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CNN Live At Daybreak

Interview with Sumantra Bose About the Conflict Over Kashmir

Aired October 25, 2001 - 05:38   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Well to help us feel out the story on the ongoing ethnic conflict over Kashmir, let's turn now to Sumantra Bose of the London School of Economics, an expert on South Asia and the Balkans. Sumantra Bose is in our London bureau this morning.

Good morning sir. Thank you very much for your time today.

SUMANTRA BOSE, LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS: Hello, nice to be here.

HARRIS: Let me begin by asking the simple question, for those of us in the U.S. who may not be -- who definitely are not as up on this whole topic as you are, what is really at the root of the conflict in Kashmir and for how long has it been raging?

BOSE: Well geographically Kashmir is very close to the epicenter of the current crisis. It's located at the crossroads of India, Pakistan, China and Afghanistan. And the territory has been bitterly contested between India and Pakistan for the last 54 years. That is ever since the India and Pakistan states came into being in 1947.

HARRIS: Is it because - is it a battle over land that is itself valuable because there's oil or gold or there's -- it's a very fertile region or something like that or is it just a matter of the people there -- a fight over who should be -- I guess a fight over the nationality of the people of that region.

BOSE: It's more the latter. It's more a fight over the nationality of the people of the region. I'd like to explain why it's been so bitterly contested briefly. Kashmir is a Muslim majority territory and as such, it has been considered to be extremely important to the national ideologies and of both India and Pakistan and to both India and Pakistan's sense of self as states.

Pakistan was founded as a Muslim state in 1947 and Pakistani nationalists generally consider that Kashmir as a Muslim majority territory contiguous to Pakistan should have been part and parcel of Pakistan from the very beginning. Conversely, India, which considers itself an inclusive secular and democratic republic, thinks that the inclusion of Muslim majority Kashmir, which is the only Muslim majority unit of the Indian Union within the India state is absolutely essential to the validation of India's inclusive secular and democratic credentials. HARRIS: Okay. Now what then do you make of Secretary Powell's trip there? I know that the criticism, as we just heard in Maria Ressa's report, the criticism of the U.S. is that it's only gotten itself involved or paid attention to the region only when its interest has been at stake. Did Secretary Powell's trip, in any way, change that perception?

BOSE: Unfortunately it did not. In fact, it may have reinforced that perception albeit unwittingly. Secretary Powell's very welcome visit to India and Pakistan last week was intended to curb tensions in the region and specifically over Kashmir between India and Pakistan. But it may have ended up actually heightening tensions.

HARRIS: How is that?

BOSE: Secretary Powell ....Yes. It's because Secretary Powell is in the unenviable position of trying to be all things to all people at the same time. When in Islamabad, he told the Pakistanis what they wanted to hear. He reaffirmed the centrality of the Kashmir question, which the Pakistanis see as a legitimate freedom struggle.

The next day in New Delhi, he told the Indian government leaders what they wanted to hear. He expressed solidarity with the Indian government in their struggle against terrorism, especially in Kashmir.

So there's a real danger that the United States foreign policy may be seen, as your reporter pointed out, as opportunistic, hypocritical and self-serving. That, at this point and time, American policy may be alienating the Indians without really getting the Pakistani people to distinguish from the Pakistani military regime on board.

HARRIS: Let me ask you about - because we ...

(CROSSTALK)

BOSE: I think what it ...

HARRIS: I'm sorry. Go ahead. Well let me -- let me -- let me cut you off for just a moment because I want to bring another idea here. We have seen in the last few hours here or the last day or two a resolution in a region of the world that we never thought we'd see, at least not any time soon. That being northern Ireland, and many people are saying it's because of all the attention that's being paid right now around the world and on terrorism.

Is it possible that the same sort of resolution may come as an ancillary solution as an ancillary settlement here or achievement in Kashmir between Pakistan or India or do you think war there is more likely?

BOSE: I would like to see a negotiated resolution on northern Ireland lines myself and have myself argued that case quite forcibly. But unfortunately I don't think it's going to happen any time in the near future. India and Pakistan are very hostile adversarial states. They're very different from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland at the present time, who are in pretty good terms most of the time in most issues.

And also we must remember that both Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland are members of a common forum of regional integration and cooperation that actually works -- namely the EU -- and nothing like that holds true for the south Asian subcontinent unfortunately.

What I was going to say in reply to your last question was that Secretary Powell's trip illustrates is that the process of sustaining a global coalition against international terrorism is much more fraught problematic process than many assume. And it's likely to get more and more difficult as this conflict drags on.

HARRIS: Because of conflicts like these that are on the outside of this thing looking in. Sumantra Bose, thank you very much, and we'll hopefully get a chance to talk again about all of this. We appreciate your time this morning.

BOSE: Thank you.

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