General Musharraf is coming to India for a meeting with Prime
Minister Vajpayee at the latter’s invitation. There are already noises in some
sections of the Indian media and the intelligentsia that he should be ‘given
something’ that he can he can take back to Pakistan so he can claim a measure
of success. That is to say, these worthies are already urging India to start
making concessions, without telling what to expect in return. There is something
more serious: Musharraf may have nothing to offer. Like Nawaz Sharief’s trip
to Washington at the height of the Kargil Conflict, it may purely be a public
relations exercise— to save himself.
Here lurks danger. If Indian leaders are not careful,
they could persuade themselves that making concessions to save General
Musharraf’s position in Pakistan is the main purpose of the meeting— in
return for some vague promises. The problem is, like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto thirty
years ago, Musharraf knows his own position is shaky, with Islamic
Fundamentalist forces practically a law unto themselves. Their influence is
rapidly increasing, including in the all-important Pakistani Army. In the
circumstances, granting him any concessions in the hope he will return the
favor, is to ignore important lessons of history. The reality is, neither
Musharraf nor anyone else can go against the political and social currents in
the country.
To put things in perspective, let us recall what happened
at the Shimla Conference thirty years ago, where Bhutto was ‘saved’ by
Indian generosity. After Pakistan’s defeat in the Bangladesh War, India held
all the cards. But Mrs Gandhi’s Government agreed to highly favorable terms
for Pakistan, in return for vague promises. Saving Bhutto should not have been
India’s concern; that was his problem. India’s priority should have been
forcing a solution to the Kashmir problem. But Indian leaders hoped that Bhutto
would be grateful and he and his country would beome friendly towards India. The
rest is history.
India has repeatedly squandered opportunities and allowed problems to
fester. George Washington, the first Prisident of the United States, put it this
way: “There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real
favors from nation to nation.” Indian leaders should heed this sage advice and
follow a similar principle. Failure on this front by Indian leaders at crucial
points in history — Kashmir in 1948, Tibet in 1950, Pakistan in 1965 and
Shimla 1972 — lies at the heart of India’s foreign policy problems. The most
recent example is India’s excessively mild reaction to Bangladesh’s
atrocities against captured Indian soldiers. The thinking behind it is that a
‘tough’ response on India’s part would hurt the re-election the chances of
the present Prime Minister of Bangladesh.
There is another dimension to General Musharraf’s visit
that has the potential to trap India in a dangerous position. This has to do
with the diversionary tactic of Pakistani officials and some Indian
‘intellectuals’, asserting that Kashmir is the ‘core issue’. As
corollary, once some sort of agreement is reached on Kashmir, which typically
means that India agrees to reward Pakistani aggression by making the
strategically indefensible Line of Control the international border, all
problems will be solved. This is a dangerous delusion. To begin with,
terrorists will not give up their arms and become law abiding pacifists simply
because of a change of name— from LOC to International Boundary. More
fundamentally, the ‘core issue’ is not Kashmir but the right of Hindus to
rule India. So the Jehad will continue, no matter what you call the LOC.
In his book With Honour and Glory, strategic
expert Major General Jagjit Singh puts it this way: “Kashmir is not really the
core issue, as the rulers of Pakistan would have the world believe. The aim
is far more sinister and is to destabilize India. …It appears they still
dream of the Pakistani flag flying over the Red Fort; that one Pakistani soldier
is equal to ten of India. Now in possession of the Bomb, does the Pakistani
leadership, in fact also entertain a vision of taking over the leadership of the
entire Islamic world? …This then is the paradox that bedevils relations
between the two countries in Soth Asia.”
This means that Kashmir is simply a pretext to keep the
Jehad against India going. Surprisingly, this receives support from writers in
Pakistan also. In his article “Precarious position,” the Pakistani columnist
MB Naqvi writes (Deccan Herald, May 31, 2001): “Dealing with India is
no longer a simple foreign policy matter here. Thanks to unrestrained and
unthinking Islamic rhetoric… any government of the day runs the risk of
falling foul of powerful vested interests. The latter are primarily the over a
dozen Jehadi organizations like Lashkar-I-Taiba, Hizbul Mujahideen,… How would
Jehadi organizations react is now a major constraint for Islamabad’s policy
makers.”
Mr Naqvi goes on to observe that these Jehadi outfits
managed to gain control of the 1989 protest against misrule in Kashmir, and
turned it into the proxy war that we all know. The Pakistani Army was also
involved in this escalation. He observes: “These could do what the Army itself
could not do… Now of course this interest group [of Jehadi outfits] has grown
so rich and powerful that it can, on its own, act as a check on the
Government’s ability to move in a direction it does not approve.”
He points out another sinister deveopment that resulted
from the late General Zia ul Haq’s Talibinization of the Army and its linkages
to the fanatical Urdu press in Pakistan: “Indeed the whole right wing has been
radicalized with [the] mixing of India’s misguided anti-democratic policies
with the one of opposing Hindu India as such; to all educated and
brainwashed and paid Jehadis, the Jehad is against Hindu India rather than any
fine discrimination among the policies. The fear is that some part of the Army
might have come to believe the notion of Jehad being waged is against Hindu
India as such.” In other words, the enemy is Hinduism— not any policy.
This from a Pakistani columnist— not any Hindutva
advocate! Mr Naqvi recognizes that Jehad is now part of the belief system of the
Army. Even this doesn’t give the full picture. For example, every Pakistani
soldier and officer, at the time of commissioning, takes the oath to defend not
his country but Islam! In addition, the notorious terrorism manual The
Quranic Concept of War, sponsored by General Zia, is required reading for
all Pakistani officials, both military and civilian. And Mr Naqvi suggests that
it was to relieve the pressure from the Jehadi outfits that Pakistan launched
the Kargil adventure. He points out that General Musharraf can take no steps —
let alone make any concessions to ‘Hindu India’ — without the approval of
the same outfits.
This means that General Musharraf is no position to make
concessions at all. In Mr Naqvi’s words: “Success in talks will inevitably
require give and take on both sides. Would Musharraf be in a position to give
anything at all— and sell it to his hard (and armed) Right?… That is a
question that will hover over the conference table in Delhi.” It is ironic
that this clearsighted analysis should have come from a Pakistani columnist
while his Indian counterparts are exhorting the Indian Government to make
concessions, when not busy carrying candles to set at the feet of the Jehadis at
the Wagah border.
So what can Musharraf offer? One possibility would be for him to invite Indian troops to cross the border and demolish the terrorist bases that he cannot. That would be a good start. It would solve problems for both countries. In summary, by all means talk, but don’t make any concessions in the hope you will be rewarded. Remember Shimla!