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Mainstream, VOL LII No 1, December 28, 2013 - ANNUAL 2013

War without End

Sunday 29 December 2013, by Javed Jabbar

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BOOK REVIEW

This review of Prof Stephen Cohen’s latest book appeared in a Pakistani peirodical, Newsline, last November. Since it was sent to us by the reviewer, a noted Pakistani intellectual, politician, and media-person, it is being reproducd here, with due acknowledgement, to get a Pakistani perspective of the issues under scrutiny for the benefot of our readers.

Shooting for a Century: Finding Answers to the India-Pakistan Conundrum by Stephen P. Cohen; published by Harper Collins, India; 2013.  First published by the The Brookings Institution Press, Washington DC, USA; 2013; 236 pages.

This book is a substantive and significant contribution to discourse on its subject by one of the most astute scholars on contemporary Pakistan and India.  Researched extensively— though not necessarily comprehensively—the book is relatively slim (196 pages, excluding Notes, Index and other parts), neatly structured in seven major chapters with several sub-sections in each chapter.  Written with clarity and candour, it is easy to read and difficult to set aside.

There is a kind of inevitability about the subject and scope of the book.  Prior works by Stephen P. Cohen include The Indian Army (1971); The Pakistan Army (1984, 1998); India: Emerging Power (2001); The Idea of Pakistan (2004); Arming without Aiming: India’s Military Modernisation (with Sunil Das Gupta) (2010); The Future of Pakistan (with others) (2012).

As perhaps the most astute analyst in the USA of South Asia in general and of the two largest countries of the region in particular, he now sets his sights on a future (by 2047) that cannot be precisely predicted but some of whose formative factors are already evident.

A curious ambivalence pervades.  Where there is considerable knowledge and a large-scale vision, there are  occasional  major and minor errors of facts and interpretations.  Replete with candid, insightful perceptions and some cons-tructive, prescriptive proposals, the book also contains certain assertions which are outright howlers.

Six of the seven chapters have one-word titles that aptly prepare the reader for the
final chapter. They are: Context, Conflicts, India, Pakistan, Explanations, Prospects. By concluding with a chapter titled: “American Interests and Polices†, an initial  impression is likely that the whole perspective  is too America-centric.  But to the  author’s credit, his ability to remain independent of his American national identity  comes through strongly in his frank, forthright criticism of how the US policy apparatus for South Asia has often been severely deficient and dysfunctional.  He even says it is presently “rudderless†; and that the capacity of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs to generate new ideas has  †atrophied“.

In the historical sections of the first six chapters, specially covering the past three decades in which religious extremism has assumed virulent and violent forms, there are inadequate references to the growth of Hindu extremism in India, particularly before and after the 1992 Babri Masjid episode (except at one point in the Notes at page 201).

There is no acknowledgement of the vital distinction that  religious extremism in India receives popular  electoral reinforcement through the emergence of the BJP at the national level.  Whereas in Pakistan, religious extremism has  never secured mass electoral validation.

Recurring indicators appear of the laudable attempt to be even-handed and balanced. All three principal protagonists, that is, India, Pakistan and, as a past and potential inter-locutor, the USA, are evaluated by their respective realities, policies and actions as they appear to exist in the established narratives of discourse.

Yet  absent is an acceptance of the enormous odds that Pakistan, unlike India, had to over-come, in its crucial initial existence of twenty- four years between 1947 and 1971.

This is not to make a case for victimhood. It is to point out that even during frequent references to the two countries as they exist in the 21st century, there is a lack of recognition of the comparatively more formidable challenges which Pakistan faces in the process of nation-building and state-building.

Despite the wide and credible range of source material cited in the Notes, there is a tendency to be selective in quotations and references with a (possible) bias to bolster pre-conceptions, not to re-examine presumptions.  In this respect, the book sometimes regrettably mirrors the conventional intellectual narrative which tends to demonise Pakistan. This is the narrative care-fully fostered by Western and Indian academia and media (and echoed by some sections of our own media, academia and society) which has been embedded into political and public perceptions. For example, we are seen as people who †hate†those other two! Whereas American multinational brands in various fields and Indian movies and music attract sizeable non-violent audiences and growing profits in Pakistan, virtually unaffected by drone attacks and a neighbour’s defamatory assaults.

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Cohen has an exceptional gift to make graphic, evocative observations.  Comparing the Siachin dispute with the Falklands, he sees: “two bald men fighting over a comb†.  Referring to the collective memories of Indians and Pakistanis, he writes: “... over time, the ‘facts’ of history —real or imagined—become as hard to change as geography†.  Apprehending perpetual tension as one of multiple scenario-options, he writes: “This is a conflict that Pakistan cannot win and India cannot lose†, that the two countries “... are like two gladiators locked together, each holding a nuclear weapon that cannot be used at closed quarters...†.  At another point, he  asserts that the position often taken by Pakistan in asking for help from America and others looks as if the country is holding a gun to its own head.

In “Explanations “, Cohen places the India-Pakistan conflict in an exclusive category of disputes which he terms “paired minority conflicts†: the world’s most intractable disputes.

On pages 106-107, he lists the large number of constructive and innovative peace proposals made by both the civil and military leaders of Pakistan to help resolve bilateral conflicts with India.  He suggests several progressive and help-ful initiatives that India, Pakistan and America can take to attempt a new era of reconciliation.

Whether calling for a re-definition of “dehyphenation†(the policy developed by both Clinton and Bush Jr. to engage separately with the two countries rather than view them as conjoined adjuncts to a single America) or to urge the USA to be more even-handed with Pakistan for civil nuclear co-operation or even to promote the favourite Indian campaign for strategic trilateral co-operation in Afghanistan, Cohen brings the book to a thoughtful and supportive climax.

In unfortunate contrast to the author’s vast study of South Asia, there are several contentious, incorrect judgements made about Pakistan and Kashmir. The following observations, by turn, at different points in the book perplex and distract:

(a) page 14: it is claimed that the pre-1947 Pakistan Movement was weakest in Provinces such as Sindh.  Whereas the largely-attended First Sindh Muslim League Provincial Conference held in Karachi, October 8-10, 1938— 18 months before  the Lahore Resolution of March 1940—adopted  Resolution no. 5 on the two-nation dimension. This was  the first time that a Muslim organisation anywhere in South Asia  articulated a division on the basis of religion.

(b) page 28:  Sri Lanka and Nepal are credited  for the goodwill effort of initiating the formation (in 1985) of SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation).  Whereas the regional forum was first proposed by President Zia-ur-Rehman of Bangladesh in 1980.

(c) page 120: referring to the Lahore-based Pakistani cinema sector’s attempts to make in-roads into Indian audiences,  actors Waheed Murad and Shabnam are named in the present tense (in 2013). Waheed  Murad passed away in 1983.  Shabnam migrated to Bangladesh in 1999.

(d)  page 110: it is  claimed that: “Musharraf’s own standing in the Army was shaky after his coup, and that an officer with a different back-ground (he was a non-Punjabi born in India and raised partly in Turkey) might have had more support among his colleagues†.  Whereas it is well-known that, while Musharraf was still air-borne on October 12, 1999 when his dismissal was announced by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, uncertain about whether he would land safely in Pakistan,  Generals on the ground (most of them Punjabi or Pakhtun) actually conducted the coup. Musharraf remained the COAS for eight years without an internal challenge. Another previous non-Punjabi COAS, General Mirza Aslam Beg, served out his full term.

(e) pages 149 and 153: dealing with unofficial efforts to promote improved bilateral ties, funda-mental inaccuracies occur in the text with regard to the longest-running, uninterrupted, delibe-rately quiet, non-media-reported  Pakistan-India Track 2 Dialogue known as the Neemrana Initiative that commenced in late 1991 and with which this reviewer is associated since 1992.

(f)  On page 221, in the Notes to Chapter 7, it is stated that: “While Pakistan provided no assistance to Afghanistan, India’s aid programme came to about a billion dollars“. Whereas Pakistan provides almost half-a-billion dollars (about $ 450 million) of aid to Afghanistan, as per the Foreign Office. Pakistan also “pays“ a very heavy, unrivalled price for enabling most of landlocked Afghanistan’s imports to be transported through Pakistan, and for large volumes of these imports being smuggled back into Pakistan. Not to forget the enormous price Pakistan has been paying for about 30 years for hosting over two million Afghan refugees.

(g) Perhaps the most questionable assertion  comes on page 117 with the statement that the Zardari Presidency (2008-13) “... is (was) the best Government that Pakistan has ever had...†.Whereas, notwithstanding the commendable passage of the 18th Amendment and the 7th NFC Award and a few other legislative achievements, the same Presidency, unjustly combined with a partisan political  party co-presidency, abetted  public sector institutional decline on an almost catastrophic scale. Corruption, nepotism and misgovernance reached unprecedented levels.

Regardless of whether such observations reflect an inadvertent disregard of some  hard facts, insufficient verification of claims before publication or whether distance lends distortion to the view, Shooting for a Century is essential, strongly recommended reading for everyone interested in the single-most complex bilateral relationship of any two nation-States on this planet.

(Courtesy: Newsline, Karachi)

The reviewer, Javed Jabbar, is a former Federal Minister and Senator of Pakistan, besides being intimately associated with the media. He is also the author of Pakistan: Unique Origin, Unique Destiny? He can be contacted at e-mail: javedjabbar.2@gmail.com

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