By Amjed Jaaved
India is reluctant to talk to Pakistan eyeball-to-eyeball. Nor is it amenable to third-party mediation. What Mahabharata, Kautlia or India’s own foreign secretaries call for?
Obduracy is a hallmark of fools: Kautliya is mis-portrayed as inflexible because of his certain hypotheses, explained heretofore. Kautiyan mandala (circle, group) doctrine is a detailed treatise on inter-state relations. But, it is summed up as epithet ‘all neighbouring countries are actual or potential enemies’. Chanakya viewed mandala combination of several concentric or intersecting circles. His concepts are akin to Henry Kissinger’s realpolitik, `spheres of influence’. Where two circles intersect is the area of common dynamic, volatile interest. Mandala could best be defined as `interrelationship among various states under varying circumstances’. Another Kautliyan hypothesis is matsy nyaya or machh nyaya (‘way of the fish’, big fish eats the small one).
But, the harsh truth is that Chanakya was no fool. He subjugated all his thoughts to overriding consideration of ‘common sense’ or ‘ingenuity of mind’. In Kautliyanage, the Indians abhorred travel abroad or sea journeys. Kautliya improved his breadth of his vision by extensive travel and discussions with people of different nationalities, particularly Grecians of the Seleucusian age. Kautliya says,’ Man’s glory is in common sense, dictating us the grace that man is made to live and love the beauteous Heaven’s embrace”.
Price India paid for inflexibility: Several times in history, India had to shun inflexibility and beg for mediation. India herself rushed to the United Nations for help against `raiders’ (Akbar Khan, Raiders in Kashmir). In 1962, battered by Chinese troops at North Eastern Frontier Agency (Arunachal Pradesh), New Delhi rushed to US President John F. Kennedy for “two squadrons of B-47 bombers” and “12 squadrons of supersonic fighters manned by American crew” (Herald, Karachi, March 1, 2019).
Unable to remove Pakistani fighters from Kargil heights, including Tiger Hill, India again approached the United States with a muffled request for help during the Kargil crisis: Renowned journalist Barkha Dutt, in her book, This Unquiet Land: Stories from India’s Fault Line says: “The former Indian National Security Advisor Brajesh Misra during an interview to NDTV revealed that a letter given to President Clinton by PM Vajpayee [in Kargil quandary] had hinted that India was contemplating crossing the Line of Control as well as using nuclear weapons if Pakistan did not pull out the fighters from Kargil.” This is also quoted in Foreign Policy (July 31, 2016). And, yet, India celebrates Kargil Victory each year.
Common sense in military history: History tells us that common sense meant different things to different military commanders: (a) Leonidias of Spartas (died 480 BC). ‘I know enemy archers are so numerous that the flight of their arrows darkens the sun. So much, the better. We shall fight them in shade’. (b) Sun Tzu. ‘War is an art, not an exact science. Know the enemy and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles without a defeat’. (c) Alexander (3356-323 BC). ‘I was interested in warfare strategy. But, Aristotle smothered my interest. He taught me flora and fauna (botany and zoology, plus how to uses my senses’ He taught me ‘all non- Greeks should be slaves’ (I disobeyed Aristotle by marrying a barbarian Persian woman Rexonne). Aristotle brought home one lesson ‘Macedonia is too small for me. I have to look out for a kingdom worthy of myself’. (d) Hannibal (247-183 BC). `I never require others to do what I could not and would not do myself’. (Scipio Africanus (236-183 BC). Never collide with an enemy force head on. When at all, you so do, win’. (e) Gaius Marius (157-86 BC). ‘Contrary to law and custom, I enrolled in my army poor men with no property qualifications. (f) Julius Caesar (100-44BC). ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’. (g) Arminus (18BC to AD 19). ‘My fight has been open, not treacherous, and against men, not women’. (g) Claudius (10BC to AD 54). ‘I ensured that no future emperor could rule without support of the army’. (h) Attilla the Hun (AD 406-453). ‘Where I have passed, the grass will not grow again’. Belasarius (AD 505-565). ‘With just 8,000 men, I held Rome against a force of 50,000 Goths’. (j) Saladin 1137/38-1193). ‘I would rather be famed for skill and prudence than for mere audacity’. (k) Genghis Khan (1162-1227). ‘I knew the importance of horses and meadows for mobility and importance of Chinese engineers for siege craft. I consolidated my rule by slaughtering en masse those who stood against me’, sparing harmless religious men. (l) Tamerlane (1336-1405). ‘As there is but one God in heaven, there ought to be but one ruler on earth’. (m) Gustavivus II of Sweden (1594-1632). ‘I am perhaps the first commander to integrate artillery with my infantry and cavalry at the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631)’. (n) Prince Rupert (1619-1682). ‘I am a scientist and an artist, a dashing cavalier’. (o) Napoleon Bonaparte 1769-1821). I understand importance of correct time-calculations well-fed soldier’s belly. At the battle of Lodi (1796), the little Corporal personally led the bayonet charge against the Austrian rearguard. At the battle of Austerlitz (1805), my 68,000 troops defeated 90,000 Austrians and Russians. ‘At the Battle of Waterloo (1815), I would have won if I had not delayed my attack from early morning until noon to allow the field to dry efficiently for my cavalry to charge. This would have given the Prussian forces under Field Marshall Gebhard Leberecht von Bucher the time they needed to reach the battlefield.’ Power remained my mistress until my calculations went awry because of misunderstandings of my companions. (p) Heinz Guderian (1888-1954). If the tanks succeed, then victory follows’. (q) Erwin Rommel (1891-1944). My motto is ‘I must not stand still or we are lost’. On October 26, 1917, I bayonet-charged Italian mountain stronghold of Caporetto with just 200 men. I captured 9,000 men and 81 heavy guns’. During the battle for France, with 42 Panzers and 2,500 men, my ‘ghost division’ took 100,000 prisoners and destroyed 450 enemy tanks along with thousands of other vehicles and artillery pieces. I would have taken Cairo if not starved of required tanks. Again I was starved of supplies and Panzer reserve when the allies landed at Normandy. (r) Mao Tse-Tung (1839-1976). ‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun’. (s)Vo Nguyen Giap (born 1912). ‘North Vietnamese Army losses in Vietnam were an estimated 900,000; that is, fifteen times those of the U.S. and five times the South Vietnamese army losses. That did not prevent me from invading Cambodia to end the genocidal regime of Pol Pot in 1978 and defending Vietnam’s northern border against the Chinese in 1979’. Look at me. ‘I could lose every battle and still win the war. US Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara had worked out that I was controlling the frequency and scale of engagements to keep my losses just below the birth rate, that way the Vietnamese could fight for ever’ (Nigel Cawthorne, Victory: 100 Great Military Commanders, 2003, Arcutus Publishing Limited, London)
Chanakya under nuclear age: Kautliya did not live in nuclear age. If he had, he would have suggested that conventional wars between nuclear-capable neighbours are useless. Resolving disputes with neighbours to pave way for peace is the only wise choice today for nations.
Unfortunately, India continues to believe in ineffectiveness of Pakistan’s nuclear capability against India’s capability. It wants to maintain three to one superiority in nuclear arsenal against his neighbours (a la Sun Tzu’s or Clausewitzt’s logic). Indian thinking is well reflected by Thalpya and Misra in their Select Battles in Indian History (page 761).
Options for India: Former Indian foreign secretary, Shyam Saran in his book How India Sees the World says, `Kautliyan template would say the options for India are sandhi, conciliation; asana, neutrality [masterly inactivity]; and yana, victory through war. One could add dana, buying allegiance through gifts; and bheda, sowing discord. The option of yana, of course would be the last in today’s world’ (p. 64, ibid.). It appears that Kautliya’s last-advised option is India’s first option nowadays.
What Indian foregin secretaries advise? Several Indian foreign secretaries, besides Shyam Sarn, have expressed ennui n India’s obdurate attitude.
History tells when negotiations stall, war results. After the war, most warriors realise that it was avoidable. India could learn this bitter reality from Europe that has been in throes of war or at daggers drawn for so long. Even India’s own history calls for resilience. At the time of partition, India faced insurgency in many states (North-East, East Punjab, and Dravidian South, besides still on, Naxalbaris movement). India agreed to insurgents’ demands for creation of new states. Just recall number of Indian state at partition and now. India’s Governor General Mountbatten offered a plebiscite in Kashmir, Hyderabad and Junagadh (November 1, 1947, at Government House, Lahore). Around that time, India’s ministry-of-states secretary, V.P. Menon, offered: `Kashmir to Pakistan; Hyderabad to India’. However, Pakistan, at its firebrand foreign minister Sir Zafarullah’s insistence, missed the offer. In later period, also, India’s foreign minister Swaran Singh, and Ayub Khan discussed some conciliatory proposals that died with Nehru’s death.
The historical lesson is that Pakistan lost Hyderabad and even Eastern wing because of its rigid policies. India stayed afloat because of flexibility. Zafarullah believed we could have Kashmir and remote control Junagadh and Hyderabad. Let India listen to its own foreign secretaries, if not to Pakistan or the world around.
Foreign Secretary and national-security advisor Shiv Shankar Menon:. He ruled out `a military solution’ as option to settle India-Pakistan disputes. Menon said so while participating in a panel discussion alongside Pulitzer Prize winning American author and academic Steve Coll and US journalist and author Peter Bergen. His remarks are an affront to civilian hawks and its army chief’s gung-ho statements.
Foreign secretary Jagat S. Mehta: Mehta understood India’s abhorrence to word ‘plebiscite’. So he presented some proposals to serve as requirements for evolving a solution after a period of ten years. His proposals are contained in his article “Resolving Kashmir in the International Context of the 1990s” Some points of his quasi-solution are: (a) Pacification of the valley until a political solution is reached. (b) Conversion of the LoC into “a soft border permitting free movement and facilitating free exchanges…” (c) Immediate demilitarization of the LoC to a depth of five to ten miles with agreed methods of verifying compliance. (d) Final settlement of the dispute between India and Pakistan can be suspended (kept in a “cold freeze”) for an agreed period. Voracious readers may refer for detail to Robert G Wirsing, India, Pakistan and the Kashmir Dispute (1994, St Martin’s Press, New York pp. 225-228).
Foreign secretary JN Dixit: As quoted in Victoria Schofield’s book Kashmir in the Crossfire, he says ‘it is no use splitting legal hair. Everybody who has a sense of history knows that legality only has relevance up to the threshold of transcending political realities. And especially in inter-state relations… so to quibble about points of law and hope that by proving a legal point you can reverse the process of history is living in a somewhat contrived utopia. It won’t work.’
Foreign secretary: Krishnan Srinivasan: In an article, he outlines ‘Lessons for Kashmir from the Kuriles’ (The Hindu dated January 7, 2019). Srinivasan points out ‘Russia has for long been Japan’s hypothetical enemy’. But, the two countries are no longer at daggers with regard to Kurile Islands dispute. Four islands in the Kurile chain are claimed by Japan but occupied by Russia as successor state of the Soviet Union. ‘Despite the passage of over 70 years, this dispute has defied solution and prevented the conclusion of a Russo-Japanese peace treaty to draw a final curtain over the detritus of the war’. The Russians have deployed submarines and missile systems in disputed islands to preclude American intervention.
Moscow erects its claim on the post-war settlements of Yalta and San Francisco. Japan bases its claim on Russia-Japan treaties of 1855 and 1875.
After Mr. Putin’s visit to Japan in 2016, both leaders embarked on some joint undertakings on the islands without delving into entrenched legal position. They agreed to joint field surveys, joint economic activities and three levels of supervision. The cooperation covers marine species and aquaculture, greenhouse strawberry and vegetable cultivation, tourism, wind power generation, the reduction and disposal of garbage.
The cooperation, despite US reservations, is amazing. Moscow fears: (a) Tokyo amending Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, which disallows Japan from maintaining or using a military force to settle international disputes, (b) Japan is among the world’s biggest spenders on defence. It plays host to American bases and missile systems, and plans to spend $240 billion up to 2024 on cruise missiles, missile interceptors, fighter jets and aircraft carriers.
Both Japan and Russia are pursuing greater collaboration, despite US displeasure at Japan’s accommodating attitude towards Russia. Srinivasan observes ‘although no two international problems are analogous, there are important lessons to be drawn from the manner in which traditionally hostile neighbours can identify common interests and explore unorthodox avenues along which to proceed in search of innovative solutions to apparently insoluble disputes. This requires strong leadership and a bold imagination. Neither India nor Pakistan lacks either attribute’.
Shyam Saran: India’s former foreign secretary Shyam Saran, in his book How India Sees the World (pp. 88-93) makes startling revelations . He recalls how Siachen Glacier and Sir Creek agreements could not fructify for lack of political will or foot dragging. He says ‘NN Vohra, who was the defence secretary at the time, confirmed in a newspaper interview that an agreement on Siachen had been reached. At the last moment, however, a political decision was taken by the Narasimha Rao government to defer its signing to the next round of talks scheduled for January the following year. But, this did not happen…My defence of the deal became a voice in the wilderness’.
Similarly, demarcation of Sir Creek maritime boundary was unnecessarily delayed. Saran tells ` if we accepted the Pakistani alignment, with the east bank of the creek as the boundary, then Pakistan would get only 40 per cent of the triangle. If our alignment according to the Thalweg principle was accepted, Pakistan would get 60 per cent. There was a keen interest in Pakistan to follow this approach but we were unable to explore this further when the Siachen deal fell through. Pakistan was no longer interested in a stand-alone Sir Creek agreement’ (Thalweg principle places the dividing line mid-channel in the river).
Conclusion: India’s bellicose policy is contrary to advice by Mahahabharata, Chanakya, or even India’s own foreign secretaries. India unilaterally included the disputed Kashmir state and Nepalese and Chinese territory into Indian maps. In Dogra footsteps, it heavily mlitarised Kashmir state to stifle dissent. To stifle the Kashmiri’s fighting spirit, the dogra (1846-1947) punished even Kashmiri children who played with fork-slings (ghulail in Urdu) and stones (Muhammad Yousaf Saraf, Kashmiris Fight for Freedom, vol. 1, p. 50). Under the dogra rule, the Kashmiri were treated no better than beasts of burden. The reign of terror by Indian forces (now estimated at about nine lac regulars and security personnel) who replaced the maharajah’s constabulary on October 27, 1947 is no less gruesome (abductions, custodial deaths, rapes, and pellet shelling)
But, neither India, nor the dogra could gag the Kashmir’s fighting spirit. The struggle for freedom goes on. Even if India wins a nuclear war, the victory would be pyrrhic. Peace not war with neighbours is the way out.
(Amjed Jaaved has been contributing free-lance for over five decades. His contributions stand published in the leading dailies and magazines (Global Village Space, Jehangir World Times) at home and abroad. He can be reached at: amjedjaaved@gmail.com)
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