Is the Indo-Pak peace process in trouble? Yes, insists India. No, hopes Pakistan. Notwithstanding who’s right or wrong, the facts are complex and the outlook is depressing.
It’s true that people-to-people contacts have improved. But problems persist. Nearly 100,000 Pakistanis got visas to visit India this year. But only 10,000 Indians were allowed entry into Pakistan. Significantly, India doesn’t impose visa restrictions on Pakistani “artistes”, academics, journalists, businessmen and social activists but Pakistan is reluctant to grant similar rights to such Indians. Why is Pakistan so dogged?
Islamabad’s grouse is that India is unreasonably stalling conflict-resolution of contentious issues and thereby eroding the very spirit of the peace dialogue. India has backed off from a track-two movement to resolve Kashmir; it has put demilitarization of Siachin on hold; it is delaying a neutral-settlement on the Baghliar Dam; even an agreement on Sir Creek has been forestalled by its bureaucracy. Worse, it seems to have lost interest in the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline following its nuclear deal with Washington and military-cooperation with Israel. Why is India being so intransigent?
India’s pat answer is: Mumbai. And the Indian media is dutifully pointing the finger at Pakistan. But the fact is that the conflict-resolution process between the two began to backslide over a year ago. And no evidence of any Pakistani intelligence ‘hand’ in Mumbai has been presented. Instead, there is a chorus of official and media voices in India that is blaming Pakistan for the troubles in India’s periphery, the latest allegation in the Lok Sabha being that “Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) is recruiting disgruntled Muslim youth from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal besides Jammu and Kashmir to subvert India.” This is deadly serious business. Why should Pakistan want to hurt India when General Pervez Musharraf says he wants peaceful resolution of conflicts with India?
Indian arrogance may explain Pakistan’s frustration and even pique. But the recent expulsion of an Indian diplomat by Pakistan suggests a more profound and disturbing reason. Pakistan is angry that India is fanning the Baloch insurgency from its various diplomatic outposts in Afghanistan, Iran, the UAE and London. Pakistan also suspects that the US and UK are secretly condoning India’s hand in Balochistan. If this is correct, we need to ask why this is so and where all the players are headed in this region.
India’s new hand in Balochistan is a response to the old Pakistani hand in Kashmir. If the insurgency in Kashmir hasn’t shut down, India reasons, it is because Pakistan hasn’t disbanded the jihadis in Pakistan or stopped assistance to them in Kashmir. Similarly, the US and UK see a Pakistani hand in the revival of the Taliban who are inflicting casualties on their troops in Afghanistan. If Pakistan is not going to help them stabilize PM Hamid Karzai and Afghanistan, they reason, maybe it ought to be dissuaded from fomenting trouble by compelling it to pay a price for its misguided adventure. If this is clear, why is Pakistan refusing to disband the jihadis and not helping America fight the Taliban?
It’s partly a case of the chicken and the egg. The national security establishment argues that if Pakistan were to unilaterally disband the jihadis and abandon the insurgents in Kashmir before a satisfactory resolution on Kashmir, India would be reprieved from making any concession to Pakistan at all and Pakistan’s “investment” of sixty years will have come to nought. Much the same sort of reasoning prevails over Afghanistan policy. If Pakistan were to help get rid of the Taliban insurgents before it is formally accorded a role as a stakeholder in Kabul like India and the US, Afghanistan would succumb to domination by a non-Pakhtun, pro-India establishment inimical to Islamabad. But that too is strategically unacceptable until India and Pakistan have buried the hatchet over Kashmir and can live in a non-zero-sum environment in the region
The complexity of the issue of terrorism, insurgency and finger-pointing in the region in relation to Kashmir was recently highlighted in New Delhi by Richard Boucher, the US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia. He refused to join India’s media in holding Pakistan and Kashmir-based groups culpable for terrorism in Mumbai. Indeed, he categorically stated: “I don’t see the issue of Kashmir and the issue of terrorism as linked in any way. We need all to fight terrorism for a variety of reasons. But it is also good to see progress made on Kashmir. I’d like to see that as well.” But will that happen?
The prospects aren’t good at all. As the Indian state surges ahead economically and militarily and becomes increasingly obsessed with its new image as “the most dynamic American partner of the new century”, it may be less and less inclined to ‘compromise’ with Pakistan on any major issue and more insistent on stabilizing the status-quo. Equally, if General Musharraf’s hold over power diminishes and Pakistan’s relations with America become more tenuous over time, he might find it difficult to maintain his relatively soft and flexible position on India. Under the circumstances, it is possible that the hard-liners on both sides may win in the future and the people lose out in as in the past.