One Step Forward, Two Steps Backwards: Sharm al-Sheikh
One Step Forward, Two Steps Backwards: Sharm al-Sheikh
Guest Column by Ishan Kaushik
(The views expressed by the author are his own)
There you have it. Pakistan now says that no dossier on India’s alleged involvement in Balochistan was given to India. Reason? An editorial in the Daily News says this:
“..Pakistan wisely decided not to present the intelligence dossier on Balochistan. The reference to Balochistan had done the trick. And Mr. Geelani has nicely covered up by saying ‘India never asked for it’..”
In a subsequent TV interview, Pakistani Prime Minister Geelani told his audience that Balochistan would be raised in future talks with India, but did not make any reference to a dossier.
And, in the latest issue of Friday Times, editor Najam Sethi writes that Pakistan provided evidence of India’s role in Balochistan:
“the mention of Balochistan in the joint statement is an Indian quid pro quo for Pakistani action against the LeT. It suggests that Delhi is ready to take its hand out of Balochistan..”
Which would seem to suggest that Balochistan did come up for discussions, in whatsoever a manner, rather than a simple unilateral mention by the Pakistani Prime Minister, as is our official position.
Why did the Pakistanis bring up Balochistan? In fact, Pakistan maintains it has other “dossiers” accusing India of just about everything except the runaway birth rates in that country: for our role in the attacks against the Sri Lankan cricket team and the Matawan Police station, help to Baitullah Mehsud, and for good measure, of even assisting the Taleban!
What explains this activism amidst calls for resumption of dialogue? One reason is, as Pakistan lurches from one crisis to another, the optimism of the people, prevailing after the country’s general elections, is waning. Zardari is seen to be weak and returning to his old habits. A recent piece by Pakistani journalist Ayaz Amir, when writing about the President, says (regarding him), “tales of cronyism and corruption are rife”. Power is slowly but decisively moving away from him to the Army/ISI with Prime Minister Geelani as the civilian face. The second reason is the fear, now that US/NATO are planning for a longer exit strategy than first envisaged, Pakistan will come under greater pressure to act against the Taleban, al Qaeda, LeT, JeM and other terrorist groups. It is important for Pakistan to hunker down, show India to be an intransigent power bent on weakening Pakistan so that it cannot afford to remove troops from its eastern borders, or weaken its “assets” that are needed to challenge India’s growing influence in Afghanistan (hence the hesitation to take on the Afghan Taleban in the Wazristans), and continue to oppose India in Kashmir. But the most important reason is that Pakistan’s civil society (increasingly brave but still small), is still too weak to challenge the country’s anti-India mindset and the self-absorbed political culture fostered by Pakistan’s education system, media, forces of radical Islam and the defense forces.
The debate in India’s parliament: the Government clearly had underestimated the extent of the outrage that PM’s surrender at Sharm al-Sheik would arouse. The delinking of the composite dialogue from Pakistani action against terrorism was bad enough, although there is some sense in the explanation that this would “free” the Pakistani Govt. to act against the LeT, JeM without it being seen to be under Indian pressure. But the gratuitous mention of Balochistan was over the top. An internal issue (of several decades) of Pakistan was converted, at least partially, to a bilateral problem. It could provide Pakistan with an alibi not to take action on the LeT. The Government’s defense of the Balochistan mention was not just weak but at times absurd. Foreign Secretary Menon dismissed its mention as “bad drafting” and Minister of State Tharoor thought it didn’t matter since the Joint Statement was not a binding legal document!
The Government’s broad thrust was that there is no alternative to dialogue, with the Finance Minister behaving as he had just discovered that war was not a solution and that Pakistan could not be erased, as if that was what the issue was about. References to former Prime Minister Vajpayee’s efforts to normalize relations with Pakistan were thrown in for good measure. The Prime Minister was told (by Geelani) terrorist attacks on India were by non-state actors. Unless PM thinks the ISI is a “non-state” actor, he should have told his counterpart a thing or two. The reference to Balochistan (or, perhaps the reaction to it in India) apparently even took the US by surprise, and Holbrooke, during his visit to Pakistan, had to bail out Manmohan Singh by saying the Pakistanis had given him no credible evidence about India’s involvement in that province.
India’s policy is predicated on wishful thinking: we do what we can to strengthen the democratic forces in Pakistan, attempt to distance the Pakistani people from the Army-ISI-mullah-terrorist alliance. As a normal nation, Pakistan would then put in place a more rational policy towards its neighbors. And India, right next door, would be a partner in progress.
The truth of the matter is somewhat different. Everything that Pakistan has done so far, and more importantly, wants to do in the future, has nothing to do with this vision. The latest British Foreign Affairs Committee Report has concluded that whereas President Zardari believes terrorism to be the “main enemy” of his country, “large parts of the security establishment of Pakistan continues to be fixated on India”. Mumbai, the terrorism in Kashmir, the continuing subversion of our eastern states, the use of the underworld network of Dawood, the attempts to disrupt our financial system by pushing in thousands of crores of counterfeit money printed at the ISI presses in Quetta etc. should bear out the soundness of these conclusions. In addition, lest we forget, Pakistan is part of the Chinese strategic calculus against India; Gwadar, the Karakoram highway etc. are projects to help Pakistan to bypass India. The fact that neither of the projects is viable is another matter.
Curiously, the PM referred to President Ronald Reagan. The late President of the United States probably was no match to Manmohan Singh in intellect. But he held steadfastly to a few core beliefs that brought down the Soviet empire. That strength of conviction is sadly lacking in our leadership as we are increasingly seen to be doing everything we can to further US Af-Pak policy objectives, whether they are in our national interest or not. We keep hearing from the Prime Minister that he would make the borders between Indian administered and Pakistani occupied Kashmir irrelevant. Is this is the best we can come up with? Kashmir is not about a divided people. Kashmiris on the Pakistani side of the border are Kashmiris only politically. There is no common language or culture between the tribal and grafted populations there with the Kashmiris on the Indian side of the border. The Prime Minister takes an oath to defend our borders, not to make them irrelevant. South Asia is not Europe. We do not have a common strategic vision, to put it mildly.
Politics without a vision becomes petty and venal but having a vision without reference to ground realities is a pipedream. Peace with Pakistan would be desirable, but at what cost? Why has this Government not gone back to the joint Parliamentary resolution of 1994? The result is that we often give the impression that we do not believe in what we say.
The Pakistanis have welcomed the PM’s statement in Parliament terming it statesmanlike. My own feeling is that they too were surprised at the Indian reaction to Sharm al-Sheikh and don’t want to make things difficult for Manmohan Singh. They know this is India and the mood will pass.