NEW DELHI, 7 July — Napoleon, famously, said that he never interfered when the enemy was making mistakes. By that maxim this is a good time for India and Pakistan to leave each other alone.
A week, said Harold Wilson (equally famously) is a long time in politics. That would make a year equivalent to eternity. It certainly does seem an eternity since Agra and the summit that turned flat. The principal protagonists of that meet must have anticipated the cost of agreement if there was ever going to be one before they met. But neither Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee nor President Pervez Musharraf really estimated the cost of failure.
Would they have done anything differently had they known that failure would lead both countries to the edge of nuclear havoc? I would like to provide a comforting answer, but, frankly, one cannot be sure. Someone described George Bush’s “solution” to the Palestine-Israel conflict as an attempt to construct a tunnel in order to see the light. Compared to the situation in South Asia that is clarity. India and Pakistan are in a black hole without a route map.
President — General? Which of the two is more appropriate? — Musharraf now looks a little lost. Till Agra the most luminous part of his attire was a halo. He could defend his coup on more than one count. Not only had the coup been forced on him by an erratic and perhaps even homicidal Nawaz Sharif, but there was also visible popular support for a regime that promised action against corruption and promised to restore constitutional authority within a defined timeline. The confidence was evident in a wide range of policy formulations even if the practical fallout was a smattering of barely connected decisions on crucial issues like the economy and internal reform.
It is often suggested that Musharraf seized the moment when it arrived on Sept. 9. The truth is clearer now. He did not seize the moment. The moment seized him. And it has not released him yet. There is an old saying from Mogul times, about those who came too close to emperors: If you want to befriend a mahout, you have to find space for the elephant. If you want to befriend George Bush, you have to find space for America.
Superpowers have substantial elbows. And an elbow, being positioned where it is, generally ends up in a friend’s face. Moreover, since the Pentagon is reluctant to commit troops in any zone where the risk is more than minimal, Pakistani troops are doing the fighting against suspected Al-Qaeda elements and losing men. The FBI is doing all the police work it wants to in search of its targets.
America’s spreading presence is not as popular on the street as it is in the Pakistani establishment. Musharraf has already been renamed President Busharraf, and that is not a compliment. (It is engaging to recall that Bush’s destiny has become so closely entwined with that of a man whose name he could not remember when he was running for the job he holds now.)
The Americans, on their part, may want to consider the merits of that ancient curse: May your wish be granted. A general in charge suited them nicely when they needed Pakistan’s support in the war against Taleban and Al-Qaeda. No messy politicians worried about public opinion. No delays in the process of decision-making. And “Yes, sir” more often than “Maybe”.
But wars against irregular, ideological armies do not end in a hurry, and they need political management. The strength of Islamabad in September has become a weakness in July. The emperor may have a uniform but he has no clothes. American policy in Pakistan and Afghanistan is ransom to a government without roots in a constitutional framework or buoyed by popular support. America has to protect an edgy protégé in order to protect itself.
And so it will endorse a logic that cannot but end in dismal disarray. Having eliminated any legitimate party from the emerging power structure, Musharraf will probably manage the “election” of a King’s Party in October nullifying the very reason for the whole process since it will not add any credibility to the military rule.
Coincidentally, and curiously, it is an election in India as well that will define policy in South Asia, the one due for the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly this year in October. The one large blot on Indian democracy has been the continual sabotage of free elections in the Kashmir Valley.
The very fact that Vajpayee is investing so much equity in free and fair elections this time only proves that the past has had its problems.
The three most important ministers in government at the moment, Vajpayee, L.K. Advani and George Fernandes, were colleagues in the Cabinet of 1977, when they ensured an untroubled election won by the late Sheikh Abdullah. It was no coincidence that a serene peace ensued in the Valley. The most outrageous case of denial took place when the Congress-National Conference alliance was literally rigged into power in the mid-80s. Violence started within two years of that fateful mistake.
The epicenter of the Kashmir problem is within Kashmir itself, and that is where it has to be addressed first and foremost. The “Jehadis” who cross the Line of Control with the aid and patronage of the ISI can fish for violence only if there are troubled waters. (The ISI has, according to informed sources, a list of such deadly human exports, in order to compensate the family of any such volunteer who loses his life. This is not new. There was a similar list of “Khalistanis” sent across the Punjab border during Gen. Zia-ul-Haq’s time in power, and later some quiet cooperation between Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto went a long way in ending the uprising in Punjab.)
The Kashmir problem has to be solved first in Kashmir, and it is Delhi’s inability to do so over the last decade that has created the conditions for a larger disease. A free election will be a starting point of the healing, and hence vulnerable to those extremists who would prefer Kashmir to fester and decay and lead to a horrendous war.
Sabotage will not be hugely difficult. India has laid a non-negotiable card on the table, and received support from the world for its stand on cross-border terrorism. The American special envoy for common sense on the subcontinent, Richard Armitage, told Delhi that Musharraf assured him four times that he would move to control this menace.
Armitage deliberately repeated this point so that there would be no confusion later, and no room for backtracking; he also received Musharraf’s assent to convey as much to Delhi. This led directly to a decline in tension.
There are signs that Musharraf is either succumbing to the hard-line lobby now that tensions have eased, or that he is reverting to snakes-and-ladders as strategy. Ludo with nuclear dice is not recommended entertainment.
But if there is peace then the onus falls on Delhi and Srinagar to deliver. Kashmir is not a problem without an answer, once you accept that the solution is going to be incremental rather than a one-stroke decision and nothing as pyrrhic as “victory” and “defeat”. (There are a lot of Indians today who wish India had not been as victorious in 1971 when Bangladesh was created).
The more appropriate word might be ‘resolution’ rather than ‘solution’. We have had hints of the possible in the past; Vajpayee himself announced, during one of those rare moments of hope, that the Line of Control could become a much softer border permitting Kashmiris on both sides easier travel and even trade. Talks between India and Pakistan, this time in Islamabad, will necessarily follow happier ground realities, for neither side has ever denied the need for a dialogue on all matters, including Kashmir.
Maybe, till then, some highly qualified doctor, commanding respect on both sides, should, in the interest of everyone’s well-being, prescribe some healthy silence on the part of leaders. Even the minister of state for very rural affairs in Delhi feels the need to sound off on the intricacies of Pakistan, often in the process contradicting what the defense minister might have said.
In Pakistan the president seems to want to do the talking on behalf of the whole Cabinet, but that could be a reflection of the nature of the two systems of governance. If the two governments have anything serious to say to each other, they could try and use their diplomats. They are a little more discreet than television.
