Front Burner - How tensions grew between India and Pakistan

Episode Date: March 1, 2019

The relationship between India and Pakistan has historically been troubled, but this week, tensions escalated with both countries launching airstrikes against one another. "There's of course the larger significance of these two countries being nuclear states," says UBC professor M.V. Ramana, an expert on nuclear energy in India. He traces the historical conflict between India and Pakistan, and sets up what's at stake globally.

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Escaping NXIVM, from CBC Podcasts Uncover. Subscribe now at cbc.ca slash uncover. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it's never great news when two countries launch airstrikes against each other. And it's particularly troubling when those two countries have nuclear weapons. Well, that's exactly what happened this week between India and Pakistan. Pakistan and Indian jets clashed overnight above the disputed region of Kashmir. This is just the most recent flare-up of military tension between these two countries, which dates back to 1947.

Today, we're going to parse out what's going on there and the states involved. And a little later in the show, we've got a couple quick updates for you about the fallout from Wednesday's dramatic Jody Wilson-Raybould testimony. This is FrontBurner. I'm talking today to M.V. Ramana, who has spent years studying this conflict through the lens of nuclear disarmament. He teaches at the Louis Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia. Hi, Ramana. Hi, Jamie. How are you?

I'm good. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. My pleasure. Thank you for calling me. So tensions really escalated this week, but this latest round of conflict started on February 14. The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised a strong response after a suicide bomber in India administered Kashmir, the deadliest to hit the disputed territory in decades. And what happened there? There was a suicide bomber who ran a truck with explosives into a military convoy and around 40 soldiers died. This set off tensions between India and Pakistan. The group that claimed responsibility for that attack is called Jaish-e-Mohammad and it's a Pakistani-based terrorist organization and India sometime a few days later India claimed to have sent

airplanes over to bomb a Jaish-e-Mohammad site in Pakistan. India's foreign secretary has confirmed a preemptive airstrike carried out inside the Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. A very large number of Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists and groups of jihadis who were being trained for Fiday in action were eliminated. For the Pakistani officials say this didn't really happen. The Pakistan version differs, of course. They're saying that these aircraft had to scramble back hastily. And while they did drop their payloads, that didn't cause any casualties or any damage.

Once again, Indian government has resorted to a self-serving, reckless and fictitious claim. However, we really don't know what happened there. As they say, truth is the first casualty of war. Subsequently, both countries claim to have planes go over the other side. And a couple of days ago, there were planes from India that went over to the Pakistani side. Pakistan said two Indian jets had been shot down after they entered Pakistani airspace, while India claims to have shot

down a Pakistani jet and said it had lost just one of its own planes. And there was one pilot who was captured. He was then paraded on TV there. But thankfully, today's news, as you might have heard, is that Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that he will be released. But that's the situation. And so things have been pretty tense there. And I just want to pick up on something you said about how truth is the first casualty of war.

So there are conflicting accounts of what happened. And can we unpack that a little bit more? Sure. counts of what happened? And can we unpack that a little bit more? Sure. So for the most part, what we know is what the governments tell us. And there is no independent sort of verification for the most part. So the claims have all been from the Indian side to say, we are going to be tough on what happened in Kashmir. From the Pakistani side, the government would like to show that they are not a state that other states can violate their sovereignty and come into their country and attack. So that's what is at stake. And that's

one of the reasons why we are seeing conflicting statements from both sides. I understand the fact that airstrikes have been used in the escalating incidences that have happened in the last two weeks that this is significant. Why is this significant? Absolutely. So this is the first time we've seen India and Pakistan send in planes across the border. The last time the two countries, especially the Indian side, used their Indian Air Force was in 1999 when there was a war over the Kargil region in Kashmir. Full-scale war was barely avoided when Pakistan tried to seize the Kargil region of Indian-controlled Kashmir. At one time, an average of one Pakistani soldier every four days and one Indian soldier every other day died at the Siachen Glacier. And at that time, the airplanes were instructed not to cross the border, that they were to attack Pakistani militants and soldiers on the Pakistani side of the border, but without crossing the border. So obviously, they cannot strike very

deep into Pakistani territory. This time, what we are seeing is a sort of gradual escalation. So first, India sends one plane, apparently, then Pakistan sends some, then India sends some more, one of them is shot down. So we're seeing the sort of gradual escalation. And that's why I think this is extremely significant. There's, of course, a larger significance of these two countries being nuclear weapon states, but we can get into that later, perhaps. Right. And I do want to get into the significance of them both being nuclear powers. But first, you know, in order to kind of understand this recent escalation, I think we have to understand the roots of this conflict. And I'm hoping that you

can help me understand that. And I know that we need to go back to 1947, when India became independent from Britain and split into two states, India and Pakistan. And what was the reason for this split? It's a long and complicated story. I'll try to give a sort of a brief overview. And of course, I'm going to miss out on details that some people would consider essential. But let me try and do my best. Thank you. The partition was mostly along ethnic lines. India was supposed to be a Hindu majority area.

Pakistan was supposed to be a Muslim majority area. Or more precisely, Pakistan was set up as a Muslim state. India was secular, so it didn't have an official state religion. But nevertheless, the general way by which the division was carried out by the British was that the Hindu majority regions would go to India and the Muslim majority regions would go to Pakistan. If one went by that logic, then Kashmir, the Kashmir Valley being a Muslim majority area, should have gone into Pakistan. But that particular area was ruled by a king who was Hindu. The king of Kashmir first wanted to be independent, but later when there was some attacks on from the western side of militants who were trying to say Kashmir should be part

of Pakistan, he turned to the Indian political leader, then the person was to become the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, and said, you know, we would like you to come and protect us because we don't have an army. And the Indian head of state at that point said, well, we can do that provided you join India. And so that was the process through which Kashmir, this one part of Kashmir became part of India. And the other part of Kashmir that had been overrun by these militants went into Pakistan. So the Indians call it Pakistan occupied Kashmir, the Pakistanis call it Azadi Kashmir, which means free Kashmir. Now, these are sort of words that, you know, have sort of connotations. I'll just use the word Kashmir for the most part again. So that was the sort of basis

of this division. When that conflict went to the United Nations, the Indian head of state, Jawaharlal Nehru, also made the promise that he would hold a plebiscite at some point, meaning the people would get to vote on where they want to be. And that has never been held, in part because some of the conditions, preconditions that were necessary for that have never obtained in the region. So really, Kashmir remains at the center of this conflict and the future of Kashmir. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think the way to think about it is that there are three sides to this conflict. There is the government of India, there's the government of Pakistan, and then the people of Kashmir, right? And the people of Kashmir do not really figure in most of these discussions because it's considered

to be an Indo-Pak conflict, but the people who are really bearing the brunt of that are the Kashmiri people. It has been really scary out here because there are fighter jets which are patrolling the airspace and we may get caught in the middle. There are no bomb shelters around. There are no sirens around. There might be huge loss to the civilian population. I have my family. I have my kids and my wife. We are landlocked. We have nowhere to go. We have just left everything to fate.

We don't know what will happen. I think they should de-escalate. If they de-escalate, then the situation will turn a little bit normal. If they don't de-escalate, then it will be very bad for us. Ramana, I know you mentioned earlier some conflicts that preceded this most recent escalation in violence. You know, if we go into sort of the early 2000s, I know, for example, there was a devastating attack on the state assembly in Indian-administered Kashmir and it killed 38 people. And so how does what's happening now compare to what we've seen?

How does what's happening now compare to what we've seen? I think the better analogy actually is with the attack in 2001 on the Indian Parliament Building, where a group of militants drove into the Parliament Building and they entered into a shooting match and killed a number of Indian soldiers and security guards. And that set off a huge military standoff between India and Pakistan. India mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops to come across the border. Pakistan also pulled all its troops to the border with India. The Pakistan government will ensure Pakistan retains the capability of a reciprocal action. And one must remember, this was happening a few months after September 11th, when the

United States had just started the attack on Afghanistan, and they were looking to Pakistan to help them deal with the Afghanistan border. That standoff between India and Pakistan lasted several months during the course of which there were other attacks in Kashmir and so on. And that was, I think, the better analogy where it was not just a local reaction to what happened in Kashmir, but the reaction was actually aimed at what's happening in Pakistan and vice versa. actually aimed at what's happening in Pakistan and vice versa. Is it fair to say that what's happening now is just as serious as what was happening then?

Yes, I would say it is as serious. So we've seen these two major military standoffs slash conflicts between India and Pakistan after 1998 when the two countries tested nuclear weapons. And this is the third big one. So the second one was the one that I was talking about in 2001, 2002. The one earlier was over Kargil that I mentioned briefly when I said that the airplanes were asked not to cross at that time. And now we're seeing sort of that red line also being violated, as it were. that red line also being violated, as it were. We'll be back in a minute to talk about how India's heated political environment during an election year is making all of this even more complicated.

Discover what millions around the world already have. Thank you. by powerful performances from renowned actors and narrators. With the free Audible app, you can listen anytime, anywhere, whether you're at home, in the car, or out on a jog. The first 30 days of the Audible membership are free, including a free book. Go to www.audible.ca to learn more. Ramana, why has this conflict persisted for so long? Is that also a very hard question to answer? Well, so there is sort of, you know, the one thing that we did talk about is the Kashmir side of it. But the other side of it, actually, I think is there are two other aspects which we haven't touched upon so much. So one is the issue of nuclear weapons. And I think what happens with nuclear weapons when countries like India and Pakistan and the United States and the Soviet Union, when it existed and so on, is that it allows them in a way to live with conflict without resolving it

by pointing to nuclear weapons as kind of some ultimate guarantor of security and peace and so on, but all the same trying to carry out these lower level military conflicts. And I think that nuclear weapons have an important role to play in this. Because of the presence of nuclear weapons have an important role to play in this. Because of the presence of nuclear weapons, I think the incentive for India and Pakistan to fully settle the Kashmir issue, I think, is quite low. And why do you think it's quite low? Because they have nuclear weapons. When nuclear weapons are there, both India and Pakistan kind of assume that their sovereignty and their security is kind of inviolable, right? And in the case of India

and Pakistan, it's a very peculiar thing because India has a much larger conventional military forces, conventional army compared to Pakistan. And Pakistan is very worried that India can easily overwhelm its military, right? The perception in Pakistan is that it's only because they have nuclear weapons that India cannot run over them, right? And as a result, Pakistan has sort of said, you know, if the Indian army vet or the Indian military were to do various things, which they call red lines, then they will use nuclear weapons. So that includes having tanks roll across the border into Pakistan, or having a blockade of their major port, which is Karachi, by the Indian Navy, things of that sort. For India,

its nuclear weapons, they would also say, look, our nuclear weapons are there to show that if Pakistan were to use even the slightest, you know, one small nuclear weapon on the battlefield, we will still retaliate with nuclear weapons and Pakistan would not want to do that. And so both sides try to figure out what they can do, short of going nuclear, on the military side. So in other words, the kind of peace that is there to the extent that there is peace is a very unstable peace. And what kind of outcome could we foresee? Like, could you foresee here from this latest escalation? Well, yeah. So the hope, of course, is that things will calm down and the two countries will start having some discussions. So in the last two times when in Kargil and in 2001-2002, the Pakistani leaders basically said,

we are going to try and rein in the militants. We will try to, you know, arrest somebody or do some things to prevent them from becoming strong and doing things across the border, right? And I think from the Indian side, they say, well, we've heard this talk before. We don't see proof. Let's see how you're going to actually act. And I think what we would like to see is actually the two leaders getting together and trying to come up with a certain clear set of expectations on both sides to try and curb this tendency and also to prevent any kind of escalation. And I know that this is all happening in the context of an election in India. So does that have any implications on what's happening right now? You put those words into my mouth. I was just going to say exactly that.

So I think that's the complication here. So the current ruling government in India is the Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu nationalist right-wing party, India is the Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu nationalist right-wing party, which has always been a very aggressive, military-oriented party, even when it was not in power. For them, trying to be seen as a strong state, which is willing to act with impunity across the border, attacking Pakistan, is a very central element in their persona persona as it were. When they came to power in 2014, they came on an election plank that basically promised development and economic growth and jobs and so on. And unfortunately, for Narendra Modi, you know, economic growth and development are not like a cappuccino that you can just order and deliver when you like.

So that has really not come to pass. So the whole series of problems domestically. And so in some sense, what's happening in Kashmir provides somebody like Modi and his people who are trying to fashion his electoral strategy with a great excuse to try and divert people's attention. India will grow as one. India will fight as one. India will win as one. Which is something they would like to actually see go on till May when the elections happen.

And so that's really a bad sign because that gives the... It's not an incentive for the government to actually go to war or sort of go to the next step, but they would like to keep it on the simmer is what I would imagine, you know, their electoral advisors are telling them. Ramana, thank you so much for taking us through the history of this conflict and also helping us understand the stakes today. Thank you. the stakes today. Thank you.

Okay, so we've got some updates stemming from the extraordinary testimony Wednesday of former Attorney General and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould. On Thursday, conservative leader Andrew Scheer wrote a letter to the RCMP commissioner demanding that she investigate any potential criminal activity. From the liberal camp, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said his office acted appropriately. In her testimony, Wilson-Raybould had said she told Morneau that his overtures from his chief of staff urging a solution on SNC-Lavalin were inappropriate. She essentially told him to back off. And I told him that engagements from his office to mine on SNC had to stop. They did not stop. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed the scandal again Thursday. Here's some of what he said.

There is an ethics commissioner and a justice committee that are tasked with looking into this matter. And the ethics commissioner is an agent of parliament whose job it is to determine what is exactly happening when there are disagreements amongst elected officials or political parties. And on that note, Gerald Butts, the prime minister's former principal secretary, has officially requested to appear before the Justice Committee. As I'm sure you'll remember, Jerry Butts resigned a few weeks ago because of this whole mess. And this all came to a head last night

at an emergency meeting in the House of Commons. And here's some of what went down there too. It was refreshing to see the former minister speak and to have the privilege waived so that she was enabled to speak. You know, this is the problem. No, her testimony was not refreshing. It was not refreshing.

It was disturbing. It was refreshing. It was not refreshing. It was disturbing. It was sad. It was appalling. We don't need to hear refreshing and wonderful and perspective. So this is all to say more developments are coming and we'll be on top of them. Frontburner comes to you from CBC News and CBC Podcasts. The show is produced by Chris Berube, Elaine Chao, and Shannon Higgins, with indispensable help from Aisha Barmania, Rachel Levy-McLaughlin, and Abby Plenner, all of whom had some very late nights this week. Derek Vanderwyk is a wizard, and he does our sound design.

Our music is by Joseph Chavison of Boombox Sound. The executive producer of Frontburner is Nick McCabe-Locos, and I'm your host, Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you Monday. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus.

Am I crazy? Maybe. As her profile grows, so does the danger. The object of the email was please read this while sitting down. It's like a genie came out of the bottle and you can't put it back. Gay Girl Gone. Available now.