The clouds of war, both real and
imagined, have thickened over the Indian sub-continent, and terrorism
is at the heart of the potential for a future outbreak of open
hostilities. There is, in fact, a great churning in progress in
South Asia, and it is in this context that the violence in the
region is to be understood. Indeed, the multiple and apparently
diverse chain of events that have been set in motion by 9/11 and
the American campaign in Afghanistan will have consequences far
beyond the expectations and calculations of the unimaginative
and substantially incompetent leadership of the two major rivals
in the region – though the structural correctives of a democratic
system in India may be better equipped to absorb the shocks of
transformation than the rigid, quasi-feudal military dictatorship
in Pakistan.
The first element in the current
transformation is the fact that the network of containment alliances
that had been forged by the US in the region has been significantly
altered. While Pakistan’s ‘frontline state’ status in the Cold
War equation has been transformed into an ostensible ‘frontline
state’ status in the US war against terrorism, the similarities
are specious. For one, Pakistan’s role in creating, supporting
and exporting terrorism is no secret, and despite official American
pronouncements and a desire to see Musharraf succeed in restoring
a measure of security and permanence in the flux of the country’s
turbulent politics, the American intelligence community remains
fully aware of the highly ambivalent role this state’s agencies
are still playing. No country – and this includes India – would
like to see Pakistan spiral into a ‘zone of chaos’ on the Afghan
pattern. There is, however, substantial scepticism and, indeed,
pockets of growing anger within the American strategic community
against Pakistan’s continuing ambivalence towards terrorism. Moreover,
the simple equations of the bipolar world have been completely
substituted by complex inter-relationships, and these include
intensifying co-operation between India and the US which excludes
the possibilities of the unequivocal support that Pakistan received
even in its most excessive adventures in the past. The long-term
trends in this context are still evolving, but the immediate future
will be characterised by increasing instability and jockeying
for positions, not only between India and Pakistan, but among
a number of external actors who seek an expanded role in the South
Asian region.
There is, at present, an inordinate
focus on Kashmir as the flashpoint around which much of the present
tension converges, but these contextual factors affect all the
major conflicts and trends in the region, including the multiplicity
of insurgencies in India’s Northeast, the Maoist terror in Nepal,
the course of negotiations with the LTTE in Sri Lanka, the terrorist
groupings and sectarian violence in Pakistan itself, and also
the patterns of transnational organised crime in the region. The
present volume assesses some of the divergent trends in the structures
of violence that afflict South Asia.
Ajai Sahni
New Delhi, May 29, 2002
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