23-Oct-2013 • Chris C.
How did the events of September 11, 2001, change the situation in South Asia? How did the attitudes of the governments of India and Pakistan change? What opportunities and constraints did they see?
The events of September 11, 2001 had a significant impact on South Asia. The attitudes of the governments of both India and Pakistan were forced to change in the wake. The Pakistani government recognized that if it did not appear to be cooperative in rooting out the perpetrators of 9/11 that it would find itself centered in the crosshairs of the United States. President Bush had in no uncertain terms made it clear that those that were not on the side of the U.S. would be seen as enemies. This left Musharraf concerned with Pakistan’s position in Kashmir and the standing of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. Limited cooperation with the U.S. was considered a better alternative. For Pakistan, this meant modifying its position of supporting Islamist organizations that were vehemently anti-American and adopting a more permissive attitude towards U.S. involvement in south Asia. As a part of this, Pakistan slowly opened up parts of its airspace, bases, and supply routes, began sharing intelligence, and generally speaking, started openly working with the U.S., at times grudgingly, on its global counterterrorism mission.
India’s cold attitude towards the U.S., a remnant of its close Cold War relationship with the former Soviet Union, warmed in the aftermath of 9/11. The U.S. was already looking at India as a solution to future south Asian issues, and in the eyes of Indians, what happened on 9/11 had been happening in Kashmir for the previous 10 years. Attitudes changed, in part, as many began to see the potential for a shared security relationship between India and the United States. The other part of the equation was that India saw an opportunity to change the narrative on Kashmir. By driving home the parallels between Islamist terrorism in Kashmir and increasingly in India (e.g., the state legislature attack and the Indian parliament attack) with acts of terrorism in the West, India was effectively able to multilateralize the Kashmir conflict which had been mostly dealt with at arms length by the international community prior to the early two-thousands.
Pakistan was largely constrained after 9/11. Having been involved in the massive rise of mujahideen during the Afghan-Russian War in the 1980’s, Pakistan had maintained ties to militant organizations and the Taliban throughout the 1990’s and was actively using militants against India to negate its absence of strategic depth. However, after 9/11 Pakistan faced the dilemma of how to achieve its objectives as there were blatant ties between those whom the U.S. saw as enemies and Pakistan. Moreover, it became hard for militants in India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka to defend their separatist motives in their use of violence. Despite these constraints, Pakistan also had opportunities following 9/11. One of the primary benefits that the Pakistani government realized from the U.S. involvement in south Asia was the use of U.S. drones. The government aided the U.S. in targeting its own internal opposition. It also continues to afford the Pakistani government with a level of buffering for actions against militant organizations which are politically sensitive. Lastly, Pakistan has been greatly rewarded financially in terms of aid coming from the U.S. since 9/11 as a result of its cooperation. For its cooperation, long standing sanctions were dropped and billions of dollars of aid, preferential trade options, soft loans and extensive debt relief from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund came its way.
Discuss the factors that lead to insurgency and terrorism in Kashmir?
There are many factors that have led to insurgency and terrorism in Kashmir over the years. With historic roots, the violence in Kashmir dates back to 1947 when the first Indo-Pakistani war was fought over the disputed territory. India desired to integrate Kashmir in order to prove its secularity, while Pakistan wished to integrate Kashmir because of the number of Muslims living there. Fearing autonomy would lead Kashmiris to lean one direction or the other, Kashmir has predominantly remained in the middle of an interstate tug-of-war for the past 6 decades. Failing to hold a plebiscite in 1948, tensions persisted and a resolution over the territorial dispute was not found. Ultimately, this led to an Indo-Pakistani war in 1965, and most recently in 1999, but the majority of the violence related to the territorial dispute has been in the form of an internal insurgency.
Disputes over local autonomy and failed democratic development only served to grow tensions. In 1987, a disputed state election resulted in the widespread formation of armed insurgent groups. A full fledged secessionist ethnoreligious insurgency was underway in Indian Kashmir by 1989. Not created in a vacuum, violence in Kashmir has been the result of political economy failures colliding with regional factors. Becoming a proxy war between India and Pakistan, insurgency violence was led by Islamists whom were controlled closely by the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment, a relationship which stemmed from the massive militancy network that was erected to defeat the Soviets in the Soviet-Afghan war beginning in the early 1980’s.
Early in the insurgency, the terrorist organizations carrying out attacks in Kashmir were mainly ethnic Kashmiri. However, by 1996, this shifted as many of the organizations and fighters involved in the Soviet-Afghan war had changed their focus to Kashmir following the wars end. Having been trained and armed by the U.S., Saudi, Pakistan machine put in place to counter the Soviets in the Afghan conflict, foreign fighters escalated the level and type of violence in Kashmir. Indeed, terrorist groups led by ethnic Kashmiris like Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin were moved to the side as Pakistani-run groups such as the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, and more recently, the Jaish-e-Mohammad took over the conflict.
Kashmir became such a focal point as it was a part of Pakistan’s strategy to weaken India. As mentioned, both India and Pakistan were engaged in a proxy war in Kashmir, but for Pakistan, by maintaining a high level of intensity in the region would force India to commit forces and redirect resources that could otherwise be used towards an assault on Pakistan. In essence, it was a strategy which forced India to preoccupy itself with internal security rather than look outward. Moreover, the strategy allowed for continual low-intensity conflict that was in most cases plausibly deniable despite Pakistan’s hand suspected of being behind most of the terrorist incidents. This was in an attempt to gradually drain the Indian state of resources and will over time.
Today, the insurgency and violence is at a low-simmer as militant violence has moved beyond Kashmir into a broader Islamist movement. A far cry from the early 1990’s, even LeT no longer focusses on Kashmir.
Discuss the increase in terrorist violence in India beyond Kashmir over the last decade.
Terrorist violence in India has moved beyond Kashmir over the past decade. With widespread terrorism occurring in Kashmir during the 1990’s as the militant insurgency was in full swing, 9/11 brought about significant change. Following the Soviet-Afghan war, Islamic extremists flocked to Kashmir to continue the struggle against non-believers. Operating under the protection, and often times, direction and aid of the Pakistani government, the militants utilized the massive network and infrastructure that was in place to wage war against the Indian government. However, the events of September 11th drew a direct connection to the ties between al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, and the Pakistan-based groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed which were actively operating in Kashmir. This changed how Pakistan handled the terrorist organizations it sponsored, but it also forced Pakistan to turn its attention internally as the U.S. began its global war on terrorism.
Over the past decade, there are strong indications that Pakistan has tried to further distance itself from the acts of violence it sponsors. It appears that a strategy that emphasizes two degrees of separation has been adopted. The ISI’s ties to LeT which run the Indian Mujahedeen is a prime example. Additionally, it is important to note that sponsorship can be either direct training and material support, or as little as looking the other way as terrorists operate internally. Given the nature of attacks in the recent past, sponsorship in Pakistan is probably leaning towards the latter. During the 1990’s Pakistan had much stronger hold on sponsored organizations, but it is hard to say how much control the state has over militant groups today as the political elite have abandoned the idea of state sponsorship and little is known to what extent the tactic is still practiced by the Pakistani military/intelligence. It is known that today most of the extremist organizations are more financially autonomous and that some of the groups have even turned on Pakistan following its complicity with the U.S. This undoubtedly highlights the existence of distance between Pakistan and the groups it closely sponsored of yesteryear.
9/11 also signaled the ability of militants to reach out and strike large powers. Al-Qa’ida named India alongside the United States and Israel as an enemy of Islam following 9/11. This fact, shows that there was intent to grow the violence beyond the traditional confines where acts of terrorism historically have taken place (i.e., Kashmir). Indeed, since 9/11, all high profile attacks in India have taken place outside of Kashmir. The December 13, 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, the 7/11 Mumbai train bombings, and the November 26, 2008 Mumbai attack are good examples of such attacks. This morphosis of the Islamist movement has even led former Kashmir focussed groups, like the LeT, to focus almost solely outside of Kashmir.
Moreover, there are larger indications that violence will follow its current trajectory of targeting India as a whole opposed to just in Kashmir. These indicators include the type of attacks that are being seen, the statements of prominent extremist leaders, the fact that homegrown terrorism in India is on the rise, and generally, the expansion of the targeting strategy. Suicide bombings were non-existent in India prior to the two-thousands and it appears that a culture of Jihad has expanded across India from the influence of foreign fights which originally took up positions in Kashmir. The birth of the Indian Mujahideen movement is an example of a rise in homegrown terrorists in India which threatens India outside of Kashmir.