HASINA’S INDIA VISIT: MOVING BEYOND TEESTA

Later this week, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, one of India’s staunchest supporters in the region, will finally be making a state visit—her first since the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance came to power in New Delhi in May 2014. In those three years, she has come to Delhi twice—in 2015, to attend the funeral of President Pranab Mukherjee’s wife, and then in 2016, to participate in the BRICS-Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Outreach Summit. But a state visit seemed to have been inordinately delayed.

That Prime Minister Hasina has agreed to a state visit even though New Delhi has been unable to deliver the long-awaited water-sharing agreement on the Teesta river is noteworthy. In the India-Bangladesh context, this agreement could have served the purpose of a high-value deliverable—especially for Hasina who has invested enormous political capital in Bangladesh’s relationship with India. She would have rightly been expecting a deal on the Teesta in return. However, continued opposition from the state government in West Bengal has not allowed for any diplomatic progress to be made on this issue.

Hasina’s critics at home have often charged her with peddling an Indian agenda and failing to secure Bangladesh’s interests. The Teesta deal was supposed to be her comeback– her big diplomatic deliverable–but if that’s not going to materialize, then she will be seen as having returned empty-handed. In other words, Hasina is actually taking a significant political risk with this trip. The question then is: Why and why now? What are the other items on the agenda that could possibly counter-balance this risk? And what can India do to ease the pressure?

The answer lies in counter-terror cooperation. This has been one of the biggest achievements of the India-Bangladesh bilateral in recent years but as radical jihadi groups mount a renewed threat in this part of the subcontinent, it’s time for both countries to up the ante.

When Hasina and her Awami League government returned to power in 2009, they launched a nationwide crackdown on groups such as the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh(HuJI-B) that had been given a free hand by the previous administration of Khaleda Zia (which counted the insidious Jamaat-e-Islami amongst its allies). Hasina’s government also assured New Delhi that anti-India activities will not be tolerated on Bangladeshi soil.  In keeping with her word, Hasina destroyed terror camps and went after militants from India’s northeast who had found sanctuary in Bangladesh.

But this was not all. When militants were flushed out of their safe havens in Bangladesh, many fled to India, particularly West Bengal. Here, the state government turned a blind eye to the jihadists as they regrouped and gained strength. The situation became worse after the Shahbagh movement in 2013 led to an outpouring of secular, progressive sentiment in Bangladesh—and in the process, galvanized extremist elements. Last year’s deadly Dhaka cafe blast was just one example of how the latter have been reactivated. Some have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, adding yet another layer of complexity.

Across the border, in Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s refusal to take on Islamist hardliners, even as general law and order in the state has deteriorated, has created a ticking bomb of its own. This became evident in 2014 when an accidental blast at a family home in Burdwan district exposed the JMB’s network in Bengal—as well as a plot to topple the Sheikh Hasina government. Since then, several links have been exposed between terror networks in West Bengal and Bangladesh and other transnational groups. For example, the Dhaka attack masterminds are known to have traveled around Bengal and met with at least one Islamic State sympathizer in Malda. Another suspect was recently arrested from Kolkata.

These developments have serious security implications for both India and Bangladesh as the Burdwan blasts in Bengal and the Dhaka café attack in Bangladesh stand proof. It will be interesting to see if and how they form the backdrop for a defense pact that may reportedly be signed during Hasina’s upcoming visit.

Understandably, much of the commentary about the defense pact has been focused on the Chinese angle—and how this is India’s response to China’s overtures to Bangladesh in particular and in the region in general. There has been a lot of talk about how Delhi has been worried about Dhaka’s purchase of two submarines from Beijing and is, therefore, seeking to strengthen its own defense relationship with Bangladesh. In Dhaka, the concerns are different. Some analysts worry that a defense deal with India will upset China while the opposition has claimed that this may not be in the best interests of Bangladesh.

But irrespective of the China factor, few will disagree that given the current security scenario, wherein local Islamist radicals connected to transnational groups have reared their ugly head, the deepening of military ties between Delhi and Dhaka is a necessity.

This article was published on the Stimson Centre's South Asian Voices platform.

INDIA-CHINA STRATEGIC DIALOGUE: BIG TALK, LITTLE PROGRESS

Last week, India and China held the first round of an upgraded strategic dialogue in Beijing. The deliberations, led by Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar and Executive Vice Minister in the Chinese foreign ministry Wang Yesui, reportedly lasted several hours. However, though they were describedas fruitful and productive by government sources, there is little to show in terms of progress on the ground.

Specifically, there seems to have been no movement on the two main sticking points on the agenda: China blocking India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and China shielding Pakistan-based terrorist Masood Azhar at the United Nations Security Council. In both cases, the official reason for Chinese obstruction has been couched in principled terms—the sanctity of the nuclear nonproliferation regime in the first case and the absence of adequate proofagainst Masood Azhar for him to be sanctioned in the second case. However, in reality, both positions are driven by geopolitical concerns.  As long as these concerns and considerations continue to define the bilateral, it is difficult to see how the two countries can embark on a strategic partnership of any consequence.

India and China have had a Strategic and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Prosperity since 2005, but there are “no true areas of strategic convergence” yet. Instead, the bilateral agenda for both countries has consistently focused on the settlement of the boundary dispute and the strengthening of economic and trade ties.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to somewhat modify the template during his 2015 visit to China, as evident in the joint statement, stating:

“This constructive model of relationship between the two largest developing countries, the biggest emerging economies and two major poles in the global architecture provides a new basis for pursuing state-to-state relations to strengthen the international system.”

Interestingly, the statement also had a section on “Shaping the Regional and Global Agenda”:

“As two major powers in the emerging world order, engagement between India and China transcends the bilateral dimension and has a significant bearing on regional, multilateral and global issues. Both Sides agreed to… coordinate their positions and work together to shape the regional and global agenda and outcomes.”

Last week, after the dialogue, Jaishankar echoed these sentiments. However, there is little evidence suggesting that it will fructify any time soon. China is simply not interested.

India may want to play with the big boys in Beijing, but China sees no reason to change the status quo. As far as China is concerned, India is a regional power and simply not in the same league as itself. Hence, when India demands a seat at the global high table, which is essentially what something like membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group is all about, China will do whatever it takes to keep India out. This is also why China will continue to indulge, support, and shore up Pakistan—so as to counterbalance India in the region. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that China has refused to remove its shield protecting Masood Azhar at the UN.

That said, as China’s global profile grows and it increasingly seeks to present itself as a rule-shaper and rule-keeper, it will be interesting to see if China eventually perceives its public defense of a proscribed terrorist as embarrassing enough to merit a change in strategy. Nevertheless, as of now, Beijing does not feel compelled to change its position on Masood Azhar anytime soon.

However, in several interviews this author has conducted over the past month as a Stimson Center South Asian Voices Visiting Fellow, China experts at various American think-tanks have speculated that China may be privately pressuring Pakistan to address the issue of terrorism. China is investing upwards of $50 billion in building an economic corridor through Pakistan that will connect to its own Xinjiang province, and it is imperative that Pakistan put its house in order if the project is to be effectively implemented.

In India, as argued here, the key question is whether Pakistan’s effort to clamp down on terrorism at home will extend to anti-India groups. It seems that China has no good reason to push Pakistan on this in the present context. On the contrary, Beijing will not mind at all if Pakistan—having managed the situation at home—continues to keep the pot boiling in the subcontinent. For long, China has used Pakistan to undercut India’s influence in the region. Today, as India’s economy races far ahead of Pakistan’s, the latter’s disruptive influence has waned. While it still retains some nuisance value vis-à-vis India, terrorism emanating from Pakistan cannot derail India’s growth, just as Pakistan’s anti-India narrative on Kashmir cannot prevent India from joining the big boys club. China may be aware of this changing dynamic, but for the time being it has chosen to continue dealing with India as a middle power that must be shown its place in the world order.

This article was published on the Stimson Centre's South Asian Voices platform.

HOW INDIA BECAME OBAMA’S UNEXPECTED FOREIGN POLICY WIN

As President Barack Obama’s eight-year tenure at the White House draws to a close, the general consensus is that his foreign policy record is mixed at best. However, on the India front, the president will be closing on a definitive high. U.S.-India ties are stronger today than they were at the beginning of Obama’s first term, and there is a sense of optimism about the bilateral relationship. This outcome is somewhat unexpected because India was hardly a priority for the Obama administration. In fact, the relationship got off to a rocky start in 2009 and it was not until the final years of the Obama presidency that relations began to flourish.

Initial Challenges

After Obama was sworn into office in 2009, the U.S. government and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh struggled to match the successes that marked the first half of that decade, most notably the U.S.-India nuclear deal and the 2005 defense framework. The nuclear deal marked a generational leap in bilateral ties and set the stage for a strategic partnership. It also acknowledged India’s “exceptional” position in the emerging world order, which manifested into U.S. support for India’s entry into the nuclear non-proliferation regime. Thus, it would be unfair to expect something on this scale every two, five, or even 10 years.

Regardless, the inability of Singh and Obama to take the deal to its full potential was disappointing. Having spent all of his political capital securing the deal, Singh failed to defend it, resulting in the 2010 Indian nuclear liability lawwhich effectively gutted the deal. In the United States, Obama was so preoccupied with fixing the economy at home that he let his predecessor’s biggest foreign policy achievement fall by the wayside. Moreover, on the few occasions when he did take up issues relating to India in his early years, Obama usually made matters worse. For example, he appointed Richard Holbrooke as his first Af-Pak envoy, whose mandate, which was supposed to extend to India, was curtailed after New Delhi expressed its displeasure with the appointment.

Defense cooperation followed a similar pattern. Both Singh and Obama sought to build on the gains they had inherited, but could only make limited progress. For example, in 2012, they launched the one-of-a-kind Defense Technology and Trade Initiative that was supposed to spur joint development and production of high-end defense platforms, but failed to deliver any big ticket items right away.

On a person-to-person level, Obama and Singh, both sort of professorial, enjoyed a certain level of respect and comfort, which was evident during the state visits of 2009 and 2010. However, this bonhomie was not enough to arrest the decline in bilateral ties, which was marked by sparring at the World Trade Organization and an atrophying  defense partnership, exacerbated by unfavorable domestic and global environments. In India, one corruption scandal after another caused the prime minister’s reputation to plummet, and governance was paralyzed on all fronts, including foreign policy. In the United States, Obama’s much-touted “pivot to Asia” – with an eye on China – was having a hard time getting off the ground. At one point, India was supposed to be the linchpin of this pivot, but that too turned out to be a non-starter. Moreover, Obama’s pivot to Asia – and away from the Middle East – was ill-timed. It came when the Arab world was experiencing one of its biggest upheavals, and Obama’s stewardship (or lack thereof) disappointed many, including those in New Delhi’s security establishment.

Obama’s approach to Pakistan and the Afghan war was also criticized in India. Many believed that the United States was fleeing the conflict and leaving India to clean up the mess. Additionally, Obama’s Afghan commitments restrained him from pushing Pakistan on the issue of terrorism, which did not go over well in India. There was frustration on both sides, and just as many wondered if the bilateral relationship had been “oversold,” the 2013 Devyani Khobragade episode damaged relations even further.

Turning of the Tide

When Narendra Modi was elected prime minister in 2014, it seemed unlikely that the situation would improve. Modi had been on a U.S. visa blacklist for 10 years, and many perceived a temperamental disparity between him and Obama. The assumption was that the United States and India would have a pragmatic, business-only relationship at best.

However, Modi upended these calculations from day one. Not only did he put aside his personal grievances against the U.S. government, but also reached out to President Obama with open arms. Together, they injected new momentum into bilateral ties by joining forces in the fight against climate change and enhancing clean energy cooperation. Both men were passionate about these issues and placed them at the heart of the relationship.

Further, the discourse on climate change was inextricably linked to nuclear energy. These have become the two defining issues of the India-United States bilateral in the 21st century. In fact, one of the first big breakthroughs in bilateral ties was during Obama’s 2015 visit as chief guest for India’s Republic Day celebration when both sides announced that they had come to an understanding over the nuclear liability clause. This set the ball rolling for America’s Westinghouse Electric to begin work on its six nuclear energy reactors in India in the summer of 2016, marking the commercialization of civil-nuclear ties.

It was also during this visit that defense cooperation got back on track. The new bilateral defense framework was signed, and four “pathfinder projects” were announced under the DTTI in addition to cooperation on aircraft carrier and jet engine technology. Months later, Modi cleared the way for two additional major defense deals: the purchase of 15 Chinook and 22 Apache helicopters, which had been stuck in the pipeline for years.

Things began to move quickly thereafter. The U.S.-India Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region, made possible by assertive political leadership in New Delhi, resuscitated the American pivot to Asia. In a related move, in September 2016, the Modi government broke with India’s Cold War apprehensions to sign a key foundational military agreementwith the United States. Then, in December, Obama codified India as a “major defense partner,” a unique designation not yet given to any other country.

It is anybody’s guess how President-elect Donald Trump will steer the relationship. However, one can be certain that if he encounters obstacles, the robust institutional framework of the U.S.-India bilateral, buoyed by strong bipartisan support, will help him stay the course.

This article was published on the Stimson Centre's South Asian Voices platform.

HINDUS FOR TRUMP?

The recent community event in Edison, New Jersey, organized by the Republican Hindu Coalition (RHC) for presidential nominee Donald Trump has generated much mockery and some anguish in America and India. This is par for the course for just about any Trump event these days, and it is tempting to write it off as an amusing footnote in an election that has, if nothing else, been full of surprises, to put it gently.

And while it is no one’s case that the Hindus for Trump event marked any major shift, trend, or development in this election cycle – reportedly, many members of Trump’s audience in Edison do not even have a vote in the United States and most came for the entertainment and the samosas – it is worthwhile to ask if this event reflects the attitudes and aspirations of at least a section, even if small, of the Indian-American community.

The RHC seesm to be the only outfit in the United States that claims both a Hindu religious identity and a clear partisan political organization. All other Hindu groups, and there are quite a few with deep roots in the community and extensive networks across the country, are officially bipartisan. Fashioned after the Republican Jewish Coalition, the RHC has been floated by industrialist Shalabh (Shalli) Kumar who, along with his wife, has donated a large amount of money to the Trump campaign. The Hindus for Trump event was evidently his display of muscle power to the Republican party leadership – and in that limited context, it was a success. It drew about 5,000 people and remains the only occasion wherein the presidential nominee has addressed an Indian-American gathering. This is even more interesting because the Republicans don’t get very many Indian-American votes. The community, like most other immigrant groups, votes Democrat.

And while this trend is expected to hold strong through the current election cycle, there are indications of a sense of disillusionment within the Indian-American community, particularly with issues relating to Hindu beliefs, heritage, and history. We see this in the California school textbook controversy that goes back to 2006 and in the more recent Diwali school holiday issue. Additionally, there seems to be some disappointment with the Democrats’ India policies while Republicans are considered to be relatively more pro-India.

So, where does the Hindus for Trump rally, RHC, and Trump fit into all of this, if at all? There are two factors that seem to bring the two together: First is Trump’s strong rhetoric against Islamist terrorism which has emerged as an overarching concern among his support base.  The second factor is a little more complicated: for long, Indian-Americans who would have ideally voted Republican for conservative fiscal policies have shied away from doing so because of the latter’s evangelical wing. Trump, with his multiple marriages and many dalliances, has an uneasy relationship with the religious right. And that somehow makes him a fit for the vote bank being nurtured by the RHC.

But even this is an awkward fit at best – for example, Trump’s anti-immigration stance stands out like a sore thumb in this context, even though his supporters painstakingly seek to make the distinction between illegal and legal immigrants. Similarly, how does the RHC, which is presumably against cattle slaughter, support a candidate who once sold steak? There are many such loose ends. In the long term, it will be interesting to see if the Indian diaspora in the United States, like its counterpart in the United Kingdom, shifts to the conservative side or remains loyal to the Democrats.

This article was published on the Stimson Centre's South Asian Voices platform

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POST-URI STRIKES: INDIA’S TAKEAWAYS

In the several days since India announced its “surgical strikes” along the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan, there has been a plethora of commentary already with experts analyzing its military, diplomatic, and political angles threadbare. Now’s a good time to take a step back and view the larger picture – how does this change the India-Pakistan equation in Kashmir and beyond? What are its implications on India’s security matrix? How does it fit into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Pakistan policy and India’s overall foreign and security policy?

Shorn of TRP-generating hyperbole and hysteria, the fact of the matter is that such cross-border raids have been carried out many times before, and there is little evidence to suggest that last week’s strikes were even qualitatively any better (either carried out deeper into Pakistani territory or inflicting greater damage or taking out targets higher up the value chain).  And that’s fine.

The key here is not that the raid occurred but that it was publicized. That was a first. Why? Why did this government break from the past? The easy answer is because it needed to assuage domestic sentiments. There had been a series of terror attacks – Gurdaspur, Pampore, Pathankot, Uri – and to the public at large, it was looking like the government was doing nothing more than kadi ninda (severe criticism), even though it was supposed to be more hawkish on security affairs.

But the Modi administration wasn’t the only one to have faced such public pressure. The government of Manmohan Singh, for example, was in a far worse situation after the Mumbai carnage in 2008, and even in 2013, when the LoC lit up after reports emerged of the two Indian soldiers being killed and their bodies being mutilated. At least in the latter case, it is believed that the Indian Army carried out retaliatory strikes across the LoC but these were not publicly acknowledged – until now. The Congress party recently listed three “surgical strikes” that had been authorized by the United Progressive Alliance government when it was in power.

The conventional wisdom (pushed in no small measure by the Pakistani establishment and contested in some Indian military circles) was that announcing such strikes would compel Pakistan to respond, and this could escalate into a full spectrum military confrontation between the nuclear-armed nations. While previous Indian governments have played safe against this backdrop, the Modi administration took a calculated risk.

It publicized the strike but also carefully framed it as a counter-terror operation, undertaken in the defense of Indian citizens and in an area that India considers to be its sovereign territory. It even urged the Pakistan Army to do its bit to control non-state actors, thereby drawing a line between the Pakistani state and its proxies. This was to ensure that at least on paper the attack was not seen as an attack on Pakistan itself.

Most importantly, Modi and his team seem to have reasoned that the Pakistani government, instead of forcefully responding to the attack, would in fact underplay the Indian strike. Because acknowledging such a strike, especially after it had been so announced by India, would make it look bad. Even in a worst case scenario, wherein Pakistan reacted more negatively than expected, it would be safe to assume that the international community would bear upon Pakistan to exercise restraint – just as it has with India, when the latter has been attacked and repeatedly so.

What this means from India’s point of view is that there is slightly more space than previously estimated for a conventional response to sub-conventional threats from Pakistan. This is the big takeaway, the big win. Now, how much more space there is, and how far the Modi government will probe it, remains to be seen. The lesson to be learnt is that the price of inaction is often greater than wrong actions.

Note that Modi or his team didn’t do anything that was drastically different from their predecessors (such as striking the Lashkar headquarter in Muridke, an option India considered after Mumbai 2008 but dropped). They have no magic wand or silver bullet to speak of. They have the same old toolkit—they just try to work it better.

In fact, it is important not to confuse this old toolkit with the availability of a new one – India still does not have very many options for responding to Pakistani attacks in a way that will not only penalize Pakistan but also compel it to change its India strategy. India can develop some retaliatory options over time, such as covert strikes on terror training camps (not the same as launch pads), but even these will only be punitive. India’s basic problem with Pakistan – its sponsorship of anti-India terrorism – remains.

This article was published on the Stimson Centre's South Asian Voices platform

SAV REVIEW SERIES: CAN INDIA CHANGE PAKISTAN’S BEHAVIOR?

Imagine this chilling scenario: “In 2017, a group of young men hailing from Pakistan conduct a terrorist attack in a major Indian city killing hundreds of people and severely damaging an iconic Indian landmark. While Pakistani authorities initially deny any direct or indirect involvement in the attack, and insist that in recent years they have exerted themselves to tame militant groups, Indian officials declare that they have intelligence tying the attackers to a group with infrastructure in Pakistan that is, or should be, known to Pakistani security officials.” What could happen next is alarming – in George Perkovich and Toby Dalton’s new book Not War, Not Peace?: Motivating Pakistan to Prevent Cross-Border Terrorism, the authors caution against this scenario leading to the possibility of both countries mobilizing their militaries, risking a full-scale war between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

In real life, India’s reaction to terrorism emanating from Pakistan has been less dramatic. After the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the Congress-led government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh exercised no ‘hard options’ and instead launched a diplomatic campaign to name and shame Pakistan, as the authors themselves note in the book. After the 2001 Parliament attack, the BJP-led government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee responded with massive troop mobilization but avoided military escalation. Both provocations were serious enough for India’s political and defense establishments to at least consider military retaliation, and yet in neither of the two cases did India go to war with Pakistan.

Presentation of the Argument and Critiques

With conventional warfare ruled out, the question that Perkovich and Dalton pose is: What else can India do to motivate Pakistan to prevent such incidences of cross-border terrorism? The authors specifically look at five options that India is likely to consider vis-à-vis Pakistan: (I) An army-centric proactive incursion into Pakistan; (II) a limited airborne operation against targets directly associated with terror organizations; (III) a covert operation fomenting insurgency in Pakistan; (IV) innovations in the nuclear doctrine that would complement the previous three options, and (V) a strategy of non-violent compellence.

In the army-centric option, the authors focus on what is popularly known as the Cold Start doctrine. They rightly highlight reasons why India should ignore this path including the fact that it simply does not have the military capabilities at this point to pursue this option with any degree of success. Also, the escalatory risks associated with it are extremely high, since it is difficult to imagine that Pakistan would not respond to an invasion of its territory. As the authors note, “[…] If Indian leaders authorize a proactive response to another terrorist attack, the Indian forces are unlikely to achieve the quick splendid victory that proponents of the strategy imagine.”

Next, the authors critique the case for airborne operations against select terror targets. This section is a must-read for those in India advocating for the Modi government to order a U.S.-style hit on Hafiz Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim in Pakistan. The authors note that while this seems appealing, especially since the United States and Israel already go for such options in their counterterrorism policies, they rightly argue that “India does not possess offensive capabilities remotely comparable with those of the US and Israel.”

The third segment on covert operations, makes for a timely read given that Prime Minister Modi recently emphasized Pakistan’s abuses in Balochistan in response to Pakistani criticisms of India’s human rights record in Kashmir. As the authors note, Ajit Doval, three months prior to his appointment as Modi’s National Security Advisor, had also said: “You (Pakistan) can do one Mumbai and you may lose Balochistan.” With this in mind, the authors assess the pros and cons of such a strategy wherein India facilitates covert actions in Pakistan in response to a terrorist attack on Indian soil. In the end, they argue that risks outweigh the benefits. This is debatable, depending on the scope and scale of Indian action. For example, if India is able to reasonably improve its ground intelligence and covert strike capabilities, attacking targets in Pakistan-administered Kashmir may be considered. Similarly, India could also consider upping the ante in Balochistan – this need not translate into instigating a full-scale Baloch rebellion but just enough to send the message that there is a price to be paid for mischief-making. That said, even those who advocate for such operations will do well to remember that Pakistan’s proxy war strategy has failed in its primary objective—to extract from India any major concessions on Kashmir.

The fourth option on nuclear capabilities has similar operational issues of the sort that plague the previous options, though the authors’ suggestion that India should stick with its no first use policy is debatable. As defense expert Abhijit Iyer-Mitra explains, “India has diluted the concept (of NFU) to the point of absurdity, with dangerous consequences: a buildup of its conventional forces, which has caused Pakistan to harden its nuclear stance.”

This brings us to the fifth option of non-violent compellence, which the authors argue would be “more cost-effective to turn the people and authorities of Pakistan and the international community against actors who would conduct terrorism in India.” This is where the book begins to falter. The authors suggest that since India does not have any real hard power options, it should look at soft power options to effectively isolate Pakistan on the global stage. While this can surely serve as one of many levers that India turns against Pakistan, the authors fail to provide a convincing argument for how this would actually change Pakistani behavior; the authors accentuate this point when they themselves note that the Pakistani state has only limited control over anti-India groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba. Thus, it is unclear how these soft power options would create substantive differences from the status quo.

They argue that the restraint of Indian leaders after the 2001 and 2008 terrorist attacks “resulted in a Pakistani sense of loss.” But the point is that this rather vague notion of loss has not had any significant impact whatsoever on Pakistan’s India policies—much like the BDS movement against Israel, which the authors say has caused “deep concern” in Jerusalem but has not changed the way Israel approaches Palestinian terror.

The authors also consider the possibility of India lobbying for economic sanctions against Pakistan with an emphasis on getting American and Chinese support. Even if India were to achieve American support, it is extremely difficult to imagine China would ever support these sanctions because of its close relationship with Pakistan. And without Chinese support, such a suggestion is ultimately not a realistic one.

Concluding Thoughts

This brings us back to the question: What can India do to motivate Pakistan to prevent such attacks? Some 300 pages later, the answer seems to be: not much. India would struggle to mobilize its hard power against Pakistan; even if India did use hard power, it would risk escalation and nuclear warfare. The authors push for the use of soft power, but this seems like a mostly ineffective solution with no real change to the status quo.

Perhaps, the answer on how to change Pakistani behavior lies in the proposition that India should not try to change it in the first place. India could simply focus on improving its resilience by strengthening its borders and improving its homeland security apparatus to reduce the odds that terrorists might cross into India.

This article was published on Stimson Centre's South Asian Voices platform as part of a four-part series reviewing authors  George Perkovich and Toby Dalton‘s book  Not War, Not Peace?: Motivating Pakistan to Prevent Cross-Border Terrorism (Oxford University Press, 2016).  Read the entire series here.

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WHY MODI PLAYED THE B-CARD

It is no coincidence that Beijing's much touted China Pakistan Economic Corridor which cuts through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, also traverses through Balochistan and includes the strategic Gwadar port

It’s official now: India is turning the Balochistan lever against Pakistan. After decades of keeping itself at an arms’ length from the issue, it is now changing tack, with the express aim of paying back Pakistan on its own coin. As Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu explained on Tuesday, “Pakistan lectures us about Kashmir, that’s why we have told them what is happening in Balochistan, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Gilgit”.

Since Indian security forces killed Hizbul Mujahideen operative Burhan Wani last month, there have been large-scale protests in Kashmir Valley, which according to New Delhi have been engineered by Pakistan. Pakistan has retorted that the protests are a popular uprising against an occupying force.

Without diminishing the fact that there is at least some genuine discontent and disillusionment in the Valley, it is also hard to ignore that the unrest in Kashmir comes at a time when Pakistan has been effectively isolated on the international stage. There has also been some chatter that Pakistan’s intelligence agency itself may have had a hand in Burhan Wani’s death.

Even if that wasn’t the case, there is no denying that Pakistan has played up the issue, ostensibly hoping to distract attention from its own problems at home and abroad. This, however, has had only a limited impact globally (even though it will not be a stretch to say that Kashmir is worryingly close to a third wave of militancy). This, in turn, only strengthens the argument that what was once Pakistan’s most potent weapon to flog India on the global stage has now been blunted beyond repair.

The results are there for all to see: From India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi fired the first salvo from an all-party meeting convened to discuss the Kashmir issue. He then brought out the big guns on Independence Day —From the ramparts of the iconic Red Fort, with a billion eyes and ears trained on his every word and gesture, Modi noted that the people of Balochistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir have thanked him in recent days (he didn’t go into details but the reference to Pakistani atrocities in these regions was obvious), and then, with just about every foreign diplomat that India hosts in his audience, warned that the “world is watching”.

Experts have dubbed this as a game-changer in the India-Pakistan relationship — that will be true if India keeps up the pressure, but for now, what we have is a change in tone and tenor. Technically, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir has always been part of India’s official narrative though Modi has brought it centre-stage and put the spotlight on Pakistani excesses in the region. This is as it should be.

Balochistan, though, is a new ballgame altogether because unlike PoK it is not disputed territory that India claims as its own. India recognises Balochistan as Pakistani territory and, therefore, it could be argued that bringing up the issue violates India’s principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation.

But while such principles et all make for good speeches and even compelling academic discourse, the demands of realpolitik require us to craft a different approach. Simply put, this was why India went into East Pakistan and midwifed Bangladesh.

Now, this is not to suggest — at least not at this point, anyhow — that the Modi Government is planning a similar operation in Balochistan. But only to underline the fact that if in 1971, India, still a poor country that was struggling to stand on its own two feet, could carry out a foreign military intervention on humanitarian grounds, there is no reason why India, today in 2016, as an economic powerhouse that seeks a seat at the global high table, cannot at least draw the attention of the world to the situation in Balochistan. There is both, a strong moral case and, of course, an equally strong geo-political case for India to speak, and firmly so, about Balochistan.

Perhaps, the question to be asked is: Why is India bringing up the issue now? The easy answer is Modi himself and his confident, self-assured approach to diplomacy. But there is more to that — apart from changes in regional alignments (think Iran which has its own minority Baloch population to deal with or Afghanistan where India supported the Northern Alliance through its Zahedan consulate in Iranian Balochistan or even Iraq which once sent weapons to Baloch leaders, hoping the insurgency in Pakistan would fan out to Iran), there is the China factor that India must grapple with.

In this context, it is no coincidence that Beijing’s much touted China Pakistan Economic Corridor which cuts through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, also traverses through Balochistan and includes the strategic Gwadar port (notably, India has also upped its game in Chabahar which is to serve as the foil to Gwadar). 

Some concerns have been raised that doing so would push India off the moral high ground it has held vis-à-vis Pakistan, that it would add credence to Pakistani claims that India has been fuelling the insurgency in Balochistan, and that in turn would dilute India’s cross-border terrorism case against Pakistan in Kashmir.

One can argue endlessly on these issues but the fact of the matter is that these are essentially perception battles that have limited impact on the ground and are ultimately decided by hard power. Look at, for example, how Pakistan has spun an anti-India Kashmir narrative for its public that is irrespective of the realities in the valley or how China is rarely censured for its oppressive policies in Tibet or against the Uyghurs.

The more important question here is: Can India take the Balochistan issue (which also Pakistan has sought to exploit for against India) and effectively use it as a lever against Pakistan? No doubt, like in Bangladesh, Pakistan’s own excesses in Balochistan make India’s job easy but, it is still to be seen if India will keep up the pressure, particularly if there if a different dispensation comes to power in New Delhi in 2019.

(A shorter version of this article was published on the Stimson Centre’s South Asian Voices platform)