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Monday, December 31, 2001 |
Posted on 12/31/2001 4:18:17 AM PST by vannrox
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Monday, December 31, 2001 |
EMBATTLED NEIGHBOURS
A new beginning or the end
By L K SHARMA
AS rival armies confront each other and political leaders fight a war of words, nuclear-armed India and Pakistan face a crisis. The fearful symmetry makes this confrontation different from that in Afghanistan. At the first signs of tensions, a Pakistani military officer referred to nuclear weapons. He would not have been able to issue that threat had Pakistan responded to India’s offer of a no-first-use agreement. That his remarks did not shock the world shows what the real nuclear diplomacy is like. Any other country with this kind of behaviour would have been branded a nuclear terrorist. The US ignored that statement and went on to praise Gen Pervez Musharraf for his cooperation in fighting terrorism.
Centre of terrorism
It has been left entirely to India to project Pakistan as a centre of international terrorism even though the US government has had long experience of tackling the terrorists who originated from or went back to Pakistan. The US operatives in the past even went there, secured the wanted person and brought him unceremoniously to America, ignoring Pakistan’s own laws and jurisdiction. And since September 11, Pakistan’s role has been illustrated by hundreds of known individual cases.
While poor Afghanistan had to bear the brunt of America’s wrath because of the presence of undesirable elements there, the model of Islamic extremism did not belong to that country but was exported there from Pakistan. President George Bush keeps talking of a ‘swamp’ to be cleared, and Pakistan, as even most educated Pakistanis note, happens to be part of that dangerous swamp. Thus, if it is the civilisation's war against terrorism, is India not serving the international community by highlighting Pakistan’s contribution to terrorism? If terror is considered a general menace, surely, India is doing some thing more than just pushing its ‘own agenda’.
The Indian leaders’ shrill voices have to be understood in the context of the unprecedented attacks on the state assembly and Parliament House. India has been a victim of terrorist attacks for years but the subject was never given this much thought or attention by America and other countries. It is only in the current atmosphere that India is hoping to get some support or sympathy for its plight.
Pakistan’s overt and covert operations have a long history. The foreign media just recalls how many times the two countries have gone to war over Kashmir without saying who attacked whom. At the time of the Kargil war, mercifully, Pakistan’s role as an aggressor was recognised and India even got some praise for its ‘restraint’. But Pakistan did not have to suffer anything more than a temporary loss of face. After it acquired the nuclear capability, Islamabad has been intensifying the low-level conflict, while India has been talking of hot pursuit. Any retaliation by India was sought to be discouraged by a nuclear threat. And since India was not America, and Pakistan was not Afghanistan, Islamabad could carry on training terrorists and sending them across the border. Now, New Delhi can either go on putting up with this nuclear blackmail or try to challenge it.
Many analysts concluded that India being a responsible or soft state, will continue to suffer silently. Policy reports have been written and mock war scenarios have been constructed on the basis of this presumption, especially in the context of a nuclear war. Right now India is finding it hard to convey that it is serious as foreign analysts make references to its ‘sound and light’ show. This is one reason why India is having to shout louder.
Big failure
It would have been a big failure and abdication of responsibility had New Delhi not responded to the attacks the way it has. However, this approach also calls for accompanying action on several fronts, the diplomatic being the most important one.
Prime objective
India’s prime objective is to convince the government and the people of Pakistan, that Kashmir cannot be annexed by terrorism or by an open war, both of which have been tried. India must reinforce the message now being given by America that religious extremism, which nurtures trouble for India, also undermines Pakistan itself. President Bush has started talking about it. The past US administrations were hardly bothered whether Pakistan or Saudi Arabia were running nurseries for zealots and terrorists. Krishna Menon used to tell America that no gun had been invented to fire only in one direction. Now the US knows that no fundamentalist can be trained to fire only in one direction. Thus despite its temporary marriage of convenience with Pakistan, the US has some shared interest with India to see that Islamabad rolls back Islamic fundamentalism even after the Afghan war is finally won. It will be in the interest of America, the new Afghanistan government, India and Pakistan itself.
The recent events have brought Pakistan to the crossroads. While religious extremists have been forced to lie low, Pakistani society is in a ferment and literate sections are engaged in self-introspection. They are re-examining religion, polity, relations with India and the Kashmir policy. The numbers of Pakistanis with what can be called the ‘Indian mindset’ are growing. They are allies in the common endeavour to build a prosperous South Asia.
A crisis calls for a drastic action. The present crisis can be an opportunity to make a break from the past and draw up a plan for peaceful co-existence. Very large constituencies in the two countries want such an outcome at this juncture as they have never done before. Nuclear weapons have enhanced their anxiety. The irony is that Gen Musharraf, seen in India as the architect of the Kargil war and a spoiler of the Agra summit, is in a position to make a new beginning on the bilateral front. This is because he can synchronise this action with the bigger plan of fighting religious extremism which he is having to do, anyway. Having been compelled to take on religious extremists, he cannot survive if he is half-hearted or selective. Someone riding a tiger must keep riding it. With terrorism attracting such odium, a Pakistani leader may be able to fight the extremists.
A sensible military general can go farther to meet India than any democratic government in Pakistan. As for India, notwithstanding its rhetoric, a BJP-led government can deliver to Pakistan much more than any other administration. But for that to happen, the Pakistani leader has to run the gauntlet. He may be even able to convince his people that nothing much can be done about the status quo in Kashmir, that religious extremism is not in Pakistan’s interest, that good relations with India could change their fortune and that a conflict could destroy the nation. No Pakistani leader will be able to do this without right signals from New Delhi. India can not afford to ignore public diplomacy in Pakistan. The Lahore bus yatra was not a folly but an essential step on India’s part, irrespective of the outcome.
Popular experience
The security of the two nations is underpinned by the common popular experience of how an Indian is greeted by a common Pakistani and how a Pakistani is greeted by an Indian. India must effectively convey to the people of Pakistan that while it would safeguard its own interests, it wants Pakistan to prosper and that it would like strong economic ties. A war will not be helpful. It will be counterproductive because it will end the mood of self-introspection in Pakistan. To India, it may provide only a temporary relief at a huge cost.
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