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India–Pakistan Relations: Challenges and Opportunities

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DOI: 10.1177/2347797018823964

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Hussain, Ejaz (2019). ‘India-Pakistan: Challenges and Opportunities’ Journal of Asian Security

and International Affairs (6)1: 82-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/2347797018823964

India-Pakistan Relations: Challenges and Opportunities

Ejaz Hussain*1

Mario E. Carranza. 2016. India-Pakistan Nuclear Diplomacy: Constructivism and the

Prospects for Nuclear Arms Control and Disarmament in South Asia. New York: Rowman &
Littlefield, 267 pp. ISBN 978-1-4422-4561-7.
Daniel Haines. 2016. Rivers Divided: Indus Basin Waters in the Making of India and Pakistan.
New York: Oxford University Press, 264 pp. ISBN 978-0-19064866-4.
Hein G. Kiessling. 2016. Faith, Unity, Discipline: The ISI of Pakistan. London: Hurst & Co.,
307 pp. ISBN 978-1-84904-517-9.
A.S. Dulat, Asad Durrani and Aditya Sinha. 2018. The Spy Chronicles: RAW, ISI and the
Illusion of Peace. New Delhi: HarperCollins Publishers, 344 pp. ISBN 978-9352779253.

Keywords Territoriality, Sovereignty, Indus Waters Treaty, Kashmir, Deterrence, ISI

Introduction
India and Pakistan emerged in August 1947 as successor states of British India with distinctive
identities. India normatively and constitutionally ensconced secularity, albeit with Hindu-
majoritarianism, whereas Pakistan, despite having relative ethnonational diversity, opted for an
overwhelming Islamic character for nation-building and securitization vis-à-vis a “Hindu” enemy.
These incompatible state ideologies ensured that the India and Pakistan fought a war right after
independence over the control of Jammu & Kashmir1 (Hussain, 2013, pp.109-120). Moreover, the
two states conflicted over the assessment and distribution of the colonial institutional and financial
*
Associate Professor, Department of Social Sciences, Iqra, University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Corresponding author:
Ejaz Hussain, Head of the Department of Social Sciences, Plot No.5, H-9, Iqra University, Islamabad-44000, Pakistan.
E-mail: ejaz.hussain@iqraisb.edu.pk
legacy; in particular how the civil and military bureaucracy would be divided and the
appropriation of the capital. In 1965, India and Pakistan fought another inconclusive war over
Kashmir and a few years later in December 1971 fought a third war that saw India support East
Pakistani rebels and partition Pakistan, creating the independent state of Bangladesh2 .
Nevertheless, Pakistan’s quest for strategic parity with nuclear-capable India3 continued in the
following decades. The Siachen issue (1984), Brasstacks (1987) and Zarb-e-Momin (1989) further
confirmed the deteriorated nature of bilateral relationship.
Though the then Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, visited Pakistan in 1989, the two
sides failed to normalize their bilateral relations in the 1990s. Driven by their security concerns
and fear of the other’s intentions, both states fought once more over the border town of Kargil in
Kashmir in 1999. The much-hyped Agra Summit in July 2001 provided a window of opportunity
to the two countries’ leadership to sit and talk together. However, the embedded misgivings and
mistrust remained staunchly intact. Currently, India-Pakistan relations are replete with examples
of territorial conflict ( Kashmir, Sir Creek), security challenges ( terrorism), energy deficits and
resource shortages (water scarcity), strategic uncertainty (arms race) and geopolitically (proxy war
in Afghanistan). This rivalry takes place in the backdrop of an overall abysmal state of human
development in both states. Approximately 25-30 percent of Pakistanis, or 60 million people, live
below the poverty line with a similar percent of Indians living in abject poverty .
The history of the India-Pakistan rivalry raises several important questions. First and
foremost is that if the status of socioeconomic indicators are so poor in both India and Pakistan,
why do they not cooperate at least economically? If the four wars (1947-48, 1965, 1971 and 1999)
failed to resolve Jammu and Kashmir, why do the two nuclear-armed states still prefer military to
political and diplomatic means? If the two sides are energy-deficient, why there is no concerted
effort to develop trust in order to resolve, for example, hydroelectric issues emanating from the
Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) that India and Pakistan signed in September 1960?What type of
dangers are posed by the nuclear arsenals that the two states possess, and is there any possibility
of nuclear reversal? Finally, can India and Pakistan talk on terrorism meaningfully?
These are the lingering but crucial questions that are at the core of the three recently
published books under review in this article. The first of these books is Daniel Haines’ Rivers
Divided: Indus Basin Waters in the making of India and Pakistan which as its name suggests looks
into the complicated relations that the two states have over their shared river and how the water is
utilised. The second book is Mario Carranza’s India-Pakistan Nuclear Diplomacy: Constructivism
and the Prospect for Arms Control and Disarmament in South Asia, which offers an alternative
approach to the conventional narrative surrounding India and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Finally,
Hein Kiessling in his book Faith, Unity, Discipline: The ISI of Pakistan explores the central role
that Pakistan’s Army and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) have had on Pakistani foreign policy
and the vested interests it may have in keeping the animosity with India alive. In order to analyse
the contributions of each book, this article is divided into four sections, one each dedicated to the
books in question before concluding with a brief overview of their importance to developing a
holistic overview of Indo-Pakistani relations.
Territory, Conflict and Contested Sovereignty

The existing literature on the Partition and the postcolonial South Asian states takes a uniliner view
of the nations of territory, conflict and sovereignty. Scholars such as Arthur Michel (1967, pp.10-
35), Undala Alam (1998), Majed Akhter (2015), Sarah Ansari (2005, pp.18-45) and David
Gilmartin (2015, pp.1-14, pp.182-98) have explored different aspects of decolonization,
democracy, civil-military relations and territorial conflict between India and Pakistan. Yet such
scholarship has underestimated the potential of territorial waters in shaping political and strategic
perceptions, public policy choices, notions state formation and the military strategy in India and
Pakistan. Moreover, existing accounts tend not to problematize “territoriality” the way that Haines
in his Rivers Divided has attempted to. Taking a conceptual and empirical departure from the
existing works that are grounded in history, topography and (in)security of the subcontinent, the
author is more into the politics of the Indus waters. In so doing, the author has invoked the
overwhelming impact of the Cold War geopolitics on the domestic politics, national leadership
and choice formation in India and Pakistan.
In conceptualizing ‘territory’ in the pre-Partition period, Haines, who implicitly applies a
constructivist cover to the data, conducts a discursive survey of nationalist thought being
popularized by both the Hindu and the Muslim leadership. The All India National Congress along
with plethora of right-wing Hindu religious organisations such as the RSS equated the material
notion of territory with the physical and spiritual characteristics of humans in terms of ‘Mother
India’ (Haines, 2016, p.22). In contrast,

Muslim visions of territory were more diverse. While some Muslims joined Congress and worked for a
composite, all-India nationalism, the Muslim League challenged Congress and Hindu nationalist visions of
India as one nation, with one territory. Apart from any cultural and spiritual distinctiveness, Muslim political
consciousness coalesced around the separate representation that the colonial government granted to Muslims
in councils and assemblies…The Lahori poet, Muhamamd Iqbal, as president of the Muslim League in 1930,
argued that Muslims in India should not be seen as part of an Indian nation, alongside Hindus and
others…Iqbal emphasized the commonality of the ummah (community of believers) in a world of
internationalism. By contrast, Mohammad Ali Jinnah…insist[ed] that India was not a nation but a
geographical space where the two nations lived (Haines, 2016, p.23).

As the above highlights, the notion of territorial nationalism lacked intra-Muslim

consensus and, to problematize it, Haines has brought the recent scholarly debate on the subject
into the discussion. The Muslims of India were diverse and divided along linguistic, sectarian and
economic grounds. The Muslim elite characterized by the Muslim League thus rejected
‘nationalism’ that relied on localization of identity. Rather, Jinnah presented Pakistan in purely
political terms where the Muslim-majority regions were claimed for all the Muslims regardless of
locality and socioeconomic status (Devji, 2013, pp.89-122). Dhulipala (2014, pp.194-278),
however, has highlighted the overwhelming significance that the Muslim elders attributed to
certain territory, at least in the United Provinces. In contrast to such narratives, Haines argues that
the contestation of sovereignty is a post-independence phenomenon though its origins are rooted
in the intricacies of the Partition Plan, in particular the integration of the Princely States with either
India or Pakistan. Both India and Pakistan were able to satisfactorily integrate most Princely States
through either cooperation or coercion. However, Jammu & Kashmir became the primary bone of
contention between the two countries since independence. Indeed, the 1947-48 war in Kashmir set
a pattern and lines of conformation that continues today. Yet, the conflict over Kashmir is not
necessarily as nationalistic in nature as normally is made it to be. Rather, both India and Pakistan
framed Jammu & Kashmir in sovereignty terms.
For instance, Indian leadership, as Haines’ archival research points out, predicated its
‘absolute sovereignty’ on Kashmir with reference to state formation. To the contrary, Pakistan
assumed Kashmir as ‘territorial integrity’ for the federalization of the state that comprised of two
separate parts, namely, East and West Pakistan surrounded by India (Haines, 2016, pp.43-55).
Though the Radcliffe Award, delimitated the Indo-Pakistani boarders, though not as fully as is
generally believed, it produced problems due to its neglect to clearly divide rivers and adjacent
areas. Since the Indus waters flow from Indian administered Kashmir into Pakistan, the two sides
developed competing notions of territoriality that were linked with their subjective conception of
sovereignty. Therefore, when India stopped the flow of water for Pakistan in May 1948, the latter
not only protested but asserted ownership over the Indus Basin on the basis of ‘prior appropriation’.
In other words, Pakistan claimed that the pre-independence areas that constituted Pakistan had
utilised the Indus waters uninterrupted for aeons and thus had the topographical and ethical right
to receive water supply without Indian interference into the basin (Haines, 2016, p.49).
Interestingly, in that early phase of decolonization, India and Pakistan did cooperate with
each other over numerous issues; for example, the rehabilitation of the refugees. Hence, Prime
Minister Nehru, who tilted towards socialism and was at the forefront of the Non-Aligned
Movement (NAM), did not take a tough diplomatic stance on Kashmir, in general, and Indus,
waters, in particular. The Pakistani elite, though embracing hyper-nationalism vis-à-vis Kashmir
in the 1950s, also acted rationally and agreed to share water with India. The April 1948 water
crisis, however, drew global attention to the disputation over Kashmiri territory and sovereignty.
The United States, with the interest to prevent communism in South Asia, engaged both India and
Pakistan in the early 1950s. In that heated Cold War regional context, a prominent American
technocrat and water manager, David E. Lilienthal, visited the subcontinent in a private capacity
though with official blessings (Haines, 2016, pp.107-10). Having observed the Indus Basin,
Lilienthal (1951) provided a technical, not a legal or political, solution to the puzzle: India and
Pakistan should maintain joint ownership and usage of the Indus waters that were classified as
‘eastern’ (Ravi, Sutlej and Beas) and ‘western’ (Chenab, Jhelum and Ravi) rivers. Both India and
Pakistan did not buy this argument owing to their respective conception of territoriality and the
contested notion of sovereignty. Here, the author provides an original perspective on
decolonization history by establishing structural linkages among state formation, territorial
sovereignty and Cold War geopolitics (pp.120-27).
 Consequently, by 1957 the World Bank with the backing of Western states engaged Indian
and Pakistani leadership with the aim of securing a resolution to the Indus Basin Waters dispute.
The water bureaucracies of the two countries, thus, held several meetings. Moreover, the top
leadership, Nehru in India and Ayub Khan in Pakistan, from 1958-60, were constrained
domestically. Nehru’s economic policy was a flop whereas Ayub was lacking broad legitimacy for
his military rule (Haines, 2016, p.138). This nexus between domestic and global politics provided
strategic space to not only the subcontinental leadership but also the Western powers such as the
US, Canada and West Germany, that financially contributed to the Indus Basin Development Fund
worth $893.5 million (pp.144-50). As a result, India and Pakistan were able to sign the Indus
Waters Treaty (IWT) in September 1960, which resolved the waters dispute albeit strategically
rather than technically. In other words, the IWT went beyond the Linienthalian cooperative
framework and instead, ‘divided’ the rivers in a manner that the water of three eastern rivers came
under Indian suzerainty- though Pakistan were to use these waters for irrigation purposes for initial
ten years- and the three western rivers exclusively came under Pakistani control though India could
use these waters for hydroelectric purposes as long as the water flow remained uninterrupted.
Moreover, with the Fund money, Pakistan started construction of the Mangla Dam and links
canals.
The signing of the IWT, and the cooperation and rationality displayed by the Indian and
Pakistani leadership, received global applause. Domestically, however, the IWT received mixed
response. In India, the opposition accused Nehru of being a ‘sell out’ by gifting the Basin to
Pakistan. In addition, since India had to pay some $173.8 million to Pakistan, this fact further
annoyed the opposition and the right-wing nationalists. In Pakistan, the story was similar, with the
opposition led by Fatima Jinnah criticized Ayub regime for betrayal as, in their view, Pakistan lost
its three rivers to India and had recognized India’s right to use the western waters (Haines, 2016,
pp.155-58).
Nonetheless, the Treaty survived. However, it failed to resolve the broader Kashmir
conflict. Moreover, it could not help resolve related boarder issues, especially in the divided
Punjab. For example, the Sulemanki headworks had its bund located in undemarcated territory.
Indian and Pakistani engineers and paramilitary forces frequently violated the other’s sovereignty
until the two sides finally settled the issue in 1960(Haines, 2016, pp.85-9). However, bilateral
cooperation failed in the Rann of Kutch where India and Pakistan faced a military standoff in 1963
(Haines, 2016, p.101). The Cold War geopolitics helped resolve it though for the time being as the
two neighbours fought an all-out war in 1965 on Kashmir due largely to ontological differences
on territory and sovereignty. The 1965 war, in the author’s view, marks the limitations of the IWT
as far as conflict prevention was concerned.
Thus, rather than ensuring peace and strategic stability in South Asia, the IWT, due to its
inability to resolve the Kashmir conflict, has perpetuated conflict, sharpened the competing claims
on territory and sovereignty. Additionally, it has also inadvertently militarized the Indus Basin to
the extent that both India and Pakistan actively threaten use of nuclear weapons if the status quo
is altered in the conflict zone and if, or when, the low riparian state is deprived of water(s) rights
altogether.
Last but not the last, the Indus Basin Treaty set a weak precedent for dispute resolution in
a different, though within the same region, context. As Haines observed

(t)he idea of using the Indus Waters Treaty as a model for India-Pakistan cooperation in [East] Bengal during
the late 1960s demonstrated some of the pitfalls of trying to take a model of collaborating from one context
and applying it to another. The intervention of the 1971 civil war in Pakistan, and subsequent secession of
Bangladesh, does of course complicate the picture. We cannot know whether negotiations between the
governments in New Delhi and Islamabad would have been more fruitful than those between Delhi and
Dhaka (p.174).

Thus Rivers Divided is largely pessimistic of the IWT’s ability to act as a precedent for
settling territorial disputes involving waters. The book adds originally to the our understating of
territoriality and its role in water management along with offering fresh insights into the
demonization history and the (early) Cold War in analysing the interplay among territory, conflict
and sovereignty. However, the study remains focused on the politics of the Indus Basin during the
1950s and, to some extent, 1960s, and does not link the early politics with the water related issues
in the later decades, especially to the current debate on water management between India and
Pakistan. However, it does emphasize the centrality of territory (Kashmir) which remains central
until today, to any India-Pakistan negotiations. How did Kashmir conflict influence strategic
thinking in both the countries and to what extent, and in what ways, it helped militarize the Line
of Control (LoC) and India-Pakistan border is discussed in the next section.

Can Constructivism ensure peace between India and Pakistan?

Theoretically, the existing International Relations (IR) literature tends to take a (neo)realist view
of nuclear relations regionally and globally (Waltz, 1979, pp.88-92; Mearsheimer, 1994). As far
as India and Pakistan’s nuclear program and the advancements weapon system are concerned, the
scholars as well as policymakers invoked security dilemmas and, therefore, relied on military
means to achieve strategic stability in South Asia (Lavoy, 2009, pp.1-29). However, owing to the
overwhelming predominance of realist ontology, alternate theoretical positions have been grossly
overlooked. In a bid to rescue IR theory in general, and nuclear studies in particular, Mario E.
Carranza (2016) has managed to achieve two key goals. On the one hand, Carranza has exposed
empirical limitations of (neo)realism and (neo)liberalism both as explainers of IR and nuclear
weapon behaviours. On the other, Carranza proposes a constructivist analytical framework to
explain tensions between India and Pakistan and the nature, character and, importantly, the future
of nuclear arms race between the two countries.
The first and foremost criticism of rationalist and instrumentalist theories such as
neorealism and neoliberalism is directed at its failure to predict the demise of the Soviet Union the
way it happened in the late 1980s. This is primarily because these theories are static and thus
discouraging as far as the idea, if not the process, of change in a society and state is concerned.
Since such materialist perspectives are favour ‘objects’ above ‘norms’, IR theory and,
consequently, global policy discourse on nuclear weapons and disarmament deprived itself of
alternate ontological and epistemological positions, perspective and policies. Carranza’s critique
of the “neo-neo” theories is empirically valid. However, in reviewing IR theory, beside the various
strands of liberalism and realism, other important IR theories such as Critical Theory,
Postmodernism, Poststructuralism, Feminism and the Green perspectives are excluded from the
discussion altogether (see Steans et al, 2010, pp.vi-vii). Similarly, the nuclear studies literature
review on South Asia is limited in scope, and certain scholarship stands, to use constructivist
jargon, marginalized.4
Nevertheless, the assumptions of constructivism (namely reality is socially constructed)
are clearly outlined and with respect to developing a constructivist framework on nuclear weapons
and reversals in South Asia, Carranza builds on the works of Tannenwald (2007, pp.1-25) and
Rublee (2009, pp.1-
20) who analysed similar themes in a non-Asian context. However, as far as constructivist
framework on South Asian nuclear programs is concerned, his is an original contribution.
Carranza begins by first deconstructing the structurally embedded realist reasoning that
the introduction of nuclear weapons into a rivalry, such as the Indian-Pakistani conflict over
Kashmir, will ‘freeze’ it by making direct conflict irrational. Here, he demonstrates that the core
assumptions of constructivism reveal that this is not necessarily the case. Instead, India-Pakistan
rivalry and consequent nuclearization is a product of social construction on the part of the political
and strategic elites (Carranza, 2016, pp.37-9). The latter, however, generated respective discourse
in strategic interaction with the social environment at the global level where the core nuclear-
related norm, termed as Nuclear Non-Proliferation Norm (NNPN), affected the elite behaviour
towards threat perception and securitization in terms of nuclearization (Carranza, 2016, pp.92-7).
Since, the NNPN remained flexile in the initial Cold War period, non-core states such as South
Africa, Israel and even India took advantage of it. Unsurprisingly, India, faced with ‘security
dilemma’ from China, tested its nuclear capability in 1974. The India’s nuclear policy carried
implications for Pakistan that lost half of its territory and population in war against India in 1971.
Thus, to bridge the conventional capability gap with rival India, Pakistan started its nuclear
program the same decade, while invoking a realist positions that argued, “More [nukes] are better”,
to ward off Indian threat (Waltz, 1995, pp.1-45). Thus, by late 1980s, Pakistan had acquired
“existential” deterrence vis-à-vis India’s “minimum deterrence” (Carranza, 2016, pp. 55-8). Delhi,
however, tested nuclear weapons, again, in May 1998, to which, Pakistan, in reaction, did the same
the same month. This tit-for-tat nuclear posturing had alarming effects on each country’s
deterrence strategy. As Kapur (2008) has rightly observed, before the May 1998 tests, India had
have stable deterrence toward both China and Pakistan. Rather than pure security dilemma, it was
the “prestige” factor that ranked into Indian strategic community and the political leadership that
desired to enter the elite club of the nuclear-weapons states (Frey, 2006, pp.123-41).
In the post-1998 tests period, Pakistan, in order to ensure ‘asymmetric escalation’ (roughly
first-strike option), had set “minimum deterrence” to counter India’s “assured retaliation” (second-
strike capability). However, the Kargil War of 1999 taught a variety of lessons to each state. India,
on its part, conceived what is described as Cold Start Doctrine; that is the acquired ability to
abruptly strike conventionally inside the enemy’s territory especially in a crisis (Narang, 2014,
pp.77-115). In other words, in the jargon of deterrence pessimists, the nuclear weapons militarised
the conventional notion of warfare and doubled the risk of escalation in a conventional war. For
its part, Pakistan has learnt that it is unlikely to be able to match India conventionally. Thus in
response, it has acquired the tactical nuclear capability to counter India’s Cold Start strategy,
thereby increasing the possibility of nuclear weapons being used, accidently or intentionally, in a
future Indo-Pakistani war. Thus, Carranza’s analysis is no different from that of other nuclear
deterrence pessimists (Feaver, 1995). Additionally, he is critical of the Obama Administration for
the 2008 nuclear deal with India on two counts. First, the deal allowed for India’s enrichment of
its existing nuclear regime. Secondly and more importantly, Obama’s policy on India proved
counterproductive with respect to emphasizing the NNPN, at the regional level, to gradually realize
nuclear arms control and disarmament in South Asia.
However, if Indo-Pakistani nuclear history is any guide, nuclear reversal seems a daunting
task. Therefore, the book has bracketed the need for nuclear diplomacy between the two countries
with the support of a global social eminent that prefers and enacts Non-Nuclear Proliferation
Norm. Carranza’s study has, in this respect, proposed a four-tier model of normalization between
India and Pakistan along with highlighting nuclear arms control scenarios, similar to the model
originally proposed by Stephen P. Cohen (2013, pp.74-114). Moreover, this research has, with a
constructivist tinge, underscored the role of “norm entrepreneurs” (i.e. strategic elite, think tanks,
NGOs, the media etc.) in the communication and dissemination of anti-nuclear norm at multiple
fora and level. The author posits that the NNPN is already working as it has prevented India and
Pakistan to test nuclear weapons since 1998. This may be so in regards to weapons testing, but a
look at the two countries’ wider behaviour reveals the flaws with this position. Firstly, both India
and Pakistan are busy expanding their nuclear arsenal and are showing no sign of slowing.
Secondly, India is enhancing its short to long-range ballistic missile capacity as is Pakistan.
Moreover, the latter is equipping its navy with a nuclear submarine in order to counter the Indian
triad. To add insult to injury, neither India nor Pakistan have joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Indeed, the two are quite sceptical of the
Fissile Material Control Treaty as well.
One wonders how the NNPN can, without the formal backing of powerful states such as
the US, France, Germany, Russia and China, ensure nuclear arms control and disarmament. When
the great powers start compelling weaker states, such as India and Pakistan, to denuclearize, will
such a policy course be an outcome of norm-oriented constructivism or power-oriented (neo)
realism? India-Pakistan Nuclear Diplomacy, at best, is ambiguous in this respect. Indeed, at
places, one finds realist overtones in the guise of constructivism. For example, on the prospects of
nuclear arms control and disarmament, Carranza has emphasized that,

(t)he United States must have a single nonproliferation and disarm policy toward the [South Asian] region;
it cannot give India a free pass on its nuclear weapons program while attempting to unilaterally denuclearize
 Pakistan with a preemptive strike…the good news is that President Obama’s 2009 Prague speech has
significantly strengthened the NNPN by officially placing nuclear disarmament in the international agenda
(2016, p.147). [Italics in the original]

Nonetheless, the study is an interesting read to approach India-Pakistan nuclear rivalry

from a non-realist and non-liberal perspective. In addition, it calls upon the global strategic
community and the policy makers in India and Pakistan to take the dangers of nuclear war in South
Asia more seriously. However, will India and Pakistan ever be able to reverse (nuclear) rivalry?
What actors and factors have hindered peace initiatives such the 1999 Lahore Declaration? The
following section of the article tends to problematize such questions.

Institutions, Conflict and Rivalry

One of the main, if not the primary, spoilers for any reconciliation between India and Pakistan can
be found in the latter’s internal political and institutional struggles. There is no dearth of literature
on Pakistani’s politics, history and civil-military relations (Siddiqa, 2007, pp.1-20). These
accounts have identified the role of the state institutions, particularly the military, in the country’s
politics, society, economy and the foreign policy. However, fewer studies exist to map the outreach
and analyse the role and impact of sub-institutions such as the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) that
has assumed immense significance, at least, in the Indian strategic and intelligence communities.
As already mentioned, Kashmir conflict and India-Pakistan (nuclear) relations constitute the core
of India-Pakistan Nuclear Diplomacy and Rivers Divided. There is, then, a need to problematize
the role of the permanent state institution(s) in comprehending the level and degree of the lingering
territorial conflicts, dangers of (nuclear) arms race and prospects for strategic stability in the South
Asian region.
To begin with, Lal’s The Monstrous Face of ISI (2000, pp.6-14) and Dhar’s Fulcrum of
Evil: ISI-CIA-Al Qaeda Nexus (2006, pp.15-45) offers particularistic view of the ISI’s role in
Kashmir, Northeast India and, for that matter, Afghanistan and the Middle East. This literature, by
and large, does not highlight the internal structure, financial and institutional capacity of the
organization. In contrast, Winchell’s Pakistan’s ISI: The Invincible Government (2003) and Sirrs’
Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (2017, pp.13-48) shed light on the internal
intricacies of the formidable force.
Kiessling’s book falls in the latter category. To begin with, Cawthorne, whose services
were hired by the Pakistani army, conceived USSR as strategic threat to the British interests in
South Asia and the Middle East. Therefore, he aimed at establishing an intelligence organization
that was instrumental in countering the Soviet designs in South Asia (Kiessling, 2016, pp.14-5).
Within a short span, however, the Pakistani Army and the ISI were indigenised institutionally.
From July 1948 onwards, a Pakistani Army man led the ISI. Moreover, its primary focus shifted
from trans-regional geopolitics to national politics and security policy. Iskander Mirza, a general-
cum-bureaucrat, and General Ayub Khan, the commander-in-chief, spied on Prime Minister Noon
and the opposition (Kiessling, 2016, p.21). This revelation is one of the primary contributions of
the study because previous accounts of the ISI’s activities against the political class was blamed
on Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1971-77. Bhutto, Kiessling argues,
only increased the political role of the organization in the county’s domestic politics.
As far as Pakistan’s security/foreign policy was concerned, the agency’s capacity and role
was quite miniscule under the Ayub regime. However, since 1957, the ISI was involved in
fomenting anti-India insurgencies in Northeastern India. Paradoxically, this anti-India
development took place in the show of India-Pakistan negotiations over the Indus Basin. Besides,
the book leaves the impression that, perhaps during the 1965 India-Pakistan war, the role and
outreach of the agency was quite limited. If so, this then explains the its inability in acquiring and
communicating intelligence during the 1965 war (p.23). However, during the 1971 crisis in East
Pakistan, the ISI proved to be highly competent and efficient by forwarding copies of General
Manekshaw’s operational instructions on the forthcoming Indian invasion. Yet, despite this
windfall, the country’s military and civil leadership could not prevent the dismemberment of
Pakistan.
In the post-1971 period, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto tended to rejuvenate morale of the military.
To prevent the penetration of the Soviet and Afghan elements in Pakistan’s bordering areas with
Afghanistan and Iran, the Bhutto government entrusted the Inter-Services-Intelligence that trained
and utilized around 5,000 strong Afghan guerrilla troops. Colonel Syed Raza Ali, in this regard,
played a leading role. However, owing to the intricacies of imbalanced civil-military relations, the
Bhutto government was dismissed by General Zia ul Haq in July 1977. He ‘insinuated a possible
conspiracy had been hatched against him among the military leadership and the intelligence
agencies’ (Kiessling, 2016, p.39).
Kiessling has utilised a number of primary sources to highlight the complexities of civil-
military relations during 1980-1990s. In addition, his description of the ISI’s engagement with the
Taliban (1994-2001) is based on the author’s personal contact with the (former) officials of the
agency. Thus, Kiessling states that under DG Lt.Gen. Ehsan ul Haq, who remained at the helm
from Oct-2001-04), the organization was instrumental in directing Pakistan’s South Asia policy
whereby Afghanistan was seen as an Indian protégé. In the post-9/11 world, though the ISI
cooperated with the CIA, the former projected Pakistan’s interests by registering concerns over
the excessive use of drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Such territory and sovereignty
concerns though resonate with the themes raised in River Divided.
The US-Pakistan relations further worsened in the post-Musharraf period (2008-13) when
the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) led government called upon the Obama Administration to save
the civilian setup in the wake of Bin Laden’s killing by the US Navy SEALs in Abbottabad in May
2011. Moreover, the Raymond Davis Affair5 and the Salala Incident, the same year, halted the
NATO supply to Kabul through Pakistan. In addition, the Gilani [Zardari] government tried to
control the ISI by signalling friendly gestures to India. This strained civil-military relations to the
extent Prime Minister Gilani was fired by the judiciary, which typically works in tandem with the
military establishment.
 The Pakistan Muslim League government of Nawaz Sharif (2013-2018) also attempted to
implement the PPP’s policy of normalization with India. The Sharif government also interfered in
the military’s, and for that matter ISI’s, internal matters and tended to take control of the country’s
foreign policy. Importantly, the civil government planned to curtail the role of the ISI by
empowering the Intelligence Bureau that is generally regarded as a civilian institution. The Army
and the ISI, keen to stay relevant in the country’s politics and security/foreign policy, reacted to
the extent that Prime Minister Sharif stood disqualified, in the so-called Panama Papers in which
the organization was accorded a key role by the apex courts.
Besides, in the author’s opinion, Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency is still a powerful
force in the region. Moreover, the agency sees Afghanistan in confrontational terms as the former
has, over the decades, developed bilateral stable relations with India (Coll, 2018, pp.666-69). The
strength of the book lay in its attempt to bridge the gap in the literature with respect to the internal
structure, functions and intra-agency power relations. This objective though is partly achieved
because there still are unaddressed questions which, to some extent, have been raised by two
former spymasters of India and Pakistan, Dulat and Durrani, in The Spy Chronicles (2018, pp.1-
55).
The book, divided into seven parts and thirty-three chapters, is conversational in style and
journalistic in organization. The initial chapters, while setting the tone, informs about India-
Pakistan rivalry and the role of the two spy agencies in conflict perpetuation. The ISI, argues
Durrani in part three (pp.83-123), viewed Kashmir as an opportunity post-Cold War to contain
India’s military might. However, the agency miscalculated the scale and length of the Kashmiri
anti-India militancy. In Durrani’s view, Pakistan should have backed Amanullah than Lashkar-e-
Taiba (LeT). The proceeding Part IV (pp.124-180) sketches the ISI’s prominent role in supporting
the Taliban in Afghanistan and its bittersweet relationship with the CIA post-9/1. Dulat believes
that the Pakistani intelligence agency gained currency in the western world due its media coverage
whereby Durrani assumes that the Indian spy organization is careerist and efficient organization
due to being under civilian control. “The Flashpoints”, as Part V is titled, revolves around Kashmir,
the 2002 standoff, the Mumbai attack (26/11) and the contested Surgical Strike (2016). Both Dulat
and Durrani posit the mentioned events as attempts, on the part of the two countries’ security
establishment, to disturb the status quo in the subcontinent.
“The New Great Game” (Part VI) discuses events such as the killing of Osama Bin Laden
and the lingering warfare in Afghanistan. The former spy chiefs view US-Pakistan, India-US and,
broadly, the South Asian politics and foreign policy in rational terms where each spy agency is
serving its national interest. While “Looking Ahead”, in the last part (pp.257-285), the Dulat-
Durrani duo offer nothing new but re-capping the Manmohan-Musharraf era semi-sovereign
prescription for the resolution of Kashmir conflict. Thus, overall the book is peace-oriented and is
a welcome addition. However, it may be an uneasy reading for a non-specialist given series of
interpersonal dialogue compiled candidly by Aditya Sinha. Besides, it has not touched in details
the water issues, as highlighted in Rivers Divided, and nuclear challenges, as put forth in India-
Pakistan Nuclear Diplomacy. Conversely, The Spy Chronicles has much resonance with Faith,
Unity [and] Discipline.

Conclusion

The four texts analysed share some common themes: territory, conflict, sovereignty and (limited)
cooperation. Rivers Divided set the tone by highlighting the hydro-political significance of
Kashmir over which India and Pakistan fought three wars. Since the much-hyped Indus Waters
Treaty failed to resolve the Kashmir conflict, it gradually lost relevance for conflict resolution in
a dissimilar setting; for example the Farakka barrage in the Bengal basin. The contested notions of
territoriality and sovereignty factored into elite decision making that, on the one hand, perpetuated
mutual mistrust and misgivings and, on the other, embedded conventional rivalry that took a
nuclear turn in the 1970s onward. The past decades have only added to strategic uncertainty in the
South Asian region, posits India-Pakistan Nuclear Diplomacy. Importantly, the state institutions,
both civil and military, in the subcontinent seem to have lost faith in creating peaceful conditions
for coexistence. Faith, Unity, Discipline has, thus, provided with useful insights about the role,
functions and outreach of one of the powerful state institutions in Pakistan, the ISI that views India
in rival terms.
Last but not the least, The Spy Chronicles provides a detailed discussion of the challenges that
hinder normalization in India-Pakistan relations, and the opportunities being missed in the past
and the ones available presently. If the two countries are able to revisit, and revise their revisionist
policy and posture and stride in building bilateral confidence, the toughest of issues can be
resolved. In order to do so, however, both the states will have to reorient its institutional mind-set,
remould state nationalism and re-work on antagonistic populism; which, by default, demand
further studies on the subject.

Acknowledgment
Will like to write one very briefly later.

Notes
1. Jammu & Kashmir and Kashmir have been used interchangeably.
2. Pakistan has had two parts/wings from 1947-1971. Before 1955, Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, and
Northwest Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) was generally called West Pakistan and the
second part, that lay to the East of India, was called East Bengal that, as a result of One Unit Scheme
(1955), was officially termed as East Pakistan. The latter emerged as Bangladesh in December 1971.
3. India conducted its first nuclear text in 1974.
4. For instance, Neil Joeck (1985) and Ayesha Siddiqa (2003) are not mentioned.

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