Raja Ram wrote:Their policies and actions based on these will come to roost when the descent into chaos happens fully. They cannot handle that on their own and neither can they just abandon and leave. A resurgent and confident India will have to be approached by these very powers.
India will have to be ready for that eventuality and must have in place, plans for the displaced people of pakistan. It will have to be India that acts and creates safe havens inside the territory currently controlled by this entity and not in India proper. It has to be India that will have to lead the final arrangements of post Pakistan scenario.
The GOI will have to prepare for this eventuality in the next decade or so. It calls for clarity of thought and unity in purpose. It requires adequate preparation for the Indian state and the people. Whether we have that right now or we following a policy of drift is a matter of debate not germane to this thread.
One thing is sure though. It is not going to be easy to integrate the resulting states or its people with India or Indians. That again is something that has to happen through at least a couple of generations. The people who inhabit this entity have to first unlearn the false pretensions and false identity that they have lived through all their lives and re-discover their true identity and heritage. It becomes more complicated when that situation is also prevalent in India. India and Indians are yet to get rid of the shackles in their minds too.
Until this re-discovery happens, it is best that the population of the lands controlled by this entity are kept at arms distance and away from the Indian Republic. They have to be kept engaged by us but not integrated until the change happens. For a civilization that knows the value of time it is not unnatural to wait patiently.
Just my thoughts.
This can be taken care of in an international context,
as I wrote sometime back.
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Gagan wrote:Pakistan is doomed. There will be an islamic revolution in that country and minorities will be killed as sport in between convulsions of killing different islamic sects. I remember MJ Akhbar's article where he says, what will India do if 1 million refugees turn up on India's borders? I am afraid that that day might arrive.
There needs to be a UNSC Resolution which declares certain enclaves within Pakistan where minorities may be in a higher concentration as UN protected safe areas, and allows other countries to deploy their militaries to secure these enclaves within Pakistan.
Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, and Ahmediyas, all non-Muslim minorities may apply to have an area designated as a safe area by the UN.
In the mean time, the world should highlight the human rights and minority rights abuses in Pakistan. The case of Aasia Bibi could act as a lightening rod!
This is just one solution!
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I also
wrote a piece as to how India can go about doing this.
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Process of Total Chaos and Subsequent Redemption
Johann wrote:The real question people have is whether failure in Pakistan will lead to NK like state, Yugoslav/Soviet style dissolution of union, Somali like total collapse, or perhaps even some sort of combination.
Some days back we had an
interesting case where there was a quarrel between some Mehsud tribesmen and Usman Punjabi's men in Miranshah, North Waziristan, over the rich widow of a deceased militant, and it ended with Usman Punjabi's death.
What this tells us, is that the potential is there for Islamist groups to fight amongst each other for their share of the booty.
Now let's consider a situation, where the singular entity keeping Pakistan together, the Army has fragmented, for which there are also scenarios. Somehow I don't foresee a Yugoslavian situation, where there are nationalities that assert themselves. Nationalities can only assert themselves where there have been organized secessionist movements having a broad support amongst a nationality, e.g. the Baluchis, the Balawaristanis. During any collapse of the state, these organized movements could take the leadership in bringing some semblance of order to their respective regions and bringing the region under a collective leadership.
In Pushtun Areas, one can imagine a federation of tribes, where each tribe has an area carved out for itself, or an area where a single tribe dominates, and these tribes together form a council, a jirga, to consider issues which have national and extra-territorial relevance or for resolving inter-tribal feuds.
As far as Pakjab and Sindh are concerned, IMO, they would be hit the hardest. Due to the urbanization and development of both elites and middle classes, the tribal hierarchies have broken down. The state machinery has allowed the elite to fleece the country, without needing to give much thought to the plight of the common people. With the break-down of this state machinery, the common people would not be willing to accept the leadership of the present elites.
The Islamists too would not be able to establish a central control, as at the moment there are several militant groups, which are either held together by the Army's control over them, or due to some understanding between the charismatic leaders of these groups in view of a common challenge - the state, the kafirdom, etc. These alliances would be mostly opportunistic. Every Islamist/Jihadist leader would be competing with the other and be wary of head-hunting, poaching, encroachments into one's territories, betrayal to enemies, etc.
In fact, I foresee Islamist gangs marauding the common people, either taking away their kids and making them child soldiers, or if they have no kids, then taking away their possessions and raping the women. Islamism is going to be in name only and the Islamist leader of the gang, would issue fatwas, which would enhance his own position. Something similar to what we saw in Swat with Mullah Radio.
So basically I see a huge Somalia with the difference, that unlike Somalia, where the Islamists are trying to establish a single command over the country by getting rid of the warlords, in Pakistan the Islamists would be too disunited to really be able to do that. In Pakistan the Islamists would be the warlords. Whereas Somalia has a chance of coming out of its misery under some Islamist leadership, Pakistan would have no such chance.
Also there would be no comparison to the 90s Taliban Regime. 90s Taliban Regime in Afghanistan was under the command of Mullah Omar. He was the undisputed Emir. But mostly the unity in the Taliban Movement was the handiwork of ISI. ISI could keep the Taliban together, especially as ISI controlled the financing, the organizational hierarchy, the war-theater strategy, the arms, etc. In case of Pakistan, there would be no higher power. Even Al Qaeda cannot provide the country controlled by Islamist Gangs with structure and direction.
Pakistan's demise into chaos would be total.
What is in it for India?
Well if India is able to keep the refugees at bay and our borders closed, the situation would be very advantageous indeed. In Pakistan due to the activities of the Islamist Gangs, Islam itself would have lost out much of its moral sway. The moderate Mullahs would have already taken their leave from the field through bullets, courtesy of the Islamist Gangs, eager to establish their own writ over an area. We have seen some of this in Afghanistan and tribal areas of Pakistan, where tribal leaders and moderate mullahs have been killed off.
So what would be the right strategy for India?
1) Support every Islamist Gang in Pakistan through different handlers and agencies in India - financially, logistically, militarily, and through food and medical supplies. No other groups or countries should be allowed to exert their influence. Any Arabs, Chinese, Americans fishing in these troubled waters need to be taken off the board, using of course, the services of rival Islamist Gangs.
2) Ensure that there is rancor and strife between any two neighboring Islamist Gangs, and occasional bloodshed. India's hand should not be visible in all this. This should create a history of bad blood amongst the Islamist Gangs, which do not allow them to reconcile that easily.
3) Create an awareness in the international community, that religious minorities (Christians, Hindus, Ahmediya, Shia, etc) are taking the brunt of this break-down in law and order, and they need protection. This is to be packaged as a humanitarian tragedy.
4) Pass legislation in the Indian Parliament asking the Indian Government to secure islands of religious minority populations within Pakistan through military means.
5) Send Indian Soldiers to establish and secure 'safe area enclaves' within Pakistan for religious minorities (actually mostly for the Dharmic variety). These safe areas would be provided with food, medicines, water, security, training.
6) Through well-placed agents in Pakjab and Sindh, first countryside and then urban areas, get the people of an area - a village, a neighborhood, which does not belong to a religious minority, e.g. of the Dharmic kind, to pledge allegiance to a minority religion, in order to also avail of Indian protection from the marauding Islamist Gangs. Once the village/neighborhood has converted, India can send Indian forces in into the area.
7) Through military and administrative training of the religious minorities and those converted into a minority religion (e.g. Dharmic religion), and with additional support by Indian forces in emergency cases, India would be able to leave the care of the area in the hands of the locals, freeing the Indian contingent in the area for other areas.
8 ) Gradually as the area under a minority religion in Pakistan increases, India can start emasculating the local Islamist Gangs, through inter-gang wars, through stopping aid to a previously supported gang, through effecting betrayals in their ranks, through aerial bombing, through decapitating, through fighting them out, etc.
9) Once an Islamist Gang has been cornered or brought under sufficient pressure, Indian forces can offer the Islamist Gang to reform, and to convert to a minority religion (e.g. Dharmic one) and under proper guidance from Indian advisors to oversee the conversion of the populace under their own 'jurisdiction' to the same minority religion, in which case the ex-Islamist Gang would be allowed to function and survive.
10) As the ink-drops of Indian Protection spread along with an expanding converted population, a time would come when the rest of the population still unconverted would see the light of day and take the plunge.
IMHO, this is a viable strategy, and if conducted over 20 years, can lead to a reintegration of Pakjab and Sindh into the Indian Union as 'reformed' regions, totally compatible with the values and norms of the Indian Civilization.
Baluchistan and Balawaristan should have been incorporated into the Indian Union much before this
Process of Total Chaos and Subsequent Redemption even starts.
As mentioned, before anything positive can start in Pakistan, Pakistan would have to stew in its Islamist juices until all molecules of Islam have broken down. There are steps India can take to see to it that Pakistan lands in the cauldron and there are step Indian can take to increase the heat under the cauldron, and all in the name of Islam. Any serious call for
Democracy, Secularism, Islamic Reform, Stability in Pakistan by India is shooting ourselves in our own feet, though officially it is recommended that India sticks to a benign and supposedly helpless position. India needs a direction for Pakistan, a strategy, and what is a better strategy than to give the drug addict, that what it wants the most - Islam.
Basically this is a Hammer and Anvil strategy - Islamist Gangs being the Hammer and Indian Forces the Anvil. Another thing worth noting is that such a strategy built on controlling the chaos and providing the people a tunnel out based on their religious persuasion is not based on compulsion. Indian Forces will not be in Pakistan doing any missionary work or converting Muslims. Indian State need not compromise its secular credentials.
That can be undertaken is by private religious organizations in India using private security companies and providing information to the Indian State of populations in Pakistan requiring Indian protection, and lobbying for intervention by India.
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