Daily Times

Pakistan’s ex-ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani’s recently launched book, India vs Pakistan: Why Can’t We Just Be Friends? has several bits of poor insight. This opinion piece will only debate his insights into the Kashmir issue.

Haqqani is of the view that the Kashmir issue is a symptom and not a cause of acerbic ties between Pakistan and India, as mentioned on page 46, where he writes: “At closer examination, Kashmir is not the cause of conflict between the two states but rather a symptom of it.” That with the departure of bitter causes, the Kashmir issue being a symptom would automatically dissipate. In other words, the solution to the Kashmir issue is not an essential prerequisite for forging normal ties with India.

To substantiate his stance, Haqqani gives two main causes that engendered the conflict. The first cause was the mass murder of refugees while crossing the borders of Punjab and Bengal. For instance, on page nine, hewrites: “[T]he communal riots accompanying Partition resulted in at least half a million deaths and 10-14.5 million refugees, Muslims move to Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs to India… Those affected by the Partition violence in each country became a constituency for anger, bitterness and hostility towards the other. In Pakistan’s case that included most of its early political leaders, senior civil servants and many military officers.”

The second cause was India’s denying Pakistan the due share of assets. For instance, on page 17, Haqqani writes: “The Partition Plan of 3 June 1947 had given only seventy-two days for transition to Independence. But Pakistan, unlike India, did not have a functioning capital, central government or financial resources.” These were the two main causes that engendered bitterness, the expression of which was the Kashmir issue. Taken these two causes together, Haqqani has presumed that if the refugees had not suffered and the assets-delivery problem had not happened, bitterness in Pakistan against India would not have prevailed, and consequently, there would have been no Kashmir issue.

Interestingly, in this context of cause and effect relationship, on page 22, Haqqani negates a part of his own theory that the stoppage of the delivery of assets was the cause of the Kashmir conflict when he writes: “For some the dispute over Kashmir was a godsend. Patel, already unfavourably disposed to Pakistan, argued that Pakistan was now virtually at war with India and no country could be expected to arm or fund an adversary in the middle of war. This resulted in India withholding Pakistan’s share of assets located in India due to them under the Partition scheme.” That is, by blocking the delivery of due assets — after the Indian army landed in Kashmir on October 27 — India tried to stop Pakistan from or punish Pakistan for sending its army to Kashmir. However, Pakistan did not care about that.

This point alone shows that the Kashmir issue was not the symptom but the third cause on the list of sequential causes that contributed to the bitterness of partition. In fact, the first war Pakistan and India fought in 1947-1948 was on Kashmir, and not on the borders of Punjab and Bengal. Secondly, this war was fought on the land of Kashmir for Kashmir, after India invaded Kashmir, and not on the denial of assets. Thirdly, this war was not only the first Kashmir war between Pakistan and India but also the first Pak-India war on any issue. Fourthly, Pakistan fought this war despite being deprived of military assets and a decade before Pakistan joined defence alliances such as SEATO in 1954 and CENTO in 1955, which flooded Pakistan with weapons.

The transfer of the Kashmir issue from cause to symptom or effect is a deliberate attempt to reduce the importance and to attenuate the severity of the issue, the cost of which is being borne directly by Kashmiris living in the Indian-held Kashmir. The rationale for Haqqani’s such stance — the premise-conclusion relationship — can be understood when he delineates an itinerary for the issue’s resolution, as on page 61, he writes: “The experience of other countries embroiled in similar disputes indicates that the ‘friendship’ first approach works more effectively than ‘settlement first’.” This was a borrowed idea originally expounded by Professor Louis Kriesberg who invited attention of the world towards his theory of deescalation, which he propounded in the beginning of the post-Cold War era.

In 1991, on page 17 of the introduction chapter of his book, Timing the De-escalation of International Conflicts (co-ed with Stuart Thorson) Kriesberg writes: “The issues vary also in perceived importance — from vital to peripheral matters… It appears that in the long course of an international conflict relationship, effective de-escalation at the early stages of accommodation is achieved more often in peripheral issues than vital ones. Once some accommodative agreements have been reached, more significant ones can be attained …Linkage among many issues seems to work better after the overall intensity of a conflict has been reduced.” That means that the effective approach to the resolution of intractable issues is to resolve peripheral issues before the central issue. Kriesberg’s theory was considered a prophetic solution to all international intractable conflicts. Subsequently, everyone started seeing the utility of his theory in their sphere of study or concern.

Interestingly, over the period of two decades, Kriesberg has improved his theory, which now calls for the necessary involvement of a third party (one or multiple) to mediate. In 2012, on page 215 of chapter eight of his book, Constructive Conflicts: From Escalation to Resolution (co-author Bruce W Dayton) Kriesberg writes: “Just a few decades ago mediation as a formal conflict management method was limited largely to labour-management relations. Today, mediation is applied across virtually all conflict domains… Mediation is a conflict management process whereby an outsider intervenes in a conflict to help the adversaries to negotiate an agreement themselves. Mediators are generally expected to help the adversaries construct a mutually acceptable agreement and to avoid being advocates for one side or one solution.” Hence, in his book, the mode recommended by Husain Haqqani to solve the Kashmir issue is two decades old, and hence is insufficient and inapplicable in today’s age. For its resolution, the Kashmir issue now necessarily needs a third party intervention.

(Concluded)

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com