ABOUT THIS ARTICLE | Today, 16 December 2020, is the 49th anniversary of one of the worst humiliations in Pakistani history, when Pakistani officers surrendered to victorious Indian officers and proxy Bengali insurgents in the city of Dhaka, in what on that day still was East Pakistan, before becoming the independent and proud nation of Bangladesh. Outnumbered, outgunned, and cut off by thousands of kilometers from their supplies in West Pakistan, Pakistani soldiers fought valiantly but did not stand a chance.

This article makes two distinguished arguments that alter how the war is viewed in Pakistani strategic circles;

1. That 1971 is a watershed in the history of India-Pakistan enmity. Before that year, Islamabad and New Delhi limited their enmity to Kashmir; trade and films were normally exchanged. After this war, all bets were off and the enmity expanded from Kashmir to become full-spectrum zero-sum conflict. …

Few people know that India introduced state-sponsored terrorism and non-state conflict, also known as war by proxy, to South Asia, much in the same way that New Delhi introduced nuclear weapons to the region.
These measures were India’s disproportionate responses to the conflict over Kashmir with Pakistan. That conflict was first taken to the United Nations Security Council by India in 1948, a move that Pakistan endorsed as a civilized way to resolve the dispute. …

India has sold its illegal annexation of Kashmir to the world in August 2019 as a move to end conflict and achieve peace. Senior Indian officials and diplomats have been at pains to explain to a worried international community that restrictions and the world’s longest lockdown in the territory will bring “jobs, inclusive development, and a hope for peace,” as pitched in the enthusiastic words of Harsh Vardhan Shringla, India’s foreign secretary.

But far from bringing peace and jobs, the Indian steps have introduced controversial measures — such as imposing Hindi language — that could exacerbate conflict for decades to come. The Hindi language is disputed in its home country. It is controversial and contested by most Indians who feel the language is being imposed on a diverse nation. Imposing it in Kashmir is a recipe for prolonging conflict. This step elevates conflict in Kashmir to a new level and links it to rising linguistic tensions in mainland India. …

The most important challenge for Indian diplomacy on the festering conflict in Kashmir is to ensure that it is not raised at any forum outside India. Any discussion on Kashmir outside the parameters of Indian diplomacy highlights the unflattering fact that New Delhi is unable to resolve a dispute for seven decades, which questions India’s credentials as a responsible regional actor.

So, it was not unusual to watch Indian diplomats scramble for their latest firefighting mission after the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) formally asked India “to rescind” all recent actions in Kashmir. …

He improved America’s ties with traditional Cold War allies in the Muslim world, pushed Arab-Israel peace forward for the first time in quarter-century, did not start new American wars in Arab and Muslim-majority regions, and made progress on Afghanistan and Iran.

This is an impressive laundry list of achievements for a first-time president and a first-time politician. In just four years.

President Donald J. …

For peace in this critical region, India and Pakistan must end Kashmir conflict. India’s annexation of Kashmir on 5 August 2019 is a watershed. On this first anniversary, in this final part in the series, Ahmed Quraishi explores opportunities to end this intractable conflict.

US President Donald Trump’s offer to mediate the Kashmir conflict between Pakistan and India marked a turning point. For starters, no American president has come out so strongly in favor of resolving the Kashmir dispute. …

For peace in this critical region, India and Pakistan must end Kashmir conflict. India’s annexation of Kashmir on 5 August 2019 is a watershed. On this first anniversary, in this second part in the series, Ahmed Quraishi explores global reactions.

Who could have thought that India would see the day when religious violence in that country would overshadow visits by top leaders from America and Japan?

This is exactly what happened in December 2019 when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe canceled a visit due to violence on Indian streets over a discriminatory citizenship law. And in February 2020, when the security team of US President Donald Trump, working with Indian counterparts, skipped the Indian capital altogether for the first time by a visiting American president, because New Delhi was not safe due to religion-motivated violence. …

For peace in a critical region, India and Pakistan must end Kashmir conflict. This series explores some ideas on the occasion of the first anniversary of India’s annexation of Kashmir.

India’s credentials as a responsible member of the international community faced a serious challenge in 2019, and continue to do so into 2020. New Delhi, long seen as a possible anchor for stability in Asia, plunged the region and the world in a territorial and religious dispute under the shadow of a nuclear war.

India did this by taking a brash unilateral action in Kashmir on 5 August 2019, revoking semi-autonomous rule in a disputed territory, and inviting Indian citizens — a billion of them — to throng Kashmir to buy land and turn roughly 13-million Kashmiris into a minority. And since India is predominantly Hindu and Kashmir is predominantly Muslim, this is a recipe for a Bosnia-style genocide that would drag in nuclear-armed neighbors Pakistan and China, and likely other powers. …