Ammar Ali Jan (Haqooq-e-Khalq Party, Pakistan): ‘The wars we need to fight are against poverty, disease and authoritarianism’

Ammar Ali Jan is a Pakistani socialist and general secretary of the Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (Peoples’ Rights Party) Following recent tensions between India and Pakistan, which broke out into war when India launched missile strikes on May 7, Isaac Nellist spoke to Ammar for LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal and Green Left to discuss the current ceasefire deal, self-determination for Kashmir and steps towards peace in the region. 

India launched nine missile strikes against Pakistan on May 7, sparking fears of an escalating war. Can you tell us about the impact of the strikes?

There is no appetite for war in Pakistan. The country has been going through a lot of crises. We have a government that many people believe is not legitimate, there was a stolen election last year. We also have a lot of internal conflict, particularly on the peripheries of the country, including the restive provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Civil liberties are a huge issue. To compound this we have an economic crisis: 40% of the population live below the poverty line; indebtedness is a huge issue, the International Monetary Fund basically controls the economy here. In such a situation, war is a terrifying prospect.

Despite the fact that Pakistan is so poor, we have one of the strongest militaries in the region — maybe it is because of that we are so poor. Either way, the notion that there can be a war between two nuclear-armed rivals was something not even the Pakistani state had an appetite for. There were constant attempts after the April 27 attack in Kashmir by various echelons of the Pakistani state to reach out to India and call for a joint investigation, to call on the international community to engage. There was a lot of hope that there would be negotiations before any kind of violence or adventurism by either side. However, a lot of people in Pakistan underestimated the kind of hysteria that had already been created in India. The ruling party in India has more legitimacy, it is a right-wing party that derives its legitimacy from war and violence, particularly against Muslims and belligerence towards Pakistan. 

When these strikes started on May 7 and again on May 8, people were aghast and horrified. Then the worst happened on the morning of May 10, when Israeli-manufactured drones were used to attack Pakistani cities. These were extremely dense cities. Lahore is a city of more than 10 million people. More than 30 people were killed in Pakistan, including at least one child. That is when fear turned into anger, public opinion shifted and Pakistan retaliated with a barrage of drones and missiles, eventually leading to a ceasefire. We were on the brink of an absolute catastrophe and I am really glad that eventually sense prevailed and we achieved a ceasefire. 

The ceasefire deal was announced by US President Donald Trump on May 10, but there are reports the ceasefire has already been broken. What is the current situation?

On the first day there were a lot of violations — that is normal in ceasefires, it is very difficult to immediately cease all hostilities. But since then there have been no reported violations. 

But the hysteria and belligerence continues. This particular ceasefire has made India extremely angry because Trump announced it before the Indians or Pakistanis could announce it. I think that is part of Trump’s narcissism; that he did not wait for the ministers of India and Pakistan to announce it. He said he achieved peace and is almost insinuating he should be nominated for the Nobel prize. That is what his MAGA base is pushing on social media, that he is a “peacemaker”. 

In reality, I believe what happened is that India was not expecting the kind of response that Pakistan gave. The aerial battles — which military historians will study for a very long time — were extremely dangerous. This was high-tech military warfare that we saw. French fighter jets pitted against Chinese fighter jets, Rafales against J-10s and J-17s. At least two of the French fighter jets on the Indian side fell, which was part of the initial embarrassment that the Indian government felt.

After the drone attack on Pakistan on May 10, the barrage of drones and missiles from Pakistan shook India. Partly because one of the things the Indian side was hoping was that this would be like the Arab-Israel situation, in which they could keep on going in and bombing, there would be minimal resistance, and they could continue it for 10–15 days and claim victory at the end. They miscalculated. The stakes were raised by Pakistan, including the possibility of a nuclear catastrophe, and that got the world community involved. Eventually a ceasefire was achieved because escalation was not possible after a certain point. 

What is the broader context of the tensions between India and Pakistan leading up to this? How does Kashmir fit in? 

Kashmir is at the heart of this. It is the unfinished business of the partition. It is the only state that never got the right to choose and was split between an Indian side and a Pakistani side. Both countries have used it for bargaining purposes, for riling up internal nationalist sentiment, for cementing public opinion and for attacking dissenters. 

On the Indian side it has been far more brutal, partly because for a while many Kashmiris were either pro-separation or pro-Pakistan. Since the 1990s there has been an insurgency in Kashmir which India blames on Pakistan. But Indian has used horrific tactics like torture, violence and extra-judicial killings. At least 20,000 people have been killed, some say more than 100,000. It is one of the most militarised zones in the world. 

In 2019 India’s Narendra Modi government ended Article 370 as part of a plan to integrate Kashmir with India. Article 370 essentially gave Kashmir a certain amount of autonomy within the Indian administration. That led to a reaction in Kashmir which was swiftly contained and destroyed by a mass lockdown — before COVID lockdowns became famous, Kashmiris experienced a mass lockdown in September 2019 when people were not even allowed to leave their homes. Eventually Modi’s far-right government was able to tell the world, including his Indian audiences, that they had created “normalcy”.

That was one of the reasons why the Pahalgam attack happened recently — a terrible attack against tourists in Pahalgam that killed at least 25 people. This attack shattered the myth of normalcy that Modi had cultivated, which is part of the reason why his base wanted retribution. Modi was playing to his base; Pakistan responded in kind.

But both parties have to realise that Kashmiris are not objects. They have a long, proud history, not only of their own statehood, but a long history of resisting colonialism, occupation and militarisation. There will be no peace in South Asia until and unless there is justice for the people of Kashmir. That is the key aspect of any kind of negotiation moving forward. 

What is the Pakistani left’s stance towards Kashmiri self-determination?

There is absolute clarity on this issue. The United Nations has a resolution — UN Security Council Resolution 47 from 1948 — which very clearly states there should be a plebiscite to determine the future of Kashmir. Kashmir is for Kashmiris; it is not for Pakistan or India. If the Kashmiris choose either of these two states it is up to them, if they choose independence it is up to them. That is the only true internationalist position and anybody who does not hold that should not claim to be on the left.

Last years’ election result revealed the waning legitimacy of the Pakistani government and military. How are they using the conflict to reassert this legitimacy? Is it working?

They have definitely regained legitimacy to a large extent. One of the issues was that a lot of people were observing in the past two weeks that the Pakistani state was showing a lot of restraint. When your cities are being bombed, there is not a lot that any activist can do; there is no protest that is possible. Analogies with the Arab world were being drawn, both inside Pakistan and from the Indian establishment which said we need to “reduce Pakistan to Gaza”, use the Israeli playbook and do to Pakistan what Israel did to Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. This was terrifying, and when we found that there were Israeli drones that fell on cities, including Lahore where I am from, it created a lot of panic. 

So, there is a lot of sympathy [for the government], including from those on the left. Our party has thanked those who in that perilous moment defended the sovereignty of the country and the people. However, we made it very clear that this is the responsibility of the military. If in the garb of self-defence the military continues with its oppressive policies we are under no obligation to remain silent. In fact, what happened last week was that during this entire conflict the Supreme Court of Pakistan legalised the trial of civilians in military courts, so we have raised a statement on that.

The nature of the Pakistani state is that it will continue to use this hysteria to benefit those who run the state. It is our job to fight back and organise. Most importantly, we know that this entire economic, political structure, the kind of militarised capitalism that exists in our part of the world, cannot sustain itself without sacrificing millions and millions of people. Remember, not only do 40% of people in Pakistan live in poverty, 25 million children cannot go to school, 80% of the water is contaminated and 40% of people die from water-born diseases. The wars that we have to fight are wars against illiteracy, poverty, disease and authoritarianism. Those are wars that our comrades in India will also have to fight. Those are the wars that should unite us, not this mindless bigotry we are seeing at the moment.

Large sections of the Indian establishment got behind this war drive, and the Indian left had mixed responses. Have there been attempts by the Pakistani left to build bridges with Indian leftists and peace activists? If so, what has been the response?

Our policy is not to comment on the internal situation of the Indian left. The Indian left has to work things out among themselves. Some parties have had an excellent position, others have not. We have a lot of questions about those parties who supported Operation Sindoor. But it is best not to comment on that because eventually we will have to work together and create a united path. We are not going to create new parties on the left in India, that is not our job; just as they cannot change the fabric of the left inside Pakistan. 

We also have debates within the Pakistani left at the moment. We have at least three positions on the Pakistani left. One is that even if India is attacking we should not retaliate. That is not our position. Our position was that if we are under attack we have the right to defend our people. There was also a third, almost jingoistic position that we should continue the attacks and continue fighting. 

Part of the problem is that the Pakistani and Indian left do not have the same kind of relationships that we had in the past; those are bridges that we need to build. We have to work with these parties, even those that have not taken a position for peace. In the long run, there can be political errors, particularly in situations of immense hysteria and fear. 

But we should remember who our allies are in India and, despite the problems, we still have high hopes for our friends in the Communist movement in India and we want to develop a good relationship with them in the future. We know that if the far-right is defeated in India, it will be a blessing for progressive forces in Pakistan. And if militarism is defeated in Pakistan, it will be a blessing for progressive forces in India. We are connected and we must try to mutually reinforce each other. 

What steps are needed for peace in the region? 

There are three issues that are taking place. 

One is US involvement. It wants to turn India into a hegemon of the region. The recent defence pact signed between Trump and Modi in February is a 10-year military strategic partnership that is part of the US’ China containment strategy and suggests that “our strategic interests are converging”. It is not an anti-Pakistan pact, it is an anti-China pact, but these pacts map onto existing conflicts and existing histories.  Trump is doing something similar with Saudi Arabia. But, of course, once Saudi has that power and those kinds of weapons they can use them anywhere to win its own regional dominance. It is a very dangerous game that the US is playing in the region. We have to resist that kind of Western pressure completely. 

Second, we have to find a just solution for the issues of Kashmir and terrorism, and they have to be separated. Terrorism is an issue historically. It is something that is an offshoot of what Pakistan’s policy was in the 1980s during the Afghan jihad when the Soviet Union was in Afghanistan. This was a policy that was completely prepared by Washington. It was the US who prepared this entire jihad, who armed it and funded it. Books on jihad were being published in the University of Nebraska. So you can understand the close relationship between that jihad and US imperialism. Since then the region has had this entire logistical network that has killed 70,000 Pakistanis and has also attacked Indians and fought in Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan; the entire region has been wracked by this. There has to be a long-term solution to that.

But the Kashmir problem existed prior to the ’80s, it exists after the end of the war on terror, and it will keep existing until there is peace and justice for Kashmir, which is rooted in their right to self-determination. That has to be the starting point for any resolution of the Kashmir crisis.

The third issue is that we are spending our surplus resources on destruction. We have already been denied development and modernity; we entered modernity under colonialism, which was a modernity of loot, plunder and exploitation. Even now we are wasting our resources, wasting our time fighting each other. We have to think about development and trade and fighting the wars we need to fight against illiteracy, poverty, disease and authoritarianism.

Do you have any final comments? 

The India-Pakistan conflict is a problem that requires more attention from the global left. This is a flashpoint in a region with more than 2 billion people, with nuclear weapons and more than 40% of people living in poverty. It is showing us what the whole world could look like. There was a book by Mike Davis called Planet of Slums, but we are moving to a different world that could be a “Planet of Ruins” if this continues.

Comrades in Australia and elsewhere have not only been reading about it, but you have done an excellent job, particularly through Green Left of bringing comrades from India and Pakistan together. That is something that the global left can do. There are very few spaces where we can meet with Indian comrades. We cannot go to India and they cannot come to Pakistan. So, we need those spaces and platforms where we can talk to each other and thrash out our differences.

It is a historical imperative to work together for peace and justice in South Asia.