Insurgent Crossfire

Book excerpt: Since the British withdrew from the subcontinent, nations in the region have been at war with each other. But instead of fighting long-drawnout wars like that between Iran and Iraq, nations of South Asia have sponsored guerrilla armies and armed, trained and equipped them to harass, bleed or embarrass their rivals. The four wars in the region’s post-colonial era were also born out of sponsored guerrilla wars. In 1948 and 1965, Pakistan first tried to have its way in Kashmir by sponsoring irregulars on a large scale and then followed it up with unsuccessful military campaigns aimed at ensuring the state’s secession from India. In 1962, China attacked India not so much over a disputed border or India’s much publicized Forward Policy but essentially in response to what it felt was a joint Indo-US covert effort in Tibet. In 1971 India rounded off its successful sponsorship of the Bengali guerrilla struggle in erstwhile East Pakistan by a speedy military campaign that resulted in the break up of Pakistan. Insurgent Crossfire examines the origins of sponsored insurgencies and how they have shaped South Asia’s tense diplomatic environment. Having done that, it studies the major sponsored guerrilla campaigns in South Asia and then seeks a detailed case study of the phenomenon by focusing on the far eastern slice of the subcontinent. The author argues that this region, with its multitude of tribes and battling ethnicities, has been the most durable theatre of insurgent crossfire – in which nations like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and China (a major actor in South Asian politics) have backed insurgencies against each other.