India and Pakistan

Friends, Rivals or Enemies?

Duncan McLeod

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781351928090
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Are India and Pakistan rivals or enemies? Despite a voluminous output of political and, in particular, historical accounts of this extraordinary and unique relationship in international politics, there has been little attempt to theorize the culture of violence between these two states. As a consequence, the study of India-Pakistan relations suffers from what the author labels historical reiteration - that is, the dispute is historicized in a way that reproduces the preconceived division of 1947. Duncan McLeod moves the debate away from historical reiteration to instead theorize on the levels, nature and culture of violence between India and Pakistan since partition and independence in 1947. He examines the politicization of culture, cultures of rivalry and conflict, enmity and unlimited conflict. The volume will appeal to students and scholars in the fields of political theory, Asian politics and political sociology.

Chapter 1
Introduction

Since the independence and partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 the relationship between these two states has been the most intractable and the most dangerous political stand off in South Asia. Since the end of the Cold War, it is perhaps the most dangerous and unpredictable region in international politics. In a meeting between President Clinton and the incoming President Bush, Clinton advised Bush that the, ‘continuing tension between India and Pakistan,’ should be high on the incoming administrations list of priorities, ‘because they both have nuclear weapons’ (Clinton 2004). There are several reasons for this continuing tension, first, the hostility between the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Muslim League prior to independence, hostility that carried over into the post-1947 period. Second, the bloodletting that occurred at partition, served even further to entrench hostility between them, leading both to question the justification and legitimacy of each other. Third, within weeks of independence Kashmir became and remains a continued source of political, ideological and military friction between them.

The theoretical framework (outlined on page 15) is grounded in Alexander Wendt’s materialist/ideationalist constructivist approach and uses Wendt’s characterization of the three cultures of anarchy. They are: a Kantian culture of anarchy given meaning through the logic of friendship; a Lockean culture of anarchy given meaning through the logic of rivalry; lastly, a Hobbesian culture of anarchy given meaning through the logic of enmity.

From a South Asian security perspective, the book will apply these three cultures of anarchy to Indo-Pakistan relations to account for changes in their relationship and to offer a theoretically informed judgment as to the direction the relationship is heading. Theoretically the book will demonstrate that looking at ideas and intersubjectivity at the micro level gives us new insight into the dynamics of India Pakistan relations that a purely structural approach is not able to do.

The hypothesis of this book is that there is a transitory nature in anarchy between India and Pakistan and through the three cultures of anarchy we can see these transformations that hitherto structural attempts to theorize Indo-Pakistan relations have been unable to accommodate or account for.

The argument of the book is that this transient relationship has moved away from a Kantian culture of anarchy prior to colonialism, to a post-1947, Lockean culture that fluctuated towards a Hobbesian culture of anarchy in 1971. Given that both states are now nuclear weapon states, fluctuation between these cultures could have catastrophic results for South Asia.

Constitutionally Pakistan is a Muslim state created as a home for the Muslims of South Asia.¹ India by contrast is a federated secular state brought into being by the union of what was the British Raj and the Princely states that has left Indo-Pakistan relations replete with political, secular, religious and constitutional antagonisms. Barry Buzan suggests, ‘their historical, geographic and cultural ties do not allow them to ignore each other. but their organisation principles pose a permanent threat to each other’ (Barry Buzan 1983, 78).

This study will look at how these historical, geographic and cultural ties have contributed to the transitory character of anarchy between India and Pakistan and examine just how ‘permanent’ a threat India and Pakistan are to each other and how this threat can be theorized and understood more clearly.

Chapter 2 will look at the pre-1947 period, and use the Morley-Minto reforms to argue that a Kantian culture of anarchy existed between the various autonomous and semi-autonomous regions and Princely states, prior to the establishment of the Morley-Minto system of elections. The chapter will argue that these reforms over-emphasized religious differences between Hindu and Muslim at the expense of the more inter-religious political settlement of the Kantian anarchy between the regions and the Princely states.

The argument will be made that Morley Minto marked the change from a Kantian anarchy of friendship to a Lockean anarchy of rivalry that became apparent in relations between the Muslim League and the INC prior to 1947 and became manifest after 1947 in relations between India and Pakistan. The chapter is an attempt to transcend the pre-1947 period. As John Zavos notes, trying to situate and theorize these disparate political, religious and cultural ideologies is a, ‘veritable minefield in terms of the integration of apparently conflicting positions’ (Zavos 1997, 2). Moreover, these old arguments about nationalism, caste and religion do little to move the debate on Indo-Pakistan relations forward, rather, they have a regressive dynamic which at best stagnates debate, or worse, moves debate backwards.

In a speech at the Brookings Institute in 2004 the then newly appointed Pakistani Ambassador to Washington, Jehangir Karamat, commented (and lamented) that since his appointment he is constantly asked questions about the history of the last 57 years. ‘Now maybe this is because everybody’s crystal clear on what is happening in Pakistan today and where it is headed. Or maybe the idea is never to let Pakistan off the hook by constantly dredging up its past. But whatever the reason I am going to bore you by not rehearsing history and by focusing only on the present and the future’ (Karamat 2004). This study is an account of the past, however it is theorized in a manner that contributes to debate on the present and the future of Indo-Pakistan relations.

The constant recourse to historical reiteration is not merely confined to Pakistan, the former Indian Admiral Verghese Koithara argues, ‘the circumstances enveloping the conflict have changed a great deal and that many perceptions derived from historical grievances have little contemporary relevance.’ Koithara goes on to suggest that without a new consensus between India and Pakistan the, ‘periodic thaws that take place are unlikely to lead to durable peace’ (Koithara 2004, 25).

Characterizing the pre-colonial period within a Kantian framework will allow the study to move on to a coherent processing of post-1947 Indo-Pakistan relations through the two prisms of Lockean and Hobbesian anarchic cultures. However the Kantian culture does allow us to see that what led to partition did not come organically from socio-religious or socio-cultural relations on the subcontinent, it came from colonialism.

Zavos suggests that during the pre-colonial period rulers had participated in religious ceremonies and incorporated religious identity into state politics, but for the British, ‘the objective of the colonial state was to present itself as a neutral arbiter withdrawing from this active role and attempting to draw a line between politics as the concern of the state, and religion as the concern of a depoliticised population’ (Zavos 1997, 4). Emanating from the attempts of the British to draw a secular line between politics in the public and religion in the private sprang the multitude of Indian nationalisms and communalisms, none of which proved capable of succeeding at an All-India level.

Chapter 3 will use the 1965 conflict over Kashmir because throughout the post-1947 period, ideological rivalry has become manifest in Indo-Pakistan relations with both states questioning the legitimacy of the other. Questioning the legitimacy of the other has important implications for the development of the Self and Other.² A process that remains deformed and uncertain in Indo-Pakistan relations and a dynamic that feeds into the Hobbesian culture whereby the legitimate right of the other to live is not recognized.

These ideological conflicts are seminal to the transient nature of anarchy and the three cultures framework allows us to see how these antagonisms push against the static and structural accounts of international anarchy. Thus it will be argued that the ideational and inter-subjective nature of Indo-Pakistan relations contributes to the construction and reconstruction of anarchy and as such must play a significant role in causal explanation.

India and Pakistan were founded on two very different ideological and theological foundations. India, a constituted secular state whereby religion would play no part in the body politic. Pakistan founded as a Muslim state, a home for the Muslims of South Asia who would have been subordinated by Hindu majoritarianism without the creation of Pakistan. The crux of these antagonisms has manifested itself in a conflict of Self and Other with both states questioning the legitimacy of the other.

In 1965, Kashmir became the focal point of these antagonisms, but these same antagonisms were apparent prior to 1965 and even prior to 1947. This undermines the immutability of anarchy as set out by neo-realism and points towards a transitory dynamic in anarchy between India and Pakistan. The theoretical section below will set out how self-identity, ideas and culture have been constitutive to this change and how it challenges the immutability of anarchy.

Part one of Chapter 3 will evaluate the 1971 Indo-Pakistan conflict, Part two will argue that given the added materialism of nuclear power status, India and Pakistan will struggle to establish a robust nuclear deterrence given the ontological baggage or meaning both states attach to nuclear power and to each other.

The 1971 conflict offers the following theoretical question: Was 1971 driven by a culture of Lockean rivalry, or was it a Hobbesian battle for survival? In other words what meaning is attached to this conflict and what are the inter-subjective implications for relations between India and Pakistan? Implications that the book will argue continue to play a constitutive role in the construction and reconstruction of anarchy. The first nuclear tests at Pokharan are also vital because they offer a stark contrast between the placatory behaviour of Indira Gandhi’s government in 1974 compared to the provocative behaviour of the BJP-led government in 1998 – again, this allows us to see the transient nature of anarchy between India and Pakistan.

The chapter will explain and analyse the May 1998 nuclear tests in India and Pakistan and argue that this was an important threshold, bringing about a departure away from a Lockean culture towards a Hobbesian culture and given the inter-subjectivity between the two states India and Pakistan will attach a very different meaning to these developments than other states in the region. This has worrying implications for the security of South Asia and demonstrates that technology on the subcontinent has overtaken the static and structural accounts of India Pakistan relations – a transient approach is required.

Why is this Study Important?

This book seeks a greater theoretically informed understanding of Indo-Pakistan relations and by examining the relationship through a constructivist theoretical lens it will make a contribution as to how the cultural and ideological constructs of India and Pakistan have created transitory anarchic constructs between them. It empirically demonstrates how cultural norms on the subcontinent became hardened and entrenched by British colonial rule and shows how a predominant culture that was not based on religious difference was transformed into a culture of communalism based solely on religious difference. The explanatory variable here is European colonial policy based on a perception of theological difference that did not take into account the cultural interface that had been established on the subcontinent prior to colonial rule.

The lumping together of religious groups or categories is not confined to the perceptions and policies of the British Raj, it can be found in contemporary American foreign policy and in contemporary scholarship with the burgeoning literature on ‘Islamic terrorism’ which takes religion as opposed to politics or culture as its point of departure. This study will show that religion is too broad a category to be used as a basis for causal inference and that religion should perhaps not be used as a category at all given its broad and often contradictory meaning to different individuals. An example of this is given in Chapter 1, which demonstrates that the meaning of Islam to Muslims living in central India is very different from Muslims living in northern India.

The book will examine how historical and cultural ties have contributed to the transitory character of anarchy between India and Pakistan and show how cultural change is brought about. In the case of the subcontinent, change from one culture to another was brought about by policies pursued by a colonial power.

The theoretical framework will give a clearer and more organized understanding of the transitory nature of relations and examine just how ‘permanent’ a threat India and Pakistan are to each other. In this regard the book will build on Ayesha Jalal’s pointed suggestion of the supreme irony between the multiple layers of sovereignty that constituted political settlements in the pre-1947 period, compared to the post-1947 environment when the issue of sovereignty is deemed non-negotiable. This is, perhaps, the greatest example of the changing nature of anarchy between India and Pakistan.

The establishment of a theory of transience will facilitate three important moves forward. Firstly, a clearer format from which to draw causal inferences will be established. Secondly, the important school of thought, collectively known as constructivism, will become a rarity in international relations theory in that it can offer new and important insights into the dynamics of Indo-Pakistan relations, and third those interested in the security of South Asia will have a new theoretical framework from which to debate India Pakistan relations that begins in the pre-1947 period, then moves on to discuss in greater detail the post-1947 period.

For example, if it is established that the pre-1947 period – the 1965 Kashmir conflict – the 1971 conflict and May 1998 all fit into a Lockean culture of anarchy then the argument posited by George Perkovich below that the nuclearization of India has a modernist agenda that is based in the main on Indian ambitions for great power status, must be given credence. If however the argument of this study is correct and India Pakistan relations is moving from a Kantian anarchy through a Lockean anarchy, en route to a Hobbesian anarchy, then this has worrying implications for the future security of South Asia. In addition to the various approaches and arguments which have been used to understand and explain India Pakistan relations, this study offers a new framework within which a theoretically informed debate can take place.

Despite the numerous books and articles written on India and Pakistan and specifically on Indo-Pakistan relations, there has been little or no attempt at framing the pre-1947 and post-1947 periods through a theoretical lens that allows us to see any transitory dynamic. The approach here through the three cultures of anarchy will allow new insight into changes in the past, and likely future direction.

From a theoretical point of view, this study will show that culturally constructed ideas of identity are reflected in state perceptions of themselves and others and as such play a constitutive role in state identity and policy formulation. But that these identities are learnt and socially constructed through social process and inter subjectivity, thus it can be shown that a socially constructed learned process can be unlearned and change. The challenge here is to show that a constructivist approach can illuminate a social process whereby change has or could come about in India–Pakistan relations specifically, and international relations generally.

Alastair Johnston writes, ‘France has reacted very differently to the unification of Germany in the 1990s than it did to the same process in the 1860s’ (Johnston 1996, 216–268). If interests and ideas can change, then so can anarchy(s). In the case of India and Pakistan, the important question remains, in which direction is the culture of anarchy heading and how will the added materialism of nuclear power inform one states perception of the other?

Despite India and Pakistan becoming independent sovereign states in 1947, many of the classic international relations (IR) theories have struggled to account for Indo-Pakistan relations. Given that these two states were born out of what was the British Raj and the former Princely states, systemic accounts as to why states act the way they do have struggled to explain relations between them. This book will attempt to show the blend of reductionist and systemic variables acting on Indo-Pakistan relations. On one hand, foreign policy pursued, particularly by India has a realist characterization given New Delhi’s desire to maximize power throughout South Asia and its ambition to maximize power beyond the South Asian region.

Contrary to this, both India and Pakistan are embroiled in an ideological struggle for Kashmir. For example, when Delhi looks south, it sees a region in which it is the hegemonic power over states such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sikkim and Nepal. However, when it looks north it becomes enmeshed in an ideologically constructed political (and sometimes military) battle with Islamabad. It can be argued therefore that there is an unaccounted for blend of realist and constructivist led foreign policy objectives, what Stephen Cohen calls the ‘realism-idealism conundrum’ that this book will examine (Cohen 2001, 308).

Cohen’s description above gives a good insight into the methodological difficulties India Pakistan relations poses for international relations theorists due to its awkward juxtaposition between the shared ideas of a once singular terrain and the imposition of sovereign structure in 1947. This book suggests that the failure of IR to seriously address this methodological problem and move forward with a new approach that allows for both structure and ideation remains a serious and apparently intractable problem.

Until these methodological and theoretical problems are addressed India–Pakistan relations will continue to stagnate in historical reiteration and moreover, if the epicentre of international politics is moving away from America towards Asia, IR scholarship will continue to lag behind this vitally important change in international politics.

The theoretical outline below will begin with a broad account of the classical realist approach as argued by E.H. Carr and later by Hans Morgenthau and then move on to look at the structural or neo-realist theory of Kenneth Waltz. Having set out the theoretical background to structural realism the chapter will then discuss Wendtian constructivism that seeks to join the macro structure of neo-realism to a micro inter subjectivity between nation states.

This is important because the empirical sweep of the book crosses over from the pre-1947 period of the British Raj, to the post-1947 period. Thus a Wendtian constructivism which, through inter-subjectivity, seeks to understand what nature or socially constructed type of anarchy fills the structure as a causal explanation is a far better approach, than structural t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Map of South Asia
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Culture of Friendship and the Politicization of Culture
• 3 Culture of Rivalry and Limited Conflict
• 4 Culture of Enmity and Unlimited Conflict
• 5 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index