Mapping Internal Wars

A Study Internal Wars

Mapping Internal Wars

Characteristically, all eight internal wars that this study seeks to analyse are fundamentally ethnic wars in the sense that the battle lines are drawn along ethnic lines and the goals of combatants are defined in ethnic terms. First, the warring parties belong to two different ethnic groups with strong identities based on distinct historical antecedents and heritage, language, religion and culture. This makes the individual loyalties to the group involved in ethnic war almost completely rigid and transparent, leading to a clear demarcation of ethnic boundaries. the Punjabi-dominated Pakistani government and the Bengalis of the former East Pakistan in one war, and the Baluch in another. The war between the Pakistani government and the East Bengalis was fought in the former East Pakistan with Dhaka (then Dacca) forming the epicenter of military confrontation; the Baluch war took place in Balochistan;

Sources of War

Like interstate wars, internal ethnic wars are serious hostile programmes. Hostility does not arise in a vacuum or generate itself, but stems from deep-rooted socio-economic and political grievances which, the group feels, cannot be redressed by any normal political means. While rational grievances form necessary conditions, they are not sufficient to motivate ethnic war. Instead, the impulse for a group action (involving one’s preparedness to harm oneself in the process of trying to harm another) is generated, in many cases, from its feeling of fear that the ethnic entrepreneurs sometimes exaggerate to produce intense emotional heat, hate and anxiety, so necessary for its hostile behaviour (Kaufman 1997; Lake and Rothchild 1997). Ethnic fear takes many forms and dimensions, depending upon the nature of the polity and the power and position of the threatened group vis-à-vis the dominant group. It may be a singularly or mutually reciprocal fear (of both the majority and minority groups) of extinction. It means the following: the weaker group’s/minority’s collective fear of marginalization by a hegemonic state or assimilation into a dominant culture, and the majority’s collective fear of losing its ethnic pride, power, and hegemonic status to eventually become a weak or subordinate group. In this case, every effort of one group to remove the structure of fear may actually increase the fear of another, and thus the cycle continues without any rational end. Ethnic fear of extinction does not always evolve itself in a direct form to become a source of ethnic war. A long history of denial of legitimacy to, or recognition of, a group’s identity as relates to its territory and its growing sense of relative deprivation–defined as a perceived gap between value expectations and value capabilities (Gurr 1970)–may initially appear to be a mere ethnic grievance, but, in the long run, create a fear of its extinction.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto appeared as much authoritarian in his policies towards the Baluch as Yahya Khan was towards the East Bengalis. The difference was that the latter seemed to have been driven by the spirit of Punjabi nationalism, while the former sought to create a strong centre in the process of consolidating his rule. Although the central government’s political and economic incursions into the province triggered off the war, the root cause lay in the unfulfilled ethnic aspirations of the Baluch nationalists for an independent state. After the forcible annexation of the Kalat confederacy in 1948, which led to a short-lived uprising, successive West Pakistani ruling elite had perceived Baluch nationalism as a threat to the state’s suzerainty over the province. The incident that strengthened the centre’s threat perception was the abortive attempt of the Khan of Kalat to convene a meeting of the Baluch Sardars in 1958 to work out plans to consolidate a Baluch state on a linguistic basis. Added to this was the growing radicalization of the Baluch youth along Marxist-Leninist lines: they believed in an all-out military struggle for independence. The centre responded with oppressive measures to weaken the group’s political and economic position. Discrimination against them in government service and allocation of developmental funds to the province, the state-aided settlement of Punjabis in the Baluch areas in order to bring about a demographic change, and the exploitative attitude of the centre in harnessing natural resources, all led to a sense of relative deprivation and powerlessness in Baluch society (Phadnis 1989: 179–81; Wirsing 1981; Harrison 1981: 161–65). The Baluch youth became restless and lost faith in the moderate leadership, specially when the Bhutto regime demonstrated its utter intolerance and disregard to provincial autonomy by dissolving the National Awami Party (NAP)–Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI)–controlled government in 1973, proscribing the NAP and withdrawing powers to the elected leadership. Thus, the militant youth set the stage to arrest the decline of their community, reflected in their armed struggle for an independent Baluchistan.

Mobilization for War: Processes and Levels

As the theory of mobilization suggests (Tilly 1978), ethnic grievances per se do not trigger off war. Instead, they merely create necessary conditions for it in the process of redefining the pattern of strategic inter-group interactions. Waging a war comes at the end of a long-drawn-out process, and large-scale investment goes into preparing the event. Preparations essentially begin with mobilization–defined as a process by which a “mere” member becomes an “active” participant in any collective ethnic venture–within the group by its ethnic entrepreneurs who play upon such sensitive issues as relative deprivation, fear of ethnic extinction and loss of ethnic dignity. A successful process of ethnic mobilization is contingent upon both the objective conditions, i.e. ethnic grievances about which the contesting group is deeply aware and concerned, and such structural attributes of the group as strong resource (including numerical strength) and territorial bases, organizational cohesion and efficiency, a communication network, and the quality of the leadership and its commitment (Gurr 1993; Esman 1991). In addition, it is theoretically argued (Huntington 1968) and empirically tested (Ganguly 1997) that increase in literacy and media exposure of ethnic groups will result in their greater mobilization. The logic is that the greater the attainment of literacy and expansion of educational opportunities, the greater the awareness of the group members about their grievances which, in turn, strengthens their resolve to fight. A weak objective condition may hinder the growth of mobilization, and a weak leadership may find it difficult to “organize and guide the struggle and activists or cadres who provide ongoing links with the mass of their ethnic community” (Esman 1991: 55). Any tension and cleavage within the group may also affect the success of its mobilization, whereas the repressive tactics of the political incumbents will go, in the long run, to cementing its determination and augmenting the pool of ethnic activists for its collective action for a declared commonhood. In some wars, mobilization is a continuous process in which both the objective and subjective conditions play a dominant role. A group that continues to mobilize itself even in the worst face of repression is the most successfully mobilized one.
A general pattern evident in ethnic wars the world over is that mobilization proceeds either in two independent, or in interrelated ways. Political mobilization is the first phase under which group members are essentially gathered and motivated by their moderate leadership to enter as actors into the ethnic political arena: military mobilization involves selection, recruitment, and preparation of the youth by the militant leaders for a sustained military action. Often, the second phase of mobilization comes as a continuum of the first phase if there is no advancement of the conflict goals of the group, proving the non-violent agitation-tactics as a failure. It may have the tactical support or disapproval of the moderate leaders. A successful political mobilization (but without any consequences) tends to make the task of military mobilization easy. In some cases, both the mobilization processes occur simultaneously under two different leaderships, moderate and militant, and there are still a few other cases in which military mobilization alone is pursued without first preparing the group for a collective political action. We argue that political mobilization in the absence of military mobilization does not itself lead the aggrieved group to war.

The Baluch war marked a different pattern of mobilization in that ethnic elite singularly led both political and military processes, which proceeded in two different ways. Given the fact that their problem originated from the forcible integration of their territory, the Baluch nationalists became quite active in the 1940s in mobilizing the people’s support for their autonomy or secessionist movement. The Kalat State National Party (1937–48) took the early initiative and since 1950, a group of Marxist-Leninists under the banner of the Baluchistan Peace Committee followed it up. A number of other groups–such as the People’s Party, All-Pakistan Baluch League, and the Baluch Student Federation–were also formed to articulate the Baluch nationalist ideology, but differed in their goals and programmes: some articulated their desire for national self-determination, and others merely demanded greater autonomy. Nevertheless, they sensitized the Baluch people ethnically, who, in turn, provided impetus for the emergence of a more organized political movement that the NAP had headed in the heyday of Baluch nationalism. As a testimony to their mobilization, the Baluch rallied behind the NAP to oppose the “One Unit” scheme and later overwhelmingly voted the party to power in 1972. In the process, they forged an inter-provincial and inter-ethnic solidarity (with Pathans and Sindhis) against the Pakistani state. While the use of state force in 1958 had definitely increased the ranks of the NAP, Bhutto’s coercive tactics reflecting in the proscription of the NAP and the arrest of its leaders and the dissolution of the provincial government in 1973 led to retardation of the mobilization process. This in a way benefited militant organizations–the Baluch People’s Liberation Front (BPLF) and the Baluch Student Organisation (BSO)–which attracted the young Baluch and politically aroused tribesmen. Although the BSO (formed in 1967) seemed to have been affiliated to the NAP, much of the credit for military mobilization should go to the BPLF. An organization that espoused the cause of national liberation through armed struggle, it was the direct outgrowth of the guerrilla movement launched by Sher Mohammad Marri in 1963. It means that the process of military mobilization began simultaneously with political mobilization, and while continuing in two different ways, the latter process impinged upon the former.

Despite strong objective conditions, neither of these processes achieved the optimum level of mobilization when the war broke out in 1973. Three reasons can be attributed to this. First, cleavages in the Baluch society along tribal lines made it difficult to evolve collectively “agreed symbols” to ignite and sustain an enduring ethno-nationalist movement of the Baluch. Second, the non-centrist or anti-centrist Baluch leadership was not only fragmented, but also pursued divergent political objectives and options. Third, the central leadership was successful in its co-optive, divisive and coercive strategies to contain the growth of mobilization of the Baluch (Phadnis 1989: 188–90). Thus, the Baluch waged a war against the Pakistani state without fully preparing the society and mobilizing its broad-based and collective support.

The Nature of Wars

Each war sets a well-defined goal based on the principal of collective grievances and aspirations of the warring ethnic group. Since it is the ethnic group leaders who determine the specific goal of a war, they can even magnify it beyond its relationship to the group’s perceived grievances. Any arbitrary or dissentient goal-setting tends to create dissension and cleavage in the group, resulting in multiple-goal formation in the same war structure. Furthermore, no war can have a static goal and its transformation marked by escalation or de-escalation may occur when the battle lines become hard for one or both adversaries, or there is renewed hope for political reconciliation at the initiative of a third party or of one of the adversaries.
Secession has been the dominant goal of wars in South Asia. Out of eight wars that this study deals with, only the tribal war in the CHT was fought for autonomy. Most of India’s secessionist wars–Mizo, Naga and Assamese–have originated and continued with the same goal, whereas the Sikh war attained a secessionist dimension in the process of goal-escalation from the failed autonomy movement of the Akali Dal. This is also true in regard to the Eelam, East Pakistan and Baluch wars. The difference is that while the militant leadership set the secessionist goal of the Sikh and Baluch wars, the moderate Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) and the AL declared and campaigned for the same goal in Sri Lanka and East Pakistan respectively before the militant formations were born to pursue it further. Thus, in the former category, the secessionist goal lacked a consensual endorsement and support of the entire group members and elite: both the Akali Dal in Punjab and the NAP in Baluchistan remained committed to their autonomy goal even while the militants were fighting for a separate state. But the consensus on the Eelam goal was lost when the TULF and some of the militant outfits agreed to accept a solution within Sri Lanka’s constitutional framework. As regards the autonomy goal of the CHT war, it was the moderate PCJSS that set the goal, and its military wing advanced it though armed campaigns.

Warring Parties and their Military Balance

Any ethnic war process entails two highly motivated and determined parties or group of parties whose relations and behaviour are explained only in violent, coercive terms. Although each belligerent may have a large constituency support and infrastructure behind the war process, it is only those representative outfits that directly fight the battle that are considered as warring parties. The political incumbents are mostly represented in wars by their own ethnic soldiers, and only in rare cases do they send a multi-ethnic force drawn from various communities including its own adversary’s population to the battlefield. In many wars, the minority/weaker ethnic participation is deeply divided and not united even though their principal goal remains the same: the cleavage occurs along the lines of power or personality rivalry or ideological or tactical differences either before the onset or during the course of war.
Strikingly, most of the wars in South Asia have had multiple warring factions from the minority/weaker ethnic group’s side,1 whereas the incumbents’ forces in every war other than those ones in India have by and large been drawn from the majority ethnic group itself (Table 2.1). In India, the military is a multi-ethnic force whose operation-command structure is ethnically integrated. (This is contrary to the classical “alien troops” system that the government used in counter-insurgency operations in the 1970s.) It means that minority ethnic-group soldiers participate in the war, with utmost loyalty to the government, against their own kin group members–as it happened, for instance, in Punjab. Proliferation of militant organizations is intense in most of the wars, thereby indicating the weak cohesion in the minority group. Another line of classification is that some of the militant groups exist under the overall control of the political leaders as their military wing. At the same time, many groups have existed and functioned as independent military entities, with their highly dependent political wings controlled by the military leadership. These characteristic features make a definite impact not only on the battlefield behaviour of parties, but also on the process of ending war.

As regards the relative strength of parties, it may be striking at the outset that the government forces enjoy far superior firepower than that of the insurgents, but the difficulty lies in measuring the actual military imbalance between the two belligerents. Any attempt at assessing the actual strength of the militants is futile because, while maintaining secrecy, they tend to exaggerate their power as a strategy to demoralize their adversary. At the same time, governments often try to down play in public the strength of militants by characterizing them as a “bunch of terrorists” or “misguided youth”, and, therefore, the figures provided by them for public consumption are misleading. Independent journalistic accounts can give a fair idea about the strength of militants, but it may not be too helpful in understanding the exact level of military imbalance on the field.

Nevertheless, it is possible to make a general assessment of the military situation on the basis of the structural viability of the militants, the level of their constituency support, the size of their resource base, the extent of their foreign connections and the nature of the terrain in which they operate. These factors are crucial for the success of guerrilla tactics and achieving at least a limited strategic advantage over the security forces. A highly cohesive militant group with a well-knit and strong military command and control structure; well-disciplined and thoroughly committed cadres who are endowed with indomitable spirit of sacrifice; highly mobilized large-scale support of people; a sophisticated and efficient military infrastructure including a reliable communication network; a dependable source of regular military supplies; well-fortified external sanctuaries; and committed and trustworthy foreign patrons is likely to be the most deadly and undefeatable one if, above all, it operates in a peculiar geographical complex (a topographical structure marked by mountains, hills, lagoons and sea) which is conducive for guerrilla warfare. In such cases, the use of superior quality of weapons and deployment of large contingents of soldiers may not be very helpful in drastically tilting the military balance on the field to its side. Nor, at the same time, can the militants claim to have secured a decisive strategic dominance over the security forces.

In many wars in South Asia, the militants have enjoyed the minimum deterrence necessary for them to withstand the military pressure of (and even harass) the security forces. They have developed this capability from a variety of military and non-military sources (mentioned above), even though the ratio on the deployed force level between the army and militants (see below) has remained high in every war. The topography of the theatre of war has significantly increased the deterring capability of rebels in the Baluch, Eelam, CHT and India’s north-east wars. For the Baluch militants, the greatest strategic advantage was that they operated from semi-desert and semi-mountainous terrain contiguous to Afghan territory, wherein they set up sanctuaries and found patron support. Even at the best of times, the area was inhospitable for the people in view of the absence of roads and a communication system. It created a formidable problem of logistics for the army, which found it hard to stretch the zone of war across the vast hostile areas and conduct a successful, swift military action for a quick victory.
External military assistance to the insurgents is a vital source of their deterrence against the security forces.

Types of War

That all internal wars cannot be viewed as one monolithic category is empirically proven fact. Based on the level of use of violence and duration of fighting, we classify wars into four categories: limited, total, short and long. A limited war is one in which:
• the level of use of violence remains low and fighting takes place intermittently;
• there is large-scale use of small arms and limited deployment of heavy and sophisticated weapons;
• the level of force deployment remains less than 50,000 men;
• battle-related deaths do not exceed an average of 1,000 people per year;
• the number of internally displaced people and refugees remain under 20,000 per year; and
• the scale of damage and destruction of property is limited.
In contrast, a total war entails:
• intense regular fighting;
• heavy deployment of forces (above a level of 50,000 men) and use of sophisticated weapons (tanks, artillery, helicopter gunships, etc.);
• a higher level of battle-related deaths (more than 1,000 people per year);
• large-scale displacement of people and refugees (above an average of 20,000 per year); and
• extensive damage to property and economic infrastructure.

A war is said to be short if its longevity does not exceed 10 years, whereas a long internal war is a prolonged military affair of more than 10 years. Generally, an internal war can be either short and total, or long and total, or limited and long, or limited and short. In South Asia, many wars have been limited in their intensity but long in their duration,

The short but total Baluch war (1973–77) was built upon the military experience of the Baluch youth who, calling themselves “Pararis” (non-believers in negotiations), launched armed campaigns in three tribal areas (Mengal, Marri and Bukti) during 1963–69 (Harrison 1981: 29–33). Violence in the first phase (in the 1960s) was less intense and more sporadic than the second phase (in the 1970s), that characteristically became an internal war. It was a relatively well-organized military event, spearheaded by a body that called itself the Popular Front for Armed Resistance (PFAR). The strength of the insurgent force swelled from about 400 Mengals and 500 Marris to an estimated 55,000 men (of whom nearly 11,500 cadres were organized into hard-core units) at the height of the war in 1974. They operated in small bands of 30 to 50 men equipped with light weapons (rifles, machine guns, etc.) and were based in hideouts in the mountains. They were well-trained and did not face shortage of arms and ammunition (White Paper on Baluchistan, 1974). The army deployed about 80,000 men who were equipped with sophisticated weapons of modern warfare, procured under the emergency military and financial aid worth $200 million from Iran (Harrison 1981: 36; Wirsing 1981: 11).

The fighting became intense when the security forces resorted to use of heavy artillery and air power in its combat operations in mountainous areas against the insurgents who laid road blockades to de-link Baluchistan from other provinces, attacked some oil exploration centres, conducted raids on military encampments and ambushed army convoys. Apart from hitting hard at the militants, the army’s operational task was to either flush out or force them to surrender by denying avenues of sustenance and closing their escape routes. Although the government denied having used the air force in the war, it was alleged that French Mirage and F-86 Sabre jet fighters and Huey Cobra helicopters undertook systematic aerial attacks in which 13 members of the Iranian Army Aviation took part (Guardian, 24 January 1975). Heavy loss of life and destruction of property was reported. It was estimated that at least 5,000 militants and over 3,000 soldiers were killed in hundreds of armed encounters lasting until 1977 (Harrison 1978: 139). And the government spent about one million rupees for military operations per day (Baloch 1985: 365).
By South Asia’s standards,

Negotiating for Peace

If unconventional strategies do not end internal wars, the only other option available is negotiations. Here again, governments do not, in every case, engage the militant leaders directly in negotiations even though they are the combatants who need to be pacified for any peace deal. Instead, in many cases, the moderate leaders are brought up to play a key role in a peace process with the view not only to reaching a political settlement, but also, in the process, to marginalizing the militant groups.1 This approach to the peace process appears to be guided by, or be an extension of the government’s divide-and-rule strategy analysed in Chapter 3. Possibly, negotiations with the moderates take place against the backdrop of the continuation of fighting, or after defeating or weakening the militants. Sometimes the governments’ failure to strike a meaningful peace deal with the militants itself will find a role for the moderates in a peace process.
Negotiating with the militants is the last option for any government. It may be done under their military pressure since the governments are unable to weaken or defeat them even after sustained military operations. If the moderates are so weak that they cannot help the government in restoring peace, and the latter is convinced that the militants alone hold the key for the success of a peace process, negotiations with them are inevitable. Talks are held with or without the help of a mediator, preceded by a declaration of cease-fire in most cases. Putting preconditions (such as surrender of arms by the militants and the return of troops to their barracks) for talks by either of the parties shows its position of strength from where it wants to negotiate a deal. It means that unconditional talks are between two equally strong or weak adversaries who need peace. It must also be noted that all negotiating processes are pursued with the objective of peace in mind. In some cases, the militants participate in peace talks to gain a respite for themselves, and for regrouping and refurbishing. It means that they still enjoy enough strength to carry on the war and are uncompromising on their goal.

In South Asia, the search for a negotiated settlement is not an integral part of war-ending strategies in every case. Some of the wars have seen this process with the governments talking peace either with the moderates, or militants, or both (in that order). Many wars (in East Pakistan, Baluchistan, Assam and Punjab) have proceeded or ended without any political dialogue between the respective government and militant groups. Such cases are those in which unconventional strategies have worked well to the advantage of the concerned government. After the outbreak of the war in East Pakistan, the prospect for any meaningful peace process was bleak because the East Bengalis had crossed the point of accepting anything less than a separate state. If the state’s violence pushed them to that level, the resistance put up by the Mukti Bahini with the direct military support of India steeled their determination to achieve Bangladesh. As such, a negotiated political settlement involving a compromise on the original goal of a separate state was out of the question for the AL leadership.
In Punjab, the reason why the Indian government refused to negotiate with the militants was to do with the favourable military situation resulting from the success of its war-ending strategies. Although the militants kept up sporadic violence in the state, it became clear from the beginning that they were waging a no-win war. Spectacular military gains for the government forces in their successive operations had foreclosed the necessity of engaging the militants in any peace talks. The only government that showed some interest in negotiating with the militants was the short-lived Chandra Shekhar regime in 1990. But there was no serious effort made to start the process.

A similar military reason can be attributed to the government’s refusal to hold talks with ULFA, which turned down all political overtures of the Assam government. While remaining committed to its goal of a separate state, the ULFA leadership made it clear that it would negotiate peace only with the central government on the agenda of sovereignty to Assam. That it is quite unwilling to compromise on the separatist goal despite its military weakness to force the government to negotiate makes the process a non-starter. The inference drawn here is that governments do not easily hold talks with militarily weak militants, who are set to lose the war, if they maintain a tough position on their secessionist goal.
In such cases, negotiating with the moderates and concluding a peace accord with them will be a measure of reconciliation in a war-torn society. Even an offer of peace talks in a half-hearted manner without, at the same time, engaging the adversary in any political dialogue is to convince the aggrieved ethnic group of the government having only a superficial interest in a democratic settlement. This is what happened in the Baluch war. While refusing to hold talks with the inconsequential Baluch militants, Prime Minister Z. A. Bhutto, at the height of the war in 1974, declared his desire to negotiate a political settlement with the moderates. He held secret talks with the NAP leaders–Bizenjo, Mengal and Marri–and allegedly coerced them to accept a settlement while they were in prison (Sayeed 1980: 119). Such a settlement was understandably not to concede the autonomy demand of the Baluch, but to win the NAP leaders’ cooperation in restoring normalcy in the province. That the Bhutto regime was not interested in any substantive negotiations on the Baluch issue was evident from its refusal to engage the NAP leader Wali Khan in a serious peace parley. Similarly, Gen. Zia followed the same tactics in a different way. He kept talking to the moderates for about two years regarding insurgency, released the political prisoners, agreed for a cease-fire, offered amnesty and withdrew the army. But he was never serious in discussing the substantive issue of autonomy to Baluchistan. At the end, the moderate leadership got disgusted with the manipulative tendency of the regime and pulled out of the process.

Conclusion

It is clear that the internal wars in South Asia do not fall into a monolithic category: what distinguishes the differences between them are the levels of power the adversaries enjoy, and the extent of force they deploy to wage the war. Power is, therefore, a critical variable that determines the intensity of a war and differentiates one from another. A long-drawn-out process of war preparations in many cases has strengthened the internal war structure of insurgents, reflecting in their ability to withstand the military pressure of the political incumbents as a prerequisite for the onset of wars. Chapter 3 analyses to what extent this has helped in designing war-ending strategies and influenced their execution.

Note

The Baluch war had the BPLF Baluch People’s Liberation Front and the BSO Baluch Students Organization.

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