By Kollengode S Venkataraman (written in 2001)
Pakistan’s dictator, president and general Parvaiz Musharraf repeatedly said before the failed Agra Summit that “Kashmir is the core problem, and all others are only minor irritants” for the bad relations between India and Pakistan. This assessment is too simple.
With the failed summit, is a quarter of the world population living in South Asia condemned to live in hostility and poverty? Not necessarily, though it looks likely. If Germany and France, the sworn enemies during WW II, live in peace now, anything is possible.
But this requires Indian and Pakistani leaders to integrate their foreign policy goals with their social priorities; show sensitivity to the anxieties of each other in words and deeds to gain trust; and be realistic in their expectations. They need to persuade their domestic hardliners to compromise while talking to each other even as they disagree on issues. They can learn from the US, USSR, and China. Even during the nuclear brinkmanship of the Cold War, they never ceased talking to each other.
Granted, neighbors — individuals and countries— will always have problems even under the best of circumstances. The atmosphere in the Indian subcontinent was not in the past, is not now, and will not be in the immediate future, anywhere near the best. Seasoned analysts on both sides are aware of the history not only of the last century, but also of the last 1000 years. That’s why they don’t endorse Musharraf’s simplistic characterization of Indo-Pak relations.
The general’s public posturing in India before the talks began doomed the summit. Kashmir’s pro-Pakistani All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) wanted to have an exclusive meeting in New Delhi with him during his visit. India conveyed its discomfort, and the general publicly said in Islamabad that he would be a good guest. Then he bowed to his hardliners. He gave a tea party in Delhi inviting only the APHC from Kashmir, as if there is no other Kashmiri voice. In turn, Vajpayee introduced Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah to the general during the banquet. Thus, the stage was already set for the summit’s failure.
Musharraf praised Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolence at Raj Ghat even as his jehadis were slaughtering Hindus in Kashmir. Then, like a hormone-driven teenager on his first date, he focused only on Kashmir, talking to Vajpayee. Vajpayee reiterated Pakistan-inspired cross-border terrorism by the jehadis, Kashmir, bilateral trade, etc.
Then the general in the supposedly off-the-record talk with Indian editors, distorted history of the subcontinent, with the editors sitting as potted plants. Not once did the Indian editors question Musharraf till the very end on his distortions, or the lack of his credibility as the military dictator to preach the right of self-determination for Kashmiris, or the fact that Pakistan itself occupies 1/3 of Kashmir.
China is the Real Winner: The real beneficiary in the doomed summit is China. China too occupies a part of Kashmir, and not once did India or Pakistan raise the issue of how—or if—they are going to deal with the Chinese on this issue. China being Pakistan’s only benefactor outside the Islamic world, Pakistan will not dare to raise the issue.
Pakistan is still nursing its self-inflicted wound of losing its eastern wing in 1971. The dictator blamed India for supporting the Bangladeshi freedom fighters. He conveniently forgot that in 1970-71 West Pakistan denied Pakistan’s premiership to Mujibur Rahman from East Pakistan when Rahman had the majority in Pakistan’s parliament. Ten million East Pakistanis ran into India, escaping Pakistani tyranny.
In losing the eastern wing, Pakistan suffered a spiritual defeat. The breakaway of Muslim Bangladesh negated Pakistan’s core principle that Islam would be the bond to hold its people together.
Other issues on the horizon: From Pakistan’s perspective, other issues would take the center stage to vitiate Indo-Pak relations even if Kashmir is solved to the complete satisfaction of India, Pakistan, and the Kashmiris — an unlikely event. Why unlikely? Because treaties are essentially compromises between sovereign nations on substance. And the military mindset inspired by religious fundamentalism abhors compromises. And there are hardliners in India too.
So, before embarking on high-stakes summitry, both nations need to mobilize public opinion on their home turf towards compromise.
Dictators, trained to give marching orders, are ill-equipped for persuading people. When summits fail after raising expectations, hardliners dig in their heels. After the summit, rhetoric from Delhi and Islamabad is shriller, and the jehadis have become more violent.
Besides, the Pakistan government has built its foreign policy around Kashmir, its military establishment against India, and its national identity around Islam to checkmate the “Hindu” India. With so much internal strife in Pakistan today-sectarian killings between Shias and Sunnis, and among different sects of Sunnis; the Kalashnikov culture; drug traffic and addiction; religious fundamentalists drowning out moderates; ethnic strife among Punjabis, Sindhis, Mohajirs, Balochis and Pathans; mounting debt; sagging economy-the Pakistani establishment needs a glue to hold its people together.
Politicians with insurmountable internal problems often create external enemies, real or imaginary, to divert public attention. Pakistan cannot publicly cultivate hatred against neighboring Iran, Afghanistan, the Central Asian Republics (all Islamic), or China (its only other benefactor). But India is a perfect enemy. Pakistan even calls its missiles Gaznavi and Ghaur, after Mohammad Gazni and Mohammad Ghori who repeatedly raided and plundered India (that paradoxically included today’s Pakistan) over 1100 years ago. By their very name, these missiles are India-specific.
Pakistani leaders supporting the jehadis militarily, politically, and materially may be thinking that the low-intensity proxy war is a cost-effective way to bleed India to death. For Pakistan’s discomfiture, however, its Kalashnikov-wielding jihadis are now turning their guns against Pakistanis who do not tow their line. Hundreds of lawyers, doctors, and journalists are murdered in broad daylight under military rule. Like the rakshasas (demons) in Hindu Puranas harassing the very Gods who granted them the boons of immense power, the jihadis are tormenting their own mentor.
And consider these from Pakistan’s perspective: The deep scars of Partition (the scars among Indians are equally deep); the size of India’s economy, population, and military; India’s diversity; India’s growth (relative to Pakistan) in industry, higher education, and IT sector; and India’s competitive edge in bilateral trade.
Anxiety Over Cultural Invasion: However much Pakistan’s orthodoxy denies it, her sophisticated and anpadh citizens alike recognize Pakistan and India share a common heritage for better and for worse. Pakistani schools teach history only after the arrival of Mir Qasim on the Sindhi shores in 8th century AD, thus denying their children their pre-Islamic heritage. By contrast, Egyptians are proud of their Pharaoh, and Iraqis, of their Mesopotamian history, both dating back to millennia before Christ. Both are 100% Arab, 100% Muslim.
Besides, Indian women — at least middle class and above — freely pursue their careers in all fields. India’s tradition of encouraging women in classical performing arts is likely to plant ideas in Pakistani women to seek artistic expression, taking inspiration, not from India (God forbid), but from their own historical roots. This may not go well with the mullahs. Further, Pakistanis see Muslims in India living with Hindus. This is likely to reopen old questions.
India has as many Muslims as Pakistan. And Pakistan’s record in treating minorities — not Hindus and Sikhs — but Christians, Ahamadias, Shias, and its treatment of women are there for all to see.
Bilateral Trade May Not Be Easy: Pakistani industrialists will resist inexpensive goods from India flooding Pakistan — as Indians resist cheap Chinese goods entering India — as this requires a structural change in its economy. Pakistani labor leaders and farmers also have reasons to oppose trade with India. Some Pakistani writers derisively refer to the Bania-Brahmin nexus in India as a threat to Pakistan.
So, if Kashmir is amicably solved, the Pakistani establishment needs something other than India hatred to hold its people together. Creating a newer glue to hold together its heterogeneous Muslim populace would need structural changes in Pakistan. In Pakistan today, members of just over 400 families dominate all facets of life. This will have to change.
But vested interests don’t give up without a fight. Look how difficult it was — and still is — to bring about land reforms or eradicate untouchability in India, or break Nehru’s permit-license-quota raj that suffocated Indians’ entrepreneurial instincts for decades.
So, sentiments and lofty intentions are inadequate to improve Indo-Pak relations.
And commando attacks, whether in battle fatigue or in three-piece suits from the podium, rarely settle disputes. What we need are leaders with patience and endurance to build national opinion for compromises, and who are sensitive enough to instill trust between the two governments. Only such leaders are likely to succeed in settling England’s sinister parting gift to the subcontinent.