NEW DELHI: India fears that its relations with Pakistan could get worse after Pervez Musharraf’s departure.
While many Pakistanis despised Musharraf as a dictator, India enjoyed some of its best diplomatic relations in decades during his rule. New Delhi’s fear is that a weak civilian government in Islamabad will be unable to exert the same muscle that Musharraf did over Pakistan’s Army and the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which India suspects has a hand in most attacks on its soil.
“How the vacuum is handled by the civilian government, how much control they can exercise on the radical elements remains to be seen,” a senior Indian Foreign Ministry official, who asked to remain anonymous, said.
The Indian government reacted cautiously to word that Musharraf had quit. “We have no comments to make on the resignation of President Musharraf of Pakistan,” it said in a statement. “This is an internal matter of Pakistan.”
But Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee later told reporters that “India will continue to have an amicable relation with Pakistan in the days to come.”
Indians cite the bombing of their embassy in Kabul in July as a sign of ISI’s growing power. “The ISI has enjoyed greater autonomy since Musharraf’s wings were clipped,” said Ashok Mehta, a security analyst and former Indian Army commander. “Once he is removed from the scene, ISI may have even greater autonomy.”
Earlier this month Indian National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan gave the government’s clearest expression yet of its worries about Musharraf leaving. “Whether he is impeached or not is not important from the Indian point of view,” Narayanan told Singapore’s Straits Times.
“But it leaves a big vacuum and we are deeply concerned about this vacuum because it leaves the radical extremist outfits with freedom to do what they like, not merely on Pak(istan)-Afghan border but clearly on our side of the border too.”
