India’s recent “surgical strikes” at terrorist
camps across the Line of Control in Pakistan-held
Kashmir were in retaliation for attacks
on Indian positions in Uri. It signaled a
new phase in the (almost) seven-decades-long
conflict between the two nations, says
TINAZ PAVRI, showing India’s willingness to
confront threats emanating from Pakistan.
But will it lead to lasting change?
Since India’s independence from the British in
1947 and the creation of two sovereign countries, India
and Pakistan, the two have been involved in an
intractable conflict. Some of the crises between them
escalated into war, as in 1947 and 1965 over Kashmir,
1971 over the creation of Bangladesh, and 1999 in
Kargil, while other conflicts such as in 1990 over Kashmir
were settled short of war. Research (including my
own) has indicated that a number of variables determined
whether conflicts escalated or were settled,
including communications between the leadership
of the two countries, media coverage, and domestic
politics. However, while these variables changed, there
was one constant through the decades of the fifties to
the eighties, and that was the blanket of the Cold War
within which the world was enveloped. The actions
of India and Pakistan were watched and managed
by their Cold War mentors, the Soviet Union and the
United States, respectively.
The bipolar world started to crumble with the
breaking apart of the Soviet Union in 1991. As the former
Soviet Union struggled to attend to the problems
of moving what was left of its fractured country forward,
its former Cold War allies could not rely on its
influence any more. The U.S., for a while the prevailing
superpower on the world scene, used its sway on India
and Pakistan to ensure that the now-nuclear neighbors
understood the unacceptable costs of engaging
in war. At the same time, Afghanistan started its
descent into chaos, first with the rise of the Taliban
and then the war with the U.S.
In the new millennium, India and Pakistan face
yet another changed global scenario. Newly liberalized
India has experienced transformative economic
success, while Pakistan has stagnated and its governmental
structures have weakened. The Afghan conflict
has spilled over into Pakistan, threatening to create
another failed state on India’s border. Pakistan’s
radicalization has come both despite and because of its
state and government: despite the state—because many
elements of its legislature, bureaucracy, military, and
judiciary still cling to the last vestiges of democracy
and multiculturalism amid the regular bomb blasts
that rock the country; because of the state—as the weakened
government and state sometimes makes its bed
with the fundamentalist elements within it.
India understands the bind that Pakistan is in. That
is why, after the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, the government
reacted with great maturity and an abundance
of caution despite the carnage. It understands that
overreacting to Pakistani provocation might tip the
delicate balance the Pakistani government is engaged
in with the radicals within its borders, and push the
nuclearized country into an Afghanistan-like situation.
A political and security vacuum in Afghanistan
is bad enough; one in Pakistan would threaten the
entire South Asia region, not least because we have
seen that ISIS has moved with rapidity to consolidate
its power in chaotic and failed states like Syria,
Libya, and Iraq.
India also understands that the once-dominant
global hegemon of the post-Cold War world, the U.S.,
has entered a phase where it is reluctant to act to
maintain order in the world, in part because the balance-
of-power needed during the Cold War is no longer
required. It has shown this repeatedly since the Iraq
war, in Libya, in Syria, in Yemen, and in Afghanistan,
where it has signaled its impending departure. There
are no more world players left in the India-Pakistan
conflict, no more “adults” left to police the South Asian
theater; India finds that it is lonely at the top. That is
why I believe, unlike some other voices currently emanating
out of India, that the recent strikes across the
Line of Control signal a change in response but not
perhaps necessarily a lasting change in strategy.
Tinaz Pavri is Professor of Political Science and
Director of the Asian Studies Program at Spelman College,
Atlanta. A recipient of the Donald Wells Award
from the Georgia Political Science Association, she’s the
author of the memoir Bombay in the Age of Disco:
City, Community, Life.