Table of Contents:
Why People Are Protesting in India: Daniel Victor, NYTimes, Dec. 17, 2019
Indian Diplomacy: Aligning with the Nation’s Interests: Vijeth Kanahalli, Modern Diplomacy, Dec. 16, 2019
India’s New Security Order: Paul Staniland, War On The Rocks, Dec. 17, 2019
Why the US Should Support India’s Claim in Kashmir Over Those of Pakistan and China: Rep. Francis Rooney, The Hill, Dec. 16, 2019
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Why People Are Protesting in India
Daniel Victor
NYTimes, Dec. 17, 2019
A wave of protests against a new citizenship law has broken out in cities across India, as demonstrators fear it could endanger the nation’s Muslim minority and chip away at the government’s secular identity.
The unrest has spread to more than a dozen cities, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has responded by deploying troops, enacting a curfew and shutting down the internet. Violent police confrontations have followed; the police fatally shot several young men in Assam State, beat unarmed students with wooden poles in New Delhi, and used tear gas and batons to disperse protests elsewhere.
The citizenship law, which passed both houses of Parliament last week, was seen by critics as part of Mr. Modi’s broader push to transform India into a place where being Indian is synonymous with being Hindu. India, with a population of 1.3 billion, is about 80 percent Hindu and about 14 percent Muslim.
The law, paired with a citizenship test that has left nearly two million people in danger of being declared stateless, has Indian Muslims fearing they are being targeted at a time when there has been a surge of anti-Muslim sentiment.
What is in the citizenship law that ignited the protests?
The law, called the Citizenship Amendment Act, applies a religious test to whether illegal migrants from neighboring countries can be fast-tracked for Indian citizenship. It would apply to Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsees and Jains — but not Muslims.
Government officials have said the law is intended to protect persecuted religious minorities in some neighboring countries. But it would not protect persecuted Muslims, including the Rohingya in neighboring Myanmar.
What is the citizenship test?
All 33 million residents of Assam, a state bordering Myanmar and Bangladesh, had to provide documentary evidence, such as a property deed or a birth certificate, showing that they or their ancestors lived in India before 1971. Those who could not would be declared foreign migrants, at risk of being sent to huge new detention camps.
More than two million people, many of them Muslims, failed to pass the test and could end up stateless. The governing party of Mr. Modi has vowed to extend the test to other parts of India.
The government has said the test was intended to root out undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh. India’s home minister, Amit Shah, has repeatedly referred to these migrants as “termites.” … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Indian Diplomacy: Aligning with the Nation’s Interests
Vijeth Kanahalli
Modern Diplomacy, Dec. 16, 2019
India has been aiming higher and bolder since the arrival of the Narendra Modi government in 2014. One area where this is visible since the inception of this government is in the domain of foreign policy. The government has expanded the scope of its foreign policy to include national and economic security.
Indian diplomacy has been careful enough to understand its limitations and has not tried to punch above its weight. It is exercising its art of diplomacy by engaging with different foreign powers more vigorously than ever before but also not conceding its strategic autonomy. Instead it has decided to let go of some fruitless battles and is prioritizing what seems to be essential to its nations well-being. As India’s Foreign Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar has said, India is cultivating the United States, steadying Russia, managing China, enthusing Japan and attending to Europe.
It has shed its Cold War era thinking and its explicit Non-Alignment attitude. India now co-operates and also competes with its international partners at the time of its choosing. India respects the multilateral rule based global order but at the same time is bold enough to exercise its right to prioritize its national interests.
In the wake of the Pathankot attacks in early 2016, India was quick in its response through a carefully calibrated Surgical Strikes through which it entered Pakistan occupied Kashmir and neutralized terrorists nurtured and harbored by Pakistan. This was a sweet diplomatic victory for India as every major power responded with responses such as asking both India and Pakistan to ‘exercise restraint and increase communication’ and India faced no major frictions with the diplomatic community.
The Surgical Strikes as a response to the abovementioned attacks showed the evolution of how India was changing its outlook on foreign policy. This showed that the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of External Affairs were all now in sync with one another and that there was more open and frequent exchange of ideas and priorities of the nation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has instilled a feeling of nationalism into India’s foreign policy. The foreign ministry no more works in silos. It takes India’s domestic concerns more seriously than ever before and has accepted that it has to function abroad and at home with the aim of fulfilling the national aspirations of Indians. This is also because Prime Minister Modi has made diplomacy very public wherein, he has increased the space of the common man to decide what our foreign policy priorities should be.
This was visible when India recently pulled out of the RCEP Free Trade Deal involving China, ASEAN and other countries. The Prime Minister took serious note of the concerns that the domestic farmers and industrialists raised against the deal and the foreign ministry readily accepted and backed out of the deal to ease the pains of the citizens. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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India’s New Security Order
Paul Staniland
War On The Rocks, Dec. 17, 2019
A crisis and a crackdown have defined India’s security policy in 2019. In February, the Indian Air Force launched an airstrike into Pakistan following a suicide bombing in Kashmir. This then led to a crisis, dogfights, and missile threats. In August, the government in New Delhi surged security forces into Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir and revoked its special status, beginning months of detentions, restrictions, and claims about the beginning of a radically new politics in Kashmir. Moreover, senior politicians have articulated a new vision of how India seeks to advance its interests at home and abroad: Toughness, boldness, and skillful maneuvering amongst the world’s leading powers define this aspiration.
How should observers assess India’s new security order? And what implications, if any, does it have for the United States?
I identify three characteristics of the new order: an emphasis on risk-taking and assertiveness, the fusing of domestic and international politics, and the use of unrelenting spin to hold critics at bay. This approach carries potential benefits for the United States in bolstering its position in Asia. But it also brings a set of risks and challenges that demand clear-eyed analysis — and a willingness to debate how the United States engages with India moving forward.
On Feb. 14, a Kashmiri suicide bomber killed 40 Indian paramilitary forces near the town of Pulwama in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. Early on Feb. 26, the Indian Air Force used precision guided munitions to strike at a Jaish-e-Mohammed camp near Balakot in Pakistan. It’s uncertain what damage the strike achieved, ranging from Indian claims of success to claims that India entirely missed.
On the morning of Feb. 27, the Pakistan Air Force responded with a sortie across the Line of Control that divides the Indian- and Pakistani-administered parts of Jammu and Kashmir. In the ensuing combat, an Indian MiG-21 was shot down and an Indian Air Force pilot was captured by Pakistan. India asserts that it shot down a Pakistan Air Force F-16, while Pakistan has maintained it shot down another Indian jet — both claims remain, at best, shrouded in ambiguity. With an Indian pilot in Pakistani hands, the crisis looked as though it might escalate, and there are credible reports that India threatened missile strikes against Pakistan, amidst efforts at crisis management by third parties. Pakistan soon returned the captured pilot to India and the crisis abated.
The Indian Air Force strike was unprecedented. The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and many Indian analysts have argued that the goal was to inflict pain on the Pakistan Army and to show that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons do not necessarily prevent Indian conventional operations. In turn, Pakistan has argued that the Indian strike missed at Balakot, and that the Pakistan Air Force’s retaliation on Feb. 27 should make India think twice about any repeat of such an operation. The public ambiguity of both sides’ claims makes a confident assessment of this crisis, and its interpretations by both governments, impossible. It is clear, however, that assumptions forged during the 2002–16 period about how both India and Pakistan will act in a crisis need to be revisited. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Why the US Should Support India’s Claim in Kashmir Over Those of Pakistan and China
Rep. Francis Rooney
The Hill, Dec. 16, 2019
The decades-long dispute between India and Pakistan in Kashmir has created a regional environment characterized by perpetual tension and instability. India, Pakistan and China—all nuclear states—have claims in various areas of Kashmir. The international community, including the United States, has taken a neutral position and has left the issue of Kashmir to be solved bilaterally between India and Pakistan.
Unfortunately, the geopolitics of the region are changing rapidly as China rises, Pakistan remains in turmoil and India exerts itself, opposing the expanding influence of China. India is an important ally of the United States and we should support its position in Kashmir.
Kashmir has been in dispute since 1947. Numerous wars have been fought in the last seven decades—four between India and Pakistan, the latest in 1999. There have also been several smaller skirmishes between India and Pakistan, most recently in February of 2019. While India has generally prevailed against Pakistan, a war between China and India in 1962 left China with a small piece of territory in Kashmir. Since this time, China has had a role in the dispute, often aligning with Pakistan.
Of the three claimants in Kashmir, India’s claim is the most credible. After the end of British rule, in the 1950’s, Jammu and Kashmir—approximately two-thirds of Kashmir—acceded to join India. The state was awarded a special administrative status, affording it autonomy over internal administrative decisions. Over the years, the Jammu and Kashmir state government has increasingly aligned with the Indian central government.
Pakistan has rejected Jammu and Kashmir’s alignment with the Indian government and has come to control about one-third of Kashmir. Despite several United Nations Security Council meetings, no international solution has been agreed upon. The international community—including the United States, India and Pakistan—have supported a bilateral solution.
Nonetheless, with the assistance of China, Pakistan continues to internationalize the issue of Kashmir and to challenge India’s claims. Their objective is to change the international perspective of the dispute. Pakistan consistently supports radical Islamic militant groups in Kashmir that routinely attack Indian interests there. In Afghanistan, Pakistan has articulated the desire for a peaceful solution but turns a blind-eye to terrorist groups seeking safe-haven in the tribal areas of Northwest Pakistan. Accordingly, it is difficult to accept Pakistan as a genuine partner for peace and good-faith negotiator in Kashmir. In 2007, a comprehensive peace plan in Kashmir was agreed to until Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf intervened to stop it. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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For Further Reference:
Indo-Israel Security Cooperation a Strategic Asset: Rivlin: The Economic Times, Nov. 22, 2019 — Describing the Indo-Israel security cooperation as a “strategic asset”, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Thursday said that the bilateral relations are at an “all time high” and he hopes to see it getting strengthened further.
Why India’s Pakistan Policy Needs a Rethink: Sanjaya Baru, The Economic Times, Dec. 11, 2019 — While Moody’s Investors Service lowered India’s credit rating from stable to negative last month, it raised Pakistan’s rating from negative to stable last week.
Following Kashmir Reorganization, China and India Should Negotiate a Land Swap: Daniel Shats, The Diplomat, Dec. 17, 2019 — When India revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomous status in August, Pakistan was predictably outraged.
Twenty Years Ago, Nuclear-Armed India and Pakistan Fought a Chilly, High-Altitude War in the Himalayas: Sebastien Roblin, The National Interest, Dec. 19, 2019 — The Soviet Union produced hot-rod submarines that could swim faster, take more damage, and dive deeper than their American counterparts—but the U.S. Navy remained fairly confident it had the Soviet submarines outmatched because they were all extremely noisy.
Remembering the war of 1971 in East Pakistan: Anan Zechariah, Al Jazeera, Dec. 16, 2019 — Forty-eight years after the 1971 war, which led to the independence of Bangladesh, each country involved in the conflict has institutionalised a distinct memory of the events of that year.
Because of the holidays, the Daily Briefing will not be circulated on Wed. Dec. 25th, but will return on Thur. Dec. 26, 2019. Happy holidays to all!