Northeast Insurgent Groups and the Bangladesh Connection

Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman
Research Assistant, IPCS
e-mail: mirza@ipcs.org

At the recent Chief Ministers' meet on internal security held in New Delhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh outlined the growing threat to the security and integrity of the nation posed by Naxalism and other homegrown insurgent movements, and also highlighted the external support that these insurgencies recieve. Insurgent movements in Northeast India, in particular, have been supported by external forces, especially from Bangladesh. The chief minister of Assam, Tarun Gogoi raised this issue and the potential danger that this holds for the state of internal security in India. He called for increased pressure on Bangladesh to crack down on these insurgent groups operating from its soil. He also emphasized the need for closer monitoring of the border areas that Northeast India shares with Bangladesh and called for immediate completion of border fencing.





This external threat is not something new and is manifest in the continuous cycle of violence and terror in the Northeastern states over the past several years. The region has seen a growth in jihadi groups and fundamentalist political outfits, especially in parts of lower Assam where there is a significant population of illegal Bangladeshi migrants. The Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) of Bangladesh and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan are believed to be active in fomenting terrorist activities in Northeast India.

Many of the insurgent outfits in Northeast India have their bases in Bangladesh and several of their top leaders have been operating from there for a long time now. While Bangladesh has all along denied the presence of Indian militants or their camps on its soil at the official level, the military-backed regime that took over power in Dhaka in January this year, has sent certain informal feelers to India that it has cracked down on many of these insurgent networks inside its territory.

Proof of the Bangladeshi connection and the support that the Northeast insurgent groups get in its territory was revealed recently by Julius Dorphang, the surrendered chairman of the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC). Dorphang was the founder of the Hynniewtrep Achik Liberation Council (HALC) in 1992 along with John Kharkrang and Cheristerfield Thangkhiew, which waged a war against the Indian state for a separate Khasiland. In 1995, all three leaders met in Dhaka and subsequently renamed the HALC as the HNLC.

Dorphang is the first leader of any insurgent group of the Northeast to have openly confirmed his stay in Dhaka and has endorsed the dominant view in India, that almost all northeast militant groups have bases in Bangladesh. Dhaka serves as the base and meeting place for several top leaders of these groups, he revealed saying that he had himself lived in Dhaka for several years in an apartment called Banani close to the airport. The Meghalaya police have confirmed the existence of this place in Dhaka. Dorphang says that the leaders used to meet each other in several hotels and other rented places in Dhaka and also used to shift their bases every six months with the cadres arranging for the meetings and other logistics for their stay in Bangladesh.

Dorphang revealed that the top leadership of every outfit used to stay in Dhaka to ensure better coordination among cadres and leaders of other similar insurgent outfits,. This was also necessary for active coordination with their support bases inside Bangladesh, be it the DGFI or other political parties that helped them. Dorphang disclosed that the HNLC and other militant organizations such as the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN-IM) and the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) have operational presence and camps in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh and that almost all the insurgent outfits had close relations with each other within Bangladesh. He also mentioned an instance in which the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) had to close down its camp in Bangladesh due to differences with locals.

Prominent insurgent leaders such as Bobby Marwein and Thangkhiew of the HNLC, Arabinda Rajkhowa and Paresh Baruah of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), Ranjan Daimary of the NDFB, Biswamohan Debbarma of the NLFT, Ranjit Debbarma of the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF), among many others, are believed to be operating out of Bangladesh.

Dorphang's revelations have raised a number of questions and casts serious aspersions on Dhaka's commitment towards cracking down on insurgent groups of the Northeast on its soil. It also shows New Delhi's inability to prevail upon Dhaka to act decisively on matters pertaining to India's internal security. Bangladesh has, in a way, been successful in pushing its own designs on India's Northeast by supporting such insurgencies through various means. The jihadi influence, which various interest groups within Bangladesh have been supporting, has the potential to foment much trouble in the region, India needs to be more proactive on these concerns for its internal security and put greater weight behind them in order to ensure that Dhaka addresses them.

Insurgency in the North East

Subir Bhaumik

Introduction

The 1962 war with China, and the War with Pakistan in 1965 coincide with the outbreak of several ethnic insurgencies in North-East India. The Mizos, Manipuris and the Tripuris raised insurgent groups, which began to tread the path of the insurgent Nagas.

In the first stages of these movements, the insurgents avoided soft targets. But as the going got difficult, the Nagas and the Mizos resorted to urban terrorism. Often targets in towns came under attack- the Mizo National Front even eliminated three senior Mizoram police officials in 1975 in their headquarters in Aizwal.

The Manipuri People's Liberation Army and the United National Liberation Front are almost wholly urban guerilla groups, though they maintain jungle bases. The United Liberation Front of Asom also started as a rural-based insurgent group, but soon took to urban terrorism. In recent years, it has raised small hunter-killer units in some Assam cities. These units attack soft targets, even military personnel when they are off duty.

Apart from developing a capacity for urban terrorism signified by the growing use of explosives against soft targets and assassinations, all the insurgent groups in the North-East have now become notorious for systematic extortion.

North-East India is a creation of the Partition of the subcontinent in 1947. Prior to the Partition, there was no concept of a separate North-East region, as every single Province or hill region that now constitutes it was closely linked, for trade, economy, movement and education, to the adjoining areas of the East Bengal or Burma. The Khasi, Jaintia and Garo Hills maintained close relations with Sylhet, the Mizo hills with the Chittagong Hills Tracts and Tripura with Comilla, Noakhali and Sylhet. Parts of the Mizo Hills, Manipur and the Naga hills had direct links with Burma, where many of their ethnic kinsmen lived. The areas of the former North-East Frontier Agency (now Arunachal Pradesh) had close contacts with Tibet and Bhutan. In fact, these tribal regions had closer ties with the adjoining areas of Bengal and Burma, than with each other. These areas enjoyed various degrees of independence. All this changed rather suddenly in 1947.

The Partition and the Chinese takeover of Tibet resulted in the creation of new international political boundaries, replacing the soft territorial frontiers of South Asia. Post-colonial India found itself saddled with a difficult problem in the North-East, as an area of 225,000 square kilometers bordering Tibet, Burma, Bangladesh and Bhutan now had only a tenuous connection with the rest of the country by a 21-kilometre wide 'Siliguri corridor' in North Bengal.

During the first Years of independence, three major developments affected India's policy outlook on this newly created frontier region:

1) The Chinese takeover of Tibet, which led to the disappearance of a crucial buffer and brought the Chinese Army right to the borders of India,

2) The outbreak of the Naga insurgency (India's first ethnic revolt), and Pakistan's covert support for the insurgents,

3) The change in East Pakistan's political climate, where the communal outlook of the Partition days slowly gave way to the Bengali language movement and a challenge to Pakistani authority. As a result of these developments, Muslims communalism was replaced by Bengali linguistic assertion.

The Security Scenario

The Chinese presence on India's borders, and the covert Pakistani support to the Naga (and later to the Mizo, Manipuri and Tripura insurgents) came to be perceived as a major security threat, leading to an 'insecurity syndrome' in New Delhi. Later the growing tensions in East Pakistan came to be seen as an advantage. After Pakistani's military crackdown on the Bengalis had started in March 1971, a senior Indian intelligence officer reportedly told his subordinates that cutting Pakistan into two would prevent a Sino-Pakistani axis in the east, and that would help protect India's north-east.[i]

The war with China in 1962 left a strong impression on India's policy planners. It had established the decisive superiority of China's land army, and its capability of sweeping away India's Himalayan defenses. It raised the specter of a Chinese thrust southwards to the Bay of Bengal, and as long as Pakistan had firm control over its eastern wing, the fear of a Sino-Pakistani nexus loomed large in Delhi. The 1962 war with China, and the one in 1965 with Pakistan, coincided with the outbreak of several ethnic insurgencies in North-East India. The Mizos, Manipuris and the Tripuris raised insurgent groups one after another, and began to tread the path of the insurgent Nagas. From 1956 onwards, the Nagas had been receiving weapons and training in East Pakistan. In that year, A.Z. Phizo, who led the Naga insurgency, had fled to Dhaka, from where he was flown to London On a false passport provided by the Pakistani authorities.[ii] From 1956 to 1966, Pakistan trained at least eight batches of Naga insurgents (1700 people in all), and armed them.[iii] In the late sixties, the Pakistanis also started training and arming the Mizo National Front, Manipur and Tripura insurgents. And in 1966, the insurgent Nagas started going to China for advanced training in guerilla warfare.

The spread of the prairie fires in North-East India, and the growing involvement of China and Pakistan in promoting these insurgencies, provoked alarm in New Delhi. Along with the normal measures to counter the insurgencies by greater deployment of army and paramilitary forces, in an attempt to seek a political solution to the problems, Delhi tried to initiate dialogues with the insurgent groups, particularly the Nagas. At one stage, India was even willing to consider a protectorate status for Nagaland[iv] but once the Bengali upsurge started in East Pakistan in early 1971, the Indian state saw a great opportunity in it to solve its northeastern problem. Though initially unsure of whether intervention was the right course of action, it soon dawned on Indian policy planners that the division of Pakistan was essential for a long-standing solution of India's security concerns in the North-East. The end of Pakistani control of its eastern wing, and the emergence of a friendly Bangladesh were seen as crucial to break the Sino-Pakistani nexus to destabilize North-East India[v]. From an Achilles Heel, India's North-East was now becoming a useful launch-pad for offensive operations against a hostile neighbor.

With the emergence of Bangladesh, the security scenario in the North-East began to undergo a sea change. Within four years of this, Sikkim was merged with India in 1975 in controversial circumstances. In that year, the Shillong Accord was signed with a faction of Naga insurgents. Phizo did not accept the accord, and the breakaway group of the Naga national Council soon resumed its armed activities. This group, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), was mostly made up of Chinese-trained guerrillas. In 1976, the Mizo National Front also signed an agreement with the Indian government at Calcutta. Though it took another 10 years to give final shape to the settlement, the sting of the Mizo insurgency began to wane in the late seventies. The defeat of the hardliners in the factional battle within the Chinese Communist Party-the Gang of Four who had supported the Cultural Revolution and were believed to be responsible for its excesses-also marked the gradual end of the aggressive Chinese patronage to guerrilla groups from North-East India and Burma. By 1982, the Chinese had discontinued the export of revolution, and stopped helping the insurgent groups from North-East India.[vi]

The security scenario in North-East India, which had looked rather bleak from New Delhi's point of view in the late sixties, began to look better in the seventies. The creation of Bangladesh, the change in Chinese policy, the partial settlements of the Naga and Mizo problems, and the growing effectiveness of India's counter-insurgency operations, also contributed to Delhi's increased control over the situation in the North-East. But the feeling of relief in Delhi was short-lived. By the late seventies, India had lost the advantage gained in 1971-the friendly government of Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman had been replaced by that of generals, who were less than warm to India. In fact, Indira Gandhi's instant reaction to the Sheikh's assassination was to start aiding the Shanti Bahini guerrillas in the Chittagong Hill Tracts[vii]. Almost immediately, Bangladesh's new regime led by Lieutenant General Zia-ur-Rehman started aiding the insurgents from North-East India. The guerrilla movements, which had been simmering (but dormant for a while), began to gain momentum once again. They also multiplied in number, and gained in intensity.

Changing Indian Policies

In 1985, Rajiv Gandhi assumed power as Prime minister of India. He made an immediate impact by reorienting the national policy towards the region. In next three years, his government signed a string of accords with separatist groups of North-East India. The accords brought an end to the fierce anti-foreigner agitation in Assam, the insurrections in Mizoram and Tripura, and the agitation for a separate state of Gorkhaland in North Bengal. Efforts were also to open negotiations with the NSCN. Rajiv Gandhi, the peacemaker, seemed to have arrived, and the North-East, more than any other region appeared to get the benefit of his attention. The thrust of Indian policy in the region apparently swung away from military action, to focus on political settlement, but his trend lasted only for a while.

In the late eighties, the central intelligence was accused of backing the Bodo insurgency in Assam as a way of embarrassing the state government. Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta alleged that the Central agencies had unleashed Operation Zoom-Zoom to bring down his government, and he said that the operation centered on the use of the Bodo insurgents to achieve the purpose.[viii]

The All-Bodo Students Union, and its allied groups led by Upendranth Brahma, intensified the agitation for a separate Bodo state on the northern banks of the Brahmaputra River after the 20th convention of the All-Bodo Students Union held in December 1987. The agitation was marked by thee regular use of explosives on public transport, road and rail bridges. It was alleged that the Bodo leaders were provided monetary assistance by the central agencies, and regular stayed in safe houses of the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau. It is alleged that senior officers of the bureau wrote even their press notes that mostly originated in Shillong.[ix] Similar allegations were leveled by west Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu against the central agencies-he accused them for helping the Gorkhaland agitation.[x]

While the Gorkhaland agitation was brought to an end by the accord in 1988, the Bodo agitation continued to fester until 1993, when an accord was signed with the Bodos on New Delhi's initiative. However the accord could not be implemented, as a result of which Bodo insurgent groups are still active in the western and central parts of Assam.

For a government which had initially adopted a sound strategy of resorting to settlements that were intended to bring to an end long-standing insurgencies and /or agitations, this was a strange departure which unsettled a strategically important area. If the Gorkha-populated areas sit on the western flank of the Siliguri corridor that links the North-East tenuously with the rest of the country, the Bodo-dominated areas are located on the eastern flank of the same corridor. No government with any sensible strategy would have allowed the areas around this corridor to be disturbed, let alone back forces that could unleash substantial disruption.

Rajiv Gandhi's fall from power and the coming to power of Viswanath Pratap Singh, and later Chandrashekhar, marked the return of the military option in the North-East. The Chandrashekhar government gave the green signal for the first major counter-insurgency operation in Assam, Operation Bajrang. It was launched against the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), which had become a potent force in the late eighties, and had unleashed a campaign of terror and extortion to build up its insurgent forces. This was the time when the NSCN (now split into two constantly warring rival factions), started developing satellite groups elsewhere in the North-East by conscious patronage. In Tripura, new insurgent groups like the All-Tripura Tiger Force and the National Liberation front of Tripura emerged. The insurgency in the Imphal valley now manifested itself through several groups, but the activities of the People's Liberation Army remained as a confusing as ever.

The threat of an insurgent consolidation also emerged in the security scenario of North-East India, as the Naga insurgent groups tried to develop their own underground alliances. While the Khaplang group of the NSCN brought together ULFA and the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) of Manipur into the rather short-lived Indo-Burma Revolutionary Front, the Isaac Muivah group of the NSCN roped in the Bodo Security Force (now the National Democratic Front of Bodoland), the National Liberation Front of Tripura, and some smaller tribal insurgent groups into an informal alliance.

Threats in the Nineties

In the 1990s, three other developments in and around the North-East came to be seen as security threats by Indian defence planners:

(a) The growing influence of China in Myanmar;

(b) The resurgence of insurgent movements in North-East India (with support from Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence or (ISI), and the opening of a new sea route for arms smuggling from Southeast Asia's black-markets to North-East India; and

(c) The renewal of the use of Bangladesh territory by insurgents, with the support of certain anti-Indian elements in that country.

The Chinese have emerged as the most important suppliers of military hardware to Myanmar's military regime. China's arms exports to Myanmar since 1990 run into over two billion US dollars. The Chinese have also reportedly secured radar, refit and refuel (three R's) facilities at three Myanmarese ports-Haingyi, the Coco Islands, and Mergui. The naval unit of the pro-Indian insurgent group, the National Unity Party of Arakan, discovered Chinese survey activity around the island of Kyaw Pyu off the Arakan coast, suggesting that the Chinese might be looking for another naval base in the Bay of Bengal. The Chinese threat to Indian security, so long seen as a land based one, now had a naval dimension to it[xi]. Some argue that China's quest to develop a blue water Navy will mean that Calcutta, Madras and Visakhapatnam (Vizag) will be directly threatened by Chinese missiles in the near future[xii]. In addition to the North-East, where the Chinese land threat remains, New Delhi seems to be worried about the security of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and the country's eastern coastal regions.

In the 1990s, ULFA, NSCN and other insurgent groups of the North-East developed contacts with the ISI of Pakistan. Confessional statements so some surrendered guerrillas, quoted in certain studies, indicate that the ISI wanted to use the insurgent forces to open a second front of subversion in the North-East, in addition to the one in Kashmir.[xiii]

What is more significant is the emergence of a new weapons procurement source frequently used by the insurgent groups. It has now become evident that groups like ULFA, NSCN or PLA depend for much of their weapons supply on the black-markets of Thailand, were arms sold by the largely marginalized Khmer Rouge are available cheaply and easily[xiv]. Whether there is ISI funding for such procurement, or the insurgents pay for them their own funds raised through extortion and collection, is not yet clear.

After purchase, these weapons are loaded on ships-which have false papers-manned by Thai and Myanmarese nationals, and brought to the coastal areas of Bangladesh and Burma. Wyakaung beach, that lies between Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh and Myanmar's Arakan province has been the favorite landing site for these weapons[xv].

In April-May 1995, a column of 200 ULFA, PLA and NSCN insurgents, carrying weapons from Wyakaung, was intercepted by 57 Mountain Division after it had entered India's state of Mizoram from Bangladesh. More than 40 insurgents were killed, and a large number of weapons and insurgents were captured during the military operation that was christened Operation Golden Duck. In February 1996, the Bangladesh Navy intercepted a ship full of weapons meant for North-East Indian insurgents, and in 1997 the Thai Navy intercepted a similar cargo. Unconfirmed reports suggest that another ship carrying weapons blew up mysteriously off the Gulf of Martian in November 1996. Insurgent leaders who were to receive the weapons allege that the Indian intelligence agency RAW was behind the explosion. North-East India's proximity to the low-intensity battle zones of Southeast Asia makes it easy for insurgents to procure weapons from that region.

It has now been established that Bangladesh's former military rulers (and even the BNP government) provided the insurgent front North-East India shelter and material support. Most insurgent leaders of North-East India, who have since been arrested, carried Bangladeshi passports. In 1992, the Bangladesh Rifles did hand over three top Manipuri insurgents leaders to the Indian Border Security force, but that was seen more as a gesture on the eve of erstwhile Prime Minster Begum Khaleda Zia's visit to Delhi. With the coming to power to the Awami League government in Bangladesh, Dhaka had cracked down on Indian insurgents based in that country-recently the Bangladesh police arrested Golap Barua alias Anup Chetia, the general secretary of ULFA. He has been prosecuted for offences in that country. While the Awami League government is not expected to allow ISI operatives to operate freely from its territory, and has become down heavily on Indian insurgents, it is now evident that these insurgents have the support of some opposition parties, notably the BNP, whose leaders have described ULFA and NSCN as freedom fighters trying to liberate their motherlands from Indian occupation[xvi].

The Indian government has intensified operations against the insurgents in the North-East. The Assam government has even discovered the sources of financial support of some insurgent groups. Some top executives of business houses have been arrested, interrogated and tried. The outlook for the North-East from India's security point of view is mixed. While some ominous portents like the growing incidence of ethnic cleansing -like the frequent clashes between the Nagas and the Kukis, or the Bodo attacks on non-Bodos have seem to be suffering from battle fatigue, and many insurgent groups are willing to open negotiations with Delhi. The NSCN (Issac-Muivah) has already started negotiations with the Government of India.

Changing Patterns Of Insurgency

Over the 40 years insurgency first started in the Naga Hills, the character of insurgent warfare in North-East India has changed. The Nagas and the Mizo were hill insurgents, who established controlled zones-if not liberated areas in the Maoist mould-from where they launched regular attacks against security forces and ran a parallel administration. In the first stages of two movements, the insurgents avoided attacking soft targets. With the passage of time however both the Nagas and the Mizos resorted to urban terrorism. The Manipuri PLA and UNLF groups and the ULFA of Assam also followed in suit. These groups have special units that attack soft targets in cities and even hit military officers when they are out of uniform.

Apart from developing a capacity for urban terrorism signified by the growing use of explosives against soft targets and assassinations, all the insurgent groups in the North-East have now become notorious for systematic extortion. Until the mid-seventies, the insurgent Nagas and Mizos raised tax from every family in the state (including outsiders serving in the state government). This was done to create a stable working fund to finance separatist campaigns, as also to assert their authority as a parallel administration. Weapons and training initially came gratis from Pakistan and patronage stopped in the late seventies, the insurgents turned to large-scale fund-raising through systematic extortion. ULFA military wing chief Paresh Barua admitted in an interview with the BBC that the group's war fund ran into hundreds of corers of rupees[xvii]. He also stated that some big companies like the Tatas had provided 'war material' to the insurgent group under pressure.

Fund-raising, unless controlled centrally, can damage the moral fabric and the command structure of insurgent group seriously. The insurgent groups in Tripura have turned extortion into an industry. Since 1994, they have kidnapped, 1,550 people and extracted huge ransoms. These groups hardly attack security forces or other targets. They have organized small actions groups of three to four armed insurgents who abduct targeted individuals. In fact, hostages who have been kidnapped say that the insurgents' camps are ringed with hostages' quarters, which are being used as shields against possible attacks by security forces. The government of Tripura has failed to attack the financial pipeline of theses insurgent groups: it has followed middlemen negotiations ransoms to operate freely, despite suggestions that, instead of blaming the center for not sending adequate central forces to the state, the state government should use its police forces to crack down on the middlemen. That would dry up the insurgents' coffers and weaken their movements.

Most insurgent organizations, with the exception of ULFA and the Manipuri groups, now attack ethnic groups perceived as enemies. Systematically ethnic cleansing a la Bosnia has become a norm in North-East India. The insurgent groups in Tripura regularly attack villages of Bengali settlers, the Naga insurgents attack the Kukis and vice versa, and the Bodo insurgents attack the non-Bodo settlements. Creating compact population zones to back demands for ethnic homelands have become part and parcel of the armed separatist movements in North-East India.

Indian security concerns in the North-East can be best addressed by a mix of military action and political negotiations with the insurgent organizations, along with constant monitoring of Chinese military and diplomatic activities in countries bordering North-East India, by plugging the sources of weapons and insurgents' funds, and by developing a strong legitimate economy in the region, sustained by large-scale Indian and foreign investment, which will prevent the growth of a smuggling-oriented economy that can be easily subverted by drug lords and their cohorts.

References

[i] Bhaumik, Subir. 1996, Quoting P.N.Banerji, Joint Secretary (East) in the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), in Insurgent Crossfire: Northeast India, p.52. New Delhi: Lancer Books.

[ii] Nibedon, Nirmal. 1985. Night Of the Guerrillas, p.90. New Delhi: Lancer Books.

[iii] Pakem, BN.(ed.) 1967 . Quoting the DGMI Status Report 1967, in external Linkages of Insurgency in Northeast India,' in Insurgency In Notheast India, p.934. New Delhi: Omsons.

[iv] Bhaumik Subir. 1996. Quoting Th. Muivah, NSCN general secretary, in an interview for Sunday, 14-20 June

[v] Banerji, P.N. Quoted in Insurgent Crossfire: Northeast India, p.52.

[vi] Annual Defence Ministry Report, 1983,p.13..

[vii] A detailed account of the Indian sponsorship to the Shanti Bahini rebel force is available in Insurgent Cross fire: Northeast India, pp.245-306.

[viii] Bhaumik, Subir. 1987. Quoting Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, in an interview for the Ananda Bazar Patrika, p.6, 11 April.

[ix] Bhaumik, Subir. 1998. Quoting Pradeep Daimary, Vice President, All-Bodo Student's Union, in an interview, 14 June.

[x] Basu, Jyoti. 1987. Interview with the BBC, 21 May.

[xi] Annual Defence Ministry Report 1996,p.11.

[xii] Roychoudhri, Rahul. 1996. 'Chinese Naval Modernisation', in the Indian Defence Review.p.34. June.

[xiii] Hazarika, Sanjoy. 1996. Strangers In The Mist, p. 73. Viking.

[xiv] Intelligence Bureau's Monthly Summary of Information, January 1998,pp.15-17.

[xv] Interrogation report of Sasha Choudhury, ULFA Foreign Secretary, August 1995, made available by sources in the Intelligence Bureau.

[xvi] Bhuiyan, Abdul Mannan, BNP general secretary. 1996. Speech delivered at the Dhaka Press Club, Janakantha, 12 February.

[xvii] Barua, Paresh, 1997. In an interview to the BBC on 17 October, broadcast over the world Business Report of BBC Radio.

This article first appeared in the magazine Aakrosh Volume 1, Number 1 in October 1998, it is being reproduced here with the permission of the editors.

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/MONITOR/ISSUE5-2/bhaumik.html

Will India Prepare For Space War?

Radhakrishna Rao
Freelancer, Bangalore
e-mail: rkrao1950@gmail.com

If the Defence Research and  Development Organisation (DRDO) has its way, India would soon edge  closer to preparing the ground for entering the domain of space war. The statement made by VK Saraswat, scientific advisor to the Indian defence minister, on 3 January at Thiruvananthapuram clearly indicates  that Indian defence scientists are working  on realizing the “building blocks” of an advanced  weapons system capable of destroying enemy satellites moving in both low earth and polar orbits. ”Satellites used in network-centric warfare are either in low earth or polar orbit,” observed Saraswat. In all probability, the Indian anti satellite system would be a “kinetic energy” weapon designed to slam  a projectile into the target.

 

Giving details of the project, Saraswat noted that DRDO is now focusing on developing and perfecting the technologies related to tracking the satellite, command and control network for the interceptor and a laser seeker that can use three dimensional images to guide the killer vehicle. Saraswat is clear in his perception that India would certainly need technological capability to “take care of the rogue satellites” in the future. Elaborating his thesis, Saraswat projected the view that space security entails the creation of “a gamut of capabilities” including the protection of satellites, communications and navigation systems and denying the enemy the use of his own ‘space systems’.

The technological capabilities for an anti satellite device, expected to be realized before 2015, will be evolved under India’s home-grown missile defence shield. Saraswat also revealed that a fourth interceptor missile test, slated for September this year would aim at bringing down an “enemy missile” at an altitude of 120-140-km. According to strategic analysts, the Indian missile defence shield is intended to protect key parts of Indian territory from the ballistic missiles originating from China and Pakistan.” Developing the anti satellite kill vehicle is the most critical aspect because the satellite signatures and the ballistic missile signatures are different” said Saraswat. Going ahead, he remarked that “What is needed is technology to track the movement of enemy satellites, for instance, before making a kinetic kill. We are trying to build a credible deterrence capability.” At the same time Saraswat made it clear that such an anti satellite device “will not be tried out in real life conditions unless there are exigencies.”

On the face of it, Saraswat’s statement appears to be a ‘certain hint’ at a major initiative aimed at taking the neighbouring China head on in strategic technologies related to developing space based weapons. For way back in January 2007 China had stunned the world by successfully accomplishing an anti satellite test. In this controversial experiment, Beijing destroyed its aging weather watch satellite FENGYUN-1C located at an altitude of 865-km by deploying a ground based medium range missile. By its head on collision force, the missile reduced the satellite into “hundreds of thousands of pieces.”

In the aftermath of this Chinese anti satellite test, which had come in for flake from across the world, India too had expressed its concern over the ‘safety and security’ of its space assets. India, which is now a major space faring nation, has in orbit a substantial number of satellites for communications, weather watch, earth observation and scientific research. In fact, while addressing the United Commanders Conference in New Delhi in mid-2008, Indian Defence Minister AK Antony had pointed out to the threat faced by the “Indian space assets” from the developments in the neighbouring country. Antony was clear and forthright in his observation that India is very much concerned about the emergence of “anti satellite weaponry, a new class of heavy lift off boosters and an improved array of military space devices in our neighbourhood.” Rightly, he wondered as to how long India can “remain committed to the policy of non weaponization of the outer space even as offensive counter space systems are emerging in the neighbourhood.” In the similar vein, Indian army chief Gen Deepak Kapoor to  had expressed his concern over the rapid growth of well funded Chinese space programme—“especially in military terms with a thrust on offensive and defensive contents.”

Interestingly, the official position of both India and China is in conformity with the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty which clearly and specifically forbids the weaponization of outer space through the placing of destructive devices including nuclear weapons in earth orbit. In fact, in response to the Chinese killer satellite test, the then chairman of  Indian Space  Research Organisation (ISRO) G Madhavan Nair had stated that though it is well within the capability of India to develop and deploy a system to knock down a rogue satellite, India’s concern is to keep outer space a zone of peace and  tranquillity . Evidently, ISRO being a civilian research agency  with a  mandate to explore and exploit outer space for peaceful uses, cannot openly associate itself with  project focussing on the development of an anti satellite device. But then DRDO will be in a position to make use of the technologies developed by ISRO to give a quickening impetus to the development of a killer satellite system. Chemical fuel, navigation as well as control and command systems are among the hardware that are common to both a satellite launch vehicle and a missile. However the hitting accuracy of a missile should be more precise than that of a launch vehicle.

http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/will-india-prepare-for-space-war-3038.html

Is China’s Space Militarization a Threat to India?

Radhakrishna Rao
Freelancer, Bangalore
e-mail:rkrao1950@yahoo.com

A recent fact-filled 78-page analysis of China’s rapidly expanding military capabilities by the Pentagon with a focus on its developing “disruptive technologies,” points to Chinese advances in acquiring the capability to attack satellites for refining its space war strategy. Accusing China for being less than transparent on reporting its military spending and security doctrines, this report to the US Congress, the first under the Obama administration, also refers to China’s strides in cyber war and electromagnetic warfare capabilities. Incidentally, the report comes just weeks after Chinese naval vessels tangled with a US naval surveillance ship, which led China to accuse the US of spying.

Coming to Sino-Indian relations, the Pentagon report, “Military Power of the People’s Republic of China,” says that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is concerned with persisting disputes along China’s shared border with India, and the strategic ramifications of India’s emergence as an economic, military and political power. Even as China shows keenness to improve its ties with India, its military incursions in Sikkim and the line of actual control (LAC) in Arunachal Pradesh, deployment of nuclear submarines at an ultramodern facility at Hainan Island in the South China Sea, and its growing defense ties with Pakistan, remain matters of concern for New Delhi.

China’s massive military modernization, vigorous efforts to develop a range of space weapons and heavy-lift space vehicles, and a sustained move towards increasing the range and lethality of missiles are not merely exercises to compete militarily with the US .Their purpose is to deter American in intervention should Beijing deciding to overrun Taiwan by force.

With defence analysts agreeing that India cannot remain unconcerned about Chinese advances in space warfare, Indian Defence Minister, AK Antony, has expressed concern over the possible threat to “Indian space assets” from developments in a neighbouring country. Antony left no one in doubt that he was referring to China, and chose to focus on the Chinese threat from space while addressing the United Commanders Conference in New Delhi held in June 2008. Antony did not mince his words while underscoring India’s angst over the “emergence of anti satellite weaponry, a new class of heavy lift off boosters and improved array of military space devices in our neighbourhood.” Antony was apparently highlighting the Chinese threat to Indian space assets in the context of a growing clamor to establish an Indian aerospace command. Antony backed up his concern by announcing the formation of a tri-service space cell as a precursor to creation of the command. Antony also wondered how long India could “remain committed to the policy of the non weaponization of space even as counter space systems are emerging in our neighbourhood.” Way back in 2007, following the Chinese anti-satellite test, the Indian Parliament held a debate on the ramification of the Chinese action with reference to India. Antony made it clear that India could safeguard its space assets from a threat emanating from across the border.

While China stunned the world in early 2007 by destroying an aging weather satellite positioned at an altitude of 537 miles above the earth by firing a ground based medium range ballistic missile, it would need a more refined, long range missile to attack spacecraft meant for communications and navigation that are normally placed in higher orbits. After this anti-satellite test, G Madhavan Nair, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), said that though it was within the capability of ISRO to deploy an anti-satellite weapon, India’s concern was to keep outer space a zone of peace and tranquility.

Taking a cue from early Russian and American experiments, China is working on space-based laser weapons to knock down enemy spacecraft. “They let us see their satellites. It is as if they are trying to intimidate us,” says Gary Payton, a senior Pentagon official dealing with space. The East Asian Strategic Review (2008) brought out by Japan’s National Institute for Defence Studies states that “the organizations involved in China’s space development program share strong ties with PLA and a large proportion of the satellites launched and operated by China are believed to be used for military purposes.” Joining the chorus for discussions after the Chinese anti-satellite test, VK Aatre, a former chief of India’s Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), had strongly advocated the need to ensure that Indian ”space assets” are not vulnerable to, “extraneous threat”. He was clear that future wars would be fought in outer space.







http://www.ipcs.org/article_details.php?articleNo=2842

Internal Security, External Threats

Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman
Research Scholar, Jawaharlal Nehru University
email: mirzalibra10@gmail.com

Maoists

The brutal attack on the Central Reserve Police Force soldiers by Naxalites in Dantewada has raised many questions and concerns about internal security in India. The large Naxal presence, its firepower and its ability to strike the police forces at will, makes for a tense law and order situation in many states of India. There have been intense debates about considering the deployment of the Army and the possible use of the Air Force as well. It is pertinent at this point to analyze the internal security situation in Naxal affected areas and draw some vital linkages with the internal security situation in Northeast India.

Northeast India has been witness to many raging insurgencies ever since Indian independence with many of them still simmering on. The Army has been deployed in almost all the insurgency affected states in Northeast India over time, and even the Air Force was used once in Aizawl during the height of the Mizo insurgency to end a seize of an army camp by the Mizo rebels. The Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA) has been in force since 1958 in various insurgency affected parts of Northeast India, giving the Army special and exceptional powers to operate in counter-insurgency operations.

The current debate that has gained momentum, that the Armed Forces are primarily meant for external threats, and not for internal counter-insurgency operations; the talks of avoiding collateral damage in populated areas, is a signal of a ‘new’ thinking in the Armed Forces and the central security policy makers. This is only welcome if it is backed by adequate reforms in the internal policing system, which they say will be bolstered soon in the Naxal affected areas, and Operation Green Hunt could go on without the Armed Forces’ help. However, even after decades of the Army’s deployment in Northeast India, the central government or the respective state governments have not managed to implement any reforms towards bolstering the internal policing structure, which could possibly replace the Army in any of its counter-insurgency duties.


Vast portions of Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh have insignificant and weak local policing system, which cannot combat the complexities of strong insurgent networks at present. The ability of the Northeastern insurgent groups to continue operating as well as managing strong networks of trafficking in arms, ammunition, narcotics and fake currency is testimony to the collective failure of the Army, the local police and the internal security policies. Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has admitted many times that Northeast India has been the corridor of arms and ammunition and other logistical support to the Naxalites.


The various insurgencies in Northeast India have been, to an extent, kept in abeyance by New Delhi for long now, without an attempt to solve them politically. Many of the ceasefire insurgent groups in Northeast India who kept languishing in ‘designated camps’, have invested in a huge narco-terrorism network. It requires no rocket scientist to point out that this active ‘kept in abeyance’ insurgency network in Northeast India has indeed strengthened the Naxal preparations against the government. The short sighted policy of delaying or postponing the peace in Northeast India, has in fact presented to the central government another internal security problem in the shape of this network, the dimensions of which it is yet to fully comprehend.


Given the interconnectedness of the conflict scenario in Northeast India, special counter-insurgency attention must be focused on certain insurgent ‘hotspots’, which are characterized by complex insurgent networks and insufficient governmental presence. The identifiable insurgent hotspots in Northeast India are Karbi Anglong-North Cachar Hills region of Assam, Lohit-Tirap-Changlang region of Arunachal Pradesh, West Kameng-East Kameng-Baksa-Udalguri-Sonitpur region encompassing Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, Ukhrul-Senapati-Chandel region of Manipur and Southern Mizoram. Rapid modernization of police forces, to continually monitor these ‘hotspots’ is required.


The Army, which in its normal course of duties, is meant to monitor the extremely porous border areas of Northeast India with Myanmar and Bangladesh, finds itself pressed in internal security duties in many internal areas, where the local police is insufficiently capable of handling the same. The force for monitoring these active hotspots will have to be an army-local police collaboration, as it will require strong local intelligence networks. The level of ground level and intelligence sharing coordination between the local police and the army leaves much to be desired in Northeast India, even with the presence of the Unified Command structure in some of the states. This is also because of the lack of working trust between security agencies and the varying briefs given to them by the central government at one level and the state government at another level.


A genuine peace in Northeast India will ultimately come from involving local people in the peace process, not by having an exceptional act in the form of AFSPA with little national debate on its amendment or withdrawal for over fifty years, or stalemated negotiations with insurgent groups. New Delhi needs to analyze the internal security situation of India in a wider connected framework and treat the inadequacies urgently.


http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/internal-security-external-threats-3096.html

POLITICS OF INFILTRATION - A Threat to Socio-cultural Identity of Assam ?

by R.Upadhyay
 
It is a political irony of post-partition India that none of its Government ever took the problem of large scale of Muslims infiltration from erstwhile East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh to bordering Indian states particularly Assam, seriously. Nehru-Liyaqat pact (1950), Indira-Mujib Accord (1971) and much publicised Assam Accord (1985) too failed to stop this 'silent invasion'. In the absence of any definite policy of the Government, the infiltration gradually assumed an alarming proportion and the aliens became politically so strong that no political party in this state is in a position to form the government without their support.

British annexed Assam in 1826 and placed it under the administrative unit of Bengal Province . They brought educated and English knowing Bengalese to assist them in its administration. After partition of Bengal in 1905 the geo-political reconstitution of the region increased the flow of Bengali speaking population particularly the Muslim peasantry from the over populated East Bengal to sparsely populated fertile lands of Brahmaputra and Surma valleys of this isolated northeast corner of India. The formation of All India Muslim League (AIML) in 1906 at Dhaka also hatched a political conspiracy to expand its numerical strength in Assam and initiated organised migration of Muslims from East Bengal . Nawab Salim Ullah Khan, a prominent Muslim leader and one of the founder members of AIML in his public meeting after the concluding session of the League, "exhorted the Muslims to migrate to Assam and settle there".

The alarming forecast of Census Superintendent C. S. Mullan in his Census report of 1931validated the political conspiracy of AIML in Assam :

"Probably the most important event in the province during the last 25 years - an event, moreover, which seems likely to alter permanently the whole feature of Assam and to destroy the whole structure of Assamese culture and civilisation has been the invasion of a vast horde of land-hungry immigrants mostly Muslims, from the districts of East Bengal. … wheresoever the carcass, there the vultures will be gathered together " (Politics of Migration by Dr. Manju Singh, Anita Publications, Jaipur, 1990, Page 59).

By late nineteen thirties the AIML turned its expansionist design into a confrontationist Muslim politics in Assam . It encouraged the Muslim migrants to settle in Assam and since then the immigrants have became a chronic problem in the provincial politics of the state. Influx of Muslim peasantry in Assam converted its wastelands into cultivable fields and helped in development of its economy. But exposure of this otherwise closed society to new socio-political environment adversely affected its socio-cultural scenario.

After 1937 election, Gopi Nath Bordoloi headed a Congress led coalition Government in Assam and tried to stop the unhindered flow of immigrant Muslims. But his Government had to resign in November 1939 to respond to the Congress High Command's call for resignation of all its Provincial Governments in protest against the War policy of the British. This decision of the party however facilitated the formation of an alternative Coalition Government in Assam headed by Sir Saadullah of AIML. "During the period between 1939-1941, Saadullah Government allotted one Lakh bighas (Little less than an acre) of land in Assam valley for the settlement of East Bengal immigrants" (Political History of Assam - Edited by A. C. Bhuyan and Shibopada De, Vol. III, Publication Board of Assam, 1999, Page 262). He ignored the protest of Assam Congress leaders like Bishnuram Medhi and others on the plea that the Muslim exodus from Bengal to Assam was necessary for the success of 'Grow more food' scheme in the state.

Lord Wavel, Viceroy of India in the Viceroy's Journal, London Publication,December 22, 1943 said: " …The chief political problem is the desire of Muslim Ministers of Assam to increase the immigrations into uncultivated Government lands in Assam under the slogan of 'Grow more food' but what really is to 'Grow more Muslims' (Politics of Migration by Dr. Manju Singh, Anita Publications, Jaipur, 1990, Page 70). Mahatma Gandhi too expressed his concern over the problem of such unrestricted immigration but he could not do anything to check the exodus for the reason best known to him.The resignation of Congress led Government in Assam was the first blunder committed by the party in respect of its policy on Muslim immigration. Even Subash Chandra Bose and the Congress leaders of Assam had argued for exemption of Assam from the decision of the party on the plea that it would help the AIML in settling the Muslim immigrants in the state. The Congress High Command was however, not convinced.

With large-scale settlement of alien immigrants following the installation of Saadullah Government, AIML established a tremendous influence on the Muslim population of Assam , who later aggressively supported the demand for Pakistan . After 1946 general election Bordoloi again headed the Congress Government and took a firm and tough stand for eviction of immigrants. Alarmed with the eviction plan of Bordoloi, AIML Legislators' Convention held at Delhi in April 1946, demanded inclusion of Assam in Pakistan and strongly opposed the eviction plan of immigrant Muslims. Abdul Hamid Khan, popularly known as Maulana Bhasani, a volatile League leader, who had dominated Muslim politics in Assam till partition was deputed to execute the "AIML plan to turn the non-Muslim majority state of Assam into Muslim majority state". Meanwhile Jinnah came up with the demand of the League for inclusion of Assam in proposed Pakistan . The central leadership of the Congress party had virtually made up its mind to give up its claim over Assam and Bordoloi had to run from pillar to post and convince Mahatma Gandhi whose intervention could only save Assam from going to Pakistan . Since whole energy of Bordoloi was to save Assam from the geo-political design of AIML, he failed to give proper attention to implement his plan to cleanse Assam from Muslim immigrants. Assamese people for their centuries old closeness with cultural current of India had fought shoulder to shoulder with the freedom fighters of the country against the British power, but the attitude of the Congress High Command created an emotional distance from the centre.

After partition, the Assamese people expected that there would not be any further trans-migration of Muslims from East Pakistan to their new political territory. Muslim populations in Assam considerably decreased in 1947 partly due to inclusion of Sylhet in Pakistan and also return of sizeable number of earlier immigrants to their original land due to fear of backlash. But the situation changed, when Mainul Haq Chaudhary, the Private Secretary of Jinnah and also a prominent leader of the youth wing of AIML till partition joined Congress party along with the supporters of Pakistan en-mass. On the eve of partition, he was shaky whether to opt for Pakistan or stay back in India . He was however told by Jinnah, "wait for ten years, I shall present Assam on a silver plate to you" (Politics of Alienation in Assam by Bhawani Singh, 1984, Page 72). Jinnah died in 1948 but the Congress Party fulfilled his promise by inducting Chaudhary in the Cabinet of Congress Government led by Gopi Nath Bordoloi. It is often alleged that Chaudhary stayed back in Assam on the advice of Jinnah and other Pakistani leaders to help the immigrants from Pakistan for their settlement in Assam .

After Independence the flow of illegal migration from East Pakistan again increased aggressively as in absence of any population planning by its government or any social movement for creating awareness to control population, its people remained facing the problem of living space for survival. To carry forward the political legacy of AIML that East Pakistan / Bangladesh needed more lebensraum or living space, its leaders continued their plan for Islamic expansionism in Assam through infiltration of Muslims as the country was unable to shoulder the burden of its multiplying population. The successive governments in Pakistan pursued the twin policy of squeezing out the Hindus and infiltrating the Muslims to settle down in Assam and other bordering states in India .

Against the evil geo-political design of Pakistan , which scared the Assamese middle class of the threat to their marginalisation in their own land, Government of India never had any organised plan or definite policy. Nehru-Liaquat Pact (April 1950) with "special provisions for restoration of rights of immigrants over their properties if they would choose to return not later than the 31st December 1950" (Assam Issue -The Biginning - The End -The Beginning by Vijay Kumar Dewan, United Publishers Guwahati, 1985, Page 34-35) rather facilitated the Pakistan Government to accelerate infiltration. The Pact, which validated the entry of immigrants up to 31.12.50, was against the spirit of Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam ) Act 1950 enacted by Parliament on 13.2.1950. It is said that the Congress leadership applauded the increase of Muslim immigrants as a God sent opportunity to consolidate the 'Muslim vote banks' and accordingly ruled Assam without any break for thirty years.

In early sixties, the Government of Assam under the leadership of Congress Chief Minister Bimala Prasad Chaliha launched an aggressive campaign to flush out the immigrants, who settled in Assam since January 1951. He even disregarded Prime Minister Nehru’s plea to go slow on the issue. "Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wanted the Assam Chief Minister, Bimala Prasad Chaliha to go easy on deportations and even stop them. Chaliha refused, saying that the problem was so critical that Assam 's demography and culture would be permanently changed" (Rites of Passage by Sanjoy Hazarika, Penguin Books, 2000, Page 60).

Chaliha Government armed itself with Prevention of Infiltration from Pakistan (PIP) Act 1964 and pursued the campaign. Even though, the Muslim leaders encouraged the Bengali speaking Muslim immigrants to declare Assamese as their mother tongue to dodge the police of their detection, Chaliha's campaign against the infiltrators pressed a panic button among them. However, twenty Muslim MLAs in the Government threatened him to topple his ministry if he does not stop deportations. Chaliha had to succumb to this pressure and the PIP Act was put in cold storage (Ibid.). Those who, were deported earlier gradually returned and again settled in Assam .

As per conservative assessment about a million of Muslim infiltrators settled down in the vacant areas contiguous to the areas where Muslim migrants in British India were already settled. Moinul Huq Choudhury, who later became a Minister in the Union Cabinet of Indira Gandhi Government and former President of India Fakharuddin Ali Ahmad were widely known for being instrumental in the settlement of illegal Muslim immigrants. Gradually, the Muslim population in Assam , which was about 19 Lakhs in 1947, increased to about 36 Lakhs within 25 years of Independence by 1972. "Late B.K.Nehru, the Governor of Assam between 1968 and 1973, condemned the infiltration as vote bank politics by the Congress" (Prafulla Goradia in Pioneer dated September 15, 2005). "Over the years, the Congress with its activist pro-minority plank was seen as a party which supported the interest of the settlers. It was thus labeled pro-'Bangladeshi' by its opponents" (Rites of Passage by Sanjoy Hazarika, Penguin Books, 2000, Page 69).

In 1971Bangladesh emerged as a sovereign nation after liberation war against Pakistan with the help of Indian Army. In stead of being grateful, the new nation maintained the same policy of Pakistan on Muslim infiltration in Assam . People of India in general and Assam in particular failed to understand that when the changed geo-political reality of Indian sub-continent in 1947 sealed their political destiny with the respective country of India and Pakistan , how come the infiltration continue? The argument of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first president of Bangladesh that, "without the inclusion of Assam the East Bengal economy could not be balanced" is ridiculous as a sovereign nation cannot throw its burden on another countries. If he was unable to bear the responsibility of his own people, he should not have gone for liberation of Bangladesh . Such an attitude of Sheikh Mujib proved that he also carried forward the AIML legacy of Muslim expansionism in Assam . He was an equal partner in implementation of the geo-political design of Pakistan to destablise Assam and balkanise it on the basis of religion. Z.A Bhutto had spelt out this design as far back as in 1968. "The late Prime Minister of Pakistan, Z.A.Bhutto, wrote about the geo-political aims of Pakistan in 1968 in his book, The Myth of Independence where he elaborated that it would be wrong to think that Kashmir is the only dispute that divides India and Pakistan, though it is undoubtedly the most significant one, at least is nearly as important as the Kashmir dispute is that of ASSAM and some districts adjacent to East Pakistan" (Insurgency in North-East India-The Role of Bangladesh, Edited by Dipankar Sengupta and Sudhir Kumar Singh, Authors Press, 2004, Page 73-74).

Even after liberation, a huge number of Bangladeshi Muslims stayed back in Assam and helped their co-religionists in influencing the electoral politics of this state. They not only further increased the demographic imbalance in the state but also scared the Assamese middle class of the danger to their socio-cultural identity. One may like to recall that it was a shocking revelation of detection of thousands of Bangladeshi Muslims in the revision of electoral rolls in Mangaldoi Parliamentry constituency in 1979, which sparked the Assam agitation led by All Assam Students Union (AASU) against the Bangladeshi infiltrators.

When the Assam agitation reached to its climax and turned violent, two separate delegations one of legislators (16) led by Janata Party leader Golap Barbora and another of writers(4) led by Dr. Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya emphatically narrated the alarming problem of illegal Muslim immigration in Assam in their respective memorandum to the Rajya Sabha Committee of Petitions. Seventy -third Report of the Committee of Petitions, Rajya Sabha dated March 22, 1982 while quoting the memorandum said:

"The official statistics showed that a total of 2,20,690 Pakistani infiltrators were detected in the state during the period 1950-1961 and another 1,92, 339 were spotted in the following decade. During the Bangladesh War of Liberation (1971) a total of 1,00,000 immigrants stayed behind even after Independence of their country. … The prime factor responsible for this abnormal growth (of Muslims) was the geo-political ambition of Pakistan over Assam " (Page 2 of the Report).

The Report quoting the memorandum of Legislators led by Golap Barbora maintained:

"No sovereign nation can permit the influx of foreign nationals into its territory. But the North Eastern region of the country in general and Assam in particular have been experiencing the area being utilised as the dumping ground for a large numbers of foreigners being vomited out by a neighbouring country since a long time. Besides, a large number of such foreigners were appeased with political rights by entering their names in the voters' list of the state for petty political games at the instance of the vested political forces that were at the helm of affairs since Independence" (Ibid.).

The Report quoting the memorandum signed by the writers of Assam said:

"That the problem of infiltration of foreigners in large scale has reached such a stage that unless immediate drastic steps were taken to solve it, the state of Assam , and for that matter, the entire North Eastern Region, faces the danger of being over run by foreigners in the next few years". The memorandum also quoted the written address of the Chief Election Commissioner to the Chief Election Officers Conference at Ootacamund on 24th September 1978. He said: "I would like to refer to the alarming situation in some states, specially in the North Eastern Region, wherefrom disturbing reports are coming regarding large scale inclusion of foreign nationals in the electoral rolls". Refering to Assam the Chief Election Commissioner further said: "The influx has become a very regular feature. I think that it may not be wrong assessment to make that on the basis of increase of 34.98 percent between the two Census (1961-1971), the increase that is likely to be recorded in the 1991 Census would be more than 100 percent over the 1961 Census. .."Another disturbing factor in this regard in the demand made by the political parties for the inclusion in the electoral rolls of the name of such migrants who are not Indian citizens" (Ibid. Page 18-19).

Replying to the debate in Rajya Sabha, the Home Ministry maintained that "the Government is fully seized of the matter. Efforts towards finding a solution satisfactory to all concerned are continuing" (Ibid. Page 25).

During negotiation with the agitating AASU leaders, the Government wanted 1971 as cut-off year for treating the immigrants as foreigners, which meant that all the alien infiltrators, who settled in Assam between 1951 and 1971 were to be accorded Indian citizenship. However, the negotiation broke down as AASU insisted on January 1951 as cut-off year. One fails to understand that why Government of India did not take a tough stand on the cut -off year for the citizenship on the basis of the National Register of 1951? Since infiltrators were the foreigners they would not have been given the citizenship of the country. Justice M.C.Chagla, former Education Minister once said:

"We have our constitution, we have citizenship laws. There are decisions by the highest courts to indicate who is a national and who is a foreigner. What does it matter when a person came to Assam if he is not a national but a foreigner. The year of his entry does not change his legal status. Unnecessary complications have been introduced by talking of the cut-off year"(‘ Assam ’s Agony by Amiya Kumar Das, Lancer's Publication Delhi, 1982, Page 132). Such logic of an eminent personality had no meaning in the vote bank politics of the Congress.

When the movement picked up momentum the Congress Government at centre led by Indira Gandhi pushed legislation in Parliament in 1983 called Illegal Migrants Determination by Tribunal (IMDT) Act. Tribunal was set up in each district of Assam to decide upon the presence of illegal migrants. Under IMDT Act onus lied on prosecution to prove before the tribunal that the suspect was foreigner. This was against the provision of the Foreigner Act under which suspect was to prove his or her Indian citizenship. This lacuna in the new Act hardly brought desired result. Ironically, AASU leaders never raised this point assertively and after repeated negotiations signed Assam Accord in the early hour of August 15, 1985. Violating all the constitutional provisions, the Accord accepted the infiltrators between 1951 to 1971 as genuine citizens of the country. The Accord maintained 1971 as cut-off year for detection, deletion from voters' list and deportation.

Assamese people, who were tired of long agitation from 1979 to 1985 celebrated the Accord. The power hungry AASU leaders, while taking it as their first political victory formed a political organisation namely Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and contested subsequent Assembly election held by the end of 1985. As expected, they got a landslide victory and formed Government. Soon after forming the Government, they fell into the trap of vested interests and the problem of infiltration went to the back burner. Meanwhile, ULFA an off shoot of AASU/AGP raised armed rebellion against Government of India for cessation of Assam from India .

The people belonging to Bengali descent apprehended a danger to their deportation following the Assam Accord but thanks to Muslim lobby, the process of detection, deletion and deportation remained as slow as it was before the Accord. One may laugh to know that " between 1983 to 2000, the sixteen tribunals in various districts…. have located about 10,000 illegals (immigrants) of which a bare 1,400 have been deported" (Rites of Passage by Sanjoy Hazarika, Penguin Books, 2000, Page 70).

Ironically, even after the alarming report on the 'demographic invasion' by Bangladesh by the Governor of Assam in 1998 the problem of Muslim infiltrators remains as acute in Assam as ever. Report on 'Illegal Migration into Assam as submitted to the President of India by the Governor, Lt. Gen.(Retd.) S. K. Sinha in 1998 "warned that if the present trends are not arrested, the indigenous people of Assam would be reduced to a minority and there may, in course of time, be a demand for the merger of Muslim dominated bordering districts with Bangladesh" (Insurgency in North-East India: The Role of Bangladesh - Dipankar Sengupta -Sudhir Kumar Singh, Authorspress, Delhi 2004, Page 73). Governor's report, which called the infiltration a "national threat" and the report "worked out by Group of Ministers, headed by Union Home Minister in 2001 noted that more than 15 million illegal immigrants have entered India over the last five decades from Bangladesh, an intrusion that has completely changed the demography of large parts of Assam, Meghalaya, West Bengal, Tripura and Bihar" (Ibid.).

"The 1991 census shows that the Muslim population of the country increased by 4.02 million, or 65.4 7 per cent over that of 1971, in Assam the increase has been by 77.42 per cent. Muslims now form a majority in the district of Dhubri (70.42%), Goalpara (50.18%), Barpeta (56.07%) and Hailakandi (55.18%)" (Insurgency in North-East India-The Role of Bangladesh, Edited by Dipankar Sengupta and Sudhir Kumar Singh, Authors Press, 2004, Page 51). In addition to these four Muslim majority districts other five districts namely Bongaigaon (32.74 %), Morigaon (45.31 %), Nagaon (47.19 %), Karimganj (49.17 %) and Cachar (34.49 %) are having Muslim population varying between 32.74 percent to 49.17 percent. "Although the 2001Religion census is yet to be declared, an independent analysis that was conducted seems to show that there has been a sizeable growth in population among Muslims in Assam . It records that as a community the Muslims had registered an increase of 16.17 percent growth in 2001 figures (Terror Sans Frontier:Islamic Militancy in North India by Jaideep Saikia, Ford Fellow, July 2003, page 17).

"According to a study conducted by a few scholars of Toronto University and the American Academy of Arts and Science, 15 Million Bangladesh nationals have infiltrated in India . According to another study done by another American organisation, namely, The Advancement of Science, 20 million Bangladesh nationals are presently staying in India" (The Silent Invasion by Hiranya Kumar Bhattacharyya, Spectrum Publications, Guwahat:Delhi, 2001, Page 83). Muslim infiltration from Bangladesh into India is somewhere between 10 millions to 20 millions (Pioneer dated 22.9. 2004 by S.Gurumurthy, a widely known economists). Despite these observations on infiltration, Bangladesh never accepted the illegal migration of its people and often blamed India for deliberately pushing out its principal religious minority to their territory. Infiltration being one of the reasons behind the troubled relation between the two countries but Bangladesh in assistance with Pakistan continues fighting against India for Islamic expansionism as a result Assam has become its first victim. The political leadership as well as the officials, who govern the country are fully aware of this hard reality of infiltration but ironically they close their eyes due to the expediency of the vote bank politics. In absence of any accountably they overlooked the problem of undocumented illegal immigrants settled in Indian soil and threw the Assamese in the cesspool of Muslim vote bank politics.

"The Assam Police claimed to have arrested four hardcore ISI functionaries arrested by Assam Police on August 7, 1999. It was disclosed by them that "ISI had plans to train 10000 people in Assam for jehad to liberate Assam and establish an Islamic country comprising the territory of the state and some other parts of North-Eastern India" (Insurgency in North-East India-The Role of Bangladesh, Edited by Dipankar Sengupta and Sudhir Kumar Singh, Authors Press, 2004 Page 74).

One may wonder how the Muslim population of Assam from19, 81857 in 1951 increased to 63,73,204 in 1991. Census figure suggests over 30 percent growth in Muslim population of Assam after 1951.Taking into account the pace of growth rate between 1951 to 1991 the Muslim populatioin in Assam might have increased to at least 33 percent by 2005. It means the present Muslim population in the State might have increased to another 3 percent. On the other hand Hindu population in the State decreased from 72.51 percent in 1971 to 67.13 percent in 1991. It means the decrease rate of about 5 percent in 20 years. If the trends are allowed to continue a day will come when indigenous people of State may come under Islamic subjugation and would ultimately be forced to face a serious threat to their identity as happened in the case of Kashmir (Terror Sans Frontier:Islamic Militancy in North India by Jaideep Saikia, Ford Fellow, July 2003).

After 22 years of the enactment of IMDT Act the Supreme Court repealed it in last July. The Muslim leaders, who are not happy with the verdict of the highest court in the country already started their arm twisting approach to ensure that the ruling party at centre could bring another legislation or ordinance for a substitute of IMDT Act. Baduddin Azmal, President Jaiat - Ulema -e- Hind , Assam expressed his anguish against the Congress for its failure to defend the IMDT Act. He is also exploring the possibility of mobilising the various Muslim organisations to bring them under a political party for contesting next year Assembly elections. Muslims now constitute over 30 percent of about 26 million population of Assam . They are now at the centre stage of Assam politics due to their commanding influence in about 40 of the total 126 Assembly constituencies. Sensing the mood of the Muslim leaders all the political parties except the Bhartiya Janata Party have already started hobnobbing with Muslim leaders for electoral alliance with them for next year Assembly elections in the state. It is an irony of fate that even AGP and its splinter group AGP (Progressive), whose leaders had led a high voltage agitation against the immigrants are also speaking the same language to appease the Muslim leaders for their support in election as Congress has been doing since Independence .

The higher growth of Muslim population in Assam due to unrestricted infiltration for consolidating the Muslim votes is a threat to its socio-cultural subjugation. It is one of the major sources of bitterness and tension in the region. Now the political clout of Muslim leaders is so strong that no political party is in a position to take a tough stand against the illegal immigrants in this state. But it is ridiculous that United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), an offshoot of ASSU, which fought for detection, deletion (from voters' list) and deportation of these foreigners - demands cessation of Assam from India with the support of same Bangladesh and Pakistan against whom they had launched agitation. Due to lack of vision they do not understand the design of the communal politics of the Muslims of Assam and neighbouring Bangladesh . They must know that once, Assam is ceded from India , the Muslim militants will throw away the Hindus in Assam as they did in Pakistan and Bangladesh . Their condition will be same as of the Kashmiri Pundits. They must take a lesson from the political vision of the former leaders of Assam like Gopi Nath Bordoloi, Bisnu Ram Medhi and B.P.Chaliha who even at the cost of humiliation by the Congress High Command never thought of secession and pursue their political fight against infiltration to the best of their capacity.

(Email: ramashray60@rediffmail.com)

A rivalry that threatens the world - Pakistan’s dangerous fondness for jihadis, the Taliban and nuclear weapons is rooted in its fears of India

Pakistan’s dangerous fondness for jihadis, the Taliban and nuclear weapons is rooted in its illusive fears of India 

OUTSIDERS, especially Indians, have expressed dismay ever since Osama bin Laden was killed this month in Abbottabad, a prim military town in Pakistan. Here is a state that both fights, and protects, Islamic fanatics. Even when Pakistanis themselves are the main victims of attack by jihadis, the state fails to act.

On May 13th suicide-bombers sent by an al-Qaeda-affiliated group, the Pakistani Taliban, killed 80, mostly young army cadets, in Shabqadar, a town in the north-west. That attack was claimed as retaliation for bin Laden’s death, but such strikes have grown dismally common. As America’s ambassador in Islamabad, Cameron Munter, puts it, “If you grow vipers in your backyard, you’re going to get bitten.”

At moments Pakistan sounds ready to co-operate with America against extremists. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, whizzed through Kabul and Islamabad this week and claimed, after four hours of talks with General Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan’s army chief, that the troubled bilateral relationship was again “on track”. Pakistan will hand over the remains of the stealth helicopter blown up in the Abbottabad raid. And America’s secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, will visit in the coming weeks.

More important, America’s spies, after a year of lurking by madrassas and in dark corners of towns without telling their Pakistani counterparts what they were up to, will start working again with the Pakistani military spy outfit, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI). Any more strikes against “high-value targets”, which presumably means Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s deputy leader, or Mullah Omar, boss of the Afghan Taliban, will officially be joint efforts. Almost immediately, on May 17th, Pakistan announced results: the army arrested a Yemeni in Karachi, said to be a senior al-Qaeda operative.

Many Pakistanis, however, cannot see things as Americans do. On Abbottabad, for example, they care little that bin Laden was there, and much more about the ease with which American forces swooped in. A poll a week after the raid of 2,500 people found that only 26% believed bin Laden had been killed. Around half, 49%, reckoned the event had been faked, and nearly as many thought bin Laden, if dead, was anyway a martyr. Around 68% were most bothered that an outsider had violated Pakistan’s sovereignty.

The Abbottabad affair was especially galling because the town sits close to the border with the Indian-run bit of Kashmir, supposedly a well-guarded frontier. Ordinary Pakistanis are conditioned to fret that India has still not come to terms with the existence of their country, and may one day simply come strolling in. It is no surprise that a resident in a house across from bin Laden’s, describing the raid, said: “We first thought the Indians were invading.”

At a joint session of the Pakistani parliament on May 13th, attended by army chiefs, the real concern was India. India’s army chief, foolishly, had boasted just after the bin Laden raid that his special forces had the means to do something similar. Pakistan’s spy chief, Ahmad Shuja Pasha, told MPs that the Pakistani army had not only picked targets in India for retaliation but had also rehearsed striking them.

The usefulness of jihad

Amid all the threats, MPs did not bother to ask questions about bin Laden. That may have been pride, or it may have reflected Pakistanis’ sense that jihadis are less snakes in the yard than a practical, if unconventional, means for a weak country to project power against a much bigger one. 

India’s population and its economy are now both eight times bigger than Pakistan’s, and growing fast (see table). Whereas Pakistan relies on aid and begs foreigners to equip its army, India, by contrast, races on, is now an aid-giver and has America eager to be its friend. As a longstanding, stable democracy, it has moral power. It sits on the United Nations Security Council, shares intelligence closely with America and plans to spend tens of billions of dollars a year on defence.

Pakistan’s relative insecurities have been intensified over the years by natural disasters, such as huge floods in 2010, and self-inflicted wounds such as frequent military coups. But they are all the more deeply felt because they are not new. The country was born from partition with India in 1947, a bloodbath that killed hundreds of thousands (both Muslims and Hindus) and displaced many millions. That, and Islam, helped forge a sense of nationhood. But the wounds of partition also caused Pakistanis to fear for their existence. 

 

For a weak country, using proxy armies and jihadis has often seemed a good idea. Just after partition, late in 1947, fierce Pushtun tribesmen poured into Kashmir to seize territory for Pakistan from India. Where they reached is still, more or less, the territory’s line of control (see map). Later, with American help, the then ruler of Pakistan, General Zia al Haq, sent jihadis to take on the Soviet invaders in Afghanistan. His eventual successor as dictator, General Pervez Musharraf, recently admitted what everyone knew, that militants had then been sent to stir trouble in Indian-run Kashmir.
Deploying jihadis is cheap, easy and somewhat deniable if things go wrong. It occupies men who might otherwise make mischief at home, and may also help foster a sense of national unity in Pakistan, as jihadis fight in the name of Islam. But as Ijaz Gilani, a Gallup pollster in Islamabad, points out, national feeling is also fuelled by hostility to India. Many Pakistanis are quick to explain away, or even actively support, jihadis who strike even at soft, civilian, targets in India, such as the attack in Mumbai in 2008 when 170 people died.
A trial that started on May 16th in America may test this idea. Prosecutors in Chicago accuse a businessman of Pakistani descent, Tahawwur Hussain Raina, of helping the Mumbai attackers, among whose victims were six Americans. A government witness has already said that an ISI officer, a “Major Iqbal”, helped to fund and guide the Mumbai attackers.

If Pakistan’s unhealthy tolerance of jihadi groups is the result of an obsession with India, what of its disruptive behaviour in Afghanistan? It lets America drive three-quarters of its war supplies from Karachi, and goes along with immensely unpopular drone strikes against extremists in its own tribal areas. Yet it also diverts funds to its Pushtun brethren, the Afghan Taliban, and resists any ground attack on another group connected with al-Qaeda, the Haqqani network (active in Afghanistan, based in Pakistan), though it is said to be pressing them to join Afghan peace talks.

Seen from Kabul, Pakistan’s ISI is behind the growing activity of Afghan insurgents. Researchers there totted up 12,244 attacks in the country last year, a more than five-fold increase since 2006. “Those connected to the insurgency say to us that ISI activities have increased [especially] over the past 18 months,” reports a well-connected observer. The Pakistanis deny that they are actively helping the Taliban.

They also refuse to accept that they are duplicitous in their dealings with America. Yes, they say, they agreed to back America’s war: refusing would have made an enemy of a superpower. But that does not mean they are adopting America’s aspirations in Afghanistan. Pakistanis plainly see quite different national interests there—again, largely, because of India.

Where America broadly hopes to clamp down on Islamic extremists, impose some sort of order and find a way to get its soldiers home, Pakistan, by contrast, does not want to see a strong Afghan state—particularly one where ethnic groups such as Tajiks, traditionally friendly to India, tend to predominate in positions of power.

Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, drove home the point on a rare visit to Kabul on May 13th. In Afghanistan’s parliament he made much of India’s impressive $1.5 billion aid schemes, which have built roads, set up power lines and fostered ties between the two countries. He promised another $500m as he cheered the emerging “strategic” partnership.

A senior Indian government official says India has “no endgame” in Afghanistan; all it wants is a country that is “moderate” and “stable”. But even that makes insecure Pakistanis jumpy. Afghanistan has been hostile to Pakistan for much of its history: opposing, alone, Pakistan’s membership of the UN, refusing even now to recognise Pakistan’s external borders. Separatists in Pakistan, notably the Baluchis and perhaps even Pushtuns, might also grow more active if war ended next door. Pushtuns are a large minority in Pakistan and the biggest ethnic group in Afghanistan. The Afghan government has never recognised the “Durand line”, the Afghan-Pakistan border that the British drove through Pushtun tribal lands, and the idea of an independent “Pushtunistan” has never entirely vanished.

Pakistan fears encirclement by India and its ally. The Pakistanis have long accused India, via Iran and Afghanistan, of arming the Baluchi separatists. Suspicion runs deep. An ISI official in Islamabad spins a theory that Indian road-building in Afghanistan is really a cover for shipping enormous quantities of explosives there for use by terrorists inside Pakistan, including, supposedly, the 2008 bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad.

Pakistan therefore wants influence in Afghanistan for the sake of “strategic depth”. That variously means having control of territory to which its leaders, soldiers or even nuclear weapons could move in case of war with India, or simply having close Afghan allies across the border, who can help keep Indian meddling at bay. Either way, Pakistan wants Afghanistan weak, divided, or once more ruled (at least in part) by a pliant Pushtun proxy; though some generals say they are less keen on the Taliban, now they have seen what they are like.

Armed and dangerous

To Indians Pakistan’s existential fears are exaggerated, blown up by the army to scare the people. India has never been the aggressor, they point out. Even when India intervened to help split Pakistan in two, in 1971, it only did so late, after seeing mass flows of refugees and atrocities on a horrific scale by the army against civilians in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

Instead, say Indians, Pakistanis’ own paranoia is the root of their instability. M.J. Akbar, an eloquent Indian journalist and author of a new book on Pakistan, sums up the place as dangerous and fragile, a “toxic jelly state”. He blames the army, mostly, for ever more desperate decisions to preserve its dominance. “Pakistan is slipping into a set of contradictions that increasingly make rational behaviour hostage to the need for institutions to survive,” he says.

Others, including liberal Pakistanis, add that Pakistan cannot shake itself from military men obsessed with India. “We have become delusional, psychotic, fearing how to protect ourselves from the rest of the world,” says one. India’s most senior security officials say that Pakistan is still, in essence, a state run by its army. That army, the world’s seventh-largest, bleeds the state of about a sixth of all public funds with almost no civilian oversight.

All that is grim enough. Then consider how Pakistan is rapidly expanding its arsenal of nuclear weapons. That programme was born out of the country’s humiliating loss of East Pakistan in 1971. Six years earlier, around the time of a previous defeat by India, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, then Pakistan’s foreign minister, had declared: “If India builds the bomb, we will eat grass or leaves for a thousand years, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own.”

Pakistan may now have between 70 and 120 usable nuclear devices—and may be unusually ready to use them. Some in the West believe Pakistan started preparing nuclear-tipped missiles in the midst of the 1999 Kargil war against India, after Pakistan invaded a remote corner of Kashmir.

Nobody doubts that Pakistan, in the midst of its anxiety over India, is trying hard to get more. Its nuclear warheads use an implosion design with a solid core of about 15-20 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. The country produces about 100 kilograms of that a year, but is rapidly expanding its nuclear infrastructure with Chinese help. And with production long-established, the price of adding weapons has fallen to almost nothing. A nuclear physicist in Pakistan, Pervez Hoodbhoy, now suggests that “you can have a working nuke for about $10m, or the cost of a nice big house in Islamabad.”

The new push seems, as ever, to be a response to two developments next door. Pakistan was badly spooked by India’s deal on civil nuclear power with America, completed in 2008. This not only binds America and India closely; it also lets India buy uranium on international markets, and probably means it will soon build many more reactors. By one panicky Pakistani estimate, India could eventually be making 280 nuclear weapons a year.

The other change is over doctrine and delivery. India has long held a 
position of “no first use” of nukes. Pakistan, by contrast, with weaker conventional forces, refuses to rule out the option of starting a nuclear war against India, and is now taking steps that could make such first use more likely. Last month it test-fired a new missile, the Hatf IX, with a range of just 60km and specifically designed for war-fighting. Two missiles are carried in tubes on a transporter and can be fired, accurately, at short notice. The warheads are small, low-yielding devices for destroying large tank formations with relatively little explosive damage or radiation beyond the battlefield.
Pakistan’s generals say their new tactical weapons will meet a threat from India’s Cold Start doctrine, adopted in 2004, that calls for rapid, punitive, though conventional thrusts against Pakistan. But by rolling out tactical nuclear weapons, Pakistan is stirring fears of instability. Previous efforts to reassure observers that terrorists or rogue army officers could not get hold of nukes rested on the fact that warheads and delivery systems were stored separately and were difficult to fire—and that final authority to launch a strike requires “consensus” within the National Command Authority, which includes various ministers and the heads of all three services, and is chaired by the prime minister.

But tactical nuclear weapons deployed close to the battlefield pose new risks. Command-and-control protocols are likely to be looser and more delegated. If field officers retreating in the face of a conventional attack by India were forced to decide between using or losing their nuclear weapons, a border incursion could swiftly escalate into something very much bigger and more lethal.

 

Mist over Kashmir

Talking, not shooting

Trouble on the border is not a theoretical problem; it is commonplace. Exchanges of fire between Pakistanis and Indians over the border in Kashmir killed an Indian soldier this weekend. This time it did not escalate, in part because the two countries are in the midst of diplomatic efforts. But India’s prime minister, Mr Singh, ordered a review by his security chiefs.

Some in India have been trying to ease tensions with Pakistan. Mr Singh, born before partition in territory that is now Pakistan, is personally eager to do so (though others in his government, and hawkish opposition parties, disagree). He tried “cricket diplomacy” this year, inviting his counterpart, Yusuf Raza Gilani, to watch India play Pakistan in the cricket World Cup. He is the driving force on bilateral talks on trade, water and counter-terrorism, which should culminate in the next few months in a meeting of foreign ministers.
Encouragingly, on Pakistan’s side, civilians also seem open to talks. It helps, too, that Kashmir has fallen quiet in recent months, though that may be merely seasonal. Nawaz Sharif, the main opposition leader, who as prime minister in 1999 came close to striking a peace deal with India, dared to suggest on May 16th that Pakistan would make progress only when it stopped treating India as its “biggest enemy”. As controversially, he called for a cut in public funds for the army.

 

 

View the various territorial claims from each country's perspective here

 

Yet suspicion lingers. General Kayani told a diplomat in Islamabad recently that he backs peace efforts with India, but he has done little about it. And the army has an interest in maintaining at least the illusion of an Indian threat to protect its bloated budget and special privileges.

In private, too, many remain gloomy. Talks, let alone a deal, may simply spur the terrorists to another atrocity. General Mahmud Ali Durrani, a former ambassador to America who supports peace talks, feels that the army’s insecurity is too big a problem. “I don’t think we are flying. The security elements are not so enamoured by the idea. They feel India never accepted Pakistan, and given half a chance [the Indians] would undo it.”

 Source : http://www.economist.com/node/18712274