The opposite of hopeful is surely hopeless. Is it fair to suggest that only the hopeless are hopeless? No. Those without hope, particularly on a subject as difficult and contentious as India-Pakistan relations, pride themselves on realism.
We must establish a distinction here. We must not confuse those who are hopeless with those who are hateful. The haters are a separate category, in both India and Pakistan, whose minds are driven by a single, obvious passion devoid of logic or humanity. They will always be with us. We can do little about them except pray that they remain confined to the margins. If circumstances, or mistakes, bring them to center stage havoc will hover over our lives. The hopeless may be driven toward pessimism by the evidence. Which two nations could have a worse record of warfare by any means than India and Pakistan?
Strangely — and this may sound very odd — the same evidence makes me hopeful. India and Pakistan have exhausted all the possible ways in which a relationship can fail. Isn’t that good news?
War has been a continual reality on the subcontinent, either in the form of a direct confrontation between the respective defense forces, or as a proxy duel. War as a policy has failed. Neither country can be defeated anymore. There cannot be another surrender at Dhaka and there will not be any surrender at Srinagar. These are obvious facts, which all sensible people must recognize. The last doubts were eliminated when the two nations went nuclear. Nor is India going to be defeated by any war of attrition, whether on the level of Kargil or the sporadic hits scored by terrorists.
There are equally important lessons from the dialogue process, particularly in the post-nuclear dispensation. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who took the last step on the nuclear road, understood at once that the bomb could become a weapon for peace since there was no better guarantor of national security. Lahore followed. Lahore failed because Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif did not take his armed forces into confidence. The failure of Agra was more complex but, in retrospect, more educative.
It is already clear that the two countries have learnt what they need to from Agra. You must address core issues, however unpleasant, during the preparation phase, and come to an agreement on the nature of the finesse, since they are not amenable to immediate resolution. A range of people-to-people relationship, including travel and trade, must back political understanding. The immigration counters at the border crossing point at Attari are being got ready again: that sustains hope. India and Pakistan need to rebuild constituencies in each other’s territory. Concentrate on what you can achieve: magic wands were always an illusion. And no summits please until the mountaineers have found sufficient supplies of oxygen for a long haul. It is far more sensible to make haste slowly.
But experience is only one of the reasons for hope. One of the qualities of a great leader is to recognize something that has been staring at everyone in the face, but no one has seen; something so obvious that it has escaped attention. Twenty four hours before Atal Behari Vajpayee extended his hand of friendship for a third time across the border, no one would have believed that such a breakthrough was possible. The mood was contaminated with cynicism, and there had been serious political investment in conflict and gloom. Cross-border terrorism was unremitting, in spite of a visible change in the atmosphere of the Kashmir Valley. The BJP had won a vital, life-saving election in Gujarat by focusing, acidly, on “Mian Musharraf”.
But Vajpayee recognized a basic fact that escaped the political class: that despite Lahore, Kargil, Agra and intermittent terrorism, the people of this subcontinent still wanted a resolution to a problem that had drained their lives for half a century. He did not romanticize this fact. He does not believe that a candle can displace darkness, or indeed that a candle should be confused with dawn. He knows that Indians will not accept peace that does not come with security. But he also understood, deep in his mind and heart, that the peace is the only real security there is. A state of war meant living life on the edge of an abyss, with no guarantees about when one’s foothold would slip. As Vajpayee put it, one can change one’s friends but one cannot change one’s neighbors. What option does anyone in his senses have except to search for understanding and goodwill? He also had the will to lead, without which nothing would have happened. He surprised his own party, both its hawks and its doves. The only person not surprised was Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani; the prime minister and he had discussed the options and Advani accepted the prime minister’s perception.
The prime minister also stunned the opposition, which had not expected such a bold move in an election year. The opposition was trapped in conventional wisdom. It believed that the BJP had more votes to gain from confrontation than from negotiations. But the prime minister has always believed that while you can win an election by beating the drums of war, you can sweep the election by offering the peace dividend. There is both emotional and financial prosperity in this dividend. To its great credit, the opposition has put aside politics and responded enthusiastically to the prime minister’s initiative. The warmth with which a parliamentary delegation from Pakistan has been received by all sections of the political spectrum is proof of the unity in India behind the idea of a new beginning that makes the past as obscure as possible. What is there to remember from the past except war, terror, destroyed homes and broken dreams?
This is a fundamental reason for hope: that this time around there is no visible partisan politics in the effort for peace. There is instead the thrill of anticipation, laced of course with the dread that it might fail again. There is no shortage of saboteurs, and they are lurking in the shadows, ready to do their worst once again. Who knows which incident will occur this week, or the next, in another attempt to seal the barriers that have begun to thaw.
An important initiative must begin in the mind. It does not materialize from thin air. The most important reason for hope is that both India and Pakistan are being driven to a meeting point by cold self-interest.
The Americans, who are now officially in charge of the world, are, understandably, considered responsible for everything. Most people, if polled, would confidently agree that this building equation is also part of some American master plan. The happy news is that America is responsible, but not advertently. Their role is inadvertent. Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf have both hinted, the former more explicitly than the latter, that they had learnt something significant from the Iraq war. It is, once again, an obvious lesson: never invite an elephant into your drawing room, even for a friendly chat. Even the friendliest elephant will leave that room in a mess. Moreover, the elephant, in an assertion of its weight will soon dictate what friendship means. He will lay down the rules of behavior. It is a prospect that must fill any intelligent householder with dread. Indeed, it is a prospect that should fill even an intelligent elephant with dread.
That Washington agrees with what has happened, and fully supports the process, takes nothing away from the above proposition. Of course the United States has a role to play. That is stating the obvious. But that does not change the vital fact: that this process restarted not because Washington wanted Delhi and Islamabad to do so, but because India and Pakistan wanted to do so. The United States has been urging the two countries to do this forever; they have not listened in the past, and they would not have done so now if Vajpayee and Musharraf had not come, independently of George Bush and independently of each other, to the conclusion that a moment had arrived to find a different future.
Success is always a dangerous word, in part because no one can adequately define. But everyone recognizes a failure. Hope is best served by the recognition of limitations. If India and Pakistan agree not to fail, they will succeed.
Arab News Opinion 11 May 2003
