The Kashmir conflict
and National Question in Pakistan
Pakistan's "Islamists" have raised the ante in Kashmir, banking on the nuclear deterrent to help keep the conflict confined to the valley. This is a foolish and self-deluding notion, which will get out of hand. India, if pushed to the brink in Kashmir, will have no choice but to call Pakistan's bluff by widening the conflict, especially in Pakistan's "sensitive" regions, where decades of deliberate mis-governance and neglect renders Pakistan "a house of cards" internally. Worse yet, in the absence of a no-first-strike treaty, India may well have to go in for the first strike itself.

Among its war plans is the complete decimation of the central Punjab in Pakistan in particular, in order to inflict maximum damage to Pakistan's dominant ethnic elite, the punjabis, whose near total control of the army
bureaucracy since the military usurpation of power of 1958 empowers them to call the shots in all matters of domestic and foreign policy and who are right now raising the stakes in Kashmir. In such a scenario, indeed the
whole value of Pakistan's nuclear deterrent itself will come into question.
However that may be, the recent conflagration in Kashmir belies the claim of both countries that nuclearization has brought peace to the region. Instead it has increased the danger of war and of nuclear war even more. All this starkly underscores the failure of US foreign policy towards the achievement of any of its desired objectives since the nuclear detonations at Pokhran and Chagai a year ago. Instead, indeed, the developments that it seeks to
control can be seen to be overtaking it. The situation is fraught with peril for the West and should it snap, would be very hard to contain. Given its proximity to Central Asia and the Middle East, by way of Afghanistan and
Iran and Western China, themselves hotbeds of terrorism, instability and tension it would jeopardize vital western security and geopolitical interests causing irreparable harm.

CIA Director George Tenet in a presentation to the Senate armed services committee reportedly said that in Pakistan the "fragile Sharif government is hampered by enormous economic problems and is contending with rising Islamic sentiment that includes an extremist fringe inspired by the Taliban examplein Afghanistan " and "both India and Pakistan continue to resist curbing weapons of mass destruction programs to escape economic sanctions. Neither side has established a clear nuclear use doctrine, which makes deterrence unstable. And the bilateral dialogue between the two rivals does not appear promising". Despite that astute observation US policy keeps urging futile talks (talk about what??) and "bus diplomacy" while leaving core issues untouched.

The problem with current US policy seems to be twofold: firstly, it is still unclear on current threat perception. The fact of the matter is that the nuclear detonations have forever changed the character of both the region
and its players. This is particularly true of Pakistan which until recently could be perceived as a "convenient ally" dependent on economic handout and therefore ready to come to the aid of western interest when required. Not
any more. Now the economic handouts will have to be doled out to avoid the threat of nuclear blackmail, that is, the transfer of this technology to states not of the west's liking. One suspects that the recent bailout of Pakistan's economy and the partial rollback of sanctions was done due to these considerations.

Pakistan is aware of this changed relationship too as is apparent from its initial arrogant brush off of the US State Dept's protest over the Najam Sethi case and its recent disregard of President Bill Clinton's letter to Nawaz Sharif. A nuclear Pakistan, flaunting Islamic credentials, with close ties to militant Taliban and closely allied to powerful China is from a western viewpoint very daunting. The possibility that nuclear and missile secrets pilfered from the US may eventually be transferred to Pakistani hands given China's close cooperation and assistance to Pakistan in the development of its weapons program and its disregard for non proliferation
is real too. Worse yet, the nightmare for the West is that once the situation is resolved in Afghanistan to the satisfaction of Pakistan and Iran, the way will be cleared for the formation of a large nuclear Islamic bloc embracing Afghanistan, Iran and even Turkey, as per the unofficial but ambitious agenda of the ISI, Pakistan's infamous secret agency and patron of the Taliban and of Islamic fundamentalism in the region. Such a development would eventually challenge the balance of power in the Middle East, in the Central Asian states and even in Chinese Turkestan as the Chinese have most recently learned.

On the other hand, and despite the West's serious long-term differences with India, its nuclearization is not being perceived as alarmingly any more, as is Pakistan's. This is imperceptibly but surely being sensed in certain     quarters in the US such as the International Institute of Strategic Studies, a Washington based think tank and by Mr. Pollard, a US Senator or Congressman. Secondly US policy is based on fallacious concepts and faulty
analysis. In other words US policy must discard outdated notions that continue to encumber it, perceptions which have served their purpose in a bygone age but are not relevant today and must identify core issues and
ground realities in South Asia, to enable the formulation of realistic policy goals and to achieve them.

In the case of South Asia in general and Kashmir in particular, it must make a paradigm shift. The paradigm shift would have to begin with Kashmir, not only because this issue has most forcefully been thrust to the world's
attention since India and Pakistan's nuclear detonations but also because the political fallout from those detonations has clouded up an already very murky issue. Western analysts have eagerly seized upon Kashmir as the
central problem besetting the region. This is an erroneous concept, a most fallacious and superficial view that has impaired western policy quite unnecessarily and impeded the search for solution of the problem of that unfortunate region. Even reputed South Asian scholar Stanley Wolpert sometime ago and Prime Minister Blair most recently among others, have reportedly endorsed this view which is indicative of how widespread this
misconception is. Despite the fact that all quarters are urging a resolution of this issue, which is certainly desirable, pushing India however cannot resolve it and Pakistan into futile talks destined not to bear fruit.

The fact is that Kashmir although presently a flash point and undergoing an "insurgency" of a sort is not the central problem of the region but actually only a peripheral one, although closely connected to the central problem and its most intense manifestation. Instead the world will have to recognize that the central problem of the region is within Pakistan itself, in the acute, inherent and chronic instability of its internal political setup, indeed in the very nature of the state, as it has been allowed to evolve as a result of the military usurpation of power in 1958.

The year 1958 is the political singularity of the region of South Asia, the point of the "Big Bang" so to speak, to which can be traced directly and indirectly, all the distortions and aberrations in the body politic of South
Asia and beyond that afflict the region today. Pakistan's misfortune was to inherit a military bureaucracy from the British that consisted predominantly of one minority ethnic group, the punjabis, dwellers of the central region
of the Punjab who constitute about 23 percent of the population of Pakistan and about 40 percent of the population of the Punjab itself. The 1958 takeover transformed this ethnic minority into Pakistan's dominant ethnic elite who now jealously guard and nurture the army as an exclusive Punjabi enclave to the exclusion of all other Pakistanis and have imposed a clever pseudo democracy which is much lauded by ignorant analysts and columnists of the West. Behind this facade it is the military that continues to call all the shots, in all civilian and military affairs. This is what Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee means when he absolves Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government of any role at all in the present war in Kashmir.

The 1958 takeover was conducted (and this is the crux of the matter) with the express purpose to concentrate power into punjabi military hands and preempt the parliament or legislative assembly from formulating a constitution based on the Lahore Resolution of 1940, which was the agreed basis of the state by the peoples of Pakistan and which envisaged a loose confederate structure, the constituent units of which were to be "sovereign
and free".  Instead the army has imposed an unnatural and artificial structure, that of a highly centralized and militarized state bent on the ruthless and rapacious internal colonization of non punjabi nationalities and ethnic groups and the loot of their resources, and characterized by massive corruption and unfettered abuse of national, democratic, human, women and religious minorities rights which has gotten more brazen since the nuclear detonations last year. Taking advantage of western political expediency it has acquired a strong "Serbian" character and since the emergence of Bangladesh has made use of mass rape as a weapon of war much before the European Serbs had even thought of it.

This "punjabi" military establishment over the last four decades has increasingly had to rely on the Kashmir issue, "Islamic" credentials and the Indian bogey so as to counter its isolation stemming from the subversion of the legitimate democratic aspirations of the Pakistani peoples and to provide the justification for punjabi military dominance on all issues. Of the same undemocratic character, it has had to ally itself closely with and to abet the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in the region, which promises to become the West's most ominous challenge in the not too distant future. It is this reliance on fundamentalist ideology and elements that has transformed Kashmir from a mere border dispute with India into the raison deter of the Pakistan military, and into its justification for usurping power to maintain a strong army and a highly centralized state.

The 1958 takeover created an aberration in the geopolitics of South Asia in that it has brought a concentration of power, out of all proportion, in the hands of a 23% ethnic minority. The influence this minority enjoys due to
its hold on this power is without parallel. It commands the entire area extending from the mouth of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea to Afghanistan up to the borders of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and Chinese Turkestan ! Its close alliance with Islamic fundamentalism enables it to create tensions in Kashmir, amongst the Uighurs in Xinjiang, in Afghanistan and the Commonwealth of Independent states!

The real danger of the of Pakistan's Punjabi military establishment nuclear arsenal is that the insecurity of this minority may lead it to use the bomb for the mere defense of its narrow 23% interest and condemn millions to
become the victims of a quite undeserved nuclear holocaust! Recently SIPR a European think tank of Stockholm has termed Pakistan policy of first use as the biggest threat to peace in the region. Western analysts and policy
makers would do well to view the history of Pakistan after 1958 as a constant and unceasing struggle of the Pakistani peoples to secure back their usurped national and democratic rights against the punjabi ethnic
elite bent on the loot of their resources and monopolizing absolute power through their control of the army.

The rise of PONAM (Pakistan's Oppressed Nations Movement) on Pakistan's current political scene is testimony of this ongoing struggle today. This struggle endows the Pakistani State structure with massive inherent
instability, which in 1971 lead to the breakup of the state and the emergence of Bangladesh. The rise of PONAM is also testimony that since that time this internal instability has gotten worse. Indeed, in many regions of
Pakistan an invading army today would be welcomed as liberators. Since that fateful year Pakistanis have always known that their corrupt army will not fight a conventional war with another army, not for country, nor honor, nor glory. The Punjabi military establishment since that shameful debacle is aware of this and desperate to protect this ruthless and corrupt state structure both from internal as well as external forces has so far been confidently crushing internal dissent quite ruthlessly without fear of repercussions abroad, using its position as a "convenient ally" but its fear of a 1971 replay by external forces has been the main driving force behind its single minded pursuit to acquire nuclear armaments. Indeed the majority of Pakistani peoples perceive the bomb as an instrument to prolong their bondage to a ruthless establishment. Clearly, therefore, the issue of Kashmir and its resolution is inseparable from the issue of the resolution of the general national question in Pakistan and the return to democratic rule.

Lord Nazir Ahmed of UK should know this as do most indigenous Kashmiris (who are Kashmiri speaking) but do not support being part of Pakistan because they would be merely another colony of the central Punjab and because the quantum of autonomy Kashmir presently enjoys in India is much higher than the provinces do in Pakistan. If at all, they are more supportive of the third option, that of an independent Kashmir than union with Pakistan. Only Kashmiris of Punjabi descent (a minority) favor the idea of union with Pakistan and are the Pakistan army's proxy in the insurgency in the valley.
The Kashmir problem will not just be willed away nor let itself be subjected to makeshift solutions such as turning the Line of Control into a permanent boundary. It will have to be addressed at the root - the instability of the internal political set up of Pakistan resulting from an unnatural highly centralized state structure. This is the issue towards which western policy and US must be directed. This will be in consonance with US policy in South Asia whose cornerstone has always been a stable Pakistan.

Specifically then to bring this about US policy must take steps to achieve the following:

The West must lead the UNO and world community to outlaw the first use of nuclear weapons at least in South Asia by both its nuclear adversaries. Military and political leaders ordering, or even advocating first use be
declared war criminals and prosecuted.

To press forcefully for proportionate regional representation to be created within the army bureaucracy for all non-Punjabi nationalities as a first step towards the de-punjabisation of the Pakistan army.

Must force the complete decentralization of political power in Pakistan and the creation of autonomous regions based on the Lahore Resolution of 1940, which is the only legitimate framework widely acceptable to the peoples of Pakistan at large, with one important exception based only on the principle of genuine historical legitimacy - the bifurcation of the Punjab into two autonomous regions/provinces, Siraiki and Punjabi. This is important to
secure siraiki historical rights and to ensure that no one region will tend to dominate other regions and create dis-equilibrium.

The sovereignty of this confederate structure be guaranteed jointly, most notably by the US but also by regional powers India and China. In return for their national rights the newly created autonomous regions should not find
it hard to consent to roll back Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.

US policy must strive to maintain the balance amongst political forces within Pakistan or it will lose all leverage. Any further consolidation of Punjabi economic and political power in Pakistan will result in an increasing loss of leverage for the US and is not in Western interest.

It is imperative that the US ensure that the persecution of political parties, of the media and of the judiciary is stopped forthwith and most importantly, that the "Punjabi" establishment strictly adhere to the 1945 Water Accord Treaty and scrap all plans to create illegal dams such as Kalabagh Dam, and must press for the closure of the illegal Chasma - Jehlum Link canal.

The US should encourage the formation of a joint front of political parties (such as the  ANP, BNP, MQM and others to close ranks with PONM) that are agreed on a common agenda of decentralization and democratization and demilitarization of Pakistan, along the lines described above in order to create a mechanism to oversee this transformation and to hold free and fair elections in Pakistan.

To close, Kashmir, as an issue will come down to its true proportions once the question of nationalities is resolved in Pakistan and the causes of its instability removed. Without the support of a strong militarized state the
level of "insurgency" in Kashmir should come down too. It will bring normalcy to the entire region including Afghanistan, with the cutoff of similar support to the Taliban. The way should then be clear for a unification of the two Kashmirs under generous autonomy terms. Thus a buffer will have been created to shield South Asia from any kind of Central Asian adventurism and stability will have been brought to the region. A dangerously unstable state will have been de-nuclearized creating the opportunity for India to review its nuclear option too. More importantly, for the West, it would be a blow to the forces of Islamic fundamentalism and the region can go on to develop democracy and open markets and join the global economy.