India, Pakistan and Kashmir - India as an Emerging Power - page 35

Why is India threatened by some combination of Pakistan, Islam, China, and
the West? It is because Indians believe that outsiders are jealous of India, and try
to cut it down to size. This sense of weakness, of vulnerability, is contrasted with
India's 'proper' status as a great power, stemming from its unique civilization
and history. It is India's very diversity, long regarded as a virtue, which offers a
tempting target for Pakistan, the Islamic world, and others. Even India's
minorities (tribals, Sikhs, Christians, and Muslims) are seen, especially by the
Hindu Right, as a potential fifth column, awaiting foreign exploitation.
Pakistan as an Incomplete State
Finally, the very nature of the Pakistani state presents a threat to India. In a
survey of India's security problems written in 1983, U.S.Bajpai, a distinguished
retired diplomat, offered not so much an analysis of the 'Pakistan factor' as an
indictment of Pakistan's many shortcomings. 8 Pakistan's limited cultural and
civilizational inheritance, its military dictatorship, its theocratic identity, its
unworkable unitary system of government (as opposed to India's flexible
federalism), the imposition of Urdu on an unwilling population, the alienation of
Pakistan's rulers from their people, Islamabad's support of 'reactionary' regimes
in West Asia (India identified its interests with the 'progressive' segments of
Arab nationalism, such as Saddam's Iraq), its dependency on foreign aid, and
the failure to develop a strong economic base were Pakistan's embarrassment.
This perspective has enjoyed a renaissance in the ten years after Pakistan began
open support for the separatist and terrorist movements that emerged in Indian-
administered Kashmir. 9
Why should India fear such a state? Pakistan is a threat because it still makes
the claim that Partition was imperfectly carried out, because some Pakistanis
harbor revanchist notions towards India's Muslim population, and because it
falsely accuses India of wanting to undo Pakistan itself. Thus, Pakistan still
makes a claim on Kashmir, and has deeper designs against the integrity and unity
of India itself. 10 Because Pakistan continues to adhere to the theory which
brought it into existence—the notion that the subcontinent was divided between
two nations, one Hindu, one Muslim—and because it purports to speak on behalf
of Indian Muslims, Pakistan's very identity is 'a threat to India's integrity.' 11 More
recently, Pakistan has served as the base for Islamic 'jihadists' who not only seek
the liberation of Kashmir, but the liberation of all of India's Muslims.
PAKISTAN VIEWS INDIA
If Indian strategists regard Pakistan as a major threat to Indian security, then
Pakistani leaders, especially the powerful military, regard their country as even
more threatened. Yet, some even see Pakistan as better able to withstand the