Armed Conflicts in South Asia 2013

Transitions

D. Suba Chandran, P. R. Chari, P.R. Chari

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138349599
• eBook ISBN: 9781317324669
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Diplomacy & Treaties
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Seventh in the annual series, this volume focuses on civil society movements in South Asia, besides covering armed conflicts in the region in 2012. The first section addresses the conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Myanmar, and the situation in Northeast India and Naxalite violence; the second assesses peace audits in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Jammu and Kashmir, along with the peace process in Nagaland.

PART I

1
Introduction: Review of Armed Conflicts in South Asia in 2012

P. R. Chari

Prelude

Most year-end roundups by the Indian press of the year gone by—2012—have confirmed, with rare uniformity, that it was very depressing. No doubt, they were influenced by the horrible 16/12 crime when a 23-year old paramedical student was gang-raped and brutalized in a moving bus. Efforts to treat her failed and she died in a Singapore hospital. This traumatic event united a civil society response across the country, which now embodies a new sociological phenomenon in the international system.

A synoptic overview of 2012 would confirm that it was also depressing for the international system and for South Asia. Briefly, the financial crisis showed no signs of abatement in either the United States (US) or Europe that provided the cornerstone for the global economic and monetary system after the Second World War. A fair consensus now exists that a rising China and emerging India are the harbingers of a shift in global power from the US and Europe to Asia, and from the industrialized to the developing world. But, the exposes of high level corruption and venality in China and India, emphasizing the need to balance development and wealth generation with just governance has cast a shadow over their bid for world leadership. Further, the promise of democracy following the Arab Spring has not yet been fulfilled in the Middle East and Gulf regions. In Fouad Ajami’s prose,

[c]an he who does not know where to go find the way? Is driving the dictator out the end? [O]usting a tyrant doesn’t lead to freedom. Prisoners like trading one prison for another, for a change of scenery and the chance to gain a little something along the way. “The best day after a bad emperor is the first,” the Roman historian Tacitus once memorably observed.¹

Further, claims by the US that the execution of Osama bin Laden in May 2011 had dealt a death blow to the al Qaeda, its surrogates and subsidiaries have proven premature. Indeed, right through 2012, the influence of the al Qaeda, along with its supporting organizations, continued in much of Asia; it has also established firm bases in the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa, notably Mali. The threat of nuclear proliferation continues undiminished, with North Korea, Pakistan and Iran being its nodal centres. The more generalized threat from weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) has also increased after a chemical weapons stockpile was discovered in Syria. Meanwhile, the angst regarding nuclear safety and nuclear security has gained traction after the disastrous Fukushima-Daiichi accident in Japan. Finally, the evolving US ‘pivot’ or ‘rebalance’ towards Asia, which envisages a redeployment of its naval and expeditionary forces to East and Southeast Asia is clearly designed to contain China, and forebodes a new Cold War.

South Asia in 2012 was no less depressing. The Af-Pak region continued to be in deep turmoil. There are presentiments that the withdrawal of American and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops in 2014 may lead to chaos in Afghanistan that will not leave Pakistan, but also Central Asia and India, unaffected. The situation within Pakistan, especially the growing sectarian violence and terrorist attacks all over the country, showed no signs of abating in 2012, casting serious doubts on its stability, and heightening the angst about the safety and security of its nuclear arsenal. Nepal was unable to provide itself with either a constitution or a permanent government, but staggered on from one crisis to another in 2012. The Tamil problem in Sri Lanka remains unresolved with no sign of any viable political solution in sight. Maldives was traditionally perceived as peaceful—this is no longer true with domestic politics entering a turbulent stage, a rising crime rate, and both China and the US vying with each other to establish air–sea bases in its different atolls. Bangladesh continued to witness its unique brand of plebiscitary politics, assiduously practised by the Awami League and the Bangladesh National Party. The resulting lack of consensus made it difficult to form a caretaker government to oversee the upcoming elections. Islamization has strengthening in the country, increasing the potential for internal conflict, India had traditionally been anointed as an island of stability in a chaotic neighbourhood, but this belief was challenged in 2012, with large-scale civil society movements excoriating the Indian democracy and questioning its basic governance processes.

No doubt, Washington did succeed during the closing hours of 2012 in averting the yawning financial cliff confronting it, but a consensus was yet to evolve between the Democrats and the Republicans on controlling the staggering budget deficit. The US Congress is basically conservative, irrespective of its party composition.² How ever, President Obama plainly outlined the challenges he faced in his second term, which include ‘reducing our deficit; reforming our tax code; fixing our immigration system; freeing ourselves from foreign oil’.³ In this milieu, Tom Donilon, National Security Advisor, has noted that Obama’s decision to travel to Asia immediately after his reelection ‘speaks to the importance that he places on the region and its centrality to so many of our national security interests and priorities’. It was the President’s judgment that ‘we were over-weighted in some areas and regions, such as our military commitments in the Middle East. At the same time, we were underweighted in other regions, such as the Asia Pacific’.⁴

The other silver lining in these dark clouds was the smooth election a few weeks earlier of a new-generation leadership in Beijing, which has promised to reform the system. Whether this reform process will be restricted only to economic issues, while avoiding the need for political reform, is of the essence? In his acceptance speech Obama promised that:

We aspire to see a region where the rise of new powers occurs peacefully; where the freedom to access the sea, air, space, and cyberspace empowers vibrant commerce; where multinational forums help promote shared interests; and where citizens increasingly have the ability to influence their governments and universal human rights are upheld.⁵

Only the purblind would fail to notice that these goals seek to ensure the containment of China, which has implications for the security of South Asia.

Redefining the Definitions

The foregoing section highlights two basic issues that have remained in contention since this annual on the Armed Conflicts in South Asia were initiated in 2006, viz., how can ‘armed conflicts’ be delimited without the phrase losing its focus; and how could the geo-strategic reality of ‘South Asia’ be recognized.

Clearly, ‘armed conflicts’ could occur between two states or between the state and a non-state actor or between two non-state actors. Further, ‘major armed conflicts’ are recognized as those occasioned with a significant loss of lives. However, the context is important. Thus, the loss of some 3,000 lives in 2001 during the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers informed the radical changes in US policy that led to a ‘major armed conflict’ in Afghanistan. But, the loss of 3,000 lives in a single day was no unusual event during trench warfare in World War I. Incidentally, initial annual reports on Armed Conflicts in South Asia (2006, 2008) had adopted the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) definition of ‘major armed conflicts’ that requires ‘at least 1000 battle-related deaths in a calendar year’ to qualify. The earlier UCDP requirement was 1000 deaths over the entire period of the conflict;⁶ hence the current definition of ‘major armed conflicts’ is more restrictive, and excludes all but the most destructive conflicts.

However, the issue remains germane: which are the armed conflicts that qualify for this study. It is common ground that armed conflicts have external and internal aspects and their linkages reinforce each other, as between cross-border and domestic terrorism. Moreover, armed conflicts can also arise from non-traditional threats to security, such as climate change, migration, pandemics, water and food security, and so on. Illustratively, the shutting of borders to immigration by desperate people seeking safety, employment or a better quality of life illustrates a present reality, and contains the seeds of armed conflict.

These various sources of armed conflicts, major and minor, point to efforts to alleviate them by establishing peace processes, but also by international and regional cooperation. Newer approaches to peace, such as cooperative security, comprehensive security and human security, have relevance for mitigating armed conflicts in South Asia.⁷ Finally, it should be admitted that an element of discretion is unavoidable for deciding which armed conflicts should be included in a study of this genre, but the guiding principle must be that they have acquired a gravity and scale to merit attention.

A second question must detain us here: how could the fuller geo-strategic entity of ‘South Asia’ be recognized? There are several approaches possible. Historically, South Asia has been conflated with the subcontinent south of the Himalayas, variously designated as Aryavarta or Hindustan. Broadly, South Asia outlines the contours of British India. South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was established in the early 1980s as a regional cooperative organization by including the countries whose territories comprised British India, along with the sub-Himalayan kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan that had entered Treaty relations with British India. SAARC, thereafter, included two island nations (Sri Lanka and Maldives), two land-locked countries (Nepal and Bhutan) and, majorly, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In 2007, Afghanistan was admitted into SAARC, recognizing that it had been part of the ancient Hindu and medieval Mughal empires. The geo-strategic reality was also undeniable that Afghanistan and Pakistan are closely linked through ethnic, religious and political ties, and the term Af-Pak has now passed into the lexicon of international relations. The inclusion of Afghanistan into this study was, therefore, perfectly logical. Much the same could also be said of Myanmar; its security is inextricably linked with Northeast India and Bangladesh. Besides, Myanmar provides the interconnectivity to link South Asia with Southeast Asia; hence its inclusion into this study has an inner logic, which transcends the objection that Myanmar should be treated as part of Southeast Asia, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It bears recollection that Burma was part of British India and separated only in 1936.

In the coming years, Tibet and Xinkiang could find a place in this volume, since the popular movements here for greater autonomy could strengthen despite Beijing’s strenuous efforts to suppress them. Similarly, Iran and the wider entity of the Indian Ocean could also be included. The question really is whether geographical or strategic considerations should delineate the contours of South Asia; different answers are possible in this regard. An extreme view would suggest that South Asia’s strategic neighbourhood encompasses the entire area from the Red Sea to the Straits of Malacca, since developments in this area majorly impact South Asia. This region includes the epicentre of the Islamic world. Ideologies emanating here critically impact the external and internal dimensions of South Asian security. Hence, a prudential rule would suggest that defining South Asia requires its peripheries to be discerned that influence armed conflicts in the region, which is the leitmotif of this study.

2012: Generic Trends Impacting Armed Conflicts

At least two such major trends may be distinguished in South Asia in 2012.

First, civil society movements in the region began acquiring greater visibility and salience to influence national decisions. This was in sync with global events such as the Arab Spring that has rapidly unfolded leading to security crises, uncertainty and unpredictability. The turmoil manifested the deep social, economic and political discontent present in the Maghreb and Middle Eastern regions, especially in the weaker sections of their society. A new political discourse is sweeping the Arab world with democratic forces altering the basic contours of the Arab world. It is still unclear what final shape it will take, but indications are that the region might fall under the sway of religious fundamentalists or military dictatorships.

In South Asia, the capacity of civil society movements to spear-head public resentments, remove unpopular regimes and displace governments was revealed in 2007 when the lawyer’s agitation in Pakistan evicted the deeply entrenched General Musharraf. Later, in 2008, the Maoist movement in Nepal had displaced the unpopular Nepali monarch. More dramatically, the civil society movement that mushroomed in mid-December 2012 to protest the gang-rape of a young paramedical student shook New Delhi to its foundations, spurring long-postponed action on police and legal reforms. It also highlighted the corruption pervading the Indian legislative and administrative system identified, in part, as arising from, ‘A new feudal system is being created as the political process is captured by a narro...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Tables and Figures
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• Part I
• Part II: Peace Audit
• About the Editor
• Notes on Contributors
• Index