Last Tuesday, two Muslim “suicide-terrorists” attacked a Hindu temple in India’s Gujarat state, killing 30 innocent persons. Mr L K Advani slammed General Pervez Musharraf for instigating the attack. “They had planned this for some time”, he thundered. Hindu extremist groups immediately called for a nationwide strike in protest. Next day, unknown terrorists attacked a Christian social welfare organisation in Karachi, killing seven. This was the sixth attack on Christian and Western targets in Pakistan this year, which have killed more than 40 people. Only two days earlier, Lt Gen (retd) Moinuddin Haider, the interior minister, had blithely stated that “India and not Al-Qaeda, was behind the spate of terrorist attacks” in Pakistan against Western and Christian targets, including the 200 or so cases of bomb explosions in different parts of the country in the last three years.
As India and Pakistan knock each other for sponsoring terrorism, the violence in Kashmir continues unabated, with the toll of “collateral” damage rising by the day. India accuses Pakistan of infiltrating jihadis across the Line of Control. Pakistan routinely denies the charge. Meanwhile, a million soldiers of two nuclear armed armies stare down their gun sights, ready to press triggers at the slightest provocation. How long can this “bloody” tit-for-tat “standoff “ last?
Two recent developments seem significant. The US ambassador to India, Mr Robert Blackwill, has confirmed that Pakistani infiltration has risen in the last month. Islamabad has howled in protest and suggested Mr Blackwill may be a “victim of Indian propaganda”. But this snub has backfired. The US State Department insists that Mr Blackwill’s observations were “cleared” by Washington. That means that the US accepts the Indian allegation against Pakistan. This could be ominous. It follows earlier claims by Mr Richard Armitage, the US deputy secretary of state, that General Pervez Musharraf made a private and public pledge to “permanently block” infiltration across the LoC. But that’s not all.
India claims that the first two rounds of elections in Kashmir have been “free and fair”, with a credible voter turnout of over 40% that vindicates its policies in the state. Pakistan and the All Parties Hurriyat Conference stoutly deny this claim. They say the elections are a “sham”, with turnout between 3 –10 % in most constituencies. Independent Indian sources like the Coalition of Indian Society confirm that there was “widespread coercion by the security forces on the people to cast their vote”, along with significant voting “malpractises”. But the problem is that the US doesn’t concur with this Pakistani view of “sham” elections. Instead, it has praised India for reviving the electoral process. So there are two disagreements between the US and Pakistan.
Behind these US-Pak differences lies a more fundamental divergence of approach on the matter of Kashmir. The US, like India, wants to make the LoC a permanent border between the two countries and let New Delhi sort out its Kashmir problem “internally” by an “election-cum-repression” strategy. Thus it wants Pakistan to permanently end its jihadi infiltration into Kashmir. But Pakistan views this approach as part of the problem and not the solution. It thus follows that while stopping infiltration can only be a temporary respite to enable a conducive environment for tripartite negotiations between India, Pakistan and the Kashmiris to change the status quo, it cannot be prolonged to enable India to spurn talks with Pakistan by consolidating its internal “repression-cum-election” solution. Thus if Pakistani infiltration had significantly diminished between March and June, this was meant to signal an opening for India by Pakistan in which to start the process of tripartite negotiations in search of a solution for Kashmir. And if infiltration has increased since June, this is meant to signal Pakistan’s determined opposition to any attempt by India to exploit the Pakistani gesture by “going it alone” via the “elections-cum-repression” route in the expectation that the US can “account” for Pakistan. But can the US do that?
Under the present circumstances, probably not. Washington’s alliance with Islamabad against Al Qaeda will hold in the short term, encouraging Islamabad to demand a quid pro quo from Washington in terms of mediating the Kashmir dispute with India (and executing policies that compel such attention) rather than agree to concede India’s unilateralist viewpoint. In the event, Washington may have no option but to assure India of its longer term strategic support for its status quo “solution” even as it is unable to effectively censure Pakistan for sabotaging such “solutions” during its shorter-term tactical alliance period.
But if the US plays a passive and balancing role rather than an active one in favour of either country in the short term, Indo-Pak relations are bound to deteriorate. Both will seek to advance their interests. This danger would increase if the US attacks Iraq and is diverted from keeping a lid on Indo-Pak hostilities. Indeed, the situation could become perilous if India is emboldened to act militarily against Pakistan. Forget about the implications for South Asia. Coupled with the expected anti-American blowback from the war against Iraq, this would be the perfect setting to embroil the US in many new and dangerous wars at home and abroad.