CRamS wrote: Except for probably MMS types, the dominant thinking among India's strategic elite is that Siachen needs to be part of a comprehensive J&K settlement, most probably along the lines of LoC = IB. Thats why they recommend not dealing with Siachen in isolation as TSP demands. However, for TSP, Siachen is a perpetual anal pain. My understanding is that Siachen remains a lesion in TSP's backside because it reminds them of another humiliation at the hands of Indian army, and they want to remove that sore, and then deal with J&K where they believe they are on a winning wicket. Is my understanding correct? If not, what is it about Siachen that TSP is so obsessed about?
*Long Post*
CRS, You are absolutely correct about obsession [with 'parity with India'] and the Pakistani Army's desire to avenge. I am not going to say anything new that we all do not know already. I will draw the larger canvas and link it to Siachen. IMHO, it is very simple, as always everything is. Underlying all words and deeds by Pakistan is its obsession. What is its obsession ? 'Parity' with India.
What is Pakistan's 'parity obsession' with India ? Now, that question has evolved over the decades. Initially, in pre-Independence India though, Jinnah wanted himself to be treated as equal to Gandhi. He did not like a competitor emerging suddenly on the INC scene from a far away South Africa and literally pulling the rug from under his feet in the second decade of the previous century just as he was emerging as a shining star under the tutelage of Tilak. Sulking, he slowly withdrew from the scene and retired to London. Later events transpired to catapult him to the leadership of All India Muslim League and bring him back to India. He wanted to be treated ‘on par’ with Gandhi, even if not by the entire India, at least by his Muslim co-religionists. He did two things to level the playing field between himself and Gandhi, one, to call himself the ‘sole spokesman of the Muslims’ and two to relegate Gandhi as the ‘sole spokesman of only the Hindus’. Through the self-assigned roles for himself and his arch rival, even though both designations were so untrue, he was satisfied that he had achieved ‘parity’ with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
Jinnah never let go thereafter of this obsession with ‘parity’ between himself and Gandhi which was later extended to between AIML and INC, Muslims and Hindus and finally Pakistan and India. He spent so much energy during the Indian Independence struggle on these ‘parity’ issues that he and his AIML colleagues never bothered to define the future for their Pakistan. This has led to the pitiable state of the nation that we see in Pakistan today.
The followers of Jinnah have simply carried the same ‘parity obsession’ forward. As new situations emerged, they tried to achieve new parities. Thus it was that alliances with other nations were formed, India-phobic foreign policy was devised etc. Thus it was that while Jinnah, Liaqat Ali Khan and ramrod-straight Hollywood hero Field Marshal Ayub Khan wooed the Americans by painting a picture of how Godless communists will be fiercely resisted by the Believer Pakistanis, Pakistan also ended up on lap of the Godless Communist Chinese itself. All these for what ? That obsession with India.
The cataclysmic events of mid-December 1971 turned Pakistan upside down, especially the Pakistani Army. While 1947-48 wars were rather a stalemate, they at least held on to some enemy land, a 1965 saw India coming menacingly to the gates of Lahore, but 1971 was a massive defeat. One of the worst in the annals of History of War, make no mistake. No Army can remain unmoved by the magnitude of such a defeat. More normal nation-states would have ordered a review of their policies, even if it were late by two decades, and come to a conclusion that there was no point in persisting with the ruinous obsession. Not the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Instead, it moved the bar much higher. From India-centric Islam, it moved to the larger worldview of
ummah. The context of Islam was switched ‘officially’ within Pakistan from an India-centred relatively milder version to a West-Asia centred extremist version. Already, there had been very high-levels of contact between Maududi, and his JI with the Egyptian Brotherhood and their leaders; but, that was a private affair. Z.A. Bhutto gave the official stamp of approval when he launched his nuclear weapons project with the bank-rolling by such rabid states as Libya and Saudi Arabia. The Afghan Jihad, the happenstance Presidency by Gen. Zia-ul-Haq and the Khomeini revolution in Iran further moved Pakistan’s Muslim context towards the worldwide Sunni Islamist extremist context. Thus, Pakistan became a confirmed theocratic state, a far cry from even the weak August 11, 1947 formulation of Jinnah. Since then it has been shamelessly seeking 'approval' from the West Asian states for its Islamist policies. That is where the 'parity obsession' has led Pakistan led to.
Again, why did Pakistan switch the context to West-Asian Islamism ? Obsession with India. After 1971, Pakistan was convinced that conventional 'parity' was never going to happen at all and went all out for nukes with the help of her West Asian fundamentalist ruler friends. The desire to acquire nuclear weapons by Pakistan was never to deter India, but to use them against us at a convenient point. Again, this move was considered necessary by Pakistan for its ambition to achieve 'parity' with India. Of course, until such time when it can physically lob a few nukes our way, Pakistan would use the nuclear threat to hoist terrorism on us and simultaneously deter us. Lowering threshold for use of nuclear weapons, employment of TNWs, quest for SSNs, borrowed spy satellites are all centred only against India for the parity project.
The 'parity obsession' has taken Pakistan to the depths of deprivation but, it feels it is a fair price to pay. From the threat of Khrushchev to 'obliterate Peshawar' to giving asylum to the internationally reviled Osama bin Laden in a perfidious manner with wars and skirmishes with India as well as genocides of its own people and many other such things thrown in between, the 'parity obsession' has seen Pakistan go haywire, but Pakistan is not giving up on parity.
The massive defeat in 1971 and the biggest surrender in annals of war history of 93000 soldiers surrendering have only sharpened the parity obsession. No
parity has been achieved so far by Pakistan in this case. Like the Kargil of 1999, the Pakistani Army decided to spring a surprise on India by occupying Siachen in c. 1983 but India beat Pakistan to it. The on-going jihad in Afghanistan and the necessity of the Americans to humour Pakistan might have been deemed helpful for their Siachen project by the Pakistanis. Pakistan did not give up its dream of Siachen for decades thereafter even at enormous cost to its men. The rabid jihadi Maj. Gen. Zaheerul Islam Abbassi, who had been expelled from India as Pakistan's Military Attache and who later tried to topple Ms. Benazir Bhutto, sacrificed dozens of his men in a foolish and ill-conceived attempt to climb the Saltoro. Brig. Musharraf also met with a similar result in his attempts. There have been many failed attempts and the Pakistani Army knows that it has zero chance of ever dislodging the Indian Army. The event in 1971 and the very next major attempt against India at Siachen, both having ended in massive failures, would be rankling any Army, leave alone a Believer army which sees the Indian Army as a kafir army worthy of being destroyed in the Way of Allah. The Gyari incident last year was very major and that is when Pakistan gave up, IMO, all ambitions of taking on the Indian Army
*militarily* on the Saltoro. But, Pakistan is determined to wrest Siachen from India through other means. The presence of the PLA in Baltistan allows them the freedom to imagine that somehow in collusion with them they would be able to take Siachen surreptitiously one day or the other once the Indian Army is withdrawn under the rubric of a deceptive 'Peace Park' or whatever. A sort of 'parity' would then be established, the Pakistani Army feels.
