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From the Publisher
A Conversation with Husain Haqqani
Husain Haqqani is a former Pakistani ambassador to the US. Through his illustrious career that has spanned decades, he has worked as a journalist, an academic and advisor to four Pakistani prime ministers, including Benazir Bhutto. In his new book India v/s Pakistan: Why can't we just be friends? Mr. Haqqani presents his views on the last seven decades of India-Pakistan relations. His book is a must read for those interested in understanding the history of the tenuous relationship between the two nations and how each side views the other. An excerpt from an interview with the author.
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Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2016
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Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2016
The first two chapters expose his lack of basic understanding of given issues. For instance, on page 24, chapter one, “We can either be more than friends or become more than enemies” Haqqani writes: “[I]t was argued that the boundary in Punjab had deliberately been drawn in a way that provided India access to Kashmir by land. Although Pakistan had played its cards poorly in securing accession of Kashmir, the loss of the Muslim-majority state was attributed to a British-Indian conspiracy rather than poor planning on the part of the Muslim League.” Here, Haqqani overlooks the fact that as per the June 3, 1947 plan, the partition was supposed to be governed by the matter of principle and not by the matter of shrewdness or manipulation done by any political party to grab as much area as possible.
By giving India road access to Kashmir, the Radcliffe Award published on August 17, 1947, violated the trust pinned on the committee, and hence cleared the path for India to take hold of Kashmir under whatever ruse. The story of India’s having the Instrument of Accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh, the ruler of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, came weeks later that on October 26.
Similarly, on page 39, Haqqani writes that Indira Gandhi was “magnanimous at Shimla” with Pakistan by giving concessions through the Shimla Agreement 1972. Here, Haqqani evades the fact that the price of Gandhi’s magnanimity was the relegation of the Kashmir issue from an international standing to a bilateral spot, as articulated in the United Nation (UN) Resolution 1172 passed on June 6, 1998.
Similarly, on page 44, chapter two, “Kashmir is Pakistan’s jugular vein,” Haqqani writes: “Pakistanis speak about Jammu and Kashmir emotionally as a matter of right and wrong, not in the context of realpolitik.” Here Haqqani overlooks the fact that the then prime minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru made a pledge on November 2, 1947 with the people of Kashmir, and reiterated the same on December 31 to hold a plebiscite under an international neutral body to let them express their wishes freely about the future of their princely state. The primary thing for Kashmiris was the promise of Nehru, whereas what is written in the UN resolutions or in the Shimla agreement is of secondary importance. By reneging on the promise, India breached the trust of Kashmiris. This point made Kashmiris feel cheated, and this was how India lost credibility in the eyes of Kashmiris, a reason for frequent unrest in the Indian-held Kashmir. Instead of addressing Pakistanis, Haqqani should inform Kashmiris that they are the victim of India’s realpolitik, a system of politics that disregards morality.
The next two chapters of the book have more blatant contradictions. For instance, on page 73, chapter three, “We should use the nuclear bomb,” Haqqani writes: “India’s nuclear programme also originated not out of a regional rivalry, but from the argument that non-proliferation should be global.” However, on page 81, he contradicts his excuse: “In a letter to US President Bill Clinton, Vajpayee spoke only of China as the major threat to India and that was to secure US support, given US concerns about potential long-term rivalry with China in the Indo-Pacific region.” Interestingly, about Pakistan, on page 101, Haqqani writes: “Pakistan built nuclear weapons in its uncompromising quest for parity with India and in response to its fear psychosis about India wanting to undo Partition.” It is as if the matter of parity and any fear psychosis of India were absent in India’s response towards China.
On page 102, Haqqani gives a solution: “For its part, India has done little to reassure Pakistanis and to take away the justification for a nuclear arms race.” However, on the question if India can reassure Pakistanis to forgo the yearning for parity and shun fear psychosis, why China cannot reassure Indians the same, the book is silent.
Similarly, on page 111, chapter four, “Terrorism = Irregular Warfare,” Haqqani writes: “India’s role in helping Bangladesh win independence, including the role of R&AW, is well documented. Equally well documented is the ill-treatment of Bengalis by Pakistan’s Punjab-based leaders, which paved the way for plans by R&AW’s founding chief, Rameshwar Nath Kao, to train and equip the Bangladesh liberation army, the Mukti Bahini. The lesson to be learned from the Bangladesh war should have been to avoid creating disgruntled citizens who might become insurgents trained by a hostile neighbour.” However, on page 128, Haqqani states, “India could, but has so far been unable to, reach out to the Pakistani people and convince them that it does not seek Pakistan’s break-up and only seeks good neighbourly ties.”
Interestingly, on the one hand, Haqqani cites an example how India exploited the situation in East Pakistan to separate it from West Pakistan, while on the other, he asks India to placate (West) Pakistanis that India was not conspiring against Pakistan. Haqqani overlooks the fact that both Pakistan and India are composed of multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic populations that may get disgruntled on one reason or another in the post-partition phase. If a country exploits the discontented elements of its neighbour, a wrong precedent is established, as India set in 1971. However, on the question if Pakistan reciprocates in the same vein why Pakistan is accused of launching an irregular warfare, the book is silent.
On page 153, chapter five, “The space for friendship is shrinking,” Haqqani writes: “All nations have sovereign equality in international law but realpolitik demands acknowledgement of the difference of size between nations.” Throughout the book, Haqqani superimposes realpolitik on everything to justify India’s malevolence, and here he once again banks on the same to reveal that the criterion of fathoming a nation’s worth was in fact its size, the idea not known to the UK when it was offsetting Germany in Europe.
This is not the end of the story. Haqqani is of the view that the Kashmir issue is a symptom and not a cause of acerbic ties between Pakistan and India, as mentioned on page 46, where he writes: “At closer examination, Kashmir is not the cause of conflict between the two states but rather a symptom of it.” That with the departure of bitter causes, the Kashmir issue being a symptom would automatically dissipate. In other words, the solution to the Kashmir issue is not an essential prerequisite for forging normal ties with India.
To substantiate his stance, Haqqani gives two main causes that engendered the conflict. The first cause was the mass murder of refugees while crossing the borders of Punjab and Bengal. For instance, on page nine, hewrites: “[T]he communal riots accompanying Partition resulted in at least half a million deaths and 10-14.5 million refugees, Muslims move to Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs to India... Those affected by the Partition violence in each country became a constituency for anger, bitterness and hostility towards the other. In Pakistan’s case that included most of its early political leaders, senior civil servants and many military officers.”
The second cause was India’s denying Pakistan the due share of assets. For instance, on page 17, Haqqani writes: “The Partition Plan of 3 June 1947 had given only seventy-two days for transition to Independence. But Pakistan, unlike India, did not have a functioning capital, central government or financial resources.” These were the two main causes that engendered bitterness, the expression of which was the Kashmir issue. Taken these two causes together, Haqqani has presumed that if the refugees had not suffered and the assets-delivery problem had not happened, bitterness in Pakistan against India would not have prevailed, and consequently, there would have been no Kashmir issue.
Interestingly, in this context of cause and effect relationship, on page 22, Haqqani negates a part of his own theory that the stoppage of the delivery of assets was the cause of the Kashmir conflict when he writes: “For some the dispute over Kashmir was a godsend. Patel, already unfavourably disposed to Pakistan, argued that Pakistan was now virtually at war with India and no country could be expected to arm or fund an adversary in the middle of war. This resulted in India withholding Pakistan’s share of assets located in India due to them under the Partition scheme.” That is, by blocking the delivery of due assets — after the Indian army landed in Kashmir on October 27 — India tried to stop Pakistan from or punish Pakistan for sending its army to Kashmir. However, Pakistan did not care about that.
This point alone shows that the Kashmir issue was not the symptom but the third cause on the list of sequential causes that contributed to the bitterness of partition. In fact, the first war Pakistan and India fought in 1947-1948 was on Kashmir, and not on the borders of Punjab and Bengal. Secondly, this war was fought on the land of Kashmir for Kashmir, after India invaded Kashmir, and not on the denial of assets. Thirdly, this war was not only the first Kashmir war between Pakistan and India but also the first Pak-India war on any issue. Fourthly, Pakistan fought this war despite being deprived of military assets and a decade before Pakistan joined defence alliances such as SEATO in 1954 and CENTO in 1955, which flooded Pakistan with weapons.
The transfer of the Kashmir issue from cause to symptom or effect is a deliberate attempt to reduce the importance and to attenuate the severity of the issue, the cost of which is being borne directly by Kashmiris living in the Indian-held Kashmir. The rationale for Haqqani’s such stance — the premise-conclusion relationship — can be understood when he delineates an itinerary for the issue’s resolution, as on page 61, he writes: “The experience of other countries embroiled in similar disputes indicates that the ‘friendship’ first approach works more effectively than ‘settlement first’.” This was a borrowed idea originally expounded by Professor Louis Kriesberg who invited attention of the world towards his theory of deescalation, which he propounded in the beginning of the post-Cold War era.
In 1991, on page 17 of the introduction chapter of his book, Timing the De-escalation of International Conflicts (co-ed with Stuart Thorson) Kriesberg writes: “The issues vary also in perceived importance — from vital to peripheral matters... It appears that in the long course of an international conflict relationship, effective de-escalation at the early stages of accommodation is achieved more often in peripheral issues than vital ones. Once some accommodative agreements have been reached, more significant ones can be attained ...Linkage among many issues seems to work better after the overall intensity of a conflict has been reduced.” That means that the effective approach to the resolution of intractable issues is to resolve peripheral issues before the central issue. Kriesberg’s theory was considered a prophetic solution to all international intractable conflicts. Subsequently, everyone started seeing the utility of his theory in their sphere of study or concern.
Interestingly, over the period of two decades, Kriesberg has improved his theory, which now calls for the necessary involvement of a third party (one or multiple) to mediate. In 2012, on page 215 of chapter eight of his book, Constructive Conflicts: From Escalation to Resolution (co-author Bruce W Dayton) Kriesberg writes: “Just a few decades ago mediation as a formal conflict management method was limited largely to labour-management relations. Today, mediation is applied across virtually all conflict domains... Mediation is a conflict management process whereby an outsider intervenes in a conflict to help the adversaries to negotiate an agreement themselves. Mediators are generally expected to help the adversaries construct a mutually acceptable agreement and to avoid being advocates for one side or one solution.” Hence, in his book, the mode recommended by Husain Haqqani to solve the Kashmir issue is two decades old, and hence is insufficient and inapplicable in today’s age. For its resolution, the Kashmir issue now necessarily needs a third party intervention.
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A pathetic book, an expression of the lack of scholarship
By Qaisar Rashid, Dr on August 11, 2016
This is the third book of Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ex-ambassador to the US. The book in five chapters is without proper referencing, and is a hodgepodge of Haqqani’s views already published in various publications.By Qaisar Rashid, Dr on August 11, 2016
The first two chapters expose his lack of basic understanding of given issues. For instance, on page 24, chapter one, “We can either be more than friends or become more than enemies” Haqqani writes: “[I]t was argued that the boundary in Punjab had deliberately been drawn in a way that provided India access to Kashmir by land. Although Pakistan had played its cards poorly in securing accession of Kashmir, the loss of the Muslim-majority state was attributed to a British-Indian conspiracy rather than poor planning on the part of the Muslim League.” Here, Haqqani overlooks the fact that as per the June 3, 1947 plan, the partition was supposed to be governed by the matter of principle and not by the matter of shrewdness or manipulation done by any political party to grab as much area as possible.
By giving India road access to Kashmir, the Radcliffe Award published on August 17, 1947, violated the trust pinned on the committee, and hence cleared the path for India to take hold of Kashmir under whatever ruse. The story of India’s having the Instrument of Accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh, the ruler of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, came weeks later that on October 26.
Similarly, on page 39, Haqqani writes that Indira Gandhi was “magnanimous at Shimla” with Pakistan by giving concessions through the Shimla Agreement 1972. Here, Haqqani evades the fact that the price of Gandhi’s magnanimity was the relegation of the Kashmir issue from an international standing to a bilateral spot, as articulated in the United Nation (UN) Resolution 1172 passed on June 6, 1998.
Similarly, on page 44, chapter two, “Kashmir is Pakistan’s jugular vein,” Haqqani writes: “Pakistanis speak about Jammu and Kashmir emotionally as a matter of right and wrong, not in the context of realpolitik.” Here Haqqani overlooks the fact that the then prime minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru made a pledge on November 2, 1947 with the people of Kashmir, and reiterated the same on December 31 to hold a plebiscite under an international neutral body to let them express their wishes freely about the future of their princely state. The primary thing for Kashmiris was the promise of Nehru, whereas what is written in the UN resolutions or in the Shimla agreement is of secondary importance. By reneging on the promise, India breached the trust of Kashmiris. This point made Kashmiris feel cheated, and this was how India lost credibility in the eyes of Kashmiris, a reason for frequent unrest in the Indian-held Kashmir. Instead of addressing Pakistanis, Haqqani should inform Kashmiris that they are the victim of India’s realpolitik, a system of politics that disregards morality.
The next two chapters of the book have more blatant contradictions. For instance, on page 73, chapter three, “We should use the nuclear bomb,” Haqqani writes: “India’s nuclear programme also originated not out of a regional rivalry, but from the argument that non-proliferation should be global.” However, on page 81, he contradicts his excuse: “In a letter to US President Bill Clinton, Vajpayee spoke only of China as the major threat to India and that was to secure US support, given US concerns about potential long-term rivalry with China in the Indo-Pacific region.” Interestingly, about Pakistan, on page 101, Haqqani writes: “Pakistan built nuclear weapons in its uncompromising quest for parity with India and in response to its fear psychosis about India wanting to undo Partition.” It is as if the matter of parity and any fear psychosis of India were absent in India’s response towards China.
On page 102, Haqqani gives a solution: “For its part, India has done little to reassure Pakistanis and to take away the justification for a nuclear arms race.” However, on the question if India can reassure Pakistanis to forgo the yearning for parity and shun fear psychosis, why China cannot reassure Indians the same, the book is silent.
Similarly, on page 111, chapter four, “Terrorism = Irregular Warfare,” Haqqani writes: “India’s role in helping Bangladesh win independence, including the role of R&AW, is well documented. Equally well documented is the ill-treatment of Bengalis by Pakistan’s Punjab-based leaders, which paved the way for plans by R&AW’s founding chief, Rameshwar Nath Kao, to train and equip the Bangladesh liberation army, the Mukti Bahini. The lesson to be learned from the Bangladesh war should have been to avoid creating disgruntled citizens who might become insurgents trained by a hostile neighbour.” However, on page 128, Haqqani states, “India could, but has so far been unable to, reach out to the Pakistani people and convince them that it does not seek Pakistan’s break-up and only seeks good neighbourly ties.”
Interestingly, on the one hand, Haqqani cites an example how India exploited the situation in East Pakistan to separate it from West Pakistan, while on the other, he asks India to placate (West) Pakistanis that India was not conspiring against Pakistan. Haqqani overlooks the fact that both Pakistan and India are composed of multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic populations that may get disgruntled on one reason or another in the post-partition phase. If a country exploits the discontented elements of its neighbour, a wrong precedent is established, as India set in 1971. However, on the question if Pakistan reciprocates in the same vein why Pakistan is accused of launching an irregular warfare, the book is silent.
On page 153, chapter five, “The space for friendship is shrinking,” Haqqani writes: “All nations have sovereign equality in international law but realpolitik demands acknowledgement of the difference of size between nations.” Throughout the book, Haqqani superimposes realpolitik on everything to justify India’s malevolence, and here he once again banks on the same to reveal that the criterion of fathoming a nation’s worth was in fact its size, the idea not known to the UK when it was offsetting Germany in Europe.
This is not the end of the story. Haqqani is of the view that the Kashmir issue is a symptom and not a cause of acerbic ties between Pakistan and India, as mentioned on page 46, where he writes: “At closer examination, Kashmir is not the cause of conflict between the two states but rather a symptom of it.” That with the departure of bitter causes, the Kashmir issue being a symptom would automatically dissipate. In other words, the solution to the Kashmir issue is not an essential prerequisite for forging normal ties with India.
To substantiate his stance, Haqqani gives two main causes that engendered the conflict. The first cause was the mass murder of refugees while crossing the borders of Punjab and Bengal. For instance, on page nine, hewrites: “[T]he communal riots accompanying Partition resulted in at least half a million deaths and 10-14.5 million refugees, Muslims move to Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs to India... Those affected by the Partition violence in each country became a constituency for anger, bitterness and hostility towards the other. In Pakistan’s case that included most of its early political leaders, senior civil servants and many military officers.”
The second cause was India’s denying Pakistan the due share of assets. For instance, on page 17, Haqqani writes: “The Partition Plan of 3 June 1947 had given only seventy-two days for transition to Independence. But Pakistan, unlike India, did not have a functioning capital, central government or financial resources.” These were the two main causes that engendered bitterness, the expression of which was the Kashmir issue. Taken these two causes together, Haqqani has presumed that if the refugees had not suffered and the assets-delivery problem had not happened, bitterness in Pakistan against India would not have prevailed, and consequently, there would have been no Kashmir issue.
Interestingly, in this context of cause and effect relationship, on page 22, Haqqani negates a part of his own theory that the stoppage of the delivery of assets was the cause of the Kashmir conflict when he writes: “For some the dispute over Kashmir was a godsend. Patel, already unfavourably disposed to Pakistan, argued that Pakistan was now virtually at war with India and no country could be expected to arm or fund an adversary in the middle of war. This resulted in India withholding Pakistan’s share of assets located in India due to them under the Partition scheme.” That is, by blocking the delivery of due assets — after the Indian army landed in Kashmir on October 27 — India tried to stop Pakistan from or punish Pakistan for sending its army to Kashmir. However, Pakistan did not care about that.
This point alone shows that the Kashmir issue was not the symptom but the third cause on the list of sequential causes that contributed to the bitterness of partition. In fact, the first war Pakistan and India fought in 1947-1948 was on Kashmir, and not on the borders of Punjab and Bengal. Secondly, this war was fought on the land of Kashmir for Kashmir, after India invaded Kashmir, and not on the denial of assets. Thirdly, this war was not only the first Kashmir war between Pakistan and India but also the first Pak-India war on any issue. Fourthly, Pakistan fought this war despite being deprived of military assets and a decade before Pakistan joined defence alliances such as SEATO in 1954 and CENTO in 1955, which flooded Pakistan with weapons.
The transfer of the Kashmir issue from cause to symptom or effect is a deliberate attempt to reduce the importance and to attenuate the severity of the issue, the cost of which is being borne directly by Kashmiris living in the Indian-held Kashmir. The rationale for Haqqani’s such stance — the premise-conclusion relationship — can be understood when he delineates an itinerary for the issue’s resolution, as on page 61, he writes: “The experience of other countries embroiled in similar disputes indicates that the ‘friendship’ first approach works more effectively than ‘settlement first’.” This was a borrowed idea originally expounded by Professor Louis Kriesberg who invited attention of the world towards his theory of deescalation, which he propounded in the beginning of the post-Cold War era.
In 1991, on page 17 of the introduction chapter of his book, Timing the De-escalation of International Conflicts (co-ed with Stuart Thorson) Kriesberg writes: “The issues vary also in perceived importance — from vital to peripheral matters... It appears that in the long course of an international conflict relationship, effective de-escalation at the early stages of accommodation is achieved more often in peripheral issues than vital ones. Once some accommodative agreements have been reached, more significant ones can be attained ...Linkage among many issues seems to work better after the overall intensity of a conflict has been reduced.” That means that the effective approach to the resolution of intractable issues is to resolve peripheral issues before the central issue. Kriesberg’s theory was considered a prophetic solution to all international intractable conflicts. Subsequently, everyone started seeing the utility of his theory in their sphere of study or concern.
Interestingly, over the period of two decades, Kriesberg has improved his theory, which now calls for the necessary involvement of a third party (one or multiple) to mediate. In 2012, on page 215 of chapter eight of his book, Constructive Conflicts: From Escalation to Resolution (co-author Bruce W Dayton) Kriesberg writes: “Just a few decades ago mediation as a formal conflict management method was limited largely to labour-management relations. Today, mediation is applied across virtually all conflict domains... Mediation is a conflict management process whereby an outsider intervenes in a conflict to help the adversaries to negotiate an agreement themselves. Mediators are generally expected to help the adversaries construct a mutually acceptable agreement and to avoid being advocates for one side or one solution.” Hence, in his book, the mode recommended by Husain Haqqani to solve the Kashmir issue is two decades old, and hence is insufficient and inapplicable in today’s age. For its resolution, the Kashmir issue now necessarily needs a third party intervention.
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