Kashmir dispute: security & human rights challenges

Even an inadvertent mistake at the LoC can ignite a military exchange that could flare up into a full scale war

The current phase of the Kashmiri uprising against brutal Indian occupation and indiscriminate use of force to bludgeon the Kashmiris into submission has once again raised the spectre of conflict between two nuclear powers whose troops are in eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation along the Line of Control (LoC) while human-rights violations continue to spiral out of control. Therefore, these security and human rights challenges pose a clear danger which neither Pakistan nor India or the international community can afford to ignore. After the 1998 nuclear tests by India followed by Pakistan, then US president Bill Clinton correctly called Kashmir “the most dangerous place in the world” in 2000. Earlier, the UN Security Council’s unanimous resolution 1172, adopted after the 1998 nuclear tests, urged India and Pakistan to, intra alia, “find mutually acceptable solutions that address the root causes of their tensions, including Kashmir”. This resolution reinforced the earlier Security Council resolutions calling for a plebiscite in Kashmir as a solution to the dispute. The international community had thus once again recognised that the Kashmir dispute is at the front and centre of the confrontation between Pakistan and India, this time involving nuclear weapons.

While most Indians have dismissed such a scenario, the fact remains that thousands of Pakistani and Indian troops confront each other across the LoC, where even an inadvertent mistake can ignite a military exchange that could flare up into a full-scale war and push both sides upon the short escalation ladder to the use of nuclear weapons.

While it is true that mutually-assured destruction ensures credible deterrence between Pakistan and India, this is no guarantee against accidental or inadvertent use. Besides, deterrence is prone to be susceptible to the stability-instability paradox, which holds that either side can, on the assumption of deterrence stability, take aggressive measures that can undermine the deterrence itself.

If deterrence was considered precarious in 1998, it is in a worse state now owing to Indian conventional and strategic military build-up, especially India’s Cold Start doctrine of fighting a limited conventional war with Pakistan “under a nuclear overhang” or, to put it simply, despite the existence of nuclear deterrence. To operationalise Cold Start, India has not only been building up its conventional military forces, 80 per cent of which are diverted against Pakistan, but has also vastly increased its nuclear warheads along with short, medium and long-range ballistic missile delivery systems, which include submarine-launched ballistic missiles. In the (mistaken) belief that it can protect itself against Pakistani retaliation, India is also developing a ballistic missile defence system, the utility of which is questionable, even for a great nuclear power such as the US. However, it is the belief that India can defend itself against a nuclear adversary, which can persuade it to take steps that can undermine nuclear deterrence. This is exactly what the stability-instability paradox maintains.

Unlike Clinton, his successors, Presidents Bush and Obama, remained oblivious to these dangers or were blinded by their shortsighted objective of using India to contain China, facilitating the Indian military build-up, which has already gravely destabilised security in South Asia. Instead of restraining India, the US provided weapons and technologies to enhance Indian conventional and strategic capabilities while leaning on Pakistan to show unilateral restraint, even if this undermined its security. It is no wonder then that Pakistan-US relations are now in a state of free-fall. If the Americans continue to remain in denial, then they run the risk of promoting a potential nuclear confrontation in South Asia. The US and other Western powers also cannot remain aloof from the blatant human-rights violations of the Kashmiris in view of their self-proclaimed commitment to protection of human rights. One can clearly draw a comparison between their passive response over the plight of Kashmiri Muslims and their hyperventilating reactions to human-rights violations of Christians and Jews in other parts of the world, such as in East Timor and South Sudan, among others.

The West has conveniently accepted the Indian canard that occupied Kashmir is peaceful where Gandhian non-violence is the order of the day. They have brushed aside the facts — that the valley is the most militarised part of the world with more than 700,000 Indian troops, with a legally sanctioned licence to kill, rape, torture and imprison defenceless Kashmiri men, women and children with impunity. The truth, however, has been exposed by independent sources such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as well as leading Western media sources.

The UN secretary general has also expressed concerns, as has the OIC. But the international official most relevant to the issue — the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights — has so far remained silent, allegedly enjoying his holiday, which incidentally, did not prevent him from issuing a highly unwarranted statement of concern over recent developments in Turkey. Such dereliction of duty by the high commissioner only serves to confirm the belief among many that he is waiting for instructions from Washington.

Despite their myriad adversities, the Kashmiri people have waged a valiant struggle for self-determination. The more India tries to suppress them, the greater becomes their resolve to overthrow the yoke of Indian occupation. India can ignore this reality to its overt peril and will continue to bleed. Meanwhile, the Kashmiri leadership must remain focused on its movement for freedom and self-determination.

For Pakistan, there can be no compromise on the right of Kashmiri self-determination. The Pakistani government has finally realised the futility of pursuing a sterile dialogue with India that does not address the Kashmir dispute, which is the root cause of bilateral tensions. Meanwhile, the Kashmir powder keg fully justifies Pakistan’s efforts to ensure credible deterrence in response to Indian adventurism. We need to redouble our efforts to support the peaceful Kashmir struggle for self-determination. And we can afford to wait until the Indians are ready to resolve this dispute through dialogue.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 6^th, 2016.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.