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San Jose, CA   India has rarely appeared on the radar of the American left. Unlike Iraq or Yugoslavia, it has not been a victim of merciless bombing or debilitating sanctions. Neither has it normally attracted the vitriolic attacks that have been directed at neighboring China. This lulled some in the American left and progressive movement into believing that the U.S. attitude toward India was benign. But when India conducted its nuclear tests in May 1998, the hostility of the U.S. rulers toward India was fully exposed. Those tests set off a sanctimonious furor in Washington, London, Tokyo and Bonn. But that hostile response of the U.S. govt (and its allies) failed to elicit much sympathy for India even among those normally expected to commiserate with targets of U.S. diplomatic wrath and sanctions. Peace activists who had historically viewed India with some sympathy joined in the chorus of disapproval. When the Clinton administration proceeded to impose a range of sanctions on India, there were hardly any dissenting voices. India's legitimate security concerns received little coverage in the U.S. press.

In an interview with Rakesh Sharma of the Deccan Herald News Service, former prime minister I.K. Gujral elaborated on India's security concerns. He pointed to the fact that Indian coastal borders were very extensive, nearly 7,000 miles long, and were situated in a heavily nuclearized area. India had repeatedly expressed its great concerns about the nuclearization of the U.S. military base on the 11 sq. mi. island of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, southwest of Sri Lanka, but the U.S. had rebuffed all requests for denuclearization. Since the Gulf War, there has been constant movement of nuclear weapons. Military maneuvers by the U.S., NATO and Australia have greatly increased in the region. Although at present this military might is targeted at Iraq, Indian defense experts are concerned about the long-term dangers to India from such high- intensity military activity so close to the nation's borders. Other developing nations (who have been suffering the consequences of growing U.S./NATO hegemony in fearful silence) are not entirely unsympathetic to India's concerns. Even as the world's largest military powers issued autocratic statements condemning India, the G-15 summit of developing nations in Cairo did not. A random opinion poll conducted in the city brought forward such comments as: "At last, a friend of the Arabs is a nuclear power," and "It's good, Egypt can now turn to India for support." ¹ India also drew strong backing from Sri Lanka and Russia. And the 113 member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) issued a declaration which described as "highly discriminatory" the stand of the nuclear-weapon states in monopolizing the possession of atomic weapons. (There was no criticism of India in the declaration.) An attempt to rebuke India at an ASEAN summit also failed despite considerable lobbying by the U.S. and Australia.

25 Killed in Kashmir Gunbattles 7.10.01   AP SRINAGAR, India   25 people, 6 soldiers, 18 guerillas, and one civilian, were killed in skirmishes in Jammu-Kashmir on Tuesday as India pressed an offensive against Islamic insurgents. India began the offensive in May after the end of a 6 month unilateral cease-fire. Since then, more than 300 insurgents have been killed by Indian forces. The govt reports at least 30,000 people have been killed in the fighting in the past 11 years, but human rights groups have said the toll is closer to double that. India accuses Pakistan of arming & aiding the guerrilla groups that are based on its territory, but cross into Indian-controlled Kashmir to carry out bombings &and ambushes. Pakistan denies giving material aid, but has said it supports the cause of the guerrillas to separate from India and join Pakistan. Both countries claim all of Jammu-Kashmir and have fought 2 wars over the region, which is divided between them. The disputed Himalayan region is expected to be the main issue in talks this weekend between Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In Tuesday's fighting, 3 guerrillas and a soldier were killed at Helenduru, 45 miles south of Srinagar, police said. A female civilian was also killed. 3 guerrillas were killed in a fight in the Baramullah district, 40 miles north of Srinagar. In 2 gunbattles in Doda, 170 miles southeast of Srinagar, two guerrillas were killed, police said. 10 more guerrillas were killed in 3 separate fights in Poonch district, 270 miles southwest of Srinagar. 5 soldiers were killed and 4 were injured in the fighting.

It should be noted that it was the threatening and coercive presence in the Bay of Bengal of the U.S. Seventh Fleet during the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence, led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise, that triggered India's first nuclear test. The policy of the U.S. in the subcontinent has been essentially a continuation of British policy which has been structured to stoke divisions and discourage independent democratic movements from flourishing in the subcontinent. In 1971, the U.S. was extremely hostile to the liberation movement in Bangladesh, which had attracted massive grassroots support, but it provided unconditional backing to Pakistan's military despot at the time, General Yahya Khan ²

Crisis over Kashmir Intensifies
As President Clinton announced plans also to visit Pakistan after his trip to India in March, the hostilities in Kashmir escalated. A New York Times article by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon observed that the crisis in south Asia was deepened when "Pakistan-backed militants crossed into the Indian-held Kargil region of Kashmir, nearly sparking a full-fledged war." ¹ "In Pakistan, antipathy among ethnic groups and violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims have been aggravated by economic decay … The Pakistan govt has sought to distract its citizens from mounting domestic problems by fostering grievances over Indian control of the region [of Kashmir]. Militant Muslims have been encouraged by the army to assert Pakistan's territorial claims and bleed Indian forces, " said Benjamin and Simon. "Since 1994, the role of native Kashmiris in the insurgency has diminished as heavily armed outsiders from Pakistan and Afghanistan have stepped up the violence. Indian military observers … estimate that these outsiders now account for some 40 percent of the militants there and that almost two-thirds of them are recruited from madrassahs [Islamic fundamentalist schools] including some schools linked to the Afghan Taliban … Some of the outsiders are products of terrorist camps in Afghanistan," the authors say.
However, their proposed solution for a "first step" to de-escalate the Kashmir conflict is to put the onus on India promoting the idea that the Indian govt should accept President Clinton's offer to mediate between India and Pakistan , something India has steadfastly declined. They arrive at this conclusion because the "Pakistani govt is … hard-pressedd to control the radicals, who have made inroads in the army officer corps and … and have rich supporters in Saudi Arabia," and because of Pakistan's "accelterating disintegration."

Kashmiri-Afghan-Chechen Connection
"Kashmiri militants operating from Afghanistan have … routinely sent arms and men to Chechnya. The support channel began in Afghanistan, led to Tajikistan and … cut across the Caspian Sea to Chechnya. Habibullah Shah;, president of a Kashmiri group called Harkat-I-Jihad- I-Islam (Movement of Islamic Jihad), said he had used the trail to dispatch … men to Chechnya … " ²

1)   Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, "As a Conflict Intensifies, It's India's Move," New York Times, Mar. 15, 2000. Daniel Benjamin is a fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. Steven Simon is asst dir. Intl Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Both served on the National Security Council staff from 1994 to 1999.
2)   Ismail Khan and Steve LeVine, "The Rebel Connection: Aid from Groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan," Newsweek Intl Mar. 13, 2000, JRL #4154

1)   President Clinton announced at the last minute that he would stop in Pakistan after all to meet with the new ruler, General Pervez Musharraf.
2)   Joseph Kahn, "U.S. courting India in Hopes of Restarting Trade Talks" NYTimes 1.16.00 Pakistan: Proxy for Imperialism
The U.S. support of military dictators in Pakistan is not unusual. Its Central America policy, for example, has similarly relied on autocratic comprador rulers. By and large, this policy of backing military generals in Pakistan has served American "interests" well. As a stronghold of reactionary Islamic fundamentalism, Pakistan has been a vital proxy for the U.S. to covertly undermine democratic currents in the Middle East. Of particular importance is how Pakistan played a leading role in destroying the democratic revolution in Afghanistan and destabilizing the former Soviet Union. From 1982 to 1990 the U.S. acknowledges providing Pakistan $5.4 billion mostly in covert military aid. ³ Since then, Pakistan has provided troops and trained mercernaries to fight against Iraq, Somalia, Yugoslavia and in Chechnya. Therefore, it should not surprise anyone that Pakistan could also serve as a proxy against India.
India is one of the few developing nations to have built up something of an independent economic base. Through its large state-owned industries, it has been able to develop its scientific and technological know-how to the point of launching its own satellites into space. Like China, India offers a large market which, until 1990, remained largely out of bounds for full-scale western penetration. In order to break down the large state-owned sector of the Indian economy, the U.S. has been pushing for rapid privatization and the complete dismantling of trade barriers through mechanisms like the WTO, and international lending agencies like the IMF and the World Bank. Supporting separatist tendencies is another way to undermine the strength and independence of the Indian economy.

Unlike the U.S., India's banks, insurance companies, airlines, railways, ports, power companies, telephone companies, mines, major manufacturing companies, and universities have been predominantly state-owned. With the defeat of socialism and collective property relations in the Soviet Union, it was to be expected that the U.S. and its allies would turn their attention to countries like India with their once highly regulated economies and significant state ownership of the means of production. Although India did not go through a full scale socialist revolution, the Indian bourgeoisie realized that without centralizing planning and state intervention, they could never hope to develop an industrial economy of any consequence.
Today, armed insurgencies have greatly weakened the ability of the Indian state to expend as much money and energy to build up the national infrastructure. This has slowed the pace of growth and development and precipitated demands for rapid privatization and reliance on foreign investment. This has been a significant byproduct of U.S. support for secessionist movements in Punjab, Kashmir, and the Indian northeast. Pakistan has served as a willing partner in this largely covert endeavor, providing training grounds, logistical support, intelligence information, and incendiary propaganda for armed separatists. It is important to note that it is not essential for Pakistan that these areas actually be liberated, but rather that India be "kept bleeding". Pakistan's new military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, repeatedly described as a "moderate" by the CIA and Pentagon establishment, has confirmed this. In a 1998 speech to Pakistan's elite military cadets, the General stated that the acquisition of Kashmir by Pakistan could wait. It was more important to keep the Indian army bleeding in Kashmir just as the Afghan mujahidin kept the Soviet troops bleeding in Afghanistan. He added that even if the Kashmir issue were resolved, there still could not be normal relations between India and Pakistan because Pakistan would continue to be a thorn on India's flesh by frustrating India's ambition to emerge as a major Asian power on par with China and Japan. ⁴
Considering the close relationship between General Musharraf and the Pentagon, it is more than likely that this is as much an articulation of the view of the Pentagon as of the Pakistani military. Kashmir has been the perfect battleground for this covert and indirect attack against India. Although the western media have portrayed the Kashmiri "liberation movement" as a largely indigenous movement that represents popular aspirations, nothing could be further from the truth.

The Reality of Kashmir
Contrary to most reports in the media, Jammu & Kasmir (J&K) is not a state where only Kashmiri Muslims live. It is a multiethnic, multi=religious state with 64 percent Muslims, 33 percent Hindus, and 3 percent Buddhists, Sikhs Christians and others. There are three distinct geographical regions: Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir (from where more than 90 percent of the region's minorities, i.e. 3 percent of the state's total population, have been driven out). It is also a multilingual state where several languages are spoken in addition to Kashmiri, such as Ladakhi, Balti, Dogri, Gujari, Pahari, and Punjabi. Fifteen percent of the state's Muslims live in the provinces of Jammu and Ladakh. They are non-Kashmiris and, by in large, they stand behind J&K's association with India. Of the state's 49 percent who reside in the Kashmir province, about 13 percent are Shia Muslims. Shia Muslims wish to have little, if anything, to do with Sunni-dominated Pakistan, fearing the fate that awaits them there. ⁶

Support for separation is mainly concentrated amongst Sunni Muslims in the state capital Srinagar and the surrounding areas of the Kashmir valley. The reason many believe separatism to be a widespread sentiment in Kashmir is because this dominant minority has succeeded in completely drowning out all other voices in the state, and has the ability to cripple the normal functioning of civil society in Kashmir province, either by inaction or insufficient action against Pakistani infiltration and terror, or, worse still by sabotage. It is this section of the state's population that receives all the attention. But without the systematic external funding of armed mercernaries, and the international propaganda barrage, the so-called "Kashmiri liberation movement" would simply collapse. ⁷
While the primary purpose of this proxy war in Kashmir is to undermine India, Kashmir is also a strategic part of the greater central Asian region. Ladakh (in Kashmir) overlooks an important highway linking Tibet to China. For this reason, China was reluctant to provide Pakistan with the kind of public endorsement it was seeking. (An Islamic fundamentalist takeover of Kargil and Ladakh could just as easily spill over into China's Muslim majority regions.)

The Kargil Invasion
As part of a long chain of hostile actions directed against India, the Kargil invasion was completely consistent with Gen. Musharraf's stated policy of "making India bleed," and consistent with the Pentagon's goals of keeping India distracted with expensive border wars. But the public posture of "neutrality" by the State Dept made it seem as if the Kargil invasion was entirely India's doing. Although some were fooled by statements emanating from Washington calling on Pakistan to withdraw, the Clinton admininstration was hardly taking a pro-India stand. For two months, when Pakistani troops held the strategic advantage, and Indian soldiers and officers suffered high casulties, the U.S. made no attempt at reining in Pakistan. Instead, all the pressure was directed at India to "negotiate" with Pakistan and not to retaliate, even though India had every right to defend its sovereignty by retaliating against known terrorist training camps and other military targets in Pakistan.
Only when India had succeeded in turning the tables, when Pakistani troops had begun to flee their posts and surrender in quick succession, that in sheer desperation, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif went begging for help. He first approached China which failed to oblige. Then he turned to Washington where the Clinton administration arranged a safe passage deal with India and issued statements calling on Pakistan to withdraw. Soon after, when India shot down a Pakistani spy-plane after repeated incursions into Indian territory, all the U.S. diplomatic fire was directed at India rather than at Pakistan. It also should noted that the Kargil invasion took place while the U.S. was bombing Yugoslavia. India repeatedly condemned the bombing. And, like China and Russia, India called for an end to the assault against Yugoslavia. But, after the Kargil invasion, Indian diplomacy on Yugoslavia took a back seat. India also stepped back from trying to reinvigorate the Non-Aligned Movement. (Before the defeat of the Soviet Union, India had been a major player in NAM.) The Yugoslavia bombing led India's former Prime Minister I.K. Gujral to call for a strong response from NAM as a gesture of solidarity and respect for Yugoslavia, another important NAM member. But, embroiled in a war of its own, India was unable to make its opinion on Yugoslavia carry very far and was feeling overwhelming pressure to ignore these serious differences but instead to improve relations with the U.S.

Since the Kargil invasion in July 1999, there has been a spate of attacks against Indian facilities by Pakistani-sponsored terrorists and suicide squads. The December 24, 1999 airplane hijacking by Pakistani nationals is yet another instance of this escalating morale-sapping proxy war. Although India has so far succeeded in preserving its international borders, it has come at a heavy cost. And the process of economic liberalization dictated by the U.S. and its allies has not only continued unabated, it has accelerated. Although the U.S. expects the continuation of these proxy wars to deepen and speed up India's external liberalization, at some point this strategy may backfire. The Indian public may see through the machinations and adopt a more nationalist position vis-à-vis the U.S. By in large, India remains a secular nation and the majority have little sympathy for "Islamic Jihad". In the present unipolar world, India's bumbling govts may seem easy prey for India's enemies. But a nation of almost one billion people with a rich and vibrant past is unlikely to accept neo-colonial domination for very long.

Islamic Fundamentalism
The forces of Islamic fundamentalism do not represent the future of the Indian subcontinent but the last gasps of a feudal and clerical elite that is unable to accept the inexorable path toward greater demcratization. These forces are often aligned with right wing military dictators (as in Indonesia & Pakistan) or else they provide idealogical cover to emerging fascist tendencies that often develop in economies transitioning from primarily agricultural mode of production to primitive capitalism (as in Kashmir). Often, these forces are funded and fueled by external agents, becoming easy pawns for imperialism. It is largely U.S. support that has temporarily enabled the feudal rulers of the Persian Gulf and their ideological kin in Pakistan to survive in spite of the democratic currents that were unleashed when the anti-colonial revolutions swept the former colonies.
It would be unfortunate if some progressives in the U.S. saw in the ideologically bankrupt forces any liberating tendencies. The treatment of women as virtual slaves in Talibanized Afghanistan or the gender apartheid such as in Iran and Saudi Arabia, are stark warnings of what may come about if Kashmir were to fall victim to this trend. For all its faults, India offers the people of Kashmir much more than they could get from unity with Pakistan. In 1947, Jamp;K was at the bottom of the economic ladder in India. In 1960-61, it ranked 11th among 16 states of India in per capita income; in 1971-72, 14th among 24 states. But, with generous assistance from the central govt, it had improved its position to 7th by 1981-82, surpassing industrial West Bengal, A.P., Karnataka and Tamil Nadu! ⁸

Kashmir's literacy at 59% is much higher than Pakistan's 44% ⁹ In general, India's social indicies are many notches ahead of Pakistan's. In spite of being deprived of the subcontinent's best agricultural lands, per capita calorie intake in India is now higher and infant mortality is lower. India has made greater strides in developing its infrastructure, whether it is in railways, telecommunications or mass media. Indians are now more likely to have access to a telephone, color TV or cable TV. They are also less indebted to the international finance community. Per capita hard currency debt in Pakistan is more than double India's. Being a secular state, India has devoted far more importance to scientific education and research. ¹⁰ For example, in Pakistan, 4500 out of 5000 Ph.D.s awarded since independence were in Islamic studies, i.e. less than 500 were in the sciences. In India, 40,000 out of 75,000 Ph.D.s awarded were in the sciences, and only a fraction of the other 35,000 were in religious studies. This means that, although India's population is about six times that of Pakistan's, it has produced more than 80 times more Ph.D.s in the sciences than has Pakistan.
Those who care about the people of the subcontinent would do well to defend India against the coercive tactics of the U.S. and the tactics of organized terror by its regional proxies in the Pakistan clergy and military.

1)   The Cairo summit convened on May 12,1998; Editorials on India's nuclear tests appeared in several Cairo dailies. See "Revolution against the World", commentary supporting India's nuclear tests by Abdel Rahman in Al Ahram, May 20, 1998; Also Abdel Murad's commentary in Al Akhbar, May 31, 1998 and Editorial in Al Ahram, May 31, 1998 http://www.meadev.gov.in/govt/reaction_m_ht ml. See also Kuldip Nayar, India: The Critical Years (New Delhi: Vikas, 1971)
2)   See Lawrence Lifshultz, The Unfinished Revolution (London: Zed Press 1979)
3)   The $5.4 billion sum is mentioned in the Congressional Quarterly, May 16, 1992, p1352 (The actual figure may be much higher since additional aid was sent through covert channels by the CIA.)
4)   Report on General Musharraf by B. Raman (presently, Dir. Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai; formerly with the Government of India).
5)   An October 4 Hindustan Times report cited Pakistan's Shoora Wahdat-I-Islami (Council of Islamic Unity), which condemned what it called the genocide of Shias in Pakistan.
6)   The breakup of the Muslim population in Kashmir province is based on the data in "Ethnic Identities and Political Deadlock in Jammu & Kashmir", by Hari Om, Indian Defence Review (New Delhi) 1997.
7)   See Stratfor Intelligence Reports for Pakistan's sponsorship of terrorists in India.
8)   Statistical Year Book of India, 1983; also see corresponding progress in literacy (data available on National Literacy Mission's web site).
9)   Kashmir's literacy estimated by the National Literacy Mission., 1999; Pakistan's literacy from 1998 Pakistan Govt Census.
10)   Udayan Namboodri, Hindustan Times July 13, 1999 (quoting UNDP estimates for per capita calorie intake, infant mortality, and per capita external debt). Figures on telecom and TV penetration have been reported in the Economic Times of India.

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