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EDITS | Wednesday, December 9, 2009 | Email | Print |
Dialogue can’t be ignored
Ashok K Mehta
Even in the worst of adversarial relations, there is merit in keeping the conversation going. Snapping dialogue leads to unwarranted erosion of painstakingly nurtured confidence building measures and people-to-people contacts. Between India and Pakistan playing cricket in a third country is not cricket. One year after 26/11, and seven dossiers later, much water has flown down the Indus and Ganga without breaking banks. Pakistan has repeatedly called for resumption of composite dialogue held in abeyance since Mumbai, saying let terrorists not hold the peace process hostage. India is unmoved, refusing to revive talks till the 26/11 culprits are punished.
Track II, the saviour during such an impasse, provides a useful feedback on the mood in the two countries though both country delegates tend to toe the official line with few good exceptions. Last month’s Friedrich Ebert Stiftung-hosted India-Pakistan conference in Singapore, the seventh in a row after the attack on Parliament, proved a useful exception. It has good luck charm as its members have become Vice Presidents, Prime Ministers, Members of Parliament, editors and media advisors to Prime Ministers.
Here are a few vignettes of the conference which covered US strategy in AfPak and the ongoing wars against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan; prospects of India-Pakistan cooperation in Afghanistan; unrest in Balochistan and India’s alleged involvement; sectarian violence in Gilgit-Baltistan; situation and internal dialogue in Jammu & Kashmir and the four-point Kashmir formula; and India-Pakistan relations post-Mumbai; and the way ahead.
{Looks like a BR Meet with Pakis!}
First, the macro view. Compared to India which has fared commendably in assimilating and integrating tribal areas in the North-East and managing unrest and alienation in Jammu & Kashmir, the Pakistani experience has been bitter and unsuccessful.
While India has used carrot and stick, that is dialogue and calibrated military force, Pakistan has resorted to maximum military means to quell insurgencies, employing intense fire power including air and heavy artillery which has led to civilian casualties, displacement of population, alienation and destruction of infrastructure.
The list of foul-ups is long — the separation of East Pakistan, the turmoil and turbulence in the Frontier Tribal Areas, sectarian violence in Gilgit-Baltistan and the unrest in Balochistan, which is now ripe for another Bangladesh. The discussions on Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan were especially embarrassing for the Pakistani side as the two delegates from these areas pulled no punches.
The big picture emerging in new Pakistan as visualised by its delegates seemed too good to be true. The new actors in this new Pakistan were a fiercely independent media, an independent judiciary and a robust civil society. According to this visualisation, the Army and the ISI had said tauba and so had the ISI to dirty tricks. For abundant caution there was a post script — both will say tauba once more.
The Pakistani specialist on Afghanistan painted a bleak picture of US and Pakistani military campaigns to quell their respective Talibans. He felt that the wars were unwinnable due to poor intelligence. Privately though, a Pakistani mentioned that the ISI was very strong inside Afghanistan, confirming Gen Pervez Musharraf’s recent assertion that the ISI had penetrated all militant organisations though ground operations do not reflect proportionate success.
The Afghan Taliban will not negotiate and reconcile as they know they are winning even after the civilian and military surge is effective. The elusive Mullah Omar had a 98 per cent following among the Taliban and was the blue-eyed boy of the Pakistani Army. He would not annoy it as the Taliban need sanctuaries in Pakistan. Latest reports indicate that he has been moved from Quetta to Karachi to avoid being struck by US drones.
The Afghan expert added that foreign forces are anathema for the locals. Who is helping the Afghan Taliban, he asked. Iran was playing a double game and Russia and China had secretly received Taliban delegations.
Afghanistan has become an emotional and contentious issue between the two countries. Islamabad seeks strategic depth which some Pakistanis feel is an outdated concept and shudder at the thought of a Taliban takeover. The last thing India wants is a return of the Taliban and certainly no depth of any kind for Pakistan. This does not translate into encirclement of Pakistan as the delegates feared. Despite the common goal of minus Taliban, both countries are cancelling each other out, rather than cooperating to help Afghans grow and prosper.
Pakistan will not even permit nutritional biscuits to be sent overland and since 2002 these have been transitted through Iran at 20 per cent extra cost. Pakistan is highly suspicious of India’s generosity — $ 1.2 billion developmental assistance — as their delegates sarcastically enquired: “Where was India when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and Pakistan hosted 5 million refugees?”
Surprisingly, a Pakistani delegate said that Islamabad must recognise that India as a regional power has a role to play in Afghanistan. Their respective agendas must be discussed to allay each other’s concerns. Ideally they should undertake joint projects in sectors like IT, communication, power, health, etc. Such was the mixed picture on cooperation in Afghanistan.
The discussion on Balochistan was the first of its kind, thanks to its mention in the Sharm el-Sheikh joint statement. The Baloch presenter painted an explosive situation of the province and how the richest and largest region was impoverished due to wrong policies and misgovernance of Islamabad. Another Bangladesh, he warned, was in the offing. Unsubstantiated allegations about India’s involvement were listed which included training of 600 Baloch by R&AW inside Afghanistan.
That Kashmir was no longer the core issue was the breaking news. Terrorism, poverty, illiteracy, etc, were priority concerns. Pakistanis may have disowned Gen Pervez Musharraf but in India he is credited with the four-point Kashmir formula which has secured broad consensus in Jammu & Kashmir as well as in the rest of India.
For the time being, India is no more Enemy Number One. Islamabad has come around to allowing simultaneous release of Indian movies in Pakistan but is not prepared to accept India’s offer to switch its troops from east to west to fight the Taliban to the finish with the assurance of no harm from India. How can we trust India after what it did in creating the Mukti Bahini in East Pakistan, asked the Pakistanis. The lesson from Singapore was: Keep talking but also open the official line quickly.
