Future Uncertain: Indian Security Policy Approaches the Millenium.

AuthorGanguly, Sumit

Introduction

As the end of the millennium approaches, Indian defense policy is in disarray A number of factors have led to a lack of clear goals and objectives. During much of the Cold War, Indian defense planners were preoccupied with the three major threats of a possible Chinese incursion, Pakistani attempts to seize or foment discontent in the state of Jammu, and Kashmir and other various threats to internal stability and security. The end of the Cold War has not fundamentally altered India's principal security concerns. However, many of the components of the strategy that it had devised to cope with these threats are no longer in place.

India's domestic resources and efforts were sufficient to cope with the Pakistani threat and internal security threats. The Chinese threat, however, required support from allies. In its efforts to cope with this threat, the Indian political leadership carefully forged a relationship with the Soviet Union in the 1960s and the 1970s. The Soviets, keen on limiting both Chinese and American influence in South Asia, supported India's position on the Kashmir issue, supplied India with a range of sophisticated weaponry at highly favorable rates and opened markets to a plethora of Indian consumer goods.(1)

The end of the Cold War abruptly loosened many of these familiar moorings of Indian defense policy. Russia saw little need to perpetuate the strategic nexus that had linked India and the former Soviet Union. Accordingly, it was no longer willing to provide India with weaponry at highly concessional rates. Nor was it ready to unequivocally support its position on the Kashmir question. Having failed to anticipate the sudden collapse of the Soviet bloc, India's political-military leadership suddenly found itself in uncharted territory as the long-familiar anchors had suddenly disappeared from the international arena.

As early as 1989, Indian policymakers started to improve relations with China. New Delhi had to make disproportionate concessions to obtain Chinese cooperation.(2) Indian diplomacy, although unable to neutralize the Chinese threat, nevertheless succeeded in reducing it to more manageable proportions as the two sides agreed on mutual troop withdrawals and a series of other confidence and security-building measures.(3)

Even though India's policymakers had demonstrated dexterity in reducing tensions with China, they did not display similar skill in improving relations with India's long-standing adversary, Pakistan. Nor did they show much ingenuity in coping with a variety of internal conflicts. On the contrary, the policies adopted in the domestic realm promoted and exacerbated incipient conflicts. Consequently, three threats remained at the end of the Cold War: the Pakistani irredentist claim to Kashmir, the Chinese capability threat and internal conflicts.

The Challenges Ahead

As India approaches the end of the century, what then are the principal threats to its security and how is it gearing up to cope with them? This essay will seek to address these questions.

Pakistan's Territorial Claims

Pakistan remains India's principal adversary. Although a variety of other issues divide the two states, the principal source of discord stems from the disputed status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan's claim to Kashmir is irredentist. Its leaders have long argued that Pakistan remains "incomplete" without Kashmir because of its predominantly Muslim composition and its territorial contiguity.(4) India has held half of Kashmir with a tenacity equal only to Pakistan's hold of the other half of the region. Initially, India sought to demonstrate Kashmir's secular status, but later it claimed the imperatives of retaining all of Kashmir for the purposes of state-building and national cohesion. Unbridled escalation of the conflict within Kashmir could conceivably draw India into another war with Pakistan.

Since their emergence as independent states from the detritus of the British Indian empire, India and Pakistan have fought each other in three wars, in 1947 to 1948, 1965 and 1971. The origins of the first two conflicts can be traced to Pakistan's attempts to forcibly seize Kashmir from India. The first Indo-Pakistani war of 1947 to 1948 left Pakistan in control of one-third of Kashmir. The second Indo-Pakistani war of 1965 resulted in some critical Indian territorial gains including the capture of the strategic Haji Pir Pass. Most of these battlefield gains were ceded to Pakistan, however, at the Soviet-sponsored talks in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, as part of the post-war settlement. The third IndoPakistani war was fought in 1971. This resulted in the breakup of East from West Pakistan and the creation of the independent state of Bangladesh.(5)

After the war of 1971, the conflict over Kashmir remained largely dormant. It was not until 1989, when an ethno-religious insurgency abruptly erupted in the Kashmir valley, that Pakistan found a new opportunity to re-open the dispute. The roots of the 1989 insurgency are quintessentially indigenous and can be traced to the exigencies of Indian domestic politics. However, systematic Pakistani training, material support and the provision of sanctuaries have greatly escalated the level of violence in Kashmir.(6) Recently, at least two major crises, in 1987 and 1990, have punctuated Indo-Pakistani relations.(7)

Since the onset of the conflict in 1989, India has pursued a counterinsurgency strategy, based upon its extremely successful experiences in the other parts of the country It has deployed approximately 400,000 security personnel in Kashmir, including troops of the Central Reserve Police Force, the Border Security Force, the Rashtriya Rifles (National Rifles, a specially constituted counterinsurgency force drawn from units of the Indian Army) and the Indian Army itself. The strategy involves the extensive use of numerically superior paramilitary forces and the Army's efforts to torment the insurgents. Given that it took close to two decades to quell the Naga and Mizo insurgencies in the northeast, the Indian authorities assume that time is on their side with this strategy.(8) When the will of the insurgents to continue fighting eventually wanes, the government offers to negotiate with them and hold elections. As long as former insurgents agree to uphold India's territorial integrity, they are allowed to participate in local elections and even assume political office. Unfortunately, this strategy may not work as well in Kashmir because there are a number of critical differences between India's northeast, the Punjab and Kashmir.

In the northeast, the Indian Army used force against the rebel Nagas and Mizos with impunity. Today, Indian forces are operating in Kashmir under the glare of foreign journalists and human rights observers who have documented numerous cases of torture and indiscriminate use of force. Consequently, the security forces have had to exercise more restraint than they demonstrated elsewhere, such as the northeastern states that were indisputably part of India. Finally, in the northeast and especially in the Punjab, only small numbers of the local population were disaffected from the Indian state. Despite the holding of a very successful and largely fair election in Kashmir in August 1997, large numbers of Kashmiris still remain alienated from the Indian state. India may have no alternative but to use force against those insurgents who remain intransigent. However, the newly elected government (September 1996) of Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah will have to devise a variety of other options and measures to restore the fractured rule of law in the state and win back the trust and confidence of the Kashmiris.

Chinese Power

The other external security threat that India faces is from China. After various attempts to negotiate a territorial settlement, talks finally collapsed in 1960. The Chinese eventually resorted to force against India in 1962. The Indian forces, grossly unprepared and poorly equipped for mountain warfare, suffered their most dramatic defeat in the post-independence era. At the end of this brief but brutal conflict the Chinese came to successfully occupy 14,000 square miles of territory before declaring a unilateral cease-fire.(9)

In the wake of the Sino-Indian border war India undertook a major effort to build up its military forces. The army's sanctioned strength was raised to a million soldiers, including the creation of 10 new divisions equipped and trained for mountain warfare. The air force sought to expand to 45 squadrons equipped with modern jet aircraft. Plans were also made for the modernization of the navy.

Despite some minor attempts at improvement, Sino-Indian relations remained largely frozen through the late 1970s. A serious border skirmish took place in 1967 near the Nathu La Pass. Additionally, China, although failing to assist Pakistan with material during the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, expressed political opposition to India. More recently, in 1986, the two militaries clashed at Sumdurong Chu near the China-Bhutan-India border.

Today, while India's conventional forces along the Himalayan border surpass China's military prowess, the latter excels in developing and...

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