India

Panelists discuss recent political and military developments in Jammu and Kashmir, India’s domestic politics and democratic future, and U.S. policies in the region. ASTILL: Well, hello, everybody. Yeah, we have some sound. I’m James Astill. I’m the bureau chief of the Economist here in D.C. I have a bit of a background in South Asia. I’ve lived and written about both Pakistan—lived in and written about both Pakistan and India. I was in Delhi from 2007 to 2011. I’m sure you all know why we’re here. On August the 4th, the Modi government in Delhi revoked the special status, the limited autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir on a political argument that it was high time Kashmiris had no more rights and powers than any other Indian citizen. Of course, this was something that was coming down the line the instant the BJP won its strong majority in the last Lok Sabha election. It was an election manifesto item of the BJP’s. But in the event, Kashmiris have ended up with rather less than most Indian citizens because they have not only lost their limited autonomy—much-eroded limited autonomy; the crucial component was probably the inability of outsiders to buy land in the valley—but nonetheless, they lost those small autonomies, and they also lost statehood. So Jammu and Kashmir, that fibral part of India, the trigger for two major wars between India and Pakistan and a smaller war—an incident that many would call a war—lost its autonomy, lost its statehood, has been split into two parts. The remote somewhat Buddhist—45, 50 percent Buddhist—region of Ladakh will be separately run and controlled by the central government in Delhi, and Jammu and Kashmir together as a larger halved-off entity will also be run by the central government in Delhi. As things stand, through some impressive political legerdemain the Modi government has executed this strategy. They have a democratic mandate of sorts for what they—for what they chose to do, though that is to be tested yet in the Supreme Court. We will discuss this enormously involved topic, I think, with sort of three areas of focus. One is very much internally to India what this—what this grab by the central government means in terms of India’s institutions and how the Supreme Court responds. It’s taking its time to respond, but how it eventually responds, as it must, to this grab will be an acid test of what this means for India’s institutions and the potential repercussions of that for other parts of India, especially the periphery, of course. The status of parts of the northeast are already topics of conversation as a consequence of this—of this event. We’ll also talk a little bit about security, militancy in the valley, and the cross-border dimension to that, what this means in terms of the security of Kashmir and beyond. And thirdly, we will try—insofar as we have to do all of this, we’ll look a bit more specifically at the consequences for the Indo-Pak relationship and further beyond the foreign policy/international relations dimensions to this. And broadly speaking, we have three tremendously accomplished experts to do those three parts of this conversation. Ashutosh Varshney, Brown University, will—to my immediate right—will start off, I think, by looking at this intra-India dimension. Stephen Tankel from American University will give us his sort of throat-clearing opening thoughts on militancy and security in the Valley of Kashmir and what this might mean. And Aparna Pande will muse, thirdly, on the regional international dimensions of this. So, with that, enough from me. Ashu, what does this mean institutionally and constitutionally for India? Where are we in—you know, in even trying to answer that question? VARSHNEY: So the constitutional validity of New Delhi’s move is to be determined by the Supreme Court. And there are basically three issues there, and all will have a serious bearing on how democracy now evolves in India. One, whether revocation of Article 370, which gave Kashmir, legally at least, a lot of autonomy—politically, some—rather the revocation requires a simple legislative majority or required a constitutional amendment, which is a—which, in turn, requires supermajorities and a special process. Second, which is— ASTILL: Why don’t you—just in case some of us need a refresher, why don’t you just walk us through very briefly how the government got round that so far and what—what is its argument for avoiding a constitutional amendment? What has it done? VARSHNEY: It was not even raised, actually, in parliament. ASTILL: That’s one way of getting around it. VARSHNEY: It was not even raised in parliament. It was proposed to parliament as a simple legislative matter which will require an ordinary majority. But for scholars of democracy and for legal—(inaudible)—and scholars and lawyers, the issue is not simply rather it required a legislative majority or a special majority—which an amendment normally requires. The second part of the constitutionality is whether a state can be turned into a union territory. Can a—can a state of Indian Federation lose its status? ASTILL: Something that has never happened before, right? VARSHNEY: This has never happened before. Under Article 3 of India’s constitution, a state can—a state’s boundaries can be changed by Delhi but a state cannot be demoted to a union territory. That we have not heard. So that is—whether it’s a constitutional issue or just a simply legislative matter is also in front of the court. And the third thing in front of the court is the jailing of hundreds of leaders without a habeas corpus ruling. So why has the judiciary still not commissioned or scheduled hearings on habeas corpus or the constitutionality of the two-way change is something we will know more about in the—in the next few months. But the very fact that even habeas corpus hearings have not been scheduled is a matter of deep concern. And if they’re not, then we would have to say that the—that judicial review, which is in principle based on a counter-majoritarian idea, since the legislature and the executive are supposed to represent electoral majorities, judiciary, we are—judicial review, in all constitutional arguments, in all political arguments, is supposed to represent not the majority but the minority. So it’s a counter-majoritarian institution. And look after individual rights as well. Therefore, if the judiciary doesn’t even schedule hearings or pushes them for—towards June or July or so, we would have to sadly conclude that India’s judiciary is not standing up to the majoritarian impulses of the executive and the legislature, which is really not its job. The job of the judiciary is not to enhance executive power or legislative power; the job of the judiciary is to constrain executive and legislative power if some lines have been crossed. ASTILL: And again, just for the broadest context on this, this doesn’t come in a vacuum. This testing of the court doesn’t come in a vacuum. It comes at a time when there are considerable concerns about the rule of law and the independence of institutions in India, exacerbated, we may say, by the recent ruling on Ayodhya, where it appears ultimately that the court bent towards a Hindu nationalist lobby. VARSHNEY: Right. So not for the first time, but certainly not as ferociously ever before, an argument has emerged in Indian polity that elections are the only source of power; that our constitutionally designed independent institutions that do not depend on elections for their power must play a secondary role or tertiary role—electorally enabled power should not be challenged. Now, the judiciary is supposed to actually, in almost all political/constitutional doctrines that I have read and that I am—that my friends, who are legal—(inaudible)—who would testify to—the judiciary is supposed to knock down this argument. The central banks are supposed to knock down this argument. Some other institutions we can think of. The press is not supposed to be governed by this either. But all of these institutions, which do not derive their legitimacy or power from elections, are in a state of siege. And Indian democracy, which was—at this point there’s no doubt it’s electorally vibrant, very vibrant, but the liberal dimensions of democracy, which have been weaker in the past also than its electoral aspects, are certainly in a state—are being attacked as only once before. That was during the Emergency. ASTILL: Sobering thought, which we can return to. Stephen, let’s switch to the kind of related but quite distinct, actually, area of security and militancy. What would you—so we have, as Ashu mentioned, a great suppression of the citizens of the valley right now, including their leadership, including their media. But there will be, as Ashu says, a degree of decompression. Things will return somehow somewhat to normal soon. What would you expect to see then? TANKEL: Sure. I think—I mean, first, I think it’s safe to—it’s a safe bet to say that this has clearly fed grievances that were already, you know, quite robust, especially in the valley. Talking to security forces and officials there for a number of years, I mean, it’s been—it’s been articulated clearly to researchers and scholars the sense that it’s a lack of weapons and it’s a securitized climate that is sort of keeping the lid on more than ability to address, you know, underlying risk factors that are going to lead to militancy there. And India as been, I think, you know, on guard against the formation of new organizations and infiltration of terrorist groups, although we still get a couple hundred militants crossing the Line of Control annually. So there’s been this—you know, there’s already—it’s already a very securitized situation. The situation has been further securitized. And I think what’s going to be a challenge for India is as it sort of does try to decompress, how it does that in a way that continues to keep the lid on to the degree that they’ve done. And I think that in part goes to the way in which militancy has been evolving in the region. I mean, a big part of this is, obviously, the activities of Pakistan-supported groups, most notably Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hizbul Mujahideen. And those groups, beginning around—I guess in probably 2012/2013, began trying to ramp back up their activities. And we saw higher-profile attacks beginning around 2015, and we’ve seen at least one a year more or less, and sometimes two or three of year, several of which that have spurred responses from India against Pakistan. But alongside that has been growing protest movements for a number of years—nonviolent, also involving stone-throwing, things of that nature—that at times some of these groups have fed by providing money or try to stoke resentment, but are almost entirely indigenous, really, at the end of the day. And the suppression of these protest movements and of individuals has further stoked militancy, and I think the Pulwama attack earlier this year is a very, very good example of that—suicide bombing that killed over forty people done by a Kashmiri Muslim who, if memory serves, I think had been arrested five different times by the authorities, right? And so it’s the potential for militant organizations—in this case it as Jaish-e-Mohammed—to leverage these individuals who are becoming radicalized by this process. But at the same time, I think there are two other developments that I would briefly point to. One is the cooperation and competition that exists between these different organizations. And so although one organization may claim credit or one might be out front, behind the scenes I think there’s been a pooling of resources at times between LeT, JeM. For a little while they were pushing Hizbul Mujahideen out front because it was seen as more indigenous, and so that gave the sense that this was an entirely indigenous event. But simultaneously competition among them, and that can lead to outbidding. And that highlights, I think, the other development that’s worth noting, which is that among some Kashmiri youth who are radicalized or prone to radicalization, there is I think frustration or lack of confidence in these organizations because they are seen as having failed over time. That on the one hand opens the door potentially for groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State, although I think we shouldn’t make too much of that at this stage. On the other hand it also means that there’s the potential for more disorganized violence, which nevertheless may get laid at the feet of these Pakistan-supported organizations. And so, you know, that has ramifications not only for the security situation in Kashmir, but also for relations between India and Pakistan. ASTILL: So, to try to kind of summarize what’s complicated, it’s a tangled knot. There are for sure, when we see violence—and perhaps logically we may expect an uptick in violence in the valley—in Delhi they will scream that it’s all Pakistan’s doing, that it’s all cross-border. Actually, it may be. It need not be. It’s perfectly possible that internal grievance and actually organized groups alone and currently on the ground in Kashmir are adequate to drive a degree of protest—violent protest, insurgency even, but there will probably be enough foreign involvement for Delhi to be able to plausibly claim that the Pakistanis are involved somehow. TANKEL: Yeah. I think it’s also notable that at the very least it appears that at this stage Pakistan has been restraining its organizations and trying to make its play in the diplomatic sphere. It’s questionable how long that restraint lasts on the Pakistani side. But again, it’s also questionable whether that restraint really matters. If, you know, locals in Kashmir are able to source explosives or get their hands on other weapons, they can act largely on their own, potentially, you know, only in name of another organization across the border. And to the degree to which these organizations are able to maintain an infrastructure in Indian-administered Kashmir and provide assistance, you know, it’s not as though during the height of the insurgency every attack that was taking place was being supported or directed from across the border. And you know, this—what’s happening now creates the potential for, you know—for more Pulwamas, as it were. At the same time, I think, you know, the other—the other point I would make is it’s a heavily securitized situation, and so the potential to keep a lid on attacks is still there. But what India will need to do to keep a lid on those attacks runs counter to their underlying rationale for revoking 370 and 35A. If the whole point was to develop, you know, Jammu and Kashmir and integrate them more into India, and you need to continue to securitize the environment in order to avoid an uptick in attacks, it’s going to be very, very difficult to accomplish both of those things simultaneously. Which I would argue has been a large part of the problem all along, is that when India has talked about normalizing the situation, to normalize the situation would mean to give voice to what people on the ground actually want. And New Delhi has not had any desire to do that for years. I don’t see that changing now. ASTILL: When you say—and I understand that you caveated this—but when you—when you say that the degree of grievance and the degree of disaffection with those same militant groups that have been on the ground for a long time in Kashmir is such that you might have conditions welcoming to Islamic State or al-Qaida, the distinction you made between Islamic State/al-Qaida and Jaish or Lashkar-e-Taiba is that they have a more internationalist vision or that they’re more ruthless? Or what’s the distinction that you’re making there? TANKEL: More of a global vision. ASTILL: Yeah. TANKEL: Fewer ties to the Pakistani state. And this sense of—you know, I mean, when—to the degree that individuals—and one wants to be very, very careful about painting with too broad a brush. But to the degree to which more globally oriented organizations have been able to find purchase, it has at times been because individuals on the ground cease to become—you know, they no longer see value in sort of their—you know, a national or regional identity, and it’s much more of a—of a global identity. Or because these entities are seen as having credibility in that they have no ties to any state, they’re not beholden to local politics, they’re good online, what have you. And this is something that has repeated itself in various places. We’re here to talk about Kashmir, so I don’t want to talk about other regions around the world. But you know, I—Kenya primarily faces an al-Shabaab problem, but there are individuals who are, you know, radicalizing online, disconnected from Shabaab and motivated by Islamic State. Same thing—we’ve seen that in Afghanistan. So that—it opens the door for that type of issue as well, which is—which is separate. It is a—it is not the same problem as a Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed problem. And it has an impact on how LeT and JeM and Hizbul Mujahideen may behave. ASTILL: Yeah. Let’s leave that there just to lay down a marker, Ashu. I want to move on to Aparna, but we’ll come back to this. I am particularly interested in the kind of—the internal political optics of this. You know, the Modi government has just worked out how to win stonking great electoral majorities by being as belligerent as you like against Pakistan. And it will present an argument that it’s done the right thing in Kashmir, that it’s justified by whatever cross-border its own actions have elicited. If the violent, we may expect, protests that erupt in Kashmir—we may expect; there may not—come to seem far more domestic, I think the politics shifts internally in India in a potentially interesting way. Aparna, can you—can you kind of widen the focus for us? What is—what’s going on in Pakistan? What does it mean for the regional relations and beyond? PANDE: Thanks, James. I’d like to thank CFR. So both countries have actually looked at Kashmir through a slightly different lens, and the way they portray it to the international community is also different. For India, Kashmir has for decades remained what they see as a bilateral or internal matter; whereas, for Pakistan, the aim has always been to internationalize the issue as much as possible. So India’s argument is it is Indian territory, the instrument of accession, and elections mean the people want to stay with India. Pakistan’s argument is that a plebiscite should be conducted as per the U.N. Security resolution—which actually the last one was passed in ’57, which is before a large number of us were born in this room, and so you may need a newer resolution. Till quite recently India used to say that the Simla Agreement of 1972 is the one by which the two countries should discuss. In recent, actually, months, India has started to say that when India says Kashmir and discuss Kashmir with Pakistan, it only means the Pakistani part of Kashmir, and there’s no discussion on Indian Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan, however, treats the Simla Agreement as something that was imposed, and therefore does not believe it needs to abide by that. What has happened in recent months is I’ll sort of go along with Stephen and say that Pakistan’s dichotomy today is that on the one hand it would like more pressure on India which is internal and from domestic jihadi groups. However, as of now, any jihadi attack or attack inside India—inside Indian Kashmir will be the first explosion will come on Pakistan. And when Pakistan faces international pressure at FATF, IMF, and the international community, it would not want an attack which can be traced back to Pakistan. However, no attack and no pressure on India domestically also does not suit the Pakistani military establishment. So it is caught between trying to push for a diplomatic pressure on Pakistan through the international community and not wanting—and ideally not wanting any attack inside India, and yet that may not actually happen because it’s most likely that a terror attack will happen sooner or later inside Indian Kashmir. One point I’d like to make—like to push here is that India believes it has resolved the issue, according to New Delhi, and it has presented the world with what it sees as a fait accompli, and that India’s friends should give it the benefit of doubt and allow it time to restore the situation. India is fortunate that as of now Pakistan’s attempts to raise the matter at the U.N. Security Council have not succeeded, and there is by and large an international consensus that terrorism is not acceptable. However, there have been growing concerns in the last few months. The U.S. State Department, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the French president have reiterated that India needs to do more, especially with respect to the situation inside the valley, and that the situation is not sustainable. India has sought—has—to avoid internationalization. However, I would argue that the recent move has actually resulted in the exact opposite. This is the first time since the 1990s that there have been two hearings on Kashmir on the Hill, and that people are actually talking about Kashmir and domestic situation of Kashmir, which India would not have wanted. And nobody’s pushing for a resolution of Kashmir right now, but the issue will—till the time that you actually resolve the issue legally and properly in the eyes of some, it will remain something that New Delhi will have to deal with. A different American, French, German, or British leader can bring the issue back to the U.N. Security Council. China will always support Pakistan. What India needs to be concerned about is how do the others—other countries, which are Indian friends and partners, how do they view India’s policies, and how long can India hope that the international community will give India the benefit of doubt. ASTILL: Thank you, Aparna. I think you may have explained to us why India didn’t leap at President Trump’s offered meetings— PANDE: Yes. (Laughter.) ASTILL: —on this issue. Let me—let me briefly—and then I’d like to turn it over to you, the audience, so you’ve all got a decent opportunity to ask your questions—let me just briefly try to play devil’s advocate here. We know that the—that the highly damaging Pakistani (4G ?) state, the military state, has been—has lived on this fantasy of an Indian threat entirely based around the uncertain status of the Valley of Kashmir, and that, you know, Pakistani (4Gs ?) especially will cite you chapter and verse of long-ago Security Council resolutions and, you know, sort of storied dreams of plebiscites, things that have never looked remotely feasible for decades now. Is there in any way a realist/pragmatic argument that one could attach any credibility to that India has in a brutal way dispelled some of that fantasy; has made the status of Kashmir entirely no longer a subject for international debate; and though we are living through an illiberal, undemocratic, and reprehensible moment in India, it need not have negative consequences for the region? Could you attach any hope to that—(inaudible)—the valiant devil’s advocacy argument? PANDE: Sure. VARSHNEY: Illiberal moment for sure, but not undemocratic. Electoral democracy is thriving in India. Illiberal for sure. So I think we’ll have to draw a distinction between the— ASTILL: I think—I think Kashmiris might take issue with that. PANDE: (Laughs.) So, yes, I mean, I do believe that New Delhi views it just as you explained it, that sort of let us try and sort of present the world with the option that sort of, you know, Jammu and Kashmir— ASTILL: That it’s a fait accompli, yeah. Yeah, yeah. PANDE: Yeah, it’s fait accompli, try and avoid intervention. Sort of if we recall a few months ago, President Trump did offer in July of this year to mediate. India is concerned that the American withdrawal from Afghanistan could lead to pressure on India as a quid pro quo for Pakistan helping in Afghanistan, so try and remove the options which come in the quid pro quo in case Kashmir is one of those. So present the world, present Pakistan, and then see how the world reacts. I mean, the only part I would add to it is this sort of—this could work out if in the next few months/years there’s actual democracy and development in the valley. But if in the next few months/years we are sort of—we see just a repetition of what’s happening right now, then I think they will have a—New Delhi will have a problem in selling it. ASTILL: I mean, to both of you, because both of your comments touched on this—all three of you, actually—do you feel that the valley is winnable by Delhi? Do you think that there are things from this base that the central government could do to mollify public opinion in Kashmir? PANDE: Yes, but they would have to do things which they may or may not be very comfortable with, which is sort of trying to sort of, first, release the politicians, try and restore a sense of normalcy in the valley, because without that you cannot bring in the money and the development that you seek to bring into that region. And try and make the valley feel that it is part of India, not a territory which you need to keep under your control. ASTILL: Yeah. Thanks, Aparna. Could I just have a brief show of hands, who might like to ask a question in the next thirty minutes? Just a fluttering of arms in the air. OK, fine. (Laughter.) Well, then let’s start with some. Gentleman here. If you’d just tell us your name and address a short, brief, pointed question to whoever you— Q: Yes. My name is Islam Siddiqui. I’m former undersecretary of agriculture in USDA. I have been at—I’m part of the Indian diaspora and a very strong supporter of secular and democratic India. I think what—events in Kashmir, I have a question for—especially, Aparna, for you. And you mentioned that the last three—India’s relationship with—New Delhi especially—with Kashmir has been very tense from the very beginning, 1948. Now these actions of August 4 or 5, they are creating new, you know, dynamics for—if we want to make Kashmiris to feel more Indian, what Mr. Modi has done is just the opposite what he should have done. And now my question is, how do we put the genie back? Because I would like to see the situation becomes what had existed before August 4. Thank you. ASTILL: Let me—let me add something to that question because I think it’s the question I just asked now. So of course, you know, the central government will always say development is the answer; these people just need economic development. It’s the standard response in this kind of situation. How sufficient would economic development—which has never come to the valley—be? Or do people feel that their sovereignty has been removed from them, and they will not be mollified unless they’re given some greater freedoms than Delhi imagines them enjoying? So certainly perhaps a return to statehood, and perhaps something more. Do you want to comment on that, Ashu? VARSHNEY: Yeah. So this is certainly not a way to win hearts and minds, it should be clear. Delhi could in principle—and Jaishankar—Foreign Minister Jaishankar has made this argument in a couple of interviews that we need time to slide back to normalcy. But that argument—if the argument only is that development will deliver Kashmiri hearts and minds to India, then first of all that argument is wrong in principle because it’s democracy and development which might do it, as opposed to only development. Secondly, if the—if the security situation remains tricky, it’s not clear why private investors would go into the valley. Private investors will go into Jammu, and there is enough money to be made in Jammu. And now you can legally buy land there if you’re a non-Kashmiri. You can buy land for whatever you have to do. So they will do it in Jammu. Why would they go to the valley, where there might be attacks on their—on their business installations? So I think—I don’t see how development alone, were it to happen, would do it, right? There has to be some that turn to democracies, you know, however wish to conceptualize it, that important experience of life. ASTILL: And on that, just to touch where I started, how important is statehood, do you think? VARSHNEY: It seems to me if Mr. Modi loses the next election—and as of now we can’t say anything about that, whether he’d win or he’d lose—and it seems to me if the Supreme Court allows simply a legislative change, then the next government can change the special status, through its control over the two houses. So I—if it’s simply a legislative matter, then Kashmir’s older status can return. If it’s a constitutional matter, then we—then we’re in very different political— ASTILL: But are you—when you say that they need not only development but more democracy, is it possible to—Steve, I’ll come to you—is it possible to envisage that without a return to either statehood or even super-statehood? VARSHNEY: Mr. Modi’s proposal is that as a union territory, Kashmir—Jammu and Kashmir can vote in elections because they can have their own legislative assembly. That assembly will be reporting to Delhi, right? But a legislative assembly can come about as soon as the situation is normal, or somewhat normal. I don’t see how the Valley of Kashmir will accept their argument. The Valley of Kashmir at the very least would like the special status back. ASTILL: Yeah. VARSHNEY: And if you want to say that special status was bogus and had been substantially politically attenuated in any case, well, its symbolic importance remains. Its symbolic importance remains. ASTILL: The land issue is—was quite a substantial difference, right? VARSHNEY: It may be that they’re able to get the special status back, but they may not be able to hold on to Article 35A. There was something obviously very troubling about the fact that non-Kashmiris could not buy land in Kashmir at all. ASTILL: Yeah. VARSHNEY: There was something—it’s not clear that even—from either liberal or democratic perspective would support that. There was something terrible about that. ASTILL: Steve. Let me— TANKEL: Yeah, I just wanted to add a couple points. One, I agree with Ashu that development alone is not going to solve this problem. I think that the attempt to sort of overlook the sentiments of a whole lot of Kashmiris in terms of their desires for greater autonomy is—seems very, very naïve to me. But I would also add to that that when it comes to sort of the question of democracy and politics, that it’s not—there’s these macro questions about what happens with 370, but it’s also the fact that for a long time the politics in India-administered Kashmir didn’t work particularly well. There was a fair amount of meddling and patronage and everything else and the sense that New Delhi was involved in negative, not positive, ways in the politics of the region. And unless that changes as well, I think it’s very, very hard to see how the government accomplishes what it wants to. I would also, just to reinforce Ashu’s point and expand on it, I think there’s this question of development for whom? Right now development has taken a step backwards. Terrorism is down, investment is down, it’s very, very hard to see how it’s going to come anytime soon. But when it does, I think there’s real questions about who that development is going to benefit in J&K. And then finally I would just circle back and expand on the point that I was making earlier, which is that all of this idea of normalcy presumes a future in which there are not hundreds of thousands of Indian forces on the ground trying to keep a lid on the situation. And this idea that development is going to magically, for all the reasons I and Ashu and others have laid out, wipe away all of these grievances is again, I think, hopelessly naïve. And so as long as New Delhi is concerned about the security situation and has all of these forces on the ground, I think it’s very, very hard to see how the type of integration that is envisaged actually occurs. ASTILL: Yeah. Yeah. PANDE: Just a brief point, brief. ASTILL: Just briefly, Aparna. PANDE: One, for the last seven decades the aspiration of a large number of people in India has been to acquire statehood, not to be deprived of statehood. So I just thought of—you know, it’s like—so to say that, you know, you don’t care whether you are a state, you should ask Telangana or the—I mean, the Bodo still demand. So there are parts of India which still demand statehood. So reversing it is something very contrary for the last seven decades. Quick, a small point, Article 35A may seem unnatural, but we must not forget that there are many parts of India where outsiders cannot buy land. I come from Uttarackhand. I can buy land there, other Indians cannot. So Helian tribal areas in India do get special status and outsiders are not allowed to buy land unless you are a domicile of that area. It’s not sort of—so it’s—there are many other states which have that as well. ASTILL: It’s not so unusual, yeah, yeah. Let’s kick it back to the audience. The gentleman at the back there. Q: Hi. Puneet Talwar, a former government official. If you were to construct a back channel between—involving Pakistan, India, Kashmiris, who would you have in the room in that back channel? Secondly, should the United States play a more aggressive role? And if so, what would that look like? ASTILL: Aparna, do you want to respond to that? PANDE: Actually, there have been a lot of track twos, track one-point-five, track threes over the last few decades, and they haven’t really gone anywhere. And part of the reason is that it’s the same people who come from both sides. From the Pakistani side you find the military establishment and its approved people who come. And till you—till that is changed, I don’t—and from the Indian side again, sort of a set number of people. So till the composition changes, which it will not because each government does arrogate to itself, especially the Pakistanis side, who goes to these track twos, I don’t believe these track twos will make any difference. Secondly, with the change that India has undertaken right now, the Indian government will sort of—till it is—till the issue of Kashmir, Article 370, the repercussions is settled, I don’t really see any track two, track 2.5 going anywhere except people will have an opportunity to meet in really nice places around the world. Wait, the second part of your—yeah, the U.S. I sort of—I do believe the United States, both the government as well as the legislature, have sort of—have expressed their views. I don’t believe sort of saying more than that will make a difference to anybody right now, but I do believe that what is being done should not be stopped either. I do believe as friends you’re supposed to tell your friend when you don’t agree or when you believe they are—they’re doing something which you don’t agree with or you don’t think looks good. That’s my take. VARSHNEY: If there’s a Democratic administration—if I may?—next year, will that change America’s—Washington’s position? PANDE: Official, I don’t think so. I mean, President Trump did offer to mediate and the pushback immediately came that said that, you know, we are happy to mediate if and when both India and Pakistan ask us to do so. So I don’t think that part will change. Will the number of hearings? Let’s say we are in the same situation one year from now and Kashmir is—continues the way it is today, then yes, the hearings on the Hill and the statements will be worse. But I don’t believe— ASTILL: And broadly the continuity in U.S.-India relations, the idea that there’s a bigger prize out there than Indo-Pak relations and piddling Kashmir, it is now pretty bipartisan and conventional wisdom in this city, I think. TANKEL: I remember asking somebody at the Embassy a while ago in Delhi, every time I would go I’d say how often are you visiting Srinagar or the valley, and over the years the number of times that people were going up there was declining because it was becoming less and less of an issue in the bilateral relationship. ASTILL: And then only to ski. TANKEL: So my, just for what it’s worth, I think there’s—right, it’s also important to distinguish between whether the U.S. position on how India and Pakistan and the Kashmiris sort out that—the final status versus raising the—to Aparna’s point, the question of human rights and repressive policies. Those are, I think, potentially two different issues for a Democratic administration, and I think there’ll be continuity on the former, but more focus on the latter. ASTILL: Yeah. Yeah. VARSNEY: Aparna, do you agree with the claim often made that Democratic administrations in Washington tend to care more about human rights than the Republican administrations? Do you think that that particular argument is supportable at all? PANDE: I don’t, actually. I sort of—let me brief this way, that for the last two decades, ever since President Clinton and the improvement in the deepening of the economic and strategic aspect of the India-U.S relationship, there has been a sort of change, or let’s say a reluctance by either side to push the other on issues, which may have sort of happened more in the ’70s and ’80s. So India will not talk about a foreign hand and the U.S. will sort of, except for—let’s leave out the nuclear tests of the late 1990s—the U.S. does not sort of again talk about mediation in Kashmir. So there has been a change and I don’t believe that will change, irrespective of who the president is next November. President Obama, it did not change. So President Bush, President Obama, even President Trump to some extent, there has been a continuity you can see. And I believe that the last two hearings in the last one month are not because of any change in how the current administration views India. It has more to do with what is happening in Kashmir. So it’s not a narrative which India needs to change. ASTILL: A bit of muscle memory—a bit of muscle memory on the Hill. PANDE: Yeah. So it’s not a question that India—the narrative India needs to change in this is that India needs to do more on the ground in order to—in order for things to move ahead in this city. ASTILL: Let’s look for other questions. Any women? (Laughter.) Alyssa (sp)? Yes. TANKEL: There you go. (Laughter.) Q: Hi, guys. I’ve got a couple of things, I guess. First of all, I actually spoke—oh, sorry. Uscerf Ausli (ph) from OSD Policy. I actually spoke on the Hill last week about Kashmir and I feel like there’s a couple of things being said today that don’t really align with kind of ground realities—one being this development, kind of like a BJP state-line narrative that development in Kashmir is the issue for why India entered and changed its status. But if you look at all the economic indicators for Kashmir, it’s not in the lowest of India; it’s pretty middling. It’s—and considering the fact that it’s been very heavily militarized, very heavily not-tourist-friendly, it’s actually not like—this economic development argument doesn’t hold a lot. The reason people haven’t come in—like last month a congressman was denied entry—is because so many human rights observers and impartial observers aren’t allowed into Kashmir. So it’s kind of a communications black box. For the last four months the internet has been off. Landlines got turned on maybe like a month ago, texting is off, cell phones are off. So it’s very much—it’s not just that they took away special status; they took away a lot of human rights and a lot of just regular daily activities from people. So I just feel like—I guess I’m having a hard time with this conversation. I think—I actually have a question, which is my understanding was that—and again, because of the communications blackout, I think it’s hard to know what’s happening on the ground right now—is that in Jammu the government had thought people would be very, very happy about this change of status, and that people weren’t happy and they took away the internet in Jammu. And I was wondering if you guys could speak to that, because I really don’t know. ASTILL: So your question is how is this going down in Jammu? Q: Yes. That’s my question. ASTILL: Ashu? VARSHNEY: Well, historically, as well as in more recent times, there’s no doubt Jammu, which is roughly 44 percent of the state and is in the majority. A lot of you know, but perhaps all don’t know that it’s in the majority part of the region of the state—65 percent, roughly 65 percent, now I think 63. But anyway, 63 to 65 percent Hindu and 32 to 35 percent Muslim has been Jammu’s demographic makeup. And Jammu has never gone with the valley. Never. At no point. And even recent—we have some recent survey data to show that Jammu’s identification with India is not the issue. Jammu seriously identifies with India. Ladakh also identifies with India. The problem is the valley, which is where 55 percent of the state’s population lives currently, and it’s 96 percent Muslim. ASTILL: To the extent—and we were discussing this in the green room earlier—that in Jammu they’re perfectly happy to be controlled by Delhi, to be reporting to Delhi, because they’re no longer being bullied by the Muslims up the road, as they—as they may say. VARSHNEY: Yeah, so both Ladakh and Jammu have—there’ve been movements also, at least in Jammu there have been movements. Ladakh is—Ladakh is sort of a Sleeping Beauty, right? So it’s not—not too much happens there unless there’s a—like Wales. Sleeping Beauty. You know, as they were telling me, it was for Wales as opposed to Scotland. ASTILL: I’ve never heard that before. (Laughter.) I like it a lot. VARSHNEY: In national literature that’s what Wales is called when you compare Wales and Scotland. (Laughter.) Anyway, the point is—the point is that Jammu and Ladakh have felt the domination of Kashmiris and the valley acutely. And that’s 45 percent of the state. Fifty-five percent is in the valley. So that complicates the internal political situation immeasurably, if you will. And they have no trouble being ruled by Delhi because they are not going to be ruled by the valley now. Historically the attempt of Sheikh Abdullah’s party was to be a party of all parts of Jammu and Kashmir. To some extent they succeeded for a little bit of time, but they didn’t on the whole, and also Sheikh Abdullah was incarcerated for such a long time. So you don’t have a meeting of minds or merging of hearts here between Jammu, Ladakh and Kashmir. They have resented Kashmiri dominance of the state. ASTILL: Yes. Well, thank you for that. Another question or two. Gentleman here? Yes? The gentleman here with the beard, actually. Q: We both have questions. (Laughter.) ASTILL: Oh, of course. Twin brothers sitting there with their hands up at the same time. Thanks, guys. One after the other then. Q: Hi. My name is Razi Hashmi. I’m a Term member and also with the State Department. So with both the legislative and executive branches being denied access, the communications blockade, the closing of the mosque in Srinagar, how do we expect to hear voices of the Kashmiris to be elevated on what they truly want? So I know that’s kind of similar to Uscerf’s (ph) question, but I really—I do honestly want to know how are we supposed to hear from Kashmiris if we can’t hear from Kashmiris? ASTILL: Who would like to— VARSHNEY: So I think the government’s argument is clear, whether you believe it is a separate issue. Government’s argument is that as soon as we are near normalcy there will be elections. The elections will be for the state assembly, which would report to Delhi. Right? Their argument is very clear on this, that there will be elections at an appropriate time. Now, they think it should happen sooner than later. We don’t know when that’ll happen. We absolutely do not know when that’ll happen. And if the idea in an election that you should be in control of your destiny and not be ruled by Delhi, that’s off the table and sadly, one element of democratic aspirations will not be part of even that election. ASTILL: Do you think Kashmiris would boycott an election? VARSHNEY: Most probably the valley will boycott the elections. ASTILL: Aparna? PANDE: Just like to add on that from the government’s perspective, they have started to ease the restrictions to the extent that they can control them. So they have restored some of the landlines, some of the cell phones, but only those which they can control. They have sort of—they’ve also sort of had those local body elections. So you may or may not believe what they are doing, but from their point of view they are easing it and controlling it. And they would ideally like political leaders—and I’ll draw on what Stephen mentioned earlier, they would like political leaders who are not the old political leaders. They would like a new political class to emerge. Will that emerge? I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see. Because at the end of the day, Kashmiris would like to be governed by people they believe will represent them. And so if this experiment succeeds, then there will be democracy and development. Otherwise, there may be a bigger challenge on their hands six months from now. TANKEL: Yeah, could I just say I think, taking on board what both of my colleagues on the panel have said, I think the answer to your question is it’s very hard to hear from Kashmiris right now because of the present situation. And it is entirely unclear when all of these restrictions are going to ease and it’s not clear to me at least—maybe it is to somebody else—whether this is proceeding along the timeline of what New Delhi had actually envisioned or not. My sense is that this is dragging on considerably longer than they might have anticipated, based on conversations that I had when I was in Delhi, when this was going down initially. Although that may have been the interlocutors with whom I was speaking in the government, and others may have had other ideas. But I think in answer to your question and to the—to other questions about how do we know what is happening on the ground? I just—it’s incredibly frustrating, but I think the answer is to a large extent we don’t, and that is a major part of the problem. ASTILL: I guess just a brief point of information from you, Ashu, that the Supreme Court has taken a habeas corpus petition, right? And so— VARSHNEY: Not yet. ASTILL: It has not? VARSHNEY: No, no, sorry. Petitions have been admitted, but hearings have not— ASTILL: Hearings— VARSHNEY: I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Habeas corpus petitions have not been admitted. On habeas corpus. ASTILL: Is that right? VARSHNEY: But on Article 370 and—petitions have been admitted. ASTILL: Right. OK, thank you. Other gentleman with a beard at the same stable. VARSHNEY: But the habeas corpus hearings have to be scheduled very quickly, right? Twenty-four hours, forty-eight hours. ASTILL: Yeah. Yeah. VARSHNEY: No, the petitions have not been admitted. ASTILL: Yeah. OK. My mistake, thank you. Q: Hi. Samir Alwani from the Simpson Center. I’m just wondering a little bit about in the grand scheme of things, these actions that India has taken, do they give any of its partners, including the United States, pause about whether this is an aberration, sort of a one-off, Kashmir is sort of the unique situation, or whether this presages sort of a more illiberal turn generally, and then what that means for future relationships, partners which are the community of Western democracies. ASTILL: I feel we’ve been dancing around that a little bit. Aparna, do you want to kind of give a succinct response? PANDE: Sure. I’ll try. The second part of your question, no, I don’t think that most countries choose their friends or allies or their partners based on norms. They by and large do it based on strategic interests. So India still remains important on the economic and strategic front and as long as it remains important on that, I don’t believe any of the Western or non-Western countries will start to change their views on whether or not India is a partner. On the first, yes. I mean, there are those who believe that there’s a trend, but then it’s a global trend. So at some level the argument can be made that there’s a rise in nationalism, populism, illiberal democracy, all around the world. And India is not the only country which is experiencing it. So if there’s a global trend, then you are more willing to give countries benefit of the doubt and wait, especially countries which have only had institutions for seven decades, unlike many others which have gone through two hundred, three hundred years and still are facing challenges on the democratic front. ASTILL: We’ve got five minutes left, so let’s go back to the audience. Yes, here. Gentleman here. Q: Steve Kaplan. It sounds from what the panel’s been saying that at best this is a barely manageable, barely controllable issue for the next ten or twenty years, because of the difficulties in winning the hearts and minds, if not the impossibility of that, of the 55 percent in particular. And secondly, what hasn’t been talked about that much, the issue of whether Pakistan, the Pakistani military, could ever accept even a mollified 55 percent. Comments? ASTILL: Show of hands. I mean, do you accept that characterization? Does anybody think this is going to end well in the next decade or two? PANDE: No. No. No. TANKEL: No. VARSHNEY: But the Pakistani— ASTILL: Stephen, you want to give a more articulated answer, it seemed to— TANKEL: Well, I mean, I think it’s also right, important to recognize that for the last couple decades, that for a long time India has been the status quo power in the India-Pakistan dynamic, and that India now has attempted to change the status quo to its advantage, and that for several decades now it has managed to sort of weather the storm and ride this out to a point that now it has made this move. And I guess another way of asking that question is, is India prepared to just keep a lid on this and weather the storm for another ten or twenty years, if that shifts the status quo in a way that suits it sort of at the very least domestically? And my sense is probably yes. Would Pakistan—will Pakistan accept that? No. I mean, that is very, very hard to imagine. ASTILL: Aparna, do you want to add to that? PANDE: I just wanted to add on to Steve that the Pakistani military establishment will never accept Kashmir unless Kashmir forms part of Pakistan. So till the time that they change their view, that isn’t changing. ASTILL: I think we have time for one more question. Yes. Q: I’m Jennifer Hendrickson, White House Foreign Affairs Committee, and thank you so much for this conversation. I was wondering if you could comment a little bit about another significant power that is proximate to this situation, China, and how developments might impact their thinking about the region and other territorial disputes that they have with India and, frankly, other neighbors? ASTILL: Sure. Aparna again? PANDE: So on Kashmir, actually China’s stance has been very clear for the last three, four decades. China is the country that supports Pakistan on Kashmir. China is the country which brings Kashmir if possible to the U.N. Security Council whenever required. And China has part of what India claims on—as Kashmir, which is the Aksai Chin area, that China controls it. And so—and so when India undertook the recent move, China was one of the first few countries to object to it, saying that it impinges on Chinese security. So China will remain involved and will continue to support Pakistan, not India, on the Kashmiri dispute internationally. ASTILL: What is the potential, actually, for this to exacerbate Indo-Chinese border disputes? PANDE: So India-China relations are more likely to exacerbate on the other side, because this side China more or less has Aksai Chin, so that—so it’s going to be on the Arunachal— ASTILL: On— PANDE: —the northeast side. ASTILL: Yeah, the northeast side. PANDE: That is where the— VARSHNEY: Arunachal. ASTILL: Arunachal. Arunachal. PANDE: Arunachal. That is where Tawang and that area that the India-China border tensions will take place, not on this side of the border. Or maritime. ASTILL: And the dynamics of those disputes will—China is a—is a more calculating power than— PANDE: Much more calculating, and I mean, militarily and economically more capable and powerful. ASTILL: Yes. Yes. Let me give you all a final word. What is the thing that you are looking for now on your—on your thread of this conversation or another? VARSHNEY: What is it that you would like—you would want to happen, or what is it that is likely to happen? Which. ASTILL: Are you asking me or that’s what you’re asking yourself? VARSHNEY: I’m asking you which of—those two are different— ASTILL: So the gentleman characterized this conversation very well. There is a degree of concern on multiple fronts. There is no discernible optimism from any of you that this is going to unpick the knot that Kashmir has been in in Indian domestic politics and regional geopolitics for considerable time. What is the thing that most worries you, I guess, or what is the thing that would reassure you somewhat in the— VARSHNEY: Jammu Ladakh will surge ahead and Kashmir will remain deadlocked, the valley will remain deadlocked. And that, to some, may be a matter of considerable comfort if two parts of the state surge ahead, which I think they will. But I—but the fact remains that the valley is politically central to—or central to Indian politics in the way the other two units are not. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be, but purely empirically speaking. Therefore, the likelihood of continuing deadlocked in Kashmir Valley is to me a matter of great concern. ASTILL: Thank you for that. Steve and then Aparna, thirty seconds each, no more. TANKEL: Two points. One, I think we’re unlikely to see a return to the levels of conflict that we saw during the 1990s or early 2000s, but the security situation has arguably become more unpredictable, so even if India can weather that storm I think that unpredictability in that neighborhood is cause for concern. And then to respond to Samir’s point, or question, while I would agree with Aparna that this probably doesn’t change the trajectory of the U.S.-India relationship, I think it does undercut one of the sort of key arguments that has been made for that relationship, and that’s problematic. ASTILL: That it’s a liberal democracy? TANKEL: That it’s—yeah. I mean, a lot of this has been discussion of common values. Now, I understand we are sitting in a very, very glass house here in the United States right now, but nevertheless, I think this is potentially problematic down the road. ASTILL: Thanks, Steve. Aparna. PANDE: Two. One, what is Pakistan going to do and how will it affect not just Kashmir, but even Pakistan? Because the Pakistani military establishment cannot keep quiet for so long on what is happening inside Kashmir and the steps it takes, any actions by the jihadi groups or Pakistan’s diplomatic actions in the next few months. We need to see both for Kashmir and for Pakistan. Second, I do agree with Steve. I mean, there has been a hit to India’s image in the world and the question is, do they have a plan in the next few months or are we going to see a continuation of this for the next six months to eight months? I guess what I’m interested in seeing what is their blueprint for the next six to eight months. ASTILL: Thank you all. Thank you all very much, and please join with me in thanking our three tremendous panelists, Aparna, Stephen, Ashu. (Applause.) Thank you very much. (END)

Foreign Minister Jaishankar discusses Indian foreign policy under a newly re-elected Modi government. WISNER: Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. My name is Frank Wisner. I am a(n) international affairs advisor with a law firm, Squire Patton Boggs, as well as a former ambassador to India myself. I am really pleased today to be able to welcome all of you to a conversation with India’s distinguished minister of external affairs, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. It’s a privilege for all of us, Minister, to have you with us today, and I look forward to the conversation that’s going to follow. We will start with a bit of time between the two of us to get the conversation going, and then it’s my intention to open it to the floor. And the floor in this sense is a rather broad one. We are linked to the rest of the nation—audio link, and so there will be questions coming in from around the country. So when we get to questions, please state your name, keep your question short, limit it to one question if you don’t mind, and we’ll be able to accommodate a lot. The minister’s answers, from my experience, are usually extremely—very sharply to the point, and we will get to many of you today. But again, Minister, a warm welcome to you. It is really a privilege to have you here. The time is right. The last days have underscored the importance of the relationship that has been developing between this country and India, a relationship that is of vital importance to Americans. We need to understand, in terms of the maintenance of the global balance, the ability of a balance of power to be achieved in the world between great powers, the future of your often troubled region, the economic opportunities that lie before India. But we are here today as well in light of the fact that your prime minister has returned to office with a(n) outstanding majority which has given him extraordinary capability to shape an agenda and be able to carry that through your legislature. But enough about India and the United States. I also want to just say a quick word to all of you about the minister. I’ve had the privilege of knowing you, sir, for some time. I’ve regarded you for many years as one of India’s foremost strategic thinkers, a very skilled diplomat. I first watched you negotiate the Civil Nuclear Agreement which was a tough negotiation; complex technically, fraught politically. I’ve watched you as ambassador in Washington where you made a real mark as foreign secretary guiding the hand of Indian diplomacy. And now—I can’t remember if there is an exception, I didn’t do my research well enough—but I think you are the first career officer in the diplomatic service—not? JAISHANKAR: No, Natwar Singh. WISNER: Natwar. Of course Natwar. That’s right. I should know that. Well, but it’s still an extraordinary honor that a career officer in the service should end in the political position that you are now engaged in. So let me begin, Minister, with a question. This is a decisive moment for India. The prime minister, when he cleared the election, turned to the nation and said that this was a time for all Indians to join in building a strong India. But to get there, India is going to need the sinews of a great power. The sinews of a great power include a strong economy, defense, intelligence, the capability to develop scientific knowledge. As you, today, look out at the future of Indian power and India’s emergence as a great power, what are the challenges, and how do you and the prime minister see India begins to cope with them so we can measure where you are? JAISHANKAR: Well, thank you. Let me begin, Ambassador Wisner, by first of all telling you how pleased I am to be here, to be here at the CFR, and it’s really wonderful to see so many old friends with whom I’ve had good conversations over many, many years. To turn to your question, you know, I think anybody who is looking at Indian foreign policy today needs to look at Indian domestic policy. They need to look at it because it’s the changes that are underway today in India which would define our capabilities and, frankly, our attitudes for the coming decades. Now there are many ways of describing it. I’ll give you a short version. The normal metric of measuring progress has actually been the rate of growth, OK? It’s not a wrong metric, but it’s not a full metric. The interesting change that we are seeing in India—and we’ve seen that very sharply over the last five years—is actually the socio-economic changes that are taking place: the growth of awareness, the growth of literacy, you know, changes in gender gaps, changes in skills, changes of connectivity. So the India of 2019 is very different from the India of 2014. And part of the reason why, in the elections, the ruling party—led by the prime minister—got not just a mandate, but actually got a substantially higher segment of votes. I mean, the numbers spoke a lot for what the population felt. Was that the—the prime minister is still very much the symbol of credible change in the country, and credible change, which means people actually think something important, something sort of discernible happened in those five years, and therefore they continue to trust in that—trust in him as an agent of change in India. And the connection I am making is that if, in the next five years—we are very hopeful that there is a very visible change in the human development indices of India, that there is a change in what are really the bottom-line requirements that, you know, if you can, to my mind, ensure universal health coverage, universal housing, universal literacy—I mean, these are the goals. And poverty—elimination rather than alleviation. And these goals are captured by the SDG and, you know, the point really is that today it’s India’s performance which is going to determine the global result on SDGs. And that India which comes out, to my mind, attitudinally, capacity-wise would be very different and would be much better positioned to play a greater role in world affairs. There will be some very unique developmental challenges because there are no set models, there are no precedents that India can follow in this part. I mean, India can’t replicate China, India can’t replicate Europe, so India will have to invent a development part for itself, which will be a kind of a(n) all-of-the-above kind of very mixed, complex developmental model. But out of that I actually see a much different society coming out and a society which will be both capable and be more globalized than it is today. WISNER: Minister, I think what I’m also trying to drive at is what is the strategic framework that you have and the prime minister has in mind as you chart India’s course forward, and where do we fit in? What should be the objectives of the U.S.-India relationship? JAISHANKAR: Well, you know, the strategic framework, in a way, is not something which we can determine. We can determine our strategic part or strategic options, but the strategic framework is something which will evolve from the interaction of world powers with each other. So now this is how we look at the world because that’s what you are asking in a way. There is a very radical change underway in the world, and radical change in the sense that this time around, really, the 1945 world order is running out of gas, that there are changes which are happening which will really transform the relationships of major powers with each other, with the world as a whole—with the international order, and a large part of that is the changed posture of the United States—much more nationalistic United States, which has repositioned itself or is repositioning itself, in present, continuous—and where some fundamental questions are being asked about the reliability and relevance of the alliance systems which have anchored American policy and global order for many years. It’s also a different—it will be a very different world because you have the rise of China, and the rise of China is really the first rise of a potentially global power. The last time we saw such a rise it was masked by the Second World War, so when the Second World War ended, suddenly people found that they actually had—I mean, they had one global power, the United States, but they had the second as well, the Soviet Union. So this time around there isn’t a masking. I mean, it is a—it is a very visible rise, and that will have its consequences. Europe is—you know, while the attention in Europe has largely gone to Brexit, I think continental Europe itself is going through a journey, a process. In Asia, I think there are other issues: the centrality of ASEAN is a bit of a question mark; it wasn’t that much before. It’s not very clear what will Japan do, how much will Japan do, or how that will work out. I’m sort of putting India in brackets because this is us talking about the world. There are issues about, you know, the future of Africa and the volatility of the Gulf, as well, and not least to the return of history in the positions and policies that Russia has taken, particularly in the Middle East. So this sort of world scenario, to me the strategic framework would be more multipolarity; unfortunately, less multilateralism; leading, suddenly from the perspective of a country like India, to a sort of a—I would say a multi-alignment, which is you keep your relationships well-oiled with all the major power centers, and the country which does that best actually has political positioning in the world which may be superior to its actual structural strengths. So I think good diplomacy probably means more today than it did a few years ago. So how do you—how do you manage that, and how do you ensure that is the challenge? When I say all this, I mean, it’s not—it’s not going to be clean and analytically neat. I mean, there will be issues. You will work with different countries. There will be—you would work with countries in some regions but not in other regions on some issues, but not in other issues; work with them depending on time, place, situation. So it’s going to be more variables, much messier, much nimbler, but also more creative. And for people of our profession, that’s wonderful. WISNER: Will we fit in? JAISHANKAR: Oh, it’s a new business waiting to happen. WISNER: But between the United States and India, what are your— JAISHANKAR: Oh, between the United States and India, look, I’ve seen the enormous change, and I remain optimistic that there can be—you know, that this is really the beginning and there is much more we can do. And I don’t say that as sort of a feel good statement. I really think that there are structural convergences between us. When I look at what would be the probable state of the world economy, the fact that we moving to much more knowledge-based technologies and knowledge-based economy, for me the relevance of each country to the other would grow. When I look at many of the big challenges, the challenges are similar—you know, challenges of terrorism, maritime security, of truly global, common connectivity; when I see also the human element: our ability to talk to each other—I mean, I am having this conversation with you. I’m not sure in how many capitals a similar conversation could be taking place. So for me, the human element is not unimportant, and if any of you think it is, you should have been in Houston with me at “Howdy, Modi!”—(laughter)—and you would have got the message. So I do think that there is a lot that we have going for each other, but it needs to be tempered by realistic expectations, by a sense on both sides that neither would automatically and unthinkingly underwrite the position of the other. WISNER: Yes. JAISHANKAR: And therefore it is important to have those good conversations and deep understandings of each other. WISNER: I’m so glad you put it that way. I believe respect for India’s strategic autonomy is critical in the terms of America fashioning our end of the relationship. But relations, structures, and strategy depend on how we execute on given issues, and there are a number out there today. Minister, I would like to touch on a couple with you before we go to questions. The vexing question of Kashmir, of Pakistan, that aspect of Kashmir—how do you look forward to managing your relationships with Pakistan? How do you see you can get yourselves in a position where you are back in dialogue and have a chance to get a grip on the stability of South Asia? JAISHANKAR: Well, you used two key words, and I would like to begin by differentiating them. One was Kashmir and one was Pakistan. I’ll tell you why I do that. I don’t think that the fundamental issue between India and Pakistan is Kashmir, OK. I think it’s part of the issues between us, but if you look at a lot of what has happened in the last thirty, forty years—you know, you had for example the 26/11 attack on the city of Mumbai. Now the city of Mumbai is a few thousand miles away from Kashmir. You had, you know, the abortive attack on the India parliament. So I think there are larger—I mean, we should distinguish between the antipathy—the deep antipathy that the—that segments of Pakistan nurse towards India from coveting Kashmir. I think they are autonomous issues; they are linked to each other— WISNER: Accept the distinction. JAISHANKAR: —but they are not the same issue. WISNER: Accept the distinction, focus on Pakistan. JAISHANKAR: So let me—let me look at Pakistan. To my mind, the big challenge before us is if you have differences with a neighbor, how do you resolve them? Now these differences are not normal differences because they are rooted in our history, and our history is not—to the extent any two neighbors have what we may call a normal history, it’s not a normal history. Now if you look in terms of how these countries have dealt with each other, from—and I’m obviously giving you my side of it—you have a neighbor who will not trade with you, who is a member of the WTO and, before that, of the GATT, but will not extend MFN status even though they are legally obliged to—and we did. You have a neighbor who would not allow you connectivity, so we have, for example, the potential to use Pakistan to transit on to Afghanistan or Iran, but they will not allow you that connectivity; who in many ways have slowed down regionalism largely because of a concern that that might integrate them more with our economy; who filter people-to-people interaction. So it’s a very challenging neighbor, OK? Now all of that you could still handle if they then don’t do the one thing which is actually unacceptable in the world today, which is to conduct terrorism as—in their eyes—a legitimate tool of statecraft, as a way of pressurizing you to come to the negotiating table. Now it’s not that it has never been done before in history, but it’s not today acceptable as a sort of a norm of international relations anymore. There is no part in the world—I mean, you have terrorism in different parts of the world, but there is no part of the world where a country uses it consciously, deliberately as a large-scale industry against its neighbor. So for me the issue is not do you talk to them, don’t you talk to them. Of course, I mean, everybody wants to talk to their neighbor. The issue is how do I talk to a country that is conducting terrorism and which, frankly, I would say follows a policy of implausible deniability; that, you know, they do it, they kind of pretend they don’t do it. They know that that pretense is not serious, but yet they do it. So how do you—how do you address that? I think it’s a huge challenge for us. WISNER: Though I leave this moment in our conversation seeing no particular windows opening in the dialogue between Islamabad and Delhi, but let me take you down the road a little bit further to the neighbor, Afghanistan, of huge strategic significance to India over the centuries, and now how do you see the next steps in the wake of our negotiation with the Taliban? How does India’s strategic balance in your northwest frontier—how do you assure that? JAISHAKAR: Well, look, at one level we can understand the compulsions on the United States. I mean, the United States has had an eighteen-year military commitment in Afghanistan, and frankly, I can’t think of any country other than the United States which is even capable of such a commitment. So the first point I would make is even while people are focusing on, you know, the Americans are pulling out, or negotiating, whatever the U.S. is doing, I think the region and certainly countries like us should stop a moment, reflect on the last eighteen years, and express their appreciation for what the U.S. has done to stabilize that region, that’s been for the larger benefit of the region. Having done that, you have to then say, OK, the U.S. is now reassessing its commitments. You may not—we may like it or not like it. It’s not relevant. The U.S. will do what the U.S. has to do. Then the issue is, you know, how best do you manage it? What suggestions to do you give, how do you work with different players on that. And here, for us, the guiding principle would be the enormous achievements of the last eighteen years, because an enormous amount of good was done in Afghanistan. I think today I don’t see that reflected in the discourse. I mean, anybody who’s been to Afghanistan, and I’ve been there, you know, if you look—if you look at the demography of Afghanistan, Afghans have left for the last eighteen years the Taliban-controlled areas and gone to the areas controlled by the U.S., which tells you what actually the average Afghans feel. You’ve had—eighteen years is a long time. And you actually had a generation of Afghans who’ve grown up with only this as their living memory. So how do you actually protect against, you know, today the gains of multiple opinions, of pluralism in different ways, of the ability of faiths to—multiple faiths to coexist? You know, women’s rights, children’s rights, some of those basic civil liberties which we take as a norm in every other state. So how—you know, for me, I do get the big message, which is that the U.S. is going to sort of reposition, you know, re-posture, in a way. But how do you protect against, while doing so? I mean, to me, that’s the big challenge. WISNER: And? JAISHANKAR: And, you know, I would say at the present time the best bet would be actually perhaps to, frankly, trust the Afghans more. I think somehow there’s a tendency to be very dismissive of those who—you know, those forces who have grown in the last eighteen years. I think there are capabilities there that are—even institutions there. I think a lot of that will not disappear when the United States hypothetically were to tend down. WISNER: But in your construct of multiple powers in the world, there will be other players with which India has established relationships—with Russia, with China, with Pakistan—all of which will impinge on Afghanistan’s future. I am stealing too much of your time. In fact, I had several other questions. I wanted to talk about China. I wanted to get for a moment deeper into the question of Kashmir. But I recognize time’s limited and we have a busy audience here, we want to get to their questions, and an audience out in the rest of the country. So please let me stop here and ask the floor, put your hand up, state your name, and then we’ll try to call on you. And be sure you keep that question short. I see a gentleman in the little row there, it’s over here. He needs a mic, doesn’t he? Go ahead. Go ahead. Q: I didn’t raise my hand, but I do have a question. WISNER: Oh, I’m so sorry about that. (Laughter.) Q: Not at all. If the microphone comes to you, you have to. Sir, good evening. My name is Michael Carson from McKinsey & Company in London. My question, which I hope doesn’t sound facile to you, is around the sport of cricket. I speak as an Englishman and knowing that the region is massively invested in cricket, with Afghanistan and Bangladesh now emerging too. But between India and Pakistan, often the countries stop when the two nations play each other. There’s a rivalry, for sure. Can this not be a source of a rapprochement, seeing as it touched the two countries at the very deepest level? WISNER: Good. JAISHANKAR: You know, I must tell you, when I look back at the last few years one little thing which I did, which I’m particularly proud of, was to help find the Afghan national team a kind of a home—a cricket base to actually develop the team, which happened to be a suburb of Delhi. And when I look at them today performing I identify almost as much with them as I do with my own team. But the answer to your question about India-Pakistan cricketing linkages, look, it’s very difficult in real life to separate issues. Now, if you—if you see some of the very difficult things which have happened between India and Pakistan—I mean, we had, you know, some years ago an attack—a very major attack on an airbase in India. Then, I mean, this year we’ve had—you had in 2016 an attack on a military camp which killed a lot of people. This year we had a suicide attack which killed a lot of policemen. If the dominant narrative of a relationship is of terrorism, suicide bombings, violence, then you say, OK, guys, now take a break, let’s go and play cricket, I think that’s a very hard narrative to sell to people. So there is—there is—I mean, look, this is a democracy. Sentiments of people do matter. And the one message I don’t want to give is you do terrorism by night, and it’s business as usual by day. You know, and unfortunately that’s the message I would give if I were to follow this one. WISNER: Question? Elisa, front row. Q: Thank you. Alyssa Ayres, Council on Foreign Relations. I’ll take up the question on China that Ambassador Wisner didn’t get to. Maybe mine might be a little different. We’ll see. One of the areas that has been a source of the strategic partnership between India and the United States and, frankly, a source of differentiation between our countries and China, is democracy. But India has not been a country that traditionally likes to promote democracy externally. Can you speak a little bit about how the government is thinking about its role as now a member of the quad consultation, our strong relationship—the Malabar exercises are just beginning now, along with Japan. How does that democracy piece play in the way India is thinking about its foreign policy? WISNER: I’m going to push Alyssa’s question also to ask you to expand it a little bit and talk about her question in the context of how India foresees careful management of its competition and its cooperation with China. JAISHANKAR: OK. But before I get to the C-word, I want to say a few words about the D-word, which is democracy, because I’m not sure I entirely agree with the assumptions underlying your question. I think Indians are more cautious about talking—about promoting democracy abroad. But if you look at the actual record, you know, there was a consistent policy for many, many years of promoting the democrats in Nepal, when it was a monarchy, you know, first when the Ranas were ruling, then when it was a monarchy. So actually Nepali political parties, including Nepal congress, operated for many years out of India. And the democratic forces in Nepal always had a sort of home in India. If you look at Myanmar, again, we were one of the earliest supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi. And when the NLD got going, in fact, a lot of the NLD activists found refuge in India. If you look at Bangladesh, in fact, we have been far more consistently supportive of the Awami League and less so of military regimes and the BNP, which was very closely aligned to them. If you look at Sri Lanka, where the big challenges was less of democracy but more of pluralism of ethnic identity, again, the absence of pluralism and the attempts to impose a very unitary culture was something which clearly was disapproved by India. And, again, there was very practical consequences for that. Even in Pakistan. I mean, if you look at the democratic forces of Pakistan, I mean, the Bhutto family at one point of time and Nawaz Sharif, these are people with whom there was very visible sympathy where India’s concerned. I think—so my first point would be that actually we don’t kind of wear it on our sleeve, but like any country, the things you believe in you are comfortable with other people in those societies who have similar thoughts. Now, the other part of your—the same observation was as though the U.S. has been consistently supporting democracy, which again is a very challengeable proposition. I will not talk about other parts of the world, but at least in our part of the world, you know, a lot—a lot of our difficult history comes from the fact that the U.S. had an image of being consistently supportive of Pakistani military dictatorships. So my own sense is we have both outgrown that. You are perhaps a little more consistent in your practice, we are a little more consistent in our articulation. And I do think today this is a meeting ground between us. But we have—look, we come from different cultures, you know? In our part of the world, you often do things by more subtle signals than very open policy statements. And I think part of the Indian American relationship today is harmonizing our ways of pursuing our values and interests. Regarding, you know, when it comes to China, first of all, it’s unrealistic in the world to only sort of do business with people who think similar to you. That doesn’t work in the marketplace, it doesn’t work on the street, it doesn’t work in global affairs. So we have to accept different societies are differently structured. They have their own particular systems. Where we are concerned—I mean, where China is concerned, our relationship today is, first of all, based on the fact—I mean, it’s just a very—it’s the second-largest economy in the world. It also happens to be our largest neighbor. It’s a neighbor with whom we have a very, very long history—a history of culture, a history of interactions of different kinds. And increasingly, it is today our second-largest trade partner. And, you know, the fact that China’s influence has grown over many years is also a fact of life. So, you know, considering that international affairs is a business of realism, not de facto all the same, and then try to find an equilibrium with the country concerned. And we will—you know, there are differences we have with China. It’s not a secret. They accept it. We accept it. We have a boundary issue. We have had negotiations for many years. We have other areas where we may not always agree. But I think today it is a very stable relationship. It’s a very mature relationship. Where we differ, we have mechanisms and a sort of a—in a way a sort of ethos of handling it. And frankly, it’s not a relationship that has given cause for anxiety to the world for many, many years. Now, you know, your question, Frank, about what are the areas of competition and cooperation? Look, international relations by its very nature is a competitive business. There’s nobody with whom you don’t compete. But there are a lot of countries with whom you try to find areas of convergence, which then become the basis of cooperation. There are areas of convergence with China. I think in the economic domain there is a lot. I mean, today we are getting Chinese foreign investment in India, which is a good thing. We do trade with China, not as balance as we would like but, you know, that’s shown trends towards improvement in the last year and a half. But there are larger issues. I mean, there are developmental issues, issues of regimes, you know, what should the WTO be like, how should climate change negotiations be conducted. These kind of issues, how do international institutions run. So these are sort of areas where actually we have practical understandings with the Chinese. So it’s going to be a mixed bad. WISNER: Good. Well, I have a sea of questions. I’m going to start on this side of the room. Q: Tazy Schaffer from McLarty Associates in Washington. I was interested in your argument that the transformation of India’s economy and society were what was going to shape Indian foreign policy. And in general, I would agree with that. But I wonder, India has, in spite of its enormous economic advancement over the past ten, twenty years, remained very cautious about further market opening. Most countries that have experienced really rapid growth have actually opened their economy and continue to do so. I wonder what it will take in India’s democratic society to get more constituencies on board for a more open economy, or whether this is going to be either a stumbling block or an area where India looks out and nobody’s done it yet. JAISHANKAR: You know, look—if I were to look at the trend line, I would say the trend line would obviously be that India is moving towards a more open economy. India is a more open economy in 2019 than it was in 2009. And more in 2009 than it was in ’99. And so if you take ’92 as sort of a bottom line, I think there’s a fairly clear direction in which we are going. Now, here’s the challenge. Some of the areas—now, first of all, I’m not disputing the underlying assumption. If you ask me, should we be opening up more my answer to you would be a yes. But it would be a qualified yes because when you open up an economy you’ve got to be a little careful exactly which sectors you are, and what the consequences of that would be. There would be sectors where, let us say, the employment—the sector affected would be, you know, small famers, marginal—subsistence farmers. And you are dealing with countries, you know, with U.S. or Europe, where there’s heavy subsidiary of agricultural production, which is commercialized, industrialized in many ways. And it’s therefore a very uneven competition in a way. So you weight your sort of pluses and minuses. And we are not unique in doing that. I mean, the United States, which is in a much more secure position, after all, has so many constituencies when it comes to opening up the American economy. And ask the Japanese what are the constituencies they have. We won’t even talk about, say, a country like China. So the fact that there are constituencies which would cautious against opening is a universal situation. So I think that needs to be recognized. But at the same time, I would say at the moment the strongest prospect of further opening up appears to lie in the RECP negotiations. RECP is a free trade agreement which we are doing with the ASEAN, Japan, China, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. So that I think would be a step forward. But after that, who else we would look to for our limited or a full FTA? I think that remains an open question. WISNER: Minister, one of those members of the Council who’s been listening wanted to ask me to bring you back a step to the question on Pakistan. Shireen Tarheli (ph) asks: Given today’s situation, are India and Pakistan permanent enemies? JAISHANKAR: No, no. I mean, look, Shireen (sp) knows the word “permanent” is not generally relevant in international affairs. (Laughter.) We all know that—we know the quotation which is used to justify that. And, you know, we have to—I mean, first of all, diplomacy is an optimistic profession, OK? So you always hope that things will get better. You don’t begin your business by saying, this is a terrible day and I’ve got nothing. Then you have nothing to do. Secondly, you know, I’m a neighbor, OK? And no neighbor can ever give up on a neighbor. So I’m not pessimistic. But I’m realistic about diagnosis the problem that I have. And my own sense is, you know, the Pakistanis need to change position, not for us. They need to change it for themselves. I mean, you look at the state of Pakistan and what it has done to itself in the last thirty or forty years. So I think their own—I mean, I used to be concerned about Pakistan. I still am. But I’m not concerned for Pakistan as well. So I do think that their own self-interest mandates that they take a different tack when it comes to terrorism. WISNER: Good. Madam. Q: Hello. Good evening. Tess Davis. I’m executive director of the Antiquities Coalition, a nonprofit that’s dedicated to fighting the illicit trade in art and antiquities. And certainly India has had some major successes on this front, and recoveries, and really increasingly prioritized the recovery of stolen and looted artifacts and idols, in close partnership with the U.S. Department of State. And I was wondering if you could speak to some of these successes and also share why this has been such an important issue for the Ministry of External Affairs, and also for the State Department as well. JAISHANKAR: Well, you know, I can remember a few of these successes, because often you would get the return of an artifact when, you know, something special was going on, like a prime minister’s visit, so it tends to stick in your mind. And I’ve seen that in the U.S. I’ve seen that in Germany. I know there was one in Australia. So it’s been—it’s something which has happened quite regularly. And I think the difference is, frankly, we have pursued these cases far more vigorously than we did before. I think it’s important today that, you know, we don’t allow this illegal trade in artifacts. It’s, frankly, part of what I would, you know, from sort of a political science perspective you talk of rebalancing of the world. But the rebalancing of the world is not just in economic terms, and political terms. I think, for me, cultural rebalancing is equally important. Not stealing other people’s artifacts is part of cultural rebalancing. So I wish a lot of museums would give it serious consideration. And I think it’s also, you know, we need far more, you know, more multiple narratives, in a way. So it’s a—I’m sort of making a jump her—but for me, something like global yoga, you know, celebrations. I find it very interesting, because yoga has localized in many ways, and yet remains—it remains Indian, but it’s localized and it’s global. And the fact that it has achieved today the kind of—you know, it’s pervasive, but it’s achieved a sort of a prominence that it didn’t have earlier. That, to me, is a very—is an example of how actually that cultural rebalancing is slowly happening in the world. And certainly the return of artifacts would be another one. WISNER: Good. Minister, there are many questions, but I don’t want the evening to close out without making certain we go back to August 5 of this year, and decision of your government to bring an end to Article 370 and take full responsibility for the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. What I’d like to drive at, or ask you to explain to us, is what is the strategy now of your government to restore a degree of normalcy in the territory to rebuild confidence, to reestablish civil political rights? How do you move forward from where you’ve been to where you would like to be? How do we get there? JAISHANKAR: OK. To answer that question I’d like to explain to you what was the thought process behind August 5, because that will then answer a lot of what you’re asking. Now, the thought process was this: I think many of you who know Indian history will recall that there were about six-hundred-odd princely states at the time of independence who were given the choice of joining India or Pakistan, and most of them made up their minds. One which held out in indecision at that point in time was the state of Jammu and Kashmir. And at that time, Pakistan tried to force the issue by really invading Kashmir. And that decision went the other way, which was, OK, Jammu and Kashmir decided to join India instead of Pakistan. Now, the first point, which I’d like you to recall is, all the states joined the Indian union in exactly the same terms and conditions. That they actually had a form—I have a picture of the accession—instrument of accession that the maharaja of Kashmir signed. All of them had a form, the blank parts of the form were the name of the state, the name of the ruler, the date of accession. Otherwise, it was exactly the same. Now, initially when they joined, all of them agreed that they would cede to the union the rights—you know, the powers on foreign affairs, defense, and communications. And then as the Indian constitution came into being, you know, the idea was that they would, each one of them, accede to the constitution in question. And they were participants in the constitution-making process. So as they acceded, they sent delegates. And so it was like a Philadelphia convention, where, you know, people then sent their delegates as the convention progressed. And Jammu and Kashmir also sent their delegates. Now, the situation in Jammu and Kashmir was peculiar for a number of reasons. And one of them was the fact, of course, that they were a border state, but also that they were, themselves, under attack at that time. So they had a desire to extend the period of alignment with the rest of India in terms of, you know, application of laws. And the constituent assembly recognized that they were a very special case at that point of time. But there was then a big debate. So which part for the constitution do you accept and at, you know, what length of time would that take place? So this was not a simple decision. There was a lot of negotiation on it. You know, you look. There’s a lot of correspondence on it. And all of this is actually archival material today. Now, to cut a long story short, what happened at that time was that to accommodate them, the only temporary article of the constitution was drafted. OK, I underline this—the only temporary article. This was what today we call Article 370. At that point it was numbered Article 306(a). Now, immediately after that article was—the constitution was adopted, there were a series of presidential proclamations under that article, which started aligning the state, OK? In the last seventy years you had fifty-four of these presidential proclamations. But here’s what went wrong. The presidential proclamations were very rapid in the initial years, but as, you know, there was a climate of intimidation and separatism in Kashmir, they started to dry up. They started to dry up because the state politics was now, you know, the people found that there was an arbitraging possibility using the separate—you know, the 370 article, because 370 essentially mandated—you know, one of the consequences of 370 was you had local ownership of property, where you had—you know, which is a provision of—another provision of the constitution called 35(a). And there were restrictions in many ways of what would be normal economic activity in the state. So over a period of time you had really three consequences. Number one, you didn’t have the economic activity and economic energy in Kashmir, in Jammu and Kashmir, that you had in the rest of India, which meant less jobs, less job opportunities, more sense of alienation, a sense of separatism, and therefore a climate for terrorism from across the border. The second was that the state was, in socioeconomic terms, increasingly less aligned with India. So if you look at all the progressive legislation of India, they did not apply to Kashmir, because whenever you drafted a law in India, pretty much, you know, clause two or clause three of that law would say but this law is not applicable to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. So what you had was you didn’t have right to work. You didn’t have right to education. You didn’t have right to information. You did not have affirmative action. You did not have the law against domestic violence. You didn’t have law on representation of women in local bodies. You didn’t have equal, you know, property laws between men and women. You didn’t have juvenile-protection laws. So I can cite to you at least about one hundred important laws which did not apply to Jammu and Kashmir. Now, one was a political consequence—economic consequence. The second was a social consequence. But one and two really led to three, and that was a political consequence, because what all of this it did was it allowed really sort of a narrow elite to arbitrage this 370, to monopolize political power, to create a sort of a closed-loop politics. And they had a vested interest in keeping alive separatist sentiment. And you had, actually, a situation where separatist political parties were openly allied with terrorist groups operating out of Pakistan. Now, here’s the choice which the government faced. When we came back to power this May and did a Kashmir review, there were two choices. One was you had a set of policies which were on the books for seventy years. But for the last forty years, they were visibly not working. And, by the way, when I say visibly not working, that meant in the last thirty years forty-two thousand people got killed; the fact that the level of intimidation had reached a height where you had senior police officers lynched on the streets of Srinigar, you had journalists who wrote against separatism who were assassinated, you had military personnel returning home for Eid who were kidnapped and killed. So, you know, pre-August 5—please remember this—pre-August 5, Kashmir was in a mess. I mean, the difficulties in Kashmir have not started on August 5. August 5 is supposed to be a way of dealing with those difficulties. So the choices were either you continue what was clearly not working or you try something very different. And I think the decision was to try something very different. So our expectation today is, by doing away with what was a temporary solution, what was meant as a bridge but became a barrier, that we will be able to push investments, economic activities, into Kashmir, that we will be able to frankly change the economic landscape, change the social landscape. Now, we realize it’s not an easy exercise, because there are deep vested interests which will resist it. And so when we do this transition, our first concern was that there would be violence, that there would be demonstrations. Terrorists would use those demonstrations. And we had the experience of 2016, when there was a very—there was a self-advertised terrorist cult figure who was killed, a gentleman called Burhan Wani. And after that there was a spike in violence and about—I forget—about fifty-plus people lost their lives. So the intention was manage this transition situation without loss of life. So what the restrictions which came about gathering of people, about communication, these were intended to prevent that. Now, as the situation stabilizes, I think a lot of those restrictions would be rolled back. Already landlines are reconnected. My understanding is that the mobile towers have started to be switched on, that, you know, the schools are open. The sort of economic activity has picked up. Particular effort is being made to keep the supplies at normal in the state, so there’s no shortage of food or medicine or supplies. This is harvest season for apples, so again, a particular effort is being made to procure apples so that the farmers don’t feel that they’ve been victimized by these changes. But, having said that, for us the primary concern would be to prevent loss of life. And if I were to put the temporary termination—temporary suspension of internet on one side of the scale and permanent loss of life on the other, I know which side I would go. WISNER: Well, I think you’ve sensed, since you’ve been here, a very high degree of concern; not that the United States or public opinion in the world has agency. The responsibility lies with India to achieve the goals that you’ve set out tonight. And we all wish Kashmiris well and you well in re-finding stability in that state, building a different future. But lots of other questions. On the edge, a gentleman with glasses, hand up, sitting—yes, sir, you. Q: Stephen Blank. You described many positive changes in India. One change we feel—many feel is more worrisome, and that is the erosion of the constitutional commitment to a secular state and the rise of a very politicized Hindu nationalism. Can you comment on this please? JAISHANKAR: Look, I don’t agree with your—I mean, your analysis and the question which flows from it. I would put it differently. I think that what we have seen after seventy-odd years of independence is actually the results of the democratization of India. And by that I mean that today political power, social power, to some degree economic power, has shifted out of the big cities, the more cosmopolitan cities, where people speak English, where they have sort of a global comfort level, people like me, with whom you’d be comfortable, and moved to a different set of people, people who are much more comfortable speaking in their own languages, who have a sort of a cultural, I would say, milieu in which would be far more rooted on the ground in many ways. So to my mind the changes which have happened in India are actually—they demonstrate the successes of actual—you know, of democracy and what it has meant in terms of the consequences on the ground. So I don’t accept that secularism is under threat, for a very simple reason. Look, at the end of the day, secularism was not promoted by a law or by a constitutional belief. It was promoted by the ethos of the society. So, you know, the ethos of the society was not secular. No law, no constitutional provision, would have ensured it. And I don’t think the ethos of the society has changed. I think the ethos of India and the Hindu ethos of India is actually very secular. It’s very pluralistic. WISNER: Minister, I fear we’re running to the end. We have time for perhaps one more question. Sarah (sp), young lady in the fourth row. Q: Diana Lady Dougan, CSIS and also a number of other things, including just having done a film on the first woman sharia judge in the Middle East. We were up for the Emmys last night. So I can’t help but be impressed with what you’ve said about Kashmir and the reforms that you’re doing. But one of the things is that India is the third-largest Islamic population in the world, and the Asia-Pacific is the largest Muslim population in the world. And, like it or not, there is a very deep perception that, whether it’s Hindu nationalism or whatever, there’s just a little too much on the books that puts Prime Minister Modi in a position of being not just nationalistic but anti-Muslim. So my question to you, without defending the premises or lack of validity of the premises, what do you see India’s role is going to be going forward in dealing with the issues of Islam globally? JAISHANKAR: Look, it’s—I don’t know if you know we have—there’s a national organization of great influence and debate in India called the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind. They’ve just had their annual meeting, and they have spoken up very clearly in favor of the changes which are—which are envisaged in Kashmir. I don’t think—I mean, my first response to you would be I would not—I would not agree that the Kashmir issue should be seen through common knowledge, OK? My second observation would be that if you look today at the changes in India, I—probably the word I can—which captures it best for me is, you know, India is modernizing in a very interesting way. And it’s not necessarily state-driven. OK, I mean, to me, anything the state does is overshadowed by what the smartphone does. I mean, if you look today, the—you know, the moment people have money, the first thing they do—I mean, when I had money, I first dreamt of buying a car. You know, someone today who’s sixteen, seventeen, eighteen will think of getting a phone and improving the phone. So I don’t—you know, you are seeing a more urbanizing society; in that sense, a society which is interestingly more meritocratic. It is—the social gains are spreading. But at the same time, it’s also mixing up—there’s a lot of internal mobility, which wasn’t there before. So I would actually predict to you that you would have a society increasingly where traditional identities matter less than they did in the past. In terms of, you know, how do we approach the Indian state or the political party, the ruling political party, look, today, if there’s one area where we have—we can boast of visibly good relations, particularly in the last five years, that would be the Gulf. And you know the dominant faith in the Gulf. I think they see it, because they—there is an objectivity about them and a sort of—they don’t have vested interest in what is essentially an Indian domestic discourse. So I would not—I would not be comfortable with the view that somewhere we are headed for some kind of collision with the—with the Muslim community globally. I don’t think that is the case. Q: (Off mic)—about collision, (they ?) were talking about— WISNER: I think—Diana, if you’ll forgive me, we have to bring the session to a close. I want to thank everyone for coming and being part of this tonight. (Applause.) Minister, particularly to thank you. You’ve given us a sense of the structure of India’s foreign policy, to which this country is privileged to relate and will have to relate in the years ahead. And you’ve given us some very sharp insights into the domestic nature of India. So thank you on behalf of all of us. Appreciate it. JAISHANKAR: Thank you. It was a pleasure. (Applause.) (END)

Prime Minister Imran Khan discusses the current state of U.S.-Pakistan relations, recent developments in the disputed region of Kashmir, and Pakistan’s relationship with India, Afghanistan, and other neighboring countries.