India’s “peace offensive” in Kashmir has solicited Pakistani reciprocity and stirred the imagination of concerned people. In many ways, the current media optimism is building up to that preceding the Lahore Summit in 1999. It is therefore worth asking whether the fate of this initiative might be no different from the one two years ago and what this might imply for Indo-Pak relations as well as domestic political change in Pakistan.
Both countries and the third party seem “flexible” enough. The Hizbul Mujahideen offered the first ceasefire last July. Islamabad did not oppose it. Then India responded by one of its own last month. The HM and APHC welcomed it. Islamabad reciprocated by “exercising maximum restraint along the LoC” — a euphemism for “reducing cross-border infiltration”, a long-time Indian demand. India extended the ceasefire for another month. It has now promised to facilitate a visit of Kashmiri politicians to Islamabad for discussions with Pakistan’s national security establishment. Islamabad has consequently gestured a reduction of troops along the LoC. India may follow suit. A meeting between General Pervez Musharraf and Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee in a month or so would set the stage for a thaw all round. What then?
Consider the burden of history — or more precisely, how many times since the Kashmiris rose up in revolt against India in 1989 the leaders of India and Pakistan have painstakingly arrived at exactly such a juncture, only to slip further back into hostilities after each encounter. In 1989, Benazir Bhutto and Rajiv Gandhi agreed in Islamabad not only to demilitarise Siachin but also to sign significant cultural and political protocols. Next year, however, the Indians went back on their word. Soon, the two countries were on the brink of war, compelling Robert Gates, a senior US intermediary, to rush over to cool things down.
It took four years, and a change of two governments apiece in both countries, before a new round of foreign secretary talks in Islamabad on Jan 1. But the moot was cut short because the two couldn’t even agree on which issues to take up in what manner. Subsequently, the various Islamic lashkars and jehadi organisations stepped up their assaults on Indian security forces and their civilian stooges.
Prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Inder Kumar Gujral met three years later in Male. This was followed by foreign secretary talks in Islamabad in September. A “historic breakthrough” was announced. India acknowledged that there was a “dispute” over Kashmir; Pakistan agreed to form working groups, including one on Kashmir, for simultaneous discussions on all issues (the all-or-nothing, “core” issue approach was diluted in exchange for an implicit recognition by the other side that Kashmir was not an “integral part of India”). However, Mr Gujral was faced with an election in 1998 and reneged on his agreement. The BJP came to power, India conducted nuclear tests, provoking Pakistan into tit-for-tat tests, upping the ante.
If India had at every stage betrayed an agreement with Pakistan to start talking about Kashmir, it was now time for Pakistan to try and extract a deal from India. The Kargil blueprints were dusted off the shelves in late 1998 and plans were initiated to take advantage of the winter snows, exactly as the Indians had done in the winter of 1984 when they scaled the heights of Siachin in no-man’s land. Unaware of what the Pakistani security establishment had in store, Mr Vajpayee had already kick-started the bus that brought him to Lahore in February 1999.
The “progress” in Lahore was unprecedented from India’s point of view. Pakistan ostensibly dropped the “core” issue approach. Kashmir became one of the “outstanding” disputes along with several others and the LoC became a sacred cow. It seemed as though we had come full circle to 1972 when the Simla Agreement was signed to bury Kashmir. But before the fruits of Lahore could be digested by New Delhi, the Pakistani national security establishment trumped the process in Kargil. Unfortunately, however, the Indians did not react as anticipated. Instead of exchanging Siachin for Kargil and strengthening the Lahore process of equitable disengagement, New Delhi hit back and imposed a full-fledged conflict on the border. As a dangerous military escalation threatened, Nawaz Sharif sued for mediation by Washington on Indian terms. This led to tensions between Mr Sharif and the principal military architects of Kargil led by General Musharraf. In the event, Mr Sharif’s attempted sacking of General Musharraf and two key Kargil players in Rawalpindi led to a coup against him, plunging Pakistan into its third military phase.
In short, every attempt by India to impose a one-sided settlement on Kashmir has been followed by increased Pakistan-abetted insurgency in the Valley, India-controlled terrorism in urban Pakistan, the threat of war or war itself. In addition, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have, in turns, been tarred by the brush of being “pro-India” — the former lost office in 1990 partly because the national security establishment saw her as a “security risk” vis-a-vis India while the latter was booted out in 1999 because he chose to challenge the same national security establishment over how to deal with Kashmir and India. Meanwhile, shorn of its mainstream civilian supporters, the national security establishment has progressively nurtured an ally of increasing power and belligerence — the rabidly anti-India militant Islamic jehadi forces which are ready to do its bidding in the region.
The current situation is marked by extreme volatility in the ranks of two of the three key players — Pakistan and Kashmir. India, on the other hand, is happily placed. Having tried and failed on so many earlier occasions to negotiate a deal with Pakistan bilaterally which enables it to impose a deal on the Kashmiris, India has now chosen to try the opposite route: negotiate a deal with the Kashmiris and impose it on Pakistan with multilateral approval. Also, there is no internal threat to the BJP. Indeed, it has the support of the leading opposition parties in its “peace offensive”. The international community is on board. India’s economy is healthy. And its defense budgets are soaring.
Meanwhile, the Kashmiris are fatigued. Divisions are emerging within political ranks as well as between politicians and militants. The prospects of peace as opposed to war, coupled with some sort of internationally-guaranteed peace dividend short of full-fledged independence, is beginning to appeal to many. If this seems to be a “pro-India sentiment”, it could potentially translate into civil war or internecine conflict in Kashmir.
Pakistan’s position is more problematic. Its military government lacks domestic and international legitimacy. The mainstream opposition wants to overthrow it. The bazaar is set against it. The economy is in a shambles. Worse, in the absence of civil society support, the military government is held hostage by the very radical Islamic groups and jehadi forces that were nurtured by it to advance its aggressive “national security” causes. Much worse, some hawks in the national security establishment see the present stage of the Kashmir struggle as the apotheosis of their strategy rather than as its downside. Thus General Musharraf is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.
If he doesn’t adopt a moderate stance vis-a-vis Kashmir and balks at supporting the indigenous peace process, the international community could isolate and cut him off. If he becomes too flexible, the hawks in his camp could try to derail the peace process by signaling increased violence in Kashmir and elsewhere in India. Indeed, if all else fails, the radical Islamic groups in Pakistan could band together and try to oust him. Qazi Hussain Ahmad has already called General Musharraf a “security risk” and asked the generals to sack him. In the event that General Musharraf is perceived by such forces as “weak” or seen to succumb to Indian or international pressure to make an “unjust” settlement with India which amounts to “abandoning” Kashmir, the very national security establishment which he helped to create could devour him. In the event, a radicalised Islamic national security leadership in Islamabad would provoke India into a conflict with Pakistan.
The issue is not of peace at any cost. It is of a just settlement on Kashmir. If India is lacking in sincerity as in the past, the desperate deadlock can only be broken by war.