Nuclear - Articles

How severe is the linkage between Pakistan’s nuclear programme and Kashmir? The report believes: While that (nuclear) programme (of Pakistan) was originally a response to India’s, confrontation over Kashmir has had much to do with the pace at which has been pursued. Is this assertion true? Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme was a post 1971 phenomenon and not a response to what happened in 1947-48. The 1970s and early 1980s, in which Pakistan’s nuclear programme developed and matured also witnessed Pakistan’s complete lack of interest in Kashmir. Kashmir was not the reason for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme. As a corollary one can also assume resolving Kashmir conflict would not result Pakistan giving up its nuclear weapons. Presuming that India decides to hand over the entire Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan, would the latter then give up its nuclear weapons?

No doubt, as the report says “Pakistan’s nuclear capability has added a new dimension to the (Kashmir) dispute”, but in no way Kashmir was the reason for Pakistan’s decision to build nuclear weapons. What the nuclear weapons have provided Pakistani military was a sense of security (perhaps false) to pursue a vigorous Kashmir policy. The report catches the military mind set and says: The Pakistani military believes that the benefits of its interventionist policy in Kashmir far outweigh potential costs in part because the nuclear shield now protects Pakistan from an Indian conventional attack.

How does Pakistan perceive militancy in Kashmir? The report is candid: Pakistani policymakers believe that the armed resistance to Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir has re-established the dispute as a major regional concern in the eyes of the international community.. As such, notwithstanding the terrorist label, the international community attaches to it, the insurgency is considered on balance to advance Pakistan’s bargaining position.

As long as the policy makers believe that militancy can be used as a tool to achieve political objectives in Kashmir the militants would continue to be ‘mujahideens’ or ‘jihadis’ in their perceptions. How to keep the conflict alive? How to pressurize India to negotiate with Pakistan? How to make the Kashmiris believe that they have not given up their cause yet? Militancy fits as a tool to answer these questions. However, militancy would remain as a tool only as long as the militants play to their master’s tunes. What if the objectives of the two – militants in Kashmir and military in Pakistan differ? Signs of this difference are already visible.

Can any state control the monsters irrespective of they being their creation? Once they are frankensteined and provided with a cause and supplied with arms, there is no way they could be controlled. History in the region is replete with the intelligence agencies creating forces with the false notions that the latter would be their stooges. The CIA tried with Osama bin Laden; RAW with the LTTE and ISI with the Taliban. The results are known and need not be underlined.

The report also takes into account the changed nature of militancy in Kashmir from a secular indigenous to “a more militant religiously oriented movement.” The change obviously has its own adverse implications for Pakistan’s internal security and also for the militant movement. The report admits: The introduction of Islamic militants, Kashmiri and non-Kashmiri, has eroded international support for Kashmir’s struggle and has also had an adverse impact on Pakistan’s internal security.

In the last couple of years, there has been an increasing realization, at least in the academic circles that Pakistan’s jihad policy in Kashmir is dangerous. A cursory look at the articles written in the recent past would reveal this realization. Though the changed perception is limited to only abandoning the jihad policy and not Kashmir, this perception, it is doubtful whether has been shared by the majority inside the military. The report says that the Pakistani decision makers “are hesitant to abandon this policy in the belief that it is still paying dividends and that an end to militancy would remove any pressure on India to negotiate.”

Is militancy a factor from the Indian perspective to negotiate with Pakistan? No doubt, militancy has kept Kashmir alive, as the blood flow never stopped, though the flow waxed and waned depending on the season.. However, India refused to negotiate under pressure through militancy. In fact one of the reasons for India not negotiating with Pakistan has been that of cross border terrorism. India has been insisting that unless cross border terrorism stops it would not negotiate. Militancy has kept Kashmir conflict alive but never pressured India to negotiate with Pakistan. Rather India was willing to risk a war – limited or otherwise if militancy continues unabated.