Brown Pundits

“In Their Own Words informs contemporary discussions and analysis of this organization by mobilizing the vast corpus of LeT’s own writing…. I draw from these materials to advance two key claims about the organization. First, as is generally accepted, I argue that LeT’s ability to conduct complex terroattacks in India and Afghanistan-coupled with its loyalty to the Pakistani security establishment-render it incredibly useful as a reliable and obedient proxy. In fact, it is the state’s most duteous and governable agent. While it has long been appreciated that LeT is useful to the Pakistani state for its loyalty and lethality in conducting its militant operations in India and, more recently, in Afghanistan, analysts have overlooked its domestic utility to the state. This forms the second principal focus of my study. LeT/JuD stands in stark opposition to Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and the various Deobandi militant groups savaging the Pakistani state and its citizenry because it vigorously opposes violence within Pakistan. This stance puts LeT/JuD at odds with other Salafi and Deobandi organisations in Pakistan that propound the doctrine of takfiri[sic](excommunication and often murder) for Muslims who ‘misbehave’ by failing to live their lives as these organizations demand and expect and for those Muslim leaders who fail to impose shariat when they have the opportunity to do so. Not only does it argue against violence against minorities. This yields a surprising paradox: while LeT decries Hindus and Christians outside of Pakistan as the worst polythiests and worthy objects of militarized Jihad, within Pakistan it argues for their conversion through compassion, preaching and proselytization. LeT is one of the state’s most important partners in helping it manage the aftershocks of its long-term policy of using Islamist militants as state proxies.” (Page 3)

“The Pakistani state long ago developed two dangerous tools to reverse these purported crimes of Partition (“imagined” loss of parts of Punjab and Kashmir). One is the ever-expanding fleet of Islamist militant groups, as well as non-Islamist groups, that Pakistan deploys in India as well as Afghanistan. The second is a growing arsenal of nuclear weapons which makes it virtually impossible for India or any other state for that matter to punish Pakistan for using terrorism as a tool of statecraft or compel it to cease doing so. Pakistan acquired a crude nuclear device around 1983-4, after which Pakistan became evermore emboldened in its strategy of sub-conventional warfare as it continued making progress in developing its nuclear deterrant. Under this expanding nuclear umbrella, Pakistan became increasingly confident that India would not risk responding militarily to Pakistan’s various terrorist outrages in Kashmir and the rest of India. Equally important, Pakistan became steadily assured that the United States and the international community would intervene to prevent any conflict from escalating to an all-out war, with the always lingering possibility for inadverent or deliberate escalation to nuclear use.” (page 23)

“Several developments in Kashmir influcened Singh’s course of action.  Perhaps the most important event that conditioned Singh’s options was an invasion of his state by Pakistanis. Troubles for the maharaja began when some 60,000 veterans of WWII returned to their homes in Poonch (Westen Jammu) to find that they had become subjects of Hari singh of Kashmir, whom they disliked because of his imposition of onerous taxes. These mostly muslim Poonchis, annoyed with becoming  Singh’s subjects and outraged by the communally-motivated murders of muslims, ongoing through India, declared their preferance of joining Pakistan during a public assembly during August 1947.”  (Page 29)