significant role in strengthening the non-proliferation and nuclear safety and security regimes by encouraging members to adhere to them and also in some cases by organising technical assistance (by also hiring third parties for the purpose). Both regional organisations could specifically assist in monitoring the implementation of UNSC Resolution 1540. Wider regional adherence to these obligations would also create building blocks for the creation of a zone free of nuclear weapons and other WMD in the region.9

7 8 9

‘Iran calls on Israel to join the nuclear pact’, The Straits Times, 27 September 2013. ‘Bringing Iran back into the fold’, The Straits Times, 30 September 2013. The Nuclear Weapon Free Zone, as defined and recognised in the UN, is an agreement, with mechanisms of verification and control of its obligations, whereby a group of nations ban the development, use or deployment of nuclear weapons in a given area. There are nine of them: Tlatelolco (covering Latin America and Caribbean), sea-bed (covering all sea and ocean floors), Raretonga (covering South Pacific), Bangkok (covering the ASEAN countries), Mongolia (covering that state); Semei (covering Central Asia), and Pelindaba (covering Africa). There is nothing yet that covers India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel, Iran, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia.

Future Prospects and Relevance to South Asia So, in a world full of such dangerous munitions, what is to be done? First, the institutions such as the UN, the CD, the organisations overseeing major disarmament and non-proliferation conventions must be strengthened and further empowered. Working methods must be revamped. Existing treaties such the NPT need to be ‘rebalanced’ to remove perceived inequities between powers. An agreed method must be found to accommodate, in particular, India and Pakistan. In other words, changing times must be recognised. Established global norms must be seen to protect the weak (it is not lost on the world that no nuclear-weapon state has been attacked!). If some states have nuclear weapons and WMDs, others will want them also. This is simple but incontrovertible logic. Myanmar, for instance, on the fringes of South Asia, is yet to destroy its chemical weapons. This fact has elevated the wariness of its neighbours. The political levels for negotiations on the FMCT must be raised. It must find its way on the agenda of any serious talks between India and Pakistan, The international community must move forward from the doctrine of deterrence to a culture of peace. It will imply a shift from the mathematical calculations of quantitative destructive powers to moral standards that would signify humanity’s graduation to a higher level of civilisation. This would also imply that countries desist from acquiring aggressive conventional weapons. For instance vis-à-vis the Iran-US scenario, the building by the US of a new ‘bunker-buster’ munition, called the ‘Massive Ordnance Penetrator’, packing a weight of 18,000 kg that can reportedly smash through 20 metres of concrete before exploding (obviously meant for Fordo or Natanz facilities), could persuade Iran to harden facilities even further, thus enhancing secondstrike capabilities, an unnecessarily destabilising development. We need to bear in mind at all times that a lightly armed world will not necessarily be a more peaceful place than a heavilyarmed one.10 So a change of mind-set is required. The time for action has come.11 We must act before it is gone, or we shall be left to rue our inaction.

.....

This idea is lucidly developed by the great International Relations theorist Hedley Bull in his tome The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, ( London, The Macmillan Press Ltd, 1977), p. 238 Many see President Obama’s shift of focus of negotiation to international for a in positive light in this regard.

ISAS Working Paper No. 179 - 11 November 2013 469A Bukit Timah Road #07-01, Tower Block, Singapore 259770 Tel: 6516 6179 / 6516 4239 Fax: 6776 7505 / 6314 5447 Email: isassec@nus.edu.sg Website: www.isas.nus.edu.sg

The Pakistan-US Parleys Shahid Javed Burki1

Abstract Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s recent state visit to Washington was essentially a “get to know” encounter with United States President Barack Obama. Pakistan’s new leader – sworn into office on 5 June 2013 following a thumping victory scored by his party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in the elections of 11 May – had inherited a difficult situation from the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)-led government that had ruled for five years from 2008 to 2013. Among the problems the new prime minster faced was a serious cooling-off of relations with the United States, long a Pakistani benefactor. Sharif’s main objective was to reverse the trend and establish a working relationship with America. He succeeded in that objective. The detailed statement issued by the two governments following the talks between the two leaders spelled out the measures that were to be taken by Islamabad and Washington to have a business-like relationship between the two nations.

Introduction 1

The visit to Washington by Nawaz Sharif from 20-24 October 2013 was the third foreign trip undertaken by the newly elected Prime Minister of Pakistan after he assumed office on 5 June. His first visit was to China that began on 3 July and took him to several cities besides Beijing, the capital. Pakistan had been calling China an “all-weather friend” ever since America suddenly disengaged itself from Pakistan and Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the Soviet Union’s troops from Afghanistan. In 1998 the US imposed strict sanctions against Islamabad after Pakistan tested nuclear bombs following similar tests by India a few weeks earlier. The decision to go nuclear was taken by Nawaz Sharif when he was in his second term (February 1997October 1999) as Prime Minister. The sanctions severely damaged the Pakistani economy. Calling China an “all-weather friend” was to underscore, by contrast, Pakistan’s on-and-off relations with the United States. During the China visit, Sharif and members of his team signed a number of “memoranda of understanding” including one aimed at developing a 2,000-km China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. This will connect the Pakistani port of Gwadar with the resource-rich autonomous region of Xinjiang in west China.2 His second trip took him to Saudi Arabia, a country with which he had strong personal relations. He had spent the first part of his seven-year exile in the Kingdom after being forced to leave Pakistan by General Pervez Musharraf. The general had overthrown Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (then in his second term at the helm) after he made a clumsy attempt to remove Musharraf from the position of Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff.3 The general went on to govern the country for almost nine years, heading Pakistan’s fourth militaryled administration. The earlier plans for organising a meeting between US President Barack Obama and Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2013 were given up in favour of a state visit to Washington. An opportunity for this visit by the Pakistani leader opened up when the Argentinean President cancelled her visit to protest against the reports that her country was one of the several states which the United States had spied on. The governments in Washington and Islamabad had concluded that a long visit by the Pakistani Prime Minister would be productive since the agenda covered a number of important items.

The Visit Sharif spent four days in the American capital arriving there on Sunday, 20 October, and returning home on the 24th of the month. He opened his visit with an address at the United States 2

Shahid Javed Burki, “China’s ‘Look-West Policy’: A New Link with Pakistan”, ISAS Brief No. 293, 20 August, 2013. General Pervez Musharraf provides a detailed account of this episode in his book, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir, New York Free Press, 2006.

Institute of Peace and followed by a working dinner hosted by US Secretary of State John Kerry. Before meeting President Obama later, Sharif had a breakfast meeting with Vice-President Joe Biden. He also held a session with the Pakistan-American Business Council and met the members of the Pakistani community at a function held in the Pakistani embassy in Washington. In the talk at the Business Council, he urged American businessmen to invest in his country and look at Pakistan, given its size and location, as an attractive opportunity. However, he did not downplay the problem created for investors by a serious deterioration in Pakistan’s law and order situation. He took advantage of the meeting with the Pakistani community to announce that he was appointing Jaleel Abbas Jilani as Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States.4 Sharif had taken more than four months to fill that important position. It was rumoured at one point that the prime minister might send General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to Washington as the ambassador. The general was to complete his tenure as the Chief of Army Staff that had lasted six years. on 29 November. Kayani’s choice would have made sense since he had developed good working relations with several senior military personnel in the United States.5 The Americans may have also wanted Kayani to represent Pakistan in Washington during the complex US pullout from Afghanistan in 2014. However, the general pulled his name out of any such calculation by issuing a formal statement on 6 October, two weeks before Nawaz Sharif embarked on his US visit.6 According to the statement issued by the Pakistan Army headquarters, not only will Kayani retire from the Army, he would not accept any government appointment.

Prime Minister’s ‘To-Do’ List Sharif began his latest prime ministerial term with a long “to-do list”. The economy was performing poorly with the rate of GDP growth stuck at about three per cent a year. This was four percentage points lower than that required. The estimate was made by the International Monetary Fund by using an elasticity of employment of 0.55, meaning that for a one percentage point increase in the national product, employment would increase by 0.55 per cent. Since the size of the work force was increasing at the rate of three per cent, national income had to increase by seven per cent to find jobs for the new entrants to the already-large workforce. There was a large fiscal deficit, with poor tax collection and uncontrolled expenditure by the government on current consumption rather than on development. This had created serious 4

Jilani, a career diplomat, was serving as Foreign Secretary in Islamabad, the most-senior position in the diplomatic service of which he was a member. Earlier in his career, he had served as First Secretary in the Pakistani embassy in Washington and also as Deputy High Commissioner in New Delhi. For an account of General Kayani’s relations with the senior members of the Obama administration, see David Sanger, Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power, New York, Broadway, 2013. Farhan Bokhari, “General’s orderly departure is time for Pakistan to rejoice”, Financial Times, 7 October 2013, p. 4.

shortages of such vital production inputs as electricity and natural gas. Balance of payments deficit had increased significantly, with exports performing poorly. Large payments were due to the country’s creditors, most notably the IMF. But the state of the economy was not the only worry the new prime minister had to deal with. Relations with the United States had deteriorated in 2011-12. There was considerable agitation in Pakistan, sparked by what Islamabad regarded as a series of breaches of Pakistani sovereignty. In January 2011, Raymond Davis, a CIA operative shot dead two young men in broad daylight on a busy Lahore street. Davis claimed that the men approached his car on a motorbike intending to rob him. The government believed that Davis was keeping a watch on the banned organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba and the men he murdered probably belonged to the militant group. “We found a lot of material in his car relating to the Lashkar collected on the day of the incident”, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif told me in a conversation that took place in his Lahore office while Davis was languishing in jail. The second incident occurred on 2 May when an American Navy Seals group flew in helicopters from Jalalabad, Afghanistan to Abbottabad deep inside the Pakistani territory. The team was despatched to kill Osama bin Laden who had spent several years in a large house in a well-guarded compound not far from the Pakistan Military Academy. Bin Laden was killed and his body was flown back to Jalalabad. It was only after the operation had been successfully completed that President Obama placed a call to President Asif Ali Zardari to inform him of what the Americans had accomplished. This was a huge embarrassment for the Pakistani military as well as the civilian authorities in Islamabad. In late November, the Americans bombed a Pakistani military base in the village of Salala near the border with Afghanistan. More than two dozen Pakistani soldiers died in the incident which the United States command in Afghanistan described as an accident. The series of incidents created pressure on Islamabad to act to show its displeasure. It did that by stopping the flow of American traffic through Pakistan to Afghanistan. Hundreds of US vehicles had moved through Pakistan carrying supplies to the American forces operating in landlocked Afghanistan. The Pakistani Government also ordered the closure of an airbase in Shamsi in Baluchistan. This had been used by the CIA to launch drones that were operating in the skies above the tribal agencies of North and South Waziristan. Washington had its own irritations. Foremost among them was Islamabad’s reluctance – sometimes even refusal – to rein in a variety of terrorist groups that were attacking and harassing the American troops fighting in Afghanistan. Washington retaliated by blocking the flow of badly needed economic and military assistance to Pakistan. These groups were operating from the sanctuaries in Pakistan’s tribal areas that border Afghanistan. In addition to restoring relations with the United States, Nawaz Sharif was also anxious to improve relations with Afghanistan and India. The ten-year-old cease-fire along the Line of Control that divided the contested state of Jammu and Kashmir was being regularly violated, with significant loss of lives on both sides of the border. 4

Perhaps the most difficult issue Sharif faced was a steady deterioration in the law and order situation which resulted from the activities of a number of extremist groups that were operating in the country almost uncontrolled. Their activities were taking a heavy human toll. Sectarian strife had become rampant with Sunni extremist groups carrying out strikes against the minorities including the Shia and Christian communities. In two attacks, one in Quetta and the other in Karachi in January 2013, the Sunni extremists killed more than 200 people. Violence in Karachi had reached the point where the civilian authorities declared that it was beyond their power to control the gangs that were operating against each other and also against innocent civilians. Some of them were using “targeted killings” to eliminate the people they identified as their enemies. On 4 September Nawaz Sharif called a meeting of his cabinet in Karachi and decided to hand over several law and order functions to the Rangers, an arm of the military that normally operates under the direction of the civilian authorities. “Maybe the police are not capable of dealing with crime and terrorism”, the prime minister told the cabinet. “The responsibility to improve law and order in the city should be given to the Rangers”.

Setting Tone for the Obama-Sharif Meeting “The White House has set a warm tone for the Obama-Sharif session, officially stating that the meeting would highlight the ‘resilience of the US-Pakistan relationship’ and further the cooperation on trade and economic development, regional stability and countering extremism”, wrote Thom Shanker for The New York Times.7 The story appeared as Pakistan’s Prime Minister left for Washington for his first meeting with the US President. The tone for the Obama-Sharif meeting was set by the announcement that Washington had plans to unfreeze more than US$ 1.5 billion in assistance that was blocked because of the tensions between the two nations caused by a series of events detailed above. There were some in Washington who believed that money for the cash-starved nation could be used to pull Pakistan back into the orbit around the United States. “The official notifications from the State Department to Congress required to release the funds were sent over this summer long before the planned [Sharif] visit”, continued Shanker.

Pakistan in the Asian Context This was the first time President Obama was turning his attention to Asia after having dealt with the crisis at home that brought his country close to a default on its debt obligations. The government shutdown that began on 1 October and lasted for 16 days took a heavy toll on 7

Thom Shanker, “Aid to Pakistan to resume as tensions with U.S. ease”, The New York Times, 19 October, 2013, p. A1.

Obama’s declared “pivot to Asia” policy.8 The president had to cancel his visit to Asia, where he was to attend two important summits, in order to stay home and deal with the financial crisis. He told the press that his grounding was a setback for renewed American leadership in the Asian region. “It creates a sense of concern on the part of other leaders”, Obama said. “It’s like me not showing up for my own party”. His absence created an opportunity for China. According to Michael Crowley of Time magazine, “happy to console the disappointed heads of state in Bali was China’s President, Xi Jinping, who was the unchallenged heavyweight among the gathered Asian leaders”.9 Although he would have preferred a location other than Washington and a leader other than Nawaz Sharif to renew America’s effort to engage more fully with Asia, the meeting with the Pakistani leader gave the American leader the opportunity to turn his attention and that of his country towards the continent that was experiencing one of the greatest economic expansions in history. In fact beginning the re-engagement with Pakistan served a purpose. The country was critical for the American effort to clean the slate in Afghanistan. Islamabad was also a player in helping China to increase its economic and military clout in the Asian continent. In a way Pakistan also mattered since it had become, along with Turkey, a model which the unsettled political systems in the Arab countries could follow. Both countries had managed to develop political orders that were no longer overwhelmed by the presence of the military or the pull of political Islam.

Financial Aid for Pakistan The release of the blocked US funds was timely for Pakistan as it continued to struggle on the economic front. Since Sharif assumed office on 5 June, his government had concentrated its attention on stabilising the economy. This meant a series of efforts including the earlier-thanexpected negotiation of a large programme with the International Monetary Fund. The IMF programme was set to provide Pakistan with total financial flows of US$ 12 billion over a threeyear period. Of this, US$ 6.64 billion was to be provided by the Fund from its Extended Fund Facility. The first tranche of US$ 544.4 million was released within hours of the approval by the institution’s board on 4 September. The Fund was hopeful about Pakistan’s long-term prospect. In the press release issued after the institution’s board had given its approval, it said that “despite the challenges it faces, Pakistan is a country of abundant potential, given its location and its rich human and natural resources. The authorities’ program is expected to help the economy to rebound, forestall a balance of payments crisis and rebuild reserves, reduce the fiscal deficit, and 8

For a detailed discussion of President Obama’s policy towards Asia see my three Working Papers published by the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. President Barack Obama in Asia – Searching the Basis for a Partnership, ISAS Working Paper No. 102, 7 December 2009; President Obama’s World in His Second Term, ISAS Working Paper No. 164, 6 February 2013; and America’s Asia Policy, ISAS Working Paper No. 139, 13 January 2012. Michael Crowley, “Make way for China”, Time 21, October 2013, p. 24.

undertake comprehensive structural reforms to boost investment and growth. Adherence to the program is also expected to catalyze resources from other donors”. 10

Some of the More Important Issues With the question of the resumption of US aid behind them, the leaders in their Washington meeting could spend time on four other important issues. All were important for Pakistan – Afghanistan after the withdrawal by the US of its combat troops; relations with India; IslamabadBeijing relations; and in terms of the future of Afghanistan the use of the Pakistani territory for terrorist activities.

Afghanistan’s Future To quote once again from The New York Times’ Thom Shanker, “American officials believed that Pakistan can play a key role in efforts to draw the Afghan Taliban into peace talks, yet remain suspicious of the Pakistani military’s links to certain militant factions such as the Haqqani network that has carried many attacks on Western and Afghan troops inside Afghanistan”.11 But Washington was not sympathetic to Pakistan’s view that if the pullout from Afghanistan left that country in chaos, the Haqqani network would work as insurance. It would help prevent Afghanistan, after America, from becoming hostile to Pakistan. However, under Sharif, Pakistan appeared to be supportive of other aspects of the American policy concerning Afghanistan. Several senior Pakistani officials claimed that it was their effort and prolonged discussions that led to the Americans to conclude that the use of force would not bring peace to Afghanistan. A way had to be found to bring in the Taliban – in particular the group that operated from Quetta, Pakistan, under Mullah Mohammad Omar – into the stillevolving political order. Direct negotiations had to be conducted with this group, and Islamabad had urged that the Taliban should be allowed to open an office outside the Afghan-Pakistan territories to be used as the base for starting a dialogue with the Americans. An office was opened in Doha, the capital of Qatar, but by treating it as a quasi-embassy of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the name they had given the country when they ruled it for five years (19962001), they managed to thoroughly alienate the mercurial President of Afghanistan. To facilitate the process of negotiations, Pakistan had begun to release some of the Taliban leaders who were in its custody. On 21 September, Pakistan set free Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the 45-year old

International Monetary Fund, “IMF Executive Board Approves 3-Year, US$ 6.64 Billion Extended Fund Arrangement for Pakistan”, Press Release, No. 13/322, September 4, 2013. Thom Shanker, “Aid to Pakistan to resume as tensions with U.S. ease”, The New York Times, 19 October, 2013, p. A1.

co-founder of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. He had worked as Mullah Omar’s deputy, and it was believed that he could serve as an important bridge between Kabul and Omar. There were other positive developments. During a visit to Kabul by John Kerry, the US and Afghan governments agreed on the terms of a security arrangement that would allow the US to keep several thousand troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014. They will not be used for combat but for the purpose of training the Afghan troops.12 Pakistan was anxious that such a contingent should be in position to prevent the collapse of the Afghan state which could happen with the American withdrawal. Islamabad was afraid of the type of chaos that followed the 1989 pullout by the Soviet Union. There was also concern in Islamabad that the American withdrawal of troops would be followed by a sharp reduction in the financial aid Washington had provided Kabul. Pakistan was an indirect beneficiary of the aid to Afghanistan. Its large trade surplus with Kabul was financed from the aid received from the Western donors, in particular the United States.13

Relations with India Immediately upon assuming office for the second time – in February 1997 – Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif declared his intention to improve relations with India. He was anxious that in his second term as prime minister all outstanding issues between India and Pakistan should be resolved. Having been a businessman once, he knew the rewards that would come Pakistan’s way by developing strong relations with India, one of Pakistan’s two large neighbours.14 He persuaded Atal Behari Vajpayee, his then counterpart in New Delhi, to take the bus from the border city of Amritsar in India to Lahore, the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab. Lahore was also a border city, only a few dozen miles from Amritsar. The meeting between the two prime ministers led to the signing of the “Lahore Declaration” in which India and Pakistan pledged to settle their disputes through dialogue. By recognising that Kashmir was a dispute, the Indians were conceding a long-standing Pakistani demand that the status of the state could not be treated as settled. That several Indian analysts continue to place the Kashmir dispute within

Matthew Rosenberg, “Talks clear path for US-Afghan deal on troops”, The New York Times, 12 October 2013, p. A1. For a detailed discussion of the developing economic links between Afghanistan and Pakistan, see Shahid Javed Burki, Economics of Pak-Afghan Relations, Institute of South Asian Studies, Working Paper No 176, October 2013. I estimated the benefits that would accrue to Pakistan if the proportion of the country’s total trade going to India reached a level as in 1947-49 before the first trade war between the two countries. See Shahid Javed Burki, South Asia in the New World Order: The Role of Regional Cooperation, London, Routledge, 2011.

quotation marks is one indication of the distance the two sides have to travel to achieve an understanding.15 However, Sharif did not seem to have consulted his country’s army leadership about his approach to India. By launching the “Kargil operation”, General Pervez Musharraf not only managed to scuttle the peace effort launched by his prime minister but brought the two countries close to a full-scale war. It was only with US President Bill Clinton’s intervention, when Sharif went over to Washington and met the American leader, that the matter was resolved. The meeting with Clinton was held on 4 July 1999, the American Independence Day. The fact that the American President agreed to meet Sharif on a major holiday was one indication of the nervousness in Washington about the deteriorating situation in South Asia. The American President, after talking to Prime Minister Vajpayee, was able to de-escalate tension between the two nuclear powers. Clinton promised to take personal interest in the Kashmir issue – a promise that was meant to save face for the beleaguered Pakistani Prime Minister since the Indians had always resisted the idea of third-party involvement in settling any of the disputes with Pakistan.16 With Sharif working once again to develop a good economic relationship with India now, he was being distracted by the latest escalation of tensions along the Line of Control that separates the two parts of Kashmir. Why the ten-year ceasefire came to be breached has led to a number of conspiracy theories. As Suryanarayana explains in his above-cited ISAS Insights, there are some in India who have begun to talk of “Second Kargil” meaning that the Pakistani Army had now decided to liven up the effective Kashmir border in order to prevent the Pakistani Prime Minister from making peace with India. This was also the line taken by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his 29 September meeting with Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York. He informed the members of the press team travelling with him on his way back from Beijing that he had spoken clearly and bluntly with his Pakistani counterpart. “I have not become Prime Minister of India to redraw the boundary”, he told the Pakistani leader. The Indian press described this as Singh’s Churchillian moment, reminiscent of the British leader’s declaration in 1942 that he had not become the King’s first minister to “preside over the liquidation of the Empire”. According to Indian reports, Singh’s assertiveness “surprised senior aides as the PM brushed aside Sharif’s arguments”.17 There was nothing new in Singh’s position. In a meeting with me in his office in New Delhi in December 2005, the Indian Prime Minister asked me how well I knew President Musharraf. When I said that I knew him reasonably well, he said I should pass on to the Pakistani leader a message. He said that he had met the Pakistani President a couple of times at some international 15

One example of this practice is evident in an ISAS paper by P S Suryanarayana, “Back to the Basics in Indo-Pak Puzzle”, ISAS Insights No. 232, 14 October 2013. A detailed account of the meeting is in Strobe Talbot, Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb, Washington DC, Brookings Institution Press, 2006. Rajeev Deshpande, “Haven’t become PM of India to redraw the border: Manmohan Singh to Nawaz Sharif”, The Times of India, 26 October 2013, p. 3.

gatherings. “In my first meeting with him I said that both of us were accidental leaders. Neither of us expected to lead our nations. Given where we were we should do something for our people. We should make peace and improve the lives of our people. Musharraf responded by raising the Kashmir issue and drawing new boundary lines that reflected ethnic divisions in the state. I told him that was a futile position to take. No democratically elected leader of a nation will ever consider redrawing the boundaries of the state”. I passed the message on to President Musharraf who confirmed that such an exchange had indeed taken place. But relations between the two countries did not go in the way Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had wished. His first year in office saw the countries come together in several unprecedented ways. As Shahan Mufti recalls in The Faithful Scribe: A Story of Islam, Pakistan, Family and War, “I arrived in India in the fall of 2004 when relations between the two South Asian nuclear powers had never been better. Pakistan and India had fought four wars, once nearly every decade since the two countries became independent in 1947, but in the months before my arrival, Pakistan and India inaugurated a bus and train line connecting Lahore and Delhi, India and Pakistan opened a nuclear hotline in case of any misunderstanding regarding the countries’ nuclear weapons. Most important the two countries had started playing cricket against each other for the first time since the tit-for-tat nuclear tests of 1998”.18 While both the government and the public in India held the view that Pakistan – in particular the country’s army – was behind the ceasefire violations that had grown in intensity since Sharif had taken office recently, there was the opposite impression in Pakistan. In the discussions I had with several senior leaders in Pakistan I came across the belief that the Indian Army was behind the violations. It was not keen to see the two countries moving towards peaceful coexistence.

Relations with China While Washington was watching with some concern Pakistan’s developing relations with China, especially the agreement signed between Beijing and Islamabad on building the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, it is unlikely that it received much attention in the private conversation between Obama and Sharif. With that said, the Americans would not like to see the CPEC give the Chinese Navy a presence in the deep-water port of Gwadar. Were that to happen, India will be concerned as well. According to Christabel Neo, “most recently the ‘String of Pearls’ garnered renewed attention through Pakistan’s official transfer of operational rights of the deepsea port in its Baluchistan province to the state-run China Overseas Holding Company”. Dubbed as the crowning jewel in the string, Gwadar’s geographic advantages – a mere 400 kilometres away from the Strait of Hormuz – certainly suggest the possibility of investing it with great strategic military importance. The term China’s “String of Pearls” strategy was coined nearly a 18

Shahan Mufti, The Faithful Scribe: A Story of Islam, Pakistan, Family and War, New York, Other Press, 2013.

decade ago in a Booz Allen report for the Pentagon to describe the perceived encirclement of India in the Indian Ocean Region. Continues Neo: “Pakistan is believed to have made known its intention to develop Gwadar with military projection capabilities – through repeated requests to China to build the port as a naval base. While the focus is on undertakings by the Pakistani Navy, it does not preclude the possible usage by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) forces. Furthermore, the long-standing Sino-Pakistani alliance has created a level of trust that can facilitate inter-operability between the two navies, particularly vis-a-vis India”.19

Domestic Terrorism One task before Sharif was to convince the American leadership that in dealing with terrorism Pakistan had to walk a narrow and difficult line. An All Parties’ Conference convened by Prime Minister Sharif on 9 September authorised the federal government to deal with extremists by initiating a “dialogue with all stakeholders forthwith and for this purpose take all necessary steps as it may deem fit, including development of an appropriate mechanism and identification of interlocutors”.20 Interpreting this call for negotiations as a sign of weakness, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) listed its conditions for talking to the government. These included the withdrawal of government troops from all tribal areas, release of all prisoners taken into custody under the Terrorism Act, and forcing the United States to immediately terminate its drone programme. As if to underscore its resolve, a group that called itself Ansarul Mujahideen, supposedly an affiliate of the TTP, carried out a suicide bombing attack that killed Israrullah Gandapur, the 38-year old Minister of Law in the government of the province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The KP government was in the hands of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the party that had been the strongest advocate of dealing with extremist activities through negotiations. A day before the meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Sharif, two human rights groups released their reports on the use of drones in the mountains of Pakistan and Yemen. Both reached a number of damning conclusions which could not be ignored by the two leaders in their deliberations. Amnesty International has highlighted the case of a grandmother who was killed while she was picking vegetables and other incidents which could have broken international laws designed to protect civilians. The report was issued, at the same time as an investigation by Human Rights Watch which detailed missile attacks in Yemen which, the group believes, contravenes the laws of conflict, international human rights law and Barack Obama’s own guidelines on drones. But it is acknowledged that “getting to the bottom of individual strikes is exceptionally difficult in the areas bordering Afghanistan, where thousands of militants have

Christabel Neo, “China’s Gwadar Pearl: The port acquisition and implications for India”, ISAS Brief No. 288, 11 July 2013. The News, “Text of the APC resolution”, 10 September 2013, p. 19.

settled. People are often terrified of speaking out, fearing retribution from both militants and the state, which is widely suspected of colluding with the CIA-led campaign”.21

The Outcome President Obama and Prime Minister Sharif met on 23 October in White House’s Oval Office for 90 minutes. It was a one-on-one meeting with no aides present. Once the talks were concluded, the two did not address a press conference as is the normal practice for these meetings. Instead, the press was called in with the two leaders sitting side by side. In the remarks – especially those by the American President – the focus was on terrorism and the future of Afghanistan following the American withdrawal. The use by the Americans of drones also figured prominently. According to Mark Lander who reported on the discussions for his newspaper, The New York Times, the American leader said that the two sides needed to find ways to fight terrorism “that respect Pakistan’s sovereignty, that respect the concerns of both countries. It’s a challenge; it’s not easy”. With that said, “we are committed to working together and making sure that rather than being source of tension between our two countries, it can be a source of strength for us working together in a constructive and respectful way”. The Pakistani leader seems to have left most of the talking to President Obama. Lander noted that “aside from the references to drones – delivered in a tone so soft that reporters in the room strained to hear him – Mr. Sharif also sounded conciliatory. Terrorism, he said, was a shared threat that required ‘serious efforts without indulging into any blame game’”.22 Following the Oval Office talks the two governments issued a long “joint statement” that did not carry anything that was newsworthy. It had many details about the various areas in which the two capitals were doing collaborative work. “Reaffirming the strong relationship between the two countries, [the leaders] stressed that our enduring partnership is based on the principles of respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity”. This was an indirect reference to Pakistan’s concern that the drone programme was violating its sovereignty. The leaders “discussed the forthcoming Ministerial-level Strategic Dialogue which Secretary Kerry would be hosting in Washington by March 2014. They also decided on the strategic priorities for the five working groups: 1) Law Enforcement and Counterterrorism; 2) Economics and Finance; 3) Energy; 4) Security, Strategic Stability and Non-Proliferation; and 5) the Defense Consultative Group”. There were several references to scourge of terrorism but there was also some recognition that Pakistan was seriously engaged in dealing with the situation. “President Obama commended the government and people of Pakistan, armed forces, and law enforcement agencies [for efforts] to defeat terrorists and praised Pakistan for its military campaign”. “They shared their mutual conviction that a stable and peaceful Pakistan-Afghanistan border was important for the success 21

Jon Boone, “US drone strikes could be classified as war crimes, says Amnesty International”, The Guardian, 22 October 2013, p, 7. Mark Lander, “Pakistani premier meets Obama to mend ties”, The New York Times, 23 October, 2013, p. A1.

of counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and counter IED efforts, and they underscored the critical significance of effective border coordination mechanisms between Pakistan and Afghanistan”. There was also a reference to an Indian concern. “The two leaders emphasized that no country’s territory should be used to destabilize its neighbours. Further, the leaders noted that extremism and terrorism represent a common challenge for humanity and that solution lies in collaboration and joint efforts by the international community”.23

Conclusion By the reckoning of some experts, the Obama-Sharif dialogue was the third time since the terrorist attacks on the United States that Islamabad and Washington had tried to reset their relations. After a tense day when Richard Armitage delivered a rough ultimatum to Pakistan in his conversation with General Mahmood Ahmad, then the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence, who happened to be in Washington for a visit, President Pervez Musharraf had drawn very close to the Bush administration. The Pakistani leader had surprised the American leadership by quickly accepting all the conditions, not just distancing his country from the Taliban regime in Kabul, Afghanistan. Pakistan was handsomely rewarded in terms of both economic and military aid. On one of his visits to the American capital, President Musharraf was invited to visit and stay at the Camp David presidential retreat in the mountains of Maryland. This was a gesture reserved for only those visiting dignitaries that Americans considered to be exceptionally close to them. After the ouster of President Musharraf, who resigned in 2008, the new Obama administration began an assiduous courtship of his successor, Asif Ali Zardari. However, the Americans were fully aware of the fact that Zardari did not hold all the cards in his hands and that some were still played by the head of the army – General Kayani. Washington’s efforts at courtship included the general as well. A senior official from the Obama administration had no hesitation in telling me that “Zardari was our man since he will do our bidding”. That had obviously happened. The Washington Post published a long story the day Sharif left for Pakistan, revealing how cooperative the Zardari administration was in helping Washington develop its drone programme. The peak of the drone programme was reached in 2010, midway through Zardari’s five year rule (2008-13), when 117 strikes were recorded. “Despite repeatedly denouncing the CIA’s drone campaign, top officials in Pakistan’s government have for years endorsed the program and routinely received briefings on classified casualty counts, according to top-secret CIA documents and Pakistani diplomatic memos”, wrote the newspaper. “The files describe dozens of drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal region and include maps as well as before-and-after photos of targeted compounds over a four year stretch from late 2007 to late 2011 in which the campaign 23

The United States Department of State, “Joint Statement by Obama, Pakistan’s Prime Minister”, 23 October 2013.

intensified dramatically. Markings on the documents indicate that many of them were prepared by the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center specifically to be shared with Pakistan’s government. They tout the success of strikes that killed dozens of alleged al-Qaeda operatives and assert repeatedly that no civilians were harmed”.24 It was clear that Washington was not entirely certain which way Sharif will take his country in defining its relations with the United States. Another senior official had confided to me that the political leadership in the United States would be reluctant to accept Nawaz Sharif as Pakistan’s leader even if he won that position through a free and fair election. His strong Islamic leanings made the Americans uneasy about Sharif. These misgivings notwithstanding, Washington has begun to work with the new prime minister. President Obama and his team had prepared themselves well for the Sharif visit. The Pakistani Prime Minister was given a warm welcome. On the last day of the Pakistani leader’s visit, “Mr. Obama pointed to Mr. Sharif’s election – the first successful completion of a full civilian-led political cycle in Pakistan’s history – as a harbinger of change. And he offered American help with energy and public works projects to rebuild Pakistan’s economy”.25 However, the real test of the new relationship will come in the next several months as the speed of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan picks up. Washington will watch Islamabad closely as it continues to withdraw its troops and heavy equipment from Afghanistan, using the Pakistani road network and the port of Karachi. They expect Pakistan to ensure that this passage does not become subject to terrorist attacks. The Obama administration will also want Pakistan to be more actively involved in getting the Taliban to agree to some kind of power-sharing agreement with Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai and his successor. If Sharif delivers on these expectations, Pakistan can hope to see some of the goodwill America had in the past for his country return to some extent – but only to some extent. Much has changed in Asia and also in America’s own position in the fast-changing world for Pakistan-US relations to return to what they were in the past several decades.

.....

Greg Miller, “Secret memos reveal explicit nature of U.S., Pakistan agreement on drones”, The Washington Post, 24 October 2013, p. A1. Ibid.