Pakistan’s relations with India on the east and Afghanistan on the west are not exactly brimming over with mutual trust and confidence. The outlook after the first round of dialogue with India is not optimistic. Equally, glowing pictures of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, embracing General Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad don’t reveal the true extent of mutual suspicion and “differences” between them. Who’s at fault?
Indo-Pak relations are not just bedevilled by a history of bad blood. The replacement of the BJP by the Congress in India has also disjointed the proposed dialogue. Mr Vajpayee’s Pakistan-initiatives could not be misconstrued as a sign of ‘sell-out or weakness’ owing to the strong BJP’s ultra-nationalist outlook. But the same cannot be said of the weak Congress government of Mr Manmohan Singh. The Indian prime minister constantly has to watch over his shoulder at the party president, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, who in turn constantly has to watch over her shoulder for much the same reasons that stopped her from herself becoming prime minister in the first place. It also takes time for a change of guard to come to grips with a complex and tricky inherited agenda. Why then is the Pakistani side demonstrating a degree of impatience with India based on its “inflexibility” in the first round of talks? Why, indeed, is Islamabad now insisting on a “timeframe” for the settlement of the Kashmir dispute when the two sides have not even begun to chew on the softer bones of contention in the composite dialogue?
One aspect of the explanation is obvious. Since the new Indian government has shown no sign of even wanting to talk to Pakistan about Kashmir, let alone demonstrate any willingness to compromise on the issue, the Pakistani side is trying to get the talks on Kashmir moving at least by demanding a “timeframe” for its resolution and linking progress on other issues like trade with that of movement on the K issue. Unfortunately, however, the Indians have perceived this Pakistani strategy as “unfair pressure tactics” tantamount to imposing “pre-conditions” on the dialogue and reacted by countering allegations of “cross-border terrorism” once again. Worse, both sides have degenerated into public statement-mongering despite an agreement to stay clear of potentially damaging one-upmanship.
But there may be a more serious concern lurking behind Pakistan’s impatience to get on with talks with India, especially on Kashmir. It is not inconceivable that General Pervez Musharraf has finally realised that the unholy links between Al Qaeda and the jihadi groups, sectarian factions and religious parties of Pakistan are seriously injurious to Pakistan’s health. But he is constrained from “packing up the jihad” until the K issue is on an irrevocable path to resolution since the jihad is the most potent card in Pakistan’s arsenal of negotiating tools with India. This would suggest that both countries have to be sensitive to each other’s domestic requirements, concerns and sensitivities even as they redouble their efforts to speed up the composite dialogue on all eight major tracks simultaneously. In the event, India should open the K issue for talks immediately and Pakistan should not stop holding the other issues hostage to progress on the K issue alone.
Much the same sort of problems beset Pak-Afghan relations. Islamabad is accused of abetting the Taliban resistance to the US-propped Karzai regime. Such allegations are indirectly routed through the US ambassador in Kabul and through the American media. But if neither Mr Karzai nor Washington has been too sensitive to Pakistan’s concerns and interests in the region – the need for a government in Kabul to suitably accommodate the ethnic Pashtuns who constitute a majority of the country – why should Islamabad play ball with them? Until recently, Mr Karzai was as cosy as a bug in a rug with the Northern Alliance which in turn was allied to India. The Americans, meanwhile, didn’t care two hoots about Pakistan’s interests in Afghanistan. All they wanted was to showcase some “nation-building” in Kabul and it didn’t much matter whether it was good or bad for the region. In the event, if Islamabad has been compelled to play the distasteful Taliban card to compel Mr Karzai to build bridges with the Pashtuns and extricate himself from the grip of the Northern Alliance warlords, who can blame it? Hence it would make sense for Kabul and Washington to sit with Pakistan and cobble a joint medium-term strategy for stabilising Afghanistan rather than for any party to go it alone in the face of resistance from the others.
General Pervez Musharraf bargained away a slice of his institutional soul on Afghanistan immediately after 9/11 when he ditched the Taliban. His newly articulated flexibility on Kashmir suggests that he is ready to risk another such slice for the sake of peace with India. These are no mean concessions, given decades of institutional investment in such causes. On top of it, General Musharraf has risked his life by ordering these about-turns. That is why it is time New Delhi and Kabul and Washington conceded some diplomatic space to him in the region so that he can create the required political space at home and realign Pakistan’s sights in the new world order.