Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has a question for Pakistan and its president, Pervez Musharraf. I can summarize a recent long conversation with him in these few words: How can you expect me to push through a peace agreement on Kashmir when militants coming from Pakistan every two months set off bombs in India? No leader can be too far ahead of public opinion.
The dispute over the Muslim-dominated province of Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan since independence, has led to three wars. Since the consensus among senior diplomats that it is Singh who is at the forefront of India’s doves — and if he can’t bring India to settle then perhaps no one can — then this question of his becomes the central issue.
But when I put it to Musharraf he responded sharply: “I don’t agree. If everyone in the world looked for calm and peace before reaching a solution we would never achieve peace anywhere. It is the political deal itself than can produce calm. Bomb blasts are a result of the problem. Let’s not put the cart before the horse”.
Good point, especially since the general atmospherics between the two countries is now quite benign — witness Saturday’s meeting in Islamabad between the two foreign ministers where they and their delegations talked and dined with each other like old friends. At my table it was all bonhomie.
Moreover, much has been achieved on other important issues of dispute — border delineation in Sir Creek and the Siachen Glacier, together with the opening of crossing points on the “Line of Control” that divides Kashmir between the two countries. Wedneday, Pakistani Foreign Minister Kurshid Kasuri told me that Siachen dispute “could be solved within days”.
Much diplomatic opinion believes that Musharraf has gone the extra mile in making concessions to India. It is now time for India to respond and for Singh to bite the bullet on popular opinion, telling the nation straight that this move is in India’s interest — not only to end occasional bombings, but to put to rest the chances of another war and, not least, to open their borders to the immense possibilities offered by two fast-growing economies. But Singh is constrained by not only public opinion but by conservative forces in the Foreign Ministry, the intelligence services and even in the, until now, apolitical military — which is rather ironic considering Pakistan would not have come this far except under a military leader whose past credentials, before he took power in a coup, were to provoke India to war.
Revealingly — because it is constantly denied on the Pakistani side — Musharraf made no bones in our two hour conversation on Saturday about militants being active from inside Pakistan. Nor does he deny that Al-Qaeda and the Taleban have hideouts in Pakistan. But he emphasizes it doesn’t help to blame Pakistan, as US intelligence chief, John Negroponte just did, for not doing enough to defeat terrorism and inferring that Pakistan is not going all out to unearth l-Qaeda and Taleban terrorists. “We are doing more than anybody”.
“The terrorists of the present day operating out of Pakistan territory whether they be fighting in Afghanistan, setting off bombs in India — the latest big outrage killed 180 people in Bombay last July — or spreading terrorism around the world are, in Musharaff’s view, leftovers from the past miscalculations of outside powers. The US, having armed and used the Taleban to defeat the invading Soviet Army left Afghanistan to its own devises with the militants fully armed. Britain walked away from India and Pakistan leaving Kashmir unsettled. But he didn’t mention that one of predecessors, also a general who staged a coup, Zia ul-Haq, had a lot to do with building up the power of these extremists.
The present reality is that if India willed it, Kashmir could be settled quite fast. And that would undercut the influence that the militants inside Pakistan have on public opinion on the Pakistani side. And that in turn would make it easier for the government to win the cooperation of its northern tribal peoples to turn against the Taleban and Al-Qaeda who presently hide among them and, of course, the militants who attack India..
Does Singh weigh that in his calculations? I think not sufficiently.
