South Asia in The World: Problem Solving Perspectives On Security, Sustainable Development, and Good Governance
South Asia in The World: Problem Solving Perspectives On Security, Sustainable Development, and Good Governance
South Asia in The World: Problem Solving Perspectives On Security, Sustainable Development, and Good Governance
a United Nations
University Press
TOKYO u NEW YORK u PARIS
( The United Nations University, 2004
The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reect the views of the United Nations University.
United Nations University Press is the publishing division of the United Nations
University.
ISBN 92-808-1093-6
Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
List of contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
List of abbreviations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx
Foreword: Mutual interest The United Nations and South Asia xxii
Lloyd Axworthy
Part I: Overviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
Acknowledgements
Ramesh Thakur
Oddny Wiggen
September 2003
ix
Contributors
x
CONTRIBUTORS xi
and the World Bank. She took a Enterprise Institute and the Centre
transfer from the World Bank as its for Policy Dialogue. She started her
operations ofcer in the Country career in the Ofce of Management
Management Unit. She is an and Budget in New York, where she
assistant professor in the earned her masters in economics at
Department of Economics at the New York University. The title of
University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. her Ph.D. thesis is The Impact of
She previously worked as a senior Trade Liberalization on the Exports
research fellow in the Bangladesh of Bangladesh.
Figures
xvii
Tables
xviii
TABLES xix
xx
ABBREVIATIONS xxi
In May 2002, the United Nations University in Tokyo was the venue
for an important gathering of scholars and practitioners to discuss the
signicance of South Asia in the emerging international constellation.
The papers that were presented are now available for a wider audience
in this collection edited by Ramesh Thakur and Oddny Wiggen. The
book makes a strong and compelling case why this region deserves seri-
ous attention by analysts and policy makers concerned with issues of
global security.
It is true that over the years there has been an intermittent focus on
the ongoing Indo-Pakistani conict over Kashmir, made more perilous by
the possession of nuclear weapons. And certainly the attacks of 11 Sep-
tember 2001 brought the region onto centre stage with the US interven-
tion into Afghanistan to hunt down al-Qaida and to destroy the Taliban
regime that gave them sanctuary. Since that time the counter-terrorism
campaign has been a dominant factor in the politics of South Asia. But,
as the authors in this book make clear, there is a much broader security
agenda at stake, which calls for a more comprehensive and intensive in-
volvement of the international community. Whether it be the sheer scope
of poverty amongst its population, the burgeoning conicts and tensions
of civil insurgency, the sourcing of drugs and various forms of criminal
activity, the degradation of the environment, the abuse of child labour,
the mistreatment of women, or the large numbers of refugees, this region
is a cauldron of human insecurities that not only plague those who live
xxii
FOREWORD xxiii
there but threaten to involve and engulf the stability and well-being of
the world.
It is little wonder that a well-documented and well-argued cri de coeur
emanates from the pages of this book, along with a strong appeal for
forceful UN action and commitment.
Herein lies an irony. Fast-forward one year beyond the conference
date to the postIraq War period and there is another side to the equation
the United Nations desperately needs the renewed participation and
engagement of South Asia. The situation has become one of mutual de-
pendence between the people and governments of the region, who need
a collaborative, cooperative international system to help meet their
problems, and the United Nations, which is the cornerstone of that multi-
lateral system and needs the buy-in and support of this strategic region at
a time when its credibility is diminished and the very premise of its exis-
tence is under attack.
Although the post-Iraq standing of the United Nations is at a generally
low ebb around the world, its position in South Asia is in free fall. In the
Pew Global Survey undertaken in June 2003,1 the public attitudes of
South Asians are highly negative: for example, 60 per cent of Pakistanis
see the United Nations as having an irrelevant role in resolving security
problems. The nationalist government of India is palpably disdainful to-
wards multilateral cooperative action, and both it and the government of
General Musharraf in Pakistan vie for the favour of being President
George W. Bushs best friend. The situation of the United Nations as a
peace builder in Afghanistan has been bushwhacked by a awed recon-
struction plan that turned power over to the warlords and kept interna-
tional security forces conned to Kabul, resulting in a security morass.
Rather than being constructive in the pursuit of greater human security,
the developments in the region seem to be adding to the general erosion
of the multilateral architecture.
Yet this volume offers a counterpoint to the current public disillusion-
ment and the narrow and combative stance of too many of the regions
political leaders. Many of the writers express the need to go beyond the
war on terrorism and begin tackling the economic, social and military
security issues in a cooperative context. I was particularly struck by the
commentators pride in the very signicant role played by South Asian
soldiers as peacekeepers, providing substantial contributions to UN mis-
sions around the world.
There is throughout this volume a clear expression of the need to es-
tablish collective answers, both globally and regionally, to the devastating
impact of AIDS, environmental degradation, refugee ows and the threats
arising from the instability and insecurity following the 9/11 attacks. This
is a welcome and refreshing antidote to the constant protestations of go
xxiv FOREWORD
Note
1. Pew Research Center for the People, Views of a Changing World, Pew Global Atti-
tudes Project (Survey Report), Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, June
2003; http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/185.pdf.
1
Introduction: South Asias
manifold challenge to the
international community
Ramesh Thakur and Oddny Wiggen
1
2 RAMESH THAKUR AND ODDNY WIGGEN
Overviews
Former prime minister of India, I. K. Gujral, expresses the hope that the
recent international interest in South Asia is not temporary and based
solely on the threat of terrorism and nuclearization, but rather reects a
realization that the world community cannot be safe or happy unless it
involves the billion-plus people of South Asia in the critical decisions re-
garding peace, security and development. According to Gujral, the most
serious current challenge facing South Asia is terrorism. But the ght
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 3
Central Asia (and Russia beyond), the Middle East and South-East Asia.
How can domestic and international efforts at resolving conicts in the
region be improved?
Inter-state conict
Since the end of the Cold War, the global pattern of conict has shifted
from inter-state to intra-state conicts (many of which have transnational
regional links), yet one of the remaining potential inter-state conicts is
found in South Asia. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the two
potential belligerents are armed with nuclear-armed weapons. Whereas
the stability of the nuclear deterrence between the superpowers during
the Cold War was itself somewhat suspect, the relationship between
Pakistan and India is qualitatively different and even more volatile (see
Thakur, 2000). The two countries share a long border, which allows little
time to decide whether to use or lose nuclear weapons in response to a
perceived threat. Furthermore, Pakistan and India are involved in a ter-
ritorial dispute over Kashmir. This dispute has already resulted in two
wars between the countries and the possibility of armed conict has not
yet been eliminated. Neither country has second-strike retaliatory capa-
bility, which makes both of them more vulnerable to a pre-emptive strike
than was the case between the superpowers during the Cold War. South
Asias relationship with and ties to neighbouring countries also have
implications for the involvement of the international community in the
region. A complicating element is Indias disputed border with China,
a third nuclear power with tangible interests in the region. Resurgence
of Islamic fundamentalism in the region is also a cause for concern for
regional stability. The disruptive nature of this potential conict is ex-
acerbated by domestic political volatility in all South Asian countries. It
is imperative for the United Nations to contribute to a de-escalation of
this conict in order to maintain international peace and security.
Stephen Cohen cautions that, in light of the failure of past predictions,
it is impossible to predict future use of nuclear weapons by India and
Pakistan with any condence. It is likely that the future will look much
like the current situation a stable relationship between China and India
and a rocky one between India and Pakistan, but with innate common
sense or external mediation preventing an outbreak of nuclear conict.
However, Cohen also acknowledges the large number of political and
military variables that might affect possible outcomes with regard to the
nuclear future of South Asia, only some of which can be inuenced or
controlled by outside powers. He offers two suggestions: the international
community should assist in managing crises; and security planners in the
region should avoid overcondence in deterrence and keep their arsenals
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 5
natural resources such as Nepals water, and over transit rights for a poor
and small country seeking an outlet to the sea for its products. There are
also challenges with respect to new security issues such as trafcking in
drugs and women.
The insurgency in Sri Lanka has been going on for much longer and is
also more ferocious: it is the Tamil Tigers, after all, who introduced and
perfected the gruesome art of suicide terrorism. Kingsley de Silva notes
that South Asias record of violence in public life is unusual even com-
pared with other post-colonial states. One special feature is the high
number of public gures assassinated. Rajiv Gandhi was killed on Indian
soil but in the context of Sri Lankas bitter civil war. The Kashmir conict
has clearer external factors in its origin than Sri Lankas but, once the
conict in Sri Lanka erupted and persisted, it was prolonged largely be-
cause of Indian intervention. In the Kashmir conict, terrorism became a
distinctive factor in the mid-1980s. The two principal protagonists remain
inexibly resistant to any change in their attitude on this issue. In Sri
Lanka the Tamil movement was transformed from a relatively peaceful
one until the 1960s into an extraordinarily violent struggle with regional
ramications in the 1980s. Assassinations and suicide bombings became
central means of terror. Once terrorism becomes a major factor in the
political struggle, de Silva notes, the prospects of negotiating a settlement
become all the more difcult. A similar central trait is the marginalization
of the so-called moderates.
It is argued by some that the major locus of international terrorism has
shifted to South Asia. Terrorist acts are committed in relation to both
internal and inter-state conicts, and the level of violence is alarming.
Allegations are also frequently made that governments may support
cross-border terrorism to undermine neighbouring states. The phrase
aid, abet and harbour terrorists has entered the international policy-
making agenda since 11 September 2001. How can terrorism be curbed;
how can domestic and international actors work to decrease terrorist vio-
lence? Is terrorism a purely security problem with no signicant political
dimensions? Can the challenge of political terrorism be met without
addressing the fundamental political issues that may underlie it?
Peacekeeping
South Asia is home to about a quarter of the worlds population, but has
43 per cent of the worlds poor and accounts for only 2 per cent of the
worlds gross domestic product. The region is characterized by poverty,
illiteracy and low life expectancy.3 It does not compare well even by
developing-country standards, let alone global benchmarks (see Table
1.1). The region has experienced improvement in all the main indicators,
but with large geographical differences. What can the United Nations and
the respective governments do, and how can efforts both domestically
and internationally be improved to foster growth and development? How
can population control be practised in a humane and ethical way and in
conformity with religious beliefs, precepts and practices?
Haz Pasha points out that the absolute number of poor in South Asia
has remained stable at about 400 million, despite economic growth in the
region. He calls therefore for pro-poor policies to ensure growth with
equity as the way to achieve poverty reduction in South Asia. From a
UN point of view, further economic growth in South Asia is necessary in
order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals of reducing the in-
cidence of global poverty by half the 1990s level by 2015. Poverty reduc-
tion hinges on reducing inequality through targeted pro-poor policies.
However, economic growth is necessary but not by itself sufcient to im-
8 RAMESH THAKUR AND ODDNY WIGGEN
more meagre. They suffer from an increasing trade decit. They need to
focus on trade, investment and technology. The role of the South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) will be crucial in the
liberalization of intra-regional trade. SAARC cannot be an efcient
organization unless and until all its members participate with full vigour
on the same wavelength. In order to facilitate South Asian cooperation, a
development mechanism needs to be in operation with effective regula-
tory bodies, well-functioning infrastructure and the determination of
governments and civil society to carry forward a coordinated develop-
ment strategy. In this context the utilization of power, water resources,
transport and communications, pan-Asian highways, ports, capital mar-
kets, nancial intermediaries and so on could promote trade and invest-
ment for development in South Asia.
Zafar Adeel and Awais Piracha review the current situation of human
and economic development in South Asia, which is critically linked to the
stresses on and depletion of environmental resources. With the help of a
case-study of Punjab Province in Pakistan, they demonstrate that the en-
vironmental problems faced by the region are a result not of high levels
of resource use or industrialization but of population pressure. They
provide a summary of the available policy perspectives and set the stage
for Adil Najams discussion of environmental security issues. Najam
draws ve lessons from South Asia:
1. environment and security are best conceptualized within the context
of sustainable development;
2. the challenge of environment and security in South Asia is principally
a challenge at the domestic, even local, level, but it is a challenge
common to the region;
3. institutions and governance are a bigger problem than resource en-
dowments or geography;
4. the prospects of inter-state violence in South Asia over environ-
mental issues are slim, but they can add to tensions and perpetuate
distrust;
5. there is a small potential for a new generation of security relations in
the region emerging around the nexus of environment and security
that is based on the principles of mutual trust, harmony and coopera-
tion rather than on legacies of distrust and dispute.
In fact the last point is taken up by Ashok Swain, who argues that, as a
result of human-induced environmental destruction, the world is wit-
nessing a sharp reduction in the availability of arable land, forests, fresh
water, clean air and sheries. The adverse effect of pollution on these
scarce resources is worsened by the growing demand for them. The un-
equal distribution of these resources further complicates the situation.
The outcome can be conict. Nevertheless new research is pointing out
that in some cases environmental scarcity might result in cooperation.
Swain examines this with respect to two case-studies: the Indus River
agreement of 1960 between India and Pakistan; and the Ganges River
agreement of 1996 between India and Bangladesh. In both cases, despite
volatile relationships between the countries, agreements on water-sharing
have worked. The positive spillover effects of environmental cooperation
are possible only if the state institutions are prepared and willing to take
advantage of it. A democratically elected legitimate political authority
will be more likely to provide a conducive atmosphere for the spread and
sustenance of cooperation originating from environmental issues. This
accounts for the success of the Ganges Agreement and the failure of the
Indus Treaty.
12 RAMESH THAKUR AND ODDNY WIGGEN
Refugees
Regional cooperation
The volume ends with two possible roadmaps for a better, more pros-
perous and peaceful South Asia. The pivot is the historic animosity be-
tween India and Pakistan.
Samina Yasmeen postulates that the negative mythology of the other
provides the context for perceptions and decision-making between India
and Pakistan. This has permeated the relationship since independence,
and has been aggravated by three wars and the continuing rivalry over
Kashmir. The symmetrical negative imagery pervades the two civil soci-
eties as well. Education (for example, history books), the media and cul-
tural elements such as movies contribute to a shared consciousness
that rests upon and fuels the demonization of the other. Yasmeen dis-
tinguishes between hawkish/orthodox and moderate schools of thought in
both countries, and identies the moderate tendencies throughout the
turbulent relationship. Nevertheless, the orthodox perception of the re-
lationship as a zero-sum conict has inuenced decision-making on the
process of nuclearization as well as the missile race. Hawkish leaders in
both countries have used the other countrys difculties and problems to
tilt the balance in their favour. While recommending continuing efforts
for moderation within and between the two countries, such as the Gujral
Doctrine and Lahore agreement, Yasmeen suggests that, among external
actors, the United States is better placed to play a short-term role as the
facilitating superpower, while the United Nations should play a longer-
term part, addressing the root causes of instability such as poverty, pop-
ulation growth rates, environmental degradation and the AIDS epidemic.
Indias former High Commissioner (ambassador) to Pakistan, Gopa-
laswami Parthasarathy, reminds us that the conict in Afghanistan has
spilled over into Pakistan, the Taliban and its supporters have not been
eliminated, and the Indian and Pakistani armies are still facing each other
in Kashmir. But he argues that the nuclear dimension is exaggerated,
being less threatening than the West thinks. For practical purposes, the
two defence forces have known of each others nuclear capability for a
decade. Despite the persistent volatility, there are positive trends in the
relationship between India and Pakistan, including the Lahore Summit
(1999) and progress towards economic integration. It is now necessary to
create the conditions for moving from conict to cooperation. Partha-
sarathy compares the situation to that of Ireland and the United King-
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 17
dom over Northern Ireland, conciliated in part because they are both
members of the European Union. He hopes that the vision statement
from Lahore of an economic union in South Asia by 2020 will be im-
plemented, because economic links and integration will facilitate conict
resolution. Mistrust must be reduced in populations by people-to-
people contact (tourism and exchange programmes), the media, trade
and the promotion of cultural understanding and also between govern-
ments, for example through agreements on a set of condence-building
measures for both nuclear and conventional weapons. It is important to
create a climate conducive to bilateral dialogue. The SAARC summits in
Lahore and Kathmandu show that positive development is possible, and
that neither party gains by remaining hostage to the mistrust and ani-
mosity of the past.
In sum, the facts of geography have given the seven countries of South
Asia a shared history and will ensure a common destiny. Neither enmity
nor friendship, neither poverty nor prosperity, is predestined. With
mutual and international goodwill, with the mustering of the necessary
political will, and with the adoption of mutually conciliatory, market-
friendly and pro-growth policies, the peoples and governments of South
Asia could as yet take their fate back into their own hands and rediscover
the greatness and the glory that once were theirs.
Notes
1. The other three roles are: serving as a think-tank for the United Nations, fostering a
global community of scholars, and capacity development.
2. With respect to India, this is discussed in Thakur and Banerjee (2003). For a warning
about the dangers of creeping apartheid in international peacekeeping, see Thakur
and Malone (2000).
3. In the Human Development Report 2002 (UNDP, 2002: 149152), Maldives and Sri
Lanka are ranked 84 and 89 on the Human Development Index, and India is ranked 124,
which means they are all at the lower end of the medium Human Development bracket;
Pakistan (138), Bhutan (140), Nepal (142) and Bangladesh (145) are in the low Human
Development bracket.
4. The Washington consensus refers to the broad agreement among the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund and the US Government Treasury (all based in Washing-
ton DC) on three policy pillars: scal austerity (no government proigacy), privatization
(no big government), and liberalization-cum-deregulation (free market competition
rather than protection in both domestic and international economic exchanges).
5. One of the more powerful and trenchant critiques of globalization is from Joseph E. Stig-
litz (2002), the former chief economist of the World Bank and the 2001 Nobel Laureate;
see also Nayyar (2002).
6. Figures from UNHCRs estimate at the end of 2000 (PGDS/UNHCR, 2001).
7. For a comment along the same lines in the aftermath of the visit to India by the President
of Iran, see Weiss (2003).
18 RAMESH THAKUR AND ODDNY WIGGEN
REFERENCES
The world has not given the necessary attention, either in policy terms or
intellectually, to South Asia and to its many potentialities as well as its
problems. The background documents for this project aptly stated that
South Asia accounts for one fth of We the peoples of the United Na-
tions. If one-fth of humanity is not in peace and harmony with itself, if
it is suffering from want and deprivation, if it is considered to be on the
brink of a nuclear ashpoint, if its internal conicts and distortions are
giving rise to terrorism, it should be a matter of deep concern and dis-
comfort to the world as a whole. I hope the recent interest in South Asia
is not just because it is in the eye of the storm of terrorism, being in such
close proximity to Afghanistan, or because two of its leading states have
acquired nuclear weapons. I hope it is dawning on the world community
that it cannot be safe or happy unless it involves the billion-plus peoples
of South Asia in the critical decision-making regarding peace, security
and development.
The most serious challenge facing South Asia and the world today is
terrorism. The ght against it must be won with strength and determina-
tion. India has been confronting this menace for the past two decades
and it has now reached a critical phase. India has been cautioning the
international community not to take this danger to civilization lightly,
or to condone the use of terror for narrow sectarian interests to serve
some oddly perceived strategic purposes. But India has not succeeded
so far in getting the much needed response. The horrendous events of
21
22 INDER KUMER GUJRAL
11 September 2001 have forced the world to realize that the alarm raised
by India was not false or an expression of narrow concerns. The interna-
tional coalition to ght terrorism has belatedly put all its resources and
strength into the task and South Asia is playing a crucial role in this
struggle. As this ght advances, the international coalition should ensure
that those who gave birth to the problem by nurturing the jihadi culture
do not covertly subvert and vitiate the ght. I am unable to understand
why, even at a high cost to their own stability, some refuse to learn from
the experiences of Afghanistan, whose highly civilized society was im-
mensely harmed by the jihad culture. Ironically, encouragement of jihad
against a neighbouring country soon boomerangs to strengthen sectarian
forces. The operatives of both are trained in the same madrasas and
camps that sanctied the killing of the French submarine technicians in
Karachi, the butchering of Daniel Pearl, an American journalist, in a re-
mote village of Sind, or the shooting dead of innocent women and chil-
dren in a bus at Jammu in India. They and their mentors get away with
these dastardly acts, which are causing deep ssures amongst the people
and the governments of India and Pakistan, deecting them from the
avowed ght against institutionalized terrorism. Unless we collectively
identify this common adversary and coordinate our strategies to elimi-
nate this pestilence from the body politic of South Asia, the battle against
terrorism may end in a chimera, causing immense damage to all countries
of South Asia and the rest of the civilized world.
In the process of ghting this war, South Asia is becoming strategically
restructured. The United States has consolidated its military presence in
and around the region in order to play a role, not only in Afghanistan
and Pakistan, but also in Central Asia, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri
Lanka. Although the purpose of this move is understood, it is likely to
have long-term strategic consequences because other major powers in the
neighbourhood, such as Russia and China, may at some stage be tempted
to enhance their interest and involvement in these regions, which in turn
may affect stability in the region.
It seems the collective vision of the South Asian neighbours is blurred.
Instead of focusing on the common enemy (terrorism), they are spending
huge amounts on defence and military capabilities. This is likely to en-
courage militaristic tendencies and further enhance inter se rivalries, thus
providing covert support to jihadis. Increased defence expenditures will
also impede their social security and socio-economic development pro-
grammes and set back the prospects of building regional understanding
and cooperation.
We have still to realize that the war against terrorism cannot be won by
force alone. Even very heavy bombardment of Afghanistan and elabo-
rate combing operations along the AfghanPakistan border have not yet
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 23
eliminated the al-Qaida and Taliban remnants. They may soon be wiped
out, but will that put an end to the cult and the mind-sets of terrorism?
In the case of South Asia, the complexions of terrorism are many and
varied. Although jihadi terrorism is the most menacing threat, there are
other manifestations of terrorism in the region, such as the ideological
insurgencies by Maoists in Nepal and the ethnic separatists led by the
Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Variants of these rebellious and sectarian
movements are also active in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan.
When we look at the causes of terror and turmoil in the countries of
South Asia, lack of good governance, even non-governance, with an utter
disregard of the basic needs and aspirations of the ordinary people,
emerges as an important factor. The region as a whole is low in global
ordering in terms of economic prosperity and human development indi-
cators; 40 per cent of the worlds poor live in this region and the Human
Governance Index places South Asian countries nearly at the bottom of
global rankings. Further social distortions and political turmoil are
caused as the region becomes a major transit route and production centre
for drugs, and as the number of those affected by AIDS rises.
South Asia has also witnessed distortions in the structures of gover-
nance. The past decade has witnessed the rise of democratic movements
in every country of the region, but feudal and autocratic institutions such
as the military scotched them in Pakistan. The state structures and institu-
tions were taken over by sectarian forces, creating serious problems of
survival and identity for the minorities and the deprived sections. Politi-
cal and vested interests have played signicant roles in creating and nur-
turing the monsters of communal, ethnic and sectarian violence.
Although the South Asian states must bear the principal responsibility
for what is happening in the region, the contribution of the international
system and the global political and strategic order in encouraging con-
icts and violence in South Asia cannot be ignored. For a long time the
region was ignored as a basket case, and little effort was made to bring it
into the global developmental mainstream. No sizeable investments were
directed towards this region nor was any signicant trade or devel-
opmental interest shown by the international community. The regions
inter-state faultlines, particularly between India and Pakistan, were inten-
sied by spillovers from the Cold War rivalry. In recent years, regional
conicts and terrorist organizations in South Asia have received support
and sustenance from international drug trafcking networks, the trade in
small arms, money laundering, and the ideologies of the various funda-
mentalisms.
The globalization of economy and information, although generating
hopes and expectations, has not been without serious pitfalls. The 2001
report on human development in South Asia pointed out that during
24 INDER KUMER GUJRAL
the globalization phase about half a billion people in South Asia have
experienced a decline in their incomes and provision of social safety
nets has been weakened in the region (Mahbub ul Haq Human Devel-
opment Centre, 2001: 2). The global slowdown has also made its contri-
bution. With the prospects of global recovery now in sight, the pressures
for economic restructuring are mounting. The painful side of restructur-
ing is impinging rather heavily on the poorer and unorganized sectors of
the South Asian labour force. Internationally, too, the weaker and the
poorer regions have a hard time competing in a globalized economy that
operates within a regime dened by the privileged and dominant sections
of the prevailing global economic order. Markets, as we know, are sel-
dom merciful to the weak and the vulnerable. If that were not so, the
European and the American labour organizations would not be protest-
ing so vehemently. It would be helpful if the speed and nature of change
and transformation to market mechanisms took into account the realities
of social and economic development on the ground. A developmental
process that is not sensitive to human requirements in a particular con-
text adds to social tensions, and we see this happening in all countries of
South Asia.
Permit me to offer my homage to the late Mahbub ul Haq that great
son of Pakistan of whom all South Asians are proud. He told us in no
uncertain terms that the state has to govern and govern in a humane
manner. The democratic structure of governance may not be ideal, but it
is the nearest to a constructive and practical system. But a democratic
structure alone is certainly not enough. As we are seeing in some coun-
tries of South Asia, the sectarian character of the state causes social dis-
harmony and upsets the peace. To keep the deviant states moving in the
direction of a democratic, secular, plural and humane ethos, we have to
build a robust civil society that can help prevent political distortions. A
recent example occurred in India when the secular ethos of Indian civil
society asserted itself powerfully in the context of developments in the
state of Gujarat. The government not only faced defeat in the upper
house of parliament but also suffered humiliation by its own allies. The
Editors Guild, the Human Rights Commission, intellectuals, business
chambers, and the Womens and Minorities Commissions Organization
all spoke with one voice to condemn acts of inhuman communal violence
against innocent people. I am happy to say that civil society in South
Asia has awakened in every country, and it needs to be strengthened and
expanded.
Even within the areas of governance, there are some positive moves
that need encouragement. South Asian countries have experimented
widely in poverty alleviation, and some of these experiments have had
remarkable success, such as the Grameen Banks in Bangladesh, food for
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 25
REFERENCE
Only when one looks at the formidable interaction of the political, secu-
rity, economic, social and human problems of South Asia can the awe-
some nature of these problems and their grave implications for the future
of mankind be fully grasped. It is equally important to remember that
South Asia is where many global faultlines meet and therefore effective
solutions to many of these problems cannot be found by domestic actions
within South Asia alone. To provide a coherent framework for deter-
mining priorities, I shall concentrate on the following four topics:
1. reducing tensions between the two nuclear powers of South Asia;
2. evolving a common front against terrorism and extremism in the re-
gion and for bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan;
3. accelerating the pace of economic and social progress in South Asia
and meeting the challenge of globalization;
4. launching a comprehensive programme to reduce poverty in South
Asia.
South Asia would have been at least twice the present level and the
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) would by
now be a functioning common market. Instead, Pakistan after three wars
with India, the loss of its eastern wing in 1971 and a disproportionately
large burden of defence expenditure is facing a formidable military
stand-off with a country seven times its size. The stand-off started in Jan-
uary 2002 with the deployment of half a million Indian troops along the
Pakistan border, the highest level of mobilization in 30 years. This is a
very dangerous situation. The well-known Indian writer Arundhati Roy,
in an article on state terrorism in Gujarat, wrote in Outlook India: The
buzz is that engineering a war against Pakistan is going to be the BJPs
strategy to swing the vote in the next general elections (Roy, 2002). In
an article under the title The Kashmir Time Bomb, the Washington
Post said, the sub-continent is the only part of the world where nuclear
war is today a serious possibility (Ignatius, 2002).
The central purpose of the United Nations, under the UN Charter, is
to maintain peace and security. The United Nations and its important
members cannot therefore continue their present policy of indifference
towards one of the two most serious threats to global peace (the other
being the Middle East). There is a need for bold and fresh thinking. The
Secretary-General of the United Nations should consider launching a
joint initiative through the ve permanent members of the Security
Council to promote durable peace in South Asia, by focusing, inter alia,
on the following measures:
persuade India and Pakistan to withdraw their forces from the border
and to defuse the prevailing tensions through military de-escalation;
request both countries to implement, in letter and in spirit, the Memo-
randum of Understanding signed during the visit of Indias prime min-
ister Vajpayee to Lahore on 21 February 1999, for condence-building
in the nuclear and conventional elds aimed at avoidance of conict; in
this context, it is important for both countries not to deploy nuclear
weapons;
encourage both countries to resume serious negotiations on Kashmir
and other issues and to recognize that relations between India and
Pakistan cannot improve unless they nd a just and acceptable solution
to the Kashmir problem.
In taking the initiative for promoting durable peace in this volatile re-
gion, the international community should also evolve a common view of
the problem and narrow the options to specic guidelines for serious ne-
gotiations between the two countries. The world has changed in the past
few years, with both countries becoming nuclear powers in May 1998 and
both now being partners in the international campaign against terrorism
after the events of 11 September 2001.
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 29
In responding to such a peace initiative, India has to face the stark re-
ality of the Kashmir problem, rather than insist that it is only a problem
of cross-border terrorism. If Kashmir is really a part of India, as India
claims, then it should allow observers from the Commonwealth or the
European Union to monitor the forthcoming elections in the Kashmir
Valley, and to verify the percentage of voters actually taking part in these
elections. (In the past few elections, the percentage of Muslim voters in
Kashmir Valley, despite rigging, never rose above 5 per cent.)
Even on the issue of cross-border terrorism, Pakistan has taken unpre-
cedented steps since January 2002 to curb extremist and militant orga-
nizations within Pakistan, but Pakistan cannot restrain the activities of
freedom ghters within Kashmir, who are ghting for their right of self-
determination, promised to them by the United Nations in the 1950s.
They can be persuaded only by serious negotiations to nd a solution
acceptable to the Kashmiri people.
Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network, and the Taliban regime was
bracketed with the enemy because it had given shelter to Osama bin
Laden. That provided the justication for launching a ferocious war on
Afghanistan in which thousands of innocent lives have been lost but
without capturing Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar and without
bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan. Pakistan joined the inter-
national campaign against terrorism soon after it was launched in Sep-
tember 2001, and, after reversing its policy of supporting the Taliban
regime, offered its airelds and other logistical support for air attacks
on Afghanistan. It also took unprecedented measures to clamp down on
extremist and militant organizations within Pakistan by banning many of
them and freezing their accounts and other facilities.
Apart from the Indo-Pakistan tensions over the Kashmir dispute, there
are high-intensity conicts within most countries of South Asia. These
include the Tamil Tiger movement in Sri Lanka, the Maoist insurgency in
Nepal, sectarian and ethnic tensions in Pakistan, the continuing insur-
gency in the north-east of India and recent communal riots in Gujarat.
These conicts, which illustrate the structural problems inherent in het-
erogeneous societies, are serious obstacles to the establishment of sus-
tainable political systems and viable institutions of good governance.
South Asia will not be able to achieve peace and stability unless the
governments concerned can successfully overcome these obstacles.
The objective of curbing extremism in South Asia will be possible if
there is peace and stability in Afghanistan. This, in turn, will require (i)
extending the role of multinational forces from Kabul to at least four
other cities: Herat, Mazar-e Sharif, Kandahar and Jalalabad; (ii) full
support of the UN role in implementing the Bonn Agreement in letter
and spirit and ensuring a truly broad-based Loya Jirga (traditional tribal
Grand Council), leading to a more balanced transitional government; and
(iii) converting the pledges of US$4.5 billion made in Tokyo in January
2002 for the reconstruction of Afghanistan into actual resource ows.
The international coalition is spending US$1 billion a month on military
operations in Afghanistan but cannot provide even US$50 million a
month regularly to the interim administration so that it can pay the sal-
aries of all its teachers, doctors and security personnel.
Another global faultline whose long shadows continue to fall on Paki-
stan is the unending and tragic saga in the Middle East. Al-Qaida and
many other organizations that have been operating in Pakistans neigh-
bourhood trace their roots and desperate acts to the continuing occupa-
tion of Palestine and other Arab lands. Instead of the underlying causes
being dealt with justly, these people and their sympathizers are now be-
ing pushed further to the wall. Encouraged by the unilateral decision to
attack Afghanistan to counter terrorism, Israel launched a ferocious on-
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 31
slaught on the West Bank, killing countless innocent civilians. In fact, any
country can now assume the right to act unilaterally against any other
country, even on suspicion or allegation of terrorism, without presenting
any evidence to the UN Security Council or the International Criminal
Court. The United Nations must act to restore the sanctity of interna-
tional law by prescribing a proper system to deal with such complaints
and allegations, and it must also dene terrorism to, inter alia, distinguish
freedom ghters from terrorists.
Underlying the happenings in Afghanistan and the Middle East is a
new and dangerous philosophy, which has been called liberal imperial-
ism. This is the doctrine of a new world order in which the powerful
postmodern states no longer give paramount importance to the con-
cept of a nation-state, exercising sovereignty within a well-dened geo-
graphical jurisdiction. In the name of human rights, curbing terrorism or
global economic interests (such as safeguarding the ow of oil), the
postmodern world can use force, pre-emptive attack or even decep-
tion to violate the international boundaries of pre-modern or modern
states with impunity (Cooper, 2000: 37). The United Nations must assert
its collective authority to curb this liberal imperialism before it is too
late.
South Asia, despite its enormous human and physical resources, has be-
come the most deprived region of the world. Its per capita income
(US$460, or US$2,260 in terms of purchasing power parity) is lower than
that in any other region; its adult literacy rate of 47 per cent is also the
lowest in the world; it is the most malnourished region of the world, with
half its children being under-weight, compared with 30 per cent in Sub-
Saharan Africa. It is the least gender-sensitive region and it has the
highest human deprivation, in terms of access to health facilities, safe
drinking water, sanitation facilities and opportunities for work and lei-
sure. At the same time, South Asia is the most militarized region in the
developing world, with the highest percentage of GDP going to military
expenditures.
Is there a greater challenge facing the leaders of South Asia to change
these priorities and grasp the opportunities for economic and social
progress that the twenty-rst century offers?
There are many positive elements in South Asia today, such as the
progress in information technology, self-sufciency in food, much greater
emphasis on the development of human resources and a wide-ranging
consensus on strategies to reduce poverty. However, the obstacles to
32 SARTAJ AZIZ
DAC, 2002) shows the gure fell further to US$51 billion in 2001. This
was only 0.22 per cent of OECD countries GDP (the United States
provided only 0.11 percent). At the UN Conference on Financing for
Development in Monterrey, Mexico, in March 2002, the United States
and the European Union pledged to increase development assistance
signicantly in the next few years. But the projected increase is linked
to many vague conditionalities such as good governance, which may
not be easy for many low-income countries to meet.
The globalization package being offered to developing countries by the
international nancial institutions is not conned to liberalizing the
economy but involves a new development philosophy that greatly re-
stricts the role of the state in economic and social activity and imposes
a standard one size ts all adjustment policy devised by the IMF/
World Bank. The main emphasis of this policy is to achieve macro-
economic stability by reducing government spending, raising utility
charges and eliminating all subsidies. In the process, the growth rate
slows down, unemployment goes up, poverty increases and poor farm-
ers become more vulnerable in a volatile and highly subsidized market.
Even in terms of economic objectives, openness alone is not enough
to attract investment. There are many other factors, including non-
economic factors, some of which are outside the control of the country
concerned.
The United Nations has a major responsibility to draw attention to
these severe inequities of the globalization process and to regain the
leadership role it abandoned in the early 1980s to the World Bank/IMF
in providing a level playing eld and in creating a more favourable global
environment for developing countries. As explained in the next section,
major rethinking is required if the millennium goals, particularly that of
halving poverty by 2015, are to be achieved.
cies that restrict demand and thereby increase poverty and unemploy-
ment must be modied by providing either a longer time-frame or
additional external resources on soft terms; and
that market-oriented economic policies are necessary for economic
growth, attracting investment and improving competitiveness in inter-
national markets, but the pace of liberalization should not be faster
than a countrys institutional structure can cope with. Before large-
scale liberalization is undertaken, effective regulatory mechanisms to
deal with the growing volatility of the capital and foreign exchange
markets need to be created.
A meeting of the SAARC countries nance and planning ministers in
Pakistan in April 2002 adopted a comprehensive Action Plan for poverty
alleviation. The plan covers the internal policies and external support
considered necessary for achieving balanced and sustainable development.
The external agenda of the Action Plan may be more difcult to realize
than the internal policies. The World Bank president, James Wolfensohn,
during his visit to Pakistan in mid-May 2002, said, The IndiaPakistan
conict was the single most important hurdle in the way of poverty alle-
viation in the region (Dawn, 19 May 2002).
In recent years, there have been seven high-prole UN conferences at
the level of heads of state and government on Children (1991), Envi-
ronment (1992), Population (1994), Social Development (1995), Women
(1995) and Food (1996), culminating in the Millennium Summit held in
New York in September 2000. But very limited progress has been made
in moving towards the goals adopted by these summits. The United Na-
tions must evolve an effective institutional mechanism that can regularly
monitor such progress and bring the results, including the causes of inac-
tion, to the notice of the heads of state who actually attended these sum-
mits and made those commitments.
REFERENCES
Cooper, Robert (2000) The Post-modern State and the World Order, London:
Demos.
Ignatius, David (2002) The Kashmir Time Bomb, Washington Post, 9 May.
Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Centre (2001) Human Development in
South Asia 2001 Globalization and Human Development, Islamabad: Oxford
University Press/Human Development Centre, June.
OECD-DAC [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development]
(2002) Development Co-operation Report 2001, vol. 3, no. 1, April.
Roy, Arundhati (2002) Democracy: Whos She When Shes at Home, Outlook
India, 6 May.
Part II
Security
4
Nuclear weapons and nuclear war
in South Asia: Unknowable futures
Stephen P. Cohen
39
40 STEPHEN P. COHEN
Many observers of the South Asian nuclear scene might agree on the
following:
There will no breakthrough in IndiaPakistan relations, but war is
unlikely. The future will see frequent crises, but deterrence based on
nuclear weapons will inhibit escalation to nuclear war.
The IndiaChina relationship will remain stable. China will continue to
balance India by providing strategic support to Pakistan.
The global balance of power and the strategic relationships among the
major players Russia, China and the United States will not change
radically, and there will be no systemic impact on regional nuclear
dynamics.
Although the United States will retain an interest in cultivating long-
term relationships with India and Pakistan, it will not intervene directly
in the region, except during crises, when Washington will play the role
of crisis manager.
All of the regions nuclear players India, China and Pakistan will
remain internally stable. There will be no sudden disequilibrium caused
by a major change in the internal politics of any one of them so as to
impact on regional strategic relationships.
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 41
of command and control structures and, above all, by the enhanced de-
terrent effect of an increase in destructiveness that such larger numbers
would bring?
eral verication. The three models can be placed along a continuum from
non-offensive defence to offensive defence.
The period from 1947 to 1971 was an era of war between India and
Pakistan. Following a relatively mild interregnum, the period since the
mid-1980s has been one of repeated crises and constant border skir-
mishes, with tensions aggravated by the nuclearization of both countries.
Recent developments have been less than encouraging. The matching
nuclear tests of 1998 were followed by the short-lived bonhomie repre-
sented by the Lahore Declaration of 1999. However, the atmosphere was
quickly vitiated by the Kargil conict. The US campaign in Afghanistan,
ironically, has for the rst time in their troubled history placed the two
countries on the same side, but the tension has actually risen instead of
subsiding, as each seeks to use its closer relationship to the United States
to force Washington to pressure the other. Could things get worse?
The terrorist attacks on the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly
in October 2001 and on the Indian parliament in December 2001 are in-
dicators of the potential for further deterioration in the relationship. It is
conceivable that the secessionist problem in India may not only persist
over time but become worse, in which case domestic pressures of the
kind visible at the present juncture may impel the Indian government to
retaliate by means of the use of some form of force, such as quick strikes
against terrorist bases in Pakistan, or a tit-for-tat game of fomenting
trouble in the Pushtun community that straddles the PakistanAfghan
border. The result could be the ratcheting-up of tensions and the begin-
nings of a nuclear arms race as hardliners on each side gather support and
press for stronger forces to counter the visible threat from the other side.
On the other hand, it may equally happen that, learning from the risks
their confrontations expose them to, Indian and Pakistani leaders bridge
the gulf that prevented a detente at the Agra Summit in July 2001. A re-
ally serious nuclear crisis, which is not inconceivable, would compel the
two countries to seek a more stable relationship. One characteristic of
IndiaPakistan relations has been an increase in the number of crises and
44 STEPHEN P. COHEN
sub-war conicts; another has been the series of high-level summits that
have taken place, and the general acknowledgement, even by Indian and
Pakistani leaders, that South Asia needs and may actually have a
peace process. In brief, although there have been repeated crises, and
both countries seem to be driven by a fear of losing that is even greater
than the desire to win, there is also a powerful understanding that the
present hostility over Kashmir is dangerous and damaging to their re-
spective national interests.
The possibility of a general settlement on Kashmir cannot be ruled out,
even if it is only an agreement to disagree. How would this affect the de-
velopment of each countrys nuclear programme? All things being equal,
it is doubtful whether a settlement on Kashmir would lead to a reduction
in weapons or anything but a slower pace in the development of new de-
signs and delivery vehicles. However, a general peace might reduce the
pressure to resume testing and to perfect new kinds of weapons, espe-
cially if international pressure against testing were to continue. Without
new designs, and with the prospect of a lessening of general tensions be-
tween India and Pakistan, both countries might be content to freeze their
systems qualitatively and quantitatively.
The postCold War global environment has been in ux, with conict and
cooperation coexisting. Different scenarios are conceivable that could
have a signicant impact on Indias (and Pakistans) nuclear posture. On
the positive side, an accelerated integrative process of globalization has
brought more and more nations into a seamless web of information ows,
investment, production and trade. The winding down of the Cold War
has simultaneously reduced great power tensions and the threat of a
global nuclear holocaust. On the other hand, the threat of terrorism
has had a dramatic impact on global security following the events of 11
September 2001. Inter-state rivalry has diminished. As Russia seeks a
stronger European identity, its relations with the United States and
Europe are showing signs of improvement in spite of its dissatisfaction
with the American abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the
US determination to proceed with its missile defence programme. But
there is a greater element of uncertainty with regard to Chinas response
over the long term.
One negative scenario for India involves growing rivalry and tension
between the United States and China. Chinese leaders have shown a
willingness to extend limited cooperation to the West on specic issues
such as the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the campaign against the
Taliban. But Chinas overall objective is to become one of the worlds
46 STEPHEN P. COHEN
An American role?
The United States has changed its South Asia policy a number of times
over the past 50 years, siding weakly with India or Pakistan against the
Soviet Union and/or China. This pattern could continue, but there are
more radical possibilities. Washington could decide to side with India
against Pakistan, providing technical and military assistance to the former,
and even nuclear assistance should the international non-proliferation
regime break down. If Pakistan is viewed as a failing state, and if it is
seen as a part of the problem rather than as part of the solution so far as
terrorism is concerned, the United States might think it is time to side
entirely with India on the Kashmir problem and undertake a containment
strategy against an increasingly unstable and radical Pakistan. This would
lead American strategists to the contemplation of different strategies for
containing or transforming Pakistan, and would also lead to Indian
American discussions about still another alternative: the breakup of
Pakistan into its constituent provinces.
Should India and the United States draw close together, Pakistan
would be under great pressure to adopt a more conciliatory posture to-
ward India and negotiate a stable arms control regime with it. It is also
possible that Pakistan would continue to maintain a hostile stance by
drawing closer to China, though the probability is not great because of
the difculty Pakistan would have in resisting US pressure.
What about the converse? Less likely, but conceivable, would be a re-
turn to a pro-Pakistan policy by the United States, especially if India
were to decline the role of balancer against China. It seems improbable
now, but one could imagine India undergoing enormous political change
as a result of its many and simultaneous economic, cultural, political and
ideological revolutions. This could conceivably be an India with a very
large nuclear potential. Such changes might even alienate the large and
increasingly inuential Indian-American community, which has hitherto
been a lobby for closer USIndian relations.
If India were to transform its identity and become more politically un-
stable at home and more aggressive abroad, it might well undertake an
extensive nuclear testing programme and seek a close strategic relation-
ship with other major powers, especially Russia, whose technology would
be valuable. In such circumstances, the United States might view India as
the state that needed containing, especially if China were to cease being a
strategic threat in the minds of American strategists. Indias likely re-
48 STEPHEN P. COHEN
sponse would be a radical strategic shift to something like the robust ex-
pansion model.
There are other possibilities, but American policy should not be re-
garded as immutable. Projections of nuclear technology and capabilities
are constrained by physical and technical factors, but even these could be
altered quickly were a major power to decide that it would assist India or
Pakistan to enhance its nuclear arsenal and related delivery systems.
India, China and Pakistan have each undergone periods of profound po-
litical instability in the past. India underwent an emergency in the
1970s that turned it into a virtual dictatorship; China experienced a pro-
longed internal upheaval in the form of the Cultural Revolution in the
1960s and 1970s; Pakistan has oscillated between military rule (some-
times with martial law) and weak civilian governments for its entire his-
tory. Further, Pakistan was physically divided in 1971, and all three states
face several separatist threats, sometimes encouraged by each other.
As a variable, political instability affects their nuclear futures in two
ways. First, there is the question of control over nuclear weapons: a state
riven by political conict may have problems in storing and safeguarding
(let alone using) its nuclear weapons and ssile material stocks. Second,
there is the question of perception: does political instability in one state
raise the prospect in the minds of the leadership of its adversary that a
moment of great opportunity or danger is approaching?
Although in the short run it seems improbable that instability in India
could be of a magnitude that would affect the nuclear balance, it is not
unimaginable. It would be especially likely in the aftermath of armed
conict or serious economic crisis. India is meta-stable, but a chronically
weak centre, or disorder in states where there were signicant nuclear
assets, might raise questions concerning Indias ability to protect its nu-
clear assets and its vulnerability to nuclear blackmail.
A similar argument may be made with respect to China. China has had
its share of upheavals in the past. Although there is currently no expec-
tation of renewed internal turmoil, it is important to remember that
closed authoritarian societies are subject to deep crisis in moments of
sudden change. The breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and the
turmoil that has ravaged many members of the former communist bloc
are examples of what could happen to China. A severe economic crisis,
rebellions in Tibet and Xinjiang, a reborn democracy movement and a
party torn by factions could be the ingredients of an unstable situation. A
vulnerable Chinese leadership determined to bolster its shaky position by
an aggressive policy toward India or the United States, or both, might
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 49
Strategic warning time refers to the length of time a country has to pre-
pare its forces for a response to an attack or to ready them for a rst
strike, once that decision has been made. Strategic warning time can
range from seconds, in the case of highly alerted, deployed and rapid re-
sponse forces hooked up to a sophisticated detection system, to days, in
the case of weapons that are disassembled and dispersed. If we combine
this with deterrence robustness the assurance that a response to a rst
strike will be effective, in that the right number of the right kind of
weapons will be delivered to the right targets (and the other side knows
this to be true) then essentially four different states are created: a
very stable situation, in which a long strategic warning time is combined
with a robust nuclear force (deterrence is credible but not provocative); a
very unstable situation, in which a short strategic warning time is com-
bined with a less than credible deterrent force; and two intermediate
states one in which deterrence is robust but strategic warning time is
short (and thus very sensitive to the shift from non-crisis to crisis); and
one in which deterrence is less credible but strategic warning time is very
long (and also sensitive to the movement from non-crisis to crisis). Of
course, in all four cases, plus those that cluster in the centre of the axes,
52 STEPHEN P. COHEN
cally in the plains, and even in mountainous terrain, where they could
substitute for conventional forces. If nothing else, their presence would
make it difcult for one side or the other to bunch up armour or amass
large numbers of troops. Despite the obvious importance of this linkage,
there is no adequate study of the connection between the conventional
and nuclear dimensions. At present, it is not clear in which direction the
conventionalnuclear linkage will lead the IndiaPakistan relationship
over time. There seems to be less likelihood, though, of a similar problem
with respect to the IndiaChina relationship.
A third possibility is that, as both India and Pakistan operationalize
their respective arsenals, a technical imperative will come into play
backed by those who will ultimately operate nuclear weapons the armed
forces toward a more expansionary, perhaps even MAD-oriented, pos-
ture than is evident now. It is interesting that, in both countries, the un-
derstanding of credible deterrence tends to reect some amount of
MAD thinking about the adequacy of second-strike capacity.
None of the above is inevitable. On the contrary, it may be that the
stabilityinstability paradox is put to rest by an appreciation of its
counter-productiveness, or because the Pakistan leadership decides that
all terrorism is a threat, or because there is movement towards compro-
mise between the subcontinental rivals. The difference between the two
countries on limited war may not in practice be more than conceptual.
Finally, the political awareness of the risks and economic costs of an
ever-expanding nuclear inventory may induce greater restraint.
The attacks of 11 September 2001 show how a single incident can trans-
form the behaviour and perceptions of many states. A nuclear incident in
South Asia might have a comparable impact on Indian and Pakistani be-
haviour, and could inuence the worlds perceptions of both the region
and the dangers of nuclear weapons. A nuclear incident elsewhere in the
world might cause India and Pakistan to rethink their nuclear plans.
A nuclear incident is an event short of a nuclear war in which a device
is accidentally or deliberately detonated or ssile material is used in such
a way that it creates a radiation hazard for a large population. A nuclear
threat is not an incident these have been coming fast and furious from
both sides for several years. However, a threat backed up by actions that
indicated a high probability of use, that was publicized and that was
taken seriously by decision makers on both sides would almost cer-
tainly have a signicant impact on the future course of IndiaPakistan
nuclear planning. Such an event would be a South Asian equivalent of
the Cuban missile crisis. It would also affect attitudes towards nuclear
54 STEPHEN P. COHEN
weapons elsewhere in the world. There is also the possibility that a sig-
nicant nuclear event would be asymmetrically perceived, with one side
viewing it as a crisis and the other ignoring the gravity of the event.
IndiaPakistan relations are replete with such asymmetric crises, notably
the 1962 IndiaChina war dismissed by Pakistans leaders as an unim-
portant event caused by a provocative India or the impact of the loss of
Bangladesh on Pakistan, dismissed or forgotten by many Indians but still
a hurtful memory for the Pakistan military.
What would be the most important and likely of the sub-scenarios?
Theft is a possibility, as is unauthorized use. Perhaps even more likely is
the possibility of accidental or inadvertent use, followed by the realiza-
tion that no war was intended. This use could take place on the territory
of the state that owned the weapon, or across the border. More fright-
ening and far-reaching would be the detonation of a device or the re-
lease of signicant radioactive material in an Indian or Pakistani city.
Not only are Mumbai and Karachi vulnerable to a smuggled nuclear
weapon, they have prime nuclear targets in the form of research and
power reactors, and an attack along the lines of the World Trade Center
and Pentagon airplane bombings is now further from the realm of the
inconceivable. The entire set of Pakistani and Indian nuclear facilities
could also be the site of a signicant accidental release of radiation
caused by mismanagement or sabotage. In these cases, the governments
involved would have quickly to determine whether the radiation release
was accidental or deliberate; if it took place at a moment of very high
IndiaPakistan tension, it could precipitate a chain of events leading to
still more serious steps. In a sense, it is possible to envision a catalytic
war between India and Pakistan triggered by an unrelated event, or such
an event might be caused by an individual or group that sought to pre-
cipitate such a war.
Other surprises can be envisaged. Beyond ve years from now, there
may be new and inexpensive ways of producing ssile material, simpler
and more effective weapons designs, and more sophisticated delivery
systems available to India and, with assistance from others, to Pakistan
too. There is likely to be a deployed Indian theatre missile defence,
probably with American, Russian or Israeli technical assistance, and this
might change the nuclear calculus between New Delhi and Islamabad in
unknown ways. There might emerge a South Asian Gorbachev willing to
take the kind of risk that would transform strategic relations dramati-
cally. It is a sobering reminder that many of the most startling turns in
global politics, such as Khomeinis revolution, the end of the Cold War
and the events of 11 September, have caught us napping. Prudence re-
quires us to expect the unexpected.
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 55
Policy implications
This analysis shows the large number of political and military variables
that could affect possible outcomes with regard to the nuclear future of
India and its neighbours. Of these, only some are within the province of
outside powers to inuence or control. The variables considered here are
of two types: political and military. Although the latter do have some
autonomy, it would be fair to say that politics is the prime mover of stra-
tegic relationships. Ultimately, nuclear postures and interactions are
shaped by perceptions of threat, and these are fundamentally political in
character. That having been said, the United States must distinguish be-
tween those variables over which it has little or no control, those it can
hope to inuence and those it can at best try to manage. It may be said at
the outset that in no case is the United States likely to shape Chinese
behaviour or thinking, except indirectly through the policies it follows
directly toward China.
The IndiaPakistan relationship could be inuenced to some degree if
outside powers, presumably led by the United States, were willing to in-
vest the effort and resources. Pakistans oundering economy could be
revived and, with the judicious use of loan conditionalities, its social and
political structures (de-radicalization and democratization) addressed;
pressure could be put on Pakistan to eliminate terrorism as an instrument
of state policy, and on India to come to the negotiating table. The India
China relationship, however, is unlikely to be inuenced by others, ex-
cept to the extent that its future is determined by the altogether different
dynamics of USChina relations. The global environment could have an
important bearing on South Asia, but it is unlikely that, given its inde-
terminate effects, America or other powers would think of shaping poli-
cies with China and Russia, among others, on the basis of their eventual
impact on the subcontinent. Nor is there much scope for ensuring the
domestic stability of the three countries, with the exception, as noted
earlier, of tied nancial aid to Pakistan.
Of the four military variables discussed above, outsiders will have little
or no direct inuence over three: the numbers and types of weapons,
strategic warning time and robustness of deterrence, and conceptions of
deterrence. At best, persuasion could be tried but, if Indias and Pak-
istans determination to go ahead is sufciently strong to override their
own history of restraint in the construction of nuclear capability, then it is
unlikely that international efforts would have much effect. As regards
command and control stability, America might play a useful role work-
ing independently with India and Pakistan, extending advice and techni-
cal assistance to strengthen nuclear safety and security, and not waiting
56 STEPHEN P. COHEN
Notes
1. For a projection of the consequences of nuclear war at different levels, see Naim (1990).
For an attempt to apply different arms control strategies to different stages of prolif-
eration, see Cohen (1990). For a look at the publics response to the growth of nuclear
programmes in India and Pakistan, see Cortright and Mattoo (1996) and Ahmed and
Cortright (1998).
2. If intermediate-range missiles are placed within a short-range radius vis-a-vis Pakistan,
they are not likely to be threatening to that country, though technically it is possible for
such missiles to target Pakistan.
REFERENCES
Ahmed, Samina, and Cortright, David, eds. (1998) Pakistan and the Bomb, Notre
Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press.
Bracken, Paul (1999) Fire in the East: The Rise of Asian Military Power and the
Second Nuclear Age, New York: HarperCollins.
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 57
58
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 59
tications that have recently been attempted. Then again, and perhaps
more plausibly still, India and Pakistan will continue to plod along
somewhere between these two extremes, avoiding an outright cata-
strophe but also forgoing potentially great benets.
Despite the enduring centrality of the Indo-Pakistani relationship to
South Asian security, much else has changed since the 1990s. The down-
grading of the role of the former Soviet Union, the nuclear tests of 1998
and the attacks of 11 September 2001 and their aftershocks have all af-
fected regional security in manners that may not yet have become fully
apparent. In particular, all three of these developments have ushered in
an unprecedentedly important and manifest role for the United States of
America in South (and Central) Asia, whose consequences are a matter
for sustained debate within the region itself.
One factor that has not changed in over 50 years is the persistence of
discord. India and Pakistan show some of the worlds most entrenched
propensities to mutual distrust: events are contested, their interpretation
is subject to dispute, intentions are dissected for ulterior motives, from
among which the worst are all too often assumed, and words are all too
often acrimonious. In the PakistanIndia dispute, it is not just the actions
of each government that are scrutinized, criticized and condemned, it is
the very essence of each state that is called into question by the other. In
fact, measured against the intensity and persistence of ostensible signs of
hostility, it is almost surprising that Indo-Pakistani relations have not
deteriorated into open warfare more often or more ercely.
A second enduring factor is the propensity for the outside world, and
the international media in particular, to react to events in South Asia
with an awkward succession of blithe indifference interspersed with ts of
apocalyptic alarmism. Sustained attention and measured appraisals are
usually in short supply.
A third observable element of continuity is the nagging suspicion, at
least among observers as supercially acquainted with South Asia as I
am, that there is an ingredient of not altogether uncomfortable tacit
familiarity in some of the ritualistic bluster that Pakistanis and Indians
repeatedly hurl at one another. On an individual level, novice outside
observers seldom fail to be perplexed by the propensity of Indians and
Pakistanis, be they ofcials or private citizens, to get along famously to-
gether in all manner of formal and informal situations, even at times
when popular imagery (inasmuch as it exists at all, especially in Europe)
would have expected them to be at each others throats.
And yet things are of course far more serious than occasional histrion-
ics might suggest. Although it is fashionable in some South Asian circles
to deride foreigners seemingly exclusive xation on the nuclear dimen-
sion of regional security, the impact of nuclear weapons is unquestion-
60 CHRISTOPHE CARLE
ably central to South Asian security itself but also, and increasingly so, to
global security as well.
If international media coverage were to be taken as an indicator, one
of the most widespread misconceptions about South Asian security is the
notion that the nuclear factor erupted suddenly on the scene with the
tests by both countries in 1998. There was of course an element of sur-
prise to onlookers, as is well illustrated by the debate surrounding the
failure of foreign intelligence accurately to detect preparations for the
blasts. In the longer-term perspective, however, the nuclear factor had
been well and truly present for at least a decade prior to 1998. For at
least that long, security planners and foreign policy makers in both India
and Pakistan thought and acted in the knowledge of the nuclear capa-
bilities and potential of their neighbour. That much was amply borne
out by the speed with which Pakistan was able to reply in kind to the
Pokhran II tests by India.
What remains intact and unresolved, however, is the question of the
effect of nuclear capabilities and later weapons on bilateral and re-
gional security and stability. The argument has often been made that the
nuclear element was a factor for restraint, which helped to prevent esca-
lation in tense situations such as on the occasion of the military exercises
known as Operation Brasstacks in early 1987. But arguments on this
score can usually work both ways. In support of the claim that nuclear
weapons are destabilizing between India and Pakistan, one can point to
both the Kargil operation of 1999 and the mobilizations and stand-off of
the summer of 2002 and infer that even the overt possession of nuclear
weapons since 1998 has not deterred or otherwise prevented situations of
tension and indeed war. Proponents of the stabilizing virtues of nuclear
weapons would surely contend that Kargil and 2002 illustrated just the
reverse, namely that, in an explicitly nuclear environment, such serious
situations did not escalate into full-scale strategic warfare. The debate is
not about to be closed, any more than are retrospective arguments about
the merits or demerits of nuclear postures during the Cold War stand-off
between the United States and the former USSR. The more one learns
about the unfolding of the Cuban missile crisis from declassied docu-
ments and participants accounts, however, the less condent one can be
about optimistic conclusions, and the more appreciative one becomes of
sheer blind luck or divine intercession.
Among the various metaphorical devices used to illustrate what nu-
clear deterrence may or may not be, game theory provides a number of
tidy, articially neat and de-humanized patterns for analysing the pur-
portedly rational behaviour of opponents locked in a confrontation. The
popular simile of international strategy as a chessboard has the same
clarity at the expense of any realism. But one of the few things that can
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 61
be said with any certainty is that there are at least diminishing security
returns, and in fact a net decrease in security, as the number of nuclear
actors grows. Possibly one of the best metaphors for security in a (nu-
clear) armed crowd is provided not by Professor Kenneth Waltzs cele-
bratedly controversial paper entitled The Spread of Nuclear Weapons:
More May Be Better (1981) but rather by Quentin Tarantino in his 1992
lm Reservoir Dogs. Towards the end of the lm, half a dozen armed
men in a warehouse are locked in a tense face-off, each and every one
pointing his gun at another. The scene drags on and brows get sweaty.
None of the protagonists appears suicidal; in fact, most look desperate to
get out of the imbroglio, preferably without too much loss of face. Good
sense would lead all concerned to nd some way of walking away from
the confrontation. Instead, something a noise, a cough, a glance
causes one of the gunmen to lose his nerve and re, and within instants
everyone is dead or in agony. Before the shoot-out erupts, the characters
last words are:
system can ever be considered fully effective at all times, it remains that
simple geographical realities make South Asia an inauspicious setting in
which to manage the risks inherent in a nuclear face-off. Distances are
short and in view of the ight speeds of ballistic missiles, as well as the
speed with which solid-fuelled ballistic missiles can be readied for ring
(compared with their liquid-fuelled counterparts), decision-making slots
in a perceived nuclear emergency would be extremely short, of the order
of 510 minutes at the most.
Against this background, it is sometimes debated whether Pakistan and
India may have become somewhat complacent in their assurances that
the nuclear threshold is in no danger of being crossed in precipitous an-
guish or even mistakenly. Conversely, it is also sometimes argued (and
feared) that bellicose rhetoric from either side is tantamount to playing
with nuclear re. There is no hard and fast answer to this dilemma of
proper nuclear etiquette, except the rule of thumb that somewhere be-
tween blithe unconcern and frantic alarmism lies prudence, and that per-
ceptions even more than realities are of the essence. Depending on
ones standpoint, keeping a cool head can always be (mis)construed as
complacency, and the expression of legitimate concerns can be (mis)-
interpreted as warlike rhetoric.
The contribution that arms control (let alone disarmament) could make
to improving the situation in South Asia has lately become a rather
ethereally remote prospect. Numerous studies, meetings and worthy re-
search programmes have delved into particular aspects of the issue over
the past 20 years or so. They have produced a rich body of literature as
well as copious amounts of hot air, and, perhaps most usefully, some such
exercises have provided valuable channels for communication and dis-
cussion among Indian and Pakistani academics, journalists and scientists,
as well as diplomats and military ofcers, whether retired or not.
With respect to arms control and non-proliferation, however, the most
frequent strand of advocacy has long been of the one-size-ts-all vari-
ety, which posits that Pakistan and India should join the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In accordance with the letter of the treaty,
they could do so only as non-nuclear weapon states. Ever since the NPT
entered into force, such views, regularly trotted out by foreign ofcials
and scholars visiting South Asia, have drawn intensely critical Indian re,
and even outrage at being thus called upon to sign on the dotted line
of an unequal arrangement that would have enshrined Indias nuclear
abstinence while endorsing the status of China, France, Russia, the
United Kingdom and the United States as nuclear weapon states. From
the moral and political high ground delineated by its policy of refraining
from converting its demonstrated nuclear prowess (the 1974 test) into an
actual military nuclear capability, Indias was a distinctly noted voice in
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 63
(if the trend proves durable) in order to resume some form of purposeful
dialogue.
Finally, over and above national and regional dimensions, security in
a nuclear South Asia is seldom referred to as a human security issue,
although the term could be particularly apt in this case. One need only
imagine for an instant the effects of a nuclear exchange targeting large
cities in South Asia to take the measure of the tragedy it would consti-
tute, thus trivializing any debate about whether such a tragedy is more
appropriately referred to as national, regional, historic or hu-
man. That being said, the notion of human security, as currently ex-
pounded, constitutes more a normative philosophical outlook than a
guide for policy. The proximate genesis of the idea lies in the immediate
postCold War years, when joyful relief at the demise of the EastWest
antagonism led some to hope and believe that other antagonisms the
world over would abate in their turn. Peace dividends would be reaped
and collective security worthy of the spirit of the Charter of the United
Nations would become reliable enough to quell any residually bellicose
states. No less than world order (rather than mere security) was the order
of the optimistic day. To well-fed denizens of the industrialized world
assembled in distinguished colloquia, security threats appeared so remote
(both geographically and probabilistically) that new meanings had to be
sought for the notion of security. Environmental, demographic, food and
economic security were marshalled as new approaches tting a new world.
But in Rwanda, Bosnia, Zaire/DRC, the Horn of Africa, Liberia and
Sierra Leone to name but a few horrors occurred that gave pause for
thought. Suddenly rediscovering the obvious (which had lain at the heart
of the rich tradition of humanist thought since antiquity and without
which no conception of human rights could have been possible), well-
meaning observers decided that the real meaning of security was hu-
man security. The observation had considerable merit, coming as it did
from people most of whom never had the slightest life-threatening expe-
rience, whether individually or collectively. And, although there is clear
pedagogical value in such a shorthand statement of a basic truth, one
may pause to wonder just what proponents of human security thought
that security was all about, until this ne revelation came to them so
belatedly.
In fairness, the idea of human security ought to be assessed according
to its own criteria namely, for the tangible impact it seeks to have on
the real-world security of ordinary human beings, beyond the political
and territorial units to which they belong. Let us then see, in South Asia
as elsewhere, how human security-oriented thinking and actions can im-
prove peoples lives and protect them from threat and violence, and
whether such initiatives prove to be more successful than those inspired
66 CHRISTOPHE CARLE
REFERENCE
Waltz, Kenneth (1981) The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better,
Adelphi Paper No. 171, London: International Institute for Strategic Studies.
6
National security: Inter-state
conict in South Asia
(a Nepali perspective)
Lok Raj Baral
The more we study the South Asian countries security situation, the
more enigmatic it appears. The end of the Cold War has brought about
spectacular changes in other parts of the world in the patterns of bilat-
eral, regional and global relations. South Asia, however, remains largely
unaffected by such developments. Bilateral relations between and among
the countries of the region have not improved nor are they characterized
by the commonality of relations evident in other regional congurations
such as the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the
European Union. The ve countries that gave formal shape to ASEAN
in the wake of intense perceptions of threat in view of the aggressive
trends in communism allegedly emanating from the Peoples Republic of
China, Viet Nam and their smaller allies in Indo-China have now made
ASEAN an aggregate of common interests, peace and security. All for-
mer foes have now become friends, and the regional system seems to be
developing smoothly despite recent sluggishness in its overall activities.
By contrast, the South Asian countries are in turmoil nationally, bi-
laterally and regionally. The domestic sources of insecurity are complex
and difcult to assess, and the countries of the region seem to be unable
to come up with any strategies other than relying on the weakened state
structures. The agenda of national security is made more difcult than
ever before by critical situations arising from entrenched social and eco-
67
68 LOK RAJ BARAL
nomic inequalities, the narrow base and idiosyncratic ways of the ruling
elite within democratic frameworks, widespread corruption, alienation
from mainstream political processes, and crises of state-building. South
Asia can therefore be singled out as the most problematic region from
the perspective of conict. Some scholars have called it the zone of
wars or zone of conicts because the region is permanently plagued
by inter-state conicts and wars.
Although the conicts vary from extremely intense and deep-rooted
(IndiaPakistan) to benign, the defence spending of the South Asian
countries is increasing every year because of heavy reliance on the state
as an actor. In India, defence accounts for 22 per cent of total expen-
diture. Pakistan, whose overall security and foreign policies are India-
centric, is not far behind in defence build-up. Nepal is bogged down in a
Maoist Peoples War and is preoccupied with mobilizing all sorts of re-
sources for security. Nevertheless, the failure of the state to guarantee
security has been acknowledged in Nepal, with an army spokesman ad-
mitting that the Maoist strength had not reduced despite anti-Maoist
combat operations launched by the Royal Nepal Army, the Armed
Police Force and the civil police. As of September 2002, 2,820 Maoist
insurgents were conrmed dead and 900 missing, and 205 soldiers had
been killed in the encounters (Kathmandu Post and Rajdhani Daily, 2
October 2002). Deaths of more than a dozen people a day show no
signs of abatement.
Most South Asian states are now increasingly resorting to the military
option to tackle all forms of conict. Although a number of cases of
negotiated settlement of conicts in India can be cited, the trend is in
general towards militarization. However, it is interesting to observe that
the Sri Lankan ethnic war seems to be taking a new turn, with the Tamil
Tigers giving up their demand for a separate state. If the Norwegian-
brokered negotiation succeeds in ending the 20-year conict, it is likely to
blaze a trail in the area of peaceful conict resolution.
The new security context in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001 has
brought the United States closer to developments in South Asia. This has
prompted both India and Pakistan to turn to the United States to bail
them out, as evident from the present military stand-off (Navalakha,
2002: 3420). Other smaller countries of the region, particularly those in-
volved in internecine intra-state conicts, have also found in the United
States an immediate ally against the upsurge of terrorism. Both India and
Pakistan seemed to be scrambling to court the United States for help in
realizing their diametrically opposed interests. Mobilized as it is against
all forms of terrorism, the United States has taken the lead in beeng
up the security of these states. Thus, South Asia is now more securi-
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 69
both are so interlinked that their national security problems cannot rea-
sonably be analyzed or resolved separately (2002: 2).
Geographical proximity, a distinct sociocultural identity and contigui-
ties buttressed by historical and civilizational commonalities have not
only shaped South Asian interactions and conicts, but also insulate the
region from the rest of the world. This insularity is more pronounced in
the postCold War context, particularly when the world had treated the
region with benign neglect until the 11 September terrorist attacks on the
United States. At the intraregional level, interactions among and be-
tween the South Asian countries take place within the geographical and
other variables identied above. Thus, it becomes clear that geographic
propinquity and intensity of interaction form the core variables that
dene a region. However, it is also signicant that cooperation, conict
and interaction may determine the valid measurement of interaction
(Ayoob, 1995: 56). Judged from this perspective, geographical proximity
has not helped develop IndiaPakistan relations; rather, their negative
interactions not only are intense but also generate conict between them.
Such attitudes are explained by smaller countries perceptions of India,
which looms large in their overall policy decisions or indecisions. Nepali
foreign policy has made considerable headway in diversifying its external
linkages, even after the signing of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship in
1950; moreover, India has not objected to the inclusion of certain ele-
ments that are not in accord with the spirit of the 1950 treaty. Yet the
Nepali power elites, regardless of their political predilections, have
shown circumspection when dealing with India, owing to an ingrained
perception that India continues to be a crucial variable in the domestic
power equilibrium as well as for establishing linkages with outside powers.
Indo-Sri Lankan and Indo-Bangladeshi relations also exemplify such
trends and attitudes, though the degree of the perception varies from
country to country.
It is also worth observing that South Asian political elites tend to ex-
press anti-India sentiments during election campaigns; but once they
come to power they start to view India with a certain degree of objectiv-
ity and realism. As Rehman Sobhan has remarked, it is arguable that
particular governments within South Asia nd it politically convenient do-
mestically to perpetuate tensions with their neighbors in order to divert
attention from their region. Such gestures of political opportunism tend
to establish a symbiotic link between confrontational politics at home and
within the region. Thus, the route to South Asian cooperation originates
in the nature of politics at home (1998: 22). And if the central elites of
South Asia continue to see security and conict through a state-centric
lens and ignore the many other components of security such as the ful-
lment of basic needs, poverty alleviation, an end to corruption, effective
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 71
Inter-state migration
no government has yet adopted any such measures. The fact that cross-
country migration and the facilities to be provided to both Nepalis in
India and Indians in Nepal are explicitly mentioned in the 1950 treaty,
which regulates the whole range of Indo-Nepal relations, is regularly
mentioned in ofcial and non-ofcial circles. The controversy generated
by the treaty revolves around the security, population and trade aspects,
which have all been perceived by critics in Nepal as unequal because
of the asymmetrical positions of the two countries.
Post-colonial South Asia has become conict-ridden and conict-prone
mainly as a result of open and porous borders. First, there is the size of
the migratory populations and the accompanying trends of religious,
ethnic and regional conict. The exodus of people from India to Pakistan
and vice versa during and after Partition was not just an appalling situa-
tion; it also sowed the seeds of endemic conict and animosity between
the two countries. Inter-state migration and refugee conditions have
become almost intolerable owing to the failure of the respective govern-
ments to deal with the issue dispassionately and objectively. On the con-
trary, the countries of the region follow dubious policy on the pretext of
looking after the interests of their people in other countries. Bangladesh
and India in particular have been taking opposite stands on the issue of
cross-country migration: India is tired of and concerned about the phe-
nomenal growth in the number of foreigners in the north-eastern states of
India, whereas Bangladesh denies the presence of Bangladeshis in India.
Because the issues of citizenship, illegal immigration and stateless per-
sons overlap in South Asia, the countries of the region are increasingly
under pressure to grant citizenship to peoples whose identity is un-
documented and unclear. Anti-foreigner agitation in Assam and Megha-
laya based in sub-national identities led to the conclusion of the Assam
Accord between Assam and the central Indian government in 1985. The
memorandum of settlement explicitly mentioned the profound sense of
apprehension regarding the inux of foreign nationals into Assam and
fear about adverse effects on the political, social, economic and cultural
life of the state.1 However, the Accord did not change the demographic
position in Assam and other north-eastern states because the trickle-
down effects of cross-border migration persist, despite the Indian govern-
ments decision to construct a barbed wire fence along the Bangladesh
India border. On the contrary, Bangladeshi rulers maintain that, because
economic opportunities are no better in India than in Bangladesh, the
question of migration from Bangladesh to India does not arise and they
accuse India of resorting to a provocative defensive build up.
The issue of citizenship in Nepal Tarai has attracted the attention of
the main parties. It has been said that about 4 million people live in
Nepal Tarai without citizenship. Taking this up as a cause, the Nepal
74 LOK RAJ BARAL
Sadbhawana Party gained the support of these people during the parlia-
mentary elections of 1999. Similarly, millions of Nepalis living in India
lack citizenship papers and those who fail to acquire citizenship in either
India or Nepal may become stateless persons.
The presence of 1 million Bhutanese refugees in Nepal since the early
1990s has not only strained BhutanNepal relations but also contributed
to the degradation of the environment in Nepal. Even if the two govern-
ments agree on the repatriation of refugees to Bhutan, many of them are
likely to stay in Nepal. So, for Nepal, the worst possible scenario is an
increase in population and the attendant impacts on the country as a
whole.
The border regime as an area of inter-state conict remains a perennial
problem between India and its neighbours. Bangladesh and India con-
tinue to suspect the misuse of borders, particularly when political parties
themselves seem to treat the immigrants as potential votes. The ethnic
enclaves created within the north-eastern states and West Bengal pro-
vide shelter to the immigrants. Millions of settlers from other parts of
India have also created an atmosphere of tension.
The issues of cross-country migration, both legal and illegal, have to be
understood in relation to the increase in population in India, Bangladesh
and Nepal. Pakistan, which has experienced the highest population
growth rate in the region, is to some extent insulated owing to tight con-
trols along the Indo-Pakistan border and continued animosity between
India and Pakistan. Inter-state relations between India and Pakistan have
been traumatic since the time of Partition. The strict surveillance of even
the closely monitored visitors to either country and the issue of entry
have become more complex in recent years because of the spread of in-
ternational terrorist groups across the world. In the Indo-Pakistani con-
text, however, the alleged terrorists sent to Kashmir and other parts of
India are agents of state-sponsored terrorism according to the Indian au-
thorities; in other words, India perceives Pakistan as harbouring terrorist
activities. Since many other countries in the region are entangled with
terrorist groups of varying ideological and religious persuasions, the tac-
tical convergence of all terrorists has now been acknowledged. The de-
cline in ideology and the rise of fundamentalism in South Asia and other
parts of the world have brought them closer together despite their dia-
metrically opposed missions.
None the less, such a nexus is not wholly unfounded. From both na-
tional and international perspectives, the Maoist Peoples War in Nepal is
more nativistic rather than aided and abetted by external powers and
groups. Yet, a Maoist connection with the Revolutionary International
Movement and other like-minded groups in India and other countries
cannot be ruled out. In the context of global terrorism, it is said: It is
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 75
alliance, the boundaries of Nepal, and natural resources and their distri-
bution should be ratied by parliament by either a simple or a two-thirds
majority, depending on the extensive, severe and enduring effect on the
country.
Since it is a preventive provision of the constitution, elected govern-
ments feel constrained about implementing this clause unless there is a
consensus within parliament. Governments without a two-thirds mandate
would never be able to get treaties and agreements ratied without the
support of other parties. This has been understood by foreign govern-
ments, which urge the Nepali side to reach such a consensus before
nalizing deals on the utilization of water and other natural resources.
And a consensus was reached on the eve of signing the Mahakali Treaty
in 1996, but it also split the main opposition party the Communist Party
of Nepal (Unied MarxistLeninist) (CPN-UML). One section of the
CPN-UML saw the Mahakali Treaty as a sell-out to India, whereas a slim
majority supported the other major parties in concluding the treaty.
Despite ratication by parliament in accordance with the constitutional
requirement, the Mahakali Treaty, which was seen as a good precedent
for future agreements, failed to arouse much enthusiasm after it was
signed. Party leaders who feared being cast as anti-Nepali dragged their
feet following a new controversy raised by the critics of the treaty. Article
3 and the Letter exchanged with the treaty, which allowed India to use
the water of the Mahakali River as in the past, became the central point
of controversy. Part of Article 3 reads: Both the parties agree that they
have equal entitlement in the utilization of the waters of the Mahakali
River without prejudice to their respective existing consumptive uses of
the waters of the Mahakali River. Clause 3(b) of the Letter exchanged
by the two prime ministers underlines this: It is understood that para-
graph 3 of Article 3 of the treaty precludes the claim, in any form, by
either party on the utilized portion of the shares of the waters of the
Mahakali River of that treaty without affecting the provision of the with-
drawal of the respective shares of the waters of the Mahakali River by
each party under this treaty.
Replying to critics of the treaty, the minister of water resources, who
had played a crucial role in negotiating the treaty, said: According to
the generally accepted principle of water consumption having been fol-
lowed for years, the prior right of any country is ipso facto established in
the consumption of such waters. Hence the prior right of India has in
principle been established over the waters of the Mahakali River that the
country has been consuming from time immemorial. The question,
therefore, does not arise as to why Nepal has recognized it.2
The way in which false perceptions and the domestication of foreign
policy stultify the normal conduct of inter-state affairs can be observed by
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 77
The two Prime Ministers noted that the huge potential of development of hydro-
power resources in Nepal and the projected demand for power in India in the
coming decades offered rich opportunities for cooperation to bring about rapid,
environmentally sustainable economic growth on both sides of the border. How-
ever, the process of achieving concrete results had been relatively slow and
needed to be accelerated. The Prime Ministers directed that a Joint Committee
on Water Resources, headed by the Water Resources Secretaries of the two gov-
ernments, be set up to discuss all important issues pertaining to cooperation in
the water resources sector including implementation of existing agreements and
understandings. . . . The Prime Ministers reiterated that the implementation of the
Mahakali Treaty would be given high priority. They directed that the remaining
investigations and studies be completed as per the schedule agreed upon by the
Joint Group of Experts on Pancheswar and that the work on the preparation of
the DPR would be addressed by the Joint Committee on Water Resources.
The oods that create havoc every year are a major source of inter-
state conict. When the issue fails to receive adequate attention, it im-
mediately tends to be politicized. Indo-Nepal relations are full of such
examples, but solutions to many of them are mostly elusive. Bangladesh
and India have had similar problems, which also involve Nepal because it is
the upper riparian state whose rivers constitute the GangaBrahmaputra
78 LOK RAJ BARAL
Meghna (GBM) basin. The Bangladesh National Water Plan (1986) esti-
mated that 90 per cent of Bangladeshs total ow originates in the upper
GBM basin. Each day approximately 3,400 million cubic meters of water
are discharged into the Bay of Bengal, which is about 3.9 times the aver-
age daily rainfall over Bangladesh (see Verghese and Iyer, 1993: 48). So
why is follow-up action not taken to implement the agreed agendas?
Some major hurdles standing in the way can be broadly identied.
First, the degree of domestication of Indo-Nepal relations remains
high. Nepali rulers have invariably used Nepals relations with its neigh-
bours as a convenient tool for implementing domestic agendas such as
consolidation of the regime (19601990) and enhancing the prospects of
winning elections or staying in power, either by deliberately misrepre-
senting Indo-Nepal relations or by exaggerated nationalism that the in-
terested parties and lobbies whip up from time to time. The Mahakali
Treaty, particularly as it relates to the consumption rights of the lower
riparian, would not have generated conict if different countries had
signed the agreement. Thus, too much domestication of foreign policy
creates hurdles to the effective implementation of treaties and agree-
ments signed with India.
Second, the weak leadership is bedevilled by problems of governance,
which have given rise to inter-state, intra-party and inter-party conicts.
Party leaders who take decisions fail to persuade their own members to
fall in line with them, resulting in vociferous public debates on policies
approved by the parties. Moreover, there seems to be a lack of coordi-
nation and cooperation between party and government. This situation
is particularly glaring in the relationship between the ruling party (the
Nepali Congress) and its government, where the role of the prime minis-
ter was subservient to that of the party president. In July 2002, the
strained relationship between party president G. P. Koirala and Prime
Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba eventually led to the split of the Nepali
Congress on the issue of the State of Emergency. The party wanted to lift
the State of Emergency once it expired; the prime minister, who was
under pressure from the army and other security agencies to prolong it
indenitely, deed the party. Instead of managing intra-party conict, he
advised the king to hold a mid-term election by dissolving the existing
parliament. The Nepali Congress took strong exception to this and ex-
pelled the prime minister from ordinary membership of the party for
three years.
Third, political parties are not seriously committed to issues that are
crucial for the country once they have taken a decision.
Finally, the negativity that looms large in Nepals relations with India
is a source of conict. This is partly an inheritance from the past and
partly the reection of the weakness of political leaders and others who
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 79
domestic products. Sri Lankan tea, for instance, could not enter the In-
dian market because India imposed restrictions on the entry of tea. Since
the countries of the region have not been able to improve their intra-
regional economic relations despite the impetus of the South Asian As-
sociation for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), they prefer to go it alone
with their neighbours. As a result, Indias bilateral relations have become
crucial for all South Asian countries except Pakistan because of its
conictual relations with India. Even during the most normal situations,
there has been very little bilateral trade between India and Pakistan.
In dealing with inter-state conict, the upsurge in terrorist violence
cannot be discounted in the present-day world. South Asia is likely to be
in the midst of such conicts indenitely because its countries are expe-
riencing various forms of state-sponsored terrorism, cross-border terror-
ism, internal terrorism, clandestine wars, or religious conict deliberately
fomented by interested groups. Moreover, as Jaswant Singh (2002) artic-
ulates, terrorism redenes political geography, for it accepts no bound-
ary; it is an ideology itself; it conquers and colonizes the mind through
terror, it has thus redrawn the contours of geo-politics.
The focus of relationships between the countries of the region has now
shifted to the issue of terrorism. The state is being called to account for
its failure to address the basic problems of people, let alone the security
guarantees it should provide. The vicious circle of poverty, crime and all
other forms of conict is likely to be further aggravated in the absence of
intervention by the state. Nepal is now struggling to cope with the Maoist
menace and has diverted 50 per cent of its developmental budget to
combat operations.
The challenge of terrorism to the capacity of the state for conventional
crisis management is becoming increasingly intractable. The terrorists
strike fear into the people and the failure of government to reassure
them has helped the Maoists cause in Nepal. When the Maoists call for
bundh (a strike), they are successful despite the full resources of the state
being mobilized to foil it. None the less, the ve-day strike organized by
the Maoists in the last week of April 2002 seemed to provoke the people
to deance, and various professional and other groups took to the streets
in their vehicles.
Externally, the terrorism issue has enhanced defence cooperation be-
tween and among the countries of the region and the world but, at the
same time, it is also likely to create misunderstanding among them. India
might view the increased involvement of extraregional powers in the
anti-terrorist drive in Nepal with particular concern. US military experts
have recently toured the areas badly affected by the Maoist insurgency.
This was a follow-up to the visit of US Secretary of State Colin Powell in
January 2002, and the US interest, though a part of the anti-terrorist
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 81
Summing up
Notes
1. See the text of the Assam Accord in The Telegraph (Calcutta), 17 August 1985.
2. See the text of the Mahakali Treaty, the Letter of Exchange, and Minister Pashupati
Shumshere Ranas interview refuting criticisms of the treaty in Jha (1996).
3. For more details, see Iyer (1999). For genesis and development, comment and rebuttal,
see Gyawali and Dixit (1999).
REFERENCES
Ayoob, Mohammad (1995) The Third World Security Predicament: State Making,
Regional Conict, and the International System, Colorado: Lynne Rienner
Publishers.
Baral, Lok Raj (1990) Regional Migrations, Ethnicity and Security: The South
Asian Case, New Delhi: Sterling.
Buzan, Barry (2002) South Asia Moving towards Transformation: Emergence of
India as Great Power, International Studies 39(1).
Gyawali, Dipak, and Dixit, Ajaya (1999) Mahakali Impasse and Indo-Nepal
Water Conict, Economic & Political Weekly (Mumbai), 27 February5
March.
International Center for Peace Initiatives (2002) Reshaping the Agenda in Kash-
mir, Mumbai.
Iyer, Ramaswamy R. (1999) Conict-Resolution: Three River Treaties, Eco-
nomic & Political Weekly (Mumbai), 1218 June.
Jha, Hari Bansh, ed. (1996) Mahkali Treaty: Implication for Nepals Development,
Kathmandu: Foundation for Economic and Social Change.
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 83
Laqueur, Walter (2001) Left, Right, and Beyond: The Changing Face of Ter-
ror, in James F. Hoge, Jr., and Gideon Rose, eds., How Did This Happen?
Terrorism and the New War, New York: Public Affairs.
Navalakha, Gautam (2002) Security Policy: Enemy of Democracy, Economic
and Political Weekly 37(33).
Singh, Jaswant (2002) Reections: September 11, 2001 and After, Strategic
Analysis (Delhi), 22 April.
Sobhan, Rehman (1998) Regional Cooperation in South Asia: A Quest for
Identity, South Asian Survey (Delhi), 5(1).
Verghese, B. G., and Iyer, Ramaswamy R. (1993) Harnessing the Eastern Hima-
layan Rivers: Regional Cooperation in South Asia, Delhi: Konark.
Wallensteen, Peter (2002) Understanding Conict Resolution, London: Sage.
7
Terrorism and political agitation
in post-colonial South Asia:
Jammu-Kashmir and Sri Lanka
Kingsley de Silva
Introduction
84
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 85
studying the subject. Perhaps the only characteristic generally agreed upon is that
terrorism always involves violence or the threat of violence. (Laqueur, 2001b:
56)
The obvious and most essential difference between civil disobedience and ter-
rorism is clearly the latters unswerving commitment to violence as a means of
achieving the terrorists goal, where civil disobedience uncompromisingly for-
swears all forces of violence. Both may require breaking the laws of a nation, but
for civil disobedience the law that is broken as an act of protest must always be
somewhat relevant or appropriate to the object of the protest. Terrorism has no
such restraint. (Devine and Rafalko, 1982: 44)
[Its] central meaning is the use of terror for furthering of political ends, and it was
originally used to denote the use of terror by the French revolutionary govern-
ment against its opponents. . . . This usage of the term to cover terror by govern-
ments, has become less common, though by no means irrelevant, and in most
contemporary usage the term covers acts of terror by those opposed to govern-
ments. The range of activities which the term covers has been wide, but four main
forms of action tend to be included: assassination, bombings, seizures of in-
dividuals as hostages, and more recently, the hijacking of planes. (Halliday, 1993:
403404)
Halliday adds that in the 1970s the term began to be used to cover acts
of violence committed by political groups outside the country in which
they were primarily active (1993: 404). One could include in this the
suicide bombers, human beings with explosives attached to their bodies,
killing themselves but more importantly killing others in the process
(often prominent political gures identied for assassination); provoca-
tive attacks on places of religious worship, including those of great his-
torical importance; and in all of this a total lack of concern for the lives of
the civilian population who happen to be around when the human bombs
go off.
To illustrate the links between terrorism and political agitation in
South Asia, two case-studies have been chosen in the two countries most
affected currently by terrorism: Jammu-Kashmir in the north-west of
India, and Sri Lanka, in its current ethnic conict between the Tamil
separatists in the north and to a lesser extent in the east of the island
86 KINGSLEY DE SILVA
Over the past 50 years, i.e. in the post-colonial phase of its history, South
Asia has had a record of violence in public life unusual even for states
and societies breaking free of colonial rule in any part of the world. One
feature of this is the large number of heads of government or heads of
state, senior politicians and other public gures killed by assassins. In-
deed, no other part of the world has seen so many heads of state and
heads of government, so many prominent personalities, political and na-
tional, become the victims of the assassins bullets and bombs as South
Asia over the past 50 years. In India it began with the assassination of
Mohandas K. Gandhi in 1948. After a lull of over 35 years came the as-
sassination of a prime minister, Indira Gandhi (1984), and seven years
later of her son and successor as prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, who was
leader of the opposition at the time he was killed.2 In the rst two cases,
the assassins came from within the country: M. K. Gandhi was assas-
sinated by Hindu extremists, and in the case of Indira Gandhi Punjabi
Sikhs were reacting against her governments rigorous policies against
burgeoning separatist agitation in that part of the country. Rajiv Gandhis
assassins the Tamil separatist group the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE) came from outside the country, from Sri Lanka.
In Pakistan, the countrys rst prime minister was assassinated within
four years of independence, followed, as in the case of India, by a lull of
over 25 years until the violent elimination of two heads of government/
heads of state. The hanging of Zulkar Ali Bhutto is widely seen as a
judicial murder. If this would not qualify as a terrorist act, the mysterious
and violent death of Zia ul-Haq, the man who put Bhutto in jail and set
in motion the train of events that led to his execution, would qualify as
one because the plane crash in which he was killed may have been caused
by a bomb planted in it.
When we turn to Bangladesh, whose founder and several members of
his family were killed in 1975, to be followed by the assassination of his
successor in 1981 (Gupta, 1981; Lifschultz, 1986; Mascerenhas, 1986), we
are back to terrorism as a feature of South Asian politics. The shadow of
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 87
his eventually successful bid for electoral success in the mid-1950s, as one
of the principal gures in an unusual movement of bhikkhus, who con-
verted what might have been a normal electoral campaign in 1956 into a
moral crusade on Bandaranaikes behalf. The man who did the shooting,
also a bhikkhu, had been a minor gure in that campaign; he was a
human instrument directed and driven by the personal enmity of the
principal conspirator for the man he helped so much to bring to power.
Even this murder, with a personal rather than a political motive, was not
without links to the swings in the countrys political moods of the mid-
1950s and late 1950s. And in any event it had profoundly important po-
litical consequences in the emergence of Mrs. Bandaranaike to power,
the rst of South Asias many political widows. She was to be followed
a decade or so later by political orphans, if one may use that term to
describe the Benazir Bhuttos, Rajiv Gandhis, Sheik Hasina Wajeds and
Khalida Zias of this world. Sri Lankas current executive president,
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, could be described as being both
a political widow and a political orphan (as the daughter of S. W. R. D.
Bandaranaike and the widow of Vijaya Kumaratunga, assassinated in
1959 and 1988 respectively).
With the one exception of S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, every other as-
sassination referred to above has had political motives. Some, especially
those in India and Sri Lanka, were symptoms of a deep malaise in the
political system, from the politics of Partition in India and Pakistan in
their very early years, and thereafter from separatist agitation and ethnic
conict. Rajiv Gandhis violent death was a unique example of an assas-
sination directed by separatists from a neighbouring state, a consequence
nevertheless of an ethnic conict claiming a presumed mediator as a victim.
The Kashmir region is part of the Himalayan frontier of the raj, and
the roots of the Kashmir conict go back to the imperial conicts of the
nineteenth century as the raj continued to build a buffer zone between
itself and the Tsarist empire. Although the British established control
over Jammu-Kashmir, they let it remain a princely state rather than ad-
minister these territories under the direct rule of the raj. Even when they
sought to establish boundaries with China and with Afghanistan in the
Kashmir region, these were never clearly or fully demarcated.
The core of the current crisis could be identied as the diametrically
opposed views on the legitimacy of the procedures through which the
state of Jammu-Kashmir acceded to India: India claims that these proce-
dures were legally sound; Pakistan insists that they violate the principles
that guided the absorption of the princely states in India or Pakistan at
the Partition of the raj in 1947 (Gupta, 1967; Lamb, 1991, 1994; Schoeld,
1996; Behera, 2000; see also Thomas, 1992; among the early accounts of
the Kashmir dispute is Korbel, 1966). Indeed, the Kashmir dispute arose
out of a conspicuous reluctance on the part of the British at the time of
the Partition of the raj to adhere strictly to the rules and policies by which
the princely states were absorbed into the two successor states of the raj.
The failure to resolve the Jammu-Kashmir problem at the time of the
Partition was either the most egregious of the blunders that occurred at
that time, or a matter of calculated choice in an effort to strengthen the
principal successor state to the raj, India. From the outset, the leader-
ships in India and Pakistan compounded the original problem by turning
the Kashmir issue into a symbol of their respective national identities.
For Pakistan, Kashmir was part of the unnished business of the Partition
of the raj, the completion of the separate state the founders had dreamed
of in the 1930s and 1940s. For India, control over Jammu-Kashmir was an
assertion of the secularity of the Indian state. These diametrically op-
posed positions have left the Jammu-Kashmir issue even more intract-
able than the dispute between India and China over the border between
the two countries. Today, more tension prevails over the actual Line of
Control between the Indian- and Pakistani-held parts of Jammu-Kashmir
than over the disputed boundary between India and China.
The Kashmir dispute has had an important military dimension for both
countries. Ever since India crossed the international frontier of 1947 in
response to an attack by Pakistani irregulars in Kashmir proper, the
cease-re line has become an extension of the international border.
Nevertheless, this international frontier leaves both India and Pakistan
dissatised. India insists on its rights to regions in Kashmir, which it
claims should belong to it as heir of the rulers of Jammu-Kashmir. Large
extents of territory in Ladakh are held by China, which India claims as
belonging to it. Then there are the territories under Pakistani control in
90 KINGSLEY DE SILVA
leaves little room for the balanced judgement he showed in 1992 (Fer-
nandes, 2002).
Improvements in mountain-climbing techniques have made it possible
for both India and Pakistan to send soldiers into the Siachen glacier re-
gion (Wirsing, 1991), in a prolonged confrontation over the border in one
of the most inaccessible parts of Kashmir. Here the soldiers are more
vulnerable to the bitter cold than to the weapons used by the opposing
army.
None of the recent changes in the world around Jammu-Kashmir have
affected the public posture of the governments of India and Pakistan. The
fact that Kashmir is an integral part of India is treated as something be-
yond debate by India. Any attempt by Pakistan to raise the issue at a
diplomatic level is dismissed as an attempt to interfere in Indias internal
affairs. For Islamabad, Kashmir is an unresolved international dispute.
The two principal protagonists remain inexibly resistant to any change
in their attitude.
(Swamy, 2002; OBallance, 1989; see also Peiris, 2002; Gunaratna, 2002:
257262; de Silva, 2000): rst, the youthful cadres linked to conventional
political parties for a common political struggle successfully undermine
the latters leadership in situations of violent resistance to the state; and,
second, a small, violent group among the separatist agitators and activists
is able to establish their supremacy among them through a ruthless and
bloody internecine struggle. No similar group in other parts of South and
South-East Asia illustrates the operation of these two trends better than
the LTTE does. In less than 15 years it has succeeded in dominating re-
gional politics in the Jaffna peninsula and in the Tamil areas in the north
and east of the island, systematically rendering its former mentors, as
well as its rivals and opponents, within the Tamil community peripheral
and dispensable while, at the same time, posing a serious threat to the
integrity of the state. One by one, its rivals and opponents among Tamil
separatist groups succumbed to the relentless violence of the LTTE. An
essential feature of the process was the physical elimination of the lead-
ership of several important Tamil separatist groups, rivals and even one-
time associates of the LTTE, and of hundreds of the cadres of such
groups. At its foundation and modest early beginnings in 19721976 to
1983, the LTTE was only one of several separatist groups operating in
the Jaffna peninsula. As we have seen, the LTTE cadres were originally
foot soldiers and, occasionally, shock troops in the TULF campaign of
opposition to the United Front government in the 1970s. Both drew sus-
tenance and nourishment from the association, the armed separatist
groups gaining respectability in the Tamil electorate through their asso-
ciation with the TULF and the latter, in turn, relying on the muscle
power of the former to enforce a conformity to their separatist pro-
gramme in the north and in parts of the east of the country.
Between 1977 and 1986 the TULF consistently lost ground to the
LTTE, which established a dominance in the political life of Jaffna and
over the Tamils of the peninsula that it has retained and consolidated
since 1986 (de Silva, 1986: 313314, 325, 347). Needless to say, public
support for the LTTE increased exponentially after the anti-Tamil riots
of 1983, the most destructive by far of the post-independence riots in
terms of damage to property and lives lost. This became one of the most
signicant turning points in Sri Lankas recent history for another reason,
when regional support from Tamil Nadu became more open than ever
before and the once covert support from the Indian government for
Tamil militants in Sri Lanka became overt, thus helping to transform
Tamil separatism into a really formidable force. The role played by Pak-
istans ISI in Jammu-Kashmir was played by Indias Research and Ana-
lysis Wing (RAW) in regard to the Tamil separatists in Sri Lanka.
The LTTE, which was not a favourite of the RAW, quickly seized the
96 KINGSLEY DE SILVA
over three years later, on 5 July 1987 to be exact, when an LTTE opera-
tive using the nom de guerre of Captain Miller drove a vehicle into a
school in Jaffna housing Sri Lankan troops, killing 18 of them and killing
himself in the process (Swamy, 2002: 241242). Once its effectiveness as
an offensive weapon was demonstrated, the LTTE set about the business
of perfecting the grisly technique of using suicide bombers for the
purpose of killing chosen victims. These were quite often persons of im-
portance in politics, but there would be others as well, less prominent.
With over 200 suicide bombers over 15 years, the LTTE became the most
accomplished exponent of this form of terrorism in the world.
The meticulous planning that went into such attacks was demonstrated
to the world in the killing of Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991 near Chennai in
Tamil Nadu, while he was campaigning during the general election to the
Lok Sabha. The suicide bomber was a Sri Lankan Tamil female. Two
years later, on 1 May 1993, a male suicide bomber of the LTTE elimi-
nated R. Premadasa, the Sri Lankan president, and a dozen or so of his
security and personal entourage. No other guerrilla group in any part of
the world could claim that it had killed a former prime minister and
leader of a major political party of a large regional power, and followed it
by assassinating the executive president of the state against which it was
in rebellion. In October 1994 another suicide bomber killed the presi-
dential candidate of the United National Party (UNP), Gamini Dis-
sanayake. On this occasion, over 50 persons in the gathering were killed,
including several former and potential cabinet ministers and the general
secretary of the party. Up to now, this has been the largest number of
persons killed by a suicide bomber in Sri Lanka.
The presidential election of December 1999 provided the LTTE with
the opportunity to attack President Kumaratunga, this time through a
female on the night of 18 December. The president escaped with minor
injuries. Once again, security staff and bystanders were among those
killed. On the same night, another LTTE suicide bomber, a male on this
occasion, chose an election rally to kill a former general in the army who
was expected to get a cabinet position if the UNP had won; 12 others
were also killed on that occasion and nearly 50 wounded. The killing eld
was at Ja-ela, a township close to Colombo on the road to the national
airport.
All this was apart from a staggeringly long hit-list of politicians and
public gures, Sinhalese and Tamil, who were blown to bits with time
bombs or occasionally shot to death. Among those killed in this latter
manner was Lalith Athulathmudali, in April 1993, who had master-
minded the military campaign against the LTTE from 1984 to the end of
1988 as minister for national security, and Ranjan Wijeratne, in March
1991, who played a similar role from 1989 to 1991 as deputy minister of
98 KINGSLEY DE SILVA
defence. Between 1991 and 1994 the LTTE eliminated the core of the
UNPs political leadership of the 1990s.
The LTTEs treatment of minorities who live or lived in their midst in
the Jaffna peninsula has been extraordinarily brutal. During the whole
course of Sri Lankas ethnic conict, the only incidents of ethnic cleans-
ing have been organized by the LTTE. The Sinhalese population of
the Jaffna peninsula has been either killed or compelled to ee. The
Sinhalese were a much smaller minority than the Muslims there. The
LTTE attacked the Muslims of the Northern and Eastern provinces at
regular intervals between 1984 and 1990 and killed over 300 of them, in-
cluding the massacre of 120 Muslims at evening prayers in August 1990 at
a mosque in Kattankudy in Batticaloa in the Eastern Province (see de
Silva, 1998: 268). The attacks culminated in the expulsion of the whole
Muslim population of the Northern Province (estimated at 75,000
persons) en masse on 22 October 1990 (de Silva, 1998: 269; see also Has-
bullah, 1999: 337339). These victims of ethnic cleansing continue to live
as refugees in the Sinhalese areas of the country, either in centres of
Muslim habitation or among the Sinhalese.
The reference to the massacre of Muslims while at prayer in a mosque
serves as an appropriate point of departure for an examination of an-
other distinguishing feature of the LTTEs attitude: a total lack of con-
cern for the religious sentiments and sensitivities of those it regarded as
its opponents or enemies. We need to begin with an incident on 14 May
1985 when LTTE guerrillas dressed in military uniforms attacked the
ancient city of Anuradhapura the capital of Sri Lanka for over 1,000
years (to the tenth century CE) and gunned down over 150 persons of
all ages, all of them civilians (Swamy, 2002: 147148). They also attacked
one of the two most sacred sites of Sri Lankan Buddhism, the precincts of
the bo- (bodhi) tree, perhaps the oldest identiable tree in the world,
believed to be a sapling of the bo-tree under which the Buddha attained
enlightenment at Gaya in India and brought to Sri Lanka in the time of
the Mauryan Emperor, Asoka. The complicity of Indias Research and
Analysis Wing in this attack was suspected from the outset and is now
documented through reliable sources.7 Two years later, on 27 July 1987,
a group of LTTE operatives massacred 32 samancras (young bhikkhus in
training) at Arantalawa in the Eastern Province. Then on 25 January
1998, the LTTE blew up a large section of the Dalada Maligawa (Temple
of Tooth) in Kandy, the most sacred site of Buddhist worship for the
Sinhalese and for the Theravada Buddhist world. Fortunately, the tooth
relic of the Buddha was not harmed, but there was extensive damage to
the building. In attacking the Dalada Maligawa, the LTTE was emulating
Portuguese, Dutch and British invaders of Kandy of the past, except that
there was no LTTE invasion, but simply a case of operatives sneaking in
to organize the bombing.
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 99
He has shown a bloodthirstiness in dealing with opponents that has been com-
pared with some of the cruellest gures in recent Asian history, including Pol Pot
of Cambodia.
Prabhakaran, who is 40, leads a movement whose deeds, in scale, pale alongside
the genocide committed by Pol Pots Khmer Rouge of the 1970s . . . But what they
lack in scope, they make up in brutality. . . .
[He] has established a rule of terror in the city of Jaffna. According to scores of
accounts from defectors and others who have escaped the Tiger tyranny, many of
his own lieutenants have been murdered; Tamils who have criticized him, even
mildly or in jest have been picked up, tortured, and executed; others have been
held for years in dungeons, half-starved, hauled out periodically for a battering by
their guards.
Five years later, much the same assessment of him was made by a dis-
tinguished Indian political analyst.8
Conclusion
The lack of knowledge and reliable information on the covert role of India in Sri
Lanka until the 1987 accord was one of the factors which precluded an intelligent
analysis of the Indian involvement. Few Indians were aware of the kind of mili-
tary muscle India was providing to Tamil groups to take on the government of a
neighbouring country. Most Indian commentators were taken in by New Delhis
repeated assertions that it was not involved in the arming and training of the
Tamils. Many Indians genuinely believed that the Indian connection was conned
to Tamil Nadu and MGR and that Rajiv Gandhi had probably reversed the
clouded involvement begun during his mothers tenure.
No one asked questions when Tamil groups with Indian patronage massacred in-
nocent Sinhalese although the killings of innocent Tamils by Sri Lankan secu-
rity forces was always denounced loudly. It would be pertinent for Indians today
to look back and see how the average Sri Lankan must have felt over the brazen
patronage extended to people dubbed terrorists by Colombo. Tamil groups
based in Tamil Nadu openly claimed credit for attacks on government/military
targets in Sri Lanka without inviting any criticism from the Indian government.
Imagine the Punjab or Sind legislature in Pakistan announcing monetary aid to
Kashmiri/Khalistani militants. Yet this is precisely what the Tamil Nadu legisla-
ture did in 1987. (Swamy, 2002: 331332)
Notes
1. See the discussion in Turk (1982) and Devine and Rafalko (1982). See also Wardlaw
(1982) and Wilkinson (1979).
2. There is an easily accessible account of these assassinations in Tharoor (1998: 1649).
3. For a recent assessment of the implications of this incident, see Ghosh (1998: 7173). See
also Oung (1996).
4. Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike was adopted as leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party
during the parliamentary election of July 1960, an election that her party won with ease.
She became the rst woman to be elected as prime minister in recent times.
5. The Hizbul Mujahideen is often described as the largest Kashmiri militant group today.
For a convenient list of such groups, see Abbas (2000).
6. The article was entitled Prole of a Tiger. Durayappah was unarmed at the time of his
killing he was returning from a kovil (a Hindu temple). He was unsuspecting as well.
7. See Swamy (2002: 329, fn 10) for a reference to the RAW inspiration behind the attack.
8. Noorani (2000), in an op-ed piece in The Statesman, 5 June.
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Behera, Navnita Chadha (2000) State, Identity and Violence: Jammu, Kashmir and
Ladakh, New Delhi: Manohar.
Bose, Sumantra (1997) The Challenge in Kashmir: Democracy, Self-Determination
and a Just Peace, New Delhi: Sage.
Cobban, Helena (1985) The Making of Modern Lebanon, London: Hutchinson.
Collis, Maurice (1956) Last and First in Burma, 19411948, London: Faber &
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(2002) The Global Fight against Terrorism. Where to Begin and Where
to End, in K. P. S. Gill and Ajay Sahni, The Global Threat of Terror, New
Delhi: Bulwark Books, pp. 714.
Ghosh, Amitav (1998) Dancing in Cambodia: At Large in Burma, Delhi: Ravi
Dayal.
Gunaratna, Rohan (2002) Asia Pacic: Organised Crime and International Ter-
rorist Network, K. P. S. Gill and Ajay Sahni, The Global Threat of Terror,
New Delhi: Bulwark Books, pp. 241268.
Gupta, Jyoti Sen (1981) Bangladesh: Blood and Tears, Calcutta: Naya Prakash.
Gupta, Sisir (1967) Kashmir: A Study in IndiaPakistan Relations, Bombay:
Asian Publishing House.
Halliday, Fred (1993) Terrorism, in J. Kreiger, ed., Oxford Companion to the
Politics of the World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 403404.
Hasbullah, H. S. (1999) Ethnic Conict and Prospects for Rehabilitation and
Reconstruction: The Eastern Province, in K. M. de Silva and G. H. Peiris,
eds., Pursuit of Peace in Sri Lanka: Past Failures and Future Prospects, Kandy,
Sri Lanka: ICES in association with the United States Institute of Peace,
pp. 337339.
Jayatilleka, Dayan (1999) The LTTE and Tamil Separatism in Sri Lanka, in
K. M. de Silva and G. H. Peiris, eds., Pursuit of Peace in Sri Lanka: Past Failures
and Future Prospects, Kandy, Sri Lanka: ICES in association with the United
States Institute of Peace, pp. 231262.
Korbel, Joseph (1966) Danger in Kashmir, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press.
Lamb, Alistair (1991) Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy, 18461990, Hertfordshire:
Roxford Books.
(1994) Birth of a Tragedy, Hertfordshire: Roxford Books.
Laqueur, Walter (2001a) A History of Terrorism, Piscataway, N.J., and London:
Traction Books.
(2001b) The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruc-
tion, New York: Phoenix Press.
Lifschultz, Lawrence (1986) Bangladesh: The Unnished Revolution, London:
Hodder & Stoughton.
Mascerenhas, Anthony (1986) Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood, London: Hodder
& Stoughton.
Noorani, A. G. (2000) LTTE Menace An Impossible Negotiator, The States-
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Oung, Kin (1996) Who Killed Aung San?, 2nd expanded ed., Bangkok: White
Lotus.
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 103
Introduction
With the end of the Cold War, United Nations activities in the mainte-
nance of international peace and security increased considerably, the im-
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 107
Indias contribution
As one of the founding members of the United Nations, India has made a
very signicant and unconditional contribution to the maintenance of in-
ternational peace and security in every way. In no other eld of activity
has this been more manifest than in United Nations operations, commen-
cing with its participation in Korea in 1950. To date India has participated
in 36 UN operations across the globe, and has the unique distinction of
having provided personnel for every single peacekeeping operation under-
taken by the United Nations in Africa an enviable record by any stan-
dards! The United Nations operation in Korea, led by the United States,
was a major military undertaking. India participated militarily with a
medical unit comprising 17 ofcers, 9 junior commissioned ofcers and
300 other ranks. It then provided a Custodian Force of 231 ofcers, 203
junior commissioned ofcers and 5,696 other ranks under the command
of Major-General S. P. P. Thorat for the Neutral Nations Repatriation
Commission, of which the Chairman was Lieutenant General K. S. Thi-
mayya. India also contributed signicantly to the Indo-China Supervisory
Commission in Cambodia, Laos and Viet Nam, deploying 970 ofcers,
140 junior commissioned ofcers and 6,157 other ranks over the period
19541970 and a medical detachment from 1964 to 1968.
The use of armed military contingents for United Nations peace-
keeping was rst resorted to with the deployment of the United Nations
Emergency Force (UNEF 1) in the Gaza Strip and the Sinai after the
ArabIsraeli war in 1956. From 15 November 1956 to 19 May 1967, 11
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 109
infantry battalions from India served successively with this force a total
of 393 ofcers, 409 junior commissioned ofcers and 12,393 other ranks
in all. Major-General P. S. Gyani and Brigadier I. J. Rikhye were Force
Commanders in this operation. This operation became a model for many
subsequent peacekeeping operations. The success of UNEF apparently
led the Security Council readily to accept a request by the Congo in 1960
for intervention on attaining independence from Belgium. The United
Nations accepted responsibility for ending secession and reunifying the
country. The rules of engagement were modied to cater for the use of
force in defence of the mandate, in carrying out humanitarian tasks and
in countering mercenaries. Indias contribution to the Congo operation
was not only substantial but vital. Between 14 July 1960 and 30 June
1964, two Indian brigade groups comprising a total of 467 ofcers, 404
junior commissioned ofcers (JCOs) and 11,354 other ranks participated;
36 Indian personnel lost their lives in the operation and 124 were
wounded. Captain G. S. Salaria of the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Gorkha
Ries was posthumously awarded the Param Vir Chakra, Indias highest
gallantry award.
The United Nations operations in Cyprus, launched in 1964, saw three
Indian Force Commanders: Lieutenant General P. S. Gyani, General
K. S. Thimayya, who died in harness on 18 December 1965, and Major-
General Diwan Prem Chand. Lieutenant General Diwan Prem Chand
also distinguished himself as the Force Commander in the United Na-
tions operations in Namibia in 1989, which oversaw that countrys transi-
tion to independence.
In recent years, India has provided military observers to many of the
United Nations missions deployed to keep the peace in various parts of
the world: Iran and Iraq in 19881990; Angola in 19891991; Central
America in 19901992; on the IraqiKuwait border after the Gulf War in
1991; El Salvador in 1991; Liberia in 1994. India has provided police
personnel to a number of United Nations missions, for example in Na-
mibia, Cambodia, Haiti, Bosnia-Herzegovina and, most recently, Kosovo.
Military contingents have been made available for a number of United
Nations operations. A total of 2,550 all ranks in two successive battalion
groups formed part of the United Nations force in Cambodia in 1992
1993, which monitored a cease-re between the Cambodian government
forces and the Khmer Rouge and assisted in the election process. A bat-
talion group of about 1,000 all ranks served with great distinction in Mo-
zambique in 19921993 and brought about a peaceful transition in that
country. A brigade group totalling about 5,000 all ranks served in the
United Nations mission in Somalia in 19931994 and drew acclaim from
all parties to the conict for their impartial conduct and the provision of
succour through various welfare projects to the communities in the area
110 SATISH NAMBIAR
Pakistan
Bangladesh
Nepal
sion from October 1992 to November 1993. He was later the Chief
Military Observer and subsequently the Force Commander of the Iraq/
Kuwait mission from December 1993 to December 1995. Nepal has since
provided personnel for military contingents, military observers and staff
ofcers, and civilian police for a total of 20 missions. These include the
second mission of the United Nations Emergency Force in the Gaza
Strip and Sinai, the missions in Lebanon, IndiaPakistan in 19651966,
Somalia, Mozambique, Namibia, the former Yugoslavia, Haiti and
Afghanistan/Pakistan and the Iraq/Kuwait mission. As of 31 March 2002,
Nepal has 1,129 personnel deployed in 8 of the 15 United Nations mis-
sions in operation.
Sri Lanka
portantly, their very lives. Given that four countries in South Asia
Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan provide almost one-third of the
total forces deployed in United Nations peace operations worldwide, the
countries in the region need to develop a consensual approach in this
regard, so that their voices are heard and their views acted upon in the
corridors of power in New York. It would be appropriate for the South
Asian representatives at the United Nations to act in consonance, in
order to secure greater participation by the developed world in United
Nations peace operations and also to ensure total political commitment
to missions once they are set up.
Now that peacekeeping training centres have been set up in Bangla-
desh, Nepal and India, these institutions should establish formal links for
sharing their experiences and effect coordination in evolving common
guidelines and syllabuses for training. Equally, much value could be de-
rived from the conduct of joint training exercises.
At the operational level it would be useful to consider the scope for
strengthening the United Nations Stand-by arrangements. One of the
major shortcomings at present is the inability of the United Nations
rapidly to deploy sizeable forces with a functional headquarters into a
mission area after a Security Council decision has been taken. With in-
stitutional coordination between the training centres in South Asia, it
might be feasible to activate a brigade-level joint headquarters together
with battalion-size contingents for rapid deployment when required.
Needless to say, such an arrangement would need a demonstrable degree
of political statesmanship and determination. There will also be a need
for assured logistics lift capability from a country such as the United
States.
Finally, it is no revelation that at present the institutional benets that
accrue from United Nations peacekeeping operations, such as contracts
for provisions and services, are secured only by rms and entrepreneurs
from some of the Western countries. The representatives of these rms
and countries are familiar with UN procedures and are in touch with the
Secretariat on a regular basis for this purpose. This stranglehold needs to
be broken with a concerted effort by South Asias enterprising rms and
entrepreneurs, assisted strongly and publicly by their governmental
agencies and the permanent missions in New York, so that some share of
these benets is derived by the people of the South Asian region too.
9
The United Nations and South
Asia: Bangladeshs contribution
to UN peacekeeping
Syed Fatemy Ahmed Roomy
invited to participate in almost all the missions owing to its sincerity, im-
partiality and professional competence.
the largest force, with 4,271 ofcers and men. This comprises nine con-
tingents, including the Bangladesh Sector Headquarters, and 23 military
observers and staff personnel.
Completed missions
Operations in coalition
Rebuilding operations
Since the end of the Gulf War, Bangladeshi ofcers and men have con-
tinued to assist in rebuilding the war-ravaged Kuwait through various
projects. Clearing mines from all over Kuwait was one of the major tasks,
which was done very professionally. Bangladeshi forces are undertaking
various engineering projects in East Timor. Bangladeshi forces may also
participate in rebuilding Afghanistan.
Sacrices made
Mark of professionalism
Achievements
The United Nations has many requirements of member states for con-
ducting multidimensional peacekeeping operations. The most important
of these are:
Rapid response. Once a decision is taken for deployment, member
states should be able to respond quickly.
Training. The troops being deployed should be appropriately trained to
carry out the assigned job.
Logistics. The troops, once deployed, should be maintained by a well-
prepared logistics system.
with a standing army, which the United Nations does not have. To com-
pensate for this problem, the United Nations has formalized an idea for a
UN Stand-by Arrangements System (UNSAS). In this connection, the
Brahimi Report spelled out a few clear-cut requirements from the mem-
ber states. Notable among those are:
Member states should be encouraged to form several coherent brigade-
size forces with the necessary enabling forces, ready for effective deploy-
ment within 30 days of the adoption of a Security Council resolution,
and within 90 days for complex peacekeeping operations.
A revolving on-call list of about 100 military ofcers to be created in
UNSAS to be available on seven days notice to augment nuclei of
planners from the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, with
teams trained to create a mission headquarters for a new peacekeeping
operation.
Parallel on-call lists of civilian police, international judicial experts,
penal experts and human right specialists must be available in sufcient
numbers to strengthen the rule of law institutions, as needed, and
should also be part of UNSAS.
Member states should establish an enhanced national pool of police
ofcers and related experts earmarked for deployment to United Nations
peace operations.
This kind of requirement puts huge organizational as well as nancial
pressures on member countries.
Training Centre. India also wishes to share its experience, expertise and
training infrastructure for peacekeeping with other countries.
Nepal also places a particular emphasis on peacekeeping training. It
established a Peacekeeping Training Centre at Kathmandu some time
ago. The centre provides integrated training in peacekeeping roles to in-
dividuals and to designated units. Moreover, peacekeeping training has
been incorporated at every level of the Nepali training system, from in-
dividual to formation level. In order to spread knowledge about peace-
keeping to all ranks, the curriculum has been suitably developed and
introduced as a separate package in all the army-level training institu-
tions, including the Command and Staff College (Karki and Gurang,
1994: 164). Recently, Nepal conducted a multi-platoon peacekeeping
training exercise.
From the above, it is evident that the South Asian countries are now
better prepared in the eld of training. But the current complexities of
operations and their widening dimensions warrant a pragmatic and
effective approach in further improving training standards. Training and
preparation should be extended outside national boundaries and coordi-
nated on a regional basis. In addition to seminars and conferences, South
Asian countries should also organize or conduct regional training exer-
cises, which are extremely effective means of improving common train-
ing standards and capabilities.
The end of the Cold War has brought about a dramatic change in inter-
national politics. The demise of the USSR has changed the bipolar world
into a unipolar world. This situation has given scope for the rise of many
regional powers and small countries are becoming more vulnerable to the
military adventures and hegemony of their bigger neighbours. On the
positive side, however, it is observed that the world has made a decisive shift
away from conict towards cooperation. Countries are putting greater
emphasis on regional economic cooperation for mutual benet and re-
ducing defence spending.
Although conicts in some regions are moving towards a solution, in
South Asia conicts are becoming more acute and damaging to regional
interests. The arms race and nuclear tests by two antagonistic countries in
South Asia is an example of this type. In addition to conventional threats,
religious differences, ethnic conicts and socio-economic problems also
threaten the security of South Asia. Unfortunately, South Asian coun-
tries are not able to derive any signicant benet from regional coopera-
tion. Owing to the lack of a conducive political atmosphere, economic
126 SYED ROOMY
cooperation has not ourished under the South Asian Association for
Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The nations are yet to see SAARC
function as an effective regional forum in dealing with the rest of the
world.
Although SAARC is not a security-oriented organization, it could play
a creative role in solving the problems of the region. South Asian coun-
tries should take the initiative to halt the prevailing strategic divergence
and exploit the great potentialities of SAARC.
Logistical support
South Asian countries are not well prepared to contribute in the eld
of logistics because of their inherent limitations. Therefore, logistically
more efcient nations could participate more in a supportive role and
peacekeepers could be drawn more from the smaller nations. At the
same time, smaller countries should take serious steps to attain self-
sustainability. The countries should also review their procurement pro-
cesses in order to make them simple and exible to facilitate immediate
provisioning of stores in the mission area.
Conclusion
Apart from classic peacekeeping, the United Nations is also now en-
trusted with multifunctional second-generation peacekeeping operations
that help create a safe and sustainable environment for a countrys return
to democracy. One example is the UN campaign for the restoration of
democracy in Haiti, in which Bangladesh was a proud partner. Second-
generation peacekeeping is very complex and challenging. Due attention
needs to be given to political, humanitarian and socio-economic aspects.
This requires the services of civilian experts and relief and rehabilitation
specialists, along with the professional soldiers. The traditional role of
soldiers has also changed; the warmongers have now become peace-
mongers. In this new role, they have to motivate warring factions to
political understanding, democratic stability and national reconciliation
and reconstruction. The peacekeepers have to deal with condence-
building and post-conict rehabilitation work as well. In todays changed
security scenario, peacekeeping forces need to be well equipped to face
the new and demanding challenges of the day. A well-trained force is a
prerequisite for the successful conduct of a peacekeeping operation.
It is undeniable that South Asia has many limitations, which need to be
identied and appropriate measures taken. The future may involve new
complexities and challenges and South Asian peacekeepers should re-
main ever ready to face those.
128 SYED ROOMY
REFERENCES
131
132 HAFIZ PASHA
certain periods. Perhaps one of the best examples is China. During the
earlier part of the 1980s, Chinas agriculture-led development strategy
sparked off a historically unprecedented reduction in poverty. Unlike
many countries, China gave favourable treatment to farmers dividing
the land equitably among them, raising the prices of their output and
giving them the incentive to benet directly from harder work. Farmers
also beneted from earlier state investment in rural physical infra-
structure and basic health and education. The consequence was a surge in
pro-poor growth. The resulting rural prosperity directly propelled the
emergence of non-farm township and village enterprises, which further
boosted employment and incomes and created a virtuous circle of growth
and poverty reduction.
It needs to be noted that, when China shifted gear in the 1980s to a
development strategy oriented towards exports and foreign direct invest-
ment (mostly located in the richer coastal region), growth became not-
ably less pro-poor and poverty reduction slowed. It has become essential
now to launch an anti-poverty programme for the more backward west-
ern regions.
In the case of India, the increase in the aggregate growth rate in the
1990s coincided with a major economic reform process involving a degree
of external trade liberalization along with convertibility of the rupee, de-
regulation of industry, including relaxation of past restrictions on do-
mestic and foreign investment, and some nancial sector reform. But the
rate of decline in poverty associated with the relatively high growth was
low, as highlighted earlier.
The process of growth in India was less pro-poor for several reasons.
First, Indias sectoral composition, especially the relatively poor perfor-
mance of agriculture, has not helped rural poverty, and much of the
poverty is concentrated in rural areas. Second, the spatial pattern of
growth has been skewed, so that growth has not occurred in the states
where it would have the most impact on poverty nationally. Third is the
problem of adverse initial conditions: states that lagged behind in terms
of initial rural development and initial human development faced limited
prospects not only of overall growth but also of pro-poor growth.
It is of interest to observe that during the 1980s, when the overall rate
of growth was somewhat lower, the reduction of poverty in India was
more spectacular (from 51 per cent to 36 per cent). This is explained by
the agricultural breakthrough during the decade. Similarly, Bangladesh
reduced poverty substantially in the 1980s (from 70 per cent to 48 per
cent) on the back of improved food production.
The general principle that can be extracted from these examples is
that, for growth to be, more or less, immediately poverty reducing, it
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 135
Macroeconomic policies
Therefore, the question is: what is the optimal point in the ination
unemployment trade-off from the viewpoint of poverty reduction? Expe-
rience seems to indicate that there is a case for tolerating larger scal
decits so as to stimulate the process of investment and growth. As long
as ination can be kept within a moderate range, it need not dampen
growth. Moreover, growth stimulated by scal expansion can help nance
government decits, as long as they are not excessive, through faster
growth in tax revenues. The larger levels of public investment made pos-
sible in this strategy should be used for investment that provides a more
durable basis for stimulating private investment and for the purposes of
human development and poverty reduction.
Pakistans economic performance in recent years is perhaps a prime
example of the process of stabilization gone too far, under the aegis of an
ongoing IMF programme that has substantially retarded the process of
growth and led to rapid increases in employment and poverty. During the
1990s there were sharp cuts in public sector development expenditures
from almost 10 per cent to less than 3 per cent of gross domestic product
(GDP). Since 11 September 2001, there has been a degree of stabiliza-
tion, the current account decit has been converted into a surplus and
foreign exchange reserves have increased sharply. Favourable develop-
ments include, rst, a resumption of grant assistance by the United
States, second, debt rescheduling on favourable terms and, third, larger
inows of home remittances.
However, the growth rate has plummeted to only about 3 per cent.
Private investment has declined in recent years because stabilization
policies have implied high real rates of interest, a rise in the relative cost
of imported capital goods (owing to high real exchange rate deprecia-
tion), the presence of signicant excess capacity as a result of low levels
of aggregate demand, and the absence of complementary public invest-
ment in infrastructure. Fiscal stabilization has proved elusive and the
budget decit has remained high (at close to 7 per cent of GDP), owing
primarily to the failure of tax revenues to grow in the presence of a stag-
nant economy.
Restructuring policies
Asia have continued to bring down their import tariffs and phase out
their quantitative restrictions, along with a move towards market-based
exchange rate regimes, in an effort to encourage investment in export
promotion rather than import substitution. Simultaneously, there has
been opening up of more sectors for foreign direct investment, combined
with attractive scal incentives. But the optimism has gradually faded
away in the face of overall recession in the world markets in recent years
and developed countries barriers to labour-intensive exports in the form
of export quotas (as in textiles) and enormous subsidies (especially to
agriculture) to domestic producers, while foreign direct investment re-
mains largely concentrated in middle-income countries.
Meanwhile, the reduction in import tariffs has had a number of dele-
terious consequences, especially from the viewpoint of the impact on
poverty. A number of industries have died because of the inability to face
up to competition from cheaper imports. For example, the indigenous
artisan and crafts sector of India, employing large numbers of people in
cottage and home-based industry, is facing extinction owing to the avail-
ability of mass-produced basic consumer goods from abroad. Sectors that
have beneted from trade liberalization and foreign direct investment
in India, such as the information technology sector, have essentially
emerged as export enclaves, having few backward or forward linkages
with the domestic economy.
The conclusion now from research is that South Asian countries should
attempt to engage cautiously with the world economy and on their own
terms. Premature opening could lead either to a more or less immediate
displacement of economic activity and loss of growth or to an uneven
distribution of whatever gains are realized. Globalization can be favour-
able for the interests of the poor only if there is appropriate sequencing
of the process of trade and capital account liberalization. Reliance should
be placed on a domestic investment strategy to initiate an indigenous
growth process before opening up to the global economy. Simulta-
neously, efforts must be made to raise levels of human development to
face the competitive pressures of globalization and to tackle the institu-
tional constraints that hinder development of the export sector (such as
the absence of adequate arrangements for marketing, quality control,
transfer of technology and R&D).
One of the implications of trade liberalization that has seldom been
highlighted is its adverse effects on human development via the impact
on public revenues. South Asian countries rely heavily on taxes on inter-
national trade for revenue, owing to their relative ease of collection. The
scaling down of import tariffs as part of the process of trade liberalization
has meant sizeable revenue losses, because of the inability to substitute
customs duties with more effective taxation of domestic incomes, pro-
140 HAFIZ PASHA
Redistributive policies
mental impact on the rural power structure. Therefore, land reform has
usually come in the aftermath of a cataclysmic event (following the Par-
tition of India) or when the problem of poverty and the resulting social
breakdown have become so serious that radical governments have
emerged with an agenda involving major structural change. The recent
experience of Nepal reveals that, in the face of a Maoist insurgency,
the government has been compelled to announce major land reforms
(although these have remained largely unimplemented to date).
It has been argued that pro-poor policies are more likely to be adopted
in the context of a positive-sum game. This is the case when incomes are
generally increasing rapidly and it becomes possible at the margin to
distribute a disproportionate part of the income gains in favour of the
poor. For example, Malaysia was able successfully to pursue a strong
afrmative action programme in favour of the indigenous Malays, who
were poorer than the Chinese or Indian residents, on the back of strong
growth performance. This is why it is important to demonstrate that pro-
poor policies are also pro-growth and the development strategy is such
that much of the poverty is tackled not upfront but during the process of
growth.
I turn now to the identication of the key elements of governance that
are likely to be supportive of the adoption of more pro-poor policies.
These are essentially systemic and institutional changes that enable the
poor to have a stronger voice in the formulation and conduct of public
policy.
Introduction
Trade
Intraregional trade
South Asian countries do not trade much with the rest of the world or
among themselves either. Kemal et al. (2002: Tables 6.11 and 6.12) report
that, in 1997, India and Pakistan imported only 0.45 per cent and 1.96 per
cent, respectively, of their total imports from the rest of South Asia, and
exported only 4.18 per cent and 2.63 per cent, respectively, of their total
exports to the rest of South Asia. The three smaller economies, Bangla-
desh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, imported 10 per cent or more of their total
imports from the rest of South Asia. Only Nepal exported more than 10
per cent of its total exports to the rest of South Asia, but only in certain
years. However, these gures are for trade through ofcial channels;
there is thriving cross-border trade through informal channels mostly
smuggled goods and illegal trade. The proportion of informal intra-
regional trade in total trade will be much higher than that for recorded
trade data.
South Asian exports increased from US$28.3 billion in 1991 to US$51.0
billion in 1997, a growth rate of 10.3 per cent, whereas imports increased
by 10.5 per cent (from US$34.9 billion to US$63.6 billion). Consequently,
the trade decit widened further from US$6.6 billion to US$12.6 billion,
resulting in an even greater dependence on external resources to nance
the trade decit. Regional exports consist largely of raw materials and
traditional products, such as textiles and garments, and some regional
countries are direct competitors in the world export market for these
products. On the other hand, the import requirements of the region con-
sist mainly of capital goods and high-tech products. In this scenario, the
South Asian region can hardly be characterized as self-dependent and,
therefore, the trade pattern of its countries is naturally tied to trade with
the developed countries.
The low complementarity of products of the regions economies as well
as the trade policy regimes followed by South Asian countries have acted
as inhibiting factors. As indicated in Table 11.1, trade within the South
Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) accounted for
less than 4.0 per cent of trade in South Asia for much of the 1980s, but
gradually increased to 4.4 per cent by 1999. Intra-SAARC exports ac-
counted for 4.6 per cent of SAARCs exports to the world, and the cor-
responding share of intra-SAARC imports was even lower, at 4.1 per
cent in 1999 (see Table 11.2). The share of imports from South Asia for
the two largest economies in the region India and Pakistan remains
disappointingly low, at approximately 0.8 per cent and 1.9 per cent of
their total imports respectively. Bilateral trade imbalances in the region
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 147
Table 11.1 Trade within the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
World trade of Share of SAARC
Intra-SAARC SAARC trade in world
trade countries trade of SAARC
Year (US$ million) (US$ million) (%)
1980 1,210 37,885 3.2
1985 1,054 44,041 2.4
1990 1,584 65,041 2.4
1995 4,228 104,159 4.1
1999 5,640 129,738 4.4
Source: IMF (2000).
its establishment in the 1960s, the low level of trade amongst the South
Asian countries is a cause for concern in attempts to push ahead an
agenda for regional economic integration.
Restrictive trade policies are also responsible for the low level of
intraregional trade. The South Asian Preferential Trading Arrangement
(SAPTA) became operational in December 1995, and in 1997 all the
partner countries decided to transform the agreement into the South
Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) by 2001. However, it has still not
materialized, largely because of long-standing conict between India and
Pakistan. Under SAPTA, 5,000 products from all SAARC member
countries are entitled to preferential duty treatment. In the case of Indo-
Bangladesh trade, the cumulative decit during the past 10 years is in
excess of US$12 billion ofcially, and possibly in excess of US$25 billion
if smuggling is taken into account. In spite of commitments by the present
Indian government at the highest level, Bangladeshs request for duty-
free access to the Indian market has still not been granted. India has
entered into bilateral free trade agreements only with Nepal and Sri
Lanka. In terms of value, the total regional imports of products covered
by regional preferences accounted for US$480 million in 1998, of which
Pakistan accounted for 46 per cent, India 26 per cent, Sri Lanka 16 per
cent and Bangladesh 10 per cent.
SAPTA has thus not had any signicant impact on intraregional trade
in South Asia. There are several reasons for this. First, tariff concessions
alone are unlikely to enhance intraregional trade in an environment in
which other structural constraints continue to prevail. Second, it is gen-
erally believed that tariff concessions under the SAPTA regime are
offered mostly on items that are of little export interest to the member
countries. Third, the stringency of the SAPTA rules of origin prevents
member countries from taking advantage of the tariff concessions offered
under this regime. A study by Mukherjee (2002) shows that the effect of
regional trade integration through SAPTA is modest and that South Asia
would reap more benets from unilateral liberalization on a most favoured
nation basis.
Intraregional trade within the SAARC countries is affected by many
economic and non-economic factors. One is that the products and pro-
cesses of the countries of South Asia are similar. Because most of the
economies are based on agriculture and their technological advances as
regards production processes are not very different, they produce very
similar items. Thus the preferential trade agreement may not necessarily
lead to higher volumes of intra-SAARC trade. There is also a mismatch
between the supply of and consumer demand for the products of South
Asia. Some of the goods produced on a large scale in certain SAARC
countries do not appear to meet consumer demand in importing SAARC
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 149
Since the early 1990s South Asia has embarked on a more liberal trade
regime through economic reforms and greater integration with the world
economy as a part of the globalization process. The World Trade Organi-
zation (WTO) provides a framework for further integration of the world
economy, and member countries have to ease protection levels. Although
not all the SAARC countries are signatories to the WTO, liberalization
of trade in South Asia started much earlier as a result of the structural
adjustment programmes of the International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank. The dismantling of tariffs and non-tariff barriers (NTBs)
can shift production towards labour-intensive activities and lead to a
rising share of labour in GDP in the long run. Unless this is done in an
orderly way, the production process can be disrupted and unemployment
and poverty will then rise. Liberal trade policies have already led to the
closure of a large number of rms, especially in the manufacturing sector.
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 151
Overview
The shift from ODA to FDI and the synergies between ODA and
FDI
Table 11.3 Summary of import policy in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka
Import policy
Measures Bangladesh India Nepal Pakistan Sri Lanka
Export Export processing Industrial units EPZs established Six EPZs established
processing zones set up in located in Special in Karachi and to offer a full
zones Dhaka, Chitta- Economic Zones Lahore. range of incen-
(EPZs) gong, Mongla, and treated These zones offer tives, including
Comilla, outside customs better infrastruc- exemptions from
Ishwardi, territory of the ture facilities as tax and customs
Syedpur. country, not sub- well as various duty, quality
Private export ject to any pre- other incentives, infrastructure and
processing determined condi- including tax simplied admini-
zones allowed tions on value holidays and un- strative procedures.
in 1996. addition, export restricted repatri-
performance or ation of capital
local content. and prots.
Foreign investment
on full ownership
basis permitted
in units set up in
Special Economic
Zones.
Duty The facility re- Exports are entitled Exports are allowed
drawback imburses exporters to duty drawback rebates on customs
for tariff paid on facilities. duty, sales tax
imported raw and surcharge.
materials and inter- Rates are stan-
mediaries and for dardized as per-
central excise duties centage of f.o.b.
paid on domes- values of export
tically produced or specic amount
inputs. per unit of good
exports.
Duty-free Free export of all All products other No export controls
exports goods allowed, than banned ones except on
except for some or those under producers in the
items subject QRs can be categories of coral
to certain exported freely. chunk and shells,
restrictions. wood, ivory and
Replenishment antiques.
licences allow ex-
porters to import
certain raw
materials that are
normally banned or
restricted.
Source: Kemal et al. (2002: 278).
155
156 FAROOQ SOBHAN AND RIFFAT ZAMAN
ODA, there is a visible shift to attract FDI, which is more directed to the
private sector. Foreign investment is expected to supplement domestic
private investment through foreign capital ows, the transfer of technol-
ogy, improvement in management skills and productivity, and providing
access to international markets. There is evidence that carefully targeted
development assistance may assist in leveraging FDI ows and creating a
virtuous circle of increasing savings and investment. Such a situation can
be created when ODA is used to develop institutions and policies in de-
veloping countries. This helps to create a favourable environment for
(domestic) savings, domestic and foreign investment, and growth.
More specically, ODA funds can be used to support those areas con-
sidered important to investors in determining investment decisions. An-
other approach being pioneered by some donors and, in particular, the
World Bank is the concept of output-based aid. Donor countries and de-
veloping countries are increasingly interested in using this mechanism
whereby, inter alia, quasi-contracts are established between govern-
ment agencies and the private sector to deliver specic services. The re-
sponsibility for the delivery of such services is thus transferred to private
investors/providers. In contrast with the more traditional approaches to
ODA delivery, this mechanism begins at the outset with a denition of
objectives and species expected performance in terms of very clear out-
puts (or outcomes), rather than focusing on inputs. The relatively recent
experience with such schemes has provided important insights into out-
put-based approaches as a way of improving the delivery of services
while at the same time better targeting government and donor funds.
More generally, schemes for private participation in infrastructure, aimed
at mobilizing private incentives for innovation and efciency in the de-
livery of services, have expanded considerably with positive results. Re-
search undertaken recently, for instance, suggests that this approach has
yielded signicant welfare effects. At the same time, however, the bene-
ts of leveraging private investment and its effects on distribution are
sensitive to the way in which contracts are conceived and to the pace and
extent of market structure and policy reforms.
The impediments to FDI in host countries need to be accounted for.
These are corruption and a lack of transparency in corporate governance
and in the administrative strata, lack of social and economic stability,
problems in taxation and competition policies. Internationally, there is
increased understanding that good framework conditions can help attract
and retain FDI ows. At the same time, there is also evidence that the
use of ODA in a consciously targeted manner to attract and retain such
ows may improve the efciency and effectiveness of such forms of as-
sistance. From the developing countries perspective, improvement in the
synergies between ODA and FDI is of crucial importance.
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 157
lion, Pakistan US$530 million, Sri Lanka US$177 million and Maldives
US$7 million (World Bank, 2002).
The sustainability and usefulness of FDI for a country relate not only
to its aggregate levels, but also to its uses. Given South Asias labour
surplus and comparative wage advantage, the kind of FDI most likely to
bring the strongest benets to long-term growth is that associated with
manufacturing. Although the majority of foreign investment funds have
in fact been directed to manufacturing sectors in most South Asian
countries, their shares have been declining.
What is important in assessing the potential benets of FDI for host
countries is the degree to which investment is being allocated to export
sectors. The available information indicates that a relatively small por-
tion of FDI has gone to export-oriented sectors in South Asian countries;
most FDI is targeted to industries producing for domestic markets. In
India, for example, textiles, an important source of exports as well as
employment, attracted less than 4 per cent of total FDI in the mid-1990s,
and in Sri Lanka the share of textiles has lost ground to agricultural
products and beverages (World Bank, 1997). In Pakistan, by the mid-
1990s less than US$100 million had been invested in the Karachi Export
Processing Zone since its inception in the early 1980s (World Bank,
1997). These trends are in strong contrast to the pattern of FDI use in
other regions (e.g. East Asia), and suggest that South Asia may be ben-
eting proportionately less from the trend toward the globalization of
production. The only exception is Bangladesh, which has been fairly suc-
cessful in attracting FDI to its export processing zones, particularly in the
ready-made garment sector (ESCAP, 1998). The amount of FDI in the
Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority was US$531 million in
2001/2002.
The other major component of private non-debt ows to South Asia
has been portfolio equity investments. Even though it is widely accepted
that developing nations have beneted from inows of FDI, the verdict is
less clear regarding portfolio ows. There are obvious benets from
portfolio ows and from opening stock markets to foreign investors, in-
cluding wider access to international capital at lower cost, risk-sharing
and pricing, and greater efciency in the allocation of capital. Portfolio
investments are more volatile than FDI, representing short-term assets
that can be withdrawn quickly from the economy. As the liquidity crises
in Mexico (1995) and East Asia (1997) have shown, countries with high
levels of portfolio investment are vulnerable to massive outows of capi-
tal when investor sentiments quickly change, leading to possible currency
and nancial crises. Moreover, the volatility associated with portfolio
equity ows also renders countries more exposed to shocks in the inter-
national economy, such as changes in interest rates and stock market
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 159
returns, particularly where capital markets are small and inexible and
institutional frameworks are incomplete or inadequate.
The FDI ow to South Asia started picking up only in the mid-1990s.
Compared with the 19801985 cumulative inows, the 1998 inow of FDI
had increased almost 20-fold from US$199 million to US$3,433 million as
against a 13-fold increase in global total foreign investment ows (see
Table 11.5). As a result, the share of South Asia in global FDI ows
gradually reached over 0.5 per cent in 1998. Similarly, its share in the
total FDI inows to developing countries and Asian countries recorded
an increase from 1.4 per cent to almost 2.1 per cent and from 3.5 per cent
to 4.0 per cent, respectively, during the 18-year period of 19801998
(Lama, 1999).
The FDI policy regimes of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri
Lanka are summarized in Table 11.6 (Lama, 1999). Country-specic in-
formation is provided with regard to policy areas such as protection and
guarantees, foreign equity participation and scal incentives.
One critical policy issue is the pricing of energy for common purposes.
Because the importance of commercial energy is fast gaining ground in
the region, pricing has already become critical in many of the South
Asian countries. Private sector participation in energy generation has
changed the entire landscape of the debate on subsidies and pricing. In the
name of commercial viability, the private power producers have invari-
ably been offered purchase prices much higher than the state monopolys
own costs of generation. The impact on the price of electricity will be in-
creasingly severe as and when the share of energy purchased by the state
monopolies from such private projects increases. However, consumer re-
sistance to any major price hike will be both enormous and politically
sensitive, and the only option for these state monopolies will be to bear
the difference themselves. This may lead to more inefcient operation of
these state monopolies and may send them packing. This is where a crit-
160 FAROOQ SOBHAN AND RIFFAT ZAMAN
and backward linkages. This would be very serious because most Asian
countries do not have adequate competition laws to regulate market
power and the conduct of dominant rms.
On the other hand, it might encourage these relatively smaller indus-
trial players to move their industries from a country such as India to
neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh, Bhutan or Nepal where not
many TNCs operate at present. This would certainly enhance the level of
foreign direct investment in Nepal.
The South Asian countries have their own views on their technology
needs and sources, leading to specic technology policies. Within the FDI
policies of these countries, a distinct emphasis has been on the importa-
tion of advanced technology. There is a lot of variation in the supply,
absorption and transfer of technology both across sectors and regionally.
The introduction of varying technologies across South Asia is likely to
change the scale of operation and the nature of industrial output, and the
economies of scale of some bigger operations may have lopsided effects
on the smaller operations.
The monitoring of technology ows both within and from outside the
region calls for vital coordination among the organizations dealing with
the development and transfer of technologies. Institutional networking
among the premier scientic and technical research organizations, at
both the private and the public level, should be prioritized as a key
activity that would facilitate monitoring and research in emerging tech-
nologies and their adaptation, adoption and utilization to complement
socio-economic development strategies.
The arena of appropriate technology, which maximizes social welfare,
has not been really explored and identied by the SAARC member
countries on a regional basis. These appropriate technologies are rela-
tively less sophisticated, easier to transfer and implement, more labour
intensive, suitable for indigenous skills and raw materials, and cost effec-
tive. Specically identied technologies of this nature are available in
various national technology research institutions. They include areas such
as agro-based industries, biotechnology, advanced materials, energy con-
servation and renewable energy, and waste management.
Foreign investment has been a major source of technology transfer and
adaptation. In the 1980s the controls on technology licensing were re-
laxed, and in the 1990s equity participation by foreign rms was encour-
aged to a greater extent. The sources of technology have proliferated,
and as a result the bargaining position of the purchasing entities has
strengthened. There is now a multiplicity of technology transfer channels:
joint ventures, production sharing, subcontracting, franchising, and build,
operate and transfer (BOT).
Despite so many incentives and a serious long-term need, the infra-
structure sector has not attracted much investment. This is attributed to
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 165
the fact that this sector continues to be highly regulated and involves
complex procedures and multilevel interactions between investors and
governmental agencies. Over-regulation has also caused problems in the
marketing of end products (such as power or gas in Bangladesh). This is a
serious concern because the South Asian governments have not been
able to do much on the infrastructure front themselves.
In an underdeveloped market such as that of South Asia, FDI can
contribute to the growth process only if it leads to signicant expansion
in both the export basket and export capability. The increasing demoli-
tion of trade barriers has made it more attractive to locate foreign indus-
tries in South Asia. As labour costs have risen in many of the relatively
better-off developing countries, many of the export-oriented units in
these countries have been relocated in South Asia. The creation of ex-
clusive export processing zones (EPZs) with very attractive nancial and
other packages has certainly attracted at least some of these units.
Some countries have already started showing signs of progress. For
example, Bangladesh had a total of 174 industrial units in 2002: 113 in
Chittagong EPZ, 58 in Dhaka EPZ, 1 in Mongla (Khulna) EPZ, 1 in
Ishwardi (Pabna) EPZ and 1 in Uttara (Nilfamari, Rajshahi) EPZ. These
have the potential to generate much employment. Exports from indus-
trial units in EPZs in Bangladesh stood at US$531 million in 2002, which
represented 9.6 per cent of national exports.
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation has failed to ad-
dress some of the core economic areas such as trade, investment and
technology with consistent vigour and regional strategies. SAARC as a
regional institution needs to deal with the critical issues of generating
complementarities to stimulate and sustainably speed up the process of
liberalization in intraregional trade. Because trade has become increas-
ingly investment led, this has to be done by strengthening activities under
the Integrated Programme of Action (IPA), promoting regional invest-
ments and harmonizing nancial and monetary policies.
The scope and opportunities are far greater than is generally per-
ceived, particularly in the context of the ongoing economic reforms in
almost all the countries in South Asia. The hitherto closed and largely
underdeveloped tertiary sector has suddenly changed in such a way that
this region could soon offer a very attractive version of trade in the ser-
vices sector.
The following suggestions need some attention at this point:
Top priority should be given to the establishment of a Business Council
on Investment Flows with the private sectors of each country, basically
to analyse the role of multinational corporations (MNCs), to de-
166 FAROOQ SOBHAN AND RIFFAT ZAMAN
Future prospects
South Asia lacks the governmental expertise to carry out such negotia-
tions. Another complicating factor in this area is the lack of a legal re-
gime to underwrite such cooperation (Sobhan, in SACEPS, 2002).
Sobhan has emphasized the need for the design as well as the institu-
tional architecture and the broad political economy of the relationship to
be put in place. The distribution systems for energy in any one country
will basically be fed from multiple sources of supply from a variety of
energy resources. This will involve shared patterns of production, con-
sumption and distribution. These will extend all the way from Central
Asia and possibly link up with the surplus energy area of Yunnan prov-
ince in south-west China, as well as the enormous untapped energy re-
serves of Central Asia. This would, basically, be the reference point for
dening areas of supply, demand and trade in the energy sector in South
Asia.
Thus, in order to have vibrant South Asian cooperation, a develop-
ment mechanism needs to be in operation with effective regulatory bodies,
a well-functioning infrastructure and the determination of governments
and civil society to carry forward a coordinated development strategy. In
this context, energy and water resources, transport and communications,
highways and ports, capital markets and nancial intermediaries can all
promote trade and investment for development in South Asia.
REFERENCES
ESCAP [Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacic] (1998)
Foreign Direct Investment in Selected Asian Countries, Development Paper
No. 19, New York: United Nations.
Fan, X., and Dickie, P. M. (2000) The Contribution of Foreign Direct Invest-
ment to Growth and Stability, ASEAN Economic Bulletin, December.
GEP [Group of Eminent Persons] (1998) Executive Summary and Recom-
mendations of the Report of the Group of Eminent Persons, South Asian Asso-
ciation for Regional Cooperation.
IDCJ [International Development Centre of Japan] (1996) Schemes of Regional
Economic Cooperation Aimed at Fostering Economic Growth in South Asia:
The Role of Japan, a report prepared for the SAARC-Japan Fund, Tokyo.
IMF [International Monetary Fund] (2000) Direction of Trade Statistics, Year-
book 1999, Geneva: IMF.
Kemal, A. R., Din, Musleh-ud, Abbas, Kalbe, and Qadir, Usman (2002) A Plan
to Strengthen Regional Trade Cooperation in South Asia, in T. N. Srinivasan,
ed., Trade, Finance and Investment in South Asia, New Delhi: Social Science
Press.
Lama, Mahendra P. (1999) Investments in South Asia: Issues, Constraints and
Opportunities, paper presented at the Conference on South Asia 2010: Chal-
lenges and Opportunities, Kathmandu, December, unpublished.
170 FAROOQ SOBHAN AND RIFFAT ZAMAN
Introduction
Regional highlights
Afghanistan
To start with the weakest case, Afghanistan has never been a democratic
nation. Some assert that it has never even been a nation. It is more an
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 175
Bangladesh
Pakistan
From its inception in 1947 to the present day, Pakistan has been strug-
gling with its identity as well as its political form. Its founding father,
Mohammed Ali Jinnah, saw Pakistan as a homeland for Muslims but
one that would be a democracy, not an Islamic state or an authoritarian
state. Others saw it differently, notably the military dictator General Zia
ul-Haq, who, after assuming power in 1977, said: Pakistan, which was
created in the name of Islam, will continue to survive only if it sticks to
Islam. That is why I consider the introduction of [an] Islamic system as an
essential prerequisite for this country (Pakistan Times, 7 July 1977; cited
in Richter, 1979: 555). He also, like other military rulers before and after
him, saw the armed forces as the only institution capable of guaranteeing
Pakistans stability and future, and was ready to allow limited democratic
178 GAUTAM ADHIKARI
dismissed the same person, thereby reafrming the power of the army in
political life.
Today, another military ruler, General Musharraf, is trying to reverse
one tendency that Zia encouraged while reconrming the other. He is
trying to slow down and possibly turn back the tide of Islamic radicalism
in the army, society and politics. At the same time, in the name of taking
steps towards true democracy, he seems to be continuing the militarys
efforts to consolidate its supremacy in the power hierarchy and reassert-
ing its steadfast refusal to subjugate its authority or autonomy to civilian
control. The question is: Can he pursue both goals together? In other
words, would it not be better, for more lasting results, to pacify and sta-
bilize Pakistans radicalized, bitterly divided society by rapidly widening
and deepening democratic participation among its citizens and then re-
vitalizing its perilously weakened civilian institutions to facilitate better
governance?
The fact is that Pakistans citizenry has never had a sustained oppor-
tunity to develop democracy. To attempt to understand why, it may be
necessary to read the militarys mentality. Ever since it had its rst taste
of power with Ayub Khans coup in 1958, the military has been feeding
like a vampire on Pakistans moribund body politic. At the same time,
global circumstances, along with the imperatives of superpower interests
in the region, have often helped the army strengthen its stranglehold on
society by citing international support and the pursuit of national inter-
ests that override all other concerns. This happened, for example, during
Zias reign, when he could cite US support and the strategic objectives of
the Afghan war to steer Pakistans destiny the way he wanted. It is hap-
pening again with Musharraf, who is a crucial ally of the United States in
the war against terrorism and can expect international pressure for de-
mocratization to be soft at best.
The army sees itself as crucial for Pakistans external as well as do-
mestic stability, as the only institution that can be depended upon to de-
liver. Its ofcers share a widespread conviction that they can do any job
that the nation might require them to do, including political management.
However, the army sees its security interests and those of the nation in
predominantly military terms. Its own interests are, inter alia, maintaining
total control over its internal management as well as having a decisive say
in national security policy, including foreign policy, in the formulation of
which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs plays second ddle to the military
and intelligence leadership in Pakistan. It wants to retain its huge share
of Pakistans national budget currently shown as 24 per cent but in fact
closer to 34 per cent, including military pensions and it would like to
protect its economic interests in organizations run by retired ofcers as
well as in government and business. Current estimates show, for ex-
180 GAUTAM ADHIKARI
India
Like Pakistan, India from its inception and even before, from the early
days of the freedom movement against British rule has had an ongoing
debate about its identity. Some asserted that it should be a Hindu nation,
giving due recognition to the wishes of the majority (82 per cent) of its
population. Others, notably the rst prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru,
and the framers of the Indian constitution, felt it would be a mistake and
contrary to the reality of Indias diverse cultural make-up to turn it into a
nation based on Hindu nationalism; instead, they thought, it should be a
secular, liberal democracy tolerant of all faiths and ethnic groups. As it
happened, the secular democrats won the round, though the debate was
never fully settled and continues to this day, with lingering consequences
for Indias daring experiment with democratic governance.
Contrary to those who say that liberal democracy is not appropriate for
a developing nation looking for stability and growth for example,
champions of Asian values such as Singaporean Lee Kuan Yew and sun-
dry military leaders in the region India demonstrates in a number of
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 181
ways how democracy can work for the long-term sustainability of social,
political and economic development. In fact, it can be argued that Indias
problems are a result not of a surfeit of democracy but of too little
when and where it was needed or of a malfunctioning of it in key areas of
development.
A half-century ago, many sages, including Winston Churchill, had
given India little chance of surviving. Merely by existing, and that within
a democratic framework of governance, India has deed such predic-
tions. It has survived not despite democracy but because of it. An inde-
pendent and universally respected election commission organizes regular
elections to parliament and state assemblies and has begun supervis-
ing elections at grass-roots levels in many states, and a watchful if slow-
moving judiciary punishes the powerful and protects fundamental rights
enshrined in a written constitution. These rights include freedom of
expression, thanks to which a bold and powerful press operates in-
dependently. Democracy has survived in a country that recognizes 17
languages, where over a quarter of the population of 1 billion live in
poverty, where 39 per cent still cannot read or write, and where people
are still killed in religious, ethnic and inter-caste strife.
Indias founding fathers were prudent. They realized that a tradition of
pluralism had existed for centuries in Indian culture. Indias early politi-
cal elite as well as its military had, during the course of the freedom
struggle under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, developed a liberal
commitment to democracy that they did not lose after independence.
Remarkably, the military has never in the past 55 years questioned its
control by civilian authorities. The founding fathers, all liberal secularists,
had understood that, given the extreme ethnic, religious, linguistic and
other socio-economic diversities of this large country, it might be difcult
for a single group to control the state for long. What happened was that
contending groups rapidly began to appreciate the usefulness of a demo-
cratic process that allowed multiple veto powers as well as checks and
balances that could keep rival partners working in a loose coalition. True,
political management in such circumstances is more difcult. Consensus-
building calls for great political skill and good legislative and executive
management, so that deals, once negotiated, are implemented efciently.
But, over time and with experience, the achieved consensus becomes
durable.
Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has often pointed out how India, unlike
China, has not had a famine in the past half-century thanks to its rela-
tively unfettered ow of information. It has endured severe droughts and
near-famine conditions, but news from the affected areas has invariably
spread quickly through the press and an open reporting system to enable
the authorities to avert disaster. In Maos China, by contrast, famines
182 GAUTAM ADHIKARI
occurred because local ofcials rarely had the nerve to report signs of an
impending crisis and there was no free press to ll the information gap.
Clearly, here again democracy has helped India.
Nevertheless, critics of democracys viability as a vehicle for devel-
opment would point to Indias relative failures in achieving sufcient
economic growth and social development to abolish poverty and in pro-
viding better overall living conditions comparable, say, to East Asian
standards for its citizens. The complaint can, however, be examined
from a different angle. The fault may lie in the relatively weak liberal
democratic content of Indias initial developmental preferences, espe-
cially in its choice of economic policy.
Nehru showed a marked preference for a socialist model of growth.
That was the choice made for the nation at the time of the second ve-
year plan, after a weak debate on other, more market-friendly paths.
Those were the years of consensual public policy-making presided over
by the Congress Party, which in the rst two decades of independent
India faced only nominal political challenge. Command politics and
planned economics steered the countrys development objectives, the
execution of which was supervised by a central civil service within a
framework of public administration that was hardly different from the
preceding imperial model. Consensus on development issues was easy to
achieve for the largely English-speaking elite that ruled the country.
But it was a limited democracy. Although political democracy was leg-
islated from day one of the republic, the case for making greater eco-
nomic democracy possible through allowing open markets, encouraging
enterprise, enabling the Indian masses to participate in a market econ-
omy with increased purchasing power, and spreading growth widely did
not begin to come into play until late into the experiment. As a result,
corruption ballooned, the states power became formidable and, despite
democratic constitutional provisions, the average citizens ability to make
choices remained constricted within a paternalistic politicalbureaucratic
administration. It was only in 1991 that the licence-permit raj, as it had
come to be dubbed, began to be dismantled, when liberalizing reforms
were undertaken to stave off a dire economic crisis.
For the rst 40 years on Indias road to development, therefore, an
excessively strong state basically decided what was good for the people
while its bureaucracy wielded enormous power in the economic sphere. It
is only now that the situation is changing.
It was centralized planning, bureaucratic arbitrariness, a lack of trans-
parency in both public and private sector decision-making and other fea-
tures of a command economy that created the economic mess that India
found itself in after 40 years of development and from which it has been
trying, with great difculty, to extricate itself over the past decade. In
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 183
other words, one-person one-vote was not enough to meet the challenges
of economic growth and the abolition of poverty. More democracy,
especially greater transparency and accountability in public policy-
making and implementation in the economic eld, would almost certainly
have led to more positive outcomes. If there had not been an undue
emphasis on building capital-intensive and eventually loss-making heavy
industries in the public sector, more resources could have been allocated,
for example, to the starved sectors of primary education and public
health, both of which are areas that empower poor people and create
opportunities for their participation in the economy.
As has become obvious today, the past decade of higher growth and
steadily diminishing power of the state has indeed led to a lowering of the
number of people living below the poverty line from 40 per cent to
around 27 per cent while the Indian middle class, rural as well as urban,
has grown exponentially. Much more needs to be done, but less democ-
racy is not the answer to the problems India faces in further liberalizing
its state structure and economic regulatory framework. A consensus on
the need for economic reform now exists across the political spectrum,
with even the Marxist left calling for new thinking. But there still are
many vested interests created during four decades of restricted economic
democracy that are slowing the process. It is likely that popular pressure
from the burgeoning middle class and increasingly empowered poorer
castes and classes will force the pace of change through a pattern of de-
mand politics that is rapidly supplanting the elite-directed and ad-
ministered command variety.
Conclusion
In sum, democracy should not be blamed for the myriad problems of
governance that the region faces. On the contrary, many of the same
problems can be traced to a lack of democratic experience or to the
quality of its scope, spread and depth. In Afghanistan, for example, the
only way out of the current morass would be a rm, and adequately
funded, commitment on the part of the international community to dem-
ocratic nation-building. Without a clear path of progress towards incre-
mental democracy, initially created and practised under international
supervision (as happened in Japan after the last world war), Afghanis-
tans plight can only become worse. The country will then remain a threat
to regional and global peace as it has been in the past two decades. The
same holds true for Pakistan, where steady external pressure may be
necessary to convince the countrys military rulers that a transition to
democracy would not be against their interests and that the nation, given
184 GAUTAM ADHIKARI
REFERENCE
Introduction
The current situation in Sri Lanka is one in which a South Asian country
has the opportunity to redene the state, the polity and society with it, in
190 PAIKIASOTHY SARAVANAMUTTU
mind-set that give life to the political structures established are imbued
with a commitment to pluralism and a celebration of diversity as a source
of strength. Ostensibly federal states that have failed are those that, in
fact, negated the federal idea by entrenching power and authority in a
single source and interpreted federalism to be a mere mechanism for ad-
ministration. A culture of rights, respect and the honourable accommo-
dation of difference is crucial to the federal idea and to its realization.
Indeed, it constitutes the source of its coherence and the seminal ele-
ments of its success.
Accordingly, the espousal of federalism in Sri Lanka will in effect entail
a new social contract, a covenant from the Latin word for which the
term federalism is derived if it is to have the legitimacy necessary for
liberation and longevity. As one authority on the subject the Forum of
Federations (2002) has elaborated:
Such a task in the Sri Lankan context has hitherto been inconceivable.
It is now more within the realms of possibility as a consequence of a
peace process incorporating direct talks between the government and the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) born out of a coincidental yet
common recognition by both sides that armed hostilities in pursuit of ab-
solute political goals are unsustainable. However, the required para-
digm shift has to deal with the arguments against power-sharing and
pluralism that remain as the residue of the old paradigm of majori-
tarianism and centralized power.
The arguments against federalism in the Sri Lankan context can be
summarized as follows:
federalism will be a stepping stone to secession by the Tamils in the
north-east and encourage it amongst other communities on the island;
it is too expensive for a developing country such as Sri Lanka;
Sri Lanka is too small a country for federalism.
The argument about federalism as a stepping stone to secession is but-
tressed by the perception of the LTTE as avowedly secessionist and
the rm belief that any LTTE modications of their cherished goal
192 PAIKIASOTHY SARAVANAMUTTU
are for tactical advantage and therefore not to be taken at face value. In
the context of the peace process, Anton Balasingham, the chief LTTE
negotiator, stated that, although the LTTE dealt with categories of self-
determination and homeland, these were not synonymous with
secession and a separate state. He further stated that secession was not
a rst option but a last option to be pursued in the event that a
settlement addressing the aspirations of the Tamils was not possible. He
emphasized the notions of internal self-determination and substantial
autonomy (The Island, 23 September 2002).
Although the LTTE have not formally and categorically renounced the
goal of a separate state, these statements and the LTTEs participation in
the peace talks demonstrate their willingness to at least engage in the
exploration of a political settlement within a united Sri Lanka. Moreover,
the formal and categorical renunciation of secession and separatism de-
manded by opponents and critics will realistically have to wait upon
agreement on a nal constitutional settlement. The challenge, irrespec-
tive of opinions regarding the LTTEs bona des, is to yoke both parties
into a process that will result in a constitutional settlement preserving the
unity of the country and facilitating the self-determination of the people
within it. All indications at present are that the principal protagonists are
committed to the process.
The argument about federalism as a stepping stone to secession does
y in the face of post-independence history. The current situation is one
in which the writ of the government of Sri Lanka does not run through-
out the island. Parts of the north-east are under the control of the LTTE.
This has not come about because governments have shared power but
rather because they have not. As far back as the 1950s the Federal Party,
the principal political party of the Tamil community, advocated, as its
name indicates, a federal constitution for Sri Lanka. In the communal
tensions that have erupted at various points since then, all agreements to
alleviate these tensions reected the need to move toward greater devo-
lution of power at the least.
Unfortunately, in the face of political opposition, none of them was
implemented until external intervention, in the form of the Indo-Sri
Lanka Accord of 1987, paved the way for a system of provincial councils,
which nevertheless weighted the balance of power between the centre
and the provinces in the favour of the former. Consequently, in the ve
decades of independence, the centralization of power institutionalized
in particular by the two autochthonous constitutions of 1972 and 1978
nurtured the rise of Tamil militancy, the demand for secession and the
marginalization of the mainstream Tamil political representation (see
Loganathan, 1996; see also Swamy, 1994).
The issue of pluralism is at the heart of the attempts within the peace
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 193
the hold of the paradigm of centralized power and that the ethnic conict
is in effect a product of that paradigm.) That the peace negotiations are
primarily between the government and the LTTE and that they will have
to address the demands of the Tamil polity presented as the Thimpu
Principles named after an earlier attempt at negotiations in the Bhuta-
nese capital relating to self-determination and to a homeland indi-
cate that there will be asymmetrical arrangements for the Tamils in the
north-east as well. This in turn could be used to augment the ethnic en-
claves thesis (see Edrisinha, 1999, 2000, 2001; Loganathan, 1996; and
Rajasingham-Senanayake, 2002).
The negation of ethnicity in the settlement of a conict that has kept
ethnicity at the forefront of a communitys political consciousness is ex-
tremely difcult. However, the settlement does not have to be obsessed
with it and unduly privilege it. Vital to the settlement must also be the
element of federalism that secures pluralist democracy through a robust
human rights regime underpinning a common notion of citizenship and a
stake for the regions or provinces in the centre through a bicameral le-
gislature. Thus, both the space for the political expression of collective
identity within the norms of a pluralist democracy, as well as the stake of
those identities in governance at the centre, can be provided through
federalism and both in turn buttressed by a common notion of demo-
cratic citizenship. Unfortunately, the central role of a second chamber in
conict resolution through realization of the federal idea has not been
appreciated or acknowledged in the Sri Lankan context. This also stems
from the criticism of federalism as being too expensive.
The criticism of federalism being too expensive has been fed by the
introduction of another layer of government in the form of provincial
councils following the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987. The argument is
based on the observation that additional tiers of government do not ad-
vance governance but provide further opportunities for patronage poli-
tics. It cannot be denied that the opportunity is presented for further
patronage politics. However, the point needs to be stressed that this
stems from a political culture that upholds zero-sum political power as an
article of faith. As a result of the centralization of power, the devolution
that exists is not and cannot be meaningful. In fact, the devolution
granted was never intended to be meaningful (Edrisinha, 1999, 2000,
2001; Loganathan, 1996; also Wanasinghe, 1999).
The unitary state is an entrenched provision of the constitution, and
the provincial council system was allowed only because it could be con-
tained within the bounds of a unitary state. Through the Concurrent List
of Subjects on which these councils and the centre both have compe-
tence, the centre in effect holds sway over the councils. As a result, the
system of provincial councils has been an expensive disappointment; they
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 195
are nevertheless used by, and useful to, local politicians as a training
ground and stepping stone to the central legislature.
The costs argument must also be set against the costs of war, since
conict is the outcome of the failure to share power in a new constitu-
tional dispensation. And the argument that the country is too small has
not taken into account the examples of Switzerland and Belgium.
as the catalyst for this, the institutions identied also have a role and
wider signicance outside the electoral process. These institutions were
the commissions for elections, the public service, the police, the media
and the judiciary. Finally, in September 2001, the Seventeenth Amend-
ment to the Constitution was passed. It established a Constitutional
Council comprising ex ofcio members as well as nominees of political
parties. The Council is to choose the members of four independent com-
missions: for elections, the judiciary, public service and the police. A
commission for the media is yet to be established.
It is too early yet to comment on the impact the Seventeenth Amend-
ment will have on governance the commissions are yet to be established
and there was considerable debate over the independence of the com-
missions if the Council was to be made up of politicians and their
nominees. That this was the basis on which parliament could muster the
necessary majority of two-thirds of its members for a constitutional
amendment does attest to the centrality of political parties and their hold
on appointments. The paradox notwithstanding of an institution set up to
rid the checks and balances on the exercise of executive power of politi-
cal patronage being nevertheless constituted on this basis, the expecta-
tion is that the Council will in practice assert its independence. By no
means perfect in its structure and functions, there is room for it to evolve
in close conformity to its raison detre.
Independent commissions function as part of the armoury of checks
and balances on the exercise of executive power. They have to be com-
plemented in terms of the overarching objective of governance by inter-
nal democracy within political parties as the formative breeding ground
and school for politicians.
The argument here is a basic one. Can politicians expect to practise
democratic governance in government when they have had no prepara-
tion for it and have not practised it in their own party? The issues here
are candidate selection and its bearing on political patronage, in particu-
lar the leader-centric organizational structure that is a product of and re-
inforces the paradigm of centralized power and party nancing. Those
accused of violence and malpractice are rarely disciplined and have in the
past been promoted instead! The absence of good practices in all these
respects has favoured the local populist with access to funds and thugs.
Two other factors need to be mentioned as well. The rst is that pop-
ulist politics is also fed by middle-class apathy and alienation. Elections
are important to those who still depend upon the state as the primary
provider of welfare and well-being. The state is the source of the public
health and education systems and is the largest employer. Especially in
the context of privatization, which Sri Lanka has been undergoing since
the late 1970s, this has meant that, as the state has shrunk in terms of the
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 197
largess at its disposal, the options of the middle class have spread to the
private sector. The poor still depend on the state, and therefore who is in
control of the state is of central concern to them. The state carries out
poverty alleviation programmes, and the use of these programmes as in-
struments of political patronage has gravely undermined them. This has
been the case with the Janasaviya programme initiated by the United
National Party (UNP) government in the early 1990s and the Samurdhi
programme of its Peoples Alliance (PA) successor. The latter dispensed
funds to more than those entitled to them and yet did not provide for
those who most needed funds (World Bank, 2000).
The other factor is that violence has come to be seen as the most ef-
fective arbiter of societal grievance in a situation of institutional decay.
Political interference in the police and judiciary, as well as delays in the
dispensation of justice, encourages the use of violent dispute resolution.
types and bias to which the private media, and indeed the state media
too, subscribed in their coverage of the conict and the attempts to re-
solve it.
Popular prejudices about terrorism and ethnic grievance as well as
ethnic stereotypes abounded. Coverage fell within the connes of the
prevailing dominant paradigm and little attempt was made to pursue
stories not incorporated in ofcial accounts. There was a discernible will-
ingness to cover the conict from Colombo and to accept the version of
events handed down by the publicity organs of the principal protagonists.
Independent accounts were rare. Indeed, as a result of the availability of
international networks, the average Sri Lankan continues to have a bet-
ter idea of what war has done to Bosnia and Rwanda, for example, than
of what it has done to the Jaffna peninsula. The failure of the media in
this respect is a key factor in the absence of a critical mass of opinion
being mobilized into an effective peace constituency.
In defence of the media and from the perspective of governance, the
relationship that has evolved between the state and the media must be
mentioned. In the 17 years of UNP rule (19771994), in which many
human rights abuses took place and in which the crisis of democratic
governance was brought to a head, the alternative media acted as a
source of criticism of the regime. As a consequence, there was harass-
ment of media institutions and journalists were abducted and murdered.
The fear of a return to this climate of fear and repression has been cited
as a factor inhibiting the media from violating censorship regulations
covering war reporting and from desisting from self-censorship in the
absence of such regulations during the PA regime (19942001). Although
these fears cannot be totally discounted, they did not hold equally for all
media organizations, and the extent to which the media are the reposi-
tory of public prejudice and stereotyping as far as the ethnic conict is
concerned should not be underestimated.
An improvement in the governmentmedia relationship and its eleva-
tion to a constructive interaction based on mutual respect are necessary
for governance. There is a danger that arguments for greater media sen-
sitivity in reporting on the transformation of the conict and the peace
process will meet stiff resistance from the media on the grounds that this
too entails a particular ideological media bias and an agenda for aligning
the media in uncritical support of government policy. Underlying this is
the central question, which media institutions and people do not contest
but have yet to do something concrete about. This relates to short-
comings in basic training and professionalism. Some hope is held out in
the recognition by media organizations of the need for voluntary self-
regulation and attendance to professional standards, codes of ethics and
conduct. This was initially agged in the media organizations Colombo
Declaration of Media Freedom and Social Responsibility issued in April
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 199
Conclusion
It is clear from the foregoing that there are profound challenges to the
creation and consolidation of democratic and pluralist polities in South
200 PAIKIASOTHY SARAVANAMUTTU
Asia, and in Sri Lanka, the case-study presented here. At the same time,
however, there are opportunities to make the paradigm shift or indeed
leap necessary to redene the state, and with it the polity, to accommo-
date and celebrate the intrinsic pluralism of society.
Fundamental change in the power relationships between and within
groups that have to be reected in political institutions and processes will
invariably encounter resistance, exact a price from entrenched interests
and not be free of tension and anxiety. This will tax the patience, toler-
ance, courage and imagination of all. Evading the challenge, forsaking
the opportunities, will compound the predicament and make peace and
prosperity more elusive than they have hitherto appeared.
Notes
1. This argument is largely taken from Saravanamuttu (2001). See also Saravanamuttu
(2000).
2. See http://www.cpalanka.org for reports of the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence
(CMEV) on all recent local, provincial and national elections. CMEV is made up of the
Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Free Media Movement and the Coalition Against
Political Violence.
3. See http://www.cpalanka.org/publications_media.html for Media Monitor, a journal high-
lighting problems with media reportage in Sri Lanka; also see Kandiah (2001).
REFERENCES
205
206 ZAFAR ADEEL AND AWAIS PIRACHA
and a low natural resource base per capita are the dominant factors in
deteriorating water quality, indirectly leading to environmental degrada-
tion and a lack of overall development.
Poverty
Over-
Loss of
exploitation
livelihood
Environmental Lack of
degradation development
Resource
depletion
Figure 14.1 The existing cycle of poverty, environmental degradation and lack of
development in South Asia.
Poverty
reduction
Improved
Higher livelihood
resources
Environmental Sustainable
conservation development
Sustainable
utilization of
renewables
Let us look more closely at the existing situation in the South Asian re-
gion. As a region, South Asia has fallen to the bottom of most human
development indicator rankings. Table 14.1 shows the Human Develop-
ment Index (HDI) for selected countries, together with their gross
national income (GNI) per capita expressed in international dollars
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 209
(purchasing power parity method). The HDI takes into account GDP per
capita but also other factors, including life expectancy at birth, the level
of school attendance and functional literacy (as a percentage of people
who can read and write). It is eye-opening to nd the countries of the
region falling into the lowest one-third for both HDI (with the exception
of Sri Lanka) and GNI per capita. Even more astonishing is the fact that
South Asia falls behind signicantly when compared with other countries
in Asia (UNDP, 2002). The low HDI clearly indicates that the people in
South Asia are less educated and literate, and are more aficted by pov-
erty than elsewhere in the world. The net result is a low quality of life.
The rampant poverty and low quality of life (expressed as HDI) have
other indirect consequences, such as increased vulnerability to natural
disasters. A glance at some of the major climatic disasters shows stag-
gering numbers: 140,000 people perished in the 1990 Bangladesh cyclone;
and 10,000 people perished and 13 million were affected in Orissa, India,
during the October 1999 super cyclone. These large numbers of casu-
alties highlight many shortcomings in the region: the poor condition of
the infrastructure (roads, bridges, railways, etc.), a lack of public health
facilities and a lack of appropriate national-level mechanisms for disaster
management. The overall result is that the poor and disadvantaged seg-
ments of South Asia have a much higher level of vulnerability to these
impacts.
Poverty can also be linked to a number of environmental health
problems, including a lack of sufcient and clean water, food, appropriate
shelter and fuel, and access to healthy air. The most poignant example
of this is arsenic poisoning through drinking water in South Asia, which
affects huge numbers of people over 35 million in Bangladesh, 2 million
in India and 100,000 in Nepal (Adeel, 2002). Once again, the lack of
210 ZAFAR ADEEL AND AWAIS PIRACHA
within countries; there are areas where water availability is indeed pre-
carious. A region-wide trend assessment, shown in Figure 14.3, clearly
indicates that water availability per capita is getting worse and that the
trend will continue during the next two decades (Shiklomanov, 1997).
The situation is more pronounced in India and Pakistan, where popu-
lation density and growth are putting greater pressure on available
freshwater resources. It is also important to consider the situation of
groundwater resources depletion of aquifers has become an acute
problem in India, Nepal, Maldives and Sri Lanka (United Nations,
2000).
100
Available freshwater per capita (%)
80
60
40
20
0
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
Figure 14.3 Decline in average water resources per capita in South Asia.
(Source: Shiklomanov, 1997)
212 ZAFAR ADEEL AND AWAIS PIRACHA
Land degradation
A major proportion of the land surface in the South Asia region is be-
coming degraded, leading to a decrease in land productivity and, even
more importantly, threatening the food security of the countries in the
region. A poignant example is India, which has the largest share (more
than 70 per cent) of the land area in the region. As shown in Table 14.3,
nearly one-third of the surface area in India is affected by various forms
of land degradation. The causes of this degradation are many and varied,
including declining forest cover, inappropriate agricultural practices, de-
struction of natural vegetative cover for development, inadequate main-
tenance and management of the vast canal-based irrigation system, and
industrial and mining waste. Once again, a more generic stressor is pop-
ulation increase, which in turn leads to the negative practices listed
above.
Deforestation
lucrative to a very few people in the very short term. The Sunderban
forest, which is the largest and richest mangrove forest in South Asia, is
shared between India (38 per cent) and Bangladesh (62 per cent). A sig-
nicant part of the Sunderbans has disappeared in recent years. Since the
early 1980s, Pakistan and Bangladesh have lost more than 70 per cent of
their mangrove forests (Adeel and Pomeroy, 2002).
However, one does need to look more closely at the reasons for this
destruction, which range from wilful destructive logging for prot to
overexploitation by poor people for fuelwood. In the absence of strict
enforcement of forestry laws and improved supply of energy to rural
areas, the situation is unlikely to change signicantly in the near future.
The level of air pollution in the South Asia region has also increased
considerably, with urban areas faring much worse. The main drivers be-
hind poor urban air quality are emissions from the transportation sector,
the inefcient burning of various types of fuels, including wood and poor-
quality coal, and emissions from various industries. A lack of appropriate
legislation governing air pollution or its lax implementation mean the
situation will improve very slowly. As an example of existing air quality,
three major Indian cities are compared with Tokyo in Figure 14.4. In
Calcutta, Delhi and Mumbai the concentration of total suspended par-
ticles exceeds the guidelines set by the World Health Organization by a
factor of two to four, whereas Tokyo air quality remains within the
guidelines. The major contributors are two-stroke petrol vehicles (e.g.
rickshaws and motorcycles) and diesel vehicles (e.g. buses and trucks)
with poor emission control used as public transport. The emissions in-
clude particulates as well as noxious gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2 ),
carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx ) and sulphur oxides (SOx ).
214 ZAFAR ADEEL AND AWAIS PIRACHA
Calcutta
Delhi
Mumbai
Figure 14.4 Total suspended particles in South Asian cities in comparison with
Tokyo.
(Source: United Nations, 2000)
Solid wastes
The management of solid or urban waste in South Asia suffers from se-
rious problems. A small fraction of the urban population has access to
proper solid waste disposal facilities. By and large, open dumping re-
mains the method of choice for the vast majority of the population (see
Table 14.5). This also leads to a number of health concerns, particularly
for the slum areas thriving around these open dumps and generally for
the entire urban population (through impacts on the water supply and air
quality). On the positive side, average waste production in the South
Asia region (at 0.450.89 kg/capita/day) is still considerably lower than
that for more developed nations (over 2 kg/capita/day for the United
States) (United Nations, 2000).
Table 14.5 Municipal solid waste disposal practices in South Asia (%)
Country Composting Open dumping Land ll Incineration Other
Bangladesh 95 5
India 10 60 15 5 10
Nepal 5 70 10 15
Pakistan 5 80 5 10
Sri Lanka 5 85 10
Source: United Nations (2000).
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 215
The eastern part of Pakistan is at and lies in the Indus river basin,
comprising the Indus and its ve major tributary rivers. This region
(called the Indus Plain) generally constitutes Punjab Province to the
north and Sind Province to the south. These provinces together contain
most of the productive agricultural land, many major urban areas and a
vast network of irrigation canals.
About 79 million people live in Punjab Province, which has an area of
about 200,000 km2, giving an average population density of about 400
persons per km2. Figure 14.5 shows a map of Punjab Province with its
administrative divisions. Lahore, Gujranwala, Faisalabad and Multan
form the core of the province. These divisions cover only one-third of the
land but contain two-thirds of the population. Most of the industry is also
situated in these divisions. The remaining four divisions Bahawalpur,
Dera Ghazi Khan, Sargodha and Rawalpindi are less densely populated
and have less industry.
Punjab has a continental climate, which is very hot in the summer (up
to 46 C) and very cold in winter (near 0 C). It is semi-arid, with very
little rainfall (200700 mm rain per year). The province has ve rivers:
Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej (the word Punjab means ve
rivers). These rivers originate from mountains in Kashmir and are mainly
fed by snowmelt. They provide substantial surface water and ground-
water resources and fertility. About 50 per cent of Punjabs land is culti-
vated using water from these rivers and groundwater (EUAD, 1993).
These water resources are also the source of potable water for people
within the densely inhabited province.
Punjabs urban and industrial areas have experienced rapid growth,
often without adequate planning and forethought. As a general practice,
raw sewage and urban solid waste are dumped into drainage channels,
local streams and rivers. Inadequate or poorly enforced controls allow
factories to release emissions and dispose of their waste products without
regard for their effects on air, water or soil resources (EPA Punjab, 1989;
216 ZAFAR ADEEL AND AWAIS PIRACHA
Divisions Studied
kilometres
Table 14.6 Industrial water pollution (as BOD) in the Gujranwala Division, 1988
Industrial production Conversion factors Pollution estimation
RIT BOD Production Pollution
District Industry Unit Production Ref. Units (kg/unit) (RIT units) (tons BOD)
Gujranwala Bakery Tons/year 103 3117 Tons 0.11 103.00 0.01
Beverages Crates/year 660,000 3134 m3 3.1 3,960.00 12.28
Confectionery Tons/year 307 3117 Tons 9.0 307.00 2.76
Corn oil Expellers 2 3115 Tons 0.3 2,000.00 0.60
Cycle tyres & tubes Numbers/year 512,000 3551 Tons 0.4 512.00 0.20
Dying & nishing Rs/year 46,545,000 3210 Tons 155.0 930.90 144.29
Ice cream Rs/year 710,000 3112 Tons 10.9 35.50 0.39
Molasses Tons/year 2,500 3117 Tons 2.9 2,500.00 7.25
Oil mills Expellers 34 3115 Tons 24.9 3,400.00 84.66
Poultry farms Birds/year 833,000 3111 1,000 birds 17.0 833.00 14.16
Soap Tons/year 11,725 3523 Tons 6.0 11,725.00 70.35
Starch Tons/year 1,200 3121 Tons 13.4 1,200.00 16.08
Sugar Tons cane/day 550 3118 Tons 2.9 9,900.00 28.71
Tanneries Tons/year 1,048 3231 Tons 63.5 2,289.77 145.40
m 2 /year 620,885
Total for 1988 527.14
Projected total for 729.34
1998
Gujrat Confectionery Tons/year 69 3117 Tons 9.0 69.00 0.62
Cycle tyres & tubes Numbers/year 3,050,000 3551 Tons 9.0 3,050.00 27.45
Ice cream Bars/year 65,000 3112 Tons 10.9 6.50 0.07
Juices & squashes Bottles/year 18,000 3113 Tons raw 9.4 18.00 0.17
fruit
Oil mills Expellers 15 3115 Tons 24.9 1,500.00 37.35
Poultry farms Birds/year 202,000 3111 1,000 birds 17.0 202.00 3.43
Soap Tons/year 1,770 3523 Tons 6.0 1,770.00 10.62
Sugar Tons cane/day 3,000 3118 Tons 2.9 54,000.00 156.60
Tanneries Tons/year 5 3231 Tons 63.5 1,491.00 94.68
m 2 /year 743,000
Vegetable ghee Tons/year 9,000 3115 Tons 24.9 9,000.00 224.10
Total for 1988 555.09
Projected total for 768.01
1998
Sailkot Bakery Tons/year 9 3117 Tons 0.11 103.00 0.01
Confectionery Tons/year 16 3117 Tons 9.0 16.00 0.14
Cycle tyres & tubes Numbers/year 366,000 3551 Tons 9.0 366.00 3.29
Chemicals Rs/year 800,000 3511 Tons 6.0 4,000.00 24.00
Ice cream Rs/year 980,000 3112 Tons 10.9 49.00 0.53
Oil mills Expellers 18 3115 Tons 24.9 1,800.00 44.82
Poultry farms Birds/year 57,000 3111 1,000 birds 17.0 57.00 0.97
Sugar Tons cane/day 15,000 3118 Tons 2.9 270,000.00 783.00
Soap Tons/year 11,130 3523 Tons 6.0 3,523.00 21.14
Tanneries Hides/year 62,100 3231 Tons 63.5 67.76 4.30
m 2 /year 5,655
Total for 1988 882.21
Projected total for 1,220.61
1998
Overall 2,717.97
projected
total for
1998
Notes: RIT Rapid Inventory Technique; Rs Pakistan rupees.
219
220 ZAFAR ADEEL AND AWAIS PIRACHA
The road ahead for improving the situation in terms of poverty reduc-
tion, environmental conservation and sustainable development is not an
easy one for this region. There is very little availability of natural re-
sources in South Asia, especially on a per capita basis. Population con-
trol, human resource development and conict resolution are the mea-
sures that South Asia needs the most. Of course, when per capita natural
resources are so scarce, prudent use of those resources and protection of
the environment are also of utmost importance.
222 ZAFAR ADEEL AND AWAIS PIRACHA
Environmental challenges
Climate change and global warming are the most serious environmental
threat to the region in many ways. They mean reduced availability of
water resources and a likely increase in climate-related extreme events.
Prolonged drought in south and central Asia over the past few years is a
concrete example of such impacts. Conversely, extreme ooding events
in Bangladesh and southern India have also become more frequent. An-
other indirect threat from global warming is sea-level rise, particularly for
countries such as Maldives (which could be completely submerged) and
Bangladesh (which could lose up to one-third of its surface area) as a re-
sult of even a 0.5 metre rise in sea level.
Another critical environmental challenge for the region will be to meet
the growing requirements for water. This has to be done in the face of
reducing water resources (from a hydrological perspective), increasing
population, greater water demand from industries and agriculture, and
diminishing water quality due to pollution. More novel approaches to the
utilization of water, particularly for agricultural applications, must be
found. This could include re-use of waste water for various uses, includ-
ing agricultural applications.
Institutional challenges
Numerous institutional challenges must be overcome. The most critical
one is improvement of governance mechanisms in the region this is
discussed in considerable depth in other chapters of this book. This in-
stitutional reform must also incorporate mechanisms for improved man-
agement and stewardship of South Asias natural resources. Apex
institutions, such as national councils for sustainable development, must
be initiated if the povertyenvironmentdevelopment paradigm is to be
changed for the better. Examples of such institutional reform can be
found in other Asian countries and could be emulated in South Asia.
Notes
REFERENCES
ADB [Asian Development Bank] (1997) Implementation of the National Conser-
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224 ZAFAR ADEEL AND AWAIS PIRACHA
225
226 ADIL NAJAM
its very nature and must be kept separate from many other traditional
issues (Thomas, 1992; Najam, 1995; Elliott, 1998). The means of interna-
tional environmental policy-making tend to be more consensual and co-
operative than in other arenas (Stone, 1993; Susskind, 1994; Porter,
Brown and Chasek, 2000; Najam, 2000b), and these issues involve a very
different set of actors, especially non-governmental organizations
(Princen, Finger and Manno, 1995; Najam, 1996, 2000a; Mathews, 1997;
Fisher, 1998; Banuri and Najam, 2002).
This chapter presents the key lessons that emerge from a South Asia-
wide study that explores environment and security links in the context of
South Asia.1 South Asia (and the nations within it) has already been the
subject of earlier research on environment and security (Myers, 1989,
1993; Hassan, 1991, 1992; Islam, 1994; Gizewski and Homer-Dixon,
1998). My focus here is on what this South Asian experience can contri-
bute to the larger conceptual literature on environment and security; or,
to be more precise, on sustainable development and human security.
I begin with a quick review of the literature on environment and security,
which leads to the development of a framework for organizing this
discussion.
It has been argued that the environment is among the earliest and most
pervasive sources of human conict and therefore of security concerns.
Water, for example, has been and remains one of the most persistent
sources of conict at every level: international, national, community and
even individual. Energy is similarly one of the most potent motifs of
environmental as well as security issues at every relevant level, from
supranational to individual. Looking at environment and security links
from a different perspective highlights the deep relationship between
the deterioration of environmental quality whether it is in the form of
urban pollution, water contamination, soil degradation, deforestation or
biodiversity loss and human well-being. Ultimately, a threat to human
well-being can be seen as a threat to human security. Indeed, one could
argue that the wrong end of a smoke stack can be as much of a security
concern to humans as the barrel of a gun.
For many, the linkage is patently obvious and beyond debate. As Mark
Halle points out in his foreword to a literature review on the subject,
the relationship between environment and security feels right. It seems
intuitively correct to assume a direct correlation between environmental
degradation on the one hand and social disruption and conict on the
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 227
other (2000: 1). Although this intuitive feeling is widely shared, it is not
universally accepted. On the one hand, there is now a sizeable literature
that seeks to broaden the denition of the word security in order to
position environmental concerns as a central issue on the security
agenda. Characteristic of this school are the views of Johan Galtung
(1982: 99): Wars are often over resources [and] destruction of the envi-
ronment may lead to more wars over resources . . . [E]nvironmental effects
make a country more offensive because it is more vulnerable to attack
and because it may wish to make up for the decit by extending the eco-
cycles abroad, diluting and hiding the pollution, getting access to new
resources. On the other hand, many are not entirely convinced by the
passion or the conviction with which such views are articulated. At
the charitable end of this scale, Diehl and Gleditsch (2001b: 2) criticize
the literature on environment and security for offering insights without
evidence; at the less sympathetic end, Daniel Deudney (1991) considers
the zeal to establish a connection between environment and security an
example of muddled thinking.
In his review of the subject, Marvin Soroos (1994: 318319) identies
four arguments that are commonly put forward by those who envision a
strong link between environment and security:
The conceptual argument is that security implies freedom or protec-
tion from serious threats to human well-being . . . [Therefore] what-
ever poses such a threat, be it in military, economic, resource, food, or
environmental realms, becomes a security problem. The works of
Ullman (1983), Mathews (1989) and Myers (1993), for example, tilt
heavily towards such arguments.
The theoretical argument focuses principally on empirical cause-and-
effect relationships, in particular the potential of major environmental
changes to generate and intensify [violent] conict between and within
states. This argument most identies with the work of Thomas
Homer-Dixon and his colleagues (see Homer-Dixon, 1994, 1999; Homer-
Dixon and Blitt, 1998) but also with the research of Arthur Westing
(1988), Peter Gleick (1991) and others.
The political argument for linking environment and security seeks to
advance the environmental cause by taking advantage of the potency
of the term security [and] bestow the [environmental] problematique
with a greater sense of urgency that elevates it to the realm of high
politics. Overtones of such a rationale are apparent in the writings
of many who write on the subject from an environment-centric per-
spective.
Finally, the normative case presumes the primacy of environmental
values and the threat that modern civilization poses to them and seeks
228 ADIL NAJAM
Others, such as Marvin Soroos (1997: 236), have also dened security
very broadly, as the assurance people have that they will continue to
enjoy those things that are most important to their survival and well-
being. The attempts to play with the denition of security so as to
insert environmental concerns were resented by a number of scholars of
international affairs. They therefore found it necessary to call attention to
the ambiguous nature of the link between environment and security
(Deudney, 1990; Levy, 1995; Gleditsch, 2001).
The more recent literature on the subject, what Levy (1995) calls the
second wave, has shifted away from this thrust in two important ways.
The rst is a move away from the notion of security and towards the term
conict. This has a number of important implications, including (a)
bypassing the conceptual debates about the denition of security, (b)
getting a relatively more easily testable variable for analysis, and (c)
moving from an inter-state to an intra-state focus. The second conscious
shift made by the literature is toward more empirical research based on
case-studies in order to understand exactly how environment and conict
are linked. Although there are multiple concentrations on this type of
research in Europe and America, the most prominent work in this direc-
tion comes from the Peace and Conict Studies Program at the Uni-
versity of Toronto. Eight key ndings of this stream of research were
highlighted in the Programs book Ecoviolence (Homer-Dixon and Blitt,
1998: 223228):
In certain circumstances, scarcities of renewable resources produce
civil violence and instability. The role of this environmental scarcity is
often obscure, although it generates intermediate social effects that
analysts often interpret as immediate causes of conict.
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 229
The literature on environment and security has evolved over the years
from its early focus on trying to expand the denition of security, to
the incorporation of environmental and related concerns, to its more
recent preoccupation with understanding how environmental change
can be a cause or amplier of violent conict. An emerging trend within
this evolution has been a move toward greater emphasis on the con-
cept of human security (Dabelko, Lonergan and Matthew, 2000; Elliott,
2001).
This broadening of the base is not in opposition to the earlier trends of
redening security or of mapping the environmental roots of violent
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 231
The rst is that the concept of human security provides an antidote to the more
conventional focus on states, borders and territorial integrity. The answer to the
question, security for whom is not the state but the individual and communi-
ties, which suggests that even when a state is secure from external threats or in-
ternal instabilities, security for its people is not guaranteed. Protecting individuals
and communities from the consequences of environmental decline (in this case) is
therefore a security issue. The second dimension is that human insecurity (which
includes equity, gender, human rights and identity concerns) is a central factor
in social tensions and political instabilities and conicts that can . . . become a
feature of state insecurity. . . . If peoples and communities are insecure (eco-
nomically, socially, politically, environmentally), state security can be fragile or
uncertain. Environmental scarcity becomes a distributive equity problem rather
than one simply of market failure, externalities or zero-sum calculations about
access to resources and environmental services.
232 ADIL NAJAM
Sources of insecurity
Dabelko, Lonergan and Matthew (2000: 4849) add that the concept
also helps understand the complex interactions that determine the rela-
tive distribution of security and insecurity. They point out that under
certain conditions, such as war, the distribution and composition of force
may be the most important determinant of security and insecurity.
However, in many other situations, security and insecurity will be most
closely related to poverty or resource scarcity or social discrimination.
Importantly, this leads to the conclusion that in these cases, traditional
security institutions may have only a minor contribution to make, or none
at all.
In trying to place this emerging interest in human security within the
context of the evolution of the environment and security debate, one
might propose a simple heuristic. In simplifying, for the purpose of ex-
position, Figure 15.1 conceives of an environment and security space
that is dened on one axis by the focus of analysis (ranging from state-
centred to society-centred analysis) and on the other by sources of in-
security (ranging from violent conict to social disruptions).
As I have already discussed, the early literature on the subject was
concerned predominantly with state-centred discussions. Although it did
irt with expanding the discussion of insecurity beyond traditional con-
nes to include social disruptions, it was mostly focused on inter-state
conict (since the audience of this literature was mostly restricted to the
traditional security community). Hence, the emphasis of the environ-
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 233
South Asia is the worlds poorest region: it has a per capita GNP below
even that of Sub-Saharan Africa, and is home to 40 per cent of the
worlds poor and to over 500 million people below the absolute poverty
line.
South Asia is the worlds most illiterate region: it is home to nearly half
of all the illiterates in the world; there are more children out of school
in this region than in the rest of the world combined; two-thirds of this
wasted generation are female.
South Asia is the region with the highest human deprivation: 260 mil-
lion people lack access to basic health facilities, 337 million are without
safe drinking water, 830 million are without rudimentary sanitation,
and 400 million people go hungry every day.
South Asia may also be among the most militarized regions in the
world. India and Pakistan have both declared themselves nuclear powers.
They have fought three full-scale wars with one another and continue to
have near-constant skirmishes on their borders, especially over the dis-
puted region of Kashmir. Neither India nor Pakistan can afford their
massive military expenditures US$15 billion and US$3.5 billion, re-
spectively. Indeed, as the Human Development in South Asia report
(Mahbub ul Haq, 1997: 80) pointed out, India was ranked by the World
Bank at 142 in terms of real per capita income (PPP dollars) between
1988 and 1992, yet it ranks rst in the world in total arms imports. Pak-
istans position is marginally better, at 119 in per capita income and tenth
in arms imports. When most basic social services are missing in both
India and Pakistan . . . the rising defense burdens in these countries con-
tinue to impose prohibitive social and economic costs on their people.
The other countries of the region, although nowhere near as committed
to large militaries, are also burdened by military expenditures greater
than they can afford, often because of internal threats.
Table 15.1 presents a brief prole of the ve largest countries of the
region. It is clear from the table that, on all the variables presented,
South Asian countries are not only signicantly behind the world as a
whole but also well behind developing countries as a group (measured
here as the average of all low- and medium-income countries). These are
the roots of human insecurity in the region and they have signicant im-
plications for the environment. Table 15.1 also highlights the fact that,
although there are important differences within the region (for example,
in terms of education), there is a certain uniformity in the development
proles of the region.
This table helps us make three important points about South Asia.
First, this is very much a region that can be studied as a region, not only
in terms of its historical legacy, but also in terms of its current devel-
opmental predicament. Second, this is a region that should be studied;
Table 15.1 South Asias many roots of insecurity
Developing
Bangladesh India Nepal Pakistan Sri Lanka countries World
Related to the above is one of the key ndings that Geoffrey Dabelko,
Steve Lonergan and Richard Matthew (2000: 56) come to in their major
literature review of the subject: research on environment and security
often strengthens the conclusion that poverty is a key factor in causing
tension, unrest and, eventually, conict. This nding is borne out quite
strikingly. All across South Asia, poverty emerges as the key variable in
terms of both dening environmental degradation and outlining human
insecurity. Importantly, poverty is both the causal motivator of environ-
mental stress as well as the most important manifestation of human inse-
curity. Not only is poverty one of the key elements that exacerbate the
causal chain that can lead from environmental degradation to violence
and insecurity, research from South Asia suggests that it may well play a
more central role in this chain of causality.
Linking these two arguments, one might argue that it is chronic and
structural impoverishment, more than anything else, that forges the con-
nection between environmental degradation and violent conict. Such a
conception leads to a focus on social disruptions at the level of the society
238 ADIL NAJAM
(rather than the state). As posited above, this lends itself to concep-
tualizations related to human insecurity. It should be noted that others
who have looked at the myriad security threats faced by South Asians
have come to similar conclusions. Most notably, in launching the Human
Development in South Asia reports, Mahbub ul Haq (1997: 84) identied
the shift:
Not only does it make sense to broaden the notion of security into one
of human security, it makes sense to understand the human security
framework within a sustainable development context. Indeed, human se-
curity can be viewed as a fundamental requirement for the achievement
of sustainable development. This is not entirely a surprise since the
World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, 1987)
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 239
lenges for individual well-being in many parts of the world may not be
external (to the country of residence), but internal; although internal
problems are likely to be affected in some way by external forces. This
lesson is echoed and amplied by the experience from South Asia.
Indeed, there is a distinct tendency to bring the problem down to
the ground level rather than raise it up to national, let alone regional,
levels. This is not to suggest that the regional dimensions are unim-
portant; however, it is to underscore the view that the local challenges
are more numerous as well as more profound.
This, of course, is a surprise given the intensity of regional tensions in
South Asia. Paradoxically, it is that very intensity that makes it unlikely
that environmental issues will become signicant international security
concerns in the region. The argument is that the countries in the region
have so many other and more pressing disputes to keep them busy that
environmental issues slip down the list of potential are-up points. At the
same time, one must recognize the possibility that such issues can easily
become embroiled in existing and unrelated disputes within the region.
(More on this below.)
Having said that, taking a regional perspective is also valid for another
reason. The local environmental and human security stresses that afict
the various countries of the region are so pressing in each case and so
similar to each other that the countries of the region can learn much from
each other. The lesson to highlight here, however, is not that the regional
is not important, rather that what is most important is the local.
Lesson 3: The challenge of environment and security in South Asia is, at its
core, not just a problem of resource endowments or geography but, quite
distinctly, a problem of institutions and governance if only because it is
the latter rather than the former that we have the ability to change.
Unlike others who have studied environment and security in South Asia
and who tend to consider the region as a prime action theatre for en-
vironmental conicts (Myers, 1989, 1993; Hassan, 1991, 1992), the set of
studies from all over South Asia in Najam (2003) are far more careful
about painting doom scenarios. Indeed, there is unanimity amongst the
authors on the belief that the prospects of outright war in South Asia
over environmental concerns are very slim.
Indeed, there is also a tone of caution that suggests that, given existing
regional security tensions and apprehensions, the broader sense of inse-
curity that denes the regions inter-state relations can be exacerbated by
environmental concerns. Arguably, there are far more immediate causes
of inter-state tension in the region. Environmental issues, even though
they are important, are likely to be overwhelmed by these other more
traditional security concerns. Moreover, despite fractious relations,
even India and Pakistan have demonstrated a remarkable degree of co-
operation (and even occasional goodwill) in the shared management of a
precious resource such as water. The Indus Waters Treaty remains one of
the few areas of sustained cooperation between the two countries. (This
cooperation has been severely tested in recent months but, fragile as it is
and despite much sabre-rattling, it remains intact.)
This should not negate the importance of environmental degradation
as a factor in regional security. Given the deep and strong security fault-
lines in the region, it is not at all inconceivable that cross-boundary en-
vironmental problems could add to an already volatile situation and
exacerbate existing apprehensions and distrust. In his study of environ-
ment and security in South Asia, Norman Myers posits a fundamental
question: How can we realistically suppose that environmental prob-
lems will not exert a substantial and adverse inuence over the prospects
for the regions security throughout the foreseeable future? (1993: 117).
It is also quite clear that the ultimate effect of human insecurity and en-
vironmental degradation tends to be political instability. As Shaukat
Hassan puts it, in South Asia environmental deterioration has a very
direct and immediate impact on the economy of the states, which in turn
affects social relations in ways detrimental to political stability (1991: 65).
Environmental deterioration, then, can be a source of additional stress
that is likely to deepen existing lines of conict (rather than create new
ones). Although the main challenge is domestic, the regional context
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 243
Note
1. The 10 chapters of the study all written by authors from South Asia (three authors each
from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and two each from Nepal and Sri Lanka)
explored environment and security links in specic countries of the region (Bangladesh,
India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) as well as looking at cross-country trends in key
policy areas (land and agriculture, energy, and water). The writing team included
scholars with expertise in varied disciplines including political science, environmental
engineering, resource economics, geography, wildlife ecology, system dynamics, hydrol-
ogy, urban planning and anthropology. This disciplinary and experiential diversity has
allowed us to view the environment and security problematique through multiple lenses,
all from a shared South Asian perspective. This chapter is based on the introductory and
concluding chapters of the study. The full study has been published as a book (Najam,
2003).
REFERENCES
Agarwal, A., Narain, S., and Sharma, A. (1999) Green Politics: Global Environ-
mental Negotiations1, New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment.
Banuri, T., and Najam, A. (2002) Civic Entrepreneurship: A Civil Society Per-
spective on Sustainable Development (Volume 1: Global Synthesis), Islamabad:
Gandhara Academy Press.
Brock, L. (1991) Peace through Parks: The Environment on the Peace Research
Agenda, Journal of Peace Research 28(4): 407423.
CGG [Commission on Global Governance] (1995) Our Common Neighborhood:
Report of the Commission on Global Governance, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Conca, K. (2001) Environmental Cooperation and International Peace, in P. F.
Diehl and N. P. Gleditsch, eds., Environmental Conict, Boulder, Colo.: West-
view Press.
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 245
A substantial amount of research over the past decade has been devoted to
establishing the environmentconict linkage: environmental destruction
leads to violent conict. As a result of human-induced environmental
destruction, the world is witnessing a sharp reduction in the availability
of arable land, forests, fresh water, clean air and sheries. The adverse
effect of pollution on these scarce resources is worsened by the growing
demand for them. The unequal distribution of these resources further
complicates the situation. The outcome can be conict, in the form of civil
strife within the nation-state or even resource war with other nation-
states (Swain, 1996a; Homer-Dixon, 1999; Baechler, 1999). These claims
have raised scholarly controversies. New research points out that, in
some cases, environmental scarcity might result in cooperation (Conca
and Dabelko, 2002).
As Rogers (1998) argues, conict and cooperation are not necessarily
mutually exclusive. Thus, they should not be separated in research. Axelrod
(1984), with the help of game theory, has forcefully shown why actors
driven by self-interest can cooperate after all. The environmental issues
can pave the way for cooperation based on the principle of reciprocity
among countries to protect declining natural renewable resources.
Such collaboration can have positive spin-offs for peace. As Conca (1998)
argues, if environmental degradation can trigger broader forms of violent
248
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 249
over the Mekong and Zambezi rivers set the stage for other forms of co-
operation between their basin states. In the Nile basin, where nothing
ows between the countries of the region except the Nile, the World
Bank hopes to promote regional cooperation with the help of a support-
ing cooperative arrangement over Nile water. The positive contribution
of a cooperative arrangement over the Colorado, Columbia, Limpopo
and Mahakali rivers to the bilateral relations of their basin states is
signicant.
Cooperation to establish protected areas or share international rivers
may help to bridge the divide between neighbouring countries and pave
the way for bilateral and regional cooperation. However, such environ-
mental cooperation does not necessarily have peace-enhancing power.
India and Pakistan have cooperated for more than 40 years over Indus
River water, but this has not contributed to peace-making in that region.
Israel and the Palestinian National Authority have cooperated over their
common water resource for years now, but this has not improved their
relations. Similarly, cooperation over the Inguri River has failed to mend
the relationship between Georgia and Abkhazia, a de facto independent
territory. As Brock (1991) asks, is environmental cooperation still a de-
pendent variable that reects the state of overall relations more than
it inuences these relations? Or is it possible for environmental coopera-
tion to reduce the strictly territorial notion of state sovereignty and create
a political and social climate that can prod governments in the direction
of generalized peace? Conca cautiously argues that environmental coop-
eration can theoretically promote and enhance peace: In the short run,
environmental cooperation could create positive externalities for inter-
national peace and human security by improving the climate of strategic
interaction and political bargaining. In the long run, it could be an im-
portant way to strengthen the institutionalization of post-Westphalian
forms of governance, by creating new norms, deepening and broadening
positive transnational linkages, deepening the development of interna-
tional civil society, and transforming institutions of the security state
(2001: 245).
The Indus River originates at 17,000 feet above sea level in Tibet. This
1,800 mile long river ows out of Tibet through the Himalayas, crosses
Jammu and Kashmir in India, and then ows into Pakistan before emp-
tying into the Arabian Sea. The drainage area of the river is 450,000
square miles, with an annual average inow of 168 million acre feet. The
Indus River Basin in British India constituted one of oldest and largest
irrigation systems in the world. Irrigation along the Indus River is as old
as its civilization. It is now the largest contiguous irrigation system in the
252 ASHOK SWAIN
world, with a basin area of about 20 million hectares and an annual irri-
gation capacity of over 12 million hectares. A large investment was made
by the colonial administration between 1860 and 1947 towards creation
of the Indus Basin irrigation system (Gillani and Azam, 1996). The Par-
tition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 put the headwater of the basin
in India and the lower part of the basin in Pakistan. Two important irri-
gation head works, one at Madhopur on the Ravi River and the other at
Ferozepur on the Sutlej River, which were the source of supply to irriga-
tion canals in Pakistan, were left in Indian territory. Although the Punjab
Partition Committee had negotiated an agreement between East and
West Punjab not to change the existing water use, a serious dispute
started in 1948 when India cut off the water supply to some Pakistani ca-
nals at the start of the summer irrigation season (Pitman, 1998). A tem-
porary agreement, known as the Inter-Dominion Accord, was reached in
1948, which required India to release sufcient water to Pakistani regions
in return for annual payments from the Pakistani government.
Both countries started negotiating unsuccessfully to resolve the water-
sharing problem. The water stoppage by India in 1948 affected 5.5 per
cent of Pakistans irrigated area and put tremendous strain on this new
country. The US magazine Colliers sponsored David Lilienthal, former
chief of the Tennessee Valley Authority, to undertake a fact-nding tour
in order to propose a solution to the problem. Lilienthal visited the sub-
continent and concluded that, while the two nations quarrelled over how
much water each got, 80 per cent of the Indus owed unused to the sea
(Caponera, 1985). Lilienthals 1951 article in Colliers magazine, Another
Korea in the Making, argued for an early solution of the Indus water
problem and urged that an extensive canal system should be designed,
built and operated as a unit jointly nanced by India, Pakistan and the
World Bank. The then president of the World Bank, Eugene Black, wel-
comed the idea and offered his good ofces.
It was only when the World Bank, backed by its nancial muscle, took
on the negotiator role that India and Pakistan agreed on this important
issue for the rst time. However, it took nine long years for the World
Bank to bring both the riparian countries to agreement. The treaty was
signed on 19 September 1960 at the Pakistani port city of Karachi by
Indias prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Pakistans president,
Mohammad Ayub Khan. The two countries were persuaded to share the
ow and agree to the following settlement: the Indus Basin waters were
partitioned by allocating the three eastern rivers the Ravi, Beas and
Sutlej to India, and the three western rivers the Indus, Jhelum and
Chenab to Pakistan. The average annual ow of the eastern rivers is 33
million acre feet and of the western rivers is 135 million acre feet. India
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 253
was asked to pay 62 million for the cost of replacement works. The
World Bank and other international agencies (Australia, Canada, West
Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States) set
up the Indus Basin Development Fund with India and Pakistan in 1960
and provided US$870 million to Pakistan and US$200 million to India to
support their infrastructure costs.
Detailed provisions were made in the treaty to allow Pakistan to con-
struct a system of irrigation works on the western rivers to compensate
for the loss of supply from the eastern rivers. The treaty also provided
for an elaborate system of mutual obligation. The treaty permitted
India limited aggregate storage capacity of all single-purpose and multi-
purpose reservoirs to be constructed on the western rivers. In accordance
with the provisions of the treaty, a Permanent Indus Commission was
established, comprising two Commissioners for Indus Waters, one from
India and the other from Pakistan. This Commission is entrusted with
maintaining cooperative arrangements for the implementation of the
treaty. It undertakes periodic inspection of the river and meets regularly
at least once a year, alternately in India and Pakistan, before the rst of
June and reports to the riparian governments.
Data on water projects and ood ows are regularly communicated
between India and Pakistan. The Indus Treaty had provisions for the
construction of two major dams in Pakistan: the Mangla Dam on the
Jhelum River and the Tarbela Dam on the Indus. Besides these two
dams, Pakistan has also constructed several projects to divert water from
its western rivers to replace reduced ows in the Sutlej Valley Project
Region. Pakistan is presently constructing another dam on the Indus at
Kalabagh, at the conuence with the Soan River. With the help of the
Bhakra Nangal and Beas project and the partially completed Indira
Gandhi Canal Project, India has been able to use 30 million acre feet of
water from the eastern rivers. The Thein Dam on the Ravi River, parts of
the Indira Gandhi Canal Project and the SutlejYamuna Link Canal are
under construction to harness the rest of the allocated water. India claims
that it has not built any conservation storage facilities on the western
rivers. However, there have been disputes between India and Pakistan
over several projects on the western rivers. One of them is the Tulbul
Navigation Project (which Pakistan calls the Wular Barrage) being con-
structed by India on the Jhelum River to make the river navigable during
the dry period.1 Pakistan is opposed to this project on the grounds that
it has storage utility. Similarly, Pakistan has expressed reservations
about Indias construction of the Kishenganga hydropower project on the
NeelamJhelum River and the proposed Baglihar hydroelectric dam on
the Chenab River.
254 ASHOK SWAIN
The Ganges River is about 1,560 miles long, rising on the southern slopes
of the Himalayas and owing through India in a south-easterly direction
to Bangladesh. Before entering Bangladesh, the main stream of the
Ganges bifurcates into two channels, the Bhagirathi-Hooghly, which is
the name of the Ganges in West Bengal, and the Padma, as the Ganges is
called in Bangladesh. The Padma becomes the border between India and
Bangladesh for about 70 miles and then ows south-east to join the
Brahmaputra in the heart of Bangladesh. The combined ow runs south
to empty into the Bay of Bengal. The major tributaries of the Ganges are
the Son, Gandak and Kosi, which originate in Nepal.
The dispute between India and Pakistan over sharing the dry-season
ow of the Ganges originated in 1951, when India started planning con-
struction of a barrage at Farakka, 11 miles upstream from the East Paki-
stan (later Bangladesh) border. The plan included a 24 mile canal of
40,000 cubic feet per second (ft3/sec) capacity to carry water to supple-
ment the Bhagirathi-Hooghly at the lower point. This scheme to divert
water from the Ganges River to the Bhagirathi-Hooghly distributary
came up in order to ush out the silt and to keep the Calcutta port navi-
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 255
of water at Farakka (Swain, 1998), but this also shows the willingness
among the political elites of both riparian countries to share the Ganges
water peacefully.
The treaty stipulates that, below a certain ow rate, India and Bangla-
desh will each have half of the water. Above a certain limit, Bangladesh
is guaranteed a minimum level and, if the water ow increases to a given
limit, India will receive a stipulated amount and the balance will be given
to Bangladesh, which will be more than 50 per cent of the ow. The 1996
agreement was based on the average ow between 1949 and 1988, but
the real ow at Farakka in the 1990s was much less than that. To get a
reliable gure, the water experts should have taken the average ow
during the 10 years prior to the agreement. Unfortunately, the very rst
year of the treaty witnessed extremely low dry-season run-off in the
Ganges River. With political support, the 1996 agreement withstood the
dramatic decrease in the 1997 upstream rainfall. However, the rainfall
situation has improved since then. The uctuations in the water ow have
now forced both the Indian and the Bangladeshi authorities to engage in
serious negotiations about augmenting the dry-season run-off of the
Ganges River.
The most important outcome of the 1996 treaty is that it has created an
atmosphere conducive to discussing and deliberating on a number of
water-related issues between the two countries. This treaty also refers to
some other water-related issues such as ood management, irrigation,
river basin development and hydropower generation for the mutual bene-
t of the two countries. The signing of this treaty has certainly provided both
the riparian countries with an opportunity for meaningful cooperation.
were several other areas of disagreement: sharing the Indus water, refu-
gee compensation, the transfer of ofcial assets, the position of minority
communities, the accession of Junagarh and Hyderabad, the territory of
the Rann of Kutch, Pakistani prisoners of war (the 1971 war), Islam-
abads recognition of Bangladesh, and Pakistans support for Sikh mil-
itants. Apart from Kashmir, India and Pakistan have been able to settle
most of these issues one way or another.
Sharing of the Indus water was resolved in 1960 thanks to a World
Bank initiative. However, this agreement on the Indus River system has
failed to have a positive inuence on the overall bilateral relationship
between India and Pakistan. Rather, the Kashmir imbroglio has shown
its ability to throw the continuation of this longstanding water-sharing
arrangement into doubt.
Indias relations with its other major South Asian neighbour, Bangla-
desh, have experienced a number of vicissitudes in the past 30 years. Be-
ginning with great cordiality, relations began to wane, particularly after
the assassination of Mujibur Rehman in 1975, paving the way for mis-
trust. According to a Bangladeshi scholar, the initial cordiality in the
relationship overlooked the geographical potential for conict in the
context of the struggle for Bangladeshi independence in 1971 (Khan,
1976). It emerged only afterwards as a source of friction and mis-
understanding. Several specic problems have emerged in relations be-
tween India and Bangladesh, but perhaps the most prominent is over the
sharing of the Ganges water. Between 1976 and 1996, Bangladesh made
several attempts to raise the Ganges issue in various international forums
including the United Nations.
The resurgence of Islamic ideology, the growing insecurity of the
Hindu minority in post-Mujib Bangladesh and Hindu migration to India
adversely affected Indo-Bangladesh relations. Another issue that strained
bilateral relations was the Chakma insurgency problem in the Chittagong
Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. Resettlement of Bengali Muslims in the Hill
Tracts had brought ethnic tension and led to insurgency activities. Retal-
iation by the Bangladeshi army resulted in the migration of the Chakma
insurgents to the Indian state of Tripura. Indias alleged support for the
Chakmas was one cause of the tensions between the two countries. Ban-
gladesh eventually achieved a settlement of the Chittagong Hill Tract
problem in December 1997, when the government signed an accord with
the insurgents.
Another area of tension between India and Bangladesh is the alleged
inltration of Bangladeshi nationals into India in search of a better live-
lihood. However, it is not easy for the Bangladeshi government to accept
the migration of Muslims from Islamic Bangladesh to a perceived
Hindu India, because this negates the very foundation of their nation-
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 259
state. At the same time, Hindu political parties in India are strongly op-
posed to this inux (Swain, 1996b).
India and Bangladesh have some serious differences over their land
boundary as well as the sea boundary. One contentious issue is the ad-
verse location of enclaves: there are 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladeshi
territory and 51 Bangladeshi enclaves in Indian territory.4 Besides these
disputed enclaves, river shifts lead to regular disputes over the boundary
line between the two countries. In addition, India and Bangladesh are in
dispute over two newly formed small deltaic islands in the Bay of Bengal,
which India calls New Moore and Bangladesh calls South Talpatty. Both
countries have a problem over transit rights. India has granted transit
rights for Bangladesh across Indian territory to Bhutan and Nepal.
However, Bangladesh refuses to grant the same for India to reach its
north-eastern states. India also alleges that Bangladesh is supporting in-
surgencies in Indias north-eastern part.
The 1996 Ganges River water-sharing agreement has certainly helped
bilateral relations between India and Bangladesh to take a turn for the
better. The successful signing of the Ganges River Treaty encouraged
Bangladesh to propose a comprehensive agreement with India on the
other rivers that ow between the two countries. In 1997, Bangladesh
and India formed a joint committee on sharing the water of another
important river, the Teesta. In December 1996, after the signing of
the Ganges treaty, Bangladesh also promised India that it would take
action against insurgents from the north-eastern states who had bases in
Bangladesh. In April 1999, the Joint River Commission discussed the
embankment of 54 common rivers, the sharing of the Teesta waters and
improving ood forecasting and warning. IndiaBangladesh relations
gained signicant momentum while Sheikh Hasina was in power.
The Khaleda Zia government came to power in the second half of
2001. Her party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), projects an anti-
India position. But she appears eager for positive relations with India and
not to spoil the stage that was set by the 1996 Ganges water-sharing
treaty. The border security forces of both countries regularly maintain
high-level interaction. At the beginning of 2002, they even decided to
conduct joint patrolling, which is particularly signicant after the major
shoot-out between Indian border security forces and the Bangladeshi
Ries in April 2001. After a long stalemate, the border issue between the
two countries is now under the purview of the Joint Boundary Working
Group, which was formed in 2001. The two countries have also agreed to
restore the multimodal communication link, in spite of Bangladeshi op-
position to the transit issue.5 Moreover, the Khaleda Zia government has
made positive indications about selling gas to India. On the other hand,
India has been reducing tariffs on Bangladeshi goods. And some press
260 ASHOK SWAIN
reports suggest that India released more water to Bangladesh than its
share in the 2002 dry season. The fencing of the boundary, which is ex-
pected to be completed by 2008, may help to address the issue of illegal
migration in the long run.
The Ganges treaty of 1996 has helped India and Bangladesh to build
mutual trust, which has enabled them to address other traditional areas
of dispute. Since the agreement, both countries are trying to sort out
their differences over territory, trade and transit. However, this positive
contribution is missing in the arrangement over the other inter-state
river, the Indus. India and Pakistan have had a permanent agreement
over the Indus for over 40 years, but that has not led to an environment
like that of the Ganges arrangement, in which the two countries can
settle their other outstanding issues in a cooperative framework.
long run, but the prospects look bright because the trend has been main-
tained in spite of changes in the political climate in both countries.
If it is true that cooperation on environmental issues may reduce both
strategic and analytic uncertainty surrounding inter-state relations; if it is
true that environmental cooperation may provide the opportunity for
diffuse reciprocity in both time and space and enlarge the number of sit-
uations in which sustained cooperation can take place; if it is true that
environmental cooperation may shift the focus from disconnected short-
term interactions to a continuous relationship with the scope for future
routine gains then why did the Indus cooperation fail to be associated
with these proximate spillover gains, whereas the Ganges cooperation
succeeded? Both India and Pakistan have beneted tremendously from
opting to cooperate on the Indus water since the 1960s but, as in the
short run, there have been no spillover gains in the long run either. The
1960 treaty on Indus water-sharing has all the properties for delivering
these associated gains. Indeed, it can be argued that it was better
equipped than the Ganges treaty of 1996 to provide positive spin-offs.
The Indus treaty was not bound by a time limit and its signing had
brought substantial foreign assistance and support. Why, then, did it fail?
Environmental cooperation may offer opportunities, but states and
their institutions have to make use of these opportunities. The ruling
elites of Pakistan thrive in an atmosphere of extreme bitterness between
their country and India.6 The power establishment of non-democratic
Pakistan is certainly not enthusiastic about strengthening the ties of bi-
lateral cooperation. As regime legitimacy remains internally disputed,
they prefer to use the India threat factor to advance their internal
goals. Hostile posturing towards India is constant and the Kashmir issue
continues to tower above other agendas because that serves the political
interests of the military rulers. Even in the short periods of democratic
transition, the military keep external relations policies under their do-
main (Ahmed, 1998). Thus, Pakistani foreign and security policy has
been and remains dened primarily in terms of the assumed threat from
India and the unnished agenda of Partition (Thornton, 1999).
Since the 1950s, Pakistans political institutions have been sub-
ordinated to the military establishment. The absolute control by the mil-
itary has destroyed the political parties and other political institutions. In
the periods of transition, some political parties emerge and then dis-
appear from the political arena. It can be argued that political parties
in Pakistan lack grass-roots organizations, popular support and effective
leadership. But political parties are also not allowed by the military to
ourish. The Pakistan military consider themselves to be the protectors
of the nation and invent security threats to protect their dominance
(Chadda, 2000). Whenever there has been any effort by a democratic re-
262 ASHOK SWAIN
Notes
1. India refers to this project as the Tulbul Navigation Project, whereas Pakistan calls it the
Wular Barrage.
2. After the Wular Barrage, this is the second time Pakistan has brought up this issue at the
diplomatic level instead of dealing with it through the Permanent Indus Commission.
3. India even came up with a contingency plan to attack Pakistan in 1990 in order to stop
the inltration of insurgents; thanks to US intervention that did not take place (Hagerty,
1995/1996).
264 ASHOK SWAIN
4. These enclaves are the legacy of the dissolute lifestyle of the rulers of two former
princely states, Cooch Behar and Rongpur. These rulers regularly staked parts of their
estates in a game of cards, and thus acquired the ownership of pockets of land in each
others territory. After independence, Cooch Behar went to India, and Rongpur became
part of East Pakistan and then of Bangladesh.
5. Realizing the strength of Bangladeshi sentiment against transit facilities, India is trying to
develop a joint port at Sittwe in Myanmar. If this project materializes, India will be able
to send goods easily to its north-eastern states from its Calcutta port.
6. India did show some exibility in the 1950s about solving the Kashmir issue through ne-
gotiation and compromise, but gradually moved away from it (Bajpai, 1997). The Indian
political establishment now faces strong internal opposition to any concessions on Kash-
mir. The conict with Pakistan also helps Indias ruling elites to divert public criticism of
their failure on the internal security front in particular and on overall development in
general.
7. The Kargil inltration in May 1999 following the Lahore Declaration is a case in point.
REFERENCES
269
270 NIAZ A. NAIK
At the same time, other conicts in South Asia are equally explosive.
In Nepal, the Maoist rebellion has already shaken the peace and stability
of this Himalayan kingdom. The Maoists are determined to overthrow the
monarchy and establish a communist regime in Nepal. The unresolved
issue of over 100,000 refugees of Bhutanese origin has the potential of
destabilizing Bhutan and Nepal. The separatist insurgencies in north-east
India and similar separatist movements in other parts of India pose con-
stant threats to stability in South Asia. The Chittagong Hill Tracts in
Bangladesh also tend to are up at regular intervals.
Sri Lanka has suffered bloodshed and instability owing to the long un-
resolved separatist struggle of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE). This has resulted in hundreds of casualties and, according to
the latest estimates, the conict has cost nearly 1,443 billion Sri Lankan
rupees, including the increase in defence expenditure, the cost of damage
and reconstruction, and the loss of economic output and of tourism.
There is currently a ray of hope that, with active diplomatic efforts by
Norway, the violent situation may end, ushering in an era of reconcilia-
tion among the warring segments of the Sri Lankan population.
Maldives is confronted with serious challenges to its survival as a result
of global warming. Several islands have already been submerged under
the rising oceans and the remaining islands face the same predicament in
coming years.
In contrast to other regions, South Asia is beset with multidimensional
threats. Terrorism, drug trafcking, arms smuggling, rising illegal immi-
gration, including trafcking in women and children, and the spread of
HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases are eroding the social and
moral fabric of South Asian societies. Moreover, the region has failed
to reap the peace dividends of the end of the Cold War. Comprising over
one-fth of the worlds population, South Asia is one of the poorest, most
illiterate and most malnourished regions of the world. Yet it is heavily
and lethally armed with nuclear missiles and other weapons of mass de-
struction. The stark reality is that South Asia stands marginalized in a
highly competitive and efcient globalized world.
In fact, a new pattern of conicts has emerged, calling for a different
response. The focus used to be on international wars; now it is on asym-
metrical conicts, especially in South Asia, given its size, its massive popu-
lation, its huge resources and one of the largest military machines in the
contemporary era. South Asia has yet to nd a solution to this problem.
South Asia has a greater need as well as justication for regional inte-
gration than almost any other part of the world. But this can be realized
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 271
In the wake of the rapidly changing global strategic and economic envi-
ronment, the concepts of peace, security and development have been
radically redened. Peace no longer means peace on the battleeld. It
means peace where we live, where we work and where we worship;
272 NIAZ A. NAIK
CSCE/OSCE
In 1994 the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) was instituted with the aim
of evolving a broad security framework. The concept of cooperative
security and comprehensive security was used for designing the basic ob-
jectives of this forum. These objectives were to foster constructive dia-
logue and consultation on political and security issues of common interest
and concern, and to make a signicant contribution to efforts towards
condence-building and preventive diplomacy in the region.
The ARFs activities are based on several fundamental principles,
including:
mutual respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial
integrity and national identity of all participating nations;
the right of every state to lead its national existence free from external
interference, subversion or coercion;
non-interference in the internal affairs of one another;
settlement of differences or disputes by peaceful means;
renunciation of the threat or use of force.
The ARF developed certain criteria for participation by its dialogue
partners, stressing that all new participants must be committed to the
ARF goals and its three-stage process for creating an environment con-
ductive to peace and stability in the region. The three-stage process con-
sists of condence-building measures, preventive diplomacy and conict
resolution.
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 275
Conclusion
Without a doubt, South Asia is at a crossroads today. Whereas the rest of
the world is moving rapidly in the direction of peace, stability and devel-
opment, the region continues to be gravely threatened by conicts and
multiple security threats. Poverty, terrorism, the ow of arms, drug traf-
cking, the smuggling of people, and the spread of diseases such as HIV/
AIDS are threats that are not solvable by individual governments; they
require collective and cooperative action by all countries of the region.
The choice for South Asia is simple: either it can pursue a path of
purposeful cooperation based on peace, development and reconciliation;
or it can sink deeper into the abyss of hopeless poverty, deprivation, dis-
ease and illiteracy, resulting in the gradual erosion of the very core of its
ancient societies. By getting together, moving together and acting to-
gether through the proposed security organization, South Asia has much
to gain.
18
SAARC as an institutional
framework for cooperation
in South Asia
Nihal Rodrigo
There are two extreme views on the South Asian Association for Re-
gional Cooperation (SAARC). The rst is the sarcastic view, which
maintains that the regional association is ineffectual and incapable of re-
sponding to the challenges facing South Asia. The second view is that, as
the only functioning intergovernmental institutional mechanism in South
Asia, SAARC should and could contribute in large measure to ensure
peace and stability in the region and provide the means for cooperation
among its member states.
A balanced realistic assessment between these extremes would be
helped by an appreciation of the cautious evolution of SAARC since its
formal inception in 1985, as well as an examination of decisions taken at
the eleventh SAARC summit held in Kathmandu in January 2002 and
the prospects for their implementation.
SAARC is a teenager compared with the middle-aged Association of
South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The respective conceptual and his-
torical contexts in which the two associations emerged differ widely. The
rst ofcial encounter of the seven South Asian countries, initially
mooted by Bangladesh about the end of 1980, took place in Colombo in
April 1981 at the level of foreign secretaries. Five broad, relatively non-
controversial technical areas were cautiously and consciously identied
for regional cooperation: agriculture, rural development, telecommuni-
cations, meteorology and health. In 1983, a meeting of national planning
279
280 NIHAL RODRIGO
Notes
1. Ranil Wickremesinghe, Statement at the 57th session of the United Nations General
Assembly, 18 September 2002; http://www.regainingsrilanka.org/stat.htm.
2. South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, Declaration of the Eleventh
SAARC Summit, Kathmandu, 46 January 2002; http://www.saarc-sec.org/publication/
11summitdec.pdf.
Part VII
Human security
19
Human security: The perspective
of children and women in
South Asia
Manzoor Ahmed
This chapter is divided into four parts: a brief explanation of the unifying
concept of human security and the importance of attention to issues of
children and women to promote human security; the condition of chil-
dren and women in South Asia; what has been learned from develop-
ment experience; and what needs to be done regarding the situation of
children and women and human security and what the United Nations
system can do.
The 1994 Human Development Report dened human security as: (a)
safety from chronic threats to humans such as hunger, disease and
repression, and (b) protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in
peoples lives whether in jobs, homes or communities. In other words,
the key premises of human security are freedom from fear and want. The
report also identied four essential characteristics of human security:
Human security is a universal concern. It is relevant to people every-
where.
The components of human security are interdependent. When the
security of people is endangered anywhere in the world, all nations are
likely to be involved or affected.
Human security is easier to ensure through early prevention than later
intervention. It is less costly to meet the threats upstream than down-
stream.
Human security is people centred. It is concerned with how people live
in a society, how they freely exercise their many choices, how much
access they have to market and social opportunities and whether they
live in conict or in peace.
The concept as presented by the Human Development Report has been
the basis for discussion and elaboration of the theme of human security.
UN Secretary-General Ko Annan, in his report to the Millennium
Assembly of the United Nations in 2000 (United Nations, 2000a), spoke
about human security as embracing far more than the absence of violent
conict. In his words, Freedom from want, freedom from fear and the
freedom of future generations to inherit a healthy natural environment
these are the interrelated building blocks of human and, therefore,
national security (United Nations, 2000b).
Despite the progress made in the past two decades on various indicators
of childrens survival, health and development in South Asia, the region
has not met most of the goals set for children for the year 2000 at the
World Summit for Children in 1990. The region is in competition for the
dubious distinction of being the most laggardly among all developing re-
gions on many of the indicators. Some basic statistics for 2000 will bring
the point home (see Table 19.1).
The situation of women in South Asia is most poignantly illustrated by
the story of 100 million missing women publicized by Amartya Sen
(1990). Worldwide, women generally have a longer life expectancy than
men and the sex ratio for the general population favours women. In
South Asia (Bangladesh, India and Pakistan in particular) the ratio is as
low as 93 or 94 females for every 100 males, compared with a ratio of 106
to 100 in Europe, North America and Japan. Precise information does
not exist and the causes of the deviation from the global pattern have not
been fully analysed. In India, the femalemale ratio has been declining
since 1901, when the census showed a ratio of 97:100. The 1951 census
indicated a ratio of 94:100, which declined further to 93:100 by the time
of the 1991 census. On current trends, analysts predict that some 120
million women may be missing in another 10 years (UNICEF, Re-
298 MANZOOR AHMED
gional Ofce for South Asia, 2001; Hunger Project website; Mahbub ul
Haq Human Development Centre, 2000).
In the rest of this section I describe the features and characteristics of
the situation of deprivation of children and women in respect to educa-
tion, health care, access to clean water and sanitation, and basic protec-
tion from threats to human existence.
problem that can lead to pneumonia, are in place only in parts of the
South Asian countries.
The incidence of reproductive tract infection and sexually transmitted
diseases is high among women in South Asia. Maternal mortality rates in
South Asian countries are among the highest in the world, with an aver-
age of 430 deaths per 100,000 live births.
The special health needs of women and adolescents are beginning to
receive some attention, but effective programmes serving substantial
numbers are yet to be established. The major health challenges for chil-
dren and women in South Asia are:
maintaining immunization coverage at a high level;
establishing an effective system of controlling and managing the major
health problems of children and women;
ensuring that the special needs of pregnant women, the reproductive
health care of women, and the health needs of adolescent girls and
boys, so far given sparse attention, are met effectively;
improving the capacity of the primary health-care system and its
structure of technical support and referral establishing and enforcing
performance standards, introducing participatory and accountable
management so that the health needs of all the people, especially the
poor and those outside the mainstream of society, are served.
Half the children under 5 in South Asia are under-weight for their age
(see Table 19.1). A similar proportion suffer from stunted growth.
Almost a quarter of these children are categorized as severely under-
weight and stunted (below two standard deviations from the median ref-
erence point). A quarter of children are born with low birthweight a
signicant predictor of child survival and adult health status. Half the
children and two-thirds of women suffer from iron deciency anaemia.
The poor nutritional status of children and women in South Asia is the
worst of all developing regions. Sub-Saharan Africa, as a region, is argu-
ably less developed than South Asia in education, technology and eco-
nomic status (in terms of purchasing power parity). Yet Sub-Saharan
Africa surpasses South Asia in the nutrition of children and women.
Specic nutritional interventions to control deciencies of iodine, vita-
min A and iron have been undertaken with some success in South Asia.
Two-thirds of South Asian households consume iodized salt. A little over
one-third of children under 5 are covered by vitamin A distribution. To
achieve an overall impact on childrens nutrition in terms of low weight
for height, stunting, wasting and low birthweight requires a comprehen-
sive and multifaceted approach that effectively reaches the vulnerable
302 MANZOOR AHMED
population. The triad of food, health and care of young children has to
be the guide to nutritional action. A synergistic approach is needed to
ensure family food security, build a system of health checks for young
children and young mothers, monitor the growth of children, and im-
prove the knowledge and understanding of parents and care-givers about
childrens growth and development.
The progress being made in protecting the rights and meeting the needs
of children in the mainstream of society brings into sharper relief the
plight of the large numbers of children who are marginalized and ex-
cluded in one or another way from the care and services that are their
right. The total numbers in these excluded groups in South Asia, who
could claim their rights to normal growth and development only with
special protection and support, comprise a substantial proportion of the
total child population.
It is difcult to establish precise numbers because of uncertain de-
nitions of situations that call for special protection measures for children,
overlapping categories, and simply the lack of adequate data. The over-
lapping categories of especially difcult situations for children include:
the worst forms of child labour, in which perhaps 100 million children
in South Asia nd themselves;
the trafcking of children across borders and within countries for sex-
ual and economic exploitation;
the absence of care and protection by families owing to abandonment
by or death of parents;
the displacement of children as a result of civil conicts and violence;
the use of children in combatant and non-combatant roles in war;
physical and mental disabilities that impede the normal growth and
development of children or their participation in educational and other
services (if the standard ratio of 1 in 10 with a degree of disability is
applied, this category comprises over 50 million children, at least a
quarter of whom will require specialized services beyond what can be
offered by regular social services) inclusiveness in standard ser-
vices is a major concern, only cursorily addressed so far in South Asia.
These situations of extreme deprivation and hardship are present in all
the countries of South Asia and trap millions of children. Juan Somavia,
Director General of the International Labour Organization, calls them
the lost children. As he put it, The lost children are the most exploited,
the poorest of the poor: child soldiers, girls in brothels, young bonded
workers in the factories, sweatshops, elds and homes of our seemingly
prosperous globe. They are robbed of their health, their growth, their
education and often even their lives (2000: 27).
Intersectoral and synergistic strategies are needed to address the pro-
304 MANZOOR AHMED
Table 19.3 The income gap in selected South Asian countries, 19901996
Country Ratio of highest 10% to lowest 10%
Bangladesh 5.8
India 6.1
Nepal 9.3
Pakistan 7.4
Sri Lanka 6.6
Source: World Bank (1997).
tests, and the region seems more fragmented and factional and tragi-
cally more violent with each passing year.
The need for decentralization
The South Asian countries have a highly centralized structure of gover-
nance, in spite of a federal structure in the larger countries of India and
Pakistan. The geographically smaller Bangladesh is the eighth most pop-
ulous country of the world. Each of its 64 districts, on average, has a
higher population than that of at least 40 member countries of the United
Nations. Yet the administrative structure of Bangladesh is totally cen-
tralized in the capital, with large and small decisions about primary
schools and rural health centres affecting people in the remotest village
taken in the central capital. The feeble efforts at decentralization, ac-
companied by considerable rhetoric, in the South Asian countries have
not made the government accessible to citizens.
The remoteness of the seat of power and the paraphernalia of author-
ity from ordinary citizens helps a small elite to wield great power and use
the machinery of government and the state for its own advantage. This
overwhelming trend of monopolizing power and authority in the hands
of a few has thwarted efforts for genuine decentralization of governance
in spite of the general recognition of its need. Some moves towards de-
volution of authority have rarely resulted in a real transfer of authority,
including over resources, which are guarded closely by the central
bureaucracy (Aziz and Arnold, 1996).
The unresponsiveness and remoteness of governments have contributed
to and compounded efforts to deal with ethnic tension, local insurgencies
and movements for secession. The bureaucracy in a centralized structure
of government wields enormous power without sufcient internal or ex-
ternal control and accountability. Unstable political regimes, a weak
institutional capacity of the political structures and long tenure of
bureaucrats tend to give them undue inuence and power over elected
ofcials at all levels of governance. Enormous power concentrated in the
hands of non-professional senior civil servants and a disregard for the
professional and specialized knowledge and experience of technical per-
sonnel in education, health and other social sectors are a legacy of the
colonial administration and in many ways have become more entrenched.
Participation and partnership: The role of civil society
Highly centralized state institutions, aided and abetted by a control-
oriented bureaucratic culture and weak political institutions in South
Asia, have not encouraged the participation of civil society and a part-
nership between the government and non-governmental entities in gov-
ernance. A statist approach originating in colonial history relies upon
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 307
lower courts, and have occasionally taken a proactive role in their rulings
on human rights and public interest litigation.
Judicial activism has been described by Indian jurists as social action
litigation, which is broader than the concept of public interest litiga-
tion familiar to North American jurisprudence. The former is not
merely a strategy to advance group rights and interests but also a strategy
for civil society monitoring and involvement in the realization of social
and economic rights. The activism of the Indian judiciary has been
justied in the courts as an effort to make them the last resort for the
oppressed and the bewildered (Goonesekere, 1998: 234). The Indian
Supreme Courts admission of social action suits makes it worth while for
non-governmental social action groups to take the legal route to promote
rights to undertake research into a problem, to work together with the
media and other partners and to bring a well-documented brief before
the court. This approach can be effective in a judicial environment, as
in India, where the superior courts have wide power of judicial review
under the national constitution. Similar authority is given to the high
courts by the constitution in Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. In Sri
Lanka, such powers are more limited, but the precedents from the Indian
courts have been a strong inuence on Sri Lankan courts.
Apart from the plain absence of services and the exclusion of groups of
people from services caused by structures of social and economic dis-
crimination, the most serious and common deciency in the essential
social services for children and women is the mismatch between what is
offered and the intended beneciaries needs and circumstances. As gov-
ernments attempt to respond to the demand for an expansion of services
and to make them more inclusive, the inappropriateness and unrespon-
siveness of services become an even greater impediment to effective
services.
For example, the health and nutritional needs of children, adolescents
and women, including expectant and young mothers, could be effectively
met by a coordinated effort that brings together activities in the health
clinic, water and sanitation projects, nutrition interventions and educa-
tion in life-skills, health and hygiene, and nutrition for young people and
their parents.
Early childhood development programmes can give the young child a
fair start in life if the childs needs in terms of health, nutrition, educa-
tion and parental care and love can be met at the right place and time
and with due attention to the specic needs and circumstances of the
child. The multiple and complex circumstances that place children in
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 309
The priority given to human security and development, the goals adopted
for enhancing the status of and prospects for children and women, and
the strategies and programmes implemented are ultimately choices each
country has to make. Regional cooperation and emulation can encourage
and promote movement in this direction to the extent each country is so
inclined. Similarly, international assistance and cooperation by countries
with the United Nations system can support positive forces in each country
but cannot substitute for a national sense of direction and purpose.
The UN system has four important roles it should play in advancing
the cause of children and women, and thus laying the foundations for
human security:
1. Continue to serve as the forum for building international consensus and
solidarity in respect of goals for children and women. The adoption and
ratication of the regime of human rights treaties, including the Con-
vention to End All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the
Convention on the Rights of the Child, are a towering achievement of
the United Nations. The international follow-up efforts, including the
World Conferences on Women and the recent UN General Assembly
Special Session on Children, testify both to the work still to be done
and to the importance of the role of the UN system in this regard.
2. Work with countries to raise awareness, help set moral and legal norms,
and encourage people to claim the rights of children and women. The UN
system should, by assessing situations and publicizing international
successes, help to raise expectations about what can be achieved.
3. Cooperate with countries in identifying actions, developing plans and
strategies, and helping implement these. The UN system has to con-
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 313
REFERENCES
(2001b) State of the Worlds Children, New York: Oxford University Press.
Regional Ofce for South Asia (2001) The Realities of Girls Lives in
South Asia, Kathmandu.
United Nations (2000a) We the People, Report of the Secretary-General to the
Millennium Assembly, New York.
(2000b) Secretary-General Salutes International Workshop on Human
Security in Mongolia, Two-day Session in Ulaanbaatar, 810 May, Press Re-
lease SG/SM/7382.
World Bank (1994) Governance: The World Bank Experience, Washington, D.C.
(1996) Bangladesh: Government That Works Reforming the Public Sector,
Dhaka.
(1997) World Development Indicators, Washington, D.C.
20
Child malnutrition and gender
discrimination in South Asia:
Is the worst malnutrition linked
to the worst gender discrimination
in the world?
Santosh Mehrotra*
Sub-Saharan Africa 31 10 10 37
Middle East and North Africa 17 5 8 24
South Asia 49 21 17 48
East Asia and Pacic 19 6 24
Latin America and Caribbean 9 1 2 17
CEE/CISa and Baltic States 7 2 6 16
Industrialized countries
Developing countries 29 12 10 33
Least developed countries 40 13 12 45
World 28 11 10 32
Source: UNICEF (2001).
Note: Data refer to the most recent year available during the period.
a. Central and East European countries/Commonwealth of Independent States.
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 319
40
30
25
Kerala
Sri Lanka
20
Botswana
Zimbabwe
15
10
the same income level. Thus, in Sub-Saharan Africa, Zimbabwe (in the
1980s) and Botswana could be regarded as high-achievers, just as, in
South Asia, Sri Lanka and the state of Kerala (India) were distinct high-
achievers in respect of health and education indicators (Mehrotra and
Jolly, 2000).3 What is remarkable is that the African high-achievers in the
1980s (Botswana and Zimbabwe) still have much lower under-weight
rates than do the South Asian high-achievers (Sri Lanka and Kerala
state) (see Figure 20.1).
Ramalingaswami, Jonsson and Rohde (1996) appropriately asked the
question: if child malnutrition rates are so strongly associated with child
deaths, and child malnutrition rates in South Asia are much worse than in
SSA, then why are child survival rates in South Asia so much better (and
under-ve mortality rates so much higher) than in SSA?4 Thus, the under-
ve mortality rate (U5MR) in Sub-Saharan Africa is 107, whereas in
South Asia it is only 74 on average; yet child malnutrition aficts half of
South Asian children, but only one-third of African ones. Their answer
was that the South Asian child usually has better access to modern med-
ical care, especially antibiotics available from the myriad of private
doctors in rural and urban areas who are also interested in selling medi-
cines. The child in SSA is more likely to have access only to government
health services, which may be more oriented to providing preventive
320 SANTOSH MEHROTRA
services than life-saving ones. If this is the explanation for the lower
mortality of children in South Asia (compared with SSA), then what ex-
plains the much higher child malnutrition rates in South Asia in fact the
highest rates in the world?
If malnutrition begins in utero, then the rst evidence we get that the
child will be born undernourished is from the birthweight of the infant.
The rst cause of the high rates of malnutrition in South Asia is the high
proportion of infants who are born with low birthweight. In fact, as Fig-
ure 20.2 shows, the incidence of low birthweight is higher in South Asia
than in any other region in the world. Half of Bangladeshi children, one-
third of Indian children and one-quarter of Pakistani children are born
with low birthweight.
Why is the incidence of low birthweight so high for babies born in
South Asia? Low birthweight is essentially an indicator of the nutritional
status of mothers. Simply put, small mothers give birth to small babies. In
addition, the weight that mothers are supposed to put on during preg-
nancy in South Asia is lower than is required for the healthy growth of
the child. Thus, during pregnancy, the average woman should gain about
10 kg of weight. Whereas in Africa most women do gain nearly that much
weight, in South Asia most women gain around only 5 kg (WHO, 1996).
In other words, the babys nutritional status at birth is a direct outcome
of the womans nutritional status.5
In poor households, the mother will feed the husband and the sons
rst, and eat last herself, along with the daughters. In poor households,
there may be inadequate food left over for the females, or the poorest-
quality food. Combined with the work requirements for a woman in a
patriarchal society, the limited food or poor-quality food may translate
into poor health status. In India, the fact that in the 1990s half of all
children continued to suffer from malnutrition is particularly ironic, given
that the food reserves (buffer stocks maintained for meeting the needs of
drought-affected areas or areas hit by natural disasters) rose from 20
million tonnes to 64 million tonnes, and the country has actually been
exporting food.
The second National Family Health Survey (IIPS and ORC Macro,
2000) gives us an insight into the nutritional status of women in India. As
discussed in the rst section, the height of an adult is an outcome of sev-
eral factors, including nutrition during childhood and adolescence. A
60
50 India
Bangladesh
% low-birthweight babies
Pakistan
40
Sri Lanka
South Asia
30 LDCs
SSA
MENA
20 East Asia
LAC
CEE/CIS
10
Figure 20.2 The incidence of low birthweight in South Asia, compared with other regions.
Source: UNICEF (2001).
321
322 SANTOSH MEHROTRA
backward castes (51 per cent); for women not in these three groups the
gure is 48 per cent.
Although the caste of a girl cannot be changed, her educational level can
be. What is interesting is that women in South Asia have the worst edu-
cational indicators relative to men of all regions. Table 20.2 shows that
gender discrimination in education (at least for the indicators selected
here) exists in all regions of the world except Latin America. However,
the adult literacy rates for women as a percentage of those for men are
lowest in South Asia 62 per cent, compared with 72 per cent in the
Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and in SSA. Primary enrolment
rates are also the lowest, just as secondary enrolment rates are.
Why should the literacy and educational levels of the mother matter
for the health and nutritional status of the child?7 They matter because
the mother is the principal care-giver. Figure 20.3 graphically illustrates
the synergy between interventions within the social sectors by presenting
the social impact of educating a girl in the form of the life cycle of an
educated girl (Cochrane, 1979, 1988; World Bank, 1996). An educated
girl is likely to marry later than a girl who has no education; this is espe-
cially true if the girls education extends to at least junior secondary level
and she engages in economic activity outside the home. Early marriage
and childbirth, before the girls own body has fully formed, will adversely
affect the babys and the mothers health. Independent research has also
established that an educated girl will have fewer children, will seek medical
attention sooner for herself and her children, and is likely to provide
better care and nutrition for herself and her children. This would reduce
the probability of morbidity through disease and hence increase the
probability of survival of her children beyond the age of 5. Over time, the
survival of her children will change the behavioural pattern of the family
in respect of fertility and contraception thus lowering the overall fertil-
ity rate. Smaller household size improves the care of children, and lower
fertility reduces the size of the school-age population.
These benets of girls education accrue from generation to genera-
tion. In other words, in order to maximize the complementarities among
basic social services, it is crucial to focus on universal primary education
early on, particularly for girls but this also assumes that health, family
planning, and water and sanitation services are available. Above all else,
it implies that one of the most important interventions for the childs
health and nutritional status is the mothers educational level. Even more
importantly, it reinforces the argument that the nutritional status of
the child is the outcome of a process that continues over the whole life
324
EDUCATED
GIRL CHILD
Marries later
115
110
Industrialized countries
Females as % of males
CEE/CIS
LAC
105
MENA
SSA
South Asia
100
India
Pakistan
Bangladesh
95
90
Figure 20.4 Life expectancy of females compared with males, by region, 19951999.
Source: UNICEF (2001).
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 327
It is not only womens capabilities but their agency too that has been
severely restricted in South Asia. Sen (1995) comments on womens
agency being an instrument of not only their own well-being but also that
of the entire family. The notion of agency refers to the freedom women
have to engage in work outside the home, to earn an independent in-
come, to have ownership rights and, of course, to receive education.
Wherever these freedoms and rights prevail, the well-being of women is
positively affected. However, women in India face impediments even to
their leaving the home, let alone seeking opportunities for paid employ-
ment. Thus, the second National Family Health Survey (NFHS-2) reports
that freedom of movement is limited for the majority of women who have
ever been married in India: only 32 per cent of women say that they do
not need permission to go to the market, and only 24 per cent say that
they do not need permission to visit friends or relatives (IIPS and ORC
Macro, 2000). As expected, women who earn money have much more
freedom of movement than other women. But the point is that, whereas
half of all women in SSA are involved in some kind of work outside the
home, only a quarter of women in South Asia are (Ramalingaswami,
Jonsson and Rohde, 1996).9 In India, NFHS-2 reported that 61 per cent
had not worked in the past 12 months; only 20 per cent were employed
by someone else; 14 per cent worked on the family farm or in the family
business; and 5 per cent were self-employed (IIPS and ORC Macro,
2000). Thus the autonomy, and hence agency, of a majority of South
Asian women is circumscribed.
Other factors
Gender discrimination is not the only reason for high child malnutrition
rates in South Asia. As I noted in my conceptual framework, the dura-
tion, frequency and severity of disease, especially diarrhoeal disease, are
important determinants because they affect the absorption of nutrients by
the child. The prevalence of disease is affected by the availability of safe
water and sanitation (see Figure 20.5). Even though South Asia has much
higher provision of safe water (especially in rural areas), it has a much
lower share of the population with access to safe means of excreta dis-
posal. When one combines this fact with the phenomenon that the den-
sity of population in SSA is a fraction of that of South Asia (23/km2, in
contrast to South Asias 230/km2), the enormity of the problem becomes
clear. Overcrowding worsens the environmental hygienic conditions for
the child in South Asia. The greater density of population would be par-
ticularly harmful in urban areas, where overcrowding in South Asia is
intense. The situation is compounded in South Asia by the lower provi-
sion of safe sanitation in rural areas (the level of urbanization is not that
328 SANTOSH MEHROTRA
90
80
70
% of rural population
60
50 South Asia
SSA
40
30
20
10
0
Safe water Adequate sanitation
Figure 20.5 The availability of safe water and sanitation in rural areas of South
Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Source: UNICEF (2001).
different between the two regions, with 38 per cent in SSA as against 29
per cent in South Asia). Overcrowding would clearly lead to a much
greater incidence of disease, thus affecting the absorption of nutrients
by children.
Here too, however, the story may not be as simple as the mere quan-
titative differences in coverage of safe sanitation and the density of pop-
ulation. In South Asia there is a much greater number of physicians per
100,000 population than there is in SSA. Thus in India there are 48 and in
Pakistan 57 physicians per 100,000 population, compared with much less
than 20 per 100,000 in the majority of countries in SSA (see, for example,
UNDP, 2002: Table 6). This would suggest that, despite the greater
prevalence of disease in South Asia for the reasons mentioned above,
people also have much greater access to medical care. However, the real
issue is whether women have the autonomy actually to seek medical at-
tention for their sick children or for themselves when it is needed.
From the second National Family Health Survey (IIPS and ORC Macro,
2000) in India, we have information regarding womens autonomy in
these respects, which might shed light on this question. In order to mea-
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 329
planation for the high child malnutrition rate ultimately comes back to
the status of women.
The preceding discussion has already indicated that the earliest years
of a childs life, particularly the rst three years, are critical to the growth
of the child in later years. Thus it indicated that in utero growth of the
baby, her proneness to disease in the early years, and whether or not she
is exclusively breastfed in the rst six months are all contributory factors
to the childs nutritional status. After the rst six months, the infant
needs supplementary foods in order to meet protein, energy and micro-
nutrient needs. Since South Asian mothers are unable to provide breast
milk in adequate quantities, it is highly likely that South Asian infants
need supplementary foods even more and earlier than even six months.
However, apparently only one-third of infants aged 6 months receive
such supplementary foods in South Asia (that share is as high as two-
thirds in SSA, according to Ramalingaswami, Jonsson and Rohde, 1996).
In India, NFHS-2 for 1998 indicates that only 24 per cent of breast-
feeding 6-month-old infants consume solid or mushy foods. This propor-
tion rises to only 46 per cent at 9 months. Even at 12 months of age, more
than one-quarter of breastfeeding children in India did not eat any solid
or mushy food the day or night before the interview. Only 35 per cent of
breastfeeding children aged 69 months receive solid or mushy food as
recommended (IIPS and ORC Macro, 2000). In other words, mothers
poor knowledge about sound feeding practices is another factor that ac-
counts for the high child malnutrition rates.
Based on the conceptual framework with which this chapter began, and
on the empirical evidence presented in the preceding two sections, one
can draw a number of policy implications. Despite the presence of con-
siderable food surpluses in India, there has been an entitlement failure
on a massive scale, so that widespread hunger and malnutrition persist
side by side with rotting food in warehouses around the country. There
has been state-induced market failure in this area. State producer sub-
sidies for agricultural products, together with state procurement of out-
put at inated prices, have ensured that the market prices for food grain
remain out of reach for the poor. This outcome is mainly explained by
strong farm lobbies (especially for wheat and rice). At the same time, the
public distribution system (PDS) for food grain has remained inefcient
and riven by corruption, so that the poor benet little from it. Hence
both sides of the coin have to be addressed: procurement prices and the
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 331
PDS. Functional PDSs can help to mitigate the effects of such market
failure, and can even ensure that they do not translate into entitlement
failure on a mass scale.
The problem is that, even when there might be no entitlement failure
at the household level, the intra-household allocation of food in a poor
household may discriminate against women and girls, with health and
nutritional effects that last a lifetime. A gender-fair intra-household food
allocation will be determined in the long run by womens autonomy,
which can be enhanced by ensuring schooling for all and further rein-
forced by employment outside the home, particularly in non-agricultural
employment. Since employment in the non-agricultural sector is a func-
tion of schooling, the latter is a prerequisite for triggering womens
autonomy.
Meanwhile, given that the state, with the best political will in the
world, will be unable to intervene in the household allocation of food, a
second-best solution must be found. School feeding programmes for all
children will ensure not only that all children, especially poor children,
come to school but also that the poor family is saved the cost of at least
one square meal for its children. Besides, since hungry children learn less
than children who are well fed, it makes sense to ensure that a functional
school feeding programme is put in place in every school in South Asia.
In some of the least developed countries of South Asia (Afghanistan,
Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan) this might require some donor support, or
perhaps a combination of support from such UN agencies as the World
Food Programme and UNICEF. Clearly this programme would be tar-
geted at children of school age and, at least in terms of nutritional out-
comes (as opposed to their educational effects), can have only long-term
effects given that malnutrition sets in in utero and then is compounded
during the rst three years of a childs life, with life-long consequences.
In other words, school feeding will have no effects on stunting of girls but
may mitigate wasting and under-weight, thus improving their health sta-
tus in the run-up to pregnancy. Most Indian states provide a 3 kg ration
of grains. However, this needs to be substituted by a cooked meal be-
cause that has already been demonstrated to be more effective.
It is also well known that feeding women during pregnancy has very
limited impact on low birthweight, increasing the babys birthweight by a
mere 1020 grams. Hence, nothing but a life-cycle approach to the prob-
lem can make a serious dent in the problem. In other words, the focus of
all interventions has to be on improving the health status of women gen-
erally, and then, as far as the infant is concerned, targeting most inter-
ventions to the rst three years of life. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that,
until a few years ago, that was not the focus of interventions. Thus, India
332 SANTOSH MEHROTRA
has one of the worlds largest pre-school feeding programmes the In-
tegrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) which has been in exis-
tence for a quarter of a century. In fact, it now covers almost all districts
of the country. However, the programme was until recently focused on
the 36 age group rather than the 03 age group. That emphasis has
changed in recent years, but it will be a long time before the impact of
the change begins to be felt. The policy implication is that all South
Asian countries need to have a programme with national coverage, com-
parable to the ICDS in India, and naturally focused on the 03 age
group.
Even more importantly, ICDS-type programmes must rely on continu-
ous home visits into the rst year after the babys birth in order to ensure
that complementary food is denitely introduced by 4 months. As we saw
earlier, undernourished women may not be able to breastfeed effectively
even during the rst four months, so it is critical that solid, mushy foods
are introduced by 4 months. Home visits will also ensure that, during the
rst four months after giving birth, the mothers health condition is
monitored, so that her ability to breastfeed exclusively is continuously
evaluated. Regular home visits, however, require a functional primary
health care system, providing complete reproductive health care services.
At least in the states with the highest fertility rates in India, such a func-
tional primary care system is non-existent.
We also saw that barely half of all women in South Asia exclusively
breastfeed their babies in the rst four to six months. A system of home
visits would ensure that information and knowledge about breastfeeding
spread. There is perhaps need for further research on knowledge, atti-
tudes and practices, so that appropriate action can be designed.
Finally, rapid action is needed so that access to safe water and sanita-
tion is extended to the entire population. In a region with a high density
of population, the health of the population, and especially of mothers and
children, is heavily dependent upon their access to water and sanitation.
South Asia is characterized by one of the lowest coverage rates in the
world for safe sanitation.
Notes
1. In fact, when analysts feed all these determinants immediate as well as underlying ones
into a regression equation in order to understand the effects of various factors on child
nutritional indicators, it underestimates the impact and statistical signicance of deter-
minants lying at deeper levels of causality. See, e.g., Smith and Haddad (2000).
2. Yet women do not have ownership rights over land. This is especially, but not only, true
in South Asia. For an analysis, see Agarwala (1994).
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 333
REFERENCES
Agarwala, B. (1994) A Field of Ones Own. Gender and Land Rights in South
Asia, South Asian Studies No. 58, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cochrane, S. (1979) Fertility and Education. What Do We Really Know? Balti-
more, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.
(1988) The Effects of Education, Health and Social Security on Fertility
in Developing Countries, Working Paper WPS 93, Population and Health
Resources Department, Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
IIPS [International Institute for Population Sciences] (1995) National Family
Health Survey (MCH and Family Planning), India 199293, Bombay: IIPS.
IIPS [International Institute for Population Sciences] and ORC Macro (2000)
National Family Health Survey (NFHS-2), 199899: India, Mumbai: IIPS.
Mehrotra, S., and Jolly, R., eds. (2000) Development with a Human Face, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Nussbaum, M. (2000) Women and Human Development: The Capabilities
Approach, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Osmani, S. R. (1997) Poverty and Nutrition in South Asia, in Nutrition and
Poverty, ACC/SCN Policy Paper 16, Geneva: ACC/SCN.
Planning Commission (2002) India Human Development Report 2002, New Delhi:
Government of India.
Ramalingaswami, V., Jonsson, U., and Rohde, J. (1996) The Asian Enigma, in
United Nations Childrens Fund, Progress of Nations, New York: UNICEF.
Sen, A. (1990) More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing, New York Review
of Books, 20 December.
(1995) Mortality as an Indicator of Economic Success and Failure, In-
nocenti Lectures, Florence: UNICEF.
Smith, L. C., and Haddad, L. (2000) Overcoming Child Malnutrition in Devel-
oping Countries: Past Achievements and Future Choices, 2020 Vision Food,
Agriculture, and the Environment Discussion Paper 30. Washington, D.C.: In-
ternational Food Policy Research Institute.
UNDP [United Nations Development Programme] (2002) Human Development
Report 2002. New York: Oxford University Press.
UNICEF [United Nations Childrens Fund] (2001) State of the Worlds Children,
New York: Oxford University Press.
WHO [World Health Organization] (1996) Project of Nations. UNICEF.
World Bank (1996) India. Primary Education Achievement and Challenges, South
Asia Country Department II, Report No. 15756-IN, Washington, D.C.
21
Hum honge kamiyab . . .
[We shall overcome . . .]:
Non-governmental organizations,
the state and human security in
India
Rekha Datta
A kerosene vendor is selling in the streets without a license because the concerned
ofcial believes that a womans place is in the home. A new rule is coming which
will issue licenses for shops and ban street vending. She will soon be pushed out of
the market. . . . A bamboo worker weaves baskets and sells these in the village
market. She can no longer work because the bamboos are expensive and in short
supply. Eighty per cent of the bamboos of her area are sold by the state to the
paper mills and thus her demand for bamboo is not a priority. (SEWA, 1991: 23)
for a broader notion of security. In the 1990s, human security became the
centrepiece of discussion among scholars and practitioners of develop-
ment. In contrast to the traditional denitions and scope of security, in
todays world, [t]hreats to individual security are not limited to sit-
uations of violent conict (Kilgour, 2000). We live in an interdependent
world, marked both by increasing transparency and by the resultant vul-
nerability. Borders are more porous and information is copious and fast
owing, owing to the communications revolution and its offspring, the
Internet. This has resulted in many problems that threaten human secu-
rity. These problems include terrorism, transnational organized crime,
environmental degradation, famine, drug trafcking and money launder-
ing, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and small arms.
The world has changed, some of the greatest threats to civilians now
come from non-state actors and go beyond traditional understandings of
security (Kilgour, 2000).
In a changed world, states have to work with a redened mandate to
create an enabling environment, working in unison with international
organizations such as the United Nations and its afliated agencies such
as the World Bank. States will also have to enable self-help groups to
achieve their goals by supporting their initiatives. In this context, there-
fore, security will come to individuals if they have the skills necessary to
survive. These in turn will be crucial to states. Each nations primary
assets will be its citizens skills and insights (Reich, 1992: 3). This notion
includes a greater awareness that peoples security plays an important
part in global security and stability.
No discussion of human security can be complete without mentioning
the contributions of the economist and advocate of human development,
the late Mahbub ul Haq. Pioneering the idea through various Human
Development reports, Haq concluded that human security can be achieved
through development, not . . . through arms (Mahbub ul Haq, 1994;
cited in Bajpai, 2000: 11). A more succinct denition of human security
that will be the premise of this analysis is as follows: Human security
relates to the protection of the individuals personal safety and freedom
from direct and indirect threats of violence. The promotion of human
development and good governance, and, when necessary, the collective
use of sanctions and force are central to managing human security.
States, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and
other groups in civil society in combination are vital to the prospects of
human security (Bajpai, 2000: 48). For the purposes of this analysis, the
focus will be on how NGOs are working to promote human security in
two areas of socio-economic challenge: women in the informal sector;
and child labour.
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 339
tive that children work to bring home some food and sustenance.
Although child labour is a centuries-old phenomenon worldwide, its
prevalence despite legislative and social pressures, particularly in South
Asia and other developing regions, remains a big challenge.
On June 17, 1999, when the member states of the ILO unanimously voted to
adopt Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, the world com-
munity made a commitment to stop the suffering of millions of children. It was
recognised that ending the commercial exploitation of children must be one of
humankinds top priorities. It was accepted as a cause that demands immediate
attention and immediate action.
Since then many governments, organizations, and individuals have stepped
forward to meet this challenge. Governments have ratied Convention 182 at the
fastest rate ever for an international treaty. NGOs, trade unions, and some busi-
nesses have launched innovative programs to protect children. Ordinary people
have readily given whatever they could to help this cause.11
izations and government bodies such as the V.V. Giri National Labour
Institute, the Central Board of Workers Education and the National In-
stitute of Rural Development.13
on education. (The proposal was for at least 6 per cent of GNP and 8 per
cent of the overseas development budget of developed countries to be
allocated to education). At that meeting, Kailash Satyarthi, chairperson
of the Global March Against Child Labour, said, We are here to reafrm
our collective commitment to millions of nameless, faceless exiles of our
civilisation. Our very presence, as civil society leaders and educators, is
an open announcement to the world that we are not ready to wait any
more. We want education now.17 The spirit of cooperation among the
various organizations is the fundamental premise of the action network
founded by SACCS.18
Other initiatives of SACCS include working with village communities
to make villages free of child labour. This programme, called the Bal
Mitra Gram (Child Friendly Village), now covers 74 villages in six states
Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab & Haryana,
Maharashtra and Jharkhand. Essentially, the goal of this programme is to
involve local communities in activities that seek to remove child labour
from the villages, get the children into school and involve children and
child welfare in the decision process of village bodies such as the pan-
chayats. Health education is a major part of this enterprise.19
Global March
Global March is a worldwide movement, started in 1998, to raise aware-
ness of the problem of child slavery and child labour. Headquartered in
New Delhi, Global March lobbies for policies to promote education for
every child. It networks with other organizations (see above), and inu-
enced the adoption of ILO Convention 182 in 1999. This convention is a
very good example of the effectiveness of NGO action in association with
international organizations such as the ILO.
The nature and extent of the areas of child labour that this convention
and the approved instruments cover are substantial. According to the in-
troductory paragraph of the convention report,
to provide for their rehabilitation and social integration while addressing the
needs of their families, and recalling the resolution concerning the elimination of
child labour adopted by the International Labour Conference at its 83rd Session
in 1996, and recognizing that child labour is to a great extent caused by poverty
and that the long-term solution lies in sustained economic growth leading to
social progress, in particular poverty alleviation and universal education, and re-
calling the Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted by the United Nations
General Assembly on 20 November 1989, and recalling the ILO Declaration on
Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and its Follow-up, adopted by the
International Labour Conference at its 86th Session in 1998, and recalling that
some of the worst forms of child labour are covered by other international in-
struments, in particular the Forced Labour Convention, 1930, and the United
Nations Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade,
and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, 1956, and having decided upon
the adoption of certain proposals with regard to child labour, which is the fourth
item on the agenda of the session, and having determined that these proposals
shall take the form of an international Convention; adopts this seventeenth day of
June of the year one thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine, the following Con-
vention, which may be cited as the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention,
1999.20
On the eve of the 2002 World Cup football games held in Japan and
Korea, the Child Labour News Service, a news service of the Global
March consortium, sent out an e-mail to its subscribers. This e-mail, titled
FOOTBALL DREAMS STITCHED WITH CHILDRENS HANDS,
contained disturbing news about children being used to make footballs in
India, Pakistan and China. Even though the Federation of International
Football Associations (FIFA) has entered into contracts with many
sporting goods companies to stop the practice, child labour and unfair
labour practices continue.
The report by Global March found that [t]he hands of children are
still employed to stitch footballs, even at the price of their education and
often their health. Adult football stitchers are still receiving less than the
minimum wage, even though the footballs they stitch are sold for that
much more. Women still face discrimination in wages, often earning ve
rupees less than men, since women are more likely to be home-based
stitchers. A decided lack of freedom to organize and restrictions on per-
sonal freedom still pervade the multi-billion dollar football industry.21
The report was made possible by the ILO-established monitoring system
in Pakistan and India where soccer balls are made, in the Sialkot region
and in Punjab.
These efforts are still insufcient to lead every child away from
stitching footballs and into schools. The actual labour conditions do
not reect the FIFA agreement with the sporting goods companies. Child
labour is still common and other labour standards are still grossly vio-
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 347
Rugmark
spirit, many NGOs, such as Child Relief and You (CRY), had started
online petitions to put pressure on the government to pass the bill.
Since 1992, numerous programmes supported by UN agencies aimed at
eliminating child labour and ensuring the empowerment of children
through education have been implemented through NGOs. By 1997, 121
agreements on action programmes through the International Programme
on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) had been signed. Of these,
most were implemented through NGOs. NGOs are effective in such
action programmes because they have direct access to the children and
the areas in which reforms are to be implemented, and are thus best
suited to identify and decide on the needs of the community. The pur-
view of such programmes has made the work of NGOs essential. For
example, the action programs focused on the setting up of nonformal
education centers, drawing local working children into these centers, and
often supplementing the diet of the children, providing health care, and
conducting awareness-raising campaigns for the children, their parents,
the community, and employers (Chanda and Datta, 2000: 184). The
empowerment that occurs through such programmes leads to human se-
curity that may not be measurable in numbers alone. A qualitative
change occurs in the children, in their families and in their communities.
In order for child labour to be considered a violation of human security
principles, it has to be established that such practices violate the basic
human rights of children. International instruments such as the 1989
Convention on the Rights of the Child form the foundation of childrens
rights and other legislation that seeks to address the issue of child labour
and how to eliminate it. Such instruments, together with government in-
tervention and support and direction from NGOs and agencies such as
the ILO and UNICEF, have been successful in many such projects.24
To be sure, the importance of NGOs in addressing child labour has
become more crucial because the Indian government has put in place
several laws and clauses that seek to eliminate child labour. For instance,
there is a stated commitment in the constitution to endeavour to en-
sure free and compulsory education for all children until they complete
the age of fourteen years (Article 45).25 It is noteworthy, however, that
this provision is under Directive Principles of State Policy and the
language of the constitution is that the state shall endeavour. So it
did not have the force or effectiveness of a fundamental right for a long
time. Recent efforts, however, such as the Child Labour Act of 1986, the
proposed Elimination of Child Labour programme of 1994, and the
more recent compulsory education bill have addressed the issue more
directly.26
As already mentioned, joint efforts by several NGOs and international
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 351
are aiming to end violence among peoples and to promote a sense of se-
curity among them in unison with the state and international agencies
such as the ILO and other UN-afliated bodies.
Notes
REFERENCES
Bajpai, Kanti (2000) Human Security: Concept and Measurement, Kroc Insti-
tute Occasional Paper No. 19:OP:1.
Chanda, R., and Datta, R. (2000) Policies and Strategies of International
Organizations in Combating Child Labour in India: A WinWin Analysis, in
Stuart Nagel, ed., Handbook of Global Economic Policy, New York: Marcel
Dekker.
Chen, M. A., and Snodgrass, D. (1999) An Assessment of the Impact of SEWA
Bank in India: Baseline Findings, August; available at http://www.mip.org/
pdfs/aims/india.pdf, accessed 10 June 2003.
Datta, R. (2000a) Childrens Rights as Human Rights, in Sai Felicia Krishna-
Hensel, ed., The New Millennium: Challenges and Strategies for a Globalizing
World, Burlington: Ashgate, pp. 283303.
(2000b) On Their Own: Development Strategies of the Self-Employed
Womens Association (SEWA) in India, Development, December: 5155.
(2003) From Development to Empowerment: The Self-Employed
Womens Association in India, International Journal of Politics, Culture and
Society 16(3): 351368.
Datta, R., and Kornberg, J., eds. (2002) Women in Developing Countries: Strat-
egies of Empowerment, Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner.
Kielburger, Craig, with Kevin Major (1998) Free the Children, New York: Harper
Perennial.
Kilgour, David (2000) The UN and the Challenge of Human Security, McGill
International Review 1(1); also available at http://www.david-kilgour.com/
secstate/mcmun.htm.
Mahbub ul Haq (1994) New Imperatives of Human Security, RGICS Paper
No. 17, New Delhi: Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, Rajiv
Gandhi Foundation.
354 REKHA DATTA
357
358 SAMINA AHMED
and inuence in Afghanistan could not only heighten their bilateral ten-
sions but also further destabilize the Afghan polity.
Other regional states, including Iran, China and the Central Asian
Republics, also inuence developments in Afghanistan, with these cross-
border linkages, in turn, affecting South Asian security. Russia, more-
over, continues to play a role in the region both directly and through its
inuence over its former Central Asian republics. Since 11 September
2001, however, it is US policy toward Afghanistan that is shaping both
Afghanistans and South Asias security environment. US policy options
and preferences will also continue to guide the response of the interna-
tional community to the challenges and threats posed to regional security
and international peace by an unstable Afghanistan.
Whereas continuing conict in Afghanistan will undermine South
Asian security, a stable Afghanistan would promote regional stability. A
secure Afghanistan would reduce the threat of terrorism to South Asia,
prevent regional tensions and rivalries from escalating to dangerous
heights, and create new opportunities for trade and commerce between
South Asia and its resource-rich Central Asian neighbours. Assessing
post-Taliban Afghanistans impact on the South Asian region, this chap-
ter will identify measures to promote Afghan and hence South Asian
peace and security.
Kabul for a number of reasons. These included the division of power and
responsibilities within the administration itself. Although the administra-
tion had replaced a discredited and defeated Taliban regime, the inter-
national communitys failure to reect Afghanistans political, ethnic and
regional diversity in the composition of the AIA undermined its domestic
credibility. In fact, the threat to the security of the post-Taliban political
order had begun when the United States failed to rein in its Northern
Alliance allies, who moved into Kabul and moved swiftly to assert their
political clout. With the support of their international benefactors, Tajiks
from the Shura-i-Nazar, the Panjshiri faction of the Jamiat-i-Islami, then
consolidated their political power in the Interim Administration, under-
mining Kabuls authority from the very start.
Heading the Interim Administration, Hamid Karzai, a southern Push-
tun, represented the majority Afghan ethnic community. Many Pushtuns,
however, believed that the Panjshiri trio, Foreign Minister Dr. Abdullah
Abdullah, Defence Minister Marshal Mohammed Fahim and Interior
Minister Younis Qanooni, controlled the AIA (International Crisis
Group, 2002a: 1011). The overwhelming representation of the Tajik-
dominated Shura-i-Nazar in the Interim Administration even alienated
their Northern Alliance allies, including Uzbek commander Rashid Dos-
tum and the Hazara-led Hizb-i-Wahdat. The result of this alienation
was an upsurge in ethnic and regional tensions and the refusal of many
powerful actors, including Ismail Khan, the governor of Herat, and
Dostum, to accept Kabuls authority.
The US military presence and the hopes of a redistribution of power,
however, kept tensions under control as the Bonn process moved toward
its second landmark, the formation of a transitional administration.
Guided by the United States, however, the United Nations also faltered
in successfully meeting its next challenge, the creation of an Afghan
transitional administration with more domestic legitimacy than the Interim
Administration.
In June 2002, an emergency Loya Jirga (the traditional tribal Grand
Council) selected a Transitional Administration. In its 18-month tenure,
this Transitional Administration was expected to transform the political
landscape of Afghanistan, helping to reunite the country and to bolster
the peace through good governance and an extension of the states reach
and authority. The Transitional Administration was also to prepare the
constitutional and political framework of the post-Taliban state by end-
2003, and then transfer power in mid-2004 to an elected government.
The very fact that every signicant regional and ethnic actor had
chosen to participate in the emergency Loya Jirga meeting in June 2002
reected their hopes that the new government would redress some of the
imbalances of the Interim Administration. The process of selecting dele-
360 SAMINA AHMED
gates for the emergency Loya Jirga, however, raised concerns that the
Transitional Administration selected by the Loya Jirga would be neither
representative nor accountable. Pushtuns were suspicious that the Panj-
shiri ministers in the AIA would manipulate the process to retain power
at the bidding of the United States and with the assent of the United
Nations. Leaders and warlords within and without the AIA, including
General Rashid Dostum, former President Burhanuddin Rabbani and
pro-US Pushtun military commanders, were anxious to ensure that the
composition of the Transitional Administration reected their interests
(Rashid, 2002).
The Loya Jirga and its aftermath have, however, served only to
heighten regional and ethnic tensions, thus undermining political stability
in post-Taliban Afghanistan. The process itself lacked transparency, with
many delegates arbitrarily added to the list of participants at the very last
minute, and Loya Jirga representatives were even threatened by Shura-i-
Nazar-dominated security forces within the tent to rubber-stamp a new
administration (International Crisis Group, 2002b: 34). The interna-
tional communitys failure to prevent these abuses and its subsequent
acquiescence in a political arrangement that continues to favour the
Shura-i-Nazar have undermined the legitimacy of the Transitional Ad-
ministration. In fact, the administration in Kabul closely resembles its
predecessor. With the power ministries of Defence, Foreign Affairs
and the Interior controlled either directly or indirectly by the Panjshiri
trio Fahim, Abdullah and Qanooni many Pushtuns consider President
Hamid Karzai to be powerless and thus incapable of protecting the in-
terests of Pushtuns.
Subsequent events, including the assassination of an inuential Pushtun
representative, Vice President Haji Abdul Qadir, have only reinforced
Pushtun distrust of the Transitional Administration. If there is unrest in
Pushtun-dominated eastern and southern Afghanistan, regional leaders
in the north and the west are also alienated by their underrepresentation
within the Transitional Administration. As a result, Ismail Khan and
General Dostum are not inclined to accept Kabuls writ by disarming
their militias and sharing the proceeds of considerable customs revenues
with Kabul.
The Transitional Administration thus faces multiple challenges. Alien-
ated ethnic actors, in particular the Pushtuns, contest the Administrations
legitimacy. Powerful Afghan warlords continue to control their own ter-
ritories. At the same time, factional inghting, lawlessness and absence of
the rule of law undermine the prospects of political and social recon-
struction. In a bankrupt country, where the only hope for recovery and
reconstruction is external assistance, project implementation is also se-
verely hampered by insecurity. The slow pace of recovery and recon-
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 361
commanders will continue to use the narcotics and arms trade to nance
their bid for power. Ironically, the ousting of the Taliban has re-
invigorated the Afghan war economy.
Although the Taliban had not destroyed opium and heroin stockpiles,
they had successfully enforced a ban on poppy cultivation in 19971998.
Their ousting has resulted in a resumption of opium production under
the protection of various Afghan warlords, even within the territories
controlled by the Transitional Administrations allies. According to the
United Nations, Afghanistan produced between 1,900 and 2,700 metric
tons of raw opium in 2002, an estimate that is considered conservative by
independent observers.1 Production in 2003 was expected to rise even
further, reaching 3,400 tons, back to the levels of the 1990s. This drug
trade and other sources of illegal income, including smuggling, will help
Afghan commanders to expand their private militias, empowering them
even further against a weak central government.
The illicit Afghan trade in arms and drugs as well as Afghan smuggling
of licit items have fuelled crime and violence in South Asia for decades.
South Asian sub-state extremists have beneted from easy access to arms
from Afghanistan, enabling them to challenge their domestic rivals and
state authority. The Afghan arms and drugs trade and smuggling crimi-
nalize politics in South Asia, even as they deprive state authorities of
customs and trade revenues. The ow of narcotics from Afghanistan has
also resulted in increased drug use. Continued instability in Afghanistan
will only serve to strengthen its war economy further and to undermine
South Asian security. Should the internal tussle for power escalate in
Afghanistan, its near and distant neighbours such as Pakistan, India and
Iran will also be encouraged to intervene in Afghan affairs, motivated by
the dual goals of expanding their inuence and undermining the standing
of their regional rivals. This tussle for power and inuence will have re-
percussions on both Afghan security and regional stability.
Regional imperatives
anti-Kabul dissents and in the 1980s, in concert with the United States, it
backed a proxy war against the Soviet-supported Afghan regime.
Pakistan and its regional rival, India, also used Afghan territory as one
of the many venues to conduct their mutual war of attrition. Talking ad-
vantage of Pakistans strained relations with Afghanistan, India was
quick to establish cordial ties with Kabul. Both Pakistan and India also
used their external alliances in their tussle for inuence over Afghani-
stan. Allied to the United States in the Cold War, Pakistan successfully
persuaded the United States to distance itself from Afghanistan. Indias
Cold War ally, the Soviet Union, had its own strategic interests in
Afghanistan, bordering on its soft southern belt.
Afghanistans strategic location and great power imperatives acquired
a new dimension in the 1980s when Pakistan assumed a front-line role
in the US war of attrition against the Soviet-supported government in
Kabul and against Soviet forces on Afghan soil. India, for its part, was
less averse to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and far more con-
cerned about the military and political rewards reaped by its Pakistani
adversary in return for services rendered to the United States.
The rivalry between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan impinged more
directly on their bilateral relations after the Taliban emerged as the
dominant political actor in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s. Pakistan had
played a major role in bringing the Taliban to power, motivated by the
desire to extend its inuence over Afghanistan. For Islamabad, the as-
cendance of the Taliban meant the transformation of Afghanistan from a
traditionally hostile state to a valuable strategic ally. Pushtun irredentism
was no longer a threat since the Taliban were beholden to their Pakistani
benefactors. Although the Taliban represented Pushtun resurgence, their
Islamic ideology countered the earlier Pushtun emphasis on cross-border
ethnic nationalism.
With the Taliban controlling more than 90 per cent of Afghanistans
territory, Pakistani policy makers also hoped to gain access to the
resource-rich Central Asian republics and to undermine Indias regional
standing and security (Askari-Rizvi, 1999: 184). Through its close ties
with the Taliban, Pakistan used Afghan territory to train and arm Kash-
miris and a range of Islamic extremists, including Afghans and Pakistanis,
to conduct a proxy war in Indian-administered Kashmir. India, for its
part, alienated by the Talibans pro-Pakistan tilt and their provision
of sanctuary and support to anti-Indian insurgents, supported the anti-
Taliban Northern Alliance forces.
The Talibans downfall and a resurgent Northern Alliance have cre-
ated new opportunities for India to increase its inuence over Afghan
affairs. Deprived of its Taliban allies, Pakistan is no longer in a position
to use Afghan territory as a sanctuary and a base for anti-Indian ex-
364 SAMINA AHMED
line deal. Mutually benecial economic ties would ease tensions between
Pakistan and Afghanistan. Agreements such as the proposed Turkmen
gas pipe via Afghan territory to Pakistan are, however, unlikely to ma-
terialize partly owing to PakistanAfghanistan tensions and partly be-
cause the international nances needed for such a project are unlikely to
materialize, given the absence of security and peace in Afghanistan.
Pakistans desire to gain access to Central Asias resources is compli-
cated further by the Iranian factor. Iran, like India, had supported the
Northern Alliance because of the threats posed to Afghanistans Shiite
minority by the Sunni extremist Taliban. Iran was also motivated to in-
tervene in Afghanistans affairs by its competition with Pakistan for re-
gional inuence, including access to Central Asias resources (Rubin et
al., 2001: 26). The triangular Great Game between Pakistan, India and
Iran could assume dangerous dimensions should Afghanistan once again
disintegrate into autonomous efdoms, controlled by quarrelling warlords.
Other regional actors, including China and the Central Asian republics
(CARs), could also adopt a more assertive role in Afghan affairs if the
civil war resumes in Afghanistan. Having supported factions within the
Northern Alliance against the Taliban, Russia and the CARs have ex-
tended their support to the reconstituted central authority in Kabul. If
anarchy prevails once again in Afghanistan, Russia and the Central
Asian republics could once again intervene, concerned that Central
Asian insurgents might, once again, use Afghan soil as a sanctuary and a
base of operations. China also claims that anti-state elements have used
Afghan territory to launch attacks on its territory, so it too is closely
monitoring political developments in Afghanistan. Chinas response to
the challenges emanating from Afghanistan will, however, be inuenced
by the policy preferences of its South Asian ally, Pakistan. India, for its
part, will continue to coordinate its approach toward Afghanistan with
its regional allies Russia and the CARs (Fielden and Goodhand, 2001:
23). This combination of regional interests and the vestiges of Cold War
politics will have an impact on Afghanistans internal dynamics. It will
also shape inter-state relations and thus affect regional stability in South
Asia. Ultimately, however, the prospects of peace in Afghanistan and
hence the security of the South Asian region will depend on US policy
preferences.
The US factor
It was US-led military operations that led to the downfall of the Taliban.
The US decision to use military force against the Taliban and al-Qaida
elements in Afghanistan also had an immediate impact on the South
366 SAMINA AHMED
Asian region. Until 11 September 2001, the United States had distanced
itself from its longstanding regional ally Pakistan for a number of rea-
sons, including Pakistans alliance with the Taliban, its proxy war in
Indian-administered Kashmir and the disruption of the democratic pro-
cess by the October 1999 military take-over (Ahmed, 2001/2002: 83).
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, India and the United States had
also come closer together, expanding their political and military ties.
India was bereft of its Cold War ally and the United States perceived
India, an emergent regional power, as a balancing force against a poten-
tial adversary, China.
In the aftermath of the 11 September terrorist attacks, the United
States abruptly reversed course toward Pakistan, extending diplomatic
and economic support to General Pervez Musharrafs regime in return
for Pakistani support for US military operations in Afghanistan.
Although the revived USPakistan alliance is far from the Cold War
partnership of the past, US diplomatic support and economic rewards
for the Pakistani military government have adversely affected India
Pakistan relations. India perceives the renewed USPakistan alliance as
a set-back to its efforts to isolate Pakistan internationally for its support
for the Kashmiri jihad. Emboldened by US support, the Pakistani regime
has adopted a more hostile posture toward India, continuing its support
for the anti-Indian insurgents in Kashmir, albeit on a reduced scale. If
and when the international environment is more favourable, Pakistan
could conceivably resume a full-scale proxy war in Indian Kashmir.
The continued use of US military force against perceived Taliban and
al-Qaida targets has its own implications for IndiaPakistan relations as
well as Pakistani political dynamics. Internal developments in Pakistan,
in turn, have implications for post-Taliban Afghanistan. Since Pakistans
cooperation is important for such operations, the United States has opted
to support Musharrafs bid to retain power indenitely by halting the
democratic transition. Condent of continued US diplomatic and eco-
nomic support, the Pakistani military opted to retain absolute power
after the October 2002 polls, which resulted in the election of a powerless
prime minister and parliament.
In the absence of any counterbalancing civilian restraints, the militarys
hostility toward India continues to shape Pakistani policy toward India.
The BJP-led Indian governments mistrust of General Musharraf and his
military colleagues has also hampered the resumption of a bilateral India
Pakistan dialogue. Even though Indian Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee
has initiated a bid to normalize relations with Pakistan, he has made
progress conditional on the cessation of Pakistani support for the insur-
gency in Kashmir, accusing Pakistan of continued support for cross-
border terrorism. So long as Musharraf retains absolute power, bilateral
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 367
tensions will continue to grow, increasing the risk of an all-out war be-
tween the two nuclear-armed states.
Pushtun alienation is also on the rise on both sides of the Pakistan
Afghanistan border since US military operations are largely conned to 3
of Afghanistans 32 provinces the Pushtun-majority eastern provinces
of Nangarhar, Paktia and Paktika. The United States is also conducting
joint operations with the Pakistani military against al-Qaida and the
remnants of the Taliban in the hitherto autonomous Pushtun-dominated
Pakistani Tribal Areas.2 Exploiting Pushtun opposition to these opera-
tions through anti-American and pro-Taliban slogans, the Muttahida
Majlis-i-Amal (MMA; United Council for Action), a six-party alliance
of religious parties, won an unexpected electoral victory in Pakistans
October 2002 polls and formed the government in the North West
Frontier Province. In Baluchistan, too, the MMA performed well and
entered into a coalition government with the pro-military Muslim League
(Quaid-i-Azam). The Afghan Transitional Administration is understand-
ably concerned about the threats posed to Afghanistans security by the
political resurgence of pro-Taliban sympathizers in the two Pakistani
border provinces, linking increased hostile activity by the Taliban to the
MMAs rise.3
Despite its rhetoric, the MMA is unlikely to take on the central gov-
ernment by halting military operations against the Taliban and al-Qaida
in Pakistans tribal belt. Pakistani and Afghan Pushtuns could, however,
once again join hands to oppose the central authorities in their respective
states if Pushtun alienation continues to heighten in Afghanistan. Paki-
stan could itself attempt to establish Pashtun rule of the right kind in
Afghanistan (Rubin et al., 2001: 24), tempted by unrest on its borders or
a deterioration of relations with Kabul. The future of the Bonn process
therefore depends on a number of imperatives. These include the suc-
cessful integration of the Pushtuns and, indeed, every Afghan regional
and/or ethnic entity into the ongoing process of political, social and
economic reconstruction; a changed emphasis in the United States
Afghan policy from military to political goals; and a rapprochement be-
tween Afghanistan and its immediate neighbours.
ensure that international aid and assistance benet all regions of the
country. Because the distribution of portfolios within the Transitional
Administration has undermined its legitimacy, political stability in Af-
ghanistan will depend on the international communitys ability to redress
perceived wrongs and to address perceived grievances as Afghanistan
moves towards elections in 2004.
The Bonn process includes the creation of new constitutional and legal
structures for post-Taliban Afghanistan. The draft of a new constitution
will be prepared by end-2003. The constitutional commission must ensure
a just distribution of political and economic power between the centre
and the provinces. Learning from Afghanistans history, the constitution
should be drafted in such a manner that the centre can assert its presence
in and extract resources from the periphery without impinging on the
autonomy of the provinces. Otherwise, regional players, particularly in
border regions, are likely to challenge the centres authority. Domestic
unrest will, in turn, encourage external state or sub-state intervention.
It is equally essential to ensure a separation, as far as possible, between
the secular and the temporal in forming Afghanistans new legal systems.
The Karzai administration is already under pressure from factions within
the government, including the superior judiciary, to accept the pre-
eminence of the Islamic over the civil code. This incipient Islamization of
Afghanistan serves only to enhance the bargaining power of religious
conservatives, undermining civil rights. The more Afghanistan moves to-
ward religious conservatism, the more likely it is that Pakistani, Iranian
and Afghan religious extremists will strengthen their ties with their
Afghan kin, threatening Afghanistans peace and the security of its im-
mediate and distant neighbours.
The international community, including the United Nations, must also
learn from the lessons of the emergency Loya Jirga to ensure that the
same mistakes are not repeated during the June 2004 national elections.
A pre-poll countrywide census, for instance, is essential to determine and
delineate electoral constituencies, thus removing misgivings that one
community is favoured over another. Transparent proceedings, including
respect for the sanctity of the ballot, would strengthen the domestic
legitimacy of an elected government. If the polls are not free and fair,
excluded or alienated regional and ethnic players will question the legiti-
macy and the writ of the elected government. However, if all Afghan
political, regional and ethnic factions perceive a central government
as legitimate, the threats of external intervention would incrementally
reduce.
Afghanistans political and economic recovery and reconstruction, even
the continuation of the Bonn process itself, are contingent on security.
The Afghan state, however, lacks the capacity to control its territory in
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 369
the absence of a national military or police force that could curb the
power of warlords and militias. Although the United States believes that
the answer lies in the creation of a national army and police to extend
state authority and to enforce the rule of law, it will take months if not
years to train even a modest military and police force.4 Until Kabul is
capable of extending its writ to the periphery, an expanded International
Security Assistance Force could have helped to enforce the peace by
containing factional inghting and lawlessness. The United States has,
however, strongly opposed even a limited expansion of the ISAFs man-
date and mission from its present role of guarding Kabul (International
Crisis Group, 2002a: 4).
A shift in US strategy from military to economic goals partially ad-
dresses some of Afghanistans most pressing security concerns. The Bush
administration has, for instance, pledged additional aid for quick-impact
projects such as road building, the rst project being a road that will link
Kabul with Herat. If other proposed projects such as the rebuilding of
road links between Kabul and Jalalabad materialize, the resultant inux
of international assistance and job generation would help to assuage
Pushtun grievances.
The United States has also opted to station civil affairs soldiers along
with troops from the US-led coalition and Afghan national army person-
nel in a number of population centres throughout Afghanistan (Dao,
2002). In the near term, the limited presence of US troops and Afghani-
stan national army soldiers will help to deter existing and potential
spoilers who would fear US military retaliation. As elections approach,
however, regional factions are more than likely to assert their political
and military clout in a bid to dominate the power structure after June
2004. A piecemeal solution based on limited US military teams might
then prove insufcient to keep the peace in Afghanistan. The United
States must therefore acknowledge the need for the presence of an in-
ternational security force beyond Kabul if security is to be assured in the
run-up to and after the June polls. If the political process stalls in the
absence of security, the civil war could resume in Afghanistan. Without
peace in Afghanistan, South Asia will remain vulnerable to the threats
posed by Islamic extremism and terrorism from Afghan soil as well as to
the dangers posed by the Afghan narcotics and arms trade.
Notes
1. A UN poppy pre-assessment survey in February 2002 had also estimated the yield in
southern Afghanistan alone at 3,300 metric tons of raw opium. See Southern Afghani-
stan Emergency Sitrep, 75 Recent Developments (21 February, 2002) at http://
www.hic.org.pk, under regional information from southern Afghanistan.
2. FBI agents and Pakistani military personnel conduct joint operations in the Tribal Areas.
3. Those people who have been elected in those provinces [the North West Frontier
Province and Baluchistan] are the mentors of the Taliban. . . . they are of the same mind,
the same ideology, the same agenda, says Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah
(Abdullah and Atmar, 2002).
4. According to an American assessment, only 12,000 troops would be trained by end-
September 2002 for an Afghan national army (Gordon, 2002).
REFERENCES
Dupree, Louis (1994) Afghanistan, 3rd edn., Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press.
Fielden, Matthew, and Goodhand, Jonathan (2001) Beyond the Taliban? The
Afghan Conict and United Nations Peacemaking, Conict, Security and
Development 1(3).
Gordon, Michael G. (2002) Fielding an Afghan Army Is Months Off, US Finds,
Washington Post, 21 March.
International Crisis Group (2002a) Securing Afghanistan: The Need for More
International Action, Afghanistan Brieng, Kabul/Brussels, 15 March.
(2002b) The Afghan Transitional Administration: Prospects and Perils,
Afghanistan Brieng, Kabul/Brussels, 30 July.
Maley, William (2001) Talibanisation and Pakistan, in Talibanisation: Extrem-
ism and Regional Instability in South and Central Asia, Brussels: Conict Pre-
vention Network, September.
Rashid, Ahmed (2002) Defence Establishments Control of US Policy Poses
Threat to Afghan Reconstruction, Eurasia Net, 11 April.
Rubin, Barnett R. (2000), The Political Economy of War and Peace in Afghan-
istan, World Development 28(10).
Rubin, Barnett R., Ghani, Ashraf, Maley, William, Rashid, Ahmed, and Roy,
Oliver (2001) Afghanistan: Reconstruction and Peacebuilding in a Regional
Framework, KOFF Peacebuilding Reports No. 1, Bern: Swiss Peace Founda-
tion.
23
South-West Asia after the Taliban
Mohammed Ayoob
In its war on terrorism, the United States has attempted to untie the knot
of Islamic extremism that has been at the centre of PakistaniAfghan
relations for years. Optimists can point to two achievements: the instal-
lation of an interim Afghan government under the moderate Pushtun
leader Hamid Karzai; and the 12 January 2002 speech by Pakistans
President Pervez Musharraf, vowing to break Pakistan-based terrorist
groups and to pull the country away from the brink of a theocratic
state. Both developments had been greeted with palpable relief in
Washington and other capitals. Yet the threat of instability throughout
South-West Asia a region that includes both South Asia and the Persian
Gulf and stretches into Central Asia is far from over. Further conict
and fragmentation in Afghanistan could have continued ripple effects
through the region. In Pakistan itself despite the acknowledged bold-
ness of Musharrafs crackdown a history of creating, harbouring and
aiding terrorist groups will not cease to haunt the country for the fore-
seeable future. Pakistan could yet become a new epicentre of instability,
terrorism and state breakdown in the extended South-West Asian region.
With al-Qaida terrorists losing their safe haven in Afghanistan, their
surviving members are likely already to have moved to Pakistan. The
existence of similar terrorist groups in Pakistan, many of them supported
by elements in the Pakistani military and by fundamentalist Islamic
groups such as the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Islam, could provide them with
373
374 MOHAMMED AYOOB
that the United States has had to maintain between India and Pakistan
since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
The events since 11 September have sharpened the longstanding di-
lemmas that have troubled US policies towards Pakistan and India.
Clearly, Musharraf deserves American support if he can demonstrate
continued determination to divert his country from an extremist trajec-
tory. Yet, in the long run, it is India and (perhaps less obviously) Iran
pre-eminent states in South Asia and the Gulf and natural status quo
powers that stand out as logical American partners. Musharrafs unde-
niable political risks do need to be rewarded. But India, a stable if
somewhat raucous democracy, is a far safer bet as a US partner than
Pakistans struggling military dictatorship.2
Iran may look like an unlikely partner, especially after US President
George W. Bushs hard-line classication of the country as part of an
axis of evil in his State of the Union address on 30 January 2002. Yet the
American decision to renounce hopes for rapprochement with Iran is mis-
guided. The United States should not neglect the strategic logic of increas-
ingly converging interests between Washington, New Delhi and Tehran,
especially in the context of continuing instability in Afghanistan and Pa-
kistan and increasing doubts about the staying power of the Saudi regime.
Post-war Afghanistan
The events surrounding the Loya Jirga in June 2002 conrmed this
image of a fractious and contentious political elite. Karzai was nally
elected president after substantial US and international pressure was ap-
plied, but this still left several factions including those supporting the
ex-king, Zahir Shah resentful. The new government also left much of
the power in the hands of the Panjshiri Tajiks, thus creating consterna-
tion among not only the various Pushtun elements but the Hazaras, the
Uzbeks and the Tajiks from western Afghanistan as well. The outcome of
the Loya Jirga may have done more harm than good by convincing many
Afghans that the grand assembly was a puppet of the foreigners and the
Panjshiris.3
Despite the diplomatic skills attributed to Karzai, his governments
writ is unlikely to run in a sustained fashion very far from the capital. The
presence of an international force in the numbers currently contemplated
is unlikely to change this outcome. Afghanistans terrain and its internal
divisions, especially among those leaders who have men, money and guns
at their command, make political fragmentation the most likely scenario.
The scenario might be avoided if the international community were will-
ing to deploy upwards of 50,000 highly skilled troops equipped for
mountain warfare for an indenite period of time. Even then the out-
come would remain uncertain. In any event, there is no indication that
such a force is being contemplated under the aegis of the United Nations
or a multinational coalition. International nancial aid may temporarily
provide incentives for the warlords to cooperate with Kabul, but is un-
likely to resolve the underlying political conict among them. That
Afghanistan continues to be in a politically precarious state was demon-
strated very clearly by the attack on Karzais life in Kandahar on 5 Sep-
tember 2002, and the simultaneous terrorist bombing in Kabul, which
inicted a heavy toll (Burns, 2002b).
Stability looks elusive also because the strategic interests of Afghanis-
tans major neighbours Iran, Pakistan and Russia in particular are at
odds with each other. All have their favourite clients. Some, if not all, of
them are likely to conclude that, if they cannot get a regime favourable to
them installed in Kabul, they would rather have the country divided up
into efdoms so that they can dominate the areas of Afghanistan that
they consider to be strategically and politically most important. Reports
of Iranian meddling in western Afghanistan and Pakistani manoeuvrings
in the east of the country prove the credibility of this conclusion. The
bloodshed of the past two decades has augmented and entrenched ethnic
and tribal animosities that were never very far from the surface in Af-
ghanistan. Continued warfare has also created elements with vested eco-
nomic and political interests in its prolongation. Poppy cultivation, drug
trafcking, gun running, protection money and control of scarce re-
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 377
External involvement
Afghanistans major neighbours have conicting visions of the countrys
future. The Russians and their allied regimes in Uzbekistan and Tajiki-
stan would prefer to see the Northern Alliance as the senior partner
in any government in Kabul. All three equate Pushtun domination with
Islamic fanaticism. Faced as they are with their own Islamic insurgencies,
they are extremely afraid that this contagion may spread if the Pushtuns,
even if they be anti-Taliban for the most part, come to dominate the rul-
ing coalition in Kabul. Although the control of the crucial ministries of
Defence, Foreign Affairs and the Interior by the Northern Alliance may
give them comfort, the elevation of the American-sponsored Karzai adds
to their concerns.5
The interests of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan also could quickly diverge
as the Tajik and Uzbek ethnic groups within Afghanistan begin to
378 MOHAMMED AYOOB
quarrel over the spoils of victory. Given the history of UzbekTajik re-
lations in Afghanistan over the past two decades, especially the rivalry
between General Dostum and the late Ahmed Shah Masood, such a fall-
ing out would not be surprising. Uzbeks, who form a small minority of
about 6 per cent within Afghanistan and are concentrated in the north,
have traditionally been afraid of being dominated by the neighbouring
Tajiks, who form a quarter of the Afghan population and are more
widely spread throughout the country, in addition to demographically
dominating the north-east.6
Iran would also prefer to keep the Pushtuns of the east and south from
playing a major role in the power structure. The American attempt
to build up Karzai is likely to have them concerned as well. The Saudi-
inspired Wahabi fundamentalism of the Pushtun-based Taliban and their
treatment of Shiite Hazaras, whom Iran supports, have made nearly all
Pushtuns, many of whom harbour visceral anti-Shiah and anti-Hazara
feelings, suspect in Iranian eyes. For all their ostensible commitment to a
radical version of political Islam, the Iranians, including their religious
class, are a cultured lot. They have found the medieval brutalities of the
Taliban highly repugnant. For strategic and political reasons, Iran has
also been apprehensive of growing Saudi religious and nancial inuence
on the Pushtun population.7
Furthermore, despite ostensibly cordial relations with Pakistan, Tehran
remains suspicious of Islamabads motives in Afghanistan. Iran also per-
ceives Pakistan to be a client state of Saudi Arabia because of Islam-
abads nancial dependence on Saudi handouts and the religious afnity
of important sections of the Pakistani population, including sizeable ele-
ments of its political and military elites, with the SaudiWahabi version
of Sunni fundamentalism. Repeated massacres of Shiahs in Pakistan car-
ried out by Sunni extremist groups, often clandestinely nanced by
Riyadh, have driven home the lesson to Tehran that the SaudiPakistani
and Iranian versions of militant Islam are fundamentally opposed to one
another. Saudi inuence in Pakistan is also perceived by Iran as targeted
at curbing Irans rightful role in the Persian Gulf region.
Pakistans interests run counter to those of Iran and Russia, but they
are not congruent with those of the United States either. The United
States is committed to, and has succeeded in, putting a coalition of dif-
ferent ethnic groups and political factions, excluding the Taliban, in
power in Afghanistan. Pakistan, on the other hand, would have preferred
the major share of power to remain in the hands of Pushtun tribal lead-
ers, many of whom had spent the previous decade in Pakistan. It would
have preferred to see the Northern Alliances sphere of inuence strictly
limited to the extreme north of the country, away from Pakistans bor-
ders. It is particularly wary of the Northern Alliances close relationship
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 379
with India, a fact that was underlined by the visit of the Alliances inter-
ior, defence and foreign ministers to New Delhi immediately after the
Bonn conference.8 The Alliances close Indian connection was one of the
main reasons Islamabad was stridently opposed to the Northern Alliances
capture of Kabul, undertaken, in Pakistans perceptions, with Americas
connivance. Pakistan felt its external security directly threatened by this.
Pakistans support for the Taliban was not merely a major pillar of its
foreign policy but an important element of its domestic policy as well.
The Taliban were deliberately fashioned as a military and political force
by Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for the purpose of ensuring
a client government in Afghanistan that would provide Pakistan strategic
depth during times of conict with India. This need became particularly
acute in the 1990s, when war over Kashmir appeared to be a distinct
possibility with the Pakistan-supported insurgency escalating in the
Kashmir Valley. The Taliban, and their friends in al-Qaida, were also
utilized by the Pakistani military to provide facilities and expertise for
training Pakistani, Kashmiri, Arab and Afghan terrorists steeped in the
jihadist ideology, who were then inltrated across the Line of Control
into the Indian-administered parts of Jammu and Kashmir to create
mayhem in an already disturbed Kashmir Valley (Blank, 1999).
In addition to these external security concerns, the Pakistani support to
the Taliban was intimately connected to two domestic trends that became
increasingly prominent during the late 1970s and the 1980s. The rst was
the dramatic increase in the inuence and visibility of Islamist forces in
the Pakistani body politic. This was partly the result of Pakistani military
dictator Zia ul-Haqs policy of using Islam to legitimize his regime during
the period he ruled Pakistan (19771988). An integral part of this strat-
egy was the bestowing of state patronage on fundamentalist religious
groups and institutions in order to build a support structure among them.
It also manifested itself in the increasing Islamization of the ofcer corps
of the armed forces as loyalty to the regime came to be tested on the
basis of religiosity and the public observance of Islamic rituals.9
The growing Islamization of the Pakistani polity was also in part the
result of the increase in the inow of Saudi money and puritanical and
militant Wahabi religious ideas into Pakistan, both through Pakistani
immigrants working in Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich states in the Gulf
and by the deliberate effort of Saudi charities and, above all, of the Saudi
government. Beginning in the late 1970s, the Saudi regime came to see
the spread of Sunni-Wahabi fundamentalism as the best ideological anti-
380 MOHAMMED AYOOB
explicitly refused to accept the Durand Line as the border between Af-
ghanistan and the successor state of Pakistan. The two neighbours came
to the verge of war over this issue more than once in the 1950s and 1960s.
Even the Taliban, although they were Pakistans proteges, did not of-
cially endorse the Durand Line as the border with Pakistan. Afghan
essentially Pushtun irredentism had, therefore, imbued relations between
the two countries with a substantial degree of hostility that continued to
nurture Pushtun separatism within Pakistan until the end of the 1970s.
The Soviet invasion changed all that, as Pakistan became the prime
supporter of the Pushtun/Afghan cause against Moscow and the Soviet-
supported regimes in Kabul. Pakistans critical role in the 1990s in in-
stalling and maintaining the Pushtun Taliban in power in Kabul
reinforced Islamabads image as the main supporter of the Pushtun cause
in Afghanistan and the principal bulwark against Iranian and Russian
designs to help minority ethnic groups dominate the Afghan polity at the
expense of the traditionally dominant Pushtuns. This perception had a
remarkably positive effect on Pushtun opinion within Pakistan, as it did,
for somewhat different reasons, on the fundamentalist groups within that
country.
Russia and India coming to have a far greater say in Afghanistans inter-
nal affairs and in its foreign policy than Pakistan, thus reversing the trend
that had been in existence since 1990.
The problem is likely to be further compounded for Pakistans rulers
by the fact that the Taliban had close religious and ideological links with
both Pushtun and non-Pushtun elements in Pakistan that espouse mili-
tant fundamentalism within Pakistan and a jihadist foreign policy abroad,
especially in relation to India and the United States. Although these ele-
ments were temporarily stunned into silence by the speed with which the
Taliban regime disintegrated, they are unlikely to forgive Musharraf for
the indignities heaped upon their ideological brethren and their own re-
ligio-political cause. Once they overcome their present predicament, they
might look for ways to destabilize the Musharraf regime in order to get
their revenge as well as to reorient Pakistans foreign policy in a more
radical direction. Musharrafs crackdown on militant Islamic elements
operating in Kashmir has, in fact, already led to the beginnings of a fun-
damentalist backlash against his regime.
Finally, there are credible indications that the ofcer corps of the
Pakistan army is deeply divided. Rifts within the top brass became clearly
visible when, in October 2001, Musharraf removed or shunted aside sev-
eral leading generals, including the head of the ISI, who were considered
sympathetic to the Taliban and were opposed to his alliance with the
United States against the Taliban (Rashid, 2001). That there must have
been substantial opposition in the armed forces to Musharrafs change of
course appears logical in light of the political and nancial investment
made by the ISI in rst bringing the Taliban to power and then keeping
them there.10
Despite the major investment that the Pakistani military had made in
the Taliban, most military leaders went along with Musharrafs decision,
hoping that Pakistan would benet more from ties with the United States
than from supporting the Taliban and opposing Washington. Massive
economic assistance and debt write-offs, access to sophisticated weaponry
and, above all, an assurance that the United States would not support
India in the latters disputes with Pakistan seemed to make Musharrafs
radical shift acceptable to them.
However, for the Pakistani military brass, the American assurance that
the Northern Alliance would not be allowed to take Kabul was the key
yardstick by which to judge Washingtons reliability and its genuine con-
cern for Pakistans vital interests. With that promise in tatters and with
anti-Pakistan forces in control of large parts of Afghanistan, Musharrafs
policy is likely to cease making strategic sense to many of the top military
commanders. Musharraf would increasingly appear to them either as too
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 383
changing the lot of the common Pakistani in the short term. In the ab-
sence of such a change, economic disillusionment is likely to augment
political disgruntlement sooner rather than later. The attempt by the
Musharraf regime to control the outcome of the parliamentary elections
in October 2002 and to change provisions of the constitution to con-
centrate power in the hands of the president is likely further to fuel re-
sentment among the politically conscious strata of Pakistani society.
Musharrafs policies seem to have succeeded in alienating both the reli-
gious and the liberal constituencies in the country simultaneously. This
does not augur well for the future political stability of Pakistan.
rest of the region from its negative effects. The second is the need to
contain an increasingly powerful China, whose long-term interests in the
wider Asian region are likely to clash with those both of the United
States and of India.
India considers China to be its primary security threat (for details, see
Malik, 1999). It is also increasingly clear that China is becoming, if it has
not already become, Americas principal strategic competitor.15 On a
number of issues, ranging from Taiwan to ballistic missile defence,
American and Chinese interests run directly counter to each other. Pres-
ident George W. Bushs decision to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty is likely to force these contradictions to the surface very
clearly and quickly. Moreover, Chinas long-term aspiration to become
the second pole of global power ensures that its relations with the United
States are bound to deteriorate sooner or later. Therefore, it makes a lot
of sense for Washington further to upgrade its links with India to the
level of strategic partnership.16
Although this may not currently be the overt conventional wisdom in
Washington, the shared suspicion of China forms the subtext of much of
the publicly stated rationale for strategic cooperation with India. Such
cooperation will not necessarily result in a defence pact binding the two
parties to come to the aid of each other in the event of war. However, it
could provide a framework for military and intelligence coordination and
the supply of sophisticated American weapons and dual technology to
India that could serve the interests of both countries if the existing bal-
ance of power in Asia comes to be threatened by a more assertive China
in the next couple of decades.
Indias democratic credentials add to the attraction of an American
Indian relationship that has the potential to become a major pillar of the
projected global democratic community. While India has demonstrated
its democratic resilience against heavy odds over the past half-century,
Iran too is struggling to achieve true democracy. As Robin Wright puts it,
the country, often in spite of its theocrats, has begun to achieve one of
the revolutions original goals: empowering the people (2000: 133).17
Despite the attempt by the conservative clergy and the institutions they
control to delay political reform and engagement with the United States,
both these trends have gained signicant support from the politically
conscious strata of the Iranian population (Weldman, 2001; Fathi, 2001).
Moreover, Irans antipathy toward the extremism and militancy of the
Taliban and their ideological brethren in Pakistan, together with Irans
stake in ensuring the uninterrupted ow of oil from the Gulf, underlines
the fact that it has a stake in regional stability similar to that of the
United States. Iran has been integrated into, and is highly dependent upon,
the international economy, primarily through oil exports, which form the
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 387
bulk of its foreign exchange earnings. Irans rulers, therefore, will pay a
heavy price if they continue to act irresponsibly in their dealings with the
outside world. This is one of the main reasons why several of yesterdays
Islamic revolutionaries have become todays political and economic re-
formers.
Despite these positive factors, it appears counter-intuitive to make a
case for strategic rapprochement between the United States and Iran,
because AmericanIranian relations carry heavy historical baggage.
However, it is time to bury the past. The liberalization and further de-
mocratization of the Iranian political system are in the interest of the
United States, as is Irans reintegration into the security structure of the
Persian Gulf, where it is by far the pre-eminent state. Iraq remains un-
stable and hostile to the United States. Saudi Arabia has become in-
creasingly suspect because of its nancial and ideological support for
fundamentalist elements (including the Taliban), which continue to thrive
on anti-American sentiments.18
The Saudi regime is caught between its adherence to the Wahabi
dogma, which has helped both to legitimize the regime and to produce
Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, and its political and economic ties to the
United States (Gause, 2001; also see Omstead, 2001). This has resulted in
immobilism in Saudi policy, most clearly demonstrated in the wake of 11
September, and precludes Riyadh from playing a major role in helping to
provide security and stability in the oil-rich Gulf. The internal contra-
dictions within the Saudi polity have also raised questions about the re-
gimes survival beyond this decade. All these factors have drastically
reduced Saudi Arabias strategic worth to the United States, except as a
major supplier of oil to the industrialized world.19 However, with Rus-
sian oil supplies rapidly increasing and oil and gas reserves in Central
Asia now coming on to the market, alternative sources of energy clearly
abound. Consequently, Saudi Arabias importance in this arena is also
bound to decline, at least in the short to medium term, as long as these
other resources are not exhausted.
As a result of a combination of the factors outlined above, Iran in-
creasingly appears to be the only responsible power in the Gulf with
sufcient regional capabilities and the corresponding interest to contrib-
ute to regional stability. As such, it ought to be the centrepiece of an
American strategy committed to establishing a stable security structure in
the Gulf that would protect American strategic and economic interests in
the region. The war against the Taliban and its likely fallout in the region
should convince the Bush administration to go beyond limited engage-
ment with Iran advocated by some policy analysts over the past few
years and to begin exploring additional strategic areas in which Amer-
ican and Iranian interests converge.20
388 MOHAMMED AYOOB
Although certain aspects of Irans policy, especially its support for the
Hizbollah in Lebanon, may continue to cause concern in some American
circles, this is not an insuperable problem. Hizbollah is a local phenome-
non and the product of a specic context: the Israeli occupation of
southern Lebanon. It does not have the global aspirations of al-Qaida
and the consequent desire to hurt American interests worldwide. More-
over, Irans position toward Israel also seems to be softening. Recently,
President Khatami has gone to the extent of hinting that Iran might
eventually recognize Israel if an IsraeliPalestinian settlement acceptable
to Palestine is achieved (Sciolino, 2001).
Furthermore, Washington should relinquish the habit of treating Iran
as a unitary, hostile actor. The rift between the reformists and the con-
servatives is clear for all to see. The Khatami-led government and the
reformist parliament have been at loggerheads with the hard-line Council
of Guardians for several years. This has obstructed the governments
efforts both to liberalize domestically and to improve relations with the
United States, but it has also demonstrated that the large majority of
Iranians, who support Khatami and have elected reformists and liberals
to parliament in overwhelming numbers, no longer consider the United
States to be their enemy. Reports suggest that matters may be coming to
a head, with the reformist camp, led by Khatami, increasingly losing pa-
tience with the conservative clergys obstructionist tactics (for one such
report, see Fathi, 2002). With a showdown appearing increasingly immi-
nent, it is in the American interest to cultivate and strengthen those
forces in Iran that represent the majority as well as symbolize the liberal,
pragmatic trend in Irans decision-making circles. Demonizing Iran no
longer serves any American purpose. In fact, it is counter-productive be-
cause it prolongs the conservatives hold on important state institutions
by allowing them to portray the reformists as being soft on the enemy.
Once AmericanIranian relations take a positive turn and the re-
formists consolidate their control over the country, Irans support for
organizations such as Hizbollah can be expected to diminish quickly. In
the changed circumstances, they will come to be seen as albatrosses
around Tehrans neck rather than as instruments for the advancement of
Irans foreign policy goals.
A major obstacle to the improvement of US relations with Iran is the
American suspicion that Iran is engaged in a clandestine effort to build
nuclear weapons. Much of this suspicion is related to nuclear cooperation
between Russia and Iran, especially Russian help in building a nuclear
reactor in Bushehr. Russia insists that its nuclear cooperation with Iran is
conducted in accordance with the rules of [the International Atomic
Energy Agency] and under its control (Boese, 2001). However, Ameri-
can suspicions persist. This appears to be more a matter of building trust
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 389
than anything else. The problem can be overcome if the general atmo-
sphere surrounding AmericanIranian relations improves. Verication
by the International Atomic Energy Agency could also contribute to re-
ducing the saliency of this issue in USIranian relations. The bottom line
is that, once Washington comes to perceive Iran as a normal rather
than a rogue state, Irans nuclear ambitions, even if they exist, will
appear as non-threatening to the United States as those of India or Is-
rael. Such an outcome is easier to contemplate under a pragmatic Bush
presidency that is not overly committed to non-proliferation goals than it
would have been under an administration, such as Clintons, more com-
mitted to non-proliferation objectives for their own sake.
Before Bushs axis of evil speech, there had been no dearth of semi-
clandestine contacts between the United States and Iran in the context of
the war in Afghanistan. This is by now well documented (for example,
see Mufson and Kaufman, 2001). American and Iranian ofcials had held
consultations, relatively openly, on the sidelines of the Bonn conference
on Afghanistan and at the United Nations. These contacts signalled
strongly that Iranian and American interests converge more than they
diverge on issues central to the stability and security of the South-West
Asian region. However, more needs to be done. For example, the United
States must lift trade sanctions on Iran and drop its objection to the con-
struction of pipelines to export Central Asian and Caspian oil through
Iran. The pipelines would benet American companies as well as give
Iran a greater stake in the health of the Western and Central Asian
economies. Irans Central Asian neighbours, especially Kazakhstan, have
been urging the United States to remove this barrier to increased eco-
nomic integration between the Central Asian states and Iran (Tyler,
2001). In addition, a sustained political and security dialogue with Iran
should become a serious priority for Washington. Concerns about Iraq,
the spread of Wahabi fundamentalism, Pakistan and Afghanistan could
provide the incentive to begin such a dialogue.
In return, the United States can expect Iran to tone down its opposition
to Israel, cooperate with the United States in Afghanistan, de-escalate its
anti-American rhetoric and, above all, satisfy the international commu-
nity that it does not aspire to become a nuclear weapons power in the
near future. Given patience and goodwill, none of these issues should
pose insuperable problems, but neither can all these goals be achieved at
once. The United States must learn to compartmentalize its expectations
of Iran as well as clearly demarcate areas of agreement from those of
disagreement. Insulating the latter from the former will prevent disagree-
ments on specic issues from disproportionately inuencing Americas
overall policy toward Iran.
With Afghanistan and Pakistan likely to be in turmoil for much of this
390 MOHAMMED AYOOB
decade and possibly longer, the United States needs the support of India
and Iran to stabilize the South-West Asian region, all three of whose
components South Asia, the Gulf and Central Asia will continue to be
important to it for strategic or economic reasons, or both. New Delhi and
important elements in Tehran also realize that they cannot make the
extended South-West Asian region secure and prosperous without
Washingtons help and participation. Prospects for a tripartite strategic
understanding among India, Iran and the United States should, there-
fore, be seriously examined both within the American government and in
the wider American and Western strategic communities.
Two sides of this proposed triangle are already in place, though they
need further augmentation. IndianAmerican and IndianIranian rela-
tions improved in the 1990s to the extent that the idea of India building
strong strategic relationships with either or both would nd serious tak-
ers in the most important circles in New Delhi. The convergence of
Indian and American interests has been mentioned already. India and
Iran have major common interests: the security of energy supplies; the
installation of a friendly regime in Afghanistan (both India and Iran
were staunch supporters of the Northern Alliance during its war with the
Taliban); and trade with Central Asia, including Indias access to Central
Asian oil and gas reserves via pipelines traversing Iran.21 Additionally,
talks have been under way between Iran and India to build a pipeline
either under the sea or via Pakistan to ship Irans natural gas to India,
one of the largest consumers of natural gas in the world (Mohan, 2001).
Common concerns about preventing Afghanistan from again falling
under the sway of Wahabi fundamentalists and keeping Central Asia
stable and secure have added greater depth to IndiaIran relations. In-
stability in nuclear-capable Pakistan and the likelihood of its fragmenta-
tion and/or Talibanization can be added to this list of common concerns.
Many of these Indian and Iranian concerns coincide with those of the
United States.
Clearly, Tehran and Washington still have a long way to go to establish
mutual trust. But, given the new strategic climate in the aftermath of the
war against the Taliban, both Iran and the United States have a vital
stake in mending fences. India, which is on very good terms with both,
and which could benet from the proposed tripartite security structure
in South-West Asia, could be persuaded to act as the conduit for future
attempts to bring about a genuine rapprochement between Iran and the
United States. This is an opportunity that the United States, India and
Iran should not squander. It may also turn out to be the most long-lasting
positive outcome of the war against terrorism waged by the United States
in Afghanistan.
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 391
Notes
This chapter is a revised and updated version of my article published under the same title in
Survival 44(1), 2002, pp. 5168.
1. After a week-long visit to the tribal belt, de Borchgrave (2001a), a veteran American
journalist, concluded that Pakistans tribal areas are free-passage zones for Taliban
and al Qaedas foreign legionnaires escaping from Afghanistan.
2. However, this does not mean that the United States should desist from criticizing or
condemning large-scale human rights violations in India such as those that took place in
the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat in FebruaryMarch 2002, which left 2,000 people
dead. The violence was deliberately and meticulously orchestrated by extremist Hindu
organizations with the connivance of the Gujarat government, which belongs to the
Hindu nationalist BJP, which is also in power at the federal level. For details of the
carnage, see Human Rights Watch (2002). In this instance, the American government
virtually turned a blind eye to the carnage.
3. For an analysis that conrms this conclusion, see Starr and Strmecki (2002). For a report
projecting looming instability in Afghanistan, see Burns (2002a).
4. For a general discussion of conict entrepreneurs, see Keen (1998).
5. That Hamid Karzai was Washingtons choice to head the Interim Administration in
Afghanistan and that this is why he was chosen by the Bonn conference was very clear
to the participants at that meeting. See Onishi (2001).
6. According to US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimates for 2001, Pushtuns form
38 per cent of the Afghan population, followed by Tajiks at 25 per cent. Other signi-
cant ethnic groups are the Hazaras at 19 per cent and Uzbeks at 6 per cent. Detailed
statistical data reecting the CIAs estimates for 2001 are available at http://www.cia.gov/
cia/publications/factbook/geos/af.html.
7. For the background to SaudiIranian relations in the context of their policies toward
Afghanistan and the Taliban, see Rashid (2000: Chap. 15).
8. Afghanistan FM Abdullah Arrives, to Meet Jaswant, Hindustan Times (New Delhi),
13 December 2001.
9. For a sophisticated analysis of the use of Islam by Pakistani regimes and its con-
sequences for the Pakistani polity, see Nasr (2001: esp. Chap. 6).
10. For one authoritative account of the ISIs role in creating the Taliban and maintaining
them in power, see Tomsen (2001). Tomsen served as US Special Envoy to the Afghan
mujahidin during the administration of former President George Bush.
11. For Musharrafs travails, see de Borchgrave (2001b).
12. This conclusion is based on my conversations with well-informed American sources.
13. It is interesting to note in this context that even one month after the Pakistan govern-
ment had agreed to end its support to the Taliban, its intelligence agency was still pro-
viding safe passage for weapons and ammunition to arm them (Frantz, 2001). There
were also several reports of Pakistani ofcers and soldiers ghting on the Taliban side in
Kunduz in north-eastern Afghanistan well into November 2001. They had to be airlifted
clandestinely to Pakistan when it became clear that the Taliban were about to surrender
Kunduz. For one such report, see Filkins and Gall (2001).
14. According to one report, One promise made by China in November [2000] was to stop
exporting technology covered under the Missile Technology Control Regime to coun-
tries developing nuclear weapons such as Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and North Korea.
China isnt a signatory to the MTCR, but it pledged to adhere to MTCR parameters
that apply to whole missiles or parts of missiles capable of carrying a 1,100-pound pay-
load over 186 miles. But on May 1 [2001] a US satellite spotted a shipment of parts for
392 MOHAMMED AYOOB
Pakistans Shaheen-1 and Shaheen-2 missiles both of which can travel up to 1,240
miles and carry nuclear warheads as they crossed the Sino-Pakistani border. To put
it bluntly, China is fueling an arms race in South Asia. The danger here is that with
Beijings continued help, Pakistan is likely to succeed sooner rather than later in mod-
ernizing its nuclear arsenal with plutonium bombs and thus produce small and lighter
warheads, which would result in longer effective ranges for its nuclear-armed missiles
aimed at India and elsewhere (Beijings Broken Promises, Wall Street Journal, 20
August 2001). A very high source in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs conrmed
that Richard Armitage, US Deputy Secretary of State, had relayed the information to
the Indians during his visit to New Delhi in May 2001 that China had violated the com-
mitment it had made in November 2000 not to supply nuclear and missile-related ma-
terial to Pakistan (personal conversation with me, July 2001).
15. The US government document available in the public domain that most clearly depicts
China as a strategic competitor to the United States is the Cox Committee Report
(1999). Also see Khalilzad et al. (1999) and Shambaugh (1999/2000).
16. I have argued this at greater length in Ayoob (2000).
17. Wright goes on to say that [t]he most innovative movement in Iran today is the Islamic
reformation. . . . Much of the most profound discourse within Islam today is taking place
in Irans newspapers, courtrooms, and classrooms (2000: 137).
18. For the Saudi contribution to the creation of the jihadist/terrorist groups, see Zakaria
(2001: 34).
19. The value of Saudi Arabia to the United States in the context of the war in Afghanistan
and Americas larger geopolitical interests is analysed cogently in Klare (2001).
20. For the limited engagement idea, see Kemp (2001).
21. For the development of IndiaIran relations during the 1990s, see Naaz (2001).
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Omstead, Thomas (2001) The Kingdom and the Power, US News and World
Report 131(19), 5 November: 3436.
Onishi, Norimitsu (2001) G.I.s Had Crucial Role in Battle for Kandahar, New
York Times, 15 December.
Perlez, Jane (2001) The Corrupt and the Brutal Reclaim Afghan Thrones, New
York Times, 19 November.
Rashid, Ahmed (2000) Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Cen-
tral Asia, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
(2001) America Attacks: New Strategy in Pakistan, Far Eastern Eco-
nomic Review, 18 October.
Reddy, B. Muralidhar (2002) Pak Alone Not Responsible for Inltration,
Hindu, 25 August.
Risen, James, and Filkins, Dexter (2002) Qaeda Fighters Said to Return to
Afghanistan, New York Times, 10 September.
Sanger, David E. (2001) Nuclear Experts in Pakistan May Have Links to Al
Qaeda, New York Times, 9 December.
Sciolino, Elaine (2001) Iran Chief Rejects Bin Ladens Message, New York
Times, 10 November.
Shambaugh, David (1999/2000) Chinas Military Views the World: Ambivalent
Security, International Security 24(3): 5279.
Slater, Joanna, with Hiebert, Murray (2001) India: Americas Other Friend,
Far Eastern Economic Review, 20 December.
Starr, S. Frederick, and Strmecki, Marin J. (2002) Afghan Democracy and Its
First Missteps, New York Times, 14 June.
Stern, Jessica (2000) Pakistans Jihad Culture, Foreign Affairs 79(6): 115126.
Tellis, Ashley (2001) Indias Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between Recessed Deter-
rent and Ready Arsenal, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND.
Tomsen, Peter (2001) Untying the Afghan Knot, Fletcher Forum of World
Affairs 25(1): 1723.
Tyler, Patrick E. (2001) Kazakh Leader Urges Iran Pipeline Route, New York
Times, 10 December.
Weldman, Amy (2001) In Iran, an Angry Generation Longs for Jobs, More
Freedom and Power, New York Times, 7 December.
Wright, Robin (2000) Irans New Revolution, Foreign Affairs 79(1).
Zakaria, Fareed (2001) The Allies Who Made Our Foes, Newsweek, 1
October.
24
The changing geopolitics of
Central, West and South Asia
after 11 September
Amin Saikal
395
396 AMIN SAIKAL
face the United States in a costly competition in the region. Deant po-
litical Islam is put on the defensive, threatened more than ever before
with a geopolitical marginalization in world politics. The United States
has also achieved a position whereby it has been able to limit the space
for Russia and China to be key players in the area.
Yet the role of the United States in stabilizing the area as a whole in
the medium to long run is still unclear. The United States has essentially
two options. It can be an over-the-horizon actor in pursuit of preserv-
ing what has emerged as a result of its war against terror in Afghanistan,
which leaves the region inherently volatile and prone to more conicts.
Or it can engage each of the regional constituent states in the difcult
task of nation-building and help them to bring about structural changes
as the best way to ensure the long-term stability of the area. Wash-
ingtons choice will be critical in determining the regions direction in the
years to come.
Changes
Outlook
Despite all the difculties, Kabul and most of the other major cities are
now calm and controlled. There is little sign of the savage rule of the
Taliban and al-Qaida; the central government has proved to be more
united and popular than could have been anticipated; and the ISAF,
along with its Afghan counterparts, has been performing promisingly.
Karzai and many of his senior ministers appear to be determined to ex-
pand the authority of the central government and to achieve their goal of
peace, stability and reconstruction. Yet this calm could easily be shat-
tered if the international community falters in promptly delivering its
promised reconstruction aid of US$4.5 billion to allow rebuilding work
on a large scale to generate a higher level of economic activity and pro-
vide employment for most of those men who otherwise will remain loyal
to the culture of the gun, poppy growing and drug trafcking.
The calm could also be affected if social complexities are not carefully
placed within a coherent national framework on a long-term basis. Af-
ghanistan has historically had a weak state but a strong society, in which
the power of the central authority has been determined by that author-
itys relationship with the countrys numerous self-driven micro-societies.
Warfare and humanitarian disasters have certainly made Afghanistan a
severely disrupted state. But the micro-societies, shaped by ethnic, tribal,
sectarian and linguistic allegiances and the role of dominant person-
alities, have not lost their inner vitality and dynamism. The post-conict
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 403
Given the uidity of the situation, the United States and its allies face a
stark choice: either remain fully engaged in Afghanistan for the next 5
10 years, or risk Afghanistan descending into renewed fragmentation. At
this point, there is no guarantee that the United States and its allies will
stay in Afghanistan for this length of time and bear the costs. Most likely,
the United States and its allies will be looking to start withdrawing as
early as possible. The United States has committed itself to build a de-
politicized, professional Afghan army, but this task is not easily achiev-
able within a short period. Given the mosaic nature of Afghan society
and the dispute over who should have the strongest representation in the
new army and the size of this army, it will be many years before such an
army becomes fully operational. If the United States and its allies quit
Afghanistan before the creation of this army, they may nd that they
have committed a fatal error. Yet, in the meantime, they would need to
conduct themselves in such a way as not to be viewed by the Afghans as
occupiers.
Afghanistans neighbours
Pakistan
It is also clear that peace and stability in Afghanistan depend on how the
situation develops in neighbouring states and therefore the region as a
whole (Rubin et al., 2001). In Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf can-
not be expected to deliver everything that he has promised to the United
States and the international community. Musharrafs biggest problem is
a domestic political environment that could easily frustrate his foreign
policy promises.4 His declared opposition to Islamic extremism and any
form of terrorist activities will fall at unless he effectively tackles their
root causes: the out-of-control behaviour of the ISI, which has been a
main sponsor of political and religious extremism; the lack of genuine
democracy, which would provide for the institutionalization rather than
the personalization of politics; and confusion over Pakistans national
identity whether it will be an Islamic state or a secular state with an
Islamic slant. What General Musharraf has achieved so far is largely
supercial. If he is serious about reforming the Pakistani polity, he
urgently needs to attend to two areas: the military and its raft of intelli-
gence activities. With the military consuming nearly half of the annual
budget (which imposes a major burden on Pakistans social and economic
development) and assuming an ever-growing role in Pakistani politics,
Musharraf has no rational choice other than to implement the kind of
reforms that would depoliticize and down-size the military.5 Further-
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 405
Kashmir or ceasing its support for terrorist groups will make Pakistan a
problematic ally for the United States, to say the least.
The regimes in all the Central Asian republics could become trouble-
some for US and regional stability. With the exception of Kyrgyzstan to
an extent, all the republics are authoritarian. Their social and economic
reforms are faltering badly. Public discontent, resulting largely from lack
of political participation and worsening social and economic conditions,
has paved the way for increasing instability in all the republics, although
in varying degrees. Elements within the republics had seen the Taliban
version of Islamicism as a potent ideology of opposition, particularly in
Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, where the Islamic movements had indigenous
roots as well as external stimuli. Although the Uzbekistan Islamic Move-
ment may have been scuttled following the death of its leader, Juma
Namangani, in the American anti-terror campaign in Afghanistan, and
although its counterpart in Tajikistan has entered a power-sharing ar-
rangement with the ruling former communists, the conditions giving rise
to public discontent have not dramatically altered.8
The United States has been prompt to embrace the Central Asian
states as new-found friends, utilizing their fear of a radical Islamic threat
from Afghanistan under the Taliban (see Rashid, 2002) and their des-
perate need for capital investment and high levels of technology to de-
velop their resources. Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have opened up their
air bases, where the United States has stationed more than 100 front-line
ghter-bombers, and Tajikistan has negotiated for joint Franco-American
use of one of its air bases. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan
have welcomed American aid to develop their oil and gas resources.
Turkmenistan urgently wants pipelines for the export of its gas and
oil. During the rule of the Taliban, an international consortium led by
UNOCAL of the United States and Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia had ex-
pressed a keen interest in constructing such pipelines through Afghani-
stan at a cost of US$2.5 billion in order to export Turkmen gas to South
Asia and beyond (for details, see Saikal, 1998: 119). They were not able
do so, however, because of the strife in Afghanistan.
Shortly after disposing of the Taliban regime, the United States decided
to put pressure on its longstanding adversary, the Islamic Republic of
Iran. Giving no credit to Iran for opposing the Taliban and acquiescing
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 407
tember, the Bush administration not only acted to change the regime in
Afghanistan but declared a lasting partnership with Afghanistan. Yet this
change of attitude has been contradicted by frequent assertions that it
would be best if Americas allies were more involved than the United
States in the task of nation-building in Afghanistan, and that it is still US
policy not to act as a nation-builder abroad (Rawnsley, 2002).
If the United States really wants to stabilize West, Central and South
Asia as a signicant building block for a stable postCold War interna-
tional order, then it needs to get involved in the task of nation-building
beyond Afghanistan, to include also Pakistan and the Central Asian re-
publics. But it can be successful only if it adopts internationalism rather
than unilateralism as central to its policy behaviour (see Nye, 2002a,b).
President George W. Bushs combative approach to solving regional
problems is indeed disquieting in this respect (Albright, 2002).
Conclusion
The rule of the Taliban and al-Qaida has gone and Americas power has
expanded in Central and South Asia. This is not to suggest, however, that
from now on the area can expect peace and security. The problems of
each of the states in the area and US ambivalence over its role in a reso-
lution of these problems will remain critical to the direction that the re-
gion takes in the years to come. There are many national and regional
problems and forces that could easily circumvent the American victory in
Afghanistan and American power in the region, leaving Central and
South Asia to languish in its present state of uncertainty and volatility for
the foreseeable future.
Notes
US$3.2 billion, approximately 4.6 per cent of its gross domestic product and around 29
30 per cent of the national budget. But these gures do not fully reect reality. An un-
determined amount of military expenditure is hidden elsewhere in the budget (for ex-
ample, in spending on communications infrastructure). When this is taken into account,
the defence budget for 2001/2002 is estimated at 5060 per cent of the national budget.
The defence budget is not transparent, and two items in the ofcial budget defence
administration and defence services represent all military expenditures. Given the
lack of democratic procedures to verify the defence budgetary allocations, the military is
in a position to give whatever gures it wants in the interest of national security. See
SIPRI (20012002); United States Department of State (1999).
6. For a comprehensive discussion of Pakistans relations with the Taliban and Pakistans
involvement in the origins and operations of the militia, see Rashid (2000).
7. US economic assistance to Pakistan after 11 September 2001 has largely been in the
form of assistance through multilateral international agencies such as the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The IMF has readjusted its nancial assis-
tance to Pakistan through the Structural Adjustment Program, and it has taken a con-
ciliatory attitude to Pakistani requests for waiver and modication of the assistance
through the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF). In December 2001 the
IMF approved US$1.33 billion PRGF credit to Pakistan. The Asian Development Bank
has also approved loans worth US$2.4 billion since September 2001. Debt rescheduling
talks have been held by the Pakistani government with the IMF, the World Bank and the
Paris Consortium to ease Pakistans burgeoning debt-servicing burden. In 1999/2000,
Pakistans external debt was over US$43 billion. Overall, Pakistan receives approxi-
mately US$2.5 billion annually in nancial assistance from the international multilateral
agencies. As a result of the changes in Pakistans foreign policy since September 11,
Islamabads foreign exchange reserves increased to US$5.2 billion in April 2002 from a
miserly US$1.5 billion in August 2001. The US government has promised to provide
Pakistan with roughly US$1 billion, as well as waiving nearly all the economic and mil-
itary sanctions imposed on Islamabad since 1975. See White House Press releases, 22
and 28 September 2001, 13 February 2002; Afzal (2002); United States Department of
State (2001).
8. Luong and Weinthal (2002) contains a good discussion of the potential for instability in
Central Asia, with a focus on Uzbekistan.
9. For a detailed account of the nature of USSaudi relations, see the three-part series of
articles by Kaiser and Ottaway (2002).
10. At present the proven oil reserves of the Caspian region (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan,
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) are put at 15.3 billion barrels. But this is a highly con-
servative gure. Most geologists would give a gure of 2030 billion barrels. A report
presented to the US Congress cites an estimate of 145 billion barrels for the additional
possible reserves. See Fairbanks et al. (2001: 8); Ruseckas (1998: 4748).
REFERENCES
Afzal, Mueen (2002) Statement on the State of the Economy and the Govt. of
Pakistans Debt Reduction Strategy, Pakistan Development Forum, World
Bank, Paris, 2930 April.
Albright, Madeleine (2002) The Allies Are Troubled by Bushs Policies, Inter-
national Herald Tribune, 23 May.
410 AMIN SAIKAL
Ayoob, Mohammed (2002) South-West Asia after the Taliban, Survival 44(1):
5168.
Fairbanks, Charles, Starr, S. Frederick, Nelson, C. Richard, Weisbrode, Kenneth
(2001) Strategic Assessment of Central Asia, Washington, D.C.: Atlantic Coun-
cil of the United States.
Haqqani, Hussein (2002) Domestic Agenda Dooms Musharrafs Terror Fight,
International Herald Tribune, 21 May.
Kaiser, Robert G., and Ottaway, David B. (2002) Washington Post, 10, 11 and 12
February.
Luong, Pauline Jones, and Weinthal, Erika (2002) New Friends, New Fear in
Central Asia, Foreign Affairs 81(2): 6170.
Manuel, Anja, and Singer, P. W. (2002) A New Model Afghan Army, Foreign
Affairs 81(4).
Nye Jr., Joseph S. (2002a) Unilateralism vs. Multilateralism, International
Herald Tribune, 13 June.
(2002b) The Paradox of American Power, New York: Oxford University
Press.
OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] (2002)
Report of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Expert Meeting on
Afghanistan Reconstruction and Recovery: Seeing Round the Corner, Paris,
23 May.
Rashid, Ahmed (2000) Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central
Asia, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
(2002) Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press.
Rawnsley, Andrew (2002) How to Deal with the American Goliath, The Ob-
server, 24 February.
Rubin, Barnett R., Ghani, Ashraf, Maley, William, Rashid, Ahmed, and Roy,
Olivier (2001) Afghanistan: Reconstruction and Peacebuilding in a Regional
Framework, KOFF Peacebuilding Reports No. 1, Bern: Swiss Peace Foundation.
Ruseckas, Laurent (1998) Energy and Politics in Central Asia and the Cauca-
sus, Access Asia Review 1(2).
Saikal, Amin (1998) Afghanistans Ethnic Conict, Survival 40(2).
(2002a) Afghanistan, Terrorism, and American and Australian Re-
sponses, Australian Journal of International Affairs 56(1): 2330.
(2002b) Nostalgia and Despair on Returning to Kabul, International
Herald Tribune, 21 May.
SIPRI [Stockholm International Peace Research Institute] (2001/2002) Military
Expenditures Data, 20012002, http://projects.sipri.se/milex/mex_data_index.
html.
United States Department of State (1999) Annual Report on Military Expendi-
tures, 1998, Washington, D.C.: US Department of State, February.
(2001) Sanctions on India and Pakistan, Washington, D.C., 28 September.
Part IX
Towards a brighter future
25
Pakistan and India:
The way forward
Samina Yasmeen
413
414 SAMINA YASMEEN
Since their independence in August 1947, India and Pakistan have re-
lated to each other within the context of a perceptual blockage and
the myth of the enemy across the border. The origin of these images
lies in their experiences during the Partition as well as the course of Indo-
Pakistan relations during the past ve decades. Having gone to war three
times and against the backdrop of continuing rivalry over Kashmir, each
views the other in a negative light. For both India and Pakistan, the
other is manipulative, unreliable, incapable of rational thinking and
aggressive.
This negative imagery is not restricted to decision-making circles but
pervades the two civil societies as well. Education plays a major role in
the context (Yasmeen, 1995: 24). The textbooks used in both India and
Pakistan provide selective information to students about the identity of
their country and its place in the region. This selectivity is not limited to
the post-independence era but extends back to the pre-Partition days.
For Pakistani students, their history begins with Mohammad bin Qasims
arrival in Sind and victorious campaigns by a number of Muslim warriors
against oppressive Hindu rulers. Indian students, on the other hand,
are generally exposed to a selective reading of Mughal history. For them,
Akbar represents rationality and secularism, with an emphasis on medi-
ating between the different religious identities of Mughal India. Emperor
Aurangzeb, who is mostly revered in Pakistan, is ignored and there is
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 415
balance the Chinese nuclear threat. Islamabad questioned this link and
claimed that the programme was targeted against Pakistan and not
China. To counter this perceived threat and retain a balance of power in
the nuclear cum conventional eld, Islamabad continued its own nuclear
programme.4 This occurred despite the attendant cost of losing US assis-
tance in 1990 under the Pressler Amendment. The policy of matching
Indias undeclared nuclear capability did not change even as Pakistans
economic conditions deteriorated. Successive democratically elected re-
gimes in Islamabad acquiesced to the idea of retaining a nuclear capabil-
ity as the number of people living below the poverty line increased.
The logic underlying their nuclear programme did not alter when India
conducted nuclear tests on 11 and 13 May 1998. New Delhi explained its
decision in terms of countering the threat from China. Pakistan was
identied as merely part of a lower level of the balance: China was seen
as assisting Pakistan in its nuclear programme and thus increasing the
level of threat posed to India. Despite this, soon after testing nuclear
weapons of various yields, some Indian leaders issued statements sug-
gesting that the newly declared nuclear capability could be used to settle
the Kashmir issue on Indias terms. This reliance on the notion of inu-
encing an adversarys policies by using a favourable balance of power
attracted an essentially similar response from Pakistan. Having acquired
an undeclared nuclear capability, some sections in Pakistan had been ar-
guing since the early 1990s in favour of moving into the stage of declared
nuclear status (Reiss, 1993: 1112). They repeated their demands, using
the language of the balance of power, nuclear deterrence and the need to
prove the credibility of Pakistans nuclear arsenal. If Pakistan did not re-
spond in kind, the argument went, it would be permanently relegated to a
position of inferiority vis-a-vis India. This was presented as opening the
door to India subjugating Pakistan and imposing its will with respect to
all regional issues, including the dispute over Kashmir. This secular arti-
culation of the balance of power was supplemented by suggestions from
the Islamists that Pakistans Islamic identity would also be compromised
by Hindu India. In effect, they presented a picture in which countries
with two different but dominant religious traditions could not coexist
without a balance in the military arena. These arguments for matching
Indias nuclear programme did not change despite the fact that the
United States had already imposed sanctions on New Delhi following the
11 May tests. The United States had also indicated that nuclear tests by
Pakistan would attract a similar response. Given the inherent weakness
of Pakistans economy, it was apparent that the cost for Pakistan would
be higher than that for the Indian economy. At the same time, the offer
of American assistance if Islamabad desisted from following New Delhis
example would have helped Pakistan economically. That the Nawaz
Sharif regime nevertheless conducted nuclear tests on 28 and 30 May
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 419
hury, 2001). New Delhi also offered the US government the use of its
defence bases and refuelling facilities for mounting air attacks against the
Taliban and al-Qaida. From Islamabads perspective, this indicated a
concerted Indian effort to enlist American support for neutralizing Paki-
stan as a viable state.5 The need to deny India the strategic advantage,
therefore, prompted Islamabad to provide logistical support to American
forces and access to its airspace. It also resulted in General Musharraf
publicly rebuking the Indian government in his address to the Pakistani
nation on 12 January 2002. In effect, an international issue was reduced
to a bilateral struggle for signicance without exploring the options for
cooperation in countering terrorism.
The dominance of orthodoxy in Indo-Pakistan relations in the new
millennium is also apparent in developments in the region since 13 De-
cember 2001. Soon after the terrorist attacks on the Indian parliament,
New Delhi accused Pakistan of harbouring and encouraging militancy
(Naqvi, 2001). The Indian government threatened retribution unless
Islamabad halted the inltration of terrorists across the border in Kash-
mir. It also demanded that Pakistan hand over 20 criminals wanted in
India (Bose, 2002: 2550). Before the year was over, the Indian govern-
ment had recalled its High Commissioner in Pakistan and stopped land
(road and rail) links between the two countries. The Samjhota Express,
which had remained in operation even during the Kargil crisis, was
stopped (Dawn, 29 December 2001). Pakistan International Airlines
(PIA) was also asked to close its ofces in India and was denied access to
Indian airspace (Hashmi, 2001). These acts were supplemented by
the mobilization of Indian troops along the international border with
Pakistan.
The Pakistan government differed in its interpretation of the attacks on
the Indian parliament. Privately, some groups argued that the attack was
part of a conspiracy by New Delhi to weaken the nascent alliance be-
tween Pakistan and the United States.6 Publicly, Islamabad sought evi-
dence from New Delhi to substantiate its claims that groups supported by
Pakistan had perpetrated the attacks. Meanwhile, Pakistani troops also
moved to the international border. Soon, however, faced with pressure
from the United States, which wanted to continue its operations against
al-Qaida in South-West Asia, the Pakistan government initiated steps to
control terrorist groups operating from Pakistan. President Musharraf
announced banned terrorist organizations, including Lashkar-e-Taiba
and Jaish-e-Mohammad (ul Haque, 2002). He also expressed his com-
mitment to nding a peaceful solution to the Kashmir issue. The decision
indicated the governments recognition that the strategy of supporting
the freedom struggle in Kashmir was no longer viable, and that Paki-
stan needed to change its strategy. Instead of recognizing this change
SOUTH ASIA IN THE WORLD 423
within Pakistan, New Delhi persisted in its pressure along the interna-
tional border.
Tension reached a new level in mid-May 2002 after the terrorist attacks
on the military camp of Kaluchak near Jammu. On 17 May, the Indian
parliament authorized the federal government to take action against
Pakistans support for terrorism (Dutta and Ahmad, 2002). Soon, Indian
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was talking of a decisive battle
with Pakistan. This was accompanied by the movement of front-line
warships of the Indian Eastern Fleet to augment the force levels on the
west coast (The Hindu, Delhi, 22 May 2002).
These messages were interpreted by those subscribing to orthodox
views in Pakistan as evidence of Indias unconditional hostility. They
argued that Pakistan had compromised its Afghan policy and clamped
down on the Kashmiri freedom ghters without evoking a positive re-
sponse from India. The build-up of tension, for them, was evidence that
New Delhi was using the post11 September emphasis on counter-
terrorism to subjugate Pakistan. Taking into account these views, the
Pakistan government announced on 24 May that it would be conducting a
series of missile tests during the next four days (Dawn, Islamabad, 26
May 2002). The mounting tension was gradually brought under control
by active US efforts, but it clearly demonstrated the negative effects of
the predominance of hawkish attitudes on both sides.
The post-crisis interaction between Pakistan and India continues to in-
dicate the role played by a zero-sum approach to their relations. The de-
velopments surrounding access to airspace are an example of this
approach. As the level of tension declined in June 2002, New Delhi an-
nounced that it would allow Pakistani aircraft to use its airspace. Islam-
abad reacted to the offer in a cool manner (The Hindu, Delhi, 11 June
2002). By the end of September 2002, it had not responded favourably to
the announcement. The delay was caused mainly by an assessment in
Pakistan that India had suffered more by losing access to Pakistani air-
space. Its ights had to take longer routes to reach destinations in
Europe and northern America. PIA, on the other hand, had mainly lost
access to South-East Asian destinations only,7 and was happy to accept
this loss in the knowledge that India was suffering more than Pakistan.
governments indicated that the two sides were willing to negotiate. The
failure of the summit did not stop the two governments from expressing
the will to continue the process of negotiation, which also validates the
presence of positive elements in the decision-making circles.
The question arises as to how the alternative voices that argue for mod-
eration can be strengthened in India and Pakistan. What is the way for-
ward for the two South Asian states to extricate themselves from the
continued hostility? What role can external actors play in the process?
Given the nature of the shared consciousness that predominantly
views the other as an enemy, the process of altering the imagery requires
a resolute effort by those who have contributed to the creation of this
consciousness. This automatically creates a problem because the solution
appears to lie in an attempt by the agents to alter their own created
reality. Although this is not theoretically impossible, such a rereading of
history and creation of another consciousness normally occur after major
traumatic developments. Instead of relying on such trauma-driven
change, it is essential to look at agents that can reduce the level of hos-
tility and strengthen the voices of moderation. Such an exploration,
however, needs to take place in terms of immediate/short-term and dis-
tant/long-term scenarios. Whereas some agents may be more effective in
improving the atmosphere, others may play a constructive role in the
long term.
Judged on these criteria, one could argue that the United Nations has a
limited role to play in the short term. This stems from the differing views
in India and Pakistan on the relevance of the international organization
to regional developments. Pakistan has consistently maintained that the
Kashmir issue needs to be resolved on the basis of the UN resolutions.
To counter the argument that the resolutions have lost their validity after
decades of inaction, Islamabad has started pointing out that the Kashmir
issue was mentioned in the UN resolutions condemning the nuclear tests
in South Asia. More importantly, at the height of tensions in May 2002,
Pakistans ambassador to the United Nations urged the Security Council
to live up to its Charter obligations to prevent a threat to international
peace and security posed by Indias threat to attack Pakistan (Haider,
2002). New Delhi has contested the idea of a UN role in the region. It has
consistently highlighted the irrelevance of the UN resolutions passed in
1948 and 1949 and argued that Kashmir is an integral part of India. This
reluctance to concede a role to the United Nations in lessening tensions
in the region was apparent in the fty-seventh UN General Assembly
426 SAMINA YASMEEN
substantiate this claim, it has been balancing its criticism and praise of the
two sides. Whereas Pakistan has been urged to restrain Kashmiri free-
dom ghters, India has also been encouraged to appreciate the dif-
culties being encountered by Islamabad in reining in the jihadi elements.
The United States has also suggested ways to eliminate sources of ten-
sion, including the idea of electronic surveillance of the LOC in Kashmir.
A dominant role for the United States in issues of high politics in the
short term, however, must coexist with active promotion by the United
Nations of cooperation between India and Pakistan on issues identied
as the emerging agenda of world politics. Both India and Pakistan are
suffering widespread poverty, increased population growth rates, envi-
ronmental degradation and an AIDs epidemic. The United Nations can
encourage groups from both states to address these issues in regional
forums and identify approaches that could solve these problems. The
process is already under way but needs to be supported more actively.
This will, in the long term, change the context in which Indian and Paki-
stani societies interact with each other. Indirectly, it would contribute to
improving relations between these two adversaries. Participation in the
process, however, needs to be extended to non-resident Pakistanis and
Indians. In an age of globalization and reliance upon the Indian and Pa-
kistani diasporas, their inclusion in the creation of space for dialogue
could be useful. The suggestion is not based on the assumption that dis-
tance from the home countries eliminates biases and orthodoxy among
diasporas. But the possibility of moderation induced by the Indian and
Pakistani diasporas denitely does exist. The help of ideas from those
aware of the context and yet willing to explore alternatives may open
another space where accommodation can be explored. Ultimately, a com-
bination of international, governmental and individual efforts may usher
India and Pakistan into an era of appropriate if not cordial coexistence.
Notes
1. It is important to point out that not all educational institutions subscribe to such a selec-
tive introduction to history. A few schools in both India and Pakistan assist students to
acquire a broader understanding of historical trends.
2. Based on interviews conducted with various Indian opinion makers, January and July
2001.
3. Interview with an Indian journalist, New Delhi, July 2001.
4. This was despite the fact that some Pakistani ofcials claimed that the programme had
been frozen; cited in United States Congress (1996: 11).
5. Interview with a Pakistani journalist, December 2001.
6. Interviews with Pakistani ofcials in January 2002.
7. Information provided by a PIA ofcial, Islamabad. September 2002.
428 SAMINA YASMEEN
REFERENCES
Bose, Sumanta (2002) Indo-Pak Brinkmanship: At the End, What Are We Left
With?, Economic and Political Weekly, 29 June.
Dutta, Sujan, and Ahmad, Mukhtar (2002) Parliament Authorises Action, The
Telegraph (Calcutta), 18 May.
Ganguly, Sumit (2002) Conict Unending: IndiaPakistan Tensions since 1947,
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Haider, Masood (2002) UN Intervention Can Help Prevent War, Says Akram,
Dawn, 1 June.
Hashmi, Faraz (2001) Islamabad Hits Back, Dawn Weekly Service, 27
December.
Jayamaha, Dilshika (2002) Ko Annan Calls on India and Pakistan to Halt
Rhetoric of War, Associated Press Writer, 23 May.
Naqvi, Jawed (2001) Delhi Blames Lashkar for Attack, Dawn, 15 December.
Reiss, Mitchell (1993) Safeguarding the Nuclear Peace in South Asia, Asian
Survey 33(12).
Sachdev, A. K. (2000) Pertinence of Pakistani Ballistic Missiles in the Indo-Pak
Conict, Delhi Papers No. 14, New Delhi: Institute for Defence Studies and
Analyses, December.
Singh, Sanjay, and Chowdhury, Srinjoy (2001) India Offers USA Use of Its
Military Bases, The Statesman (New Delhi), 15 September.
Suri, Ajay (2001) India Arms FBI with Osama Tapes, Papers, Indian Express,
15 September.
ul Haque, Ihtasham (2002) Lashkar, Jaish, TJP, TNSM & SSP Banned; ST under
Watch: Political, Diplomatic Support to Kashmiris Will Continue, Says Mush-
arraf, Dawn (Karachi), 13 January.
United States Congress (1996) IndiaPakistan Nuclear and Missile Proliferation:
Background, Status, and Issues for US Policy, Congressional Research Service
Report, Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 16 December.
Yasmeen, Samina (1995) The Kashmir Dispute in the 1990s: A Possible UN
Role?, unpublished paper presented at an international conference The
United Nations: Between Sovereignty and Global Governance?, La Trobe
University, Melbourne.
26
IndiaPakistan relations:
Ways forward
Gopalaswami Parthasarathy
Around 800,000 heavily armed soldiers are currently facing each other
across the international border between India and Pakistan and along the
Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. The air forces and navies of the
two countries have been alerted. There is naturally international concern
about the prospects of an escalating conict, which could break out acci-
dentally or by miscalculation, even leading to the use of nuclear weapons.
All this is taking place when the United States and the international
community are involved in a war against terrorism in Afghanistan. This
war has led to the ousting of the Taliban regime and to the establishment
of a broad-based government enjoying a measure of popular support and
legitimacy in Afghanistan. A Loya Jirga (a traditional tribal Grand
Council) was convened in Afghanistan in June 2002 with considerable
international effort and a government led by President Hamid Karzai as-
sumed ofce. The international community has welcomed the establish-
ment of a broad-based government in Kabul, and substantial pledges of
foreign assistance have been made for rehabilitation and reconstruction
in the war-torn country. However, it is important to recognize that the
challenges posed by the Taliban and their supporters have not entirely
been eliminated. Violence and conict continue to plague many parts of
the country.
The conict in Afghanistan has inevitably spilled into Pakistan. There
are continuing reports of the Taliban and al-Qaida regrouping and re-
organizing themselves in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas
429
430 GOPALASWAMI PARTHASARATHY
of CBMs to promote mutual condence. The two sides agreed that there
would be a regular dialogue on security concepts and nuclear doctrines;
to provide each other advance notication of missile tests and to con-
clude a bilateral agreement on this subject; to abide by their respective
unilateral moratoria on nuclear testing; to conclude an agreement that
would prevent incidents at sea involving their naval ships and aircraft.
India and Pakistan decided that measures would be devised to improve
communications links and contacts not only between the Directors Gen-
eral of Military Operations of the two armies but also between military
commanders, and to consult with each other on security and disarma-
ment issues. Prime Minister Vajpayee was looking forward to receiving
Nawaz Sharif in Delhi, and dates for a second summit were being dis-
cussed, when the Kargil conict broke out in May 1999, wrecking the
prospects for peace and reconciliation.
A detailed account of the Kargil conict has been written by Bruce
Riedel, Special Assistant to President Clinton. Riedel was intimately in-
volved in actions taken by the White House during the conict. Riedel
states that in spring 1999, around the time of the Lahore Summit, regular
units of the Pakistan army, backed by militants, moved across the Line of
Control in Jammu and Kashmir and occupied positions vacated by the
Indians during the winter, in order to cut off Indias lines of communica-
tion to its troops in northern Kashmir. He adds that, whereas Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif seemed genuinely interested in pursuing the
Lahore process, his military chief, General Pervez Musharraf, seemed
to be in a different mold (Riedel, 2002). According to Riedel, Musharraf
was said to be a hardliner on Kashmir, a man some feared was deter-
mined to humble India once and for all. Riedel states that, while Indian
forces were making progress in recapturing hill positions, Sharif urgently
asked for American intervention to end the conict in the last week of
June 1999. He was told by President Clinton to come to Washington only
if he was prepared to withdraw Pakistani forces back across the Line of
Control.
During the discussions in Blair House on 4 July 1999, President Clinton
made it clear to Sharif that he would be compelled to issue a statement
mentioning Pakistans role in supporting terrorism in Afghanistan and
Kashmir if Sharif did not agree to an immediate withdrawal from the re-
maining positions in Kargil. Sharif was compelled to agree and in return
Clinton agreed to take personal interest to encourage an expeditious
resumption and intensication of the bilateral efforts, once the sanctity of
the Line of Control has been fully restored (Riedel, 2002). The Kargil
conict, however, fuelled spiralling tensions and differences between the
democratically elected Nawaz Sharif and his army chief, General Pervez
Musharraf. Sharif felt that his army chief had misled and misadvised him
432 GOPALASWAMI PARTHASARATHY
and the Taliban. New Delhi charged Islamabad with complicity in the
hijacking a charge Islamabad vehemently denied.
For reasons that are still not at all clear, Prime Minister Vajpayee
suddenly changed tack and in June 2001 invited General Musharraf for a
two-day summit in the historic city of Agra. General Musharrafs visit to
India, which took place on 1416 July, turned out to be a total failure,
with each side accusing the other of being responsible for the set-back.
India claimed that all that General Musharraf was interested in was
public relations, and Pakistan accused its neighbour of bad faith and of
reneging on conclusions and understandings reached between the two
foreign ministers. Yet it was obvious that the summit had not been prop-
erly prepared or thought through. In retrospect, the expectations raised
were perhaps too high and what was attempted too ambitious. But, even
as efforts to keep channels of communication open were being pursued
and ways sought to create the climate for resuming a dialogue, the cata-
clysmic events of 11 September 2001 took place in Washington and New
York, drawing the entire subcontinent into virtually the centre of the
global war against terrorism.
Both India and Pakistan agreed to extend unconditional support to the
US war against terrorism. New Delhi was only too happy to join the
American-led coalition. The hostility of the Taliban regime to India was
obvious during the Kandahar hijacking. The Taliban also freely allowed
the use of their territory by armed terrorist groups such as the Harkat-ul-
Mujahideen that were operating in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere
in India. When American Cruise missiles rained on Khost in southern
Afghanistan in 1998, they actually hit a camp for extremists being trained
and prepared for operations in Kashmir. While India has provided escort
and other facilities for American aircraft and ships involved in the war
on terrorism, Pakistan has allowed its territory, airspace and territorial
waters to be extensively used by the global coalition against terrorism.
The swift overthrow of the Taliban regime by coalition forces backed by
the Northern Alliance was welcomed with relief in India. However, there
is now widespread evidence that inuential sections of the top leadership
of the Taliban and the al-Qaida have escaped and are regrouping either
within Afghanistan or in Pakistan. They enjoy support within Pakistan
from Islamist groups that had associated with them earlier in Afghani-
stan. American concern about Pakistan becoming the epicentre of global
terrorism was reected by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz,
who proclaimed on 30 September 2002: Unfortunately today some of
the worst schools of religious extremism and terrorism are now in Paki-
stan.1 The general assessment in New Delhi is that the American war
against terrorism and the US presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan is
going to be a long-term affair. This will have inevitable repercussions
434 GOPALASWAMI PARTHASARATHY
However, India claimed that there had been a signicant increase in such
inltration since March 2002. Matters again came to a head when three
terrorists slipped across the border in the Jammu region and killed over
30 people on 14 May. New Delhi asked Islamabad to withdraw its High
Commissioner from India and made it clear that it was prepared to take
further decisive measures if terrorist actions perpetrated by persons
inltrated across the Line of Control and the international border did not
end. The United States and the international community viewed these
escalating tensions with serious concern. Islamabad was asked to take
further action to curb inltration across the Line of Control, and New
Delhi was asked to resume a dialogue with its western neighbour. But
tensions remained high and on 31 May 2002 the United States announced
that it was withdrawing family members and all non-essential diplomatic
and consular staff from India. A travel advisory asking American citizens
not to travel to India except for essential reasons was issued. These
measures were undertaken after Pakistans Permanent Representative to
the United Nations, Munir Akram, warned of the dangers of a nuclear
conict in South Asia. New Delhi made its unhappiness at these moves
clear, believing that this only encouraged Pakistan to indulge in what
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee described as nuclear
blackmail.
Following direct intervention by President George W. Bush, General
Musharraf assured visiting US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Ar-
mitage on 6 June that Pakistan would permanently end inltration
across the Line of Control. New Delhi responded by withdrawing the ban
on overight facilities to Pakistani aircraft. At the same time it reiterated
its earlier demand that Pakistan should demonstrate that it had irrevoc-
ably given up the use of terrorism as an instrument of State policy. For
this purpose, Pakistan was asked to deport 20 of the most wanted terro-
rists to India all of whom were charged with serious terrorist offences.
Over a dozen of those whose deportation was demanded are Indian na-
tionals, including those charged with being responsible for bomb blasts in
Bombay in 1993 that resulted in the death of over 250 people and others
charged with being associated with terrorist groups involved in the
assassination of the former chief minister of the Indian state of Punjab,
Beant Singh. Pakistan has thus far declined to act against the terrorists
involved, even though their presence in Pakistan has been reported, even
in the Pakistani media.
The US ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, stated in September
2002 that, despite the assurances given by General Musharraf to Presi-
dent Bush about permanently halting inltration of armed terrorists
across the Line of Control, such inltration had increased from the end
of July. Indian security analysts have repeatedly noted the mutually
436 GOPALASWAMI PARTHASARATHY
with India until Jammu and Kashmir and other contentious issues are
addressed and resolved to its satisfaction. But many Pakistani business-
men have excellent personal and even familial relations with their Indian
counterparts. A large variety of Indian products do, therefore, reach
Pakistan through ports such as Colombo, Dubai and Singapore. In addi-
tion, there is considerable smuggling across the land and maritime fron-
tiers of the two countries.
It is important that both countries make a conscious effort to ensure
that their media do not constantly portray the other in adversarial or
negative terms. The Simla Agreement of 1972 contains a specic com-
mitment by India and Pakistan to prevent hostile propaganda against
each other. The current ban on exchanges of books and periodicals
should be ended. In any case, in an era when all these publications have
Internet editions, such a ban makes little sense. There should also be an
effort to promote understanding of each others cultural traditions. There
is after all much that India and Pakistan historically share in music, art
and dance.
Apart from the promotion of people-to-people contacts, India and
Pakistan can and should nalize a series of conventional and nuclear
condence-building measures, once a dialogue process commences.
There should be far greater transparency in the nuclear doctrines of both
countries. This would involve a substantive and sustained dialogue on
their nuclear strategies and measures to avoid escalation of nuclear
tensions by unforeseen incidents or happenings. There are very few ex-
changes at present between the armed forces of the two countries. Al-
though the Directors General of Military Operations of the two countries
speak to each other every week on the telephone, there are no personal,
face-to-face meetings. Several measures that can be considered to pro-
mote exchanges and direct contacts between the armies, navies and air
forces of the two countries could enhance mutual condence. There is
little doubt that the CBMs on issues such as prior notication of missile
tests that were agreed to during the Lahore Summit could be concluded
expeditiously. Issues such as the demarcation of the two countries mari-
time frontiers can and should be addressed in a spirit of give and take.
The days ahead are inevitably going to be marked by tensions and un-
certainties in the IndiaPakistan relationship. The present situation could
even lead to a limited conict. But fears that India and Pakistan will un-
thinkingly escalate tensions to a level that will result in a nuclear conict
are misplaced and unwarranted. It must be remembered that, in past
conicts between India and Pakistan, neither side ever wantonly attacked
civilian targets in the other country. The existing tensions will, however,
inevitably have their fallout on the larger global war against terrorism
now being waged by the United States in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is,
440 GOPALASWAMI PARTHASARATHY
Notes
1. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz during the inaugural session of the US
Pakistan Business Council in Washington on 30 September 2002; at http://news.
indiainfo.com/2002/10/01/01pakschool.html.
2. President Musharrafs Address to the Nation, 12 January 2002; at http://www.dawn.com/
2002/01/12/speech020112.htm.
REFERENCES
Riedel, Bruce (2002) American Diplomacy and the 1999 Kargil Summit at
Blair House, Policy Paper Series 2002, Philadelphia, Pa.: Center for the Ad-
vanced Study of India; available at htttp://www.sas.upenn.edu/casi/reports/
RiedelPaper051302.htm.
Index
441
442 INDEX
SAARC Vision Statement 430, 437 Indo-Sri Lankan Free Trade Agreement
sanitation 328329 7980
sectoral policies 136137 internal party democracy 195197
Security Organization for South Asia media 197199
277278 military expenditure 310
security issues xxii, 39, 5866, 269270 Muslim massacres 98
shift from ODA to FDI 151156 negotiations with Tamil Tigers 190,
social issues 79, 284 191192, 194
solid waste disposal 214 participation in UN peacekeeping
South Asia Centre for Policy Studies operations 112
167168 political assassinations 8788, 93
South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude poverty reduction 132133
344345 rise of terrorism 9394, 100
South Asian Free Trade Agreement 148, roots of insecurity 235236
167168 SAARC Social Charter 285286
South Asian Preferential Trading separatist movement 9299
Arrangement 148, 149150 snow-plough syndrome 281
surprise nuclear incident 5354 solid waste disposal 214
sustainable development 206210, suicide bombers 9698
238239 Tamil Tigers 5, 6, 23, 86, 9499, 190194,
tax regimes 309310 270
threat of terrorism 23, 6, 2123, 2931, Tamil United Liberation Front 94, 96
8081, 8688, 288289 terrorism 288289
threats to global peace 2729 Thimpu Principles 194
trade 146151 trade statistics 147
trade liberalization policies 150151 water resources 211
trade policy suggestions 165166 Swain, Ashok 11
trade relations 7981 Swamy, M. R. Narayan 100
training for peacekeeping operations
122124 Taliban
transnational corporations 163164 after-effects in Afghanistan 357371
transnational linkages 56 after-effects in South-West Asia 373390
UNU conference xxii, 12 collapse of 381384
USA as regional hegemon 406408 Pakistani support 379381, 429430, 436,
water resources 7579, 209211, 328329 433
womens issues 297298, 301302 Tamil Tigers 5, 6. 23
Sri Lanka assassination of Rajiv Gandhi 86, 97
attacks on Buddhists 98 inclusion of Muslim community 193
civil society 197199 negotiations with Sri Lankan government
democratic governance 189200 190192, 194
development indicators 209 Thimpu Principles 194
elections 195197 Tarantino, Quentin 61
FDI ows 157159 Tellis, Ashley 42, 384
FDI policy regime 160163 terrorism
federalism 190195 arrest of terrorist leaders 430
import policies 152155 assassinations in Afghanistan 399400
incidence of low birthweight 321 attack on Indian parliament 43, 88, 257,
income gap 305 262, 374, 383, 422, 434
independent commissions 195197 attack on Kaluchak military camp 423
Indian intervention 100 attack on Kashmir Legislative Assembly
Indo-Sri Lankan Accord 192, 194 434
450 INDEX