Jaswant Singh on Indian Foreign Policy's "Strategic Confinement"

"The principal purpose and objectives of our (India's) foreign policy have been trapped between four lines: the Durand Line,; the McMahon Line; the Line of Control (LoC) and the Line of Actual Control (LAC). To achieve autonomy, an absolute necessity in the conduct of our foreign policy, we have to first find an answer to this strategic confinement".   Former Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh of India.

Mr. Jaswant Singh's quote above captures the essence of the former Indian Foreign Minister's 2013 book titled "India At Risk: Mistakes, Misconceptions and Misadventures of Security Policy". The book covers nearly seven decades of India's policymakers' obsession with its two nuclear-armed neighbors.

The Partition:

The book covers a lot of ground starting from the departure of the British colonial rulers and the partition of the sub-continent to the current situation in South Asia. Like many of his fellow Indians, it appears that  Mr. Singh has still not reconciled with the reality of partition and the creation of Pakistan as a sovereign and independent state. In the very first chapter of "India At Risk", Mr. Singh writes:

"By doing so (agreeing to partition), we then effectively forsook, rather destroyed, the essential security of a united Indian sub-continent, bound by the Himalayas in the north and the east, and the Indian Ocean as a shield to peninsular India. We failed to maintain as physically inviolable our natural geographical boundaries. In consequence, we created great subsequent national security challenges. It is self-evident that because of this one act, this artificial and rather irrational vivisection, we created for ourselves, such fundamental problems as challenge us till today."

India's Wars:

Mr. Singh offers the standard Indian narrative of events ranging from the 1962 war with China (which he blames on Nehru), the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan (for which he holds Pakistan responsible), , Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests in 1998, Kargil conflict in 1999 and   the usual narrative of "Pakistan-sponsored terrorism" for precipitating the 2002 India-Pakistan stand-off (and his heroics in averting a war).

PNS Ghazi: 

Among all of these narrations of events by Mr. Singh, there's one real revelation for me: the PNS Ghazi, the Pakistani submarine lost in 1971, was not sunk by the Indian Navy as was claimed at the time; it actually sank as a result of an accidental explosion while it was laying mines to block the Visakhapatnam Harbor in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

Durand Line:

Mr. Singh mentions Durand Line twice in his book; at the beginning and the end. It's the line that divides Pakistan and Afghanistan. While he writes at length about McMahon Line (along Tibetan section of China-India border) as well as Line of Actual Control (LAC between India and China outside the McMahon Line) and Line of Control (LOC in Kashmir between India and Pakistan), he does not elaborate on Durand Line at all. This begs the following questions:

Why does the Durand Line concern Indian policymakers?

Why is the Durand Line brought up by the author but not discussed?

Was Mr. Singh told  by Indian intelligence agencies  remove any discussion of it for fear of exposing their shenanigans along Durand Line?

What is India up to in border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan? Is it using Afghanistan as a "second front against Pakistan" as described by former US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel?

Why is the self-styled Baloch government in exile (whose leaders travel with Indian passports) so vehemently opposed to the Durand Line?

Summary:

Mr. Jasawnt Singh has covered a lot of ground and pointed out the failings of Indian policymakers in looking beyond India's immediate neighborhood, particularly their obsession with Pakistan and China. It also appears that he  been to forced by the Indian government to abstain from any discussion of India's proxy war against Pakistan via the Afghan territory.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Has Modi Stepped Up India's Cover War Against Pakistan?

Pakistan's Political and Military Policy Response to Peshawar Attack

Taliban or RAW-liban?

Respecting Rights of Fellow Humans: Huqooq ul Ibad in Islam

Counter-insurgencyOperation ZarbeAzb

India's Abiding Hostility Toward Pakistan 

India's Israel Envy: Will Modi Attack Pakistan?

Who Killed Karkare?

CFR's View of the Taliban

Rising Religious Intolerance Threatens Pakistan's Future

Rise and Fall of Islamic Civilization

The Prophet I Know

Quaid-e-Azam Vision of Pakistan Inspired by Misaq-e-Madina

Introspection of Pakistan's Creation

Sixty-plus years after the end of the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent, a number of authors, historians and scholars are now speaking or writing about the circumstances of India's partition, and the reasons for the creation of Pakistan in 1947.

Several of them, including Pakistani historian Ayesha Jalal and former Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh have offered their varying perspectives on the subject. Ayesha Jalal has called the creation of Pakistan a "mistake" and Jinnah a "great lawyer with feet of clay". Contrary to popular perception, Singh argues in his recent book "Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence", it was not Jinnah but Nehru's "highly centralized polity" that led to the Partition of India.

Ayesha Jalal has argued that the partition of India -- the event that created Pakistan -- was an accident, a huge miscalculation. Further, she has insisted that Jinnah never wanted a separate Muslim state; he was only using the threat of independence as a political bargaining chip to strengthen the voice of the Muslim minority in the soon-to-be sovereign India, a view shared by Jaswant Singh in his recent book on Jinnah and partition. Unlike Jalal, however, Singh lauds Jinnah as a "great Indian" and blames Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel for the partition. In his book "India Wins Freedom", Maulana Azad also singled out Patel as "the real flag bearer" of partition.

And now, veteran Pakistani writer Afzal Tauseef, who has been honored by Pakistan with "Pride of Performance" award for her service to the nation, has added her voice in a recent interview with Newsline. In her provocative style, she argues that Pakistan was created to preserve the interests of the big landowners in Punjab and Sind, and to serve the interests of the landowning class that would have been threatened by Nehru's insistence on land reform. Tauseef explains in the following words: "I personally think that if Nehru had not included land reforms in his program, Pakistan would never have been created. The country was made so that the jagirdari system could remain intact. The jagirdars, who were all protégées of the British, knew that if left in the Congress fold, they would be wiped out since at that time Marxist thought was moving into the subcontinent. The Muslim League was a product of the British and the land-owning Nawabs. On the other side was America, who wanted something in return for the money it had given to the British during the war. They wanted an area where a new imperialism could be let loose. And this is what continues to this day. Now we are paying for it dearly."

The fact that the quest for Pakistan by the Muslim League won the crucial support of the powerful Unionist Party in Punjab, representing the interests of the feudal Punjabi zamindars and jagirdars, lends support to Tauseef's contention that "the country was made so that the jagirdari (feudal) system could remain intact".

Each of these authors has challenged the widely accepted "Two Nation Theory" in Pakistan as the basis for partition, attributing the event to other causes. Each of them has come under attack from various quarters for his or her work and pronouncements on this highly emotionally-charged subject. Almost all of these views are continuing to generate considerable controversy in South Asia.

Here is the complete text of Afzal Tauseef's recent interview with Nyla Daud published by Newsline:

Having spurned the government of Pakistan’s first offer in recognition of your literary merit some years ago, you have once again been nominated for the prestigious Pride of Performance this year. Will you accept the honor this time?

When a senior police officer representing Zia-ul-Haq came to me offering a Pride of Performance with a prize of eight murabbas of cultivatable landholding, I had refused pointblank. Because, one, all my life I had written against the very system that was being perpetuated by Zia. Two, my acceptance would have led to the indictment of 41 other comrades in the Libya Conspiracy Case in which I had been named a party. So, my answer had been that to be remembered as a freedom fighter and revolutionary were far greater awards. That having been named as the best teacher by 25,000 students was a far greater honour. That I did not care for the bait of a landholding because my grandfather had owned three villages in undivided India. That my late father who had been the Quaid’s security officer in Ziarat had made no claims against his ancestral holdings, despite being in a position to do so, even while others were making fortunes. But yes, now I will accept the Pride of Performance because I have been convinced by friends that the award comes as an honour not from the establishment, but from the country that I have fought for. That it is my right.

What has been the single, most powerful factor in the development of your political ideology?

Growing up in Balochistan, reading the world’s literature with teachers who were book lovers with a progressive bent of mind and acquiring the feel for the Marxist revolution and for social injustice that had already taken seed. But when I moved to Lahore as a teacher at the Lady Maclagan College in the late ’60s, the contrasts in society became more glaring. I realised that the Punjab, with its vast population of honest folk, was a hotbed of oppression perpetuated by good-for-nothing land owners aided by bureaucrats. They had all the power, all the wealth; the awam led miserable lives. I awakened to the reality and joined the rank and file of the Peoples Party as it rose up against the Ayub regime.

Those were exciting times and it was a unique experience to teach younger people who were looking for direction. I had been selected by the Public Service Commission for my lecturer’s position and, although we were not activists in the real sense of the word, the generally suspicious environment forced us to attend party meetings in burqas so as not to be detected, because there were spies everywhere.

Along with Shaheen, Haneef Ramay’s wife – whom I knew from my Quetta days – we formed the underground wing of the PPP. There were about 25,000 female members with us at the time of the crackdown. Then later, during the Zia regime, I was in the forefront of the Bhutto Bachao Tehreek because we wanted to save him at any cost. But even as lakhs of people agitated for the cause and received public lashings, we could not save him. In fact, this has been one of the greatest defeats I have suffered in my life.

The fact remains that Bhutto, your ideological hero, too failed democracy. As did his daughter Benazir.

Yes, in a way, because even during Bhutto’s lifetime, the PPP was on the way to being derailed. All the pioneers, the real persons behind the ideology were so disillusioned that, but for Sheikh Rasheed, they all went their separate ways. Hanif Ramay, one of the original PPP members, was subjected to torture in the Lahore Fort when Bhutto was in power. Dr Mubashir Hasan walked out, giving up a ministry when Bhutto sacked the NAP government in Balochistan. But Bhutto realised his mistake because when asked for his last wish, he had said, “Give me a pistol with 32 bullets and my central committee.”

Benazir, like Bhutto, disappointed although she suffered a lot. We were all for her but as soon as she took oath as prime minister, we realised that the position had been won on the basis of compromises. Benazir compromised with the very people who had killed her father. But had she not acceded to the American point of view, she would have remained in exile all her life, which might have been better in the long run. Her worst mistake was that she compromised on ideology, at the cost of the masses and, that too, at the behest of an imperialist power.

Today, there is no Peoples Party and Zardari’s promotion of Bilawal without in-house party elections is child’s play. It is a game like so many other games that the people have been fooled into accepting.

The Baloch cause, with its apparently anti-federation, separatist viewpoint, has always won your sympathy. Why?

Because Balochistan took me in when I was homeless, when I had no identity. It nurtured me, gave me an awakening and maturity of thought. I have seen how the rights of the Baloch have been trampled upon. Under such conditions, what do you expect? That they will be appeased by being given a hospital or bags of atta? You have to first dress their wounds, which have been festering for so long. Treat them as a part of Pakistan. By the way, Balochistan came to Pakistan only by one vote and that belonged to Akbar Bugti, who was ultimately annihilated by bombs. You don’t bomb your own countrymen like that.

As for representing Balochistan, Bugti (now dead), Marri (who is too old now) and Attaullah Mengal were the only people who had a genuine feeling for the land. Just because they rose up for the rights of the Baloch, they were put into prison, some of them for 25 years at a stretch. All they wanted were their rights in a Pakistan where provincial autonomy does not exist. Balochistan, Sindh and the Frontier province, all have the same grouse.

So the Punjab would be the villain of the piece and, in that case, where does the federation figure?

There never has been a federation and even the Punjab would have been better off with autonomy because I believe that provincial autonomy would strengthen democracy. That was what the Quaid had planned. As for my loyalties, I am all for the awam irrespective of the province they belong to. Punjab is my birthplace and it is to Punjab I owe my identity as a thinker and writer for which I have received so many awards. In fact, if I had not moved here, I would never have learnt to speak my mother tongue nor developed the courage to write in it. Punjabi brought me the friendship of people like Amrita Pretam who has written a book about me, calling me “the child of a lesser God” for my sensitivity in portraying the sensibilities of the masses. My Punjabi writings got me invited to India for an award, thereby giving me the chance of a lifetime to visit the village of my forefathers and relive the tragic ironies of their lives for having sacrificed life over loyalty to the homeland at the time of Partition.

In spite of all this you went to India to accept an award from the very people who had murdered your family and rendered you homeless ?

The Millennium Award people had arranged a very big function in my honour. I was sitting on the stage when they came up, putting their hands together as a gesture of apology. But I said that if you do so then I will also have to apologise because the same sort of cruelties were perpetuated here against the Sikhs and Hindus. The only difference is that those stories have not been written about on the Pakistani side of the border.

How would you review the academic scene in view of your 35-year experience as an educationist?

Zia-ul-Haq’s period was the darkest. At a personal level, I was haunted by the agencies to the extent that once I escaped by jumping over the walls of neighbouring houses at two in the morning. This led to a long period of hide-and-seek, ending only when I myself surrendered to the ISI in Quetta in order to save my sympathisers.

At the public level, one of the first things Zia did was to get together a bunch of pseudo literateurs and publicly tell them that Progressive literature and thought were mere rubbish that would eat up the system. Waris Mir died of shock when he saw the treatment being meted to progressive thought. But the most direct fallout happened when they started scratching away at the history and literature syllabi. They redesigned courses with the express notion of introducing very warped versions of Islamiyat as a subject. I was a sitting member of the Senate Committee on syllabi planning and I told them explictly that while one could somehow compromise on the removal of Faiz from the syllabi, why had we suddenly taken affront to some very beautiful expressions of Iqbal when in the same breath they continued to maintain that Iqbal gave the idea of Pakistan. When I persisted, they told me that the order for the removal of Iqbal’s verses like “Uththo Meree Dunya Kay Ghareebon Ko Jaga Do” had come from above! I maintained that it was not a divine order. So their next excuse was that Iqbal was too difficult to teach. I offered my services to prepare teachers of Iqbal if that was the problem. The very next day I was informed that I was no longer on the Senate Committee.

Where would you pin the cause for the state of things in Pakistan today?

Jagirdari and the jagirdari mindset, especially as it grew to gather political backing. It cost us a wing of the country. This system is an enemy of those with socially-awakened intellect. Nowhere else in the entire world can you find such an oppressive system. India put an end to it at the very beginning but our leaders continue to nourish it. I personally think that if Nehru had not included land reforms in his programme, Pakistan would never have been created. The country was made so that the jagirdari system could remain intact. The jagirdars, who were all protégées of the British, knew that if left in the Congress fold, they would be wiped out since at that time Marxist thought was moving into the subcontinent. The Muslim League was a product of the British and the land-owning Nawabs. On the other side was America, who wanted something in return for the money it had given to the British during the war. They wanted an area where a new imperialism could be let loose. And this is what continues to this day. Now we are paying for it dearly.

But the initial thought behind Pakistan was La illa ha illallah.

That slogan came much later when Liaquat Ali Khan passed the Qarardad-i-Maqaasid. The Quaid had seen Pakistan as a secular state, but within a year-and-a-half he was almost a helpless prisoner in Ziarat. My father was very close to him and I remember him quoting the Quaid as telling a group of students who had come to visit him in Ziarat, “Where is the Muslim League? This typewriter and myself?” The Quaid had never envisioned the Muslim League as a party of landowners. In fact, he was against the allotment of property to people against claims of things left behind in India during Partition. For this reason the rift between him and Liaquat Ali Khan grew to the extent that they were not even on talking terms towards the end. We all know how he was treated on his final journey from Karachi Airport to the governor general’s house.

What is your greatest concern today?

That Pakistan survives. That it is able to weather all the malicious intent directed at it. That the murder and mayhem rampant across its length and breadth may come to an end. I have always been against military intervention but today, there is so much at stake – the country, the people, the very culture – that I believe the army must act.

I also maintain that along with the overall influence of the imperialist powers in the face of a weakened awam, Mullahism is the most significant threat. Pakistan was not made solely for Muslims. The very fact that Muslims are daily at each other’s throats proves the point that there is no such thing as the Muslim collective. Today, society is just a configuration of the different statuses enjoyed by Muslims … the poor, the rich, the oppressed, the oppressors, the powerful and the powerless.

Your hypothesis reeks of disillusionment, meaning that your life-long activism led nowhere.

No, I still believe that the people who came under our influence will eventually rise to recreate the system. I am proud today of the number of students who learnt to think with me. My generation may have failed but I still see light at the end of the tunnel.

It is interesting to see the conventional historical narratives being challenged and analyzed in more depth on both sides of the divide in South Asia.

A serious introspection of events which led to the partition of India can either reopen or help heal the wounds, depending on how the mainstream scholars and leaders in the two nations choose to deal with history.

In my view, Pakistan is a reality that must be accepted, and supported by all to make it a peaceful, stable and prosperous nation, and to ensure regional peace and prosperity. A healing process in the subcontinent can do a lot of good for all of the people of South Asia. It can bring lasting peace between India and Pakistan, and potentially move the region toward a successful common market similar to the European Union.

Related Links:

Jaswant Lauds Jinnah

Feudal Slavery Survives in Pakistan

Ode to Feudal Prince of Pakistan

Is Pakistan Too Big to Fail?

Global Firepower

Jinnah's Pakistan Booms Amidst Doom and Gloom

Quaid-e-Azam M.A. Jinnah's Vision of Pakistan

India Wins Freedom by Maulana Azad

Ayesha Jalal Taking On Pakistan's Hero

The Poor Neighbor by William Dalrymple

Iqbal and Jinnah

Two Nation Theory

Jaswant Lauds Jinnah as "A Great Indian"

Jinnah was a great Indian.

Gandhi himself called Jinnah a great Indian. Why don't we recognize that?

Jinnah stood against the might of the Congress party and against the British who didn't really like him.

Jinnah was not against Hindus.

Indian Muslims are treated as aliens.

Nehru's insistence on centralized system led to India's partition.


Senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh has said Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah was "demonized" by India even though it was Jawaharlal Nehru whose belief in a centralized system had led to the Partition.

Jaswant, whose book "Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence", is being released today, also said Indian Muslims are treated as aliens.

"Oh yes, because he created something out of nothing and single-handedly he stood against the might of the Congress party and against the British who didn't really like him...Gandhi himself called Jinnah a great Indian. Why don't we recognize that? Why don't we see (and try to understand) why he called him that," Singh said, when asked by Karan Thapar in an interview whether he viewed Jinnah as a great man.
He said he did not subscribe to the popular "demonization" of Jinnah.
Singh, a former external affairs minister, feels India had misunderstood Jinnah and made a demon out of him.

Contrary to popular perception, Singh feels it was not Jinnah but Nehru's "highly centralized polity" that led to the Partition of India.

Asked if he was concerned that Nehru's heirs and the Congress party would be critical of the responsibility he was attributing to Nehru for Partition, Singh said, "I am not blaming anybody. I am not assigning blame. I am simply recalling what I have found as the development of issues and events of that period."
Singh contested the popular Indian view that Jinnah was the villain of Partition or the man principally responsible for it. Maintaining that this view was wrong, he said, "It is. It is not borne out of the facts...we need to correct it."
He feels Jinnah's call for Pakistan was "a negotiating tactic" to obtain "space" for Muslims "in a reassuring system" where they would not be dominated by the Hindu majority.

He said if the final decisions had been taken by Mahatma Gandhi, Rajaji or Maulana Azad -- rather than Nehru -- a united India would have been attained, he said, "Yes, I believe so. We could have (attained an united India)."
Singh said the widespread opinion that Jinnah was against Hindus is mistaken.
When told that his views on Jinnah may not be to the liking of his party, he replied, "I did not write this book as a BJP parliamentarian. I wrote this book as an Indian...this is not a party document. My party knows I have been working on this."

Singh also spoke about Indian Muslims who, he said, "have paid the price of Partition". In a particularly outspoken answer, he said India treats them as "aliens".

"Look into the eyes of the Muslims who live in India and if you truly see the pain with which they live, to which land do they belong? We treat them as aliens...without doubt Muslims have paid the price of Partition. They could have been significantly stronger in a united India...of course Pakistan and Bangladesh won't like what I am saying.

In his book, Singh says Pakistan's "induced" sense of hostility to New Delhi is now somewhat "mellowed" and it is ready to accept a greater understanding of the many oneness that bond it with India. However, he admits Pakistan had chosen terror as an instrument of state policy to be used as a tool of oppression.

"...nemesis had to visit upon such policy planks; that malevolent energy of terror, by whatever name you choose to call it, once unleashed had to turn back upon its creator and to begin devouring it," Singh writes in "Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence", which will hit the stands tomorrow.

"This has now converted Pakistan into the epicenter of global terrorism, sadly, therefore, Talibanization now eats into the very vitals of Pakistan," the 669-page book says.

"Its (Pakistan's) induced and perpetual sense of hostility to India is now somewhat mellowed, it is more confident of itself, therefore, accommodative and is now ready to accept a greater understanding of the many oneness and unities that bond India and Pakistan together. Or is it really ready? Dare I ask?" Singh questions.
The BJP, however, maintains that Pakistan has been responsible for terrorist acts against India by elements trained and funded from its soil.

Source: ExpressBuzz India

Here's a video clip of Former Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh discussing the current situation in Pakistan:



Related Links:

Iqbal and Jinnah

Jinnah's Pakistan Booms Amidst Doom and Gloom

Quaid-e-Azam M.A. Jinnah's Vision of Pakistan

Eleven Days in Karachi, Pakistan