THE LONGEST AUGUST
The Unflinching Rivalry between India and Pakistan
Dilip Hiro
Nation Books; 528 pages; Rs 599
England and France, two neighbouring countries divided by a narrow channel of water, fought a famous Hundred Years War that ended in 1453. Most of Europe, too, fought internecine wars almost continuously throughout medieval and modern times, attaining lasting peace only after World War II. Perhaps this long history of war and violence is repeating itself, without leaving any lessons, in the case of the partitioned neighbours of India and Pakistan. The bone of contention is the status of divided Jammu and Kashmir and in spite of wars fought in 1947-48, 1965 and 1999, India and Pakistan have not been able to find an amicable and reasonable settlement of the dispute.
The British were busy engaging Indians in the Round Table conferences in the early 1930s on the basis of the sectarian representation of Dalits, Muslims, princes and the Congress party. Inevitably, every discussion in these conferences led to more divisions among Indians - and the solutions evolved on the basis of conflict-resolution strategies set out by British arbiters.
The other important point Dilip Hiro has emphasised is that the Congress-Muslim League rivalry was also exacerbated by the Hindu elements within the Congress provincial governments in 1937-1939 by publicly identifying with overt Hindu symbols, such as the hymn Vande Mataram. The growing cleavage between the two communities may have led the great propagator of the two-nation theory to exclaim on the eve of Partition, "What have I done?" But it would be more appropriate to ask what the British had done: by partitioning India on sectarian-religious considerations they did what they had done to Ireland in 1921.
The second part of the book is devoted to the genesis of the Kashmir dispute and the role of state actors in both countries in finding some workable solution. A Hindu maharaja, Hari Singh, is the real villain; he waited till October 26, 1947, to sign the Instrument of Accession to India so that the Indian army could legitimately confront Pakistan-supported invaders in Kashmir. The war of 1947-1948 was inconclusive and partitioned Kashmir became a reality, leading to the suffering of separated Kashmiris on the Line of Control between India and Pakistan. This dispute pushed Pakistan into the US orbit; later, China also became an active player in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to the detriment of Indian interests.
The author has correctly highlighted the role of jingoist and the ultra-religious groups both in India and Pakistan that prevented even reasonable solutions from succeeding. He is critical of then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's Forward Policy, which he rightly thinks led to the Sino-Indian Border War of 1962. But he concedes that Nehru, who wanted some solution of the Kashmir dispute by involving Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in the negotiations, could not move forward because of hardened so-called nationalist public opinion in India against any concession to Pakistan. And in the aftermath of the 1962 war, rightist forces in India put a brake on every initiative by Nehru.
Chapter 14 is important because it shows how India-Pakistan bilateral relations became quite conflicted when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government proclaimed India a nuclear-weapon state in May 1999 and, in the same month, not to be left behind, Pakistan also enhanced its capacity to arm itself with nuclear weapons. After the Kargil War of 1999, Pakistan realised that "conventional war with India was not winnable so it launched a low-intensity proxy war in Kashmir to keep the pot boiling". The war in Afghanistan changed the game altogether, and the Kashmir question got linked with the Taliban of Afghanistan, who were sent to "destabilise" the Indian side of Kashmir.
A simplistic section of Indian strategic think tanks have argued that extremist Hindu rashtravadis like Mr Vajpayee and Narendra Modi can resolve this dispute by making Hindu fundamentalists see reason, and that in Pakistan, it is not the politicians but the army that can arrive at a negotiated settlement because it is the institution that has to be convinced about the futility of this rivalry.
Mr Hiro does a competent job outlining a complex, often contradictory and seemingly unending dispute. The problem lies with the final chapter, which is full of cliches such as how people-to-people relations can smooth the feelings of peace-loving peoples on both sides of the border and so on. It is easier to suggest a humanistic approach than to convince rulers who are determined to confront one another on the basis of their growing military and nuclear power.
The Unflinching Rivalry between India and Pakistan
Dilip Hiro
Nation Books; 528 pages; Rs 599
England and France, two neighbouring countries divided by a narrow channel of water, fought a famous Hundred Years War that ended in 1453. Most of Europe, too, fought internecine wars almost continuously throughout medieval and modern times, attaining lasting peace only after World War II. Perhaps this long history of war and violence is repeating itself, without leaving any lessons, in the case of the partitioned neighbours of India and Pakistan. The bone of contention is the status of divided Jammu and Kashmir and in spite of wars fought in 1947-48, 1965 and 1999, India and Pakistan have not been able to find an amicable and reasonable settlement of the dispute.
Also Read
In 20 well-written chapters the author meticulously collates the evidence to establish how this seemingly intractable dispute was essentially a consequence of the policies pursued by the British. The first five chapters are devoted to an account of the activities of the British colonial rulers, the Mahatma Gandhi-led national movement for independence without partition and the evolution of the Muslim's League's two-nation theory. These chapters clearly show that the domestic situation was moving slowly towards Partition.
The British were busy engaging Indians in the Round Table conferences in the early 1930s on the basis of the sectarian representation of Dalits, Muslims, princes and the Congress party. Inevitably, every discussion in these conferences led to more divisions among Indians - and the solutions evolved on the basis of conflict-resolution strategies set out by British arbiters.
The other important point Dilip Hiro has emphasised is that the Congress-Muslim League rivalry was also exacerbated by the Hindu elements within the Congress provincial governments in 1937-1939 by publicly identifying with overt Hindu symbols, such as the hymn Vande Mataram. The growing cleavage between the two communities may have led the great propagator of the two-nation theory to exclaim on the eve of Partition, "What have I done?" But it would be more appropriate to ask what the British had done: by partitioning India on sectarian-religious considerations they did what they had done to Ireland in 1921.
The second part of the book is devoted to the genesis of the Kashmir dispute and the role of state actors in both countries in finding some workable solution. A Hindu maharaja, Hari Singh, is the real villain; he waited till October 26, 1947, to sign the Instrument of Accession to India so that the Indian army could legitimately confront Pakistan-supported invaders in Kashmir. The war of 1947-1948 was inconclusive and partitioned Kashmir became a reality, leading to the suffering of separated Kashmiris on the Line of Control between India and Pakistan. This dispute pushed Pakistan into the US orbit; later, China also became an active player in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to the detriment of Indian interests.
The author has correctly highlighted the role of jingoist and the ultra-religious groups both in India and Pakistan that prevented even reasonable solutions from succeeding. He is critical of then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's Forward Policy, which he rightly thinks led to the Sino-Indian Border War of 1962. But he concedes that Nehru, who wanted some solution of the Kashmir dispute by involving Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in the negotiations, could not move forward because of hardened so-called nationalist public opinion in India against any concession to Pakistan. And in the aftermath of the 1962 war, rightist forces in India put a brake on every initiative by Nehru.
Chapter 14 is important because it shows how India-Pakistan bilateral relations became quite conflicted when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government proclaimed India a nuclear-weapon state in May 1999 and, in the same month, not to be left behind, Pakistan also enhanced its capacity to arm itself with nuclear weapons. After the Kargil War of 1999, Pakistan realised that "conventional war with India was not winnable so it launched a low-intensity proxy war in Kashmir to keep the pot boiling". The war in Afghanistan changed the game altogether, and the Kashmir question got linked with the Taliban of Afghanistan, who were sent to "destabilise" the Indian side of Kashmir.
A simplistic section of Indian strategic think tanks have argued that extremist Hindu rashtravadis like Mr Vajpayee and Narendra Modi can resolve this dispute by making Hindu fundamentalists see reason, and that in Pakistan, it is not the politicians but the army that can arrive at a negotiated settlement because it is the institution that has to be convinced about the futility of this rivalry.
Mr Hiro does a competent job outlining a complex, often contradictory and seemingly unending dispute. The problem lies with the final chapter, which is full of cliches such as how people-to-people relations can smooth the feelings of peace-loving peoples on both sides of the border and so on. It is easier to suggest a humanistic approach than to convince rulers who are determined to confront one another on the basis of their growing military and nuclear power.