The ceaseless cold war in a poor sub-continent

Columnist SULTAN AHMED opines that confrontation is taking South Asia further down the road to absolute poverty.

The cold war between India and Pakistan continues with varying intensity to the lasting sorrow of 1.4 billion people of South Asia. The 12th SAARC Summit, scheduled to open in Islamabad on January 11, has been put off because of the unwillingness of the Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to attend the three-day parleys.
A year ago the two leaders had met at the 11th SAARC Summit at Katmandu, but the Indian Prime Minister had declined to have a one-to-one meeting with the Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in a period of increasing tension between their countries. Gen. Musharraf went over to the Indian leader at the opening of the summit and shook hands with him; but that did not melt the ice as far as the Indian leader was concerned.
India now says it did not want a postponement of the summit; but surely Pakistan needed time to prepare for the summit and make adequate arrangements for the seven leaders to meet.
Meanwhile, with the temperature getting too cold India and Pakistan are withdrawing their troops from the borders, and the fighter planes in their forward position too are being pulled back. Earlier reports from India said normalization of relations between the two countries would begin after the Kashmir and Gujarat elections. The Kashmir elections have taken place, resulting in the rout of the Kashmir National Conference which had more or less ruled the state for the last 50 years and the electoral defeat of Omar Abdullah, its young and abrasive leader. And the elections in Gujarat have ended with an overwhelming victory for the BJP and its extremist leader Patel. And yet there has been no indication of India wanting an early SAARC summit, with a possible meeting between the leaders of the two estranged neighbours.
India says it is futile to have a summit as long as cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan or Azad Kashmir does not end or come down greatly. It admits that such terrorism has subsided a good deal, but not enough for India to start the talks with Pakistan. It blames the US for not honouring its commitment to force Pakistan to abandon the cross-border terrorism, while the US argues that it had done all it could and India should start talking to Pakistan.
Mr. Vajpayee also asks what is the use of the summit — if agreements among the SAARC states for economic cooperations are not honoured. And the South Asia Free Trade Area brought into being. Pakistan argues that to achieve either purpose the leaders of India and Pakistan should meet and discuss the issues.
Meanwhile, India’s Supreme Court has delivered judgment in the case on the attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001. The convicted are not Pakistanis or Pakistan agents but Kashmiris from the Indian side, while India had earlier maintained the attack on Parliament was sponsored by Pakistan and had massed its troops promptly on the borders on that erroneous basis.
It was also said on the Indian side that it would wait for the Pakistan elections to be over and the civilian leadership to emerge before resuming talks with Pakistan. But now, following the emergence of Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali as the Prime Minister, New Delhi argues that no independent leadership had emerged in Pakistan and Mir Jamali and other ministers represented no departure from the kind of leadership provided by Gen. Musharraf. Clearly, the Indian objective is to put off the talks on one pretext or another as long as the Pakistani leaders do not cease saying that Kashmir is the core issue between the two countries. That the new leadership in Pakistan, beginning with Foreign Minister Mian Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, are not willing to do. Hence the stalemate.
In such a sterile context the Pakistan Defence Secretary Lt. Gen. Hamid Nawaz has said normalization of relations between the two countries is expected by the middle of this year. On what basis he had made that statement is not clear, except that Pakistan would open its skies to Indian air services after the withdrawal of forces within four months. Normalization of relations would follow thereafter, he said. But almost everyday something is being done or said by either side to delay the process of normalization. Or reports get published to that effect and upset the people on both sides.
Meanwhile, at the peak of the Gujarat elections the Indian Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani threatened Pakistan with a fourth war to settle the issues between the two countries finally. That statement raised many eyebrows, if not the hackles of the people on both sides, but there was no follow-up of that threat from the Indian side as the world reacted too coolly to that.
Mr. Vajpayee also accused Pakistan of indulging in or seeking the economic destabilization of India. But that was treated as a part of his election rhetoric as if utter hostility to Pakistan was going to determine the outcome of the Gujarat elections.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s new commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar has been saying that Pakistan would not concede the most Favoured Nation Treatment to India in their bilateral trade. Not conceding such a status to India may hurt it only if large scale trade begins between the two countries. Anyway, that status is not as grand as the words sound, and has been given by Pakistan to almost every country we are trading with. Hence, giving such a status to India while trading with it is not doing a great favour to India. Anyway, it has got to be a bilateral concession. And it is not now a major issue between the two countries when there is so little trade between them. In fact, there is no need to harp on this point time and again, not when the minister is trying to drive home the point there could not be normal trade between the two countries until the political issues, particularly the Kashmir issue, are not settled or on the way to a settlement. It is prudent for both sides to avoid such negative rhetoric when they are drifting towards a slow normalization.
Nor is it essential for the elected leaders in office to go on stressing the foreign policy or external relations they would follow would be the same as that of Gen. Musharraf. Each of such issues should have to be decided on merit and according to the exigencies of the moment and not according to any pre-fixed mode. What we do externally in 2003 need not be necessarily what we did in 2000 or 2001.
We are strong enough or resourceful enough now to give concessions to others on merit and demand similar concessions instead of moving within a sealed orbit. Anyway, the present and the future should be far more important for us than the past when many errors were committed and we did not make the best of our opportunities.
Now the US with which Pakistan is too close and Gen. Musharraf much closer, wants normal relations between the two countries. And it is negotiating with India to make it resume talks with Pakistan. Russia which is working with the US in this area wants the same. We have to make the best of their good offices.
Both of them want the Kashmir issue to be pushed back from the explosive front burner to the back burner for a while, as less contentious issues are discussed between the two countries and new bridges built. There are some Kashmiri leaders who think the same way instead of demanding an instant solution of the Kashmir issue.
After 55 years of the Kashmir dispute, and three wars between the two countries, which resulted in the stunning loss of East Pakistan, if we have to wait a little longer for a conclusive settlement of the Kashmir issue that is worthwhile. Pakistan should be ready to explore all the options after war is dismissed as a reliable mechanism for settling the issue. The fact that we are now a nuclear power, with the same kind of weapons of mass destruction on the other side, demands great restraint on our side as well as that of India.
India on its part keeps on baking reports that its forces on our borders since December, 2001 were ready to attack Pakistan on January 14, and later on June 10. If India Today came up with such disclosures Gen. N.C. Vij the Army Chief of Staff-designate now says the Indian forces were about to launch an attack on Azad Kashmir targets under the “Operation Parakirma” in January last year. He has identified the weapons to be used which are very powerful and the varied targets to be hit.
What such disclosure show is that India was on the verge of a large scale attack on Pakistan and Azad Kashmir last year which would have meant a total war between the two countries. India was restrained by Pakistan’s nuclear weapons on one side and international pressure on the other side.
Or are such leaks part of a propaganda war to scare or coerce Pakistan? This aspect of the Indian strategy cannot be dismissed altogether as unrealistic.
Now the US is under pressure from both sides. While India wants US to exert greater pressure on Pakistan to reduce what it sees as cross-border terrorism, Pakistan, wants the US to build pressure on India to talk to Pakistan. Neither side is pleased with what the US has been able to achieve and they want it to deliver far more than what it has been able to do. The US certainly wants to please both sides, but realises its limitations. Along with its preoccupation in Afghanistan and South Asia, it wants to fight a war in Iraq and take on North Korea too if necessary. All that is more than an armful even for George Bush.
Meanwhile, the World Bank’s Report for 2002 has reminded India and Pakistan that South Asia houses 1.4 billion people and almost a half of them live below the poverty line of a dollar a day. And so little is being done for their real betterment, particularly its women. In such a context the socio-economic issues should be having a far higher priority than the military and strategic; but if only India could lead the way instead of crowding it.