Arts, Faculty of
Political Science, Department of
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Laliberté, André
Master of Arts - MA
University of British Columbia
This study looks at one instance of the security predicaments faced by many states in the Third World: primordialist challenges based on ethnicity, language or religion. More specifically, it discusses the impact of Hindu communalist organizations, especially the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on one issue of Indian domestic politics which is linked with its foreign policy: the problem of secessionism in Kashmir, which is allegedly supported by Pakistan. The thesis stated here is that while the BJP may represent a factor likely to complicate the task of the Indian state in its efforts to ensure socio-political cohesiveness over a culturally fragmented polity, the influence of that movement is very limited in sensitive areas of national security like foreign policy. The first chapter reviews the literature on conflicts in South Asia, with reference to Kashmir and the role played by Hindu communalist organizations. This overview identifies a methodological difficulty limiting our understanding of this conflict: the Euro-centric bias of the discipline of international relations theory. This bias is expressed by a tendency to overlook a major source of in security within most Third World states: the lack of socio-political cohesiveness. The continuum from strong to weak states established by Barry Buzan is brought forward in an attempt to over come this methodological difficulty because it points to the low degree of socio-political cohesive ness in weak states as a problem generating high levels of violence within and between states. As such, it seems relevant to analyze the impact of domestic cleavages on foreign policy-making. The second chapter presents the contradiction between communal and secular nationalism in India as a fundamental political cleavage with repercussions for Indian foreign policy. The nature of Hindu communalism is explored through a presentation of its origins, its scope and its political philosophy. The divisive potential of this world-view is explained by pointing to the problems like ly to be raised by the attempts to implement its recommendations. The overview concentrates on the policies advocated by the Hindu communalists towards secessionism in Kashmir and its implications for the relationship between New-Delhi and Islamabad. The third chapter describes how Hindu communalist organizations have sought to influence the Indian central government in its policy towards Kashmir. It illustrates how Hindu communalism can have a direct and indirect influence with evidence from the campaign of the Praja Parishad in 1952 and the exploitation of communal cleavages by the Congress in 1983. The central part of the case study focuses on the attempts made by the BJP to influence the National Front government of 1989, and contrasts the uncertainties of that period with the firmness showed by the Congress government of Narasimha Rao in late 1991 and early 1992. The fourth chapter evaluates the attempts by the BJP to influence the policy of New Delhi to wards Kashmiri secessionists and assesses to what extent this influence was conducive to interstate tension between New Delhi and Islamabad. What emerges is that the BJP was rather unsuccessful in prodding the government into adopting policies that would compromise a political settlement in Kashmir.
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THE SAFFRON FACTOR AND TBE KASHMIR PROBLEM:COMMUNALISM, THE WEAK STATE, AND INTERNATIONAL BRINKMANSHIPbyANDRÉ LALIBERTEB.A. University of Québec at Montréal, 1991A THESIS SUBMITIED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OFTHE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OFMASTER OF ARTSinTHE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIESDepartment of Political ScienceWe accept this thesis as conformingto the required standardTHE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIASeptember 1992© André LalibertéIn presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanceddegree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make itfreely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensivecopying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of mydepartment or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying orpublication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my writtenpermission.Department of political scienceThe University of British ColumbiaVancouver, CanadaDate Sptmhr 27. 1992DE-6 (2/88)ABSTRACTThis study looks at one instance of the security predicaments faced by many states in the ThirdWorld: primordialist challenges based on ethnicity, language or religion. More specifically, it discusses the impact of Hindu communalist organizations, especially the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP), on one issue of Indian domestic politics which is linked with its foreign policy: the problemof secessionism in Kashmir, which is allegedly supported by Palcistan. The thesis stated here isthat while the BJP may represent a factor likely to complicate the task of the Indian state in its efforts to ensure socio-political cohesiveness over a culturally fragmented polity, the influence of thatmovement is very limited in sensitive areas of national security like foreign policy.The first chapter reviews the literature on conflicts in South Asia, with reference to Kashmirand the role played by Hindu communalist organizations. This overview identifies a methodological difficulty limiting our understanding of this conflict: the Euro-centric bias of the discipline of international relations theory. This bias is expressed by a tendency to overlook a major source of insecurity within most Third World states: the lack of socio-political cohesiveness. The continuumfrom strong to weak states established by Barry Buzan is brought forward in an attempt to overcome this methodological difficulty because it points to the low degree of socio-political cohesiveness in weak states as a problem generating high levels of violence within and between states. Assuch, it seems relevant to analyze the impact of domestic cleavages on foreign policy-making.The second chapter presents the contradiction between communal and secular nationalism inIndia as a fundamental political cleavage with repercussions for Indian foreign policy. The natureof Hindu communalism is explored through a presentation of its origins, its scope and its politicalphilosophy. The divisive potential of this world-view is explained by pointing to the problems likely to be raised by the attempts to implement its recommendations. The overview concentrates onthe policies advocated by the Hindu communalists towards secessionism in Kashmir and its implications for the relationship between New-Delhi and Islamabad.The third chapter describes how Hindu communalist organizations have sought to influence theIndian central government in its policy towards Kashmir. It illustrates how Hindu communalismcan have a direct and indirect influence with evidence from the campaign of the Praja Parishad in1952 and the exploitation of communal cleavages by the Congress in 1983. The central part of thecase study focuses on the attempts made by the BJP to influence the National Front government of1989, and contrasts the uncertainties of that period with the firmness showed by the Congress government of Narasimha Rao in late 1991 and early 1992.The fourth chapter evaluates the attempts by the BJP to influence the policy of New Dethi towards Kashmiri secessionists and assesses to what extent this influence was conducive to interstate tension between New Delhi and Islamabad. What emerges is that the BJP was rather unsuc -cessful in prodding the government into adopting policies that would compromise a political settlement in Kashmit11.CONTENTSABSTRACT . iiCONTENTS iiiACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ivINTRODUCTION 1I. THE WEAK STATE, PRIMORDIALIST CONFLICTS, AND INTERNATIONALRELATIONS 3II. THE IMPACT OF HINDU COMMUNALISM ON INDIAN FOREIGN POLICY 18Ill. THE IMPACT OF THE BJP ON NEW DELHI’S POLICY TOWARDS KASHMIRISECESSIONISM 39W COMMUNALISM AND THE INSECURITY DILEMMA IN SOUTH ASIA 61BIBLIOGRAPHY 76ifiACKNOWLEDGEMENTSI want to express my gratitude to my advisor, professor Kalevi 3. Hoisti, who always providedme support and guidance while I was working on this thesis. I benefited considerably from hisknowledge of international relations theory as well as from his intellectual rigour, and appreciateimmensely his willingness to explore new ideas.I also want to thank professor John R. Wood, who never failed to offer me insightful comments and suggestions. I profited enormously from his substantive knowledge on Indian politicsand enjoyed discussing with him the intricacies of Kashmiri politics as well as the subtleties ofcommunalism and secularism.My work has also greatly benefited from the support of my wife, Josée Levesque, whose patience and support was helpful in the completion of this thesis.ivIntroduction- la—1—The problemThis study will discuss the impact of Hindu communalist organizations, especially theBharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on foreign policy-making in India. The thesis will focus on the relationship between New Delhi and the secessionist movements in Kashmir, and the Indian response to the support received by these groups from Pakistan. The thesis presented here is that thepolitical parties representing Hindu communalism can limit the freedom of manoeuvre for a minority government in New Delhi, but that they are rather unsuccessful when the government at the cenIre disposes of a majority.However, this statement of the problem does not imply that the secular state would accept secession for Kashmir if the Hindu communalist organizations were weak. Other fundamental considerations, such as the strategic value of Kashmir, or its economic resources, also matter. Theconcern about the nationalist appeal of the Hindu communalist organizations is only one factoramong others which can influence the foreign policy of India. However, it has received only scantattention so far. It is important to overcome that lacuna since the BJP ranks now as the second mostimportant political party in India. It also matters because this party has a policy that is detrimental topeaceful communal coexistence within India, and thus represent a complicating factor in the attempts by New Delhi to solve the problem of secessionism in KashmitApart from analyzing one aspect of the Kashmir conflict, there are two purposes to this study.First, there are many commonalities between this instance of escalation from domestic turmoil tointer-state tension, and similar situations elsewhere in the Third World. It is hoped that this studyof the impact of Hindu communalism on the conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir willcontribute to our understanding of the security predicaments faced by many states in Asia andAfrica, which are also facing various primordialist challenges. Second, I have an interest in bringing to the discipline of international relations the insights of comparative politics. While the latteralso looks for patterns and recurrence, it pays more attention to the specificities of the societies itobserves, than does the dominant paradigm of neo-realism in international relations theory.-2-Organization of the thesisAfter a review of the literature on conflicts between India and Pakistan, the thesis will turn tothe relationship between the central government in New Delhi and the secessionist movement inKashmir as a key issue. However, it will be stressed that the Euro-centric bias of the discipline ofinternational relations theory hinders the understanding of this kind of conflicts. To overcome theproblem, the continuum from strong to weak states established by Barry Buzan is brought forwardbecause it points to the low degree of socio-political cohesiveness in weak states as a problem generating high levels of violence within and between states. Several theoretical studies of the impactof domestic ethnic conflicts on disputes between states will be reviewed to evaluate whether thisapproach is fruitful. At this juncture, the contradiction between secession and state consolidation issingled out as dependent on a struggle between two perspectives on the foundations of socio-political cohesiveness in India. Kashmir’s accession to India is seen as a vindication for each of the contending world-views.The second chapter presents the contradiction between communal and secular nationalism inIndia as an important political cleavage, and Hindu communalism as a source of threat to the security of India. The nature of Hindu communalism is explored though a presentation of its origins, itsscope and its political philosophy. The divisive potential of this world-view is explained by pointing to the problems likely to be raised by the attempts to implement its recommendations.The third chapter explores in more concrete tems how Hindu communalist organizations caninfluence the centre in its policy towards Kashmir. After distinguishing between indirect and directinfluences, it looks at the campaign of the Praja Parishad in 1952 and the exploitation of communalcleavages by the Congress in 1983. The central part of the case study focuses on the attempts madeby Hindu communalist organizations to influence the National Front government of 1989.The fourth chapter evaluates the attempts of Hindu communalists to influence the policy ofNew Delhi towards Kashmiri secessionists and assesses to what extent this influence was conducive to inter-state tension between New Delhi and Islamabad. It will conclude by asking whetherthe fmdings fit with the theoretical model of weak states and one of its postulates, the idea that domestic contradictions and inter-state conflicts are intertwined.Chapter OneThe Weak State, Primordialist Conflicts and International Relations-3a--3-India, Pakistan, Kashmir: Three Ideas of NationalismAssessing the influence of Hindu communalism on the foreign policy of India is a complex undertaking, because of the fluid nature of Hindu communalism itself, but also because of the peculiarities of India’s security concerns, whose external dimensions often get intertwined with internalproblems. The crisis in Kashmir represents a vivid illustration of the connection between domesticissues and foreign affairs. The challenge of the secessionist movement in Kashmir raises a problemof governance within India, but also a problem of international relations because Kashmir is a contested territory between India and Pakistan.Thus, assessing the influence of Hindu communalism on the foreign policy of India requireslooking at the policy of New Delhi towards secessionism in Kashmir, as well as looking at Indianforeign affairs, and more specifically, at New Delhi’s relationship with Islamabad. This task is facilitated by the fact that most historical accounts of the wars between India and Pakistan, India’sforeign policy, or India’s security predicaments implicitly make the connection between the domestic problems of secessionism within India and its foreign policy.One of the pioneering efforts to understand the root of the first conflict between India andPakistan was made by Michael Brecher, who explained the Kashmir war as primarily a conflict ofideology on the resolution of which depended the welfare of religious minorities within bothstates.1 Josef Korbel elaborated on that analysis by emphasizing that the struggle for Kashmir wasprimarily an uncompromising conflict between two concepts of political organization.2 TheCongress and the leaders of India viewed the subcontinent as one nation united by history, whilethe Muslim League and the leaders of Pakistan viewed it as two. Jawaharlal Nehru always believedin the national unity of India, and interpreted conflicts between Hindus and Muslims as disputesamong elites for privileges. His view not only rejected the two nations theory, but also stressed theneed to inject a more rationalist thought into the spirit of religiosity prevailing in South Asia.3Michael Brecher, The Struggle for Kashmir (Toronto: The Ryerson Press, 1953), 51-4.2 Joseph Korbel, Danger in Kash,nir, my. 2d ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), 25.Jawaharlal Nehru, The Unity ofIndia (New York: The John Day Company, 1942), 20.-4-Mohammed Mi Jinnah, on the other hand, believed that Hinduism and Islam were not only different religions, but distinct social orders. Furthermore, he was convinced that if Hindus andMuslims were to be brought together under a democratic regime, the result would be Hindu majority rule over the Muslim minority.4Sisir Gupta has pointed out how the ambiguities about the finalstatus of the princely states and the boundaries of the successor states to the British Raj were factors transforming this contradiction between the Congress’ rejection of the theory of the two nations and the Muslim League’s fear of Hindu domination into the Kashmir dispute between Indiaand Pakistan.5S. M. Burke was the first to elaborate on the indirect impact of Hindu communalism on theconflict between India and Pakistan by pointing to the rationale behind the resolve of the MuslimLeague to carve out an Islamic state in South Asia.6He wrote that the demand for Pakistan derivedfrom the suspicions of many Indian Muslims about the solidity of the commitment among Indiannationalists within Congress to establish a secular state.This view deserves some comment since the generally held opinion is that Pakistan was aMuslim state while India was secular. While Mohammed Ali Jinnah was committed to the establishment of a state for Indian Muslims, he did not advocate the creation of a theocratic IslamicRepublic.7Sumit Ganguly has pointed to substantial evidence revealing the collaboration betweenCongress leaders and Hindu communalists before independence, in the arena of local politics, toshow that the fears of Muslims about Hindu communal sentiments were not entirely unfounded.8In his study of the politics of Kashmir, Balbir Singh has demonstrated that even in a state with anon-Hindu majority, Hindu communalist organizations had enough leverage to influence the stategovernment to enact policies congenial to their interests.9Some Recent Speeches and Writings of Mr. Jinnah, ed. Jamil-ud-din Ahmad, vol. 1, (Lahore: M. Ashraf,1946-47), 174-80.Sisir Gupta, Kashmir: A Study in India-Pakistan Relations (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1966), 440.6 S.M. Burke, Mainsprings ofIndian and Pakistani Foreign Policies (Minneapolis: University of MinnesotaPress, 1974).In his speech of 11th August 1947 to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, Jinnah stated: “You may belongto any religion, caste or creed -- that has nothing to do with the business of the state.” See Speeches and Writingsof Mr. Jinnah, ed. Jamil-ud-din Ahmad, vol. 1, (Lahore: M. Ashraf, 1942), 404.8Sumit Ganguly, The Origins of Wars in South Asia (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986), 6-7.Balbir Singh, State Politics in India (London: Macmillan, 1982), 211.-5-Sumit Ganguly has summarized some of these fmdings and has tried to theorize about the rootsof the conflict.10 His main point is that the ideological conflict between secular India and IslamicPakistan led to a confrontation because of the haste in which the post-colonial arrangements forSouth Asia were made. With the Kashmir issue still pending, the new states were left with a territorial dispute which violated the founding principle of communal representation at the core of oneof the two states (Pakistan). This ambiguity left a legacy of irredentist claims in Islamabad, as wellas a strong anti-irredentist sentiment in New Delhi, which was vital to sanction India’s non-communal ideal. What is lacking in this study, however, is an evaluation of the impact of Hindu cornmunalist organizations in this refusal by the secular leaders to accept Kashmir’s accession toPakistan.All the historical accounts reviewed so far were written at a time when the phenomenon ofHindu communalism appeared to be on the decline. Predictably, the impact of the BJP and othersimilarly-minded organizations on the relationship between India and Pakistan, or on New Delhi’spolicy towards secessionism in Kashmir, received only marginal attention.11However, the reemergence of Hindu communalism during the 1980’s has led to a renewed interest in the impact of thispolitical movement on Indian foreign policy-making.Recently, numerous accounts of the relationship between New Delhi and the secessionists inKashmir have alluded to the impact of Hindu communalism. After offering a concise account of thethree forms of nationalism contradicting each other in Kashmir, Ashutosh Varshney pointed to theinternal contradictions within each of them to explain the dynamics of their interactions.12He identified Hindu communalism as the main challenger to the secular nationalism of India and pointed toNew Delhi’s fear of empowering this movement as an explanation for the refusal by New Delhi todeal “generously” with secessionists in Kashmit10 Sumit Ganguly, The Origins of Wars in South Asia, 7.For instance, Gowher Rizvi dismisses the idea of Kashmir as a symbol of the secular state. He rather views inthe refusal by New Delhi to accept Kashmir’s secession from India the Congress’ refusal to accept thefait accompliof Pakistan’s independence. See “The Rivafry Between India and Paldstan,” in South Asian Insecurity and the GreatPowers, eds. Barry Buzan and Gowher Rizvi (London: Macmillan, 1986), 93-126.12 Varshney identified Pakistani nationalism as a state ideology founded on religious identification; Kashmiri nationalism, as an ideal rooted in ethnic identification; and Indian nationalism, as a movement providing a broadly-based mean of identification attuned to India’s cultural diversity though its secular ideology. See Ashutosh Varshney,“India, Pakistan and Kashmir Antinomies of Nationalism,” Asian Survey 31 no. 11 (November 1991): 997-1019.-6-In 1990 several articles tried to make sense of the sudden escalation of tension between Indiaand Pakistan in the midst of a violent uprising erupting in Kashmir. This crisis occurred during theminority government of the National Front, a fragile coalition which depended on the support of aHindu communalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (hereafter BIP). Putting the crisis in a broaderperspective, Suniit Ganguly linked the insurgency in Kashmir with a spate of anti-Muslim incidents committed by Hindu communalist organizations throughout North India during the 1980’sand pointed to the possibility of inadvertent military escalation between India and Pakistan becauseof the tremendous domestic pressures experienced by the coalition government in New Delhi.13Ayesha Jalal pointed to the pressures of Hindu communalists on a hung parliament as an impediment in the implementation of a solution likely to assuage the demands of Kashmiri secessionist militants and lessen the tension at the border with Paldstan.’4Shekhar Gupta hinted at the worst-case scenario contemplated by most secular leaders in India: the breakaway of Kashmir under theaegis of Muslim fundamentalists. Such an event would leaye the Indian Muslims “suspects forever” and single them out as the targets of reprisals by Hindu communalists on a scale similar to thatwhich followed the partition of 1947.15All the studies reviewed so far are mostly descriptive and historical, and their authors have notattempted to draw generalizations relevant for other instances of armed conflict. This is understandable since the uprising in Kashmir, like the majority of conflicts in the Third World, do not accordwith the prevailing understanding of international wars, which is rooted in the experience of warsby Western states. Predictably, these theoretical shortcomings on the etiology of war have repercussions on the analysis of the factors influencing foreign policy-making. However, since instances of intra-state conflict turning into inter-state confrontations, such as Kashmir, are likely torecur in the Third World, it is necessary to revise our analytical framework for the study of howdomestic political factors might influence decision-making.’6‘ Sumit Ganguly, “Avoiding War in Kashmir,” Foreign Affairs 69 no. 5 (Winter 1990-91): 72.14 Ayesha Jalal, “Kashmir Scars,” The New Republic (July 23, 1990), 17-20.15 Shekhar Gupta, “The Gathering Storm,” in India Briefing, 1990, eds. Marshall M. Bouton and PhilipOldenburg (Boulder, CO: Westview press, 1990), 50.16 K.J. Hoisti has mentioned 58 instances of war since 1945. Among these, only the Soviet interventions inHungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968) involved two states which were not in the Third World. See Peace andWar: Armed Conflicts and International Order, 1648-1989 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 274-8.-7-In looking at the constraints in the processes of foreign policy-making, most studies assumethat states are unitary actors. Thus, the majority of the studies about the conflict between India andPalcistan which fall Within the category of international relations seek to link their problem with thecompetition between the super-powers. While they acknowledge the attempts of both states to consolidate themselves as a source of insecurity by itself, these studies often tend to see regional conflicts and security perceptions as the result of external influence on the processes of foreign policymaking.’7Similarly, studies focusing on the processes of foreign policy-making in India have yieldedvery few results. Despite their titles, most of these works are mainly historical narratives on theforeign policy of India before or after independence, or treatises on the foreign policy objectives ofIndia.’8 While some examine the impact of domestic predicaments on New Delhi’s foreign policy,they make only brief mention of communal cleavages as a factor likely to influence the decisions ofthose responsible for foreign affairs. Furthermore, almost no theoretical contribution has beenmade to explain the processes of foreign policy-making in India. The case study done by MichaelBrecher to illustrate the mutual interaction of domestic and external stimuli to foreign policy be -haviour during the devaluation crisis of 1966, and the conceptual work of Bahgat Korany on foreign policy-making in the Third World represent two exceptions to that trend. However, their contributions do not make reference to the issue of communalism.1917 For several examples of this approach, see Selig Harrison, and K. Subrahmanyam, Superpower Rivalry inthe Indian Ocean. indian and American Perspectives (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Stephen PhilipCohen ed., The Security of South Asia: American and Asian Perspectives (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,1987); Ashok Kapur, The Indian Ocean (New York: Praeger, 1983).18 For historical approaches to Indian Foreign policy, see Surjit Mansingh, India’s Searchfor Power: IndiraGandhi’s Foreign Policy (New Delhi: Sage, 1984); Bimla Prasad, The Origins of Indian Foreign Policy: TheIndian National Congress and World Affairs (Calcutta: Bookiand Private, 1960). For descriptive accounts of the institutions, see P.N. Haksar, India’s Foreign Policy and its Problems (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 1989); C.P.Bhambri, The Foreign Policy of india (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1987); A. Appadorai, and M.S. Rajan,India’s Foreign Policy and Foreign Relations (New Dethi: Oxford University Press, 1985); Vidya Prakash Dutt,India’s Foreign Policy (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing, 1984); 3. Bandyopadhyaya, The Making ofIndia’s ForeignPolicy: Determinants, Institutions, Processes and Personalities (Bombay: Allied Publishers, 1970).19 Michael Brecher, “India’s Devaluation of 1966: Linkage Politics and Crisis Decision-Making,” BritishJournal ofInternational Studies, 3 (April 1977): 1-25; Bahgat Korany ed., How Foreign Policy Decisions Are Madein the Third World: A Comparative Analysis (Boulder, CO:Westview Press, 1986), 181-3.-8-International Relations Theory and the Problem of Inter-state Conflicts in South AsiaThe classical tradition within the discipline of international relations theory seeks to uncover thecauses of armed conflict and thus to define the parameters within which foreign policy ought to beconducted in relation to the matters of national security.20 However, as Hoisti demonstrates, theconceptual apparatus of that approach is not conducive to an understanding of the matters of warand peace in the Third World because the political realities there depart significantly from the conditions prevailing in the Western world.2’ It is important to keep in mind the inadequacies of that apparatus, because it will alert us to the adjustments necessary for a more adequate analysis of the etiology of armed conflict in South Asia, and more specifically will guide us to identify what are theconstraints faced by foreign policy-makers in India.The dominant theoretical understanding of international relations is based on the work ofKenneth M. Waltz,22 who posited that states are all similar units existing in a condition of anarchy,where each suffers from a security dilemma. To put it simply, in the absence of any over-archingauthority, states seek to advance their own national security though various policies ranging fromarms race and deterrence to the constitution of alliances. However, in behaving this way, they create an environment of decreased security within the community of states and for themselves sincetheir actions increase the insecurity of other states. For Waltz, the best way to accommodate this security dilemma is through balances of power, whereby one great power is prevented from attainingthe status of hegemon by the creation of alliances between the weaker powers. What needs to beunderlined is that the national security problematic of states has external origins in Waltz’s vision ofinternational relations.20 KJ. Hoisti wrote that international theory can be divided into three paradigms: the state-centric paradigm, orthe classical tradition; the global society paradigm; and the neo-Marxist paradigm. The classical tradition is defmedby a consensus on three points: 1) the focus of the study is the causes of war and the conditions for peace, 2) themain units of analysis are the behaviour of states, 3) states operate in a system characterized by the lack of a centralauthority. This tradition of enquiry includes both the realist approach from Thucydides to H. Morgenthau, its neo-realist variant identified with K. Waltz and R. Gilpin; and the solidarist perspective identified with Grotius and H. Bull.See The Dividing Discipline: Hegemony and Diversity in International Theory (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1985), 10.21 See K. J. Holsti, “International Theory and War in the Third World,” in The Insecurity Dilemma: NationalSecurity of Third World States, ed. Brian Job (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1992), 37-60.22 Kenneth M. Waltz, Theory ofInternational Politics (New York: Random House, 1979).-9-However, the realities of international relations in the Third World do not fit with this modelbecause they do not reproduce the circumstances of inter-state politics in Europe since 1648, whichare at the root of Waltz’s theorization. Acknowledging the discrepancy between the conceptualization of scholars about inter-state conflicts and the facts of guerrillas, intzfada, wars of national liberation and other forms of armed conflicts in the Third World, Brian Job has written about the “insecurity dilemma” of Third World states to describe situations where the threat to the security ofstates comes from domestic sources as well as from external ones. This insecurity dilemma aptlydescribes the situation faced by the Indian Prime Minister and his cabinet during the crisis of 1990,when the uprising in Kashmir almost led the country into armed confrontation with Pakistan.The notion of the insecurity dilemma does not exclude the possibility that states in the ThirdWorld can find themselves in classic security dilemma situations. Similarly, there are states outsidethe Third World to which aspects of the insecurity dilemma can apply with respect to their own security predicaments. Furthermore, the criticism of the Euro-centric bias within the classical tradition in international theory does not propose to substitute another paradigm. Rather, it supports theview that we need to complete it by incorporating insights derived from the examination of securityin the Third World. The present discussion will present three aspects of the problem that are inadequately grasped by most international relations theorists because of this bias?The first one is the dependent variable of war. Because the view of the problem will determinethe means undertaken towards its resolution, it is necessary to start any discussion on foreign policy in the Third World with a preliminary discussion of the antecedent variables of armed conflicts.The problem is that most instances of organized violence in the Third World are “low-intensity conflicts,” guerrilla wars, as well as more conventional forms of warfare. In the case of the insurgencyin Kashmir in 1990, the phenomenon to explain is difficult to define with precision. Is the secessionist agitation an instance of domestic unrest for India or a war of national liberation forKashmir? What is the distinction between rebellion and war, since the actions of the secessionistswere supported by another state? When was the conflict initiated?23 Brian Job, “National, Regime, and State Securities in the Third World,” in The Insecurity Dilemma:National Security of Third World States, ed. Brian Job (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1992), 11-35.24 The following discussion in this section is derived mainly from K. J. Holsti, “International Theory and War inthe Third World,” 40-51.-10-Scholars in the field of international relations who are concerned with the causes of war wouldexclude from their universe of case studies most instances of armed conflicts that have occurredsince World War II if they complied with a definition of warfare based on the European model of1648-1945, with established states, waging wars for clearly defined objectives, and under specificrules. The secessionist agitation in Kashmir in 1990 and the armed intervention by the central government of India did not correspond to that classical pattern. Still, the tally for victims in that confrontation in 1990 was far higher than the figures for the Indian and Pakistani soldiers that diedduring the same period (mostly of frostbite) in the Siachen Glacier area.A second aspect of the problem which is problematic is the key assumptions about the actorsinvolved. The standard conceptual apparatus makes a distinction between international wars opposing two or more states, and civil wars within states. However, one of the major characteristics ofwars since 1945 has been the internationalization of civil wars. The requirement that the actorsinvolved in armed conflict should be the organized armies of two or more states would significantly reduce the actual number of wars since 1945. Another problem is that the works of Waltz,Gilpin, Morgenthau and others within the classical tradition in international relations theory concentrate on the behaviour of the traditional great powers.v However, there are few if any greatpowers in the Third World, and even though India may be considered as a regional great power,most studies on war do not place the Indian Union in that category. Because of this exclusion, thefindings of the discipline on war may have little relevance for Indian security concerns.25 Approximately 600 soldiers died as a result of the skirmishes between Indian and Pakistani soldiers between1981 and 1990 in the Siachen Glacier area, while between 1983 and 1990, India has lost more than 19,800 lives inthe conflict between the central government and the Khalistan separatists in Punjab, the All Bodo Students Union inAssam, the Muslim Liberation Front and the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. The death toll for the victims ofseparatist military activity against the Indian security forces in the state of Jammu and Kashmir alone for 1990 wasestimated at 2000 people. Sources: Karin Lindgren, G. Kenneth Wilson, Peter Wallensteen and Kjell-Ake Nordquist,“Major armed conflicts in 1989,” in SIPRI Yearbook 1990, World Armaments and Disarmament , 393-419:01-2;Karin Lindgren, Birger Heldt, Kjell-Ake Nordquist and Peter Wallensteen, “Major armed conflicts in 1990,” inSIPRI Yearbook 1991, World Armaments and Disarmament, 345-83:58-60.28 The Vietnam War, for instance, is often considered an international war, although it started as a civil war between the Viet Cong and the South Vietnamese government. Similarly, the Algerian war should be excluded if weuse the standard theoretical apparatus, since Algeria was not a legally recognized state when the conflict erupted. SeeK. 3. Hoisti, “International Theory and War in the Third World,” 41.27 Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981);Kenneth M. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York, NY: Random House, 1979); Hans Morgenthau,Politics Among Nations (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948).-11-Finally, a third aspect of international relations theory that needs reassessment is the explanations for wars in the Third World. While the structures of the international system may influencethe behaviour of an actor in inter-state conflicts, shifts in power distribution in the internationalsystem cannot always explain the domestic roots of intra-state conflicts. For instance, the SinoSoviet rift which propelled an evolution from an absolute bipolar system to a loose bipolar systemhad no relevance to the discontent in East Bengal from which the third war between India andPakistan originated? The notion of balance of power, used to describe the behaviour of states entering into alliances to prevent a dominant power from exerting its hegemony, also has little relevance to the South Asian context. India’s status of regional supremacy is not the result of armedoperations, as in eighteenth century Europe, but is a legacy of former colonial structures. The national attributes of size and military power used for the study of war in Europe have little relevanceto the situation in most Third World countries. The most important national attribute of Third Worldstates is not power, but their inability to establish the legitimacy of their rule over multi-ethnic societies.The ambiguities reviewed so far inevitably influence the nature of the problem we have to explain. Once the proposition that warfare in the Third World is a matter of domestic conflict intertwined with inter-state relations is accepted, the dependent variable of foreign policy appears as insufficient to analyze the impact of domestic predicaments on foreign policy. It becomes necessaryto consider also the decision of the central government in its relations with the domestic problem ofsecession, since this last issue is likely to get enmeshed with the international relations of the state.The argument to this point suggests that some of the central assumptions of the realist perspective are inadequate for scholars and policy-makers seeking to explain Third World security predicaments. The realities of armed conflict in the Third World and the nature of the actors involved suggest that for a better grasp of the insecurity dilemmas faced by Asian states engaged in violent conflicts, it may be fruitful to look at their national attributes. Among these, the continuum from strongto weak states stands as a useful yardstick.28 Richard Sisson and Leo E. Rose,War and Secession: Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh,(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).-12-The Insecurity Dilemma of Weak StatesThe continuum from strong to weak states established by Barry Buzan is useful to understandthe domestic constraints nurturing instances of insecurity dilemma because it puts the problem ofsocio-political cohesiveness, arguably an outstanding feature of most Third World states, at thecore of its definition of security within and between states. The spectrum from weak to strongstates is established from the recognition that states vary not only in their status as powers, but alsoin their degree of socio-political cohesiveness.The term “state” refers to the governing institutions, the idea of the state, and the physical baseof the state (the population and the territory, including all the natural resources and the man-madewealth contained within the borders of the state). It is thus distinct from the term “power,” whichrelates to the military and economic capabilities of states.3°Accordingly, weak states may be strongpowers (like India) or weak ones (like Bhutan), and strong states may be weak powers (likeSwitzerland) or strong ones (like the United States). The existence of a strong state reflects a longhistory during which a state has had the time to establish the institutions, the ideas, and the physical basis of the state. When the state is weak, the idea and institutions of the state are both weak,and only its physical base may be well defined.The fact that most weak states are located in the Third World points to the legacy of colonialism, or rather the precipitous nature of decolonization, as an explanation for the lack of socio-political cohesiveness in weak states. The nationalist sentiment which precipitated the independence ofmost Third World states, Buzan argues, rarely exhibits the “positive unity of a coherent culturalgroup,” but the negative unity of “common opposition to occupying foreigners.”31 As soon as thegoal of sovereignty is reached, however, the population of the new states often discovers that theboundaries of their countries are arbitrarily defined, and that the new polities have no politicalfoundation of their own, apart from recognition by the international community.3229 Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: An Agendafor International Security Studies in the Post-Cold WarEra,2d ed. (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rennier, 1991).Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear, Chapter 2.Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear, 98.32 Robert H. Jackson “Quasi-States, Dual regimes, and Neo-Classical Theory: International Jurisprudence and theThird World,” International Organization 41 no.4 (1987), 519-49.-13-Weak states are characterized by the following attributes: a high level of political violence; aconspicuous role for political police in the lives of citizens; a major conflict over the ideology thatshould be used to legitimize the authority of the state; the lack of a coherent national identity or thepresence of competing national identities within the state; and lack of a well-defined hierarchy ofpolitical authority.33 Because weak states are at an early age in the process of state building, Buzanwrote, the grim reality of violence is endemic. It is the symptom of the accumulation of power bythe state, and if the process follows the consolidation model of Europe, it is likely to engender further violence.The problem of weak states is that they have not had the time to create a domestic societal andpolitical consensus strong enough to eliminate the widespread use of force as a major element indomestic political life. Further, in many of these societies, Mohammed Ayoob argues, the pressures of state building at a rapid pace has propelled some groups among the elites to deny themulti-national reality of their state and attempt to construct a state dominated by a single nationalgroup.35 The result is an encouragement to ethnic/language/religious separatism among the groupsthat feel deprived by this evolution.These descriptions of the weak state can be put beside Paul Brass’ presentation of the difficulties faced by India since independence, and which increased after Nehru’s death: the diminishingability of the centre to maintain the unity of the country, the decline of authoritative institutions inIndian politics, and the increasing involvement of the coercive arm of the state in the perpetration ofviolence.36 The Indian state is particularly vulnerable to the problems stemming from a lack ofsocio-political cohesiveness because of the contrast between the centralizing tendencies of the stateand the proverbial ethnic/language/religious cleavages of Indian society, to which needs to beadded the divisions between “caste” Hindus and harijans, as well as those within the two groups.Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear, 100.‘ See Mohammed Ayoob, “The Security Predicament of the Third World State: Reflections on State Making ina Comparative Perspective,” in The Insecurity Dilemma: National Security of Third World States, ed. Brian Job(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1992), 63-80; and The Formation ofNational States in Western Europe, ed. CharlesTilly (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975), 71.Mohammed Ayoob, “The Security Predicament of the Third World State: Reflections on State Making in aComparative Perspective,” 72.Paul Brass, The Politics ofIndia Since Independence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).-14-While most of the historical accounts reviewed before acknowledge the impact of a lack ofsocio-political cohesiveness within India and Pakistan on the origins of war in South Asia, the literature of international relations theory has been traditionally more cautious. Most accounts of thepoliticization of identity and its impact on secessionism, irredentism and other forms of conflicts inthe Third World have been made in the field of comparative politics.37However, some recent contributions in international relations theory have sought to outline the links between a low level ofcohesiveness within weak states with inter-state conflicts in the Third World. Most of these studiespoint to the lack of congruence between states’ boundaries and ethnic/language/religious distributions as a source of secessionist or irredentist problems.38However, the inter-state impact of primordialist conflicts should not be exaggerated. While various calculations may tempt the rulers of some states to exploit the problems accruing from themulti-ethnic/language/religious nature of other states, few governments act exclusively to protectethnic/language/religious confreres. This consideration is always weighed against more utilitarianor prudential ones.39 The contributions to Suhrke and Noble’s collection have emphasized this pointwhen they tried to evaluate the impact of multi-ethnicity on the frequency of foreign interference inThird World states. Their findings were that no correlation could be made between ethnic fragmentation and the likelthood of escalation into inter-state armed conflict.4°‘ See Rupert Emerson, From Empire to Nation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967); SamuelHuntington, Political Order in Changing Society (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968); Cynthia H. Enloe,Ethnic Conflict and Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973).38 See Naomi Chazan ed., Irredentism and InternationalPolitics (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1991); StephenRyan, Ethnic Conflict and International Relations (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1990); Donald K. Horowitz, EthnicGroups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics: AConceptual Framework (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981).Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics: A Conceptual Framework, 173.Among their findings: state to state rivalries produced restraint in the support to ethnic minorities becausestates want to avoid intensified and unregulated conflicts against their adversary; when minorities are relatively small,the cost of external support necessary to help them reach their objectives acts as a deterrent against intervention. Thisstudy contradicts the Wilsonian postulate that internal ethnic conflicts constitute a major source of inter-state conflict. It also concludes that the instances of affective intervention to protect ethnic confreres leading to internationalconfrontations require exceptional circumstances. See Asiri Suhrke and Lela Garner Noble (eds.), Ethnic Conflict inInternational Relations (New York: Praeger. 1977).-15-Furthermore, a problem commonly found in the works on the impact of domestic conflicts oninter-state violence is the lack of systematic theorization about the relationship between the expres -sion of primordialist sentiments based on ethnic/language/religious criteria and the lack of sociopolitical cohesiveness within the weak state.41 In other words, it is not clear why only a few primordialist cleavages may lead to secessionist, irredentist, or inter-state conflicts, while others maynot. A related problem is the lack of conceptual clarity about the categories behind the expressionof primordialist sentiment. Concepts such as ethnicity, culture, language groups and sectarian-religious cleavages are not always well defined and distinguished from each other. Sorting out thesequestions, however, involves numerous definitional issues that are too complex to be undertakenin this thesis. What needs to be noted is that primordial cleavages complicate the ruling elites’ efforts to establish political legitimacy and consensus over the whole of society within the boundariesof the weak state.42However, the operationalization of a theoretical notion like that of the weak state for the analysis of Indian foreign policy does not represent a straightforward task. The first difficulty lies withthe evaluation of the impact of ethnic/language/religious cleavages. How is their influence exercized? How can this be distinguished from other sources of influence? To answer such questions,the analyst may have to rely mostly on speculations, since the access to information pertaining tothe relationship between New Delhi and Islamabad, or between New Dethi and the Kashmiri secessionists, is a matter of national security. Furthermore, it is reasonable to assume that many policieswith respect to secessionist movements throughout India that seem to be influenced by primordialist interests are policies that would have been entertained anyway by any government if the challenges that these policies sought to address appear to threaten the fabric of the state, or to endangerthe position of a government in the parliament.41 This thesis does not reify primordial (ethnic/language/religious) categories: it agrees with the views stressinghow much the key elements of primordial cleavages - blood relations, language, religion - vary widely, and acknowledges that ethnic/language/religious identification changes to suit changing ends. Ethnic/language/religious diversityper se is not the problem that needs elucidation. See Paul Brass, “Ethnic Groups and the State,” in Ethnic Groupsand the State, ed. Paul Brass (London: Croom Helm, 1985), 1-56.42 Legitimacy is used here in the sense of establishing a moral order that will seem proper to the whole of society. See Peter A. Busch, Legitimacy and Ethnicity (Lexington: Lexington Books, 1974), 1.-16-A second difficulty lies with the interplay between domestic and foreign policies. The analystmight have to look for decision-making processes within the Home Ministry as well as within theMinistry of Foreign Affairs to gain a complete picture of the security predicaments faced by theIndian state. Assessing the impact of primordial sentiments and socio-political cleavages on foreignpolicy decision-making in such a context is difficult to document since it is mediated through theprocesses of decision-making in matters of internal security. The evaluation of a problem such assecessionism may differ, depending on whether it is viewed through the lenses of domestic security or the perspective of external security. Which considerations matter more on issues of nationalsecurity such as Kashmir when there are divergences of opinion?Because most prime ministers since independence have handled the important issues of foreignpolicy, it is tempting to assume that the difficulty for the analyst may be surmounted by the observation of their decisions. However, Bahgat Korany has indicated the pitfalls of “psychological reductionism” implied by this approach, which reduces the whole of Indian foreign policy to thewhims of one leader. Apart from the obvious difficulty of gaining access to the primary materialsources, the approach also tends to underestimate the significance of the operational environment,or what he terms “the frame of reference and parameters of a given decision-making process.”43The case study presented here will follow Korany’s injunction and look at the environment facedby Indian decision-makers as an explanatory variable.Fortunately, the nature of the Indian political system, which is relatively open, allows us tohave a reasonably accurate picture of the relative strength of the groups representing primordialsentiments within India, and allows us to formulate some hypotheses. The first one is that partiesassociated with primordial sentiments may influence the central government only if they are in aposition to hold the balance of power. The second is that even when this influence exists, it israther limited by more prudential considerations. What needs to be kept in mind is that some of thepolicies that primordialist groups seek to influence cannot be altered fundamentally. The observation of influence by primordialist groups on the foreign policy of India will thus look for differences in degree rather than changes in substance.Bahgat Korany ed. How Foreign Policy Decisions Are Made in the Third World (Boulder, CO: WestviewPress, 1986), 58.-17-The purpose of the discussion in this chapter was to help us understand the security environment within which the policy-makers involved in the areas of Indian foreign policy-making and domestic security operate. The first element that needs to be noted is that the security predicaments ofthe Indian state, as we know them from the historical account of the conflict between India andPakistan, are characterized by a connection between the domestic issue of secessionism inKashmir, and New Dethi’s relationship with Pakistan, which stands as the major concern of Indianforeign policy.However, the classical tradition within the field of international relations, by assuming thatstates have security predicament of mostly external origins, has developed a theoretical apparatusthat inadequately addresses the security problematic of countries like India, which have both internal and external determinants. It has been suggested that this conceptual difficulty can be addressedby using the analytical framework provided by the weak-strong state continuum. The notion of theweak state is useful because it emphasizes the political fragmentation that correlates with ethnic/language/religious diversity, undoubtedly relevant to the Indian case, and points to the fact that threatsto the security of the state have internal as well as external origins. The analysis of the foreign policy of the weak state, in sum, requires the observation of its domestic security predicaments aswell.The next chapter will point to one instance of primordial conflicts that is assumed to influencethe processes of foreign policy-making; the communal cleavages within South Asia, which havefound in the confrontation between India and Pakistan an international dimension. This instance ofprimordial sentiment is not the only one that exists within Indian society: other cleavages based onethnicity, language, regionalism, castes, etc. abound. However, the communal cleavage assumes aunique importance because the idea of the India state has been developed explicitly to eliminate theconflicts that might arise form this type of internal divisions, and as such, it is opposed to the ideaof the state advanced by the leaders of Pakistan since its inception.Chapter Tw oThe Impact of Hindu Communalism on Indian Foreign Policy-1 8a--18-The Contradiction Between Communal and Secular NationalismThe discussion to this point has underlined that the domestic predicaments of India (the anxieties about secessionism in Kashmir) relate to the concerns in New Delhi on matters of foreign policy (the fear that Islamabad provides to India a casus belli by supporting Kashmir’s secession).The concerns of Indian foreign policy planners, in such a context, are not limited to matters of foreign affairs: they are intertwined with problems of domestic governance. Overcoming the lack ofsocio-political cohesiveness in a weak state serves two related objectives: limiting the growth ofcentrifugal forces responsible for domestic insecurity, and deterring the predatory intervention ofexternal powers tempted to take advantage of the weak state’s inherent propensity for political fragmentation. This chapter focuses on one of the dimensions of socio-political diversity within Indiawhich is related to its domestic political fragmentation as well as the contradiction that opposes it toPakistan: its communal cleavages, and the response developed to address it.In 1947, the leaders of independent India strove to establish the foundations for socio-politicalcohesiveness by the institution of a state which was religiously neutral (which is what the Indiansmean by the expression “secular state”). The choice did not gamer unanimity. The Muslim Leaguehad rejected the idea of an all-Indian secular state and carved out from the British Raj the Islamicstate of Pakistan. Further, within India itself, several political groups advocated the creation of aHindu state. Ideologies favouring the communal state (whether Hindu or Muslim) rested on thepremises that religious communities are fundamentally distinct from each other and that their interests are irreconcilable. The result of this reasoning was the idea of political self-determination foreach community. However, this principle of creating communal states harboured two internal contradictions. First, as the experience of the partition between India and Pakistan indicated, it is impossible to create homogeneous communal states when religious communities live in the sameareas; second, the proclamation of a communal state does not entail the eradication of sectarian differences. For secular leaders, these two intractable contradictions within communalism wereenough to justify the secular option.For an account of sectarian conflicts during the attempts to “islamicize” Pakistan during the 1980’s, seeHamza Alavi, “Authoritarianism and Legitimation of State Power in Pakistan,” in The Post-Colonial State in Asia,ed. Subrata Kumar Mitra (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990), 31.-19-Hindu Communalism in South AsiaAt this stage, some definitions are required to avoid confusion. In this case study, the expression “Hindu communalism” and “Hindu nationalism” are considered as equivalents. However, theterms “communal” and “communalism” need to be distinguished. “Communal” is often used in anadjectival form, as in “communal representation,” and refers to the Muslims, the Christians, theHindus or others as religious “communities.”In the context of Indian modem history, “communalism” refers to the actions and attitudes ofreligious and other cultural organizations seeking from the state the defense and the promotion oftheir own community’s interests. The term suggests that communalism has political implications;thus the activities of an association strictly concemed with the religious or cultural affairs of a specific group are not communalist.45In a communal state, the laws and the constitution are derivatives of the state’s official religion.Since the faith proclaimed as official by the communal state is usually the belief adopted by the majority, the communal state endows itself with the duty to protect, or promote, the interests of thismajority. The choice of establishing a communal state to ensure socio-political cohesiveness mayappear as a logical choice for societies with profound ethnic/language cleavages, but where the majority profess a common religion. Furthermore, state ideologies seeking to mobilize compatriots byusing the idiom of a religious tradition may have several tactical advantages over nationalist movements stressing a common ethnicity or a national language.Organized religions provide an established structure and/or a clergy whose authority does notderive from its ethnic characteristics and thus can claim to represent all the members of a multi-ethnic state. The claim of the advocates of a communal state is that they can appeal to a common moraland ethical code with indigenous roots. The same can hardly be said for nationalist political movements stressing ethnic identity and promoting a sense of unity within one ethnic community. Theydo not, by themselves, create or define a broad political agenda.46Donald Eugene Smith, India as a Secular State Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 454.46 Saul Newman, “Does Modernization Breed Ethnic Political Conflict?,” World Politics 43 (April 1991): 451-78: 70.-20-Another distinctions needs to be made when discussing Hindu communalism, since it is oftenassociated with the cultural movement of Hindu revivalism. All proponents of Hindu revivalismwant to look into India’s own heritage as a source of inspiration for the reform of Indian society.However, Hindu revivalists are divided between those who emphasized the spiritual wisdom ofHinduism over Western materialism (such as Swami Vivekananda, Shri Ramakrishna and theMahatma Gandhi), and those who valued modernization and seek to give it an Indian content.47This distinction matters because most Hindu communalist movements trace their roots to the lattergroup of reformists. This claim is consistent with the Hindu communalist’s advocacy of a strongand united India propounded in the notion of Akhand Bharat (“Undivided India”), and underlinesthat Hindu communalism, despite its appeal to primordial values, is a movement harbouring theambition that India should be a great power.Hindu communalism rests on the premise that nations are built on the basis of a common culture and a common ideology. Therefore, the reasoning goes, Indian national identity must be rooted in Hindu culture, since the Hindus constitute the overwhelming majority community in India.However, what the Hindu communalist organizations mean by Hindu tradition is unclear. Whathas come to be known as Hindutva, or the “Hindu Way of Life”4 incorporates a wide variety ofbeliefs, practices, and social customs that have developed though centuries.Furthermore, while a simple head count starting with the subtraction of Muslims, Christiansand other religions might suggest that about 80% of the Indian population is Hindu, a closer examination of Hinduism suggests otherwise. Communalist organizations tend to count Sikhism,Jainism and Buddhism as Hindu sects, while most adherents of these religions reject the association. The appeal to unify the Hindu majority of India is further undermined by the division amongHindus of those belonging to one of the four varnas and those who are considered as untouchables(30% of the Hindus), as well as divisions among caste Hindus themselves.49See Walter K. Andersen and Shridhar D. Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron. The Rashtriya SwayamsevakSangh and Hindu Revivalism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987), 10-1; Ainslie T. Embree ed. Sources ofIndianTradition, vol. 1, From the Beginning to 1800 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958; reprint, New York:Columbia University Press, 1988), 53, 72-5 (pages references are to reprint edition).For a concise presentation of what constitutes the unity and the diversity of Hinduism, see V. Raghavan andR.N. Dandekar, “The Hindu Way of Life,” in Sources ofIndian Tradition, vol. 1, From the Beginning to 1800, 201-378 (pages references are to reprint edition).Paul Brass, The Politics ofIndia Since Independence, 16.-21-Secular Nationalism in South AsiaA secular state is a state separated from religious institutions and not officially devoted to thepromotion of any faith.5° Donald Eugene Smith offered the following defmition of the secularstate:“The secular state is a state which guarantees individual and corporate freedom of religion,deals with the individual as a citizen irrespective of his religion, is not constitutionally connected to a particular religion nor does it seek either to promote or interfere with religion.”51The concept of the secular state originated in the context of the Roman Empire, when theChristian subjects of the Caesars refused to profess allegiance to the state in their religious life. Theconcept was put forward by the church itself to oppose the right of the state to encroach upon thespiritual sphere of human life. While many scholars have pointed out that this strict definition of thesecular state is irrelevant to the context of Hinduism and Buddhism, where there is no church hierarchy to separate from the apparatus of the state,52 the expression has gained currency enoughamong indologists and Indian social scientists to be used without ambiguities. Following theirusage, then, the ensuing discussion will use the expression “secular state” to describe a state that isreligiously impartial, and “secularism” for the attitude of those supporting the secular state.Throughout the history of the Indian nationalist movement, many have argued that secularism,as we understand it in the West, is not rooted in Indian society and culture. Those who have heldthis opinion point to the deep religiosity of the Indians in general, and to the absence of separationfrom politics in minority religions like Islam and Sikhism. They also claim that Mahatma Gandhi’sown tolerant attitude towards all religions was not secular, since he emphasized the inseparabilityof religion and politics. When he did advocate that “religion and state should be separate,” what hehad in mind was that the state should not intervene in the religious life of its citizens.53Ved Prakash Luthera, The Concept of The Secular State and India (Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1964),15.51 Donald Eugene Smith, India as a Secular State, 4.52 Ved Prakash Luthera, The Concept of The Secular State and India, 40-1.See The Moral and Political Writings ofMahatma Gandhi, ed. Raghavan Iyer, vol. 1, Civilization, Politics,and Religion. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 395.-22-The views of Gandhi on inter-communal tolerance were themselves derived from a Hindu tradition, known among scholars as the doctrine of “inclusivism.,” and known in the West as Hindutolerance. This Hindu notion of secularism is the idea that all faiths should be encouraged on thegrounds that they all represent different paths to the same universal truth.55 Hindu communalistsalways point to this notion of tolerance when they argue that a Hindu state would not be a theocratic regime. What is left unsaid, however, is that Hindus consider their tradition as inherently superior to other faiths because of its tolerance.The attitude of Nehru was fundamentally different from the views of the Mahatma and otherHindu reformists on secularism. Influenced by the experience of Western nations and rationalistthinking, Nehru believed that industrialization would erode the influence of religion. As peopleparticipate in the political process, he thought, they would rise above religious and ethnic identities,and communal loyalties would be replaced by class consciousness.56 In theory, the secular state istolerant of religious diversity and thus more capable of facilitating the integration of sectarian minorities into the national society. But many secular states of Asia do not offer appealing alternativesto the communal states. For instance, Kemalist Turkey imposed secular principles through authoritarian processes,57 while Maoist China persecuted religious minorities in the name of its materialistversion of rationalism. In India itself, nationalist modernist leaders, like Subhas Chandra Bose, argued that India should have a dictatorship to eradicate communal conflicts.58The distinction between Hindu and Western notions of secularism, as well as the distinction between democratic and authoritarian versions of Western secularism, represents more than semanticdetails. As the discussion will make clear later on, Hindu communalists will use the first distinction(and forget the second) to support their claim that their view of “integral secularism” is inspired bythe Gandhian ideal, and thus is more suited to Indian society than Nehruvian “pseudo-secularism.”‘ Wilhelm Halbfass, India and Europe. An Essay in Understanding (Albany: State University of New YorkPress, 1988), 409.Cynthia Keppley Mahmood, “Sikh Rebellion and the Hindu Concept of Order,” Asian Survey 29 no.3(March 1989): 326-40.56 Yogendra K. Malik and Dhirendra K. Vajpeyi, “The Rise of Hindu Militancy: India’s Secular Democracy atRisk,” Asian Survey 29 no.3 (March 1989):3 10.T.N. Madan, “Secularism in its Place,” The Journal ofAsian Studies 46 no.4 (November 1987): 57.58 Hugh Toye, Subhash Chandra Bose: The Springing 7iger (London: Cassell, 1959), 60.-23-The International Dimensions of the Contradiction between Communalism and SecularismFor most South Asian states since decolonization, the ideal of a communal state has increasingly asserted itself against the secular model as a philosophical basis for political legitimacy.59 Theideal of a Hindu, Islamic, or Buddhist state seems to offer a unifying principle to societies dividedby language. Further, the policy of communal impartiality seems to be handicapped by a lack ofemotional appeal in societies which remain overwhelmingly religious.6°However, the foundationof a state’s legitimacy on communal sentiments has important consequences for the internationalsystem since it cannot provide a firm basis for viable and stable states.Since most states in South Asia have several communal minorities, it is impossible in most instances to generate a communal consensus. In some cases, the communal balance is so precariousthat the imposition of a state religion is a recipe for political fragmentation and civil war along sectarian lines as the communal minorities seek the creation of new states more congenial to their beliefs. Thus, some South Asian communal states are plagued by the violent reaction of minoritiesseeking to establish separate states to avoid assimilation. The separatist guerrilla war among HinduTamils fighting against the state of Sri Lanka, which they perceive as fostering the interests of theBuddhist majority, corresponds to that pattern. In India itself, despite the institution of the secularstate, the fear of Hindu communalism and the lure of minority communalism have combined tofoster secessionist unrest among Kashmiri Muslims, Sikhs in Punjab, and Christian and animisticminorities in Northeast India. Communal intolerance is a source for further international uncertainty when the transnational nature of universalist religions like Islam and Buddhism is considered:then the appeal of communal minorities for the support of the Umma, or the Sangha, or to foreigncountries where co-religionists are a majority, represents a strong incentive for states harbouring irredentist sentiments. The demands for support by Kashmiri secessionists and the claims ofPakistan over Kashmir represent such a conjunction of these two possibilities.While Pakistan has been established as an Islamic Republic in 1947, the adoption of the Sharia (the Muslimcustomary law) was only entertained during the 1980’s. Bangladesh was initially a secular state, and it is only underthe rule of Mohammed Ershad that the proclamation of an Islamic Republic was contemplated. As a Buddhist state,Sri Lanka seems to head for a similar evolution: while the country was founded as a secular state, it is under thepressure of several Buddhist organizations advocating the adoption of Buddhism as the religion of state. Nepal andBhutan are exceptions to this rule since they were already Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms organized along a theocraticmodel.60 T.N. Macian, “Secularism in its Place,” 754-5.-24-The secular leaders in the first decades of independence were fully aware of this potential impact of communalism on international relations and on the foreign policy of India. The struggle forindependence convinced them of the necessity to preserve national unity and the integrity of thecountry. Forced to sacrifice that principle from the start by accepting the independence of Pakistan,and witnessing the communal madness that accompanied the partition of India, they were all themore determined never to make such a concession to communal separatism again. Thus, the leaders of independent India have followed two strict rules when dealings with dissident group demands based on ethnic, religious, language or cultural characteristics. First, no secessionist movement will be tolerated, and second, demands by religious communities for any form of political organization, such as a separate state within the Indian Union, or separate electorates or any form ofproportional representation, is prohibited.6’Opposed to the partition of South Asia along communal lines, India’s leaders sought to proveto the international community -- and especially to its communal neighbours -- that religious minorities could thrive inside India. Whether they succeeded or failed to ensure the survival of secularinstitutions, the “demonstration effect” was bound to have far-reaching consequences. Indian secular leaders know that the proclamation of Hinduism as the state’s religion would cause considerableanxieties among its neighbours.62They also see in the domestic growth of Hindu communalism athreat to India’s credibility as a non-communal state, thus weakening its argument in the disputewith Pakistan over Kashmir. In this context, then, the secessionist crisis in Kashmir is a major foreign policy problem for India, not primarily because of its strategic value, but because of its symbolic meaning. Kashmir is a test of Indian commitment to secularism as well as a show of strengthplacating the Hindu nationalists. This meant that the fear of Hindu communalism would be a fundamental constraint for Indian foreign policy. 6361 Paul Brass, The Politics ofIndia Since Independence, 7.62 See Mohammed Ayoob, “India as a Regional Hegemon: external opportunities and internal constraints,”International Journal 46 no.3 (Summer 199 1):442.63 Even though the role of Muslim or Sikh fundamentalists in the growth of Hindu militancy is far from negligible, this thesis will not survey Muslim or Sikh communalism, since the only force that can successfully abolishthe institutions of the Indian secular state is the communalism which claims to speak on behalf of the Hindu majority.-25-Controlling Hindu militancy is a growing domestic constraint for New Delhi, since the Hindumilitants present an increasing electoral challenge to the Congress party.TM The ruling party is conscious that any policy of compromise with Pakistan will be denounced as a sign of weakness bythe Hindu nationalists and will cost it the support of nationalist voters. Thus, the government has astrong incentive to refrain from being conciliatory on matters of bilateral disputes with Pakistan.Among these, Kashmir remains as the outstanding issue of disagreement between New Delhi andIslamabad.But if there is a consensus in India about Kashmir’s accession to India, divergences remain between Indian secular and Hindu communal nationalists over the rationale for its incorporation intothe Indian Union. While secular nationalists view the accession of Kashmir into India as proof thatthe secular state can ensure harmonious communal coexistence, Hindu communal nationalists seein the integration of Kashmir into the Indian Union the first step towards the dream of AkhandBharat (“Undivided India”). This distinction between secular and communal nationalism has animmediate consequence on the issue of Kashmir: while the former accepts the idea of a special status for the state of Kashmir inside the Indian Union in the hope of dispelling the anxieties of theMuslim majority in the state, Hindu communalists reject this view in the name of an ideology of“Hindu” nationalism that rejects the idea of special status for any minority.To sum up, the conflict between India and Pakistan has part of its roots in the contradiction between the political ideal for the Indian state advocated by the Congress and other secular groups,and the political ideal for the state of Palcistan advanced by the Muslim League and various fundamentalist organizations. However, Indian secular leaders also have to compete with Hindu communalists within the Indian state. To what extent this domestic contradiction may impinge on the interstate rivalry between New Delhi and Islamabad is a matter for investigation. But first we showedmore clearly what are the goals pursued by Hindu communalist organizations, with reference to thepolicy of the Indian state towards the Kashmiri separatists, as well as the relationship betweenIndia and Pakistan. The views of the Hindu communalists on these two areas of Indian policy, andthe part of their ideology that seek to influence them, are explored in the next section.64 Atul Kohli, “From Majority to Minority rule,” in India Briefing: 1990, eds. Marshall M. Bouton and PhilipOldenburg, 1-23.-26-The Importance of Hindu Communalism in Indian PoliticsThe rise ofHindu communalist organizationsTo understand the impact of Hindu communalism on the security concerns of India, a brief his -torical overview emphasizing the inter-actions between Hindu revivalism and Indian nationalism aswell as between Hindu and Muslim communalism is necessary. It helps us understand that the popularity of Hindu conimunalist organizations has deep roots in the history of India prior to independence and thus, cannot be dismissed as a marginal phenomenon. The roots of Hindu communalismcan be traced back to the cultural movements of Hindu revivalism, as expressed by modernistgroups like the Arya Samaj (the Society of Aryans, or “noble men”), which advocated reformslike the eradication of idol worship and castes, but which also aggressively criticized Islam,Christianity and the West.65 Under its leader Dayananda Saraswati, the Arya Samaj attributedIndia’s sufferings to the activities of foreigners, and sought to instil among Hindus a spirit of resistance against alien influences. Because of its militant attitude, the Arya Samaj is often regardedas the forerunner of Hindu nationalism.67The resentment against non-Hindus as one of the sources of modern India’s predicamentsserved as the foundation for Hindu nationalism, which blended together patriotism, an interpretation of history fostering a sense of pride in a glorious Hindu past, and a resort to religious symbolism seeking to inspire among all Hindus devotion for the land. At the turn of the century, theHindu nationalist Bal Gangadhar Tilak and his followers, known as the Extremists, were becoming prominent members of the Congress. Their ascendancy, significantly, coincided with thefounding of the Muslim League in 1906.68 This last event, in turn, led to the emergence of the AllIndia Hindu Mahasabha (“Great Assembly of Hindus”) in 1913, an organization formed from thefusion of various Hindu communalist movements founded to address the insecurities of Hindus.65 Stephen Hay ed., Sources of Indian Tradition, vol. 2, Modern India and Pakistan (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1958; reprint, New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 56-8 (pages reference are to reprintedition).66 Donald Eugene Smith, India as a Secular State, 455.67 Stephen Hay ed., Sources ofIndian Tradition, vol. 2, Modern India and Pakistan, 52-4.68 Donald Eugene Smith, India as a Secular State, 455.69 Shekhar Gupta, “The Gathering Storm,” 29.-27-Until the foundation of the Hindu Mahasabha, the difference between Indian nationalism andHindu militancy was often difficult to establish, since the ideology of Indian nationalism had todraw from the cultural tradition of the majority of the population to be successful. Furthermore,since India was the only homeland for Hindus (with the exception of the small kingdom of Nepal),the demands to protect Hindu culture seemed to be an integral part of the nationalist ideologyitself.7°In the 1920’s, the Hindu Mahasabha gained the support of communally-minded membersof the Congress who became alienated by the accommodating attitude of the party towards theMuslims. The anti-Muslim sentiment of the Mahasabha gave free rein to the expression of communal grievances. These, in turn, led to violent upheavals and the formation of Hindu defence organizations, which put the emphasis on the militarization of the Hindu community.71One of the most important of these militant organizations was the Rashtriya SwayamsevakSangh (the “National Assembly of Volunteers,” hereafter RSS). Founded in 1925, it was concerned with the development of a highly disciplined group of well indoctrinated and devoted volunteers with which it seeks the creation of a model Hindu society.72Even today, while the RSS rejectspolitics as the means to achieve its objectives, it supports the work of the major Hindu communalist parties. During Hindu-Muslim riots, from partition onwards, hordes of new members joined theorganization.Despite a two year ban imposed on the RSS because of alleged links between the organizationand Gandhi’s assassins, the organization grew to the point where all other groups became marginalto the Hindu communalist stream.73 Any attempt to analyze the impact of Hindu communalist parties on Indian foreign policy must take into account the doctrines held by the RSS, since over theyears this movement has become the major socializing agency for Hindu communalist political parties. Moreover, the RSS has gained considerable influence by establishing several affiliated associations among students, labourers, and Hindu religious groups.74° Since its foundation in 1885, the Congress was a secular party. However, it was not yet a mass organization.71 Donald Eugene Smith, India as a Secular State, 455-7.72 Walter K. Andersen and Shridhar D. Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sanghand Hindu Revivalism, 251.Shekhar Gupta, “The Gathering Storm,” 30-1.‘‘ Walter K. Andersen and Shridhar D. Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sanghand Hindu Revivalism, Ch. 4.-28-Since the RSS has always defined itself as a “cultural” organization rather than as a politicalparty, Hindu communalists were left with two options: to work within the Congress or the HinduMahasabha. However, after the Congress forbade dual RSS-Congress membership within itsranks, and after disagreement between the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha leadership erupted, the needfor a full-fledged political party acting as a front organization for the RSS became acute.Leadership was provided by Shyama Prasad Mookerji, who had resigned from Nehru’s cabinet toexpress his disillusionment with Congress’ policies (most notably its soft line on Kashmir)75 andformed a new Hindu communalist party, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (the “All-India People’sLeague,” hereafter BJS).76 Since older communalist parties like the Hindu Mahasabha had failed toachieve success at the polls because of their communal nature, the BJS sought to minimize its relationship with Hindu communalism to broaden its support. But the BJS was handicapped in this endeavour by the impossibility of severing its close connection with the RSS, which kept on providing leaders and workers to the BJS. The fortunes of the Hindu communalist parties were modestduring the 1960’s and 1970’s, and their share of popular support was less than 10 per cent.78 Allthat changed in the late 1980’s, as the successor party to the BJS, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),jumped from 7.4 per cent of the popular vote in 1984 to more than 20 per cent in the 1991 poll.79This upsurge has been related to a growing fear among Hindus of resurgent Islam and theemergence of Sikh militancy in India, and the rising consciousness among Hindus that co-religionists in South Asian neighbouring states are reduced to a position of second-class citizenship. Theinitial impetus for the perception that Hinduism was under threat can be dated back to 1981, whenmore than a thousand Harijans converted collectively to Islam in the village of Meenakshipuram inTamil Nadu. As a reaction, Hindu communalism is increasingly becoming a wave of Hindu militancy against communal minorities.80Shekhar Gupta, “The Gathering Storm,” 31.76 Walter K. Andersen and Shridhar D. Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sanghand Hindu Revivalism, 125.“ Donald Eugene Smith, India as a Secular State, 471.78 Paul Brass, The Politics ofIndia Since Independence, 70.Mahendra Prasad Singh, “The Dilemma of the New Indian Party System: To Govern or not to Govern?,”Asian Survey 32 no. 4 (April 1992): 315.° Yogendra K. Malik and Dhirendra K. Vajpeyi, “The Rise of Hindu Militancy: India’s Secular Democracy atRisk,” 318-21.-29-Because the BJP is the prominent political party representing Hindu communalism, it seemsreasonable to assume that the evaluation of the impact of Hindu communalism on the foreign policyof India can be undertaken through the analysis of the BJP’s policies-- when they differ fromthose of the other parties in power at the centre -- and look for evidence of influence in the policiesthat are implemented. However, even such a seemingly straightforward strategy of enquiry wouldnot necessarily produce convincing results. One problem is that our independent variable of Hinducommunalism is only one causal factor among others in Indian foreign policy decision-making.Furthermore, Hindu communalism, as a variable, can hardly be defined rigorously, eventhough it is identified with one political party. It is the case because the BJP is far from being a homogeneous party.81 And while the BJP may be the only Hindu communalist political party that matters in the 1980’s and the 1990’s, the influence of “cultural” organizations such as the RSS, or ofHindu defence associations like the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, on the leadership and the politicalbase of the BJP, is unclear. Finally, it is important to remember that Hindu militancy is not limitedto openly communalist organizations.82The next section will explore some of the ideas expressedby the prominent ideologues of Hindu communalism with these cautionary remarks in mind.Emphasis will be placed on their own views about socio-political cohesiveness within a Hindustate, and on the logical consequences of these views for a communally plural society like India.This will give us a picture of the hypothetical security predicaments of a Hindu state.81 At least three factions within the party can be identified, each one with a different outlook on matters relatingto the foreign policy of a Hindu state and its relations with minorities. The two most important are identified asmoderate and mainstream Hindu nationalists, and are distinguished from Hindu militants. Moderates favour a morepacifist foreign policy than the other factions. Mainstream Hindu nationalists, led by Lal Krishna Advani, reject allreference to Gandhism, because they identify it with a policy of appeasement, particularly towards Muslims. Theirforeign policy is more aggressive towards Pakistan. Hindu militants are mostly influenced by the RSS and other“cultural” organizations. These groups can be described as “Hindu chauvinists” and they represent as such a domesticsource of insecurity for the Indian state. Because of their views, these groups seriously complicate communal coexis -tence in India and are most likely to impede any movement towards the establishment of a measure of socio-politicalcohesiveness by the state that is not based on the primacy of Hinduism. From Yogendra K. Malik and V.B. Singh,“Bharatiya Janata Party. An Alternative to the Congress (I)?,” Asian Survey 32 no. 4 (April 1992):321-8.82 From its inception, the Congress itself has had members sympathetic to Hindu communalist sentiments.During the 1924-1926 period, it even had close connections with the Hindu Mahasabha. See Donald Eugene Smith,India as a Secular State, 479-80. After Jawaharlal Nehru passed away, many Congress politicians increasingly driftedtowards Hindu communalist sentiments to counter the Hindu militants’ influence over the communal majority. Thisembrace of Hindu nationalism by the Congress (I), in turn, won for the party the support of the RSS, which proveduseful in ensuring the electoral victory of Rajiv Gandhi in the 1984 elections. See Yogendra K. Malik and DhirendraK. Vajpeyi, “The Rise of Hindu Militancy: India’s Secular Democracy at Risk,” 318-21.-30-The ideologies ofHindu communalist organizationsIn the midst of violent Hindu-Muslim riots in the 1920’s and 1930’s, Hindu communalist organizations led by the Hindu Mahasabha centered their activities around the goal of Sanghatan (unification, integration, consolidation). Considering that the Hindu community had been hitherto divided by sect, caste, and language, these groups emphasized that the Hindu community had to be reformed into an organic nation with a clear sense of self-identity. While exalting and idealizing theancient Hindu religion and culture, these groups were also social reformers: they wanted to uprootthose traditions that contribute to the “weaknesses” of Hinduism. Thus, the Arya Samaj and theHindu Mahasabha recognized that since caste inequality and untouchability encouraged mass conversions to Islam and Christianity, these aspects of Hindu society had to be erathcated.The most influential work in the development of Hindu communalist ideology is that of aHindu Mahasabha leader, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. In his treatise on Hindutva first publishedin 1923, he gave a definition of the key word “Hindu.” While most writers before him had emphasized various aspects of Hindu beliefs to answer the question “who is a Hindu?” Savarkar sought adefinition with a common denominator acceptable for the majority of Indians. His notion of Hinduwas meant to include the worshippers of all faiths that emerged from India. Significantly, whilethis definition of “Hindu” was broad enough to include Buddhists, Jams, Silchs, etc., it implicitlyexcluded Muslims and Christians. Conscious that this notion of Hinduism was likely to alienateone third of India’s population, Savarkar sought to tone down the implications of a strict definitionof Hinduism by coining the concept of Hindutva. (Hindu-ness). Savarkar claimed that Hindus area racial group because of their roots in India, and that Hinduism is only a part of Hindu-ness. Hewanted to cultivate a sense of attachment to the greater whole whereby Hindus, Muslims,Christians, etc. would think of themselves as members of a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu nation).Implicitly, Hindutva viewed Indian Muslims and Christians as Hindus converted to foreign religions who needed to be converted back. No doubts were left about the foundations of nationalconsciousness: it had to be built upon solidarity of the Hindu majority.85Donald Eugene Smith, India as a Secular State, 456-8.Vmayak Damodar Savarkar, Hindutva (Poona: V.G. Ketkar, 1942), 4.85 Donald Eugene Smith, India as a Secular State, 459.-31-Savarkar discussed the Muslims in tones of moderation in Hindutva, but as the animosity between the two communities increased during the 1930’s, the Hindu Mahasabha leader started toview the Muslims as a foreign nation. However, this idea never implied the notion of a separatestate for Pakistan. On the contrary, the Hindu Mahasabha was outraged by the demand for Pakistanmade by the Muslim League and interpreted each concession to them by the Congress as a furthersign of weakness. The Hindu Mahasabha saw the partition of 1947 as an act of betrayal by theCongress, and stood for the reestablishment of Akhand Bharat (Undivided India). For years, iteven advocated the use of force against Pakistan if other means for Indian reunification failed. Onmatters of domestic politics, the Hindu Mahasabha did not argue during the pre-independence period for the establishment of a Hindu Rashtra. Rather, it complained that the Congress itself was departing from secular principles by accepting the establishment of separate electorates. After independence, the Hindu Mahasabha asked for the establishment of a Hindu state. While this projectwas not a Hindu theocracy, it distinguished between the Hindus, who were the only “nationals” ofIndia, and the Muslims and Christians, singled out as second-class citizens.86The Hindu Mahasabha also held the view that secular democracy can not “inspire the masses”and viewed the Congress as “anti-Hindu” because of its secular policy. With respect to relationswith Muslims, the Hindu Mahasabha viewed them as “fifth columnists and enemies” inside Indiaand branded Congress secular policy as a “game of Muslim appeasement.”87Another element of theHindu Mahasabha platform was the integration of all the territory of Kashmir into the IndianUnion. Implicit in that program was the idea of dislodging the Pakistani army from Azad Kashmir,and the advocacy of a stem policy towards Pakistan.Because the fortunes of the Hindu Mahasabha declined during the 1950’s, it is tempting toview its ideology as inconsequential. However, the philosophy of Savarkar provided most othercornmunalist parties with their basic ideological outlook. A quick glance at the electoral platform ofthe BJS and the BJP shows that despite the renunciation of the elusive goal of a reunited India,Hindu communalist organizations all advocate the goal of Kashmir’s full integration into India andthe adoption of a tough stance towards Pakistan.86 Donald Eugene Smith, India as a Secular State, 46 1-2.87 Election manifestos of 1951 and 1957.-32-The RSS supported the Hindu political parties during the 1960’s and 1970’s as the proponentsof Hindu communalist ideology. The most influential exponent of the RSS’ views was “Guruji”Gowalkar, who published in 1939 a pamphlet entitled “We or Our Nationhood Defined.”88 The influence of Savarkar’s Hindutva on this work is manifest. Gowalkar exalted the “Hindu nation”and expressed contempt towards the West and Islam. In his preface, Gowalkar stated an extremistperspective of Hindu militancy which has continued well into the 1980’s: the Hindus are a nation,while Muslim and Christians and other minorities are outsiders. Gowalkar claimed in this definition that the Hindu nation is a cultural unit, not to be confused with the Indian state, which is a political unit.89 However, he made it clear that the ideal Indian state should be a Hindu state. The religious minorities problem, he believed, would be solved by assimilation. Thus, he wrote:“The non-Hindu peoples in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language,must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but thoseof glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., they must not only give up their attitudeof intolerance and ungratefulness towards this land and its long-age traditions but must alsocultivate the positive attitude of love and devotion instead -- in a word they must cease to beforeigners, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claimingnothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment -- not even citizens’rights.”90To give credence to fallacies such as the idea of a Hindu culture (the Vedas? the BhagavadGItâ?), a Hindu language (Sanskrit? Hindi?), and a Hindu race,9’ the RSS’ ideologues claim thatIndia is a corporate Hindu nation, or a “living God,” or use the metaphor of the Divine Mother todescribe India. This “sacred” geography, according to Gowailcar, encompasses territories as remote as fran, Malaysia, and Tibet.92 While the BJP does not hold such a view of the “sacred” geography where the Hindu nation resides, the emotional component behind its idea of the Indian nationis influenced by the RSS’ vision. It has to be borne in mind when trying to understand the demands of Hindu communalists for Kashmir’s integration to India.88 M.S. Gowalkar, We or Our Nationhood Defined (Nagpur: Bharat Prakashan, 1947).89 Donald Eugene Smith, India as a Secular State, 466.° M.S. Gowalkar, We or Our Nationhood Defined, 55-6.91 Savarkar believed that the Aryan people which originated from Northwestern India had gradually spread outover the Subcontinent and that the mixture of blood between this group and non-Aryan people produced the Hindunation. See Walter K. Andersen and Shridhar D. Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya SwayamsevakSangh and Hindu Revivalism, 33-4.92 M.S. Gowalkar, Bunch of Thoughts (Bangalore: Vikrama Prakashan, 1966), 24-5.-33-To achieve electoral success and broaden their appeal, the Hindu communal political partieswere aware that they had to tone down the RSS’ inflammatory rhetoric. Despite their close linkswith the RSS, the BJS and the BJP repeatedly denied that they were communal parties and claimedinstead to be nationalist formations. But the departure from Hindutva to Hindu nationalism was always ambiguous since the BJS’ initial platform was similar to that of the Hindu Mahasabha: implementation of the ban on foreign missionaries, AkhandBharat, total integration of Kashmir intoIndia, compulsory military training, and a tough policy towards Pakistan. Further, the party criticized the Congress’ policy of secularism as “Muslim appeasement.”93 In the 1980’s, the BJPsought to gain wider acceptance of Hindu nationalist ideology among the Westernized middle classes by adopting a revisionist stance. The strategy of the party was to define Hindu nationalism asreal secularism while the policy of the Congress was criticized as “pseudo-secularism,” a biasedversion of secularism enforced only against the Hindus.The growth of violent Sikh fundamentalism in Punjab and Muslim separatism in Kashmir during the 1980’s played into the hands of Hindu communalists, who had always stigmatized theCongress’ policy of accommodating the minorities as an encouragement for secessionist demands.Spurred by these trends as well as instances of mass conversions, several Hindu defence organizations like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad sought to fight what they viewed as the discrimination bysecular leaders against Hindus, “...and inform the majority community about the danger faced byIndia as a nation and Hindus as a community.” Along these organizations have emerged severalHindu sena (armies) such as the Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena, whose slogan --“Whosoever confronts us will be crushed” -- explicitly stress their aim of training and equipping Hindus militarilyso that a Hindu state can be created.95 All the Hindu militant organizations stress the theme ofHindu unity against the threat of religious minorities. As the discussion below will emphasize,however, the proposition of ensuring socio-political cohesiveness within India with a Hindu ideology is a recipe for further divisions.Donald Eugene Smith, India as a Secular State, 47 1-2.‘ Yogendra K. Malik and Dhirendra K. Vajpeyi, “The Rise of Hindu Militancy: India’s Secular Democracy atRisk,” 316.India To&zy, 31 May 1986, 32.-34-The Divisive Potential of Hindu Communalism Examined Through its PoliciesThe definition of the Indian state as a Hindu stateDespite repeated denials to the contrary, the establishment of a Hindu communal state would beproblematic for communities belonging to religions of foreign origin like Islam, Christianity,Zoroastrianism, or Judaism. A favourite theme of the Hindu militants is that Muslims cannot beloyal to India.96 The claim of Hindu communalists is that conversions to Islam or Christianity leadto “anti-national” results, and distance Indians from their past.”97 Notwithstanding the fact that theimplementation of such a program by a Hindu communalist government would be hardly compatible with the principle of freedom of conscience, it raises questions about the rights of those whowould refuse to comply: would they become second class citizens, as the texts of Gowalkar andother Hindu communalist leaders suggest?The leaders of the Hindu communalist organizations, from the RSS to the BJP, deny that theywould establish a theocratic state in India and resent any parallel made between their ideal of“Hindu-ness” and movements like Muslim fundamentalism. They argue that tolerance is part of theHindu tradition, and contend that in a Hindu state the division between religion and state would besimilar to the division between Church and state in the West. This reassuring rhetoric, however, isfar from convincing when put in the context of the proliferation of Hindu defence associationsthroughout India. The representatives of the BJP claim that they are not anti-Muslim or anti-Christian, but express their aim of ending special privileges for the minorities. They point to thecrisis in Kashmir as the “proof’ that granting separate status to minorities only hampers their integration into the Indian “mainstream.” However, rationalizations justifying the campaigns of Hinducommunalists against minority privileges are contradicted by their actions during the 1990 crisis,when the BJP sought to pit Hindus against Muslims by claiming that the secessionist revolt againstthe centre in Kashmir was in fact Muslim communalist agitation against the Hindu minority livingin Kashmir.This assertion was made by the VHP general secretary, Ashok Singhal, August 24, 1990, to foreign journalists. Quoted in Far Eastern Economic Review, 20 September 1990, 32.Far Eastern Economic Review, 20 September 1990, 32.-35-The imposition ofHindi as a national languageAnother policy that a program of “hinduization” would try to implement is the abandonment ofEnglish and the promotion of Hindi as the official language of the Indian Union. This policy,which was abandoned by secular leaders after unsuccessful attempts in the 1950’s to implement it,may be revived by a BJP central government if the actual policy of BJP state governments is anyindication.98 Such a policy, identified in South India with domination by the North -- where Hindiconstitutes the language of the majority -- would almost surely lead to renewed agitation in theSouth, where protests for the preservation of Dravidian languages, especially Tamil, have alwaysbeen very vocal. The removal of English as a constitutional language would also seriously handicap the Muslim minority all over Indlia and the Muslims of Kashmir in particular, who already rankamong the most underprivileged sections of the Indian population. The situation of KashmiriMuslims who are speakers of English as a second language and cannot speak Hindi would be extremely difficult if the BJP policies were to be implemented, since their mother language is not spoken outside the valley. Since Kashmiris already experience several problems when they try to findwork outside their underdeveloped native state, any attempts to impose Hindi as the national language at the expense of English would further alienate them.No issue in the language policies of India, however, is more emotional and potentially explosive than the debate about the status of Urdu. Would a Hindu conimunalist government try to limitthe use of Urdu on the ground that it is the language of the Muslims? The recent agitation led byHindu communalist organizations in the state of Uttar Pradesh (where Muslims represent morethan 15% of the population) against the inclusion of Urdu as a second official language, along withHindi, offers an indication of the policy that a Hindu communalist government may contemplatenationwide with respect to the status of Urdu as a national language. While a gesture against Urduwould not have direct consequence for the Muslim majority in Kashmir who speak Kashmiri orDogri, the message sent to Indian Muslims nationwide would certainly further increase the sense ofalienation felt by the Kashmiris.98 On August 13, 1990, the BJP Chief Ministers of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh endorseda campaign to drop, at the state level, English as an official language. The move worried the national leaders of theBJP, who did not want to compromise the electoral support of English-educated urban middle classes. See FarEastern Economic Review, 20 September 1990, 28.-36-The integration ofKashmir into the Indian state: ending a ban on migrationfrom IndiaWhile it is hard to imagine a worsening of the situations which are already disastrous inKashmir and Punjab, it is clear that a Hindu Rashtra would have a negative effect on these regional disputes. While the over-centralizing tendencies of the Congress, especially under the leadershipof Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, have been blamed for escalating secessionist agitation in Kashmir,Punjab, and the peripheral states of the Northeast, the Hindu militant organizations offer no alternative. On the contrary, as the stand of the BJS and the BJP on the issue of Kashmir’s accession toIndia demonstrates since 1947, the policy of Hindu comrnunalists is for even more centralization.The status of Kashmir in the Indian Union, like that of all princely states, was initially defmedby a treaty of accession, which made New Delhi responsible for defence, foreign affairs and communication but guaranteed autonomy to the state. After 1949, accession was transformed into totalmerger into India, except for Kashmir, whose accession into India became incorporated into theconstitution as Article 370. The special situation of Kashmir was the result of Nehru’s promise tohold a plebiscite deciding the future of the state. The Hindu militants rejected this policy on thegrounds that it encouraged secessionism. As early as 1953, they rioted against the inclusion of article 370 into the constitution.99They vehemently opposed the notification that those who were notcitizens of the state could not buy land in Kashmir. But, the irony was that this disposition hasbeen made to assuage the fears of Hindu landlords who wanted in the 1920’s to restrain the immigration of Muslims into the valley. 100Since 1947, Hindu militants have constantly criticized the centre on this aspect of its policy onKashmir and made this issue their favourite theme. This position held by the BJP has dangerousindirect implications. It may re-ignite other regional conflicts, as in Nagaland and Mizoram, wherethe centre has reached agreements with secessionist rebels whereby the centre would not allow immigration from neighbouring states and would restrict the acquisition of property there. Thesepolicies were not enshrined in the constitution like Article 370 but their goal was similat The repealof Article 370 by a BIP government would undoubtedly be interpreted in the Northeastern states asa repudiation of these tacit accords between them and the centre.Josef Korbel, Danger in Kashmir, 234-9.‘°°“An Article of Faith,” India Today, 28 February 1990, 11.-37-Conclusion. the Regional Impact ofHindu MilitancyThis chapter has started with the theoretical proposition that weak states, such as India, arecharacterized by a lack of socio-political cohesiveness, and that this national attribute is translatedempirically by the assertion of primordialist sentiments based on ethnic/language/religious cleavages. The chapter has focused on a single dimension of primordialist sentiment: communal cleavages based on religion. This mean of identification is not the only one that exists in a society as diversified as India. Furthermore, it is not the only one that can lead to instances of domestic conflicts or inter-state confrontations. However, it is an important one because religious identificationin Pakistan and the secular alternative offered by the Congress in India are the two main strategiesused by the state in South Asia to overcome the problem of socio-political fragmentation that mayarise from ethnic/language diversity. Incidentally, these two strategies have been presented in thefirst chapter as one of the main sources of the conflict between the two countries.For an understanding of the impact of domestic constraints on Indian foreign policy-making, itis necessary to identify what are the ideas and values propagated by the organizations that claim torepresent the Hindu community within India, before asking whether these ideas can have an influence on the foreign policy-making processes of India.What emerged is that while the Hindu communalist organizations are rather important in the Indian political culture, it would be a mistake toassume that they form a united movement, able to determine the course of foreign policy.However, even though the secular majority within the Indian parliament makes sure that Hinducommunalists have a limited impact on Indian foreign policy-making, these groups can have a disruptive influence at the level of domestic policy. The virulent anti-Muslim position of some of themost radical organizations within that movement bode ill for the welfare of minorities under an hypothetical Hindu communalist government. Predictably, the increase of popularity for Hindu cornmunalist parties is likely to complicate the dealings of New Dethi with secessionist movements belonging to minority religious communities, which are feeling uneasy about this trend. Because thedomestic issue of Kashmir is linked with the relationship between India and Pakistan, it is with reference to that issue that the influence of Hindu communalism on Indian foreign policy may be assessed.-38-Indian secular leaders are aware that the inability of the secular state to crush Kashmiri seces -sionism is seen by Hindu chauvinists throughout India as yielding to Muslim fundamentalism, anddrives Hindu fanatics into anti-Muslim agitations. However, the relationship works both ways:failure to curb Hindu chauvinism is also likely to be seen by Muslims as yielding to Hindu communalism, and inevitably strengthens the demands for secession in Kashmit This contradiction between Hindu and Muslim communalist movements and the efforts of the central government toheld them in check represents a central constraint for the Indian state that analysts must bear inmind when trying to make sense of New Delhi’s dealings with Kashmir and Pakistan.The state of India under Nehru’s direction managed successfully to limit the impact of communalism in Indian politics. However, while the principle of secularism seemed firmly entrenched inthe constitution and the rationalist outlook of national leaders like Nehru, the practices at the lowerechelons of politics suggested otherwise. In the 1980’s, the allegedly secular leaders of theCongress started using blatantly communal symbols to get elected, or pandered openly to the casteHindu voters, to counter the growing appeal of overtly Hindu communalist parties. Meanwhile, thegrowing political clout of Muslim fundamentalism throughout the Islamic world, as well as theemergence of a Sikh fundamentalist movement within the Sikh community, provides the Hinducommunalists organizations a renewed sense of insecurity that further propels their militancy innorthern India. The conflicts between secular and communal nationalists that divided India beforeindependence are now re-enacted. The next chapter will examine the influence of Hindu communalism on the Indian secular state’s foreign policy, specifically, in its dealings with the secessionistsin Kashmir and its relations with Pakistan.Chapter ThreeCase Study:The Impact of the BJP on New Delhi’s Policy towards Kashmiri Secessionism-39a--39-Assessing the Influence of Hindu communalists on Indian PoliticsThis Chapter will look at several instances where Hindu communalists have pressured the centre to adopt a tough stance towards Kashmiri separatists, and how it reacted to these demands. Therole of Hindu communalism as a constraint on New Delhi’s policy towards Kashmiri secessionistswill be put in the perspective of the state’s accession to India after the invasion by Pakistan and inlight of the Congress’ attempts to rob Hindu militants of their support among the Hindus ofKashmir in 1983. Then, the case study will focus on the crisis of 1989-1990, which culminatedwith New Delhi’s armed intervention in Kashmir and brinkmanship with Pakistan.The impact of Hindu communalist organizations can be felt in various degrees. The government may simply act as the representative of Hindu communalist organizations if these groupsform a majority government: it would be then mandated to implement the policies advocated bythem in their electoral manifestos. Alternatively, a government formed with a “hung” parliament depending on the support of Hindu communalists for its survival may try to assuage these groups byenacting the most popular parts of their program.A third possibility is the election of a BJP minority government. In this situation, Hindu communalist sentiments might have to be toned down to avoid the defeat of the government at thehands of a secularist opposition. Finally, another possibility is that a minority government facingan opposition comprising Hindu communalists may seek to steal its adversaries’ appeal by co-opting the most popular parts of their program. In the first three cases, the influence of Hindu communalist organizations would be direct, while in the last case, it would be indirect.Modern Indian history provides several instances where the influence of Hindu communalismmay have been exerted both directly and indirectly. A first instance of direct influence was duringthe first decade of independence, when the leaders of Congress believed that Hindu communalistorganizations were very popular, and faced extra-parliamentary opposition supported by the BJSagainst the rule of Sheikh Abdullah in Kashmit-40-An instance of indirect influence was highly probable when the Congress fought the NationalConference in the 1983 state elections of Kashmir. Finally, a second instance of direct influencewas during the National Front government of 1989, which depended on the support of the BJP.Since the first two cases of influence did not involve an international response from Pakistan, theywill be discussed only briefly.The Hindu communalists’ campaign of1953 against Sheikh AbdullahBecause of the peculiar circumstances of its accession to the Indian Union, the state of Jammuand Kashmir was autonomous, with this status enshrined in the Indian constitution under the provisions of Article 370. The arrangement satisfied the aspirations of Kashmiris and had the supportof New Delhi, because the prominent leader of Kashmir, Sheikh Abdullah, was initially committedto the establishment of secular values. But the cleavages of the multi-communal state soon madethe situation extremely volatile. When Abdullah advocated a radical land reform in the state, politicsin Kashmir became polarized on communal lines because many of the landowners were DograHindus while the majority of the poor peasants were Muslims.Those among the Hindus who opposed the secular and socialist-oriented policies of theNational Conference or the Congress founded their own organization, the Praja Parishad. Butsince the total number of Hindus, Silchs and Buddhists in the whole state amounted to less thanone third of the population, the Praja Parishad realized that it could not form a government as longas the National Conference managed to secure the support of the Muslim majority.This situation gave rise in 1950-52 to a wave of discontent headed by the Praja Parishad. TheHindu organization asked for full integration of Jammu and Kashmir within India and scrappingArticle 370.101 In the 1951 election, Abdullah had provided the Hindu militants with further reasons to launch a campaign against him, since the National Conference had rigged the elections.102Whether Abdullah acted in good faith to prevent further polarization on religious lines or not, theaction was ill-advised.°‘ For an account of oppositional politics in Kashmir during the 1950’s, see Balbfr Singh, State Politics inIndia,Ch. 4.102 Balbir Singh, State Politics in India, 5.-41-The rejection of the nomination papers for the candidates of the Praja Parishad on questionablegrounds led to agitation in Jammu. Abdullah viewed this action as a warning sign that the commitment of the Hindu majority in India to secularism might not be solid, and wondered whether theMuslims of Kashmir could rely on Indian promises of autonomy. In the summer of 1953,Abdullah delivered a speech in which he criticized India for the communalist agitation and warnedagainst any attempt by New Delhi to renege on its pledge to grant an autonomous status to Kashmirinside the Indian Union.103Meanwhile, the Hindu militant opposition within Kashmir was encouraged to continue its campaign against the National Conference after the Hindu Mahasabha, the BJS, and a regional Hinducommunalist organization based in Rajasthan, the Ram Rajya Parishad, expressed their solidaritywith the Praja Parishad. The three groups launched a nationwide campaign calling for the full incorporation of Kashmir within India, and the leaders of the BJS even asked its followers to marchto Jammu. The events reached dangerous proportions when Dr. S.P. Mookerji, the BJS president,died in prison of a heart attack after his arrest for having defiantly travelled into Jammu.1°4At the beginning of July, the three communalist parties abruptly called off the agitation for thecomplete integration of Kashmir into India. This decision coincided with a meeting between Nehruand Abdullah’s rival, Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed.105 While it is impossible to determine whetherthe two events are linked, shortly thereafter Abdullah was forced to resign by dissident members ofhis cabinet led by Mohammed, who asked for fuller integration into India, and thus supported thestand of the Praja Parishad. To fight Hindu communalism, secular leaders in Delhi neededAbdullah’s unequivocal support. The problem was that while Abdullah himself was not convincedby the solidity of secularism in India, his unqualified faith was required for ensuring it.1°6‘° Josef Korbel, Danger in Kashinir, 239-40.104 Josef Korbel, Danger in Kashmir, 234-5.105 Josef Korbel, Danger in Kashmir, 237-9.106 Ashutosh Varshney, “India, Pakistan, and Kashmit Antinomies of Nationalism,” 1005.-42-1983-1988. The secular state plays communalpoliticsWhen Sheikh Abdullah died, his anointed son, Dr. Farooq Abdullah, succeeded him. TheCongress believed that the son would not inherit his father’s charisma and saw a chance to regaincontrol of the state. The party of Indira Gandhi unleashed a fierce campaign: the violence accompanying the 1983 election for the Vidhan Sabha (state assembly), left five dead and more than 500 injured, and was marred by religious polarisation.107 The party expected to win the poii by rallyingthe Hindu vote in Jammu, and the Buddhist vote in Ladakh, and by splitting the Muslim vote in theValley. But the strategy failed as the Congress won only a few seats in Jammu and failed to establish its presence in Kashmir. This episode of Kashmiri politics was the result of the largely successful attempts by Dr. Abdullah to establish himself as an active player in an all-Indian oppositionto the government of Indira Gandhi. It was no secret then that the centre sought to retaliate by orchestrating the installation of more conciliatory governments in the dissident states. The irony isthat while Farooq introduced Kashmir into the mainstream of Indian politics, New Delhi’s approach to Kashmiri politics led to a renewed upsurge of anti-Indian sentiments in the Valley. 108If the Congress failed to achieve its objective through intimidation during the state’s election,the situation improved for the party during the summer as the Congress-inspired violence and thepolitical feud gave way to palace intrigues. After charging that Abdullah was indulgent towards Secessionists and accusing him of cooperation with fundamentalist groups, Indira Gandhi arrangedthe defection of dissidents from the state’s ruling party and replaced Abdullah with a more pliantleader.109 Having achieved this “toppling” operation in Kashmir and following the success ofOperation Blue Star in neighbouring Punjab, the Congress felt ready to embark on a nationwideLok Sabha poli for the end of 1984. Then, in October, Mrs. Gandhi was killed by one of her Sikhguards. As the new leader of the Congress after his mother’s assassination, Rajiv Gandhi did notdepart from Indira’s style: the electoral campaign of December 1984 was also conducted on thetheme of threats to Indian unity.107 Far Eastern EconomicReview, 16 June 1983, 10.108 Far Eastern Economic Review, 22 December 1983, 38.109 Far Eastern Economic Review, 16 February 1984, 24.110 Iqbal Narain, maintains however that the sympathy vote significantly account for the scope of the Congressvictory. See “India in 1985: Triumph of Democracy,” Asian Survey 36 no.2 (February 1986): 253-69.-43-The December 1984 elections for the Lok Sabha were conducted in an atmosphere of communal violence and marred by appeals to the Hindu vote. In its electoral manifesto, the Congressclaimed that the challenge to India came from separatists and their external allies, a covert referenceto Pakistan.112The allusions to Pakistan and the threat to secularism, without naming them, stigmatized the Muslims as potential separatists. That this electoral strategy was used to placate thegrowth of Hindu militants’ discontent is obvious when the manifestos of the Congress and the BJPare compared. Apart from the added demand for the abolition of Article 370, the BJP’s manifestolooked like a copy of the Congress’ in the sections devoted to national security and foreignpolicy. 113After the Congress won an impressive victory where it played its communal and patrioticcards, many Kashmiris wondered whether living in a Hindu-majority state would be in their interest. As anti-Hindu riots erupted, the Congress suddenly came to the realization that its manoeuvresin the state might be worse than the illness they were supposed to cure. Anxious to find a politicalsolution to the oncoming crisis in Kashmir, the Congress staged the return of Abdullah as ChiefMinister, but under the condition that an electoral alliance with the Congress denying him an absolute majority would be formed. This return to rigged electoral practices convinced a majority ofKashmiris that New Delhi would never respect their aspirations.4Mounting Hindu militancy in India and the growing audience found by their leaders furthercompounded Muslim anxieties. To the injunction that “Indian Muslims must be Indians first;Muslims by religion but Hindus by culture,”5some Muslims in Kashmir reacted by lending an earto the fundamentalist groups that sought to defend their “Islamic identity.” The Nehruvian vision ofsecular politics for India and the status of Kashmir as its symbol of communal harmony were eroding dangerously.Paul Brass, The Politics ofIndia Since Independence, 199.112 Far Eastern Economic Review, 20 December 1984, 14.113“Manifestos of Political Parties”, in 1984: The Bullets and the Ballots. The Parliamentary Elections in India,eds. B.N. Varma and A.K. Varma (Bareilly: Samuchit, 1986), 191, 198.114 Far Eastern Economic Review, 2d. October 1985, 31.115 Far Eastern Economic Review, 20 March 1988.-44-Not surprisingly, the relationship between New Delhi and Islamabad suffered from this domestic turmoil. In the midst of a climate of mutual suspicion, the two countries nearly entered intoarmed collision in 1987, as misunderstanding arose about the scope of each other’s annual militaryexercise.116 After the 1987 election in Kashmir, violence became endemic in the state. Most of theviolence was in support of demands for separation from India and its character was non-cominunal.”7 But this eroded over the years as a new organization, the Hizbul Mujahideen, started competing with the non-communal Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). In September 1989,the secessionist movements murdered their first non-Muslim victim, a local BJP leader.’18 Reactingto that incident, the BJP President L.K. Advani held New Delhi responsible for the rise of terrorism in Kashmir and criticized the Rajiv Gandhi government for being “too friendly” towardsPakistan.119The trends observed in 1983 repeated themselves in 1989, when Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhilaunched his electoral campaign with a controversial speech in the twin cities of Faizabad-Ayodhya.The choice of that location was ominous since it was at the centre of the renewedRamjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid controversy which had led to nation-wide communal confrontations since 1984. Harping on a theme hitherto associated with the BJP, Rajiv Gandhi asserted thatonly the Congress could bring back Ram Rajya (the rule of Rama) in the country. In pointing tothe fact that all Indian rulers since the days of Lord Rama have called themselves Hindustani, he attempted to play up the theme of Indian unity, thereby stealing from the BJP the argument thatHindutva meant “Indian-ness.” The BJP’s manifesto also placed the theme of national unity andnational integration at the top of its priorities. Stating its opposition to discrimination and its commitment to ensure justice and equality for all minorities, the party left no doubts about the meaningof this conmiitment, when it asserted that in the interest of “national integration” minorities shouldnot develop a “minority complex.” With reference tO the Kashmir problem, the party put at the topof its agenda the deletion of the “temporary” Article 370.120uS Bharat Wariavwalia, “India in 1987: Democracy on Trial,” Asian Survey 28 no.2 (February 1988): 119-25.The limes ofIndia, 14 January 1989, 1; 12 February 1989, 1.118 The limes ofIndia, 15 September 1989, 1.119 The limes ofIndia, 17 September 1989, 1.120 Sharda Paul, 1989: General Elections in India (New Delhi: Associate Publishing House, 1990), 138-62.-45-Assessing the Direct Influence of Hindu communalists on the CentreThe influence of the BJP on New Delhi’s Policy towards Kashmiri Secessionism: the ContextThe most important representative of Hindu communalism in the late 19 80’s and in the early1990’s is undoubtedly the BJP. The examination of its electoral platform, available in the manifestos published by the party, along with its statements in the Lok Sabha, or the special public campaigns that it convened, provide scholars ample opportunities to get acquainted with its efforts totranslate the woridview of the RSS into a political program. As suggested before, the influence ofthe BJP on the foreign policy of India will be assessed through its ability to prod the government inNew Delhi to entertain policies with respect to the secessionist movement in Kashmir which arecongenial to its own views. The peculiarities of the Hindu communalist weltanschauung are difficult to operationalize in real-life indicators: how can we attest that a government in New Dethi actsin way that relates to such concepts as Hindutva, Hindu Rashtra, or India as a Holy Land? Despitethe obvious difficulties, two policies can be identified as typical of the Hindu communalists’ view.The first is the refusal of any negotiation, whether overt or covert, with the secessionist movements in Kashmir. While the National Front, the parties on the Left, the Congress, and other formations of the mainstream reject the secessionists’ actions or the option of Kashmir’s independence, they have unofficially agreed in principle to unofficial negotiation with secessionists. Onlythe BJP refuses any form of negotiation with the secessionists. The stand of the BJP on the matterwas translated into action by its unflinching support to the rule of governor Jagmohan in Kashmir,and in the organization of public campaigns to “save Kashmir,” where the party advocated attackson secessionist training camps allegedly based in Pakistan.The second policy that the BJP sought to impose on the centre was abolition of the status of autonomy granted to Kashmit In this second instance, the contrast between the position of the BJPand that of other political parties is total. While no party could accept the secession of Kashmir, everyone knows that keeping Article 370 in force represents a bare minimum for the Kashmiris, andany attempt to abolish this part of the constitution would remove the last hope for its integrationwithin the Indian Union.-46-Before discussing the internationalization of the crisis in Kashmir in 1990, it is necessary to recall at this point some of the basic elements that pertain to bilateral relations between India andPakistan. Since 1972, Delhi and Islamabad had both pledged to abide by the provisions of theSimla Agreement concluded between the governments of Indira Gandhi and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.The agreement, which followed India’s victory in the Bangladesh war, featured the followingpoints: both countries agree that any differences between them have to be solved by peacefulmeans; attempts to solve differences are to be entertained through bilateral negotiations; neither sideshould try to alter the situation unilaterally; both sides will prevent the organization, assistance orencouragement of any act detrimental to the maintenance of peaceful and harmonious relations be -tween the two countries; neither side will interfere in the domestic affairs of the other; and the lineof control in Kashmir has to be respected.’21With the exception of the erstwhile BJS, which accepted nothing short of the recovery of allPakistani-occupied territory, all the parties in the Lok Sabha agreed with the provisions of theSimla agreement. Sardar Swaran Singh, then Minister of External Affairs, praised the agreementsince it in no way derogated from the Indian position that Kashmir is an integral part of India, thatits accession is final and complete, and that part of it is still under the illegal occupation ofPakistan.’ Since 1972, India and Pakistan have always referred to the Simla agreement when bilateral disputes had arisen. Since then, too, Pakistan has ceased to represent a military threat toIndia. The strategic thinking of Delhi since 1972 has been to prevent an alliance between Islamabadand Beijing. The timid thaw initiated since 1985 in their bilateral relations has been already compromised by the Indian accusation that Pakistan supported communal riots in Kashmir and attempted to alter the status quo through infiltration and subversion.’23When Benazir Bhutto was electedPrime Minister of Pakistan, her counterpart in New Delhi saw an historic opportunity to solve bilateral problems. Consequently, Rajiv and Benazir met in July 1988, and the two signed an agreement not to attack each other’s nuclear installations. ‘121 From “Reply to the Lok Sabha Debate on the Simla Agreement by the Minister of External Affairs (SardarSwaran Singh),” 1st. August 1972, in Foreign Affair Record, Government of India, 240-2.122 Ibid 245-6.123 Eastern Economic Review, 27 March 1986, 34.124 BharatWariavwalla, “India in 1988: Drift, Disarray or Pattern?,” Asian Survey 29 no. 2 (February 1989):189-98.-47-The BJP’s influence on the National Front Government’s Policy towards Kashmiri SecessionismThe Indians held their ninth general election in 1989, and after a stormy campaign, no majoritygovernment could be formed. While the Congress remained the most important party with 197seats, this was not enough to constitute a government. It was up to Vishwanath Pratap Singh, thehead of the National Front coalition, to form a minority government. The new regime was extremely fragile since it held fewer than 150 of the 545 seats in the parliament. The National Front depended on the support of two groups which differed totally in their ideological outlook: the BJP,which controlled 86 seats, and the Left Front, which won more than 50 seats.1The new government had to face its first test when, barely one week after it was formed, militants of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) kidnapped Rubaiya Sayeed, the daughterof Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, the newly-appointed Home Minister. In the immediate aftermath ofthese events, the government sought to convey an impression of decisiveness by convening an all-party conference to deal with the problem of secessionism in Kashmir. However, the conclusion ofthis first crisis was foregone: the release of the Union Home Minister’s daughter in exchange forthe liberation of five secessionists, far from creating an atmosphere of conciliation, was interpretedas a sign of weakness and led to renewed agitation. The new round of disturbances in the Valleywas especially humiliating for the new government; while the curfews imposed by the Indian authorities were defied, those of the militants were widely respected.Even though the crisis was a domestic upheaval within Kashmir, the containment of the issuewithin the internal affairs of India was difficult, since the Pakistanis continuously raised the issueof Kashmir’s independence in various international fora. At the first talks held between V.P. Singhand Benazir Bhutto’s envoy, the Indians criticized Islamabad for supporting anti-Indian militants inKashmir. To the Pakistanis’ plea for “understanding” the constraints exerted against the minoritygovernment of Bhutto, the Indians pointed to “the pressures against their own minority government in New Delhi.”127 This last statement amounted to an official recognition that the new Indiangovernment had its hands tied by BJP’s support.125 Atul Kohli, “From Majority to Minority rule,” 1.126“Nation’s Ordeal,” in The limes ofIndia, 11 December 1989, 6.127 The limes ofIndia, 11 January 1990, 1.-48-The pressures exerted by the BJP on New Delhi’s foreign policy materialized in incendiarystatements made by its representative, Murli Manohar Joshi, who further inflamed an already heated situation by claiming that the problem in Kashmir was “even worse than in 1947,” and by asking for “search and destroy operations” on Pakistani soil to control the infiltration of secessionistsfrom across the border. ‘ Simultaneously, the ultra-nationalist pressures mounted by the BJP within India had their counterparts within Pakistan, where Muslim fundamentalists harassed the government of Benazir Bhutto for being “soft” on the issue of Kashmit Predictably, the Pakistani government was only too eager to placate its opponents by zealously expressing its concerns forMuslim co-religionists in Kashmir, and keeping alive the issue of Kashmir’s right to self-determination in international meetings. This policy of moral support to the secessionists in Kashmir culminated when Prime Minister Bhutto said that there can be “no compromise” with India on thequestion of “the right of self-determination” for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, and added thatthe conflict in Kashmir was not only a matter of concern for the people of Pakistan, but further anissue causing “resentment in the entire Muslim Umma (community).”29The Indian government was outraged by the suggestions made by the Pakistani foreign minister Yakub Khan that Kashmir’s accession to India was not legal, and that the 1972 line of controlwas not an international border. 130 The statement almost suggested that the Pakistanis wanted to reject the Simla accord by transforming into a matter of international dispute what was, from theIndian perspective, a domestic problem. The second statement amounted to the claim that Pakistanhad a right to intervene in Kashmir. This analysis was supported by the argument made inIslamabad that the emotional ties between co-religionists in Kashmir on both sides of the line-of-control explained the “passions” aroused in Pakistan by the developments in the Valley. Thesedeclarations, which suggested that Pakistan was an aggrieved party, raised eyebrows in New Delhi because they were associated with the fear in Islamabad that a war by miscalculation might flare upbecause of the inability of the Indian minority government to control its domestic opposition.128 The limes ofIndia, 16 January 1990, 1.129 The limes ofIndia, 16 January 1990, 1.130 The limes ofIndia, 24 January 1990, 8.-49-To the pressures put on the National Front government to act decisively on foreign affairs, theBJP added statements about domestic politics in Kashmir that further whipped up passions. Eventhough the National Front government had made it known that it preferred a policy of moderationon its dealings with Kashmiri secessionists, the BJP harassed V.P. Singh on the issue of law andorder. Through the voice of its general secretary, Krishna Lal Sharma, the BJP reiterated its rejection of dialogue with any group that did not shun “agitation for separation.” Meanwhile, BJPPresident Lal Krishna Advani asked in a memorandum submitted to the Prime Minister that thestate of Jammu and Kashmir should be declared a “disturbed area,” an administrative measure thatimplied the permanent stationing of armed forces from the centre in the sensitive areas of the stateto ensure order. The memorandum also asked all political parties to consider the abolition of Article370, and justified its stance by claiming that the legislation had created “artificial” barriers betweenthe state and the rest of India. Finally, the BJP sought to make political gains with the whole issueby announcing that it would observe January 27, 1990 as a “Save Kashmir day” to highlight howthe Valley is held “under siege” by Pakistan-trained terrorists. The BJP also raised the issue of the“plight” of Hindus who were singled out as the targets of attack by secessionist militants. Posingthemselves as the defenders of the Hindus, the BJP leaders labelled the assurances of the state toHindus as “hollow” and urged the centre to ensure the safety of Hindu refugees. 131Acknowledging that its carrot and stick policy drew the criticism of the National Conferenceand the Congress as well as that of the BJP, the National Front abruptly changed its strategy fordealing with the secessionists in Kashmir. The centre decided to appoint Jagmohan, a former governor of the state, as the new governor for Jammu and Kashmir.132 The appointment of Jagmohanwas applauded by members of all political parties as a non-partisan gesture since the governor hadbeen hand-picked previously by Indira Gandhi. There was one drawback with the new assignment, however: it was not approved by the Prime Minister of Kashmir, Dr. Abdullah, who had nochoice but to offer his resignation after such a rejection of his prerogatives. The BJP saw in thisturn of events a vindication of its policies, since it had asked for the appointment of leaders likeJagmohan and the dismissal of Dr. Abdullah since the beginning.131 The limes ofIndia, 19 January 1990, 3.132 The limes ofIndia, 20 January 1990, 1.-50-For the four parties of the Left supporting the National Front, Jagmohan’s appointment appeared as an administrative solution to a political problem. The concern of the leftist parties wasthat this approach would “allow the separatist forces to internationalize the problem.”33In fact, theimposition of the governor’s rule, far from restoring order, led to renewed agitation as people inthe towns of Srinagar, Anantnag and Sopore defied the curfew imposed by Jagmohan.Confrontations between the police and paramilitary secessionist groups on January 20, 1990 led to35 deaths and about 100 injured.”4 At the end of that fateful weekend that left about 60 peopledead, it appeared as if the majority of the population in the valley of Kashmir was entering intoopen rebellion against the central government.”5The anxieties expressed by the parties of the Left were not unfounded, since the deaths inKashmir troubled international opinion. In Pakistan, the top opposition leader, the then Punjabgovernor and president of the democratic Islamic alliance (IH), Nawaz Sharif, used the events inKashmir to increase his own stature, by calling for international support for the “freedom fighters”in Kashmir, and criticising the Bhutto government for its “inaction” on the Kashniir issue.”6At theend of January 1990, the foreign minister of Pakistan responded to this charge by publicly rejecting the Indian claim that Kashmir was an integral part of India. But while the statement delightedMuslim fundamentalists in Pakistan, the authorities backtracked on the military front and stated thattheir moves on the border would be controlled so that they would not lead to a war with India. At ameeting to discuss the situation in Kashmir convened by members of the Paldstani federal cabinet,solidarity was expressed with the struggle of the people of Kashmir against “Indian aggression,”but it was carefully disclosed that the support of Pakistan to the “civil unrest” in Kashmir was“moral” and not material.”7The Indians, unimpressed, rejected these denials and claimed that theyhad in their possession evidence of Pakistani involvement in helping the insurrection in Kashmir.”8133 The limes ofIndia, 21 January 1990, 1, 16.134 The limes ofIndia, 22 January 1990, 1.135Neweek 5 February 1990, 36.136 The limes ofIndia, 28 January 1990, 1.137 The limes ofIndia, 28, 30 January 1990, 1.138 The limes ofIndia, 9 February 1990, 1.-51-The tragedy of Kashmir acquired a dangerous dimension at the beginning of 1990, as Hindusstarted to migrate out of the Valley to Jammu and New Delhi. Most of the migrants recalled thatthings had started to deteriorate when the fundamentalists took over in the Valley. They were afraidof forced conversion and harassment. Kashmiris were becoming victims of both the militants andthe security forces. This new development was potentially explosive, since it suggested that themilitants were adding an Islamic -- and thus communal -- dimension to their political objective ofindependence. Despite the fact that some Muslims in the Valley sought to dispel these stories as “aself-created fear psychosis,” many Hindus preferred to quit the region. The exodus from Kashmirgrew even further after the assassinations of an Hindu lawyer in the Valley. The authorities in theprovince of Jammu tried in vain to persuade the migrants to return to their homes in Kashmir. Theyfeared that the influx of Hindu migrants might inspire rumours about communal tension whichwould then inflame the situation throughout India.’39In February demonstrations by slogan-chanting crowds denouncing Palcistan’s interference inthe affairs of Kashmir started to respond to the strikes and violence in the Valley. These outburstswere organized by Hindu militant organizations like the Shiv Sena, which had always been criticalof Pakistan. Before long, other organizations such as the Congress, the National Conference, theJanata Dal and of course the BJP, followed suit to prove their patriotic credentials in the state bylaunching their own demonstrations.’4°At the beginning of March, V.P. Singh decided to convene an all-parties meeting to find a political solution to the crisis in Kashmir, as the heavy-handed approach of Governor Jagmohan failedto produce any significant results. A rift was inevitable over the best way to tackle the problem.While the BJP lauded Jagmohan as the “only ray of hope” in Kashmir and chided the Left for itssilence on the persecution of the Hindu minority in Kashniir, the Left criticized the BJP for seekingto make partisan gains out of a national tragedy. Along with the Congress, they asked for the returnof Dr. Abdullah since in their view the National Conference remained the only political force in theValley which could claim representativeness.’4’139 The limes ofIndia, 13 February 1990, 1.140 The limes ofIndia, 17 February 1990, 1.141 The limes ofIndia, 9 March 1990, 1.-52-In North India, Hindu militant organizations had found in the Kashmiri uprising a clear example of the threats levelled against Hindu identity when too many concessions are granted to minorities. On March 7, an organization called the All-India Kashmir Samaj organized a protest rally inthe national capital to highlight the plight of Hindus who claimed that they had been forced to fleefrom Kashmit The group first asked that the centre give more support to Governor Jagmohan. Butafter a while, it added that preventing the secession of Kashmir was not enough and required fromthe government the liberation from “Pakistan’s hands” of “occupied Kashmit”42One week later, the BJP took up from the Hindu “cultural organizations” the issue of the persecuted Hindu refugees fleeing Kashmir by organizing a big rally in New Dethi. The journalists witnessing the event heard from young Kashmiris attending the meeting disturbing tales of Hindus receiving open threats, “...either leave Kashmir or become Muslims.”43 Addressing youths thatwere chanting the slogans: “We will wipe out Pakistan from the map of the world,” the BJP tried totransform the grievances of the Kashmiri exiles into a national drama, with the slogan: “TheKashmir that we irrigated with our blood is ours.” The party was now in a mood for pressuring thegovernment on the crisis. It defied it to implement its solutions to the crisis: no negotiations withthe militants; clampdown on their organizations; sending an ultimatum to Pakistan urging the immediate cessation of support to the militants; liberation from the Pakistani occupation of “AzadKashmir,” and abrogation of Article 370.At the end of March, a near consensus seemed to emerge about Kashmit The all-party meetingagreed that the political process had to be revived and that new elections should be held for the stateassembly. Only the BJP and the Shiv Sena rejected the policy as insufficient in the face of the Secessionists’•rejection of Indian authority. The government of V.P. Singh may have been ready tooffer to the Kashmiris the status of semi-autonomy that the Abdullahs had asked for. But it was toolate to work out this compromise since the population in the state was now blaming the Sheikh andhis son for having “sold out” Kashmir to India.142 The limes ofIndia, 8 March 1990, 1.The limes ofIndia, 15 March 1990, 1.-53-The JKLF and the other militant organizations in Jammu and Kashniir provided to the Hindumilitants all the justification they hoped for, since they all stated that they wanted nothing short oftotal independence from India. The only political cleavages that mattered then were between thesecular and the fundamentalist secessionists, or between the supporters of Kashmir’s independenceand the proponents of accession to Pakistan. The most disturbing development was that increasingly vocal components of the militant organizations were represented by fundamentalists who wereready to renew communal passions.The hard-line stance of the zealots in the communal majority of Kashmir mirrored that of theircounterparts in India. It was clear in the three-day session of the BJP’s national executive convenedin the beginning of April at Calcutta, where the crisis in Jammu and Kashmir dominated the discussions. Party president L. K. Advani reminded everyone of the stand of his party on the issue: theproblem will persist unless the special status afforded under Article 370 is withdrawn. In a reference to Benazir Bhutto’s speech supporting the Kashmiri insurgents, the BJP’s general secretarydeclared that the Pakistani prime minister had started an “undeclared war” on India.1A resolutionadopted by the party stated that unless Pakistan withdrew from interference in the domestic affairsof India and then made it possible to reestablish order, New Delhi might have “to knock out thetraining camps and transit routes of the terrorists” (in Palcistan). The resolution claimed that “hotpursuit” was a legitimate defensive measure since it viewed Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as Indianterritory. The party concluded its conclave by calling for the observance throughout India of a“Save Kashmir: Save Bharat Week” to bring to the country’s attention the situation in the state.’45The Congress overbid the BJP on patriotism on the very day that the BJP launched its attack onthe V. P. Singh government. Speaking at the extended Congress Working Committee, RajivGandhi pointed to Benazir Bhutto’s statement of support for the people in Kashmir and asked thegovernment to take the necessary steps to counter this involvement of Islamabad in Indian domesticaffairs. The former Prime Minister criticized the National Front government for not sending adequate signals to its counterpart in Islamabad.’144 The Times ofIndia, 7 April 1990, 1,5.145 The limes ofIndia, 8 April 1990, 1.146 The limes ofIndia, 8 April 1990, 1.-54-Responding to the challenge posed by both internal and external pressures, V. P. Singh askedthe people of India on April 10 to prepare themselves “psychologically” for a war which might beforced on their country by Pakistan. The Prime Minister declared in the Lok Sabha that this warwould probably start with a pre-emptive strike by Pakistan. Leaving no doubt about his resolve,the Prime Minister stated that the armed forces were ready to face any eventualities. It was evenmade clear that if India were to be confronted with a nuclear threat, his government was ready tostrike back.The Prime Minister reiterated the accusations made by his political opponents that Pakistan wasusing religious fundamentalism to whip up anti-Indian hysteria. The Indian government found especially reprehensible the fact that the government of Benazir Bhutto had set up a fund of Rs.10crores for “humanitarian purposes” to help the people of Kashmir while the Punjab chief minister(and leader of the opposition) Nawaz Sharif had set a Rs. 5 crores fund explicitly to help the militants. These gestures were seen by New Delhi as violations of the Simla obligations.147However, V. P. Singh had to backtrack on his bellicose statement the day after it was spelledout in the Lok Sabha. Speaking to newspaper editors on April 14, he disclosed that he wanted firstto avert war by sending “timely warnings.” Pointing to the uncertainties of the Palcistani regimeand doubts about who was really in charge since the competition between Benazir Bhutto andNawaz Sharif was intensifying, the Indian Prime Minister said that he felt compelled to issue apublic warning. He explained that it is usually indecision and confused signals that trigger conflicts.148Indecision was precisely the problem that gripped the National Front government, whose majority was put in jeopardy by the growing threat of the BJP to withdraw its support unless the government adopted a tough stand on the problem of Kashmit The BJP was now relying on massivedemonstrations to support its demand. Thus, on May 2nd, it hosted in New Delhi a huge “SaveKashmir” rally where the President L. K. Advani renewed the party’s demand for a military intervention in Palcistan to destroy the terrorist camps.149147‘Warning Against War,” The limes ofIndia, 12 April 1990, 6.The Economist, 21 April 1990, 35-6.149 The limes ofIndia, 3 May 1990, 1.-55-Aware that the volatile situation in Kashmir could easily flare up into a major confrontation, thesuperpowers worried about the developments in South Asia during the Washington summit of May1990. 150 The Indian press disclosed that American officials worried until June about the lilcelihoodof war by September or October of that year.15’ The superpowers’ thaw was certainly helpful ineasing the tensions, as both George Bush and MilchaiI Gorbachev jointly reiterated their positionthat the Simla accord provided the best framework for a peaceful resolution of any bilateral disputebetween India and Pakistan.Afterwards, doubts started to be expressed about the real possibilities of a generalized conflictbetween India and Pakistan. At the height of the Indo-Pakistani crisis, the noted commentator onIndo-Pakistani affairs, Bhabani Sen Gupta, claimed that the war rhetoric was “entirelysimulated.”52Leaders in both countries, he claimed, understood that if India and Pakistan dared goat war with each other, there would be no outside support for either belligerent. The U.S. had distanced itself from Pakistan while Moscow hinted that the treaty of friendship between India and theSoviet Union was not binding in the context of the new crisis. Finally, the Chinese did not want toencourage their Pakistani ally as they were busy facing an Islamic rebellion in Xinjiang. Evenwhile Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif were engaged in a race for popularity in national politics,both leaders knew only too well the prohibitive cost of a war with India. Similar reasoning aboutthe costs of a war with Palcistan for New Delhi were expressed among Indian strategic planners.’53Further, a prominent member of India’s military and strategic planning establishment, K.Subrahmanyam, noted in an open letter to the Times of India that “[c]onventional wars on largescale do not happen by miscalculation in this age, specially when the army headquarters of the twoadversaries are linked by a hotline.”54 The official policy that the Indian government wanted topursue to address the problem of Pakistan’s support to Kashmiri insurgents was one of containment, in which the border between the two countries would be sealed.150 The Times ofIndia, 31 May 1990, 7.151 The limes ofIndia, 17 June 1990, 16.152 Emily Macfarquhar, U.S. News and World Report, 11 June 1990, 44.153 Bhabani Sen Gupta, “Neither War, nor Peace,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 14 June 1990, 24.154 K. Subrahmanyam, “Dealing with Pakistan. Containment Better than War,” The Times ofIndia, 26 June1990, 6.-56-While India could then check the infiltration into its territory, the argument went, the Pakistaniswould have to deal with the fallout of their support to Kashmiri insurgents. Convinced that thePakistani polity was aiready on the verge of fragmentation thanks to “ethnic rivalry, narco-power,religious fundamentalism and political instability,” Subrahmanyam considered that the best strategyfor India, instead of waging a costly war, would be a strategy “(...) of containment and allowingthe internal situation in Pakistan to come to a boil.”55 The reasoning was that India would be securefrom any spill-over effects of Pakistan’s internal instability if the border between the two countrieswas mined.The main roadblock towards the implementation of this policy was the BJP’s continued attemptto derail the process by advocating intervention in Pakistan and whipping up popular supportagainst the special status of Jammu and Kashmit This last demand put V. P. Singh’s governmenton the horns of a dilemma: if it reneged on its promise to administer Kashmir according to the provisions of Article 370, it risked cutting the last remaining symbol of Kashmir’s status of semi-autonomy inside India, thus giving further credence to Kashmiri nationalists. On the other hand,New Delhi knew that by refusing to accede to the demands of the Hindu militants, it looked as if itwas bending towards the minorities’ wishes for special status, benefits, and other schemes devisedat the expense of the so-called Hindu majority.Instead of reviving the political process, the National Front government chose in the summer of1990 to beef up its security arrangements in the Valley. The authorities justified their action by thefact that politics among the militant organizations had taken a new and dangerous turn. Seculareven-handedness was discarded as Hindus and Sikhs were intimidated in the Valley. Furthermore,the JKLF, as the representative of a secular (albeit separatist) movement, was on the verge of beingoutflanked by fundamentalist organizations like the Hizbul Mujahideen and the Jamaat-e-Islami.Finally, the moves by Pakistan to control the nationalist movement suggested that the traditionalgoal of Kashmiri independence was being replaced by that of accession to Pakistan.’56K. Subrahmanyam, “Dealing with Pakistan: Containment Better than War,” The Times ofIndia, 26 June1990, 6.156 The lfrnes ofIndia, 7 July 1990, 1.-57-The tension between India and Pakistan diminished markedly in August 1990, since a measureof predictability was introduced in Pakistani politics with the dismissal of Benazir Bhutto’s minority government and its replacement by a regime promising elections in October of the same year. InIndia, however, the National Front government was becoming increasingly fragile. The main constituent of the ruling coalition, the Janata Dal, was divided by intense factionalism, and became embroiled in a national controversy after V. P. Singh’s decision to implement the recommendations ofthe Mandal commission despite the strong opposition of the BJP. In November 1990, the NationalFront government attempted to stop a Hindu communalist campaign led by the BJP. The gestureled to the withdrawal of the BJP support and the fall of the V. P. Singh government.During the ensuing interim regime of Chandra Shekhar, the BJP prepared itself for a new national poll. In its organizational elections, the party showed its resolve to act as the defender of theHindu component of Indian national identity. The BJP conclave chose new leaders like MurliManohar Joshi, more committed than ever to the ideology of Hindutva, and openly rejected theNehruvian model of democracy as not suited to the genius of India. 157 However, the party wasaware that a campaign conducted on the theme of “Hindu-ness” would be unsuccessful since itfrightened the religious minorities, the “backward” and “scheduled castes,” the “tribes” and SouthIndians who feared that Hindutva was a code word for domination by the North. The strategy ofthe party worked out during the campaign to broaden the party’s base, then, was to conceal theprogram of militant hinduization of the Indian society by an appeal to Indian nationalism. The tacticchosen for promoting this covert form of Hindu militancy was to focus on the crisis in KashmitThe party hoped to publicize the issue by marching to Srinagar and protesting against the continuation of Article 370. It was hoped that the campaign, directed against the Muslim militants,would be interpreted as a nationalist gesture rather than a communal action.158 The BJP’s conversion to the seemingly secular ideology of nationalism was an adroit attempt at disinformation sinceAdvani’s definition of nationalism stated that “every nation has its own rich culture and heritage.In India the essence of it is Hinduism.” 159Bhaskar Roy, “Strident Change,” India Today, 31 January 1991, 29-3 1.158 India Today, 28 February 1991, 34.159India Today, 15 April 1991, 44.-58-The BJP’s Influence on the Narasimha Rao Government’s Policy towards Kashmiri SecessionismAt the conclusion of the May-June 1991 elections, the Congress won 240 seats out of the 511being contested in the Lok Sabha. While this result failed to provide a majority, it allowed the partyto govern. The result of the elections established the BJP as the official opposition and the onlyother national party along with Congress.’6°Jammu and Kashmir did not go to the polls with therest of India since it was under presidential rule. Still, the Narasimha Rao government decided inthe summer of 1991 to revive the political process.In this endeavour, the new government faced a continuing dilemma. Its favourite option, reinstalling Dr. Abdullah and the National Conference, was rejected by the secessionist militants aswell as by the local Congress. Despite the differences between the supporters of union withPakistan and the advocates of independence for Kashmir, all the militant organizations shared theview that short of agreement on the right of self-determination, no dialogue with India was possible. On the other hand, Jammu-based Congress representatives asked in the summer of 1991 thatthe party distance itself from the National Conference. They argued that Dt Abdullah had become aliability, one which enabled the BJP to erode the Congress’ traditional support base. As thefavoured option of Delhi was rejected by the secessionist militants and even criticized by allies, theonly realistic option seemed to be talks with the militants.This last option, however, was staunchlyrejected by the BJP.161 Since the short-lived Chandra Shekhar government was independent of BJPinfluence, it was in a position to resist yielding to the uncompromising policy of the Hindu cornmunalists. The new Congress government led by Narasimha Rao more or less pledged to continuethat policy.The problem was to inspire confidence in a Kashmiri population caught in the crossfire between the militants and the security forces. The ancient political ideal of independence had givenway to disillusion and fear in the wake of the terrorist actions committed by ever younger militants.While the new governor, Girish Saxena, could boast about the number of top militants captured orkilled by his forces, the continuation of disturbances by desperate and leaderless elements onlyadded to the confusion.160 The Economist, 22 June 1991, 37-8.161 Rita Manchanda, “No Middle Ground,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 15 August 1991, 26-7.-59-In the midst of this deteriorating situation, the BJP announced at the end of 1991 that it wouldlaunch an ektayatra (“unity march”) from the southern tip of India, Kanyakumari, to SrinagarSince the tricolour had not been raised at Srinagar for two years due to the state of siege enforcedby the militants, the leaders wanted to hoist the national flag to reassert India’s sovereignty overKashmir. In claiming that the march was a challenge to the forces of terrorism and secessionismthat divided the country, L.K. Advani was trying to conceal the text of Hindu militancy behind themore secular theme of Indian nationalism. All the parties worried about the planned ekta yatrasince the rathyatra launched one year before for the revival of the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjidcontroversy had led to communal riots.The leaders of the Congress and other secular parties first decided to convene an all-party meeting to discuss the matter with the BJP. Their goal was to coopt somehow the ekta yatra and try todeprive the BJP of its anti-establishment lustre.’62 But the government also had another motive:since the situation in the Valley was far from stable, the authorities worried about the security of theHindu militants and warned of the consequences to them if they were bent on issuing provocativestatements. Most of the parties did not fail to notice the strategy of the BJP and rejected the party’sclaim that the march for the abrogation of Article 370 would “strengthen bonds of nationalism and1.inity. “163 At this point, any event likely to inflame further the passions in Kashmir was to beavoided.The centre was aware that the replacement of Benazir Bhutto by the hawkish Nawaz Sharif inIslamabad required more caution than ever when dealing with the insurgency. Sharif’s new regimehad sent out during the year special missions to gather the support of Muslim states for the “selfdetemiination” of Kashmir and was rewarded for the first time by substantial backing on the issueat the Islamic Conference in Istanbul in August.’ This development convinced the Indian leadership that any attempt to quell the insurrection in Kashmir through force would trigger reaction ofoutrage in the international community. In that context, the ekta yatra appeared as a dangerousprovocation spoiling any efforts to deal peacefully with Kashmiri militants.162 The limes ofIndia, 11 December 1991, 1.The limes ofIndia, 1st. January 1992, 1.164 K. Shankar Bajpai, “India in 1991: New Beginnings ,“Asian Survey 32 no.2 (February 1992):215.-60-The underlying consensus among most parties was that since the ektayatra was likely to whipup passions, it was imperative to contain it. Thus, the national television network Doordarshan received specific instruction to downplay its coverage of the BJP and its demonstration. Anothermeasure agreed upon by the state governments was that the march should not be stopped. The authorities were instructed to focus their attention on maintaining law and order. 166 Here they werefacing a paradoxical situation. On one hand, the centre was aware that stopping the march wouldonly increase the popularity of the organization and transform its leaders into martyrs. This was thecase since the BJP played the patriotic card with its strident claims about the liberation of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. On the other hand, the government was reluctant to let the march proceed as itcould show to the minorities that it back-tracked from its policy of protecting them against the assertions of Hindu chauvinists. In the case of Kashmir, the authorities worried that the march wouldfurther strengthen the resolve of the fundamentalists to break away from India.167 On top of that,the march was likely to revive an irrational fear among the Kashmiris: the realization of the Hindumilitants’ threat to dilute the Muslim majority in the state through the massive immigration ofHindus.Far from being the triumphant march expected by the BJP, the ekta yatra turned out to be “anodyssey of futility.” 168 Because of the threats levelled against them by the secessionists, the Hindumilitants had to suffer the ultimate humiliation of being under the heavy protection of the state security forces. Far from being a popular gathering, the conclusion of the march occurred without anyKashmiri witnesses. The BJP President had to be flown into the Valley under the cover of darkness the night before the event because of threats to his security. Far from rallying the countryaround the BJP banner, the yatra may have ended up uniting the militant opposition of theMuslim-majority state. Worse, the event had further alienated Kashmiris just when the populationseemed to have grown tired of the militants.169165JIja Today, 15 January 1992, 1.The limes ofIndia, 21 January 1992, 1.India Today, 31 January 1992, 1.India Today, 15 February 1992, 16-9.169 India Today, 15 February 1992, 16-9.Chapter FourConclusion:Communalism and the Insecurity Dilemma in South Asia-61 a--61-The Impact of Hindu Communalism on New Delhi’s Foreign Policy: Some FindingsHindu communalist influence on the foreign policy of India can hypotheticai.ly manifest itselfboth directly and indirectly. At the level of direct influence, Hindu communalism could prod theforeign policy of Indian governments in four different ways: 1) parties representing the values ofHindu communalist organizations may themselves form the government or participate in a government disposing of a substantial majority;.’70 2) a minority government led by the BJP or anotherHindu communalist organization would be tempted to tone down its primordialist or pro-Hindurhetoric for fear of losing power; 3) these parties may hold the balance of power in a minority gov—ernment, and be in a position to exercize pressure on behalf of their policies; and 4) Hindu communalist organizations resort to mass demonstration, agitation or other forms of extra-parliamentaryaction in order to force the government to act in ways that are congruent with their interests.Hindu communalist organizations may also exercize an indirect form of influence, whengroups claiming to be secular try to rob communalist groups of their traditional support. The problem with this form of influence, obviously, is that it is hard to ascertain, and can only be speculatedabout. Another difficulty with that form of influence is that it does not tell much when the practicesof supposedly secular politicians at the local level are considered.’7’Thus, since the RSS was actively involved in 1984 to support the electoral victory of the Congress, should Hindu communalistinfluence be assessed through an examination of the BIP’s program or the Congress policy?Direct and Indirect Impact ofHindu Communalism Since IndependenceThe campaign by the Praja Parishad against Sheilch Abdullah in 1952 points to an instance ofdirect impact by Hindu communalists on New Delhi’s policy towards secessionism in KashmitThis can be inferred by observing the change in New Delhi’s policy towards Kashmir before andafter the campaign. Before 1952, Kashmir was already an autonomous state within India, whoseparticular status was enshrined in the constitution. Moreover, Nehru proposed in the aftermath ofthe 1947-48 war to decide the accession of Kashmir within India through a plebiscite.170 This was the case with the Janata government of 1977-79.171 Paul R. Brass, Caste, Faction and Party in Indian Politics, vol. 2, Election Studies (Delhi:Chanakya, 1985).-62-But after the campaign of the Praja Parishad, the idea of a plebiscite was dropped, and a policyof fuller integration within the Union was adopted. The zeal with which Nehru and other secularleaders over-reacted to the actions of Hindu communalists, whose strength in 1952 was far lessthan in the 1980’s, may seem exaggerated. However, it is important to remember that the eventsoccurred at a time when the Indian leaders’ recollection of the 1947 communal frenzy was vivid.172The exploitation of communal cleavages by the Congress in the 1983 elections in Kashmir, aswell as in the 1984 nationwide poii, suggests an instance of indirect influence of Hindu communalism in the policy of the dominant party in New Delhi. The elections were tainted by references tothe designs of separatists threatening the secular character of the country, in an obvious attempt towoo Hindu nationalist voters. The Congress, without naming them, stigmatized the Muslims aspotential separatists. That this electoral strategy was used to placate the growing influence of Hinducommunalists is obvious when the manifestos of the Congress and the BJS are compared. Apartfrom the added demand for the abolition of Article 370, the BJS ‘s manifesto looked like a copy ofthe Congress’ in its sections devoted to national security and foreign policy. 173In both cases, however, the disruptive influence of Hindu communal nationalism on the international conflict embodied in Kashmir between Pakistani irredentism and Indian secular nationalism was kept to a minimum since India’s position both militarily and diplomatically was secure.Furthermore, the dominant party was not facing a credible alternative in domestic politics.Assessing the Impact ofHindu Communalism on the National Front Government of 1989-90Since the National Front government of 1989 depended on the support of the BJP, Hindu cornmunalist organizations were theoretically in a position to exert a direct influence on the domesticpolicy of New Delhi in Kashmir and its foreign relations with Islamabad. However, the BJP’s influence was not as successful as it might seem. Its demands on the new government to deprive thesecessionist movement of political recognition was a policy agreed upon in advance by all parties.172 See Ashutosh Varshney, “India, Pakistan, and Kashmit Antinomies of Nationalism,” 1005.173“Manifestos of Political Parties,” in 1984: The Bullets and the Ballots. The Parliamentary Elections in Indiaeds. B.N. Varma and A.K. Varma (Bareilly: Samuchit, 1986), 191, 198.-63-The inclination to adopt a hardline policy against the secessionists by the National Front government was not the result of BJP pressures, but the outcome of the humiliation that followed theabduction of Rubaiya Sayeed, and the ensuing failure to pacify the rebels. The National Front government’s decision to appoint a new governor, mandated to restore law and order in the state withthe use of armed force, may appear as a response to demands made by the BJP. But even then, theinfluence of the Hindu communalist organization should not be over-estimated. The appointment ofJagmohan was demanded by secular parties as well, at least initially. Finally, as far as the policy ofabolishing the status of autonomy granted to Kashmir was concerned, the failure of the BJP wastotal.If the National Front government was ready to adopt an attitude of firmness towards the secessionist militants, was it ready to go as far as waging a war against Pakistan if that country decidedto throw its support behind the Kashmiris? In their meetings with the Pakistanis, the NationalFront representatives may have suggested just that, since they never failed to criticize Islamabad’sdestabilizing support to anti-Indian secessionist militants in Kashmir as well as in Punjab. TheIndians were especially outraged by Paldstani allegations that the minority government in NewDelhi might be tempted into desperate actions to assuage its domestic opposition, or that a war bymiscalculation might flare up because of indecision in the Indian government. According to its ownadmission, however, the National Front had rejected the option of a military escalation withPakistan. The aggressive tone of the language used against Pakistan in the spring of 1990, then,was justified primarily by the imperative to convey the message that the V. P. Singh governmentwas in charge of the situation within India, rather than responding to BJP’s pressures.174Several Indian strategists concurred ex-postfacto and claimed that the war rhetoric was political posturing rather than an initial step towards armed confrontation. And while the National Frontgovernment was ready to let Jagmohan deal harshly with the secessionists in Kashmir if that couldshow to the Hindu communalists its nationalist credentials, it was not ready to engage in full-scaleconfrontation with Pakistan to serve that purpose. In short, the influence of the BJP on Indian foreign policy-making was limited by several factors which weighed heavily in the balance: the pro-174 The Economist, 21 April 1990, 35-6.-64-hibitive cost of armed operations, the loss of support from the Soviet Union, and the risk of escalation into a nuclear exchange.’75 VThe abolition of Article 370 is the second policy that the Hindu communalists sought to implement. For them, the issue is the ultimate test: while secular nationalists have their own reasons forrejecting Kashmir’s secession and reacting to Paldstan’s interference in Indian affairs, only Hindunationalists advocate the full integration of Kashmir within the Indian Union. The National Frontremained with the Nehruvian consensus prevailing on the issue by consistently refusing to yield tothe pressures of the BJP.’76After the elections of 1991, the BJP emerged stronger than ever before and sought to test itsstrength on that issue. However, its influence was somewhat diminished by the impossibility ofdefeating the Narasimha Rao government in parliament. The only way left for the BJP to influencethe new regime was though extra-parliamentary demonstrations. During the end of 1991, Hinducommunalists tried again to pressure the central government into removing Article 370 through theorganization of a vast march for unity (the elcta yatra ) drawing the attention of all Indians to the situation in Kashnik The Congress government led by Narasimha Rao, however,was more confident than its predecessor, and managed successfully to head off the BJP’s influence.Assessing the Impact ofHindu Communalism on Indian Foreign Policy: ConclusionsAt this juncture, the tentative conclusion that can be reached about the impact of Hindu communalism on the foreign policy of India is three-fold: first, Hindu communalist organizations can prodminority governments into adopting a more nationalistic policy; second, when a government with aclear majority is in place in New Delhi, it is more difficult for political parties identified with Hindu175 See K. Subrahmanyam, “Dealing with Pakistan. Containment Better than War;” Krishnaswami Sundarji, interviewed by Diip Bobb and Raj Chengappa, India Today, 30 April 1990, 76; Bhabani Sen Gupta, “Neither war, norpeace.”176 Behind the idea of abolishing Kashmir’s special status lurks the Hindu communalist distrust towardsMuslims and the idea that the Muslim majority within Kashmir is a problem in itself, threatening the integrity ofthe Indian state. The solution to that problem, accordingly, lies in the abolition of Article 370 since that would endthe prohibition for other Indians to settle in the region and enable Hindu communalist organizations to bring in mu -lions of Hindus from other parts of the country. Such a massive migration, the reasoning goes, would change thepopulation balance in a way that would deprive the Muslims of their majority in the state. See Shekhar Gupta, “TheGathering Storm,” 42.-65-communalism to influence the centre; third, the indirect influence of Hindu communalism is likelyto remain.Several questions are left unanswered, however. For instance, to what extent are the passionsaroused by the crisis in Kashmir a function of the enmity between Hindu and Muslim communalisis or of the Hindu communalists’ notion of India as a “sacred land?” The distinction may seemsspurious, but it is an important one when other problems of Indian foreign policy are considered.Thus, while the notion of India as a sacred land may complicate the resolution of the Sino-Indianboundary dispute and prevent India from malcing any territorial concession, the emphasis on thecommunal composition of a contested territory with a non-Hindu majority, like Kashmir orArunachal Pradesh, may lead to even more problems since Hindu communalists have already hinted that they would consider changing the communal demographic balance though massive migration to strengthen their claim over disputed territories.At a more methodological level, answering these questions wifi require examination of the indirect influence of the broader phenomenon of Hindu communalism within the Congress as well asother secular formations. As demonstrated by various analysts, connections between the RSS andCongress are numerous enough to argue that Hindu communalism can influence secular parties.The following discussion will concentrate on the third tentative conclusion reached above: theresilience of Hindu communalism. It will suggest that the growth of Hindu communalism, the secessionist crises faced by India, and the decline of the secular institutions are problems symptomatic of the domestic predicaments within a weak state. This discussion will serve as a preliminary toa more theoretical investigation of whether the linkage between weak states’ domestic and interstate insecurity theorized by Buzan is confirmed by the findings.177 Andersen, Walter K., and Shridhar D. Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya SwayamsevakSangh and Hindu Revivalism, 234; Malik, Yogendra K., and Dhirendra K. Vajpeyi, “The Rise of Hindu Militancy:India’s Secular Democracy at Risk,” 321.-66-The Insecurity Dilemma of the Weak State: Domestic and Regional DimensionsOne noticeable outcome of the brief V.P. Singh government is that it deepened the cracks in thesecular consensus that had guided the policy of all governments since 1947.178 This erosion of anear unanimity among political parties on the merits of a secular state was confirmed in the subsequent election. Even though the Congress was re-elected in 1991 in the aftermath of RajivGandhi’s assassination, the BJP increased its representation in the Lok Sabha and became the official opposition. Even more perplexing, the support for a secular state in India is now questioned bysome intellectuals identified hitherto as supporters of the values of secularism.179While the appealof Hindu traditional values at the expense of secularism among the middle classes in India can beexplained by sociological theory, the embrace of the dream of “hinduization” by many intellectualsis a far more disturbing phenomenon.When Hindu revisionists claim that the secular ideology inIndia is as tenuous as the conmrnnal ideology in Pakistan in providing a unifying bond, they overlook the problems that would inevitably crop up if Hinduism is proclaimed as the state religion ofIndia.The implications of a Hindu Rashtra would have far-reaching consequence in troubled Indianstates like Kashmir, in nationwide politics in India, but also throughout the whole South Asian regiori. The abandonment of the secular project of accommodating differences within the Indian statemay lead to a balkanization of the continent. Since regional and language differences have alreadystrained the communal ideology of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the point of dismemberingthe country, it is hard to imagine that India would avoid that situation because it numbers evenmore language and regional differences than Pakistan. Furthermore, India has the additional cleavage of religious diversity. Judging by the political platform of the BJP and the program of relatedorganizations like the RSS, conflicts along the lines of these three cleavages would erupt in theeventuality of a Hindu communalist government, or a coalition government including the BJP.18°178 The secular consensus was undermined years before the National Front formed a government. However, withthe rise of the BJP the end of this consensus was made more visible.179 See Yogendra K. Malik and Dhirendra K. Vajpeyi, “The Rise of Hindu Militancy: India’s Secular Democracyat Risk,” 310; T.N. Madan, “Secularism in its Place,” 758.180Seecf. infra., Ch. 2.-67-Notably worrisome for security in South Asia is the ultra-nationalistic posture of Hindu cornmunalist organizations. The Hindu communalist organizations may have finally reconciled themselves to the existence of Pakistan and abandoned any hope of achieving Indian “reunification.”However, they continue to view Pakistan as the perennial enemy with whom no peace ispossible.18’Their major fear is a further partitioning of India undertaken with the complicity ofIslamabad. The secession of Kashmir, in this perception, represents the starting point in a processthat has to be prevented at all cost. It is the symbolic value of Kashmir in this dreaded chain ofevents that explains, more than anything else, the intransigence of successive Indian governmentswith the secessionists in Kashmir. In evaluating the impact of Hindu communalism on the Indiansecular state, it is essential to keep in mind this impact of Kashmir on the national psyche, constantly nurtured by the world-view of Hindu communalists, and even recaptured by secular politicians that do not want to appear as unpatriotic.182 During the height of the crisis in 1990, the BJPshowed how far its own brand of Hindu nationalism could go, by agitating in favour of preemptivestrikes against alleged training camps for secessionists in Pakistan. Such a move, if ever undertaken, would have led to open war between the two countries.Even without launching a direct action against Pakistan, a Hindu communalist governmentmight provide Islamabad a rationale for confrontation with New Delhi, by acting unilaterally onKashmir. The abolition of Article 370, which stands consistently as one of the main points in theelectoral manifestos of Hindu communalist parties since 1953, would be entertained by a BJP government. Abolition would instantly be perceived as a unilateral violation of the Simla accord byIslamabad and constitute an immediate casus belli between the two countries. The internationalstanding of India would be importantly diminished if it abolished Article 370 because that wouldamount to violating a U.N. resolution calling for a plebiscite in Kashmir and cast India in the roleof an international wrongdoer. Such a situation, where India would be isolated, might further encourage Pakistan to weaken India militarily.181 For a typical statement of the RSS’s position on the issue, see “Why Detente is not Possible with Pakistan,”the Organizer, 23 December 1990, 14.182 Nehru himself may have accepted a solution accommodating the separatist desires of the Kashmiris, but hewas aware that the breakaway of the state, in the immediate aftermath of partition, risked empowering Hindu corn -munalists. See Ashutosh Varshney, “India, Pakistan, and Kashmir. Antinornies of Nationalism,” 1002.-68-Since 1947, the vital question for the secular leaders of India has been whether the state ofKashmir will secede or not. In the final analysis, whether it joins Pakistan or not matters less, because the independence of Kashmir is sufficient to show the failure of the secular state andstrengthen the proponents of a Hindu communal state. This anxiety about the independence ofJammu and Kashmir helps explain the disregard of New Delhi towards the sentiments of theKashmiri majority and the brutal response to the recent uprising in the valley. This attitude revealsthe principal symptom of a weak state: a high level of concern for domestically generated threats tothe security of the government.183It is significant that the prime source of insecurity for India, embodied by Kashmir’s hypothetical independence, is not a military threat, but a political challenge. The leaders in New Delhi consider the domestic political fallout of Kashmir’s independence as dangerous as the actual loss of theterritory, because the former would unleash forces that would strike at the legitimizing ideology ofthe state. In itself, the fear that Hindu communalism would be empowered by the “loss” ofKashmir, underlines the concern that secularism has yet to contend with that primordialist world-view for ideological hegemony. This seems to indicate that India has still not created a domestic societal and political consensus strong enough to eliminate the use of armed force as an instrument ofrule.The outcome of the crisis in Kashmir depends on the ability of the centre to resist the demandsof Hindu communalists to scrap Article 370, and to control the activities of the JKLF and otherseparatist organizations. This popularity is, in turn, a function of New Delhi’s attitude towards secessionism in the state. A benevolent attitude may certainly undermine the support of the secessionists, who thrive on Indian intransigence. But there is a long haul ahead since India has lost the affection of the Kashmiri people.’84The dilemma faced by New Delhi is to what extent it can grant asemi-autonomous status to Kashmir without risking a Hindu backlash throughout the country,which may put the security of all Indian Muslims at risk.183 See Bany Buzan, People, States & Fear, 100.184 For details on this period, see M.J. Akbar, The Siege Within (New York: Penguin, 1985), 275.-69-As summarized by Barry Buzan, a structural political threat has come into existence since 1947in South Asia because the organizing principles of the Indian and Pakistani states contradict eachother and the two states cannot ignore their respective existences.’85 This leads to a situation wherethe achievements and successes of one state automatically erodes the political stature of the other,thus providing fertile ground on which more direct political threats may flourish. The study bySumit Ganguly explained the etiology of the first three wars between the two countries with thesame logic.’86 According to these views, the organizing principle of India, which depends on itsability to accommodate various religious groups inside its polity, threatens Pakistan major’s rationale for existence, which is based on the principle that each religious groups should prosper withinits own state. Likewise, the organizing principle of Pakistan, which depends on communal homogeneity, threatens India’s rationale for existence and raises the possibility that India might dissolveinto many successor states based on religion.However, this study has shown that the main direct threat to the organizing principle of Indiahas a domestic rather than an external origin. The possibility that the success of Islam as a nationalideology for Pakistan would encourage the break-up of the Indian state along religious lines restson a false premise: the unifying bond of religion in South Asian states. Neither Hinduism norIslam as a whole are homogeneous religions. Each religious community is divided by distinct ethnic, language, and sectarian cleavages. This is demonstrated by the ethnic and regional conflictsthat have impeded the building of a unified Islamic state of Paldstan since 1947. Likewise, theview that the establishment of a secular state in India would represent a threat to the ideology ofPakistan rests on another false premise, the view that the establishment of a Hindu communal statewould solve the problem by legitimizing the ideology of the Islamic communal state. It is morelikely that a Hindu Rashtra would continue to dispute Kashmir with Pakistan because of the size-able Hindu community living in the state, and also because of the Hindu communalist view thatKashmir is Holy Land. At a more fundamental level, Hindu communalism represents a threat toIndia’s security because the ideal of Hindu Rashtra cannot ensure socio-political cohesion for aculturally diverse country like India, and would thus encourage political fragmentation.See Barry Buzan, People, States & Fear, 12 1-2.186 Sumit Ganguly, The Origins of War in South Asia., 11-2.-70-The findings discussed so far are consistent with the concept of the weak state presented byBarry Buzan.’87 First, it is characterized by a high level of political violence: this is most obviousin the peripheral and secessionist regions of Kashmir, Punjab and the Northeast. Second, the police and paramilitary forces play a conspicuous political role. 188 Third, there is a conflict over theideology that should be used to organize the state, as the case study has shown so far in the discussion about the challenge of Hindu communalism to the secular state. Fourth, there are contendingnational identities within the state, expressed through various regionalist or secessionist demands.Finally, there is no clear and observed hierarchy of political authority, and in the case of Kashmir,the centre’s authority is virtually rejected.The idea of the Indian state, its institutions and its territory, is not adequately defined and stable. In Kashmir, the centre itself has proven to represent the most important threat to approvedconstitutional procedures for political change, with its repeated attempts to rig local elections, or remove popular local leaders. The physical base of the Indian state is also not sufficiently well defined, with respect to its boundaries with China and the disputed status of Kashmir and ArunachalPradesh. The institutions of the Indian state are contested among secessionist groups to the point ofviolence to such an extent that it is difficult to speak of a clear referent for national security in India.The state of siege enforced by the JKLF in the valley of Kashmir suggest that the real Indian territory under the effective authority of New Delhi is not coextensive with the legal territory identifiedas the Indian Union.However, despite these problems India still possesses some attributes of a strong state. Apartfrom the brief Emergency period, which lasted from 1975 to 1977, India has not experienced thekind of repressive governments typical of most weak states. It remains one of the few states of theThird World where competitive politics are possible and where the media are relatively free of thestate’s control. It is more reasonable to suggest that the Indian state is weakening, and that it facesincreasing difficulties in its effort to ensure socio-political cohesiveness. At any rate, it can be argued that the Indian state stands near the middle in the continuum from weak to strong states.187 Cf. Infra, Ch. 1.188 David H. Bayley, “The Police and Political Order in India,” Asian Survey 33 no. 4 (April 1983), 484-96.-71-India did benefit at independence from some features that were likely to help build the foundations for a strong state: the country inherited the administrative structure of the colonial Indian CivilService and benefited from a gradual evolution towards self-rule through successive reforms extending participation and franchise. India seemed to possess of several advantages when comparedto other new Asian and African states because of the prestige of its leaders, the long history of itsnationalist movement, and the existence of an even older cultural tradition. But this judgment restedon wrong assumptions: that India was a nation, and that there was an agreement on the shared values of that nation.The wave of nationalism that propelled the departure of the British from South Asia in 1947was not the positive unity of a coherent cultural group, but rather the negative one of common opposition to a foreign power. Indeed, the consensus against the colonial rule was eroded even beforeindependence as the creation of Pakistan out of the Muslim-majority provinces of British Indiademonstrates. India and Pakistan both lacked socio-religious cohesiveness despite the efforts of theMuslim League to create two nations along the lines of the religious cleavages of the subcontinent,since one third of South Asian Muslims remained in India after the partition of 1947. Another factor of diversity for both states was the variety of language groups existing in each country. Finally,a last element of diversity has to be added, which has tremendous implications for the crisis inKashmir: the two nations not only comprised the former British-ruled provinces of India but also565 independent princely states.In most Third World states, the nationalist bond vanished almost as soon as the euphoria of independence died down, since most of the states were deprived of modem political foundations andowed their existence to recognition by the intemational community. India seemed initially to departfrom that situation because the long struggle of Indian nationalists had provided them with a clearset of ideas and goals about the state and its institutions. Among these, the principle of secularismwas a widely-shared and deeply-felt value among the nationalist elite. This idea meant that politicaldemands based on religion would not be tolerated, and that the loyalty of the individual to the state,rather than to a primordialist community, was the basis of modem political life.’89189 Paul Brass, The Politics ofIndia since Independence, 6-12.-72-The conflict between Hindu communalism and the secular ideal for India is a conflict between aview stressing the need for a unifying Indian national culture, and a view emphasizing the composite nature of Indian culture. While the first option sees in the symbols of indigenous culture a mobilizing potential to build a “strong India” and compete with the West on an equal footing in the arenaof economic development, the second one sees the attachment to indigenous culture, especially inits religious component, a manifestation of parochialism that will disappear as the country modernizes.This contradiction is exacerbated by the stakes involved: in a short time, India has to build asolid economic infrastructure enabling it to compete in world markets. So far, the strategy adoptedhas relied on a centrally planned economy, and was intellectually supported by a rationalist world-view that saw in the religious traditions of the country an impediment to modernization. However,this perspective has become increasingly difficult to defend over the years. On the one hand, thepoliticians had to cater to religious sentiments to get votes, and on the other hand, the failure of acentrally-planned economy, demonstrated by the collapse of the Soviet Union, has discredited theoption. The strategy preferred by the Hindu communalists to modernize the country differs significantly from the one adopted by the former regimes on two respects: it is liberal in its economic policy, and it is deliberately using the religious idiom of the dominant religious community to gainpopular support.The drive for achieving “Hindu unity” by Hindu communalists illustrates Mohammed Ayoob’sargument that the pressures of state building compel leaders in the Third World to consider the cultural homogenization of society as a prerequisite for modernization.’90 The Hindu communalist organizations have yet to achieve their aim, since their political front never participated in governments at the centre for periods long enough to significantly influence the state. Still, what needs tobe noticed is that the pressures of the Hindu communalist organizations to integrate Kashmir fullyinto the Union betrays the assimilationist prejudices common to many Third World leaders. It isimportant to understand this emphasis on the establishment of indigenous values to ensure sociopolitical cohesiveness within the weak state, because it is a trend unlikely to wither away.° Mohammed Ayoob, “The Security Problematic of the Third World,” World Politics, 43 (January 1991), 257-83.-73-Hindu communalism is unlikely to wither away. It has an old history embedded in the effortsof Indians to modernize without being westernized. Hindu militant organizations formed after independence are the direct heirs of the various reformist organization that sought the consolidation,purification and unification of the Indian society necessary to resist British domination in the nineteenth century.’9’Hindu communalism does not represent a reaction to modernization,’92but an attempt to formulate a “Hindu path to development,” whose goal is to catch up with the West withoutlosing Indian identity.It can be argued that the processes of modernization themselves have weakened the institutionof the secular state. Hindu communalism received an impetus from the successes of the democraticinstitutions themselves. Since independence, political parties and elites have exploited communaldivisions in their quest for power and votes. In order to win elections, it has become the interest ofall parties, even those who claim to be secular, to build vote banks by appealing to common religious and ethnic sentiments. The Hindu communalists have come to believe that the ability of theminorities to deliver blocks of votes to the Congress has systematically worked against the majority 193 Further, the measures put in place to ensure equal opportunity for people belonging to communal minorities are now seen as biased against the Hindu majority.Nationalist leaders, especially the Western-educated elite influenced by Nehru, believed that byadopting the ideology of the secular state, it would be possible to modernize Indian society andcatch up with the West while maintaining the cultural diversity of India. Their rationalist hope wasthat religion would vanish in the face of economic progress. But the efforts to establish secular values were bound to be difficult in a society which was only partially secularized. While the morewesternized sections of the urban population adopted this world-view, the majority of the ruralpopulation retained its religious temper. This majority felt that the secular ideology was an attemptto impose materialistic ideals rather than encouraging religious tolerance.’94191 For a concise presentation of that position, see Cynthia Keppley Mahmood, “Sikh Rebellion and the HinduConcept of Order,” Asian Survey 29 no.3 (March 1989), 326-40.192 For statements of the positions of Hindu communalists, Congress members as well as leaders of the Left, seeShekhar Gupta, “What is Secularism?,” India Today, 15 May 1991, 61-72.193 Yogendra K. Malik, and Dhirendra K. Vajpeyi, “The Rise of Hindu Militancy: India’s Democracy at Risk,”311.‘“T.N. Madan, “Secularism in its Place,” 747-59.-74-Conclusion: the Insecurity Dilemma in South Asia and the Discipline of International RelationsThe connection made in security studies and international relations between primordial cleavages and armed conflicts in the Third World points to one area where the Euro-centric bias of thefield of international relations theory distorts our understanding of the security concerns of ThirdWorld states. As this study has tried to underline, the security concerns of states such as India andPakistan bear few similarities with those of contemporary or even historic states in WesternEurope, where the definition of national security is clearly entrenched in the capacity of the state toresist external threats. In India and Pakistan, on the contrary, the inter-penetration between domestic and external predicaments represents an important characteristic of their security concerns.The Western bias of the discipline of international relations is also historically contingent.When we mention that our understanding of behaviour between states is derived from an examination of the European state system, we also mention that this European system of state has been established in the aftermath of the peace of Westphalia in 1648. That is, our understanding of relations between states not only depends on the experience of a single culture among the four civilizational areas identified by William McNeil,195 but also on a specific historical stage experienced bythat culture, known as the modern era. As any medievalist will tell, relations between states beforethe Thirty Years War were conducted in a totally different universe. Should we not consider this asa justification for caution when we try to apply universally a theoretical framework devised to observe one regional history?.Theoretical reliance on the realist paradigm has a limiting effect on our understanding of international politics in the non-Western world. Its normative dimensions are assumed as unproblematicand are rarely questioned. Thus, the end of the papacy’s pretensions to temporal rule though the establishment of sovereign states as the fundamental organizing principle in the international systemhas led to the conviction that transnational agents like religion do not play a role. Therefore, the reluctance to acknowledge the importance of ethnicity as a factor in inter-state relations is even moreaccentuated in the case of religious cleavages and their impact on inter-state relations.195 William McNeil points out that the Eurasian landmass is comprised of four civilizational areas: Europe, theMiddle East, the Indic world, and the Sinitic world, all connected through trade since ancient times. See The Rise ofthe West (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1963).-75-While there has recently been an upsurge in the international relations literature on the impact ofethnic conflicts in inter-state conflicts, religious cleavages are not perceived as important factors inthe discipline.’96 However, as Barry Rubin has written, religion can be seen as the central politicalpillar for any ruler, since it often determines the people’s loyalty to a state’s authority. In manyweak states, religious groups are the most strongly organized institutions, and are able to exert adeep influence within society. 1 Further, religions in non-Western states are often the repository ofindigenous values which were developed or adapted though long internal practice, and which areconfronted with the dominant world-view that emerged in the West in the wake of modernity. Therole of religion in inter-state relations does not manifest itself though a contradiction between different communal groups: rather, it is enacted in the contradiction between the attempts by the weakstate to establish secular values modelled on those of the West and the attempt by other groups tomaintain the supremacy of indigenous values.Thus, as this case study has sought to demonstrate, the religious cleavage between Hindus andMuslims is insufficient by itself to explain the conflict opposing India and Pakistan. While there isno denying that communal conflicts are endemic within most countries in South Asia, another factor behind the major inter-state conflict in South Asia is a confrontation between two different perspectives on how to establish a strong state. Should the state in the non-Western world establish amorally relevant set of rules, or in other words, establish its legitimacy by emphasizing indigenousvalues and symbols - this is the communal, or primordialist, perspective advocated by variouscommunalist, revivalist and fundamentalist organizations - or should it claim to subsume these indigenous values under secular values resulting from the experience of Western colonization?While most states have opted for combinations of various degrees between these two attitudes,many conflicts within Third World states revolve around the proportioning between traditional andmodern idioms of legitimacy. 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Articles in PeriodicalsAyoob, Mohammed. “The Security Problematic of the Third World.” World Politics 43 (January1991): 257-83.. “India as a Regional Hegemon: External Opportunities and Internal Constraints.”International Journal 46, no. 3 (Summer 1991): 420-48.Bajpai, K. 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London; Macmillan, 1986.-81-IV Newspapers and PeriodicalsThe Economist, (London)Far Eastern Economic Review (Hong Kong)FrontlineThe Hindu (Madras)India Today (New Delhi)Newsweek (New York)The New York Times (New York)The Organiser (New Delhi)Sunday Mail (New Dethi)Time (Toronto)The Times ofIndia (Ahmedabad)The Times ofIndia (New Dethi)U.S. News and World ReportV Primary sources:Bharatiya Janata Party Election Manifesto for 1989.Bharatiya Jana Sangh Election Manifestos for 1957, 1962, 1967,197 1.Janata Party Election Manifesto for 1977, 1980.Lindgren, Karin, et al, “Major armed conflicts in 1989”, in SIPRI Yearbook 1990, WorldArmaments and Disarmament , 393-4 19.Lindgren, Karin, et al, “Major armed conflicts in 1990”, in SIPRI Yearbook 1991, WorldArmaments and Disarmament, 345-83.
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The saffron factor and the Kashmir problem : communalism, the weak state, and international brinkmanship
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