Vajpayee finds it tough getting off the War Horse

Columnist SULTAN AHMED discusses why India is finding it difficult to back down.

India is finding it hard to climb down from the pinnacle of a possible war with Pakistan after it had worked in to that kind of frenzy by the middle of June.

India does not want a war with Pakistan says now the Prime Minister who had earlier spoken of a decisive war between the two countries once and for all. But what we are having is a kind of no war but no peace situation with the forces of both countries facing each other eyeball to eyeball and the forces will be on the borders until October, when the Indian held Kashmir will have its state elections. Meanwhile, Pakistan too will have its general elections in October although the Pakistani forces are on the border only to checkmate the Indian Forces. India cannot go to the war with Pakistan now for many major reasons. (1) Since both Pakistan and India are nuclear power states and a war between the two countries can eventually degenerate into a nuclear war and India cannot afford to take that risk. In a nuclear war there may be no eventual winners but only disastrous losers (2) The group of eight states are also strongly opposed to a war between the two countries and reaffirm their call for a peaceful settlement of the disputes between the two countries after their meeting in Calgary Canada. (3) The European Union has been calling time and again for a negotiated settlement between the two countries. (4) Russia which has been close to India for long had offered to sponsor a summit between the two countries at St. Petersburg in Russia (5) The Foreign Ministers of the organization of Islamic states who met in Sudan have also reaffirmed their call for a peaceful settlement between the two countries. And the United States of America has been directly and actively involved in negotiations with both the countries following the visit of its Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and the Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with the full support of other Western countries.

The tension between the two countries has done enough damage to the economy of India and dried up the investment. The Indian Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha is upset by the travel advisory of the US, France, Britain and Germany to their nationals to leave India and the departure of many thousands of them. In such a state of affairs embarking on a war with Pakistan will be too disastrous for India and will isolate it from the rest of the world and invite the direct censure of the UN which is being kept out of the conflict wilfully and persistently by New Delhi.

On the other side Pakistan’s appeal to India to enter into direct negotiations with it to solve the Kashmir issue and other dispute is receiving increasing international support. In the modern world two nuclear states with a tragic history of fighting three wars in twenty-four years cannot refuse to enter into negotiations and prefer to relay on their nuclear arsenal. And if a war flares up not only will the two countries be hit disastrously but also many other countries in the region and far off. So the world has a direct stake in preventing a war between the two countries and getting them to the negotiating table. So many major countries have offered to mediate between India and Pakistan if both would agree. But India has been consistent in its refusal to allow any country to mediate between them. While Pakistan has been ready to accept the mediation of any significant country.

In fact India does not want to let the UN to have any role in Kashmir or India-Pakistan relations in respect of Kashmir. While India accuses Pakistan of cross border incursions into the Indian held Kashmir it does not let the UN forces monitor such incursions. In fact it has forced the UN truce observers to be posted on the Pakistani side of the LoC in Kashmir rather than on the line of control itself with a larger number augmenting the current US personnel there.

India escalated the tension between the two countries by suspending overflights of the airlines of the two countries and then recalling its High Commissioner from Islamabad. Pakistan did not recall its High Commissioner from New Delhi until it was forced by India.

India then stopped all sporting engagements between the two countries as well as bilateral meetings between them. Finally the Indian Forces were amassing on our borders while the Indian Navy took up positions on our Sea Coast.

Now the Partial de-escalation is taking place in the form of resumption of overflights, which had hurt India, more than even Pakistan. And the Indian Naval units have also been withdrawn from their forward positions. But the normal diplomatic relations have not resumed.

The Indian Prime Minister who had made cessation of cross-border violations by Pakistan keeps on making rather contradictory statements. At times in recent days Mr. Vajpayee says the cross-border incursions have ceased and another time he says they continue, providing the justification for him not to talk to President Musharraf. It all began after the Agra Summit when India decided to lower the level of contacts between the two countries. Even before the Foreign Ministers or Home Ministers could meet the talks were discontinued. India then began insisting that talks cannot be resumed unless the cross-border violations in Indian held Kashmir stop altogether and also came up with a list of twenty fugitives from India which it wanted Pakistan to surrender.

But India has consistently refused a UN-sponsored or other international mechanism to verify cross-border violations. Nor has it been willing to accept mediation in the dispute between the two countries. In fact India goes to the extent of asserting often that there is no dispute and Kashmir is a part of India and if there is a dispute it is an internal issue for India.

Mr Vajpayee who heads a coalition of twenty-two parties faces critical political problems as well.

After the setback of the ruling BJP in the state elections and the gains of the principal opposition party the congress, the BJP leaders are asserting themselves. The mass killing of Muslims in the state of Gujarat shows how the party is losing its support among the now hard-liners of the party. So when the next general elections take place possibly by the end of 2003, Mr. Vajpayee cannot afford to forfeit the backing of large sections of the voters. So meanwhile in view of his failing health he has made Home Minister L.K. Advani Deputy Prime Minister while Abul Kalam is to be made the third Muslim President of India.

And along with that the state elections are to be held in Kashmir in October and Mr. Vajpayee wants them to be less tampered by the Kashmir National Conference of Farooq Abdullah. In the past Farooq Abdullah was given a free hand to tamper with the elections or indulge in a variety of malpractices so that he could win a large number of seats in the state assembly. That discredited the state elections and made other elements in the state reject the government that followed the elections. The All Parties Hurriyat Conference comprising twenty-three parties in particular has been in revolt against the state government and the government of India which condoned such malpractices as well.

Now there is talk of holding the state elections under presidents rule after removing Farooq Abdullah from office and opening negotiations with the opposition APHC. What kind of progress can be made in this area remains to be seen.

But the fact remains that in this modern world two nuclear states cannot talk of war, which may eventually become a nuclear disaster lightly. Nor can they refuse to talk to each other as India does and expect Pakistan to have a leader other than President Musharraf to open talks on the de-escalation of the military tension.

Mr. Vajpayee talks of withdrawing his forces from the border after October after the Kashmir elections but there is no guarantee he would do that even then. And it is not known what kind of shape the conflict in Kashmir will take before or after the elections. India’s desperate efforts to treat Kashmir as its internal issue will not work. The people of Kashmir do not accept that contention nor does the world at large and nor does the UN.

India should hence be realistic and come to a negotiated settlement with Pakistan instead of exposing the 1.2 billion people of South Asia to graver hardships, condemn them to deeper poverty, and the horrors of a nuclear war that seem to loom over them all the often now.